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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Literary World Seventh Reader, 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: The Literary World Seventh Reader
+
+Author: Various
+
+Editor: John Calvin Metcalf
+          Sarah Withers
+          Hetty S. Browne
+
+Release Date: November 5, 2006 [EBook #19721]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LITERARY WORLD SEVENTH READER ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Julia Miller, and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+Transcriber's Note:
+
+Typographical errors have been corrected. A list of the corrected errors
+is found at the end of the text along with a list of inconsistently
+hyphenated words.
+
+
+
+
+                       THE LITERARY WORLD
+
+                         SEVENTH READER
+
+
+                               BY
+
+
+                      JOHN CALVIN METCALF
+  PROFESSOR OF ENGLISH LITERATURE IN THE UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA
+
+                         SARAH WITHERS
+         PRINCIPAL ELEMENTARY GRADES AND CRITIC TEACHER
+             WINTHROP NORMAL AND INDUSTRIAL COLLEGE
+                        ROCK HILL. S.C.
+
+                              AND
+
+                        HETTY S. BROWNE
+           EXTENSION WORKER IN RURAL SCHOOL PRACTICE
+             WINTHROP NORMAL AND INDUSTRIAL COLLEGE
+
+
+                         [Illustration]
+
+
+                   JOHNSON PUBLISHING COMPANY
+                       RICHMOND, VIRGINIA
+
+
+
+
+  COPYRIGHT, 1919
+  B. F. JOHNSON PUBLISHING COMPANY
+
+  _All Rights Reserved_
+
+  L.H.J.
+
+
+
+
+ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
+
+
+For permission to use copyrighted material the authors and publishers
+express their indebtedness to the Macmillan Company for "A Deal in
+Bears" from _McTodd_, by W. Cutcliffe Hyne, and for "Sea Fever," by John
+Masefield; to Duffield & Company and Mr. H. G. Wells for "In Labrador"
+from _Marriage_; to the John Lane Company for "The Making of a Man" from
+_The Rough Road_, by W. J. Locke; to Dodd, Mead & Company and Mr. Arthur
+Dobson for "A Ballad of Heroes," and to Dodd, Mead & Company for "Under
+Seas," by Count Alexis Tolstoi; to G. P. Putnam's Sons for "Old Ephraim"
+from _The Hunting Trips of a Ranchman_, by Theodore Roosevelt; to
+Houghton Mifflin Company for "A Greyport Legend," by Bret Harte,
+"Midwinter," by John Townsend Trowbridge, "The First Snowfall," by James
+Russell Lowell, "Among the Cliffs" from _The Young Mountaineers_, by
+Charles Egbert Craddock (Mary N. Murfree), and for "The Friendship of
+Nantaquas" from _To Have and to Hold_, by Mary Johnston; to Harper &
+Brothers for "The Great Stone of Sardis" from _The Great Stone of
+Sardis_, by Frank R. Stockton, and to Harper & Brothers and Mr. Booth
+Tarkington for "Ariel's Triumph" from _The Conquest of Canaan_.
+
+
+
+
+TABLE OF CONTENTS
+
+
+LEGENDS OF OUR LAND
+
+  RIP VAN WINKLE                       _Washington Irving_            9
+  THE GREAT STONE FACE                 _Nathaniel Hawthorne_         33
+  THE COURTSHIP OF MILES STANDISH      _Henry W. Longfellow_         59
+  THE FRIENDSHIP OF NANTAQUAS          _Mary Johnston_               79
+
+
+HOME SCENES
+
+  HARRY ESMOND'S BOYHOOD               _Wm. Makepeace Thackeray_    112
+  THE FAMILY HOLDS ITS HEAD UP         _Oliver Goldsmith_           126
+  THE LITTLE BOY IN THE BALCONY        _Henry W. Grady_             138
+  ARIEL'S TRIUMPH                      _Booth Tarkington_           141
+
+
+NATURE AND ANIMALS
+
+  THE CLOUD                            _Percy Bysshe Shelley_       160
+  NEW ENGLAND WEATHER                  _Mark Twain_                 162
+  THE FIRST SNOWFALL                   _James Russell Lowell_       166
+  OLD EPHRAIM                          _Theodore Roosevelt_         168
+  MIDWINTER                            _John Townsend Trowbridge_   175
+  A GEORGIA FOX HUNT                   _Joel Chandler Harris_       177
+  RAIN AND WIND                        _Madison Julius Cawein_      192
+  THE SOUTHERN SKY                     _Matthew Fontaine Maury_     193
+  DAFFODILS                            _William Wordsworth_         195
+  DAWN                                 _Edward Everett_             196
+  SPRING                               _Henry Timrod_               198
+
+
+MOVING ADVENTURE
+
+  AMONG THE CLIFFS                     _Charles Egbert Craddock_    201
+  A DEAL IN BEARS                      _W. Cutcliffe Hyne_          217
+  LOCHINVAR                            _Sir Walter Scott_           232
+  IN LABRADOR                          _H. G. Wells_                235
+  THE BUGLE SONG                       _Alfred Tennyson_            258
+  THE SIEGE OF THE CASTLE              _Sir Walter Scott_           259
+
+
+MODERN WONDER TALES
+
+  SEA FEVER                            _John Masefield_             334
+  A GREYPORT LEGEND                    _Bret Harte_                 335
+  A HUNT BENEATH THE OCEAN             _Jules Verne_                337
+  UNDER SEAS                           _Count Alexis Tolstoi_       354
+  A VOYAGE TO THE MOON                 _Edgar Allan Poe_            367
+  THE GREAT STONE OF SARDIS            _Frank R. Stockton_          391
+
+
+SKETCHES OF THE GREAT WAR
+
+  A STOP AT SUZANNE'S                  _Greayer Clover_             407
+  THE MAKING OF A MAN                  _W. J. Locke_                414
+  IN FLANDERS FIELDS                   _John McCrae_                436
+  IN FLANDERS FIELDS (AN ANSWER)       _C. B. Galbraith_            436
+  A BALLAD OF HEROES                   _Austin Dobson_              437
+
+
+DICTIONARY                                                          439
+
+
+[Illustration: [See page 19]
+
+He Was Tempted to Repeat the Draught]
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+RIP VAN WINKLE
+
+I
+
+
+Whoever has made a voyage up the Hudson must remember the Catskill
+Mountains. They are a branch of the great [v]Appalachian[9-*] family,
+and are seen away to the west of the river, swelling up to a noble
+height, and lording it over the surrounding country. Every change of
+season, every change of weather, indeed, every hour of the day, produces
+some change in the magical hues and shapes of these mountains, and they
+are regarded by all the goodwives, far and near, as perfect
+[v]barometers.
+
+At the foot of these fairy mountains the traveler may have seen the
+light smoke curling up from a village, whose shingle roofs gleam among
+the trees, just where the blue tints of the upland melt away into the
+fresh green of the nearer landscape. It is a little village of great
+age, having been founded by some of the Dutch colonists in the early
+times of the province, just about the beginning of the government of the
+good Peter [v]Stuyvesant (may he rest in peace!), and there were some of
+the houses of the original settlers standing within a few years, built
+of small yellow bricks brought from Holland, having latticed windows and
+gable fronts, surmounted with weathercocks.
+
+In that same village, and in one of these very houses, there lived, many
+years since, while the country was yet a province of Great Britain, a
+simple, good-natured fellow, of the name of Rip Van Winkle. He was a
+descendant of the Van Winkles who figured so gallantly in the
+[v]chivalrous days of Peter Stuyvesant, and accompanied him to the siege
+of Fort Christina. He inherited, however, but little of the martial
+character of his ancestors. I have observed that he was a simple,
+good-natured man; he was, moreover, a kind neighbor and an obedient,
+henpecked husband.
+
+Certain it is that he was a great favorite among all the goodwives of
+the village, who took his part in all family squabbles; and never
+failed, whenever they talked those matters over in their evening
+gossipings, to lay all the blame on Dame Van Winkle. The children of the
+village, too, would shout with joy whenever he approached. He assisted
+at their sports, made their playthings, taught them to fly kites and
+shoot marbles, and told them long stories of ghosts, witches, and
+Indians. Whenever he went dodging about the village, he was surrounded
+by a troop of them, hanging on his skirts, clambering on his back, and
+playing a thousand tricks on him; and not a dog would bark at him
+throughout the neighborhood.
+
+The great error in Rip's composition was a strong dislike of all kinds
+of profitable labor. It could not be from the want of perseverance; for
+he would sit on a wet rock, with a rod as long and heavy as a lance, and
+fish all day without a murmur, even though he should not be encouraged
+by a single nibble. He would carry a fowling piece on his shoulder for
+hours together, trudging through woods and swamps, and up hill and down
+dale, to shoot a few squirrels or wild pigeons. He would never refuse to
+assist a neighbor even in the roughest toil, and was a foremost man at
+all country frolics for husking Indian corn, or building stone fences;
+the women of the village, too, used to employ him to run their errands,
+and to do such little odd jobs as their less obliging husbands would not
+do for them. In a word, Rip was ready to attend to anybody's business
+but his own; but as to doing family duty, and keeping his farm in order,
+he found it impossible.
+
+His children, too, were as ragged and wild as if they belonged to
+nobody. His son Rip promised to inherit the habits, with the old
+clothes, of his father. He was generally seen trooping like a colt at
+his mother's heels, equipped in a pair of his father's cast-off
+breeches, which he had much ado to hold up with one hand, as a fine lady
+does her train in bad weather.
+
+Rip Van Winkle, however, was one of those happy mortals, of foolish,
+well-oiled dispositions, who take the world easy, eat white bread or
+brown, whichever can be got with least thought or trouble, and would
+rather starve on a penny than work for a pound. If left to himself, he
+would have whistled life away in perfect contentment; but his wife kept
+continually dinning in his ear about his idleness, his carelessness, and
+the ruin he was bringing on his family. Morning, noon, and night, her
+tongue was incessantly going, and everything he said or did was sure to
+produce a torrent of household eloquence. Rip had but one way of
+replying to all lectures of the kind, and that, by frequent use, had
+grown into a habit. He shrugged his shoulders, shook his head, cast up
+his eyes, but said nothing. This, however, always provoked a fresh
+volley from his wife; so that he was fain to draw off his forces, and
+take to the outside of the house--the only side which, in truth, belongs
+to a henpecked husband.
+
+Rip's sole [v]domestic adherent was his dog Wolf, who was as much
+henpecked as his master; for Dame Van Winkle regarded them as companions
+in idleness, and even looked upon Wolf with an evil eye, as the cause of
+his master's going so often astray. True it is, in all points of spirit
+befitting an honorable dog, he was as courageous an animal as ever
+scoured the woods; but what courage can withstand the ever-enduring and
+all-besetting terrors of a woman's tongue? The moment Wolf entered the
+house his crest fell, his tail drooped to the ground or curled between
+his legs, he sneaked about with a gallows air, casting many a sidelong
+glance at Dame Van Winkle, and at the least flourish of a broomstick or
+ladle he would fly to the door with yelping precipitation.
+
+Times grew worse and worse with Rip Van Winkle as years of matrimony
+rolled on. A tart temper never mellows with age, and a sharp tongue is
+the only edged tool that grows keener with constant use. For a long
+while he used to console himself, when driven from home, by frequenting
+a kind of perpetual club of sages, philosophers, and other idle
+personages of the village, which held its sessions on a bench before a
+small inn, designated by a [v]rubicund portrait of His Majesty George
+III. Here they used to sit in the shade of a long, lazy summer's day,
+talking listlessly over village gossip, or telling endless sleepy
+stories about nothing. But it would have been worth any statesman's
+money to have heard the profound discussions which sometimes took place,
+when by chance an old newspaper fell into their hands from some passing
+traveler. How solemnly they would listen to the contents, as drawled out
+by Derrick Van Bummel, the schoolmaster,--a dapper, learned little man,
+who was not to be daunted by the most gigantic word in the dictionary!
+and how sagely they would deliberate upon public events some months
+after they had taken place!
+
+The opinions of this [v]junto were completely controlled by Nicholas
+Vedder, a patriarch of the village, and landlord of the inn, at the door
+of which he took his seat from morning till night, just moving
+sufficiently to avoid the sun, and keep in the shade of a large tree; so
+that the neighbors could tell the hour by his movements as accurately as
+by a sun-dial. It is true, he was rarely heard to speak, but smoked his
+pipe incessantly. His adherents, however (for every great man has his
+adherents), perfectly understood him, and knew how to gather his
+opinions. When anything that was read or related displeased him, he was
+observed to smoke his pipe vehemently, and to send forth short,
+frequent, and angry puffs; but, when pleased, he would inhale the smoke
+slowly and tranquilly, and emit it in light and placid clouds, and
+sometimes, taking the pipe from his mouth, and letting the fragrant
+vapor curl about his nose, would nod his head in approbation.
+
+From even this stronghold the unlucky Rip was at length routed by his
+[v]termagant wife, who would suddenly break in upon the tranquility of
+the assemblage, and call the members all to naught; nor was that august
+personage, Nicholas Vedder himself, sacred from the daring tongue of
+this terrible virago, who charged him with encouraging her husband in
+habits of idleness.
+
+Poor Rip was at last reduced almost to despair; and his only
+[v]alternative, to escape from the labor of the farm and clamor of his
+wife, was to take gun in hand and stroll away into the woods. Here he
+would sometimes seat himself at the foot of a tree, and share the
+contents of his wallet with Wolf, with whom he sympathized as a
+fellow-sufferer in persecution. "Poor Wolf," he would say, "thy mistress
+leads thee a dog's life of it; but never mind, my lad, whilst I live
+thou shalt never want a friend to stand by thee." Wolf would wag his
+tail, look wistfully in his master's face; and if dogs can feel pity, I
+verily believe he [v]reciprocated the sentiment with all his heart.
+
+In a long ramble of the kind on a fine autumnal day, Rip had
+unconsciously scrambled to one of the highest parts of the Catskill
+Mountains. He was after his favorite sport of squirrel-shooting, and the
+still solitudes had echoed and reëchoed with the reports of his gun.
+Panting and fatigued, he threw himself, late in the afternoon, on a
+green knoll, covered with mountain herbage, that crowned the brow of a
+precipice. From an opening between the trees he could overlook all the
+lower country for many a mile of rich woodland. He saw at a distance the
+lordly Hudson, far, far below him, moving on its silent but majestic
+course, with the reflection of a purple cloud, or the sail of a lagging
+bark, here and there sleeping on its glassy bosom, and at last losing
+itself in the blue highlands.
+
+On the other side he looked down into a deep mountain glen, wild and
+lonely, the bottom filled with fragments from the overhanging cliffs,
+and scarcely lighted by the reflected rays of the setting sun. For some
+time Rip lay musing on this scene; evening was gradually advancing; the
+mountains began to throw their long blue shadows over the valleys; he
+saw that it would be dark long before he could reach the village, and he
+heaved a heavy sigh when he thought of encountering the terrors of Dame
+Van Winkle.
+
+As he was about to descend, he heard a voice from a distance, hallooing,
+"Rip Van Winkle! Rip Van Winkle!" He looked round, but could see nothing
+but a crow winging its solitary flight across the mountain. He thought
+his fancy must have deceived him, and turned again to descend, when he
+heard the same cry ring through the still evening air: "Rip Van Winkle!
+Rip Van Winkle!"--at the same time Wolf bristled up his back, and giving
+a low growl, skulked to his master's side, looking fearfully down into
+the glen. Rip now felt a vague apprehension stealing over him; he looked
+anxiously in the same direction, and perceived a strange figure slowly
+toiling up the rocks, and bending under the weight of something he
+carried on his back. He was surprised to see any human being in this
+lonely and unfrequented place; but supposing it to be some one of the
+neighborhood in need of his assistance, he hastened down to yield it.
+
+On nearer approach he was still more surprised at the [v]singularity of
+the stranger's appearance. He was a short, square-built old fellow, with
+thick bushy hair, and a grizzled beard. His dress was of the antique
+Dutch fashion,--a cloth jerkin strapped round the waist, and several
+pair of breeches, the outer one of ample volume, decorated with rows of
+buttons down the sides. He bore on his shoulder a stout keg that seemed
+full of liquor, and made signs for Rip to approach and assist him with
+the load. Though rather shy and distrustful of this new acquaintance,
+Rip complied with his usual [v]alacrity, and relieving one another, they
+clambered up a narrow gully, apparently the dry bed of a mountain
+torrent.
+
+As they ascended, Rip every now and then heard long, rolling peals, like
+distant thunder, that seemed to issue out of a deep ravine, or rather
+cleft, between lofty rocks, toward which their rugged path conducted. He
+paused for an instant, but supposing it to be the muttering of one of
+those transient thundershowers which often take place in mountain
+heights, he proceeded. Passing through the ravine, they came to a
+hollow, like a small [v]amphitheater, surrounded by perpendicular
+precipices, over the brinks of which trees shot their branches, so that
+you only caught glimpses of the azure sky and the bright evening cloud.
+During the whole time Rip and his companion had labored on in silence;
+for though the former marveled greatly, what could be the object of
+carrying a keg of liquor up this wild mountain, yet there was something
+strange and incomprehensible about the unknown that inspired awe and
+checked familiarity.
+
+On entering the amphitheater new objects of wonder presented themselves.
+On a level spot in the center was a company of odd-looking personages
+playing at ninepins. They were dressed in a quaint, outlandish fashion;
+some wore short doublets, others jerkins, with long knives in their
+belts, and most of them had enormous breeches, of similar style with
+that of the guide's. Their visages, too, were peculiar: one had a large
+head, broad face, and small, piggish eyes; the face of another seemed to
+consist entirely of nose, and was surmounted by a white sugar-loaf hat,
+set off with a little red cock's tail. They all had beards, of various
+shapes and colors. There was one who seemed to be the commander. He was
+a stout old gentleman, with a weather-beaten countenance; he wore a
+laced doublet, broad belt and hanger, high-crowned hat and feather, red
+stockings, and high-heeled shoes, with roses in them. The whole group
+reminded Rip of the figures in an old Flemish painting, in the parlor of
+[v]Dominie Van Shaick, the village parson, which had been brought over
+from Holland at the time of the settlement.
+
+What seemed particularly odd to Rip was that, though these folks were
+evidently amusing themselves, yet they maintained the gravest faces, the
+most mysterious silence, and were, withal, the most melancholy party of
+pleasure he had ever witnessed. Nothing interrupted the stillness of the
+scene but the noise of the balls, which, whenever they were rolled,
+echoed along the mountains like rumbling peals of thunder.
+
+As Rip and his companion approached them, they suddenly desisted from
+their play, and stared at him with such fixed, statue-like gaze, and
+such strange, uncouth countenances, that his heart turned within him,
+and his knees smote together. His companion now emptied the contents of
+the keg into large flagons, and made signs to him to wait upon the
+company. He obeyed with fear and trembling; they quaffed the liquor in
+profound silence, and then returned to their game.
+
+By degrees Rip's awe and apprehension subsided. He even ventured, when
+no eye was fixed upon him, to taste the beverage, which he found had
+much of the flavor of excellent Hollands. He was naturally a thirsty
+soul, and was soon tempted to repeat the draught. One taste provoked
+another; and he repeated his visits to the flagon so often that at
+length his senses were overpowered, his eyes swam in his head, his head
+gradually declined, and he fell into a deep sleep.
+
+
+II
+
+On waking he found himself on the green knoll whence he had first seen
+the old man of the glen. He rubbed his eyes--it was a bright, sunny
+morning. The birds were hopping and twittering among the bushes, and
+the eagle was wheeling aloft, and breasting the pure mountain breeze.
+"Surely," thought Rip, "I have not slept here all night." He recalled
+the occurrences before he fell asleep. The strange man with a keg of
+liquor--the mountain ravine--the wild retreat among the rocks--the
+woe-begone party at ninepins--the flagon--"Oh! that flagon! that wicked
+flagon!" thought Rip; "what excuse shall I make to Dame Van Winkle?"
+
+He looked round for his gun, but in place of the clean, well-oiled
+fowling piece, he found an old firelock lying by him, the barrel
+incrusted with rust, the lock falling off, and the stock worm-eaten. He
+now suspected that the grave revelers of the mountain had put a trick
+upon him and, having dosed him with liquor, had robbed him of his gun.
+Wolf, too, had disappeared, but he might have strayed away after a
+squirrel or partridge. He whistled after him, and shouted his name, but
+all in vain; the echoes repeated his whistle and shout, but no dog was
+to be seen.
+
+He determined to revisit the scene of the last evening's gambol, and if
+he met with any of the party, to demand his dog and gun. As he rose to
+walk, he found himself stiff in the joints, and wanting in his usual
+activity. "These mountain beds do not agree with me," thought Rip, "and
+if this frolic should lay me up with a fit of the rheumatism, I shall
+have a blessed time with Dame Van Winkle." With some difficulty he got
+down into the glen; he found the gully up which he and his companion had
+ascended the preceding evening; but to his astonishment a mountain
+stream was now foaming down it, leaping from rock to rock, and filling
+the glen with babbling murmurs. He, however, made shift to scramble up
+its sides, working his toilsome way through thickets of birch,
+sassafras, and witch-hazel, and sometimes tripped up or entangled by the
+wild grapevines that twisted their coils from tree to tree, and spread a
+kind of network in his path.
+
+At length he reached to where the ravine had opened through the cliffs
+to the amphitheater; but no traces of such opening remained. The rocks
+presented a high, impenetrable wall, over which the torrent came
+tumbling in a sheet of feathery foam, and fell into a broad, deep basin,
+black from the shadows of the surrounding forest. Here, then, poor Rip
+was brought to a stand. He again called and whistled after his dog; he
+was only answered by the cawing of a flock of idle crows sporting high
+in air about a dry tree that overhung a sunny precipice; and who, secure
+in their elevation, seemed to look down and scoff at the poor man's
+perplexities. What was to be done?--the morning was passing away, and
+Rip felt famished for want of his breakfast. He grieved to give up his
+dog and gun; he dreaded to meet his wife; but it would not do to starve
+among the mountains. He shook his head, shouldered the rusty firelock,
+and, with a heart full of trouble and anxiety, turned his steps
+homeward.
+
+As he approached the village he met a number of people, but none whom he
+knew, which somewhat surprised him, for he had thought himself
+acquainted with every one in the country round. Their dress, too, was of
+a different fashion from that to which he was accustomed. They all
+stared at him with equal marks of surprise, and whenever they cast their
+eyes upon him, invariably stroked their chins. The constant recurrence
+of this gesture induced Rip, involuntarily, to do the same, when, to his
+astonishment, he found his beard had grown a foot long!
+
+He had now entered the skirts of the village. A troop of strange
+children ran at his heels, hooting after him, and pointing at his gray
+beard. The dogs, too, not one of which he recognized for an old
+acquaintance, barked at him as he passed. The very village was altered;
+it was larger and more populous. There were rows of houses which he had
+never seen before, and those which had been his familiar haunts had
+disappeared. Strange names were over the doors--strange faces at the
+windows--everything was strange. His mind now misgave him; he began to
+doubt whether both he and the world around him were not bewitched.
+Surely this was his native village, which he had left but the day
+before. There stood the Catskill Mountains--there ran the silver Hudson
+at a distance--there was every hill and dale precisely as it had always
+been. Rip was sorely perplexed. "That flagon last night," thought he,
+"has addled my poor head sadly!"
+
+It was with some difficulty that he found the way to his own house,
+which he approached with silent awe, expecting every moment to hear the
+shrill voice of Dame Van Winkle. He found the house gone to decay--the
+roof fallen in, the windows shattered, and the doors off the hinges. A
+half-starved dog that looked like Wolf was skulking about it. Rip called
+him by name, but the cur snarled, showed his teeth, and passed on. This
+was an unkind cut indeed. "My very dog," sighed Rip, "has forgotten me!"
+
+He entered the house, which, to tell the truth, Dame Van Winkle had
+always kept in neat order. It was empty, forlorn, and apparently
+abandoned. He called loudly for his wife and children--the lonely
+chambers rang for a moment with his voice, and then all again was
+silence.
+
+
+III
+
+He now hurried forth, and hastened to his old resort, the village
+inn--but it, too, was gone. A large, rickety wooden building stood in
+its place, with great gaping windows, some of them broken and mended
+with old hats and petticoats, and over the door was painted, "The Union
+Hotel, by Jonathan Doolittle." Instead of the great tree that used to
+shelter the quiet little Dutch inn of yore, there now was reared a
+tall, naked pole, with something on the top that looked like a red
+nightcap, and from it was fluttering a flag, on which was a singular
+assemblage of stars and stripes; all this was strange and
+incomprehensible. He recognized on the sign, however, the ruby face of
+King George, under which he had smoked so many a peaceful pipe; but even
+this was singularly changed. The red coat was changed for one of blue
+and buff, a sword was held in the hand instead of a scepter, the head
+was decorated with a cocked hat, and underneath was painted in large
+characters, GENERAL WASHINGTON.
+
+There was, as usual, a crowd of folk about the door, but none that Rip
+recollected. The very character of the people seemed changed. There was
+a busy, bustling tone about it, instead of the accustomed drowsy
+tranquility. He looked in vain for the sage Nicholas Vedder, with his
+broad face, double chin, and long pipe, uttering clouds of tobacco smoke
+instead of idle speeches; or Van Bummel, the schoolmaster, doling forth
+the contents of an ancient newspaper. In place of these, a lean fellow,
+with his pockets full of handbills, was haranguing vehemently about
+rights of citizens--elections--members of congress--Bunker's
+Hill--heroes of seventy-six--and other words, which were a perfect
+jargon to the bewildered Van Winkle.
+
+The appearance of Rip, with his long, grizzled beard, his rusty fowling
+piece, his uncouth dress, and an army of women and children at his
+heels, soon attracted the attention of the tavern politicians. They
+crowded round him, eyeing him from head to foot with great curiosity.
+The orator bustled up to him, and, drawing him partly aside, inquired
+"On which side he voted?" Rip stared in vacant stupidity. Another short
+but busy little fellow pulled him by the arm, and, rising on tiptoe,
+inquired in his ear, "Whether he was Federal or Democrat?" Rip was
+equally at a loss to comprehend the question; when a knowing,
+self-important old gentleman, in a sharp cocked hat, made his way
+through the crowd, putting them to the right and left with his elbows as
+he passed, and planting himself before Van Winkle, with one arm akimbo,
+the other resting on his cane, his keen eyes and sharp hat penetrating,
+as it were, into his very soul, demanded, in an austere tone, "What
+brought him to the election with a gun on his shoulder, and a mob at his
+heels; and whether he meant to breed a riot in the village?"--"Alas!
+gentlemen," cried Rip, somewhat dismayed, "I am a poor, quiet man, a
+native of the place, and a loyal subject of the king, God bless him!"
+
+Here a general shout burst from the bystanders--"A tory! a tory! a spy!
+a refugee! hustle him! away with him!" It was with great difficulty that
+the self-important man in the cocked hat restored order; and having
+assumed a tenfold [v]austerity of brow, demanded again of the unknown
+culprit, what he came there for, and whom he was seeking! The poor man
+humbly assured him that he meant no harm, but merely came there in
+search of some of his neighbors.
+
+"Well--who are they? Name them."
+
+Rip bethought himself a moment, and inquired, "Where's Nicholas Vedder?"
+
+There was a silence for a little while, when an old man replied, in a
+thin, piping voice, "Nicholas Vedder! why, he is dead and gone these
+eighteen years! There was a wooden tombstone in the churchyard that used
+to tell all about him, but that's rotten and gone, too."
+
+"Where's Brom Dutcher?"
+
+"Oh, he went off to the army in the beginning of the war; some say he
+was killed at the storming of Stony Point; others say he was drowned in
+a squall at the foot of Anthony's Nose. I don't know; he never came back
+again."
+
+"Where's Van Brummel, the schoolmaster?"
+
+"He went off to the wars, too, was a great militia general, and is now
+in congress."
+
+Rip's heart died away at hearing of these sad changes in his home and
+friends and finding himself thus alone in the world. Every answer
+puzzled him, too, by treating of such enormous lapses of time, and of
+matters which he could not understand: war--congress--Stony Point. He
+had no courage to ask after any more friends, but cried out in despair,
+"Does nobody here know Rip Van Winkle?"
+
+"Oh, Rip Van Winkle!" exclaimed two or three, "oh, to be sure! that's
+Rip Van Winkle yonder, leaning against the tree."
+
+Rip looked, and beheld a precise counterpart of himself, as he went up
+the mountain--apparently as lazy and certainly as ragged. The poor
+fellow was now completely confounded. He doubted his own identity, and
+whether he was himself or another man. In the midst of his bewilderment,
+the man in the cocked hat demanded who he was, and what was his name.
+
+"God knows," exclaimed he, at his wits' end; "I'm not myself--I'm
+somebody else--that's me yonder--no--that's somebody else got into my
+shoes--I was myself last night, but I fell asleep on the mountain, and
+they've changed my gun, and everything's changed, and I'm changed, and I
+can't tell what's my name, or who I am!"
+
+The bystanders began now to look at each other, nod, wink significantly,
+and tap their fingers against their foreheads. There was a whisper,
+also, about securing the gun, and keeping the old fellow from doing
+mischief, at the very suggestion of which the self-important man in the
+cocked hat retired with some precipitation. At this critical moment a
+fresh, comely woman pressed through the throng to get a peep at the
+gray-bearded man. She had a chubby child in her arms, which, frightened
+at his looks, began to cry. "Hush, Rip," cried she, "hush, you little
+fool; the old man won't hurt you." The name of the child, the air of the
+mother, the tone of her voice, all awakened a train of recollections in
+his mind. "What is your name, my good woman?" asked he.
+
+"Judith Gardenier."
+
+"And your father's name?"
+
+"Ah, poor man, Rip Van Winkle was his name, but it's twenty years since
+he went away from home with his gun, and never has been heard of
+since--his dog came home without him; but whether he shot himself, or
+was carried away by the Indians, nobody can tell. I was then but a
+little girl."
+
+Rip had but one question more to ask; but he put it with a faltering
+voice:
+
+"Where's your mother?"
+
+"Oh, she, too, had died but a short time since; she broke a blood-vessel
+in a fit of passion at a New England peddler."
+
+There was a drop of comfort, at least, in this intelligence. The honest
+man could contain himself no longer. He caught his daughter and her
+child in his arms. "I am your father!" cried he--"Young Rip Van Winkle
+once--Old Rip Van Winkle now! Does nobody know poor Rip Van Winkle?"
+
+All stood amazed until an old woman, tottering out from among the crowd,
+put her hand to her brow, and peering under it in his face for a moment,
+exclaimed, "Sure enough! it is Rip Van Winkle--it is himself! Welcome
+home again, old neighbor. Why, where have you been these twenty long
+years?"
+
+Rip's story was soon told, for the whole twenty years had been to him
+but as one night. The neighbors stared when they heard it; some were
+seen to wink at each other, and put their tongues in their cheeks: and
+the self-important man in the cocked hat, who when the alarm was over
+had returned to the field, screwed down the corners of his mouth, and
+shook his head--upon which there was a general shaking of the head
+throughout the assemblage.
+
+It was determined, however, to take the opinion of old Peter Vanderdonk,
+who was seen slowly advancing up the road. He was a descendant of the
+historian of that name, who wrote one of the earliest accounts of the
+province. Peter was the most ancient inhabitant of the village, and well
+versed in all the wonderful events and traditions of the neighborhood.
+He recollected Rip at once, and corroborated his story in the most
+satisfactory manner. He assured the company that it was a fact, handed
+down from his ancestor the historian, that the Catskill Mountains had
+always been haunted by strange beings. It was affirmed that the great
+Hendrick Hudson, the first discoverer of the river and country, kept a
+kind of vigil there every twenty years, with his crew of the
+_Half-moon_; being permitted in this way to revisit the scenes of his
+enterprise, and keep a guardian eye upon the river and the great city
+called by his name. His father had once seen them in their old Dutch
+dresses playing at ninepins in a hollow of the mountain; and he himself
+had heard, one summer afternoon, the sound of their balls, like distant
+peals of thunder.
+
+To make a long story short, the company broke up and returned to the
+more important concerns of the election. Rip's daughter took him home to
+live with her; she had a snug, well-furnished house, and a stout, cheery
+farmer for a husband, whom Rip recollected for one of the urchins that
+used to climb upon his back. As to Rip's son and heir, who was the ditto
+of himself, seen leaning against the tree, he was employed to work on
+the farm; but showed an hereditary disposition to attend to anything
+else but his business.
+
+WASHINGTON IRVING.
+
+
+=HELPS TO STUDY=
+
+"Rip Van Winkle" is the most beautiful of American legendary stories.
+Washington Irving, the author, taking the old idea of long sleep, as
+found in "The Sleeping Beauty" and other fairy tales, gave it an
+American setting and interwove in it the legend of Henry Hudson, the
+discoverer of the Hudson river, who was supposed to return to the scene
+of his achievement every twenty years, together with the shades of his
+crew.
+
+     I. Where is the scene of this story laid? In which paragraph do you
+     learn when the incident related in the story took place? Why does
+     Irving speak of the mountains as "fairy mountains"? In which
+     paragraph do you meet the principal characters? Give the opinion
+     you form of Rip and his wife. Read sentences that show Rip's good
+     qualities--those that show his faults. What unusual thing happened
+     to Rip on his walk? How was the dog affected? Give a full account
+     of what happened afterward. Tell what impressed you most in this
+     scene. Read aloud the lines that best describe the scenery.
+
+     II. Describe Rip's waking. What was his worst fear? How did he
+     explain to himself the change in his gun and the disappearance of
+     Wolf? How did he account for the stiffness of his joints? What was
+     still his chief fear? Describe the changes which had taken place in
+     the mountains. With what feeling did he turn homeward? Why? How did
+     he discover the alteration in his own appearance? How did the
+     children and dogs treat him? Why was this particularly hard for Rip
+     to understand? What other changes did he find? What remained
+     unaltered? How did Rip still account for the peculiar happenings?
+     Describe Rip's feelings as he turned to his own house, and its
+     desolation.
+
+     III. What change had been made in the sign over the inn? Why? What
+     important thing was taking place in the village? Why did the speech
+     of the "lean fellow" seem "perfect jargon" to Rip? Why did he not
+     understand the questions asked him? What happened when Rip made his
+     innocent reply to the self-important gentleman? How did he at last
+     learn of the lapse of time? What added to his bewilderment? How was
+     the mystery explained? Note the question Rip reserved for the last
+     and the effect the answer had upon him. How did Peter Vanderdonk
+     explain the strange happening? What is the happy ending? Do you
+     like Rip? Why?
+
+
+SUPPLEMENTARY READING
+
+     Urashima--Graded Classics III.
+     Vice Versa--F. Anstey.
+     Peter Pan--James Barrie.
+     The Legend of Sleepy Hollow--Washington Irving.
+     A Christmas Carol--Charles Dickens.
+     Enoch Arden--Alfred Tennyson.
+
+
+FOOTNOTE:
+
+[9-*] For words marked [v], see Dictionary.
+
+
+[Illustration: Photograph by Aldrich
+
+The Great Stone Face]
+
+
+
+
+THE GREAT STONE FACE
+
+
+I
+
+One afternoon when the sun was going down, a mother and her little boy
+sat at the door of their cottage, talking about the Great Stone Face.
+They had but to lift their eyes, and there it was plainly to be seen,
+though miles away, with the sunshine brightening all its features.
+
+And what was the Great Stone Face? The Great Stone Face was a work of
+Nature in her mood of majestic playfulness, formed on the perpendicular
+side of a mountain by some immense rocks, which had been thrown together
+in such a position as, when viewed at a proper distance, precisely to
+resemble the features of the human countenance. It seemed as if an
+enormous giant, or a [v]Titan, had sculptured his own likeness on the
+precipice. There was the broad arch of the forehead, a hundred feet in
+height; the nose, with its long bridge; and the vast lips, which, if
+they could have spoken, would have rolled their thunder accents from one
+end of the valley to the other.
+
+It was a happy lot for children to grow up to manhood or womanhood with
+the Great Stone Face before their eyes, for all the features were noble,
+and the expression was at once grand and sweet, as if it were the glow
+of a vast, warm heart that embraced all mankind in its affections, and
+had room for more.
+
+As we began with saying, a mother and her little boy sat at their
+cottage door, gazing at the Great Stone Face, and talking about it. The
+child's name was Ernest. "Mother," said he, while the Titanic visage
+smiled on him, "I wish that it could speak, for it looks so very kindly
+that its voice must be pleasant. If I were to see a man with such a
+face, I should love him dearly."
+
+"If an old prophecy should come to pass," answered his mother, "we may
+see a man, some time or other, with exactly such a face as that."
+
+"What prophecy do you mean, dear mother?" eagerly inquired Ernest. "Pray
+tell me all about it!"
+
+So his mother told him a story that her own mother had told to her, when
+she herself was younger than little Ernest; a story, not of things that
+were past, but of what was yet to come; a story, nevertheless, so very
+old that even the Indians, who formerly inhabited this valley, had heard
+it from their forefathers, to whom, they believed, it had been murmured
+by the mountain streams, and whispered by the wind among the tree tops.
+The story said that at some future day a child should be born hereabouts
+who was destined to become the greatest and noblest man of his time, and
+whose countenance, in manhood, should bear an exact resemblance to the
+Great Stone Face.
+
+"O mother, dear mother!" cried Ernest, clapping his hands above his
+head, "I do hope that I shall live to see him!" His mother was an
+affectionate and thoughtful woman, and felt that it was wisest not to
+discourage the hopes of her little boy. She only said to him, "Perhaps
+you may," little thinking that the prophecy would one day come true.
+
+And Ernest never forgot the story that his mother told him. It was
+always in his mind whenever he looked upon the Great Stone Face. He
+spent his childhood in the log cottage where he was born, and was
+dutiful to his mother, and helpful to her in many things, assisting her
+much with his little hands, and more with his loving heart. In this
+manner, from a happy yet thoughtful child, he grew to be a mild, quiet,
+modest boy, sun-browned with labor in the fields, but with more
+intelligence in his face than is seen in many lads who have been taught
+at famous schools. Yet Ernest had had no teacher, save only that the
+Great Stone Face became one to him. When the toil of the day was over,
+he would gaze at it for hours, until he began to imagine that those vast
+features recognized him, and gave him a smile of kindness and
+encouragement in response to his own look of [v]veneration. We must not
+take upon us to affirm that this was a mistake, although the Face may
+have looked no more kindly at Ernest than at all the world besides. For
+the secret was that the boy's tender simplicity [v]discerned what other
+people could not see; and thus the love, which was meant for all, became
+his alone.
+
+
+II
+
+About this time, there went a rumor throughout the valley that the great
+man, foretold from ages long ago, who was to bear a resemblance to the
+Great Stone Face, had appeared at last. It seems that, many years
+before, a young man had left the valley and settled at a distant
+seaport, where, after getting together a little money, he had set up as
+a shopkeeper. His name--but I could never learn whether it was his real
+one, or a nickname that had grown out of his habits and success in
+life--was Gathergold.
+
+It might be said of him, as of [v]Midas in the fable, that whatever he
+touched with his finger immediately glistened, and grew yellow, and was
+changed at once into coin. And when Mr. Gathergold had become so rich
+that it would have taken him a hundred years only to count his wealth,
+he bethought himself of his native valley, and resolved to go back
+thither, and end his days where he was born. With this purpose in view,
+he sent a skillful architect to build him such a palace as should be fit
+for a man of his vast wealth to live in.
+
+As I have said above, it had already been rumored in the valley that Mr.
+Gathergold had turned out to be the person so long and vainly looked
+for, and that his visage was the perfect and undeniable likeness of the
+Great Stone Face. People were the more ready to believe that this must
+needs be the fact when they beheld the splendid edifice that rose, as if
+by enchantment, on the site of his father's old weather-beaten
+farmhouse. The exterior was of marble, so dazzling white that it seemed
+as though the whole structure might melt away in the sunshine, like
+those humbler ones which Mr. Gathergold, in his young playdays, had been
+accustomed to build of snow. It had a richly ornamented portico,
+supported by tall pillars, beneath which was a lofty door, studded with
+silver knobs, and made of a kind of variegated wood that had been
+brought from beyond the sea. The windows, from the floor to the ceiling
+of each stately apartment, were each composed of but one enormous pane
+of glass. Hardly anybody had been permitted to see the interior of this
+palace; but it was reported to be far more gorgeous than the outside,
+insomuch that whatever was iron or brass in other houses was silver or
+gold in this; and Mr. Gathergold's bedchamber, especially, made such a
+glittering appearance that no ordinary man would have been able to close
+his eyes there. But, on the other hand, Mr. Gathergold was now so
+accustomed to wealth that perhaps he could not have closed his eyes
+unless where the gleam of it was certain to find its way beneath his
+eyelids.
+
+In due time, the mansion was finished; next came the upholsterers, with
+magnificent furniture; then a whole troop of black and white servants,
+the harbingers of Mr. Gathergold, who, in his own majestic person, was
+expected to arrive at sunset. Our friend Ernest, meanwhile, had been
+deeply stirred by the idea that the great man, the noble man, the man of
+prophecy, after so many ages of delay, was at length to appear in his
+native valley. He knew, boy as he was, that there were a thousand ways
+in which Mr. Gathergold, with his vast wealth, might transform himself
+into an angel of beneficence, and assume a control over human affairs as
+wide and [v]benignant as the smile of the Great Stone Face. Full of
+faith and hope, Ernest doubted not that what the people said was true,
+and that now he was to behold the living likeness of those wondrous
+features on the mountain side. While the boy was still gazing up the
+valley, and fancying, as he always did, that the Great Stone Face
+returned his gaze and looked kindly at him, the rumbling of wheels was
+heard, approaching swiftly along the winding road.
+
+"Here he comes!" cried a group of people who were assembled to witness
+the arrival. "Here comes the great Mr. Gathergold!"
+
+A carriage, drawn by four horses, dashed round the turn of the road.
+Within it, thrust partly out of the window, appeared the face of a
+little old man, with a skin as yellow as gold. He had a low forehead,
+small, sharp eyes, puckered about with innumerable wrinkles, and very
+thin lips, which he made still thinner by pressing them forcibly
+together.
+
+"The very image of the Great Stone Face!" shouted the people. "Sure
+enough, the old prophecy is true."
+
+And, what greatly perplexed Ernest, they seemed actually to believe that
+here was the likeness which they spoke of. By the roadside there chanced
+to be an old beggar woman and two little beggar children, stragglers
+from some far-off region, who, as the carriage rolled onward, held out
+their hands and lifted up their doleful voices, most piteously
+beseeching charity. A yellow claw--the very same that had clawed
+together so much wealth--poked itself out of the coach window, and
+dropped some copper coins upon the ground; so that, though the great
+man's name seems to have been Gathergold, he might just as suitably have
+been nicknamed Scattercopper. Still, nevertheless, with an earnest
+shout, and evidently with as much good faith as ever, the people
+bellowed:
+
+"He is the very image of the Great Stone Face!"
+
+But Ernest turned sadly from the wrinkled shrewdness of that visage and
+gazed up the valley, where, amid a gathering mist, gilded by the last
+sunbeams, he could still distinguish those glorious features which had
+impressed themselves into his soul. Their aspect cheered him. What did
+the benign lips seem to say?
+
+"He will come! Fear not, Ernest; the man will come!"
+
+The years went on, and Ernest ceased to be a boy. He had grown to be a
+young man now. He attracted little notice from the other inhabitants of
+the valley, for they saw nothing remarkable in his way of life, save
+that, when the labor of the day was over, he still loved to go apart and
+gaze and meditate upon the Great Stone Face. According to their idea of
+the matter, however, it was a pardonable folly, for Ernest was
+industrious, kind, and neighborly, and neglected no duty for the sake of
+this idle habit. They knew not that the Great Stone Face had become a
+teacher to him, and that the sentiment which was expressed in it would
+enlarge the young man's heart, and fill it with wider and deeper
+sympathies than other hearts. They knew not that thence would come a
+better wisdom than could be learned from books, and a better life than
+could be molded on the example of other human lives. Neither did Ernest
+know that the thoughts and affections which came to him so naturally, in
+the fields and at the fireside, were of a higher tone than those which
+all men shared with him. A simple soul,--simple as when his mother first
+taught him the old prophecy,--he beheld the marvelous features beaming
+down the valley, and still wondered that their human counterpart was so
+long in making his appearance.
+
+By this time poor Mr. Gathergold was dead and buried; and the oddest
+part of the matter was that his wealth, which was the body and spirit of
+his existence, had disappeared before his death, leaving nothing of him
+but a living skeleton, covered over with a wrinkled, yellow skin. Since
+the melting away of his gold, it had been very generally allowed that
+there was no such striking resemblance, after all, betwixt the ignoble
+features of the ruined merchant and that majestic face upon the mountain
+side. So the people ceased to honor him during his lifetime, and quietly
+forgot him after his decease. Once in a while, it is true, his memory
+was brought up in connection with the magnificent palace which he had
+built, and which had long ago been turned into a hotel for the
+accommodation of strangers, multitudes of whom came, every summer, to
+visit that famous natural curiosity, the Great Stone Face. The man of
+prophecy was yet to come.
+
+
+III
+
+It so happened that a native-born son of the valley, many years before,
+had enlisted as a soldier, and, after a great deal of hard fighting, had
+now become an illustrious commander. Whatever he may be called in
+history, he was known in camps and on the battlefield under the nickname
+of Old Blood-and-Thunder. This war-worn veteran, being now weary of a
+military life, and of the roll of the drum and the clangor of the
+trumpet that had so long been ringing in his ears, had lately signified
+a purpose of returning to his native valley, hoping to find repose where
+he remembered to have left it. The inhabitants, his old neighbors and
+their grown-up children, were resolved to welcome the [v]renowned
+warrior with a salute of cannon and a public dinner; and all the more
+enthusiastically because it was believed that at last the likeness of
+the Great Stone Face had actually appeared. A friend of Old
+Blood-and-Thunder, traveling through the valley, was said to have been
+struck with the resemblance. Moreover, the schoolmates and early
+acquaintances of the general were ready to testify, on oath, that, to
+the best of their recollection, the general had been exceedingly like
+the majestic image, even when a boy, only that the idea had never
+occurred to them at that period. Great, therefore, was the excitement
+throughout the valley; and many people, who had never once thought of
+glancing at the Great Stone Face for years before, now spent their time
+in gazing at it, for the sake of knowing exactly how General
+Blood-and-Thunder looked.
+
+On the day of the great festival, Ernest, and all the other people of
+the valley, left their work and proceeded to the spot where the banquet
+was prepared. As he approached, the loud voice of the Rev. Dr.
+Battleblast was heard, beseeching a blessing on the good things set
+before them, and on the distinguished friend of peace in whose honor
+they were assembled. The tables were arranged in a cleared space of the
+woods, shut in by the surrounding trees, except where a vista opened
+eastward, and afforded a distant view of the Great Stone Face. Over the
+general's chair, which was a relic from the home of Washington, there
+was an arch of green boughs and laurel surmounted by his country's
+banner, beneath which he had won his victories. Our friend Ernest
+raised himself on his tiptoes, in hopes to get a glimpse of the
+celebrated guest; but there was a mighty crowd about the tables anxious
+to hear the toasts and speeches, and to catch any word that might fall
+from the general in reply; and a volunteer company, doing duty as a
+guard, pricked with their bayonets at any particularly quiet person
+among the throng. So Ernest, being of a modest character, was thrust
+quite into the background, where he could see no more of Old
+Blood-and-Thunder's face than if it had been still blazing on the
+battlefield. To console himself he turned toward the Great Stone Face,
+which, like a faithful and long-remembered friend, looked back and
+smiled upon him through the forest. Meantime, however, he could overhear
+the remarks of various individuals who were comparing the features of
+the hero with the face on the distant mountain side.
+
+"'Tis the same face, to a hair!" cried one man, cutting a caper for joy.
+
+"Wonderfully like, that's a fact!" responded another.
+
+"Like! Why, I call it Old Blood-and-Thunder himself, in a monstrous
+looking-glass!" cried a third. "And why not? He's the greatest man of
+this or any other age, beyond a doubt."
+
+"The general! The general!" was now the cry. "Hush! Silence! Old
+Blood-and-Thunder's going to make a speech."
+
+Even so; for, the cloth being removed, the general's health had been
+drunk amid shouts of applause, and he now stood upon his feet to thank
+the company. Ernest saw him. There he was, over the shoulders of the
+crowd, from the two glittering epaulets and embroidered collar upward,
+beneath the arch of green boughs with intertwined laurel, and the banner
+drooping as if to shade his brow! And there, too, visible in the same
+glance, appeared the Great Stone Face! And was there, indeed, such a
+resemblance as the crowd had testified? Alas, Ernest could not recognize
+it! He beheld a war-worn and weather-beaten countenance, full of energy,
+and expressive of an iron will; but the gentle wisdom, the deep, broad,
+tender sympathies were altogether wanting in Old Blood-and-Thunder's
+visage.
+
+"This is not the man of prophecy," sighed Ernest to himself, as he made
+his way out of the throng. "And must the world wait longer yet?"
+
+The mists had gathered about the distant mountain side, and there were
+seen the grand and awful features of the Great Stone Face, awful but
+benignant, as if a mighty angel were sitting among the hills and
+enrobing himself in a cloud vesture of gold and purple. As he looked,
+Ernest could hardly believe but that a smile beamed over the whole
+visage, with a radiance still brightening, although without motion of
+the lips. It was probably the effect of the western sunshine, melting
+the thin vapors that had swept between him and the object that he had
+gazed at. But--as it always did--the aspect of his marvelous friend made
+Ernest as hopeful as if he had never hoped in vain.
+
+"Fear not, Ernest," said his heart, even as if the Great Face were
+whispering him--"fear not, Ernest."
+
+
+IV
+
+More years sped swiftly and tranquilly away. Ernest still dwelt in his
+native valley, and was now a man of middle age. By slow degrees he had
+become known among the people. Now, as heretofore, he labored for his
+bread, and was the same simple-hearted man that he had always been. But
+he had thought and felt so much, he had given so many of the best hours
+of his life to unworldly hopes for some great good to mankind, that it
+seemed as though he had been talking with the angels, and had imbibed a
+portion of their wisdom unawares. It was visible in the calm beneficence
+of his daily life, the quiet stream of which had made a wide, green
+margin all along its course. Not a day passed by that the world was not
+the better because this man, humble as he was, had lived. He never
+stepped aside from his own path, yet would always reach a blessing to
+his neighbor. Almost involuntarily, too, he had become a preacher. The
+pure and high simplicity of his thought, which took shape in the good
+deeds that dropped silently from his hand, flowered also forth in
+speech. He uttered truths that molded the lives of those who heard him.
+His hearers, it may be, never suspected that Ernest, their own neighbor
+and familiar friend, was more than an ordinary man; least of all did
+Ernest himself suspect it; but thoughts came out of his mouth that no
+other human lips had spoken.
+
+When the people's minds had had a little time to cool, they were ready
+enough to acknowledge their mistake in imagining a similarity between
+General Blood-and-Thunder and the benign visage on the mountain side.
+But now, again, there were reports and many paragraphs in the
+newspapers, affirming that the likeness of the Great Stone Face had
+appeared upon the broad shoulders of a certain eminent [v]statesman. He,
+like Mr. Gathergold and Old Blood-and-Thunder, was a native of the
+valley, but had left it in his early days, and taken up the trades of
+law and politics. Instead of the rich man's wealth and the warrior's
+sword he had but a tongue, and it was mightier than both together. So
+wonderfully eloquent was he that, whatever he might choose to say, his
+hearers had no choice but to believe him; wrong looked like right, and
+right like wrong. His voice, indeed, was a magic instrument: sometimes
+it rumbled like the thunder; sometimes it warbled like the sweetest
+music. In good truth, he was a wondrous man; and when his tongue had
+acquired him all other imaginable success,--when it had been heard in
+halls of state and in the courts of princes,--after it had made him
+known all over the world, even as a voice crying from shore to
+shore,--it finally persuaded his countrymen to select him for the
+presidency. Before this time,--indeed, as soon as he began to grow
+celebrated,--his admirers had found out the resemblance between him and
+the Great Stone Face; and so much were they struck by it that throughout
+the country this distinguished gentleman was known by the name of Old
+Stony Phiz.
+
+While his friends were doing their best to make him President, Old Stony
+Phiz, as he was called, set out on a visit to the valley where he was
+born. Of course he had no other object than to shake hands with his
+fellow-citizens, and neither thought nor cared about any effect which
+his progress through the country might have upon the election.
+Magnificent preparations were made to receive the [v]illustrious
+statesmen; a cavalcade of horsemen set forth to meet him at the boundary
+line of the State, and all the people left their business and gathered
+along the wayside to see him pass. Among these was Ernest. Though more
+than once disappointed, as we have seen, he had such a hopeful and
+confiding nature that he was always ready to believe in whatever seemed
+beautiful and good. He kept his heart continually open, and thus was
+sure to catch the blessing from on high, when it should come. So now
+again, as buoyantly as ever, he went forth to behold the likeness of the
+Great Stone Face.
+
+The cavalcade came prancing along the road, with a great clattering of
+hoofs and a mighty cloud of dust, which rose up so dense and high that
+the visage of the mountain side was completely hidden from Ernest's
+eyes. All the great men of the neighborhood were there on horseback:
+militia officers, in uniform; the member of congress; the sheriff of the
+county; the editors of newspapers; and many a farmer, too, had mounted
+his patient steed, with his Sunday coat upon his back. It really was a
+very brilliant spectacle, especially as there were numerous banners
+flaunting over the cavalcade, on some of which were gorgeous portraits
+of the illustrious statesman and the Great Stone Face, smiling
+familiarly at one another, like two brothers. If the pictures were to be
+trusted, the resemblance, it must be confessed, was marvelous. We must
+not forget to mention that there was a band of music, which made the
+echoes of the mountains ring with the loud triumph of its strains, so
+that airy and soul-thrilling melodies broke out among all the heights
+and hollows, as if every nook of his native valley had found a voice to
+welcome the distinguished guest. But the grandest effect was when the
+far-off mountain precipice flung back the music; for then the Great
+Stone Face itself seemed to be swelling the triumphant chorus, in
+acknowledgment that, at length, the man of prophecy was come.
+
+All this while the people were throwing up their hats and shouting with
+such enthusiasm that the heart of Ernest kindled up, and he likewise
+threw up his hat and shouted as loudly as the loudest, "Huzza for the
+great man! Huzza for Old Stony Phiz!" But as yet he had not seen him.
+
+"Here he is now!" cried those who stood near Ernest. "There! There! Look
+at Old Stony Phiz and then at the Old Man of the Mountain, and see if
+they are not as like as two twin brothers!"
+
+In the midst of all this gallant array came an open [v]barouche, drawn
+by four white horses; and in the barouche, with his massive head
+uncovered, sat the illustrious statesman, Old Stony Phiz himself.
+
+"Confess it," said one of Ernest's neighbors to him, "the Great Stone
+Face has met its match at last!"
+
+Now, it must be owned that, at his first glimpse of the countenance
+which was bowing and smiling from the barouche, Ernest did fancy that
+there was a resemblance between it and the old familiar face upon the
+mountain side. The brow, with its massive depth and loftiness, and all
+the other features, indeed, were bold and strong. But the grand
+expression of a divine sympathy that illuminated the mountain visage
+might here be sought in vain.
+
+Still Ernest's neighbor was thrusting his elbow into his side, and
+pressing him for an answer.
+
+"Confess! Confess! Is not he the very picture of your Old Man of the
+Mountain?"
+
+"No!" said Ernest, bluntly; "I see little or no likeness."
+
+"Then so much the worse for the Great Stone Face!" answered his
+neighbor. And again he set up a shout for Old Stony Phiz.
+
+But Ernest turned away, melancholy, and almost despondent; for this was
+the saddest of his disappointments, to behold a man who might have
+fulfilled the prophecy, and had not willed to do so. Meantime, the
+cavalcade, the banners, the music, and the barouches swept past him,
+with the shouting crowd in the rear, leaving the dust to settle down,
+and the Great Stone Face to be revealed again, with the grandeur that it
+had worn for untold centuries.
+
+"Lo, here I am, Ernest!" the benign lips seemed to say. "I have waited
+longer than thou, and am not yet weary. Fear not; the man will come."
+
+
+V
+
+The years hurried onward, treading in their haste on one another's
+heels. And now they began to bring white hairs and scatter them over the
+head of Ernest; they made wrinkles across his forehead and furrows in
+his cheeks. He was an aged man. But not in vain had he grown old; more
+than the white hairs on his head were the wise thoughts in his mind. And
+Ernest had ceased to be obscure. Unsought for, undesired, had come the
+fame which so many seek, and made him known in the great world, beyond
+the limits of the valley in which he had dwelt so quietly. College
+professors, and even the active men of cities, came from far to see and
+converse with Ernest; for the report had gone abroad that this simple
+farmer had ideas unlike those of other men, and a tranquil majesty as if
+he had been talking with the angels as his daily friends. Ernest
+received these visitors with the gentle sincerity that had marked him
+from boyhood, and spoke freely with them of whatever came uppermost, or
+lay deepest in his heart or their own. While they talked together his
+face would kindle and shine upon them, as with a mild evening light.
+When his guests took leave and went their way, and passing up the
+valley, paused to look at the Great Stone Face, they imagined that they
+had seen its likeness in a human countenance, but could not remember
+where.
+
+While Ernest had been growing up and growing old, a bountiful Providence
+had granted a new poet to this earth. He, likewise, was a native of the
+valley, but had spent the greater part of his life at a distance from
+that romantic region, pouring out his sweet music amid the bustle and
+din of cities. Often, however, did the mountains which had been familiar
+to him in his childhood lift their snowy peaks into the clear atmosphere
+of his poetry. Neither was the Great Stone Face forgotten, for he had
+celebrated it in a poem which was grand enough to have been uttered by
+its lips.
+
+The songs of this poet found their way to Ernest. He read them after his
+customary toil, seated on the bench before his cottage door, where for
+such a length of time he had filled his repose with thought, by gazing
+at the Great Stone Face. And now, as he read stanzas that caused the
+soul to thrill within him, he lifted his eyes to the vast countenance
+beaming on him so benignantly.
+
+"O majestic friend," he said, addressing the Great Stone Face, "is not
+this man worthy to resemble thee?"
+
+The Face seemed to smile, but answered not a word.
+
+Now it happened that the poet, though he dwelt so far away, had not only
+heard of Ernest, but had meditated much upon his character, until he
+deemed nothing so desirable as to meet this man whose untaught wisdom
+walked hand in hand with the noble simplicity of his life. One summer
+morning, therefore, he took passage by the railroad, and, in the decline
+of the afternoon, alighted from the cars at no great distance from
+Ernest's cottage. The great hotel, which had formerly been the palace of
+Mr. Gathergold, was close at hand, but the poet, with his carpetbag on
+his arm, inquired at once where Ernest dwelt, and was resolved to be
+accepted as his guest.
+
+Approaching the door, he there found the good old man, holding a volume
+in his hand, which he read, and then, with a finger between the leaves,
+looked lovingly at the Great Stone Face.
+
+"Good evening," said the poet. "Can you give a traveler a night's
+lodging?"
+
+"Willingly," answered Ernest. And then he added, smiling, "Methinks I
+never saw the Great Stone Face look so hospitably at a stranger."
+
+The poet sat down on the bench beside him, and he and Ernest talked
+together. Often had the poet conversed with the wittiest and the wisest,
+but never before with a man like Ernest, whose thoughts and feelings
+gushed up with such a natural freedom, and who made great truths so
+familiar by his simple utterance of them. Angels, as had been so often
+said, seemed to have wrought with him at his labor in the fields; angels
+seemed to have sat with him by the fireside. So thought the poet. And
+Ernest, on the other hand, was moved by the living images which the poet
+flung out of his mind, and which peopled all the air about the cottage
+door with shapes of beauty.
+
+As Ernest listened to the poet, he imagined that the Great Stone Face
+was bending forward to listen, too. He gazed earnestly into the poet's
+glowing eyes.
+
+"Who are you, my strangely gifted guest!" he said.
+
+The poet laid his finger on the volume that Ernest had been reading.
+
+"You have read these poems," said he. "You know me, then,--for I wrote
+them."
+
+Again, and still more earnestly than before, Ernest examined the poet's
+features; then turned toward the Great Stone Face; then back to his
+guest. But his countenance fell; he shook his head, and mournfully
+sighed.
+
+"Wherefore are you sad?" inquired the poet.
+
+"Because," replied Ernest, "all through life I have awaited the
+fulfillment of a prophecy; and when I read these poems, I hoped that it
+might be fulfilled in you."
+
+"You hoped," answered the poet, faintly smiling, "to find in me the
+likeness of the Great Stone Face. And you are disappointed, as formerly
+with Mr. Gathergold, and Old Blood-and-Thunder, and Old Stony Phiz. Yes,
+Ernest, it is my doom. You must add my name to the illustrious three,
+and record another failure of your hopes. For--in shame and sadness do I
+speak it, Ernest--I am not worthy."
+
+"And why?" asked Ernest. He pointed to the volume. "Are not those
+thoughts divine?"
+
+"You can hear in them the far-off echo of a heavenly song," replied the
+poet. "But my life, dear Ernest, has not corresponded with my thought. I
+have had grand dreams, but they have been only dreams, because I have
+lived--and that, too, by my own choice--among poor and mean realities.
+Sometimes even--shall I dare to say it?--I lack faith in the grandeur,
+the beauty, and the goodness which my own works are said to have made
+more evident in nature and in human life. Why, then, pure seeker of the
+good and true, shouldst thou hope to find me in yonder image of the
+divine?"
+
+The poet spoke sadly, and his eyes were dim with tears. So, likewise,
+were those of Ernest.
+
+At the hour of sunset, as had long been his frequent custom, Ernest was
+to speak to an assemblage of the neighboring inhabitants in the open
+air. He and the poet, arm in arm, still talking together as they went
+along, proceeded to the spot. It was a small nook among the hills, with
+a gray precipice behind, the stern front of which was relieved by the
+pleasant foliage of many creeping plants, that made a [v]tapestry for
+the naked rock by hanging their festoons from all its rugged angles. At
+a small elevation above the ground, set in a rich framework of verdure,
+there appeared a [v]niche, spacious enough to admit a human figure. Into
+this natural pulpit Ernest ascended and threw a look of familiar
+kindness around upon his audience. They stood, or sat, or reclined upon
+the grass, as seemed good to each, with the departing sunshine falling
+over them. In another direction was seen the Great Stone Face, with the
+same cheer, combined with the same solemnity, in its benignant aspect.
+
+Ernest began to speak, giving to the people of what was in his heart and
+mind. His words had power, because they accorded with his thoughts; and
+his thoughts had reality and depth, because they harmonized with the
+life which he had always lived. The poet, as he listened, felt that the
+being and character of Ernest were a nobler strain of poetry than he
+had ever written. His eyes glistening with tears, he gazed
+reverentially at the venerable man, and said within himself that never
+was there an aspect so worthy of a prophet and a sage as that mild,
+sweet, thoughtful countenance with the glory of white hair diffused
+about it. At a distance, but distinctly to be seen, high up in the
+golden light of the setting sun, appeared the Great Stone Face, with
+hoary mists around it, like the white hairs around the brow of Ernest.
+
+At that moment, in sympathy with a thought which he was about to utter,
+the face of Ernest assumed a grandeur of expression, so full of
+benevolence, that the poet, by an irresistible impulse, threw his arms
+aloft, and shouted:
+
+"Behold! Behold! Ernest is himself the likeness of the Great Stone
+Face!"
+
+Then all the people looked and saw that what the deep-sighted poet said
+was true. The prophecy was fulfilled. The man had appeared at last.
+
+NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE.
+
+
+=HELPS TO STUDY=
+
+The Great Stone Face is a rock formation in the Franconia Notch of the
+White Mountains of New Hampshire, known as "The Old Man of the
+Mountain."
+
+     I. What picture do you get from Part I? Tell in your own words what
+     the mother told Ernest about the Great Stone Face. Who had carved
+     the face? How? Find something that is one hundred feet high, and
+     picture to yourself the immensity of the whole face, judging by the
+     forehead alone. Describe Ernest's childhood and his education.
+
+     II. What reason had the people for thinking that the great man had
+     come in the person of Mr. Gathergold? Explain the reference to
+     Midas. What was there in Mr. Gathergold's appearance and action to
+     disappoint Ernest? What comforted him? Why were the people willing
+     to believe that Mr. Gathergold was the image of the Great Stone
+     Face? What caused them to decide that he was not? What was there to
+     indicate that Ernest would become a great and good man?
+
+     III. What new character is now introduced? Wherein was Old
+     Blood-and-Thunder lacking in resemblance to the Great Stone Face?
+     Compare him with Mr. Gathergold and decide which was the greater
+     character? How was Ernest comforted in his second disappointment?
+
+     IV. What kind of man had Ernest become? What figure comes into the
+     story now? Find a sentence that gives a clew to the character of
+     Stony Phiz. Compare him with the characters previously introduced.
+     Why was Ernest more disappointed than before? Where did he again
+     look for comfort?
+
+     V. What changes did the hurrying years bring Ernest? What sentence
+     indicates who the man of prophecy might be? Who is now introduced
+     in the story? Give the opinion that Ernest and the poet had of each
+     other. Find the sentence which explains why the poet failed. Who
+     was the first to recognize in Ernest the likeness to the Great
+     Stone Face? Why did Hawthorne have a poet to make the discovery? In
+     what way was Ernest great? How had he become so? What trait of
+     Ernest's character is shown in the last sentence?
+
+     The story is divided into five parts. Make an outline telling what
+     is the topic of each part.
+
+
+SUPPLEMENTARY READING
+
+     The Sketch Book--Washington Irving.
+     Old Curiosity Shop--Charles Dickens.
+     Pendennis--William Makepeace Thackeray.
+     The Snow-Image--Nathaniel Hawthorne.
+     The Legend Beautiful--Henry W. Longfellow.
+     William Wilson--Edgar Allan Poe.
+
+[Illustration: Priscilla and John Alden]
+
+
+
+
+THE COURTSHIP OF MILES STANDISH
+
+
+    I
+
+    In the Old Colony days, in Plymouth the land of the Pilgrims,
+    To and fro in a room of his simple and primitive dwelling,
+    Clad in [v]doublet and hose, and boots of [v]Cordovan leather,
+    Strode, with a martial air, Miles Standish the Puritan Captain.
+    Buried in thought he seemed, with hands behind him, and pausing
+    Ever and anon to behold the glittering weapons of warfare,
+    Hanging in shining array along the walls of the chamber,--
+    Cutlass and corslet of steel, and his trusty [v]sword of Damascus.
+    Short of stature he was, but strongly built and athletic,
+    Broad in the shoulders, deep-chested, with muscles and sinews of iron;
+    Brown as a nut was his face, but his russet beard was already
+    Flaked with patches of snow, as hedges sometimes in November.
+    Near him was seated John Alden, his friend, and household companion,
+    Writing with diligent speed at a table of pine by the window;
+    Fair-haired, azure-eyed, with delicate Saxon complexion.
+    Youngest of all was he of the men who came in the May Flower.
+      (Standish takes up a book and reads a moment.)
+    Suddenly breaking the silence, the diligent scribe interrupting,
+    Spake, in the pride of his heart, Miles Standish the Captain of
+        Plymouth.
+    "Look at these arms," he said, "the warlike weapons that hang here
+    Burnished and bright and clean, as if for parade or inspection!
+    This is the sword of Damascus I fought with in Flanders; this
+        breastplate,
+    Well, I remember the day! once saved my life in a skirmish;
+    Here in front you can see the very dint of the bullet.
+    Had it not been of sheer steel, the forgotten bones of Miles Standish
+    Would at this moment be mold, in the grave in the Flemish morasses."
+    Thereupon answered John Alden, but looked not up from his writing:
+    "Truly the breath of the Lord hath slackened the speed of the bullet;
+    He in his mercy preserved you to be our shield and our weapon!"
+    Still the Captain continued, unheeding the words of the stripling:
+    "See how bright they are burnished, as if in an arsenal hanging;
+    That is because I have done it myself, and not left it to others.
+    Serve yourself, would you be well served, is an excellent [v]adage;
+    So I take care of my arms, as you of your pens and your inkhorn.
+    Then, too, there are my soldiers, my great, invincible army,
+    Twelve men, all equipped, having each his rest and his matchlock,
+    Eighteen shillings a month, together with diet and pillage,
+    And, like Caesar, I know the name of each of my soldiers!"
+    All was silent again; the Captain continued his reading.
+    Nothing was heard in the room but the hurrying pen of the stripling
+    Writing epistles important to go next day by the May Flower,
+    Ready to sail on the morrow, or next day at latest, God willing,
+    Homeward bound with the tidings of all that terrible winter,
+    Letters written by Alden and full of the name of Priscilla,
+    Full of the name and the fame of the Puritan maiden Priscilla.
+    Every sentence began or closed with the name of Priscilla,
+    Till the treacherous pen, to which he confided the secret
+    Strove to betray it by singing and shouting the name of Priscilla!
+    Finally closing his book, with a bang of its [v]ponderous cover,
+    Sudden and loud as the sound of a soldier grounding his musket,
+    Thus to the young man spake Miles Standish the Captain of Plymouth:
+    "When you have finished your work, I have something important to tell
+        you.
+    Be not however in haste; I can wait; I shall not be impatient!"
+    Straightway Alden replied, as he folded the last of his letters,
+    Pushing his papers aside, and giving respectful attention:
+    "Speak; for whenever you speak, I am always ready to listen,
+    Always ready to hear whatever pertains to Miles Standish."
+    Thereupon answered the Captain, embarrassed, and culling his phrases:
+    "'Tis not good for a man to be alone, say the Scriptures.
+    This I have said before, and again and again I repeat it;
+    Every hour in the day, I think it, and feel it, and say it.
+    Since Rose Standish died, my life has been weary and dreary;
+    Sick at heart have I been, beyond the healing of friendship.
+    Oft in my lonely hours have I thought of the maiden Priscilla,
+    Patient, courageous, and strong, and said to myself, that if ever
+    There were angels on earth, as there are angels in heaven,
+    Two have I seen and known; and the angel whose name is Priscilla
+    Holds in my desolate life the place which the other abandoned.
+    Long have I cherished the thought, but never have dared to reveal it,
+    Being a coward in this, though valiant enough for the most part.
+    Go to the damsel Priscilla, the loveliest maiden of Plymouth;
+    Say that a blunt old captain, a man not of words but of actions,
+    Offers his hand and his heart, the hand and heart of a soldier.
+    Not in these words, you know, but this in short is my meaning;
+    I am a maker of war, and not a maker of phrases."
+
+    When he had spoken, John Alden, the fair-haired, [v]taciturn stripling,
+    All aghast at his words, surprised, embarrassed, bewildered,
+    Trying to mask his dismay by treating the subject with lightness,
+    Trying to smile, and yet feeling his heart stand still in his bosom,
+    Thus made answer and spake, or rather stammered than answered:
+    "Such a message as that, I am sure I should mangle and mar it;
+    If you would have it well done--I am only repeating your maxim--
+    You must do it yourself, you must not leave it to others!"
+    But with the air of a man whom nothing can turn from his purpose,
+    Gravely shaking his head, made answer the Captain of Plymouth:
+    "Truly the maxim is good, and I do not mean to gainsay it;
+    But we must use it discreetly, and not waste powder for nothing.
+    Now, as I said before, I was never a maker of phrases.
+    I can march up to a fortress and summon the place to surrender,
+    But march up to a woman with such a proposal, I dare not.
+    I'm not afraid of bullets, nor shot from the mouth of a cannon,
+    But of a thundering No! point-blank from the mouth of a woman,
+    That I confess I am afraid of, nor am I ashamed to confess it!
+    Surely you cannot refuse what I ask in the name of our friendship!"
+
+    Then made answer John Alden: "The name of friendship is sacred;
+    What you demand in that name, I have not the power to deny you!"
+    So the strong will prevailed, subduing and molding the gentler,
+    Friendship prevailed over love, and Alden went on his errand.
+
+
+    II
+
+    So the strong will prevailed, and Alden went on his errand,
+    Out of the street of the village, and into the paths of the forest,
+    Into the tranquil woods, where bluebirds and robins were building
+    Towns in the populous trees, with hanging gardens of [v]verdure,
+    Peaceful, [v]aerial cities of joy and affection and freedom.
+    All around him was calm, but within him commotion and conflict,
+    Love contending with friendship, and self with each generous impulse.
+
+    So through the Plymouth woods John Alden went on his errand;
+    Saw the new-built house, and people at work in a meadow;
+    Heard, as he drew near the door, the musical voice of Priscilla
+    Singing the hundredth Psalm, the grand old Puritan anthem,
+    Full of the breath of the Lord, consoling and comforting many.
+    Then, as he opened the door, he beheld the form of the maiden
+    Seated beside her wheel, and the carded wool like a snow-drift
+    Piled at her knee, her white hands feeding the ravenous spindle,
+    While with her foot on the treadle she guided the wheel in its motion.
+
+    So he entered the house; and the hum of the wheel and the singing
+    Suddenly ceased; for Priscilla, aroused by his step on the threshold,
+    Rose as he entered, and gave him her hand, in signal of welcome,
+    Saying, "I knew it was you, when I heard your step in the passage;
+    For I was thinking of you, as I sat there singing and spinning."
+    Awkward and dumb with delight, that a thought of him had been mingled
+    Thus in the sacred psalm, that came from the heart of the maiden,
+    Silent before her he stood.
+    "I have been thinking all day," said gently the Puritan maiden,
+    "Dreaming all night, and thinking all day, of the hedgerows of
+        England,--
+    They are in blossom now, and the country is all like a garden;
+    Thinking of lanes and fields, and the song of the lark and the linnet,
+    Seeing the village street, and familiar faces of neighbors
+    Going about as of old, and stopping to gossip together.
+    Kind are the people I live with, and dear to me my religion;
+    Still my heart is so sad that I wish myself back in Old England.
+    You will say it is wrong, but I cannot help it; I almost
+    Wish myself back in Old England, I feel so lonely and wretched."
+
+    Thereupon answered the youth: "Indeed I do not condemn you;
+    Stouter hearts than a woman's have quailed in this terrible winter.
+    Yours is tender and trusting, and needs a stronger to lean on;
+    So I have come to you now, with an offer and proffer of marriage
+    Made by a good man and true, Miles Standish the Captain of Plymouth!"
+    Thus he delivered his message, the dexterous writer of letters,--
+    Did not [v]embellish the theme, nor array it in beautiful phrases,
+    But came straight to the point and blurted it out like a schoolboy;
+    Even the Captain himself could hardly have said it more bluntly.
+    Mute with amazement and sorrow, Priscilla the Puritan maiden
+    Looked into Alden's face, her eyes dilated with wonder,
+    Feeling his words like a blow, that stunned and rendered her
+        speechless;
+    Till at length she exclaimed, interrupting the ominous silence:
+    "If the great Captain of Plymouth is so very eager to wed me,
+    Why does he not come himself and take trouble to woo me?
+    If I am not worth the wooing, I surely am not worth the winning!"
+    Then John Alden began explaining and smoothing the matter,
+    Making it worse as he went, by saying the Captain was busy,--
+    Had no time for such things;--such things! the words grating harshly,
+    Fell on the ear of Priscilla; and swift as a flash she made answer:
+    "Has he not time for such things, as you call it, before he is married,
+    Would he be likely to find it, or make it, after the wedding?"
+    Still John Alden went on, unheeding the words of Priscilla,
+    Urging the suit of his friend, explaining, persuading, expanding.
+    But as he warmed and glowed, in his simple and eloquent language,
+    Quite forgetful of self, and full of the praise of his rival,
+    Archly the maiden smiled, and with eyes overrunning with laughter,
+    Said, in a tremulous voice, "Why don't you speak for yourself, John?"
+
+With conflicting feelings of love for Priscilla and duty to his friend,
+Miles Standish, John Alden does not "speak for himself," but returns to
+Plymouth to tell Standish the result of the interview.
+
+    Then John Alden spake, and related the wondrous adventure,
+    From beginning to end, minutely, just as it happened;
+    How he had seen Priscilla, and how he had sped in his courtship,
+    Only smoothing a little and softening down her refusal.
+    But when he came at length to the words Priscilla had spoken,
+    Words so tender and cruel: "Why don't you speak for yourself, John?"
+    Up leaped the Captain of Plymouth, and stamped on the floor, till his
+        armor
+    Clanged on the wall, where it hung, with a sound of sinister omen.
+    All his pent-up wrath burst forth in a sudden explosion,
+    E'en as a hand grenade, that scatters destruction around it.
+    Wildly he shouted and loud: "John Alden! you have betrayed me!
+    Me, Miles Standish, your friend! have supplanted, defrauded, betrayed
+        me!
+    You, who lived under my roof, whom I cherished and loved as a brother;
+    Henceforth let there be nothing between us save war, and implacable
+        hatred!"
+
+    So spake the Captain of Plymouth, and strode about in the chamber,
+    Chafing and choking with rage; like cords were the veins on his
+        temples.
+    But in the midst of his anger a man appeared at the doorway,
+    Bringing in uttermost haste a message of urgent importance,
+    Rumors of danger and war and hostile incursions of Indians!
+    Straightway the Captain paused, and, without further question or
+        parley,
+    Took from the nail on the wall his sword with its scabbard of iron,
+    Buckled the belt round his waist, and, frowning fiercely, departed.
+    Alden was left alone. He heard the clank of the scabbard
+    Growing fainter and fainter, and dying away in the distance.
+    Then he arose from his seat, and looked forth into the darkness,
+    Felt the cool air blow on his cheek, that was hot with the insult,
+    Lifted his eyes to the heavens and, folding his hands as in childhood,
+    Prayed in the silence of night to the Father who seeth in secret.
+
+
+    III.
+
+A report comes to the settlement that Miles Standish has been killed in
+a fight with the Indians. John Alden, feeling that Standish's death has
+freed him from the need of keeping his own love for Priscilla silent,
+woos and wins her. At last the wedding-day arrives.
+
+    This was the wedding-morn of Priscilla the Puritan maiden.
+    Friends were assembled together; the Elder and Magistrate also
+    Graced the scene with their presence, and stood like the Law and the
+        Gospel,
+    One with the sanction of earth and one with the blessing of heaven.
+    Simple and brief was the wedding, as that of Ruth and of Boaz.
+    Softly the youth and the maiden repeated the words of betrothal,
+    Taking each other for husband and wife in the Magistrate's presence,
+    After the Puritan way, and the laudable custom of Holland.
+    Fervently then, and devoutly, the excellent Elder of Plymouth
+    Prayed for the hearth and the home, that were founded that day in
+        affection,
+    Speaking of life and death, and imploring Divine benedictions.
+    Lo! when the service was ended, a form appeared on the threshold,
+    Clad in armor of steel, a somber and sorrowful figure!
+    Why does the bridegroom start and stare at the strange apparition?
+    Why does the bride turn pale, and hide her face on his shoulder?
+    Is it a phantom of air,--a bodiless, spectral illusion?
+    Is it a ghost from the grave, that has come to forbid the betrothal?
+    Long had it stood there unseen, a guest uninvited, unwelcomed;
+    Over its clouded eyes there had passed at times an expression
+    Softening the gloom and revealing the warm heart hidden beneath them.
+    Once it had lifted its hand, and moved its lips, but was silent,
+    As if an iron will had mastered the fleeting intention;
+    But when were ended the troth and the prayer and the last benediction,
+    Into the room it strode, and the people beheld with amazement
+    Bodily there in his armor Miles Standish, the Captain of Plymouth!
+
+    Grasping the bridegroom's hand, he said with emotion, "Forgive me!
+    I have been angry and hurt,--too long have I cherished the feeling;
+    I have been cruel and hard, but now, thank God! it is ended.
+    Mine is the same hot blood that leaped in the veins of Hugh Standish,
+    Sensitive, swift to resent, but as swift in atoning for error.
+    Never so much as now was Miles Standish the friend of John Alden."
+    Thereupon answered the bridegroom: "Let all be forgotten between us,--
+    All save the dear old friendship, and that shall grow older and
+        dearer!"
+    Then the Captain advanced, and, bowing, saluted Priscilla,
+    Wishing her joy of her wedding, and loudly lauding her husband.
+    Then he said with a smile: "I should have remembered the adage,--
+    If you would be well served, you must serve yourself; and, moreover,
+    No man can gather cherries in Kent at the season of Christmas!"
+
+    Great was the people's amazement, and greater yet their rejoicing,
+    Thus to behold once more the sunburnt face of their Captain,
+    Whom they had mourned as dead; and they gathered and crowded about him,
+    Eager to see him and hear him, forgetful of bride and of bridegroom,
+    Questioning, answering, laughing, and each interrupting the other,
+    Till the good Captain declared, being quite overpowered and bewildered,
+    He had rather by far break into an Indian encampment,
+    Than come again to a wedding to which he had not been invited.
+    Meanwhile the bridegroom went forth and stood with the bride at the
+        doorway,
+    Breathing the perfumed air of that warm and beautiful morning.
+    Touched with autumnal tints, but lonely and sad in the sunshine,
+    Lay extended before them the land of toil and privation;
+    But to their eyes transfigured, it seemed as the Garden of Eden,
+    Filled with the presence of God, whose voice was the sound of the
+        ocean.
+    Soon was their vision disturbed by the noise and stir of departure,
+    Friends coming forth from the house, and impatient of longer delaying.
+    Then from a stall near at hand, amid exclamations of wonder,
+    Alden the thoughtful, the careful, so happy, so proud of Priscilla,
+    Brought out his snow-white bull, obeying the hand of its master,
+    Led by a cord that was tied to an iron ring in its nostrils,
+    Covered with crimson cloth, and a cushion placed for a saddle.
+    She should not walk, he said, through the dust and heat of the noonday;
+    Nay, she should ride like a queen, not plod along like a peasant.
+    Somewhat alarmed at first, but reassured by the others,
+    Placing her hand on the cushion, her foot in the hand of her husband,
+    Gayly, with joyous laugh, Priscilla mounted her palfrey.
+    Onward the bridal procession now moved to the new habitation,
+    Happy husband and wife, and friends conversing together.
+    Down through the golden leaves the sun was pouring his splendors,
+    Gleaming on purple grapes, that, from branches above them suspended,
+    Mingled their odorous breath with the balm of the pine and the
+        fir-tree,
+    Wild and sweet as the clusters that grew in the valley of [v]Eshcol.
+    Like a picture it seemed of the primitive, pastoral ages,
+    Fresh with the youth of the world, and recalling Rebecca and Isaac,
+    Old and yet ever new, and simple and beautiful always,
+    Love immortal and young in the endless succession of lovers,
+    So through the Plymouth woods passed onward the bridal procession.
+
+HENRY W. LONGFELLOW.
+
+
+=HELPS TO STUDY=
+
+Miles Standish was one of the early settlers of Plymouth colony. He came
+over soon after the landing of the _Mayflower_ and was made captain of
+the colony because of his military experience. The feeble settlement was
+in danger from the Indians, and Standish's services were of great
+importance. He was one of the leaders of Plymouth for a number of years.
+Longfellow shaped the legend of his courtship into one of the most
+beautiful poems of American literature, vividly describing the hardships
+and perils of the early life of New England.
+
+     I. Where is the scene of the story laid? At what time did it begin?
+     What is the first impression you get of Miles Standish? of John
+     Alden? Read the lines that bring out the soldierly qualities of the
+     one and the studious nature of the other. What lines show that
+     Standish had fought on foreign soil? Read the lines that show John
+     Alden's interest in Priscilla. What request did Standish make of
+     Alden? How was it received? Why did Alden accept the task?
+
+     II. What time of the year was it? How do you know? Contrast Alden's
+     feelings with the scene around him. What were Priscilla's feelings
+     toward Alden? Quote lines that show this. How did he fulfill his
+     task? With what question did Priscilla finally meet his eloquent
+     appeal in behalf of his friend? How did Standish receive Alden's
+     report? What interruption occurred?
+
+     III. What report brought about the marriage of John Alden and
+     Priscilla? Read the lines that describe the beauty of their
+     wedding-day. What time of year was it? How do you know? What custom
+     was followed in the marriage ceremony? Look in the Bible for a
+     description of the marriage of Ruth and Boaz. Find other biblical
+     references in the poem. Who appeared at the end of the ceremony?
+     How was he received? Contrast his mood now with the mood when he
+     left to fight the Indians. What adage did he use to show the
+     difference between his age and Priscilla's? Describe the final
+     scene of the wedding--the procession to the new home. Tell what you
+     know of early life in Massachusetts.
+
+
+SUPPLEMENTARY READING
+
+     Gareth and Lynette--Alfred Tennyson.
+     The Courtin'--James Russell Lowell.
+     Evangeline--Henry W. Longfellow.
+
+
+
+
+THE FRIENDSHIP OF NANTAQUAS
+
+
+     This story is taken from Mary Johnston's novel, _To Have and to
+     Hold_, which describes the early settlement of Virginia. The most
+     important event of this period was the Indian massacre of 1622. For
+     some years the whites and Indians had lived in peace, and it was
+     believed that there would be no further trouble from the savages.
+     However, Opechancanough, the head chief of the Powhatan
+     confederacy, formed a plot against the white men and suddenly
+     attacked them with great fury. Hundreds of the English settlers
+     were slain. The author of the novel, taking the bare outline of the
+     massacre as given in the early histories, has woven around it the
+     graphic story of Captain Ralph Percy and his saving of the colony.
+     Percy, unlike Miles Standish, is not a historical character.
+
+
+I.
+
+A man who hath been a soldier and adventurer into far and strange
+countries must needs have faced Death many times and in many guises. I
+had learned to know that grim countenance, and to have no great fear of
+it. The surprise of our sudden capture by the Indians had now worn away,
+and I no longer struggled to loose my bonds, Indian-tied and not to be
+loosened.
+
+Another slow hour and I bethought me of Diccon, my servant and companion
+in captivity, and spoke to him, asking him how he did. He answered from
+the other side of the lodge that was our prison, but the words were
+scarcely out of his mouth before our guard broke in upon us, commanding
+silence.
+
+It was now moonlight without the lodge and very quiet. The night was far
+gone; already we could smell the morning, and it would come apace.
+Knowing the swiftness of that approach and what the early light would
+bring, I strove for a courage which should be the steadfastness of the
+Christian and not the vainglorious pride of the heathen.
+
+Suddenly, in the first gray dawn, as at a trumpet's call, the village
+awoke. From the long communal houses poured forth men, women, and
+children; fires sprang up, dispersing the mist, and a commotion arose
+through the length and breadth of the place. The women made haste with
+their cooking and bore maize cakes and broiled fish to the warriors, who
+sat on the ground in front of the royal lodge. Diccon and I were loosed,
+brought without, and allotted our share of the food. We ate sitting side
+by side with our captors, and Diccon, with a great cut across his head,
+even made merry.
+
+In the usual order of things in an Indian village, the meal over,
+tobacco should have followed. But now not a pipe was lit, and the women
+made haste to take away the platters and to get all things in readiness
+for what was to follow. The [v]werowance of the [v]Paspaheghs rose to
+his feet, cast aside his mantle, and began to speak. He was a man in the
+prime of life, of a great figure, strong as a [v]Susquehannock, and a
+savage cruel and crafty beyond measure. Over his breast, stained with
+strange figures, hung a chain of small bones, and the scalp locks of his
+enemies fringed his moccasins. No player could be more skillful in
+gesture and expression, no poet more nice in the choice of words, no
+general more quick to raise a wild enthusiasm in the soldiers to whom he
+called. All Indians are eloquent, but this savage was a leader among
+them.
+
+He spoke now to some effect. Commencing with a day in the moon of
+blossoms when for the first time winged canoes brought white men into
+the [v]Powhatan, he came down through year after year to the present
+hour, ceased, and stood in silence, regarding his triumph. It was
+complete. In its wild excitement the village was ready then and there to
+make an end of us, who had sprung to our feet and stood with our backs
+against a great bay tree, facing the maddened throng. Much the best
+would it be for us if the tomahawks left the hands that were drawn back
+to throw, if the knives that were flourished in our faces should be
+buried to the haft in our hearts; and so we courted death, striving with
+word and look to infuriate our executioners to the point of forgetting
+their former purpose in the passion for instant vengeance. It was not to
+be. The werowance spoke again, pointing to the hills which were dimly
+seen through the mist. A moment, and the hands clenched upon the weapons
+fell; another, and we were upon the march.
+
+As one man, the village swept through the forest toward the rising
+ground that was but a few bowshots away. The young men bounded ahead to
+make the preparation; but the approved warriors and the old men went
+more sedately, and with them walked Diccon and I, as steady of step as
+they. The women and children for the most part brought up the rear,
+though a few impatient hags ran past us. One of these women bore a great
+burning torch, the flame and smoke streaming over her shoulder as she
+ran. Others carried pieces of bark heaped with the [v]slivers of pine of
+which every wigwam has store.
+
+The sun was yet to rise when we reached a hollow amongst the low red
+hills. The place was a natural amphitheater, well fitted for a
+spectacle. Those Indians who could not crowd into the narrow level
+spread themselves over the rising ground and looked down with fierce
+laughter upon the driving of the stakes which the young men had brought.
+The women and children scattered into the woods beyond the cleft between
+the hills and returned bearing great armfuls of dry branches. Taunting
+laughter, cries of savage triumph, the shaking of rattles, and the
+furious beating of two great drums combined to make a clamor deafening
+me to stupor. Above the horizon was the angry reddening of the heavens
+and the white mist curling up like smoke.
+
+I sat down beside Diccon on the log. I did not speak to him, nor he to
+me; there seemed no need of speech. In the [v]pandemonium to which the
+world had narrowed, the one familiar, matter-of-course thing was that he
+and I were to die together.
+
+The stakes were in the ground and painted red, the wood was properly
+fixed. The Indian woman who held the torch that was to light the pile
+ran past us, whirling the wood around her head to make it blaze more
+fiercely. As she went by she lowered the brand and slowly dragged it
+across my wrists. The beating of the drums suddenly ceased, and the loud
+voices died away.
+
+Seeing that they were coming for us, Diccon and I rose to await them.
+When they were nearly upon us, I turned to him and held out my hand.
+
+He made no motion to take it. Instead, he stood with fixed eyes looking
+past me and slightly upward. A sudden pallor had overspread the bronze
+of his face.
+
+"There's a verse somewhere," he said in a quiet voice,--"it's in the
+Bible, I think--I heard it once long ago: 'I will look unto the hills
+from whence cometh my help.' Look, sir!"
+
+I turned and followed with my eyes the pointing of his finger. In front
+of us the bank rose steeply, bare to the summit,--no trees, only the red
+earth, with here and there a low growth of leafless bushes. Behind it
+was the eastern sky. Upon the crest, against the sunrise, stood the
+figure of a man--an Indian. From one shoulder hung an otterskin, and a
+great bow was in his hand. His limbs were bare, and as he stood
+motionless, bathed in the rosy light, he looked like some bronze god,
+perfect from the beaded moccasins to the calm, uneager face below the
+feathered head-dress. He had but just risen above the brow of the hill;
+the Indians in the hollow saw him not.
+
+While Diccon and I stared, our tormentors were upon us. They came a
+dozen or more at once, and we had no weapons. Two hung on my arms, while
+a third laid hold of my doublet to rend it from me. An arrow whistled
+over our heads and stuck into a tree behind us. The hands that clutched
+me dropped, and with a yell the busy throng turned their faces in the
+direction whence had come the arrow.
+
+The Indian who had sent that dart before him was descending the bank. An
+instant's breathless hush while they stared at the solitary figure; then
+the dark forms bent forward for the rush straightened, and there arose a
+cry of recognition. "The son of Powhatan! The son of Powhatan!"
+
+He came down the hillside to the level of the hollow, the authority of
+his look and gesture making way for him through the crowd that surged
+this way and that, and walked up to us where we stood, hemmed round but
+no longer in the clutch of our enemies.
+
+"You were never more welcome, Nantaquas," I said to him, heartily.
+
+Taking my hand in his, the chief turned to his frowning countrymen. "Men
+of the [v]Pamunkeys!" he cried, "this is Nantaquas' friend, and so the
+friend of all the tribes that called Powhatan 'father.' The fire is not
+for him nor for his servant; keep it for the [v]Monacans and for the
+dogs of the [v]Long House! The calumet is for the friend of Nantaquas,
+and the dance of the maidens, the noblest buck and the best of the
+fish-weirs."
+
+There was a surging forward of the Indians and a fierce murmur of
+dissent. The werowance, standing out from the throng, lifted his voice.
+"There was a time," he cried, "when Nantaquas was the panther crouched
+upon the bough above the leader of the herd; now Nantaquas is a tame
+panther and rolls at the white men's feet! There was a time when the
+word of the son of Powhatan weighed more than the lives of many dogs
+such as these, but I know not why we should put out the fire at his
+command! He is war chief no longer, for [v]Opechancanough will have no
+tame panther to lead the tribes. Opechancanough is our head, and he
+kindleth a fire indeed. We will give to this man what fuel we choose,
+and to-night Nantaquas may look for his bones!"
+
+He ended, and a great clamor arose. The Paspaheghs would have cast
+themselves upon us again but for a sudden action of the young chief, who
+had stood motionless, with raised hand and unmoved face, during the
+werowance's bitter speech. Now he flung up his hand, and in it was a
+bracelet of gold, carved and twisted like a coiled snake and set with a
+green stone. I had never seen the toy before, but evidently others had.
+The excited voices fell, and the Indians, Pamunkeys and Paspaheghs
+alike, stood as though turned to stone.
+
+Nantaquas smiled coldly. "This day hath Opechancanough made me war chief
+again. We have smoked the peace pipe together--my father's brother and
+I--in the starlight, sitting before his lodge, with the wide marshes and
+the river dark at our feet. Singing birds in the forest have been many;
+evil tales have they told; Opechancanough has stopped his ears against
+their false singing. My friends are his friends, my brother is his
+brother, my word is his word: witness the armlet that hath no like.
+Opechancanough is at hand; he comes through the forest with his two
+hundred warriors. Will you, when you lie at his feet, have him ask you,
+'Where is the friend of my friend, of my war chief?'"
+
+There came a long, deep breath from the Indians, then a silence in which
+they fell back, slowly and sullenly--whipped hounds but with the will to
+break that leash of fear.
+
+"Hark!" said Nantaquas, smiling. "I hear Opechancanough and his warriors
+coming over the leaves."
+
+The noise of many footsteps was indeed audible, coming toward the hollow
+from the woods beyond. With a burst of cries, the priests and the
+conjurer whirled away to bear the welcome of Okee to the royal
+worshipper, and at their heels went the chief men of the Pamunkeys. The
+werowance of the Paspaheghs was one that sailed with the wind; he
+listened to the deepening sound and glanced at the son of Powhatan where
+he stood, calm and confident, then smoothed his own countenance and made
+a most pacific speech, in which all the blame of the late proceedings
+was laid upon the singing birds. When he had done speaking, the young
+men tore the stakes from the earth and threw them into a thicket, while
+the women plucked apart the newly kindled fire and flung the brands into
+a little nearby stream, where they went out in a cloud of hissing steam.
+
+I turned to the Indian who had wrought this miracle. "Art sure it is not
+a dream, Nantaquas? I think that Opechancanough would not lift a finger
+to save me from all the deaths the tribes could invent."
+
+"Opechancanough is very wise," he answered quietly. "He says that now
+the English will believe in his love indeed when they see that he holds
+dear even one who might be called his enemy, who hath spoken against him
+at the Englishmen's council fire. He says that for five suns Captain
+Percy shall feast with him, and then shall go back free to Jamestown. He
+thinks that then Captain Percy will not speak against him any more,
+calling his love to the white men only words with no good deeds
+behind."
+
+He spoke simply, out of the nobility of his nature, believing his own
+speech. I that was older, and had more knowledge of men and the masks
+they wear, was but half deceived. My belief in the hatred of the dark
+emperor was not shaken, and I looked yet to find the drop of poison
+within this honey flower. How poisoned was that bloom, God knows I could
+not guess!
+
+By this time we three were alone in the hollow, for all the savages, men
+and women, had gone forth to meet the Indian whose word was law from the
+falls of the far west to the Chesapeake. The sun now rode above the low
+hills, pouring its gold into the hollow and brightening all the world
+besides. A chant raised by the Indians grew nearer, and the rustling of
+the leaves beneath many feet more loud and deep; then all noise ceased
+and Opechancanough entered the hollow alone. An eagle feather was thrust
+through his scalp lock; over his naked breast, which was neither painted
+nor pricked into strange figures, hung a triple row of pearls; his
+mantle was woven of bluebird feathers, as soft and sleek as satin. The
+face of this barbarian was as dark, cold, and impassive as death. Behind
+that changeless mask, as in a safe retreat, the subtle devil that was
+the man might plot destruction and plan the laying of dreadful mines.
+
+I stepped forward and met him on the spot where the fire had been. For a
+minute neither spoke. It was true that I had striven against him many a
+time, and I knew that he knew it. It was also true that without his aid
+Nantaquas could not have rescued us from that dire peril. And it was
+again the truth that an Indian neither forgives nor forgets. He was my
+saviour, and I knew that mercy had been shown for some dark reason which
+I could not divine. Yet I owed him thanks and gave them as shortly and
+simply as I could.
+
+He heard me out with neither liking nor disliking nor any other emotion
+written upon his face; but when I had finished, as though he had
+suddenly bethought himself, he smiled and held out his hand, white-man
+fashion.
+
+"Singing birds have lied to Captain Percy," he said. "Opechancanough
+thinks that Captain Percy will never listen to them again. The chief of
+the Powhatans is a lover of the white men, of the English, and of other
+white men. He would call the Englishmen his brothers and be taught of
+them how to rule and to whom to pray"--
+
+"Let Opechancanough go with me to Jamestown," I replied. "He hath the
+wisdom of the woods; let him come and gain that of the town."
+
+The emperor smiled again. "I will come to Jamestown soon, but not to-day
+or to-morrow or the next day. And Captain Percy must smoke the peace
+pipe in my lodge above the Pamunkey and watch my young men and maidens
+dance, and eat with me five days. Then he may go back to Jamestown with
+presents for the great white father there and with a message from me
+that I am coming soon to learn of the white man."
+
+For five days I tarried in the great chief's lodge in his own village
+above the marshes of the Pamunkey. I will allow that the dark emperor to
+whom we were so much beholden gave us courteous keeping. The best of the
+hunt was ours, the noblest fish, the most delicate roots. We were alive
+and sound of limb, well treated and with the promise of release; we
+might have waited, seeing that wait we must, in some measure of content.
+We did not so. There was a horror in the air. From the marshes that were
+growing green, from the sluggish river, from the rotting leaves and cold
+black earth and naked forest, it rose like an [v]exhalation. We knew not
+what it was, but we breathed it in, and it went to the marrow of our
+bones.
+
+The savage emperor we rarely saw, though we were bestowed so near to him
+that his sentinels served for ours. Like some god, he kept within his
+lodge, the hanging mats between him and the world without. At other
+times, issuing from that retirement, he would stride away into the
+forest. Picked men went with him, and they were gone for hours; but when
+they returned they bore no trophies, brute or human. What they did we
+could not guess. If escape had been possible, we would not have awaited
+the doubtful fulfillment of the promise made us. But the vigilance of
+the Indians never slept; they watched us like hawks, night and day.
+
+In the early morning of the fifth day, when we came from our wigwam, it
+was to find Nantaquas sitting by the fire, magnificent in the paint and
+trappings of the ambassador, motionless as a piece of bronze and
+apparently quite unmindful of the admiring glances of the women who
+knelt about the fire preparing our breakfast. When he saw us he rose and
+came to meet us, and I embraced him, I was so glad to see him.
+
+"The Rappahannocks feasted me long," he said. "I was afraid that Captain
+Percy would be gone to Jamestown before I was back on the Pamunkey."
+
+"Shall I ever see Jamestown again, Nantaquas?" I demanded. "I have my
+doubts."
+
+He looked me full in the eyes, and there was no doubting the candor of
+his own. "You go with the next sunrise," he answered. "Opechancanough
+has given me his word."
+
+"I am glad to hear it," I said. "Why have we been kept at all? Why did
+he not free us five days agone?"
+
+He shook his head. "I do not know. Opechancanough has many thoughts
+which he shares with no man. But now he will send you with presents for
+the governor, and with messages of his love for the white men. There
+will be a great feast to-day, and to-night the young men and maidens
+will dance before you. Then in the morning you will go."
+
+When we had sat by the fire for an hour, the old men and the warriors
+came to visit us, and the smoking began. The women laid mats in a great
+half circle, and each savage took his seat with perfect breeding: that
+is, in absolute silence and with a face like a stone. The peace paint
+was upon them all--red, or red and white--and they sat and looked at the
+ground until I had made the speech of welcome. Soon the air was dense
+with fragrant smoke; in the thick blue haze the sweep of painted figures
+had the seeming of some fantastic dream. An old man arose and made a
+long and touching speech, with much reference to calumets and buried
+hatchets. Then they waited for my contribution of honeyed words. The
+Pamunkeys, living at a distance from the settlements, had but little
+English, and the learning of the Paspaheghs was not much greater. I
+repeated to them the better part of a canto of Master Spenser's _Faery
+Queen_, after which I told them the moving story of the Moor of Venice.
+It answered the purpose to admiration.
+
+The day wore on, with relay after relay of food, which we must taste at
+least, with endless smoking of pipes and speeches which must be listened
+to and answered. When evening came and our entertainers drew off to
+prepare for the dance, they left us as wearied as by a long day's march.
+
+Suddenly, as we sat staring at the fire, we were beset by a band of
+maidens, coming out of the woods, painted, with antlers upon their heads
+and pine branches in their hands. They danced about us, now advancing
+until the green needles met above our heads, now retreating until there
+was a space of turf between us. They moved with grace, keeping time to a
+plaintive song, now raised by the whole choir, now fallen to a single
+voice.
+
+The Indian girls danced more and more swiftly, and their song changed,
+becoming gay and shrill and sweet. Higher and higher rang the notes,
+faster and faster moved the dark feet; then quite suddenly song and
+motion ceased together. From the darkness now came a burst of savage
+cries only less appalling than the war whoop itself. In a moment the men
+of the village had rushed from the shadow of the trees into the broad,
+firelit space before us. They circled around us, then around the fire;
+now each man danced and stamped and muttered to himself. For the most
+part they were painted red, but some were white from head to
+heel--statues come to life--while others had first oiled their bodies,
+then plastered them over with small, bright-colored feathers.
+
+Diccon and I watched that uncouth spectacle, that Virginian [v]masque,
+as we had watched many another one, with disgust and weariness. It would
+last, we knew, for the better part of the night. For a time we must stay
+and testify our pleasure, but after a while we might retire, and leave
+the women and children the sole spectators. They never wearied of gazing
+at the rhythmic movement.
+
+I observed that among the ranks of the women one girl watched not the
+dancers but us. Now and then she glanced impatiently at the wheeling
+figures, but her eyes always returned to us. At length I became aware
+that she must have some message to deliver or warning to give. Once when
+I made a slight motion as if to go to her, she shook her head and laid
+her finger on her lips.
+
+Presently I rose and, making my way to the werowance of the village,
+where he sat with his eyes fixed on the spectacle, told him that I was
+wearied and would go to my hut, to rest for the few hours that yet
+remained of the night. He listened dreamily, but made no offer to escort
+me. After a moment he acquiesced in my departure, and Diccon and I
+quietly left the press of savages and began to cross the firelit turf
+between them and our lodge. When we had reached its entrance, we paused
+and looked back to the throng we had left. Every back seemed turned to
+us, every eye intent upon the leaping figures. Swiftly and silently we
+walked across the bit of even ground to the friendly trees and found
+ourselves in a thin strip of shadow. Beneath the trees, waiting for us,
+was the Indian maid. She would not speak or tarry, but flitted before us
+as dusk and noiseless as a moth, and we followed her into the darkness
+beyond the firelight. Here a wigwam rose in our path; the girl, holding
+aside the mats that covered the entrance, motioned to us to enter. A
+fire was burning within the lodge and it showed us Nantaquas standing
+with folded arms.
+
+"Nantaquas!" I exclaimed, and would have touched him but that with a
+slight motion of his hand he kept me back.
+
+"Well!" I asked at last. "What is the matter, my friend?"
+
+For a full minute he made no answer, and when he did speak his voice
+matched his strained and troubled features.
+
+"My _friend_," he said, "I am going to show myself a friend indeed to
+the English, to the strangers who were not content with their own
+hunting-grounds beyond the great salt water. When I have done this, I do
+not know that Captain Percy will call me 'friend'."
+
+"You were wont to speak plainly, Nantaquas," I answered him. "I am not
+fond of riddles."
+
+Again he waited, as though he found speech difficult. I stared at him in
+amazement, he was so changed in so short a time.
+
+He spoke at last: "When the dance is over and the fires are low and the
+sunrise is at hand, Opechancanough will come to you to bid you farewell.
+He will give you the pearls he wears about his neck for a present to the
+governor and a bracelet for yourself. Also he will give you three men
+for a guard through the forest. He has messages of love to send the
+white men, and he would send them by you who were his enemy and his
+captive. So all the white men shall believe in his love."
+
+"Well!" I said drily as he paused. "I will bear the messages. What
+next?"
+
+"Your guards will take you slowly through the forest, stopping to eat
+and sleep. For them there is no need to run like the stag with the
+hunter behind it."
+
+"Then we should make for Jamestown as for life," I said, "not sleeping
+or eating or making pause?"
+
+"Yes," he replied, "if you would not die, you and all your people."
+
+In the silence of the hut the fire crackled, and the branches of the
+trees outside, bent by the wind, made a grating sound against the bark
+roof.
+
+"How die?" I asked at last. "Speak out!"
+
+"Die by the arrow and the tomahawk," he answered,--"yea, and by the guns
+you have given the red men. To-morrow's sun, and the next, and the
+next--three suns--and the tribes will fall upon the English. At the same
+hour, when the men are in the fields and the women and children are in
+the houses, they will strike--all the tribes, as one man; and from where
+the Powhatan falls over the rocks to the salt water beyond Accomac,
+there will not be one white man left alive."
+
+He ceased to speak, and for a minute the fire made the only sound in the
+hut. Then I asked, "All die? There are three thousand Englishmen in
+Virginia."
+
+"They are scattered and unwarned. The fighting men of the villages of
+the Powhatan and the Pamunkey and the great bay are many, and they have
+sharpened their hatchets and filled their quivers with arrows."
+
+"Scattered!" I cried. "Strewn broadcast up and down the river--here a
+lonely house, there a cluster of two or three--the men in the fields or
+at the wharves, the women and children busy within doors, all unwarned!"
+
+I leaned against the side of the hut, for my heart beat like a
+frightened woman's. "Three days!" I exclaimed. "If we go with all our
+speed, we shall be in time. When did you learn this thing?"
+
+"While you watched the dance," the Indian answered, "Opechancanough and
+I sat within his lodge in the darkness. His heart was moved, and he
+talked to me of his own youth in a strange country, south of the sunset.
+Also he spoke to me of Powhatan, my father--of how wise he was and how
+great a chief before the English came, and how he hated them. And
+then--then I heard what I have told you!"
+
+"How long has this been planned?"
+
+"For many moons. I have been a child, fooled and turned aside from the
+trail; not wise enough to see it beneath the flowers, through the smoke
+of the peace pipes."
+
+"Why does Opechancanough send us back to the settlements?" I demanded.
+
+"It is his fancy. Every hunter and trader and learner of our tongues,
+living in the villages or straying in the woods, has been sent back to
+Jamestown or his home with presents and fair words. You will lull the
+English in Jamestown into a faith in the smiling sky just before the
+storm bursts on them in fullest fury."
+
+There was a pause.
+
+"Nantaquas," I said, "you are not the first child of Powhatan who has
+loved and shielded the white men."
+
+"Pocahontas was a woman, a child," he answered. "Out of pity she saved
+your lives, not knowing that it was to the hurt of her people. Then you
+were few and weak and could not take your revenge. Now, if you die not,
+you will drink deep of vengeance--so deep that your lips may never leave
+the cup. More ships will come, and more; you will grow ever stronger.
+There may come a moon when the deep forests and the shining rivers will
+know us, to whom [v]Kiwassa gave them, no more."
+
+"You will be with your people in the war?" I asked.
+
+"I am an Indian," was his simple reply.
+
+"Come against us if you will," I returned. "Nobly warned, fair upon our
+guard, we will meet you as knightly foe should be met."
+
+Very slowly he raised his arm from his side and held out his hand. His
+eyes met mine in somber inquiry, half eager, half proudly doubtful. I
+went to him at once and took his hand in mine. No word was spoken.
+Presently he withdrew his hand from my clasp, and, putting his finger to
+his lips, whistled low to the Indian girl. She drew aside the mats, and
+we passed out, Diccon and I, leaving him standing as we had found him,
+upright against the post, in the red firelight.
+
+Should we ever go through the woods, pass through that gathering storm,
+reach Jamestown, warn them there of the death that was rushing upon
+them? Should we ever leave that hated village? Would the morning ever
+come? It was an alarm that was sounding, and there were only two to
+hear; miles away beneath the mute stars English men and women lay
+asleep, with the hour thundering at their gates, and there was none to
+cry, "Awake!" I could have cried out in that agony of waiting, with the
+leagues on leagues to be traveled and the time so short! I saw, in my
+mind's eye, the dark warriors gathering, tribe on tribe, war party on
+war party, thick crowding shadows of death, slipping through the silent
+forest ... and in the clearings the women and children!
+
+It came to an end, as all things earthly will. When the ruffled pools
+amid the marshes were rosy red beneath the sunrise, the women brought us
+food, and the warriors and old men gathered about us. I offered them
+bread and meat and told them that they must come to Jamestown to taste
+the white man's cookery.
+
+Scarcely was the meal over when Opechancanough issued from his lodge,
+and, coming slowly up to us, took his seat upon the white mat that was
+spread for him. Through his scalp lock was stuck an eagle's feather;
+across his face, from temple to chin, was a bar of red paint; the eyes
+above were very bright and watchful.
+
+One of his young men brought a great pipe, carved and painted, stem and
+bowl; it was filled with tobacco, lit, and borne to the emperor. He put
+it to his lips and smoked in silence, while the sun climbed higher and
+higher and the golden minutes that were more precious than heart's blood
+went by swiftly.
+
+At last, his part in the solemn mockery played, he held out the pipe to
+me.
+
+"The sky will fall, and the rivers will run dry, and the birds cease to
+sing," he said, "before the smoke of this peace-pipe fades from the
+land."
+
+I took the symbol of peace and smoked it as silently and soberly as he
+had done before me, then laid it leisurely aside and held out my hand.
+
+"Come to Jamestown," I said, "to smoke of the Englishman's pipe and
+receive rich presents--a red robe like your brother Powhatan, and a cup
+from which you shall drink, you and all your people."
+
+But the cup I meant was that of punishment.
+
+The savage laid his dark fingers in mine for an instant, withdrew them,
+and, rising to his feet, motioned to three Indians who stood out from
+the throng of warriors.
+
+"These are Captain Percy's guides and friends," he announced. "The sun
+is high; it is time that he was gone. Here are presents for him and my
+brother the governor." As he spoke, he took from his neck the rope of
+pearls and from his arm a copper bracelet, and laid both upon my palm.
+
+"Thank you, Opechancanough," I said briefly. "When we meet again I will
+not greet you with empty thanks."
+
+We bade farewell to the noisy throng and went down to the river, where
+we found a canoe and rowers, crossed the stream, and entered the forest,
+which stretched black and forbidding before us--the blacker that we now
+knew the dreadful secret it guarded.
+
+
+II
+
+     After leaving the Indian village, Captain Percy and Diccon found
+     that their guides purposely delayed the march, so that they would
+     not reach Jamestown until just before the beginning of the attack,
+     when it would be too late for them to warn the English, if they
+     suspected anything. Percy and Diccon, in this dilemma, surprised
+     the Indian guides and killed them, then hurried on with all
+     possible speed toward Jamestown. As they hastened through the
+     forest, Diccon was shot by an Indian and mortally wounded; Captain
+     Percy remained with him until his death, and again took up the
+     journey, now alone and greatly fearing that he would arrive too
+     late.
+
+The dusk had quite fallen when I reached the neck of land. Arriving at
+the palisade that protected Jamestown, I beat upon the gate and called
+to the warden to open. He did so with starting eyes. Giving him a few
+words and cautioning him to raise no alarm in the town, I hurried by him
+into the street and down it toward the house that was set aside for the
+governor of Virginia, Sir Francis Wyatt.
+
+The governor's door was open, and in the hall servingmen were moving to
+and fro. When I came in upon them, they cried out as if it had been a
+ghost, and one fellow let a silver dish fall to the floor with a
+clatter. They shook with fright and stood back as I passed them without
+a word and went on to the governor's great room. The door was ajar, and
+I pushed it open and stood for a minute on the threshold. They were all
+there--the principal men of the colony, the governor, the [v]treasurer,
+[v]West, [v]John Rolfe.
+
+At sight of me the governor sprang to his feet; through the treasurer's
+lips came a long, sighing breath; West's dark face was ashen. I came
+forward to the table, and leaned my weight upon it; for all the waves of
+the sea were roaring in my ears and the lights were going up and down.
+
+"Are you man or spirit!" cried Rolfe through white lips. "Are you Ralph
+Percy?"
+
+"Yes," I said, "I am Percy."
+
+With an effort I drew myself erect, and standing so, told my tidings,
+quietly and with circumstance, so as to leave no room for doubt as to
+their verity, or as to the sanity of him who brought them. They listened
+with shaking limbs and gasping breath; for it was the fall and wiping
+out of a people of which I brought warning.
+
+When all was told I thought to ask a question myself; but before my
+tongue could frame it, the roaring of the sea became so loud that I
+could hear naught else, and the lights all ran together into a wheel of
+fire. Then in a moment all sounds ceased and to the lights succeeded the
+blackness of outer darkness.
+
+When I awoke from the sleep into which I must have passed from that
+swoon, it was to find myself lying in a room flooded with sunshine. For
+a moment I lay still, wondering where I was and how I came there. A drum
+beat, a dog barked, and a man's quick voice gave a command. The sounds
+stung me into remembrance.
+
+There were many people in the street. Women hurried by to the fort with
+white, scared faces, their arms filled with household gear; children ran
+beside them; men went to and fro, the most grimly silent, but a few
+talking loudly.
+
+I could not see the palisade across the neck, but I knew that it was
+there that the fight--if fight there were--would be made. Should the
+Indians take the palisade, there would yet be the houses of the town,
+and, last of all, the fort in which to make a stand. I believed not that
+they would take it, for Indian warfare ran more to ambuscade and
+surprise than to assault in the open field.
+
+The drum beat again, and a messenger from the palisade came down the
+street at a run.
+
+"They're in the woods over against us, thicker than ants!" he cried to
+West, who was coming along the way. "A boat has just drifted ashore,
+with two men in it, dead and scalped!"
+
+I looked again at the neck of land and the forest beyond, and now, as if
+by magic, from the forest and up and down the river as far as the eye
+could reach, rose here and there thin columns of smoke. Suddenly, as I
+stared, three or four white smoke puffs, like giant flowers, started out
+of the shadowy woods across the neck. Following the crack of the
+muskets--fired out of pure bravado by the Indians--came the yelling of
+the savages. The sound was prolonged and deep, as though issuing from
+many throats.
+
+The street, when I went out into it, was very quiet. All windows and
+doors were closed and barred. The yelling from the forest had ceased for
+the moment, but I knew well that it would soon begin with doubled noise.
+I hurried along the street to the palisade, where all the men of
+Jamestown were gathered, armed and helmeted and breast-plated, waiting
+for the foe in grim silence.
+
+Through a loophole in the gate of the palisade I looked and saw the
+sandy neck joining the town to the mainland, and the deep and dark woods
+beyond, the fairy mantle giving invisibility to the foe. I drew back
+from my loophole and held out my hand to a woman for a loaded musket. A
+quick murmur like the drawing of a breath came from our line. The
+governor, standing near me, cast an anxious glance along the stretch of
+wooden stakes that were neither so high nor so thick as they should have
+been.
+
+"I am new to this warfare, Captain Percy," he said. "Do they think to
+use those logs they carry as battering rams?"
+
+"As scaling ladders, your honor," I replied. "It is possible that we may
+have some sword play after all."
+
+"We'll take your advice the next time we build a palisade, Ralph Percy,"
+muttered West on my other side. Mounting the breastwork that we had
+thrown up to shelter the women who were to load the muskets, he coolly
+looked over the pales at the oncoming savages.
+
+"Wait until they pass the blasted pine, men!" he cried. "Then give them
+a hail of lead that will beat them back to the Pamunkey."
+
+An arrow whistled by his ear; a second struck him on the shoulder but
+pierced not his coat of mail. He came down from his dangerous post with
+a laugh.
+
+"If the leader could be picked off"--I said. "It's a long shot, but
+there's no harm in trying."
+
+As I spoke I raised my gun to my shoulder, but West leaned across Rolfe,
+who stood between us, and plucked me by the sleeve.
+
+"You've not looked at him closely," he said. "Look again."
+
+I did as he told me, and lowered my musket. It was not for me to send
+that Indian leader to his account. Rolfe's lips tightened and a sudden
+pallor overspread his face. "Nantaquas?" he muttered in my ear, and I
+nodded yes.
+
+The volley that we fired full into the ranks of our foe was deadly, and
+we looked to see them turn and flee, as they had fled so often before at
+a hot volley. But this time they were led by one who had been trained in
+English steadfastness. Broken for the moment by our fire, they rallied
+and came on yelling, bearing logs, thick branches of trees, oars tied
+together--anything by whose help they could hope to surmount the
+palisade. We fired again, but they had planted their ladders. Before we
+could snatch the loaded muskets from the women a dozen painted figures
+appeared above the sharpened stakes. A moment, and they and a score
+behind them had leaped down upon us.
+
+It was no time now to skulk behind a palisade. At all hazards, that tide
+from the forest must be stemmed. Those that were among us we might kill,
+but more were swarming after them, and from the neck came the exultant
+yelling of madly hurrying reinforcements.
+
+We flung open the gates. I drove my sword through the heart of an Indian
+who would have opposed me, and, calling for my men to follow, sprang
+forward. Perhaps thirty came at my call; together we made for the
+opening. A party of the savages in our midst interposed. We set upon
+them with sword and musket butt, and though they fought like very devils
+drove them before us through the gateway. Behind us were wild clamor,
+the shrieking of women, the stern shouts of the English, the whooping of
+the savages; before us a rush that must be met and turned.
+
+It was done. A moment's fierce fighting, then the Indians wavered,
+broke, and fled. Like sheep we drove them before us, across the neck, to
+the edge of the forest, into which they plunged. Into that ambush we
+cared not to follow, but fell back to the palisade and the town,
+believing, and with reason, that the lesson had been taught. The strip
+of sand was strewn with the dead and the dying, but they belonged not to
+us. Our dead numbered but three, and we bore their bodies with us.
+
+Within the palisade we found the English in sufficiently good case. Of
+the score or more Indians cut off by us from their mates and penned
+within that death trap, half at least were already dead, run through
+with sword and pike, shot down with the muskets that there was now time
+to load. The remainder, hemmed about, pressed against the wall, were
+fast meeting with a like fate. They stood no chance against us; we cared
+not to make prisoners of them; it was a slaughter, but they had taken
+the [v]initiative. They fought with the courage of despair, striving to
+spring in upon us, and striking when they could with hatchet and knife.
+They were brave men that we slew that day.
+
+At last there was left but the leader--unharmed, unwounded, though time
+and again he had striven to close with some one of us, to strike and to
+die striking with his fellows. Behind him was the wall; of the half
+circle which he faced, well-nigh all were old soldiers and servants of
+the colony. We were swordsmen all. When in his desperation he would have
+thrown himself upon us, we contented ourselves with keeping him at
+sword's length, and at last West sent the knife in the dark hand
+whirling over the palisade. Some one had shouted to the musketeers to
+spare him.
+
+When he saw that he stood alone, he stepped back against the wall, drew
+himself up to his full height, and folded his arms. Perhaps he thought
+that we would shoot him down then and there; perhaps he saw himself a
+captive amongst us, a show for the idle and for the strangers that the
+ships brought in.
+
+The din had ceased, and we the living, the victors, stood and looked at
+the vanquished dead at our feet, and at the dead beyond the gates, and
+at the neck upon which was no living foe, and at the blue sky bending
+over all. Our hearts told us, and truly, that the lesson had been
+taught, and that no more forever need we at Jamestown fear an Indian
+attack. And then we looked at him whose life we had spared.
+
+He opposed our gaze with his folded arms and his head held high and his
+back against the wall. Slowly, as one man and with no spoken word, we
+fell back, the half circle straightening into a line, and leaving a
+clear pathway to the open gates. The wind had ceased to blow, and a
+sunny stillness lay upon the sand and the rough-hewn wooden stakes and a
+little patch of tender grass. The church bell began to ring.
+
+The Indian out of whose path to life and freedom we had stepped glanced
+from the line of lowered steel to the open gates and the forest beyond,
+and understood. For a full minute he waited, not moving a muscle, still
+and stately as some noble masterpiece in bronze. Then he stepped from
+the shadow of the wall and moved past us, with his eyes fixed on the
+forest; there was no change in the superb calm of his face. He went by
+the huddled dead and the long line of the living that spoke no word, and
+out of the gates and across the neck, walking slowly, that we might yet
+shoot him down if we saw fit to repent ourselves. He reached the shadow
+of the trees: a moment, and the forest had back her own.
+
+We sheathed our swords and listened to the governor's few earnest words
+of thankfulness and recognition; and then we set to work to search for
+ways to reach and aid those who might be yet alive in the plantations
+above and below us.
+
+Presently there came a great noise from the watchers on the river-bank,
+and a cry that boats were coming down the stream. It was so, and there
+were in them white men, nearly all of whom had wounds to show, and
+cowering women and children--all that were left of the people for miles
+along the James.
+
+Then began that strange procession that lasted throughout the afternoon
+and night and into the next day, when a sloop dropped down from
+[v]Henricus with the news that the English were in force there to stand
+their ground, although their loss had been heavy. Hour after hour they
+came as fast as sail and oar could bring them, the panic-stricken folk,
+whose homes were burned, whose kindred were slain, who had themselves
+escaped as by a miracle. Each boatload had the same tale to tell of
+treachery, surprise, and fiendish butchery.
+
+Before the dawning we had heard from all save the remoter settlements.
+The blow had been struck and the hurt was deep. But it was not beyond
+remedy, thank God! We took stern measures for our protection, and the
+wound to the colony was soon healed; vengeance was meted out to those
+who had set upon us in the dark and had failed to reach the heart. The
+colony of Virginia had passed through its greatest trial and had
+survived--for what greater ends, under Providence, I knew not.
+
+MARY JOHNSTON.
+
+
+=HELPS TO STUDY=
+
+     I. Describe the situation in which Percy and Diccon found
+     themselves. What preparations did the Indians make for the death of
+     the two men? How were they interrupted? Tell what happened after
+     the appearance of Nantaquas? How were the five days spent? How did
+     Nantaquas come to the rescue of the white men a second time? What
+     did Opechancanough do to try to deepen the impression of
+     friendship?
+
+     II. What happened on the way to Jamestown? Describe the scene when
+     Percy entered the governor's house. Give an account of the fight at
+     the palisade. Why was Nantaquas spared? What was the result of the
+     Indian attack? Give your opinion of Nantaquas. Of what Indian in
+     _The Last of the Mohicans_ does he remind you? Of whom does
+     Opechancanough remind you?
+
+     Find out all you can of life in Virginia at the time this story was
+     written. Compare the life there with the life in Plymouth colony.
+
+
+SUPPLEMENTARY READING
+
+     Prisoners of Hope--Mary Johnston.
+     My Lady Pokahontas--John Esten Cooke.
+     The Wept of Wish-ton-wish--J. Fenimore Cooper.
+     Hiawatha--Henry W. Longfellow.
+     Old Virginia and Her Neighbors--John Fiske.
+
+
+
+
+HARRY ESMOND'S BOYHOOD
+
+
+     _Henry Esmond_, by William Makepeace Thackeray, is considered one
+     of the greatest, if not the greatest, of historical novels. It
+     describes life in England during the first years of the eighteenth
+     century, dealing chiefly with people of wealth and high position.
+     "Harry Esmond's Boyhood" narrates the early career of the hero, who
+     was a poor orphan and an inmate of the family of his kinsman, the
+     Viscount of Castlewood.
+
+Harry Esmond had lived to be past fourteen years old; had never
+possessed but two friends, and had a fond and affectionate heart that
+would fain attach itself to somebody, and did not seem at rest until it
+had found a friend who would take charge of it.
+
+At last he found such a friend in his new mistress, the lady of
+Castlewood. The instinct which led Harry Esmond to admire and love the
+gracious person, the fair apparition whose beauty and kindness had so
+moved him when he first beheld her, became soon a devoted affection and
+passion of gratitude, which entirely filled his young heart that as yet
+had had very little kindness for which to be thankful.
+
+There seemed, as the boy thought, in every look or gesture of this fair
+creature, an angelical softness and bright pity--in motion or repose she
+seemed gracious alike; the tone of her voice, though she uttered words
+ever so trivial, gave him a pleasure that amounted almost to anguish. It
+cannot be called love, that a lad of fourteen years of age felt for an
+exalted lady, his mistress, but it was worship. To catch her glance; to
+divine her errand, and run on it before she had spoken it; to watch,
+follow, adore her, became the business of his life. Meanwhile, as is the
+way often, his idol had idols of her own, and never thought of or
+suspected the admiration of her little adorer.
+
+My Lady had on her side three idols: first and foremost, [v]Jove and
+supreme ruler, was her lord, Harry's patron, the good [v]Viscount of
+Castlewood. All wishes of his were laws with her. If he had a headache,
+she was ill. If he frowned, she trembled. If he joked, she smiled and
+was charmed. If he went a-hunting, she was always at the window to see
+him ride away. She made dishes for his dinner; spiced his wine for him;
+hushed the house when he slept in his chair, and watched for a look when
+he woke. Her eyes were never tired of looking at his face and wondering
+at its perfection. Her little son was his son, and had his father's look
+and curly brown hair. Her daughter Beatrix was his daughter, and had his
+eyes--were there ever such beautiful eyes in the world? All the house
+was arranged so as to bring him ease and give him pleasure.
+
+Harry Esmond was happy in this pleasant home. The happiest period of all
+his life was this; and the young mother, with her daughter and son, and
+the orphan lad whom she protected, read and worked and played, and were
+children together. If the lady looked forward--as what fond woman does
+not?--toward the future, she had no plans from which Harry Esmond was
+left out; and a thousand and a thousand times, in his passionate and
+impetuous way, he vowed that no power should separate him from his
+mistress; and only asked for some chance to happen by which he might
+show his [v]fidelity to her.
+
+The second fight which Harry Esmond had was at fourteen years of age,
+with Bryan Hawkshaw, Sir John Hawkshaw's son, who, advancing the opinion
+that Lady Castlewood henpecked my Lord, put Harry in so great a fury
+that Harry fell on him and with such rage that the other boy, who was
+two years older and far bigger than he, had by far the worst of the
+assault. It was interrupted by Doctor Tusher, the clergyman, who was
+just walking out of the dinner-room.
+
+Bryan Hawkshaw got up bleeding at the nose, having indeed been
+surprised, as many a stronger man might have been, by the fury of the
+attack on him.
+
+"You little beggar," he said, "I'll murder you for this."
+
+And indeed he was big enough.
+
+"Beggar or not," said Harry, grinding his teeth, "I have a couple of
+swords, and if you like to meet me, as man to man, on the terrace
+to-night--"
+
+And here, the doctor coming up, the [v]colloquy of the young champions
+ended. Very likely, big as he was, Hawkshaw did not care to continue a
+fight with such a ferocious opponent as this had been.
+
+One day, some time later, Doctor Tusher ran into Castlewood House, with
+a face of consternation, saying that smallpox had made its appearance at
+the blacksmith's house in the village, which was also an alehouse, and
+that one of the maids there was down with it.
+
+Now, there was a pretty girl at this inn, called Nancy Sievewright, a
+bouncing, fresh-looking lass, whose face was as red as the hollyhocks
+over the pales of the garden behind the inn. Somehow it often happened
+that Harry Esmond fell in with Nance Sievewright's bonny face. When
+Doctor Tusher brought the news that the smallpox was at the
+blacksmith's, Harry Esmond's first thought was of alarm for poor Nancy,
+and then of shame and disquiet for the Castlewood family, lest he might
+have brought this infection; for the truth is that Mr. Harry had been
+sitting in a back room for an hour that day, where Nancy Sievewright was
+with a little brother who complained of headache, and was lying crying
+in a chair by the corner of the fire or in Nancy's lap.
+
+Little Beatrix screamed at the news; and my Lord cried out, "God bless
+me!" He was a brave man, and not afraid of death in any shape but this.
+"We will take the children and ride away to Walcote," he said.
+
+To love children and be gentle with them was an instinct rather than
+merit in Harry Esmond; so much so that he thought almost with a feeling
+of shame of his liking for them and of the softness into which it
+betrayed him. On this day the poor fellow had not only had his young
+friend, the milkmaid's brother, on his knee, but had been drawing
+pictures and telling stories to the little Frank Castlewood, who was
+never tired of Harry's tales and of his pictures of soldiers and horses.
+As luck would have it, Beatrix had not on that evening taken her usual
+place, which generally she was glad enough to have, on Harry's knee. For
+Beatrix, from the earliest time, was jealous of every caress which was
+given her little brother Frank. She would fling away even from the
+[v]maternal arms, if she saw Frank had been there before her; insomuch
+that Lady Esmond was obliged not to show her love for her son in
+presence of the little girl, and embrace one or the other alone. Beatrix
+would turn pale and red with rage if she caught signs of intelligence or
+affection between Frank and his mother; would sit apart and not speak
+for a whole night if she thought the boy had a better fruit or a larger
+cake than hers; would fling away a ribbon if he had one, and would utter
+[v]infantile sarcasms about the favor shown her brother.
+
+So it chanced upon this very day, when poor Harry Esmond had had the
+blacksmith's son and the [v]peer's son, alike upon his knee, little
+Beatrix, who would come to him willingly enough with her book and
+writing, had refused him, seeing the place occupied by her brother.
+Luckily for her, she had sat at the farther end of the room, away from
+him, playing with a spaniel dog which she had, and talking to Harry
+Esmond over her shoulder, as she pretended to caress the dog, saying
+that Fido would love her, and she would love Fido and nothing but Fido
+all her life.
+
+When, then, the news was brought that the little boy at the blacksmith's
+was ill with the smallpox, poor Harry Esmond felt a shock of alarm, not
+so much for himself as for his mistress's son, whom he might have
+brought into peril. Beatrix, who had pouted sufficiently, her little
+brother being now gone to bed, was for taking her place on Esmond's
+knee. But as she advanced toward him, he started back and placed the
+great chair on which he was sitting between him and her--saying in the
+French language to Lady Castlewood, "Madam, the child must not approach
+me. I must tell you that I was at the blacksmith's to-day and had his
+little boy on my lap."
+
+"Where you took my son afterward," Lady Castlewood said, very angry and
+turning red. "I thank you, sir, for giving him such company. Beatrix,"
+she said in English, "I forbid you to touch Harry Esmond. Come away,
+child; come to your room. And you, sir, had you not better go back to
+the alehouse?"
+
+Her eyes, ordinarily so kind, darted flashes of anger as she spoke; and
+she tossed up her head (which hung down commonly) with the [v]mien of a
+princess.
+
+"Heyday!" said my Lord, who was standing by the fireplace, "Rachel, what
+are you in a passion about? Though it does you good to get in a
+passion--you look very handsome!"
+
+"It is, my Lord, because Mr. Harry Esmond, having nothing to do with his
+time here, and not having a taste for our company, has been to the
+blacksmith's alehouse, where he has some friends."
+
+My Lord burst out with a laugh.
+
+"Take Mistress Beatrix to bed," my Lady cried at this moment to her
+woman, who came in with her Ladyship's tea. "Put her into my room--no,
+into yours," she added quickly. "Go, my child: go, I say; not a word."
+And Beatrix, quite surprised at so sudden a tone of authority from one
+who was seldom accustomed to raise her voice, went out of the room with
+a scared face and waited even to burst out crying until she got
+upstairs.
+
+For once, her mother took little heed of her. "My Lord," she said, "this
+young man--your relative--told me just now in French--he was ashamed to
+speak in his own language--that he had been at the blacksmith's all day,
+where he has had that little wretch who is now ill of the smallpox on
+his knee. And he comes home reeking from that place--yes, reeking from
+it--and takes my boy into his lap without shame, and sits down by me. He
+may have killed Frank for what I know--killed our child! Why was he
+brought in to disgrace our house? Why is he here? Let him go--let him
+go, I say, and [v]pollute the place no more!"
+
+She had never before uttered a syllable of unkindness to Harry Esmond,
+and her cruel words smote the poor boy so that he stood for some moments
+bewildered with grief and rage at the injustice of such a stab from such
+a hand. He turned quite white from red, which he had been before.
+
+"If my coming nigh your boy pollutes him," he said, "it was not so
+always. Good-night, my Lord. Heaven bless you and yours for your
+goodness to me. I have tired her Ladyship's kindness out, and I will
+go."
+
+"He wants to go to the alehouse--let him go!" cried my Lady.
+
+"I'll be hanged if he shall," said my Lord. "I didn't think you could be
+so cruel, Rachel!"
+
+Her reply was to burst into a flood of tears, and to quit the room with
+a rapid glance at Harry Esmond, as my Lord put his broad hand on Harry's
+shoulder.
+
+In a little while my Lady came back, looking very pale, with a
+handkerchief in her hand. Instantly advancing to Harry Esmond, she took
+his hand. "I beg your pardon, Harry," she said. "I spoke very
+unkindly."
+
+My Lord broke out: "There may be no harm done. Leave the boy alone." She
+looked a little red, and pressed the lad's hand as she dropped it.
+
+"There is no use, my Lord," she said. "Frank was on his knee as he was
+making pictures and was running constantly from Harry to me. The evil is
+done, if any."
+
+"Not with me," cried my Lord. "I've been smoking." And he lighted his
+pipe again with a coal. "As the disease is in the village--plague take
+it!--I would have you leave it. We'll go to-morrow to Walcote."
+
+"I have no fear," said my Lady. "I may have had it as an infant."
+
+"I won't run the risk," said my Lord. "I'm as bold as any man, but I'll
+not bear that."
+
+"Take Beatrix with you and go," said my Lady. "For us the mischief is
+done."
+
+My Lord, calling away Doctor Tusher, bade him come in the oak parlor and
+have a pipe.
+
+When the lady and the boy were alone, there was a silence of some
+moments, during which he stood looking at the fire whilst her Ladyship
+busied herself with the [v]tambour frame and needles.
+
+"I am sorry," she said, after a pause, in a hard, dry voice--"I repeat I
+am sorry that I said what I said. It was not at all my wish that you
+should leave us, I am sure, unless you found pleasure elsewhere. But you
+must see that, at your age, and with your tastes, it is impossible that
+you can continue to stay upon the intimate footing in which you have
+been in this family. You have wished to go to college, and I think 'tis
+quite as well that you should be sent thither. I did not press the
+matter, thinking you a child, as you are indeed in years--quite a child.
+But now I shall beg my Lord to despatch you as quick as possible; and
+will go on with Frank's learning as well as I can. And--and I wish you a
+good night, Harry."
+
+With this she dropped a stately curtsy, and, taking her candle, went
+away through the tapestry door, which led to her apartments. Esmond
+stood by the fireplace, blankly staring after her. Indeed, he scarce
+seemed to see until she was gone, and then her image was impressed upon
+him and remained forever fixed upon his memory. He saw her retreating,
+the taper lighting up her marble face, her scarlet lip quivering, and
+her shining golden hair. He went to his own room and to bed, but could
+not get to sleep until daylight, and woke with a violent headache.
+
+He had brought the contagion with him from the alehouse, sure enough,
+and was presently laid up with the smallpox, which spared the hall no
+more than it did the cottage.
+
+When Harry Esmond had passed through the [v]crisis of the [v]malady and
+returned to health again, he found that little Frank Esmond had also
+suffered and rallied from the disease, and that his mother was down
+with it. Nor could young Esmond agree in Doctor Tusher's [v]vehement
+protestations to my Lady, when he visited her during her
+[v]convalescence, that the malady had not in the least impaired her
+charms; whereas, in spite of these fine speeches, Harry thought that her
+Ladyship's beauty was very much injured by the smallpox. The delicacy of
+her rosy complexion was gone; her eyes had lost their brilliancy, her
+hair fell, and she looked older. When Tusher in his courtly way vowed
+and protested that my Lady's face was none the worse, the lad broke out
+and said, "It is worse, and my mistress is not near so handsome as she
+was." On this poor Lady Castlewood gave a [v]rueful smile and a look
+into a little mirror she had, which showed her, I suppose, that what the
+stupid boy said was only too true, for she turned away from the glass
+and her eyes filled with tears.
+
+The sight of these always created a sort of rage of pity in Esmond's
+heart, and seeing them on the face of the lady whom he loved best, the
+young blunderer sank down on his knees and besought her to pardon him,
+saying that he was a fool and an idiot. Doctor Tusher told him that he
+was a bear, and a bear he would remain, at which speech poor Harry was
+so dumb-stricken that he did not even growl.
+
+"He is my bear, and I will not have him baited, doctor," said my Lady,
+putting her hand kindly on the boy's head, as he was still kneeling at
+her feet. "How your hair has come off! And mine, too!" she added with
+another sigh.
+
+"It is not for myself that I care," my Lady said to Harry, when the
+parson had taken his leave; "but am I very much changed! Alas! I fear
+'tis too true."
+
+"Madam, you have the dearest, and kindest, and sweetest face in the
+world, I think," the lad said; and indeed he thought so.
+
+For Harry Esmond his benefactress' sweet face had lost none of its
+charms. It had always the kindest of looks and smiles for him--and
+beauty of every sort. She would call him "Mr. Tutor," and she herself,
+as well as the two children, went to school to him. Of the pupils the
+two young people were but lazy scholars, and my Lord's son only learned
+what he liked, which was but little. Mistress Beatrix chattered French
+prettily, and sang sweetly, but this from her mother's teaching, not
+Harry Esmond's. But if the children were careless, 'twas a wonder how
+eagerly the mother learned from her young tutor--and taught him, too.
+She saw the [v]latent beauties and hidden graces in books; and the
+happiest hours of young Esmond's life were those passed in the company
+of this kind mistress and her children.
+
+These happy days were to end soon, however; and it was by Lady
+Castlewood's own decree that they were brought to a conclusion. It
+happened about Christmas-tide, Harry Esmond being now past sixteen
+years of age. A messenger came from Winchester one day, bearer of the
+news that my Lady's aunt was dead and had left her fortune of £2,000
+among her six nieces. Many a time afterward Harry Esmond recalled the
+flushed face and eager look wherewith, after this intelligence, his kind
+lady regarded him. When my Lord heard of the news, he did not make any
+long face. "The money will come very handy to furnish the music-room and
+the [v]cellar," he said, "which is getting low, and buy your Ladyship a
+coach and a couple of horses. Beatrix, you shall have a [v]spinet; and
+Frank, you shall have a little horse from Hexton fair; and Harry, you
+shall have five pounds to buy some books." So spoke my Lord, who was
+generous with his own, and indeed with other folks' money. "I wish your
+aunt would die once a year, Rachel; we could spend your money, and all
+your sisters', too."
+
+"I have but one aunt--and--and I have another use for the money," said
+my Lady, turning red.
+
+"Another use, my dear; and what do you know about money?" cried my Lord.
+
+"I intend it for Harry Esmond to go to college. Cousin Harry," said my
+Lady, "you mustn't stay any longer in this dull place, but make a name
+for yourself."
+
+"Is Harry going away? You don't mean to say you will go away?" cried out
+Beatrix and Frank at one breath.
+
+"But he will come back, and this will always be his home," replied my
+Lady, with blue eyes looking a celestial kindness; "and his scholars
+will always love him, won't they?"
+
+"Rachel, you're a good woman," said my Lord. "I wish you joy, my
+kinsman," he continued, giving Harry Esmond a hearty slap on the
+shoulder, "I won't balk your luck. Go to Cambridge, boy."
+
+When Harry Esmond went away for Cambridge, little Frank ran alongside
+his horse as far as the bridge, and there Harry stopped for a moment and
+looked back at the house where the best part of his life had been
+passed. And Harry remembered, all his life after, how he saw his
+mistress at the window looking out on him, the little Beatrix's chestnut
+curls resting at her mother's side. Both waved a farewell to him, and
+little Frank sobbed to leave him.
+
+The village people had good-bye to say to him, too. All knew that Master
+Harry was going to college, and most of them had a kind word and a look
+of farewell. And with these things in mind, he rode out into the world.
+
+WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY.
+
+
+=HELPS TO STUDY=
+
+     Tell what you find out about the household in which Harry Esmond
+     lived. What impression do you get of each person? What trouble did
+     Harry bring upon the family? What change occurred in his life and
+     now?
+
+
+SUPPLEMENTARY READING
+
+     The Virginians--William Makepeace Thackeray.
+     The Sir Roger de Coverley Papers--Steele and Addison.
+
+
+
+
+THE FAMILY HOLDS ITS HEAD UP
+
+
+     The story is an extract from Oliver Goldsmith's famous novel, _The
+     Vicar of Wakefield_. In this book Goldsmith describes the fortunes
+     of the family of Doctor Primrose, a Church of England clergyman of
+     the middle of the eighteenth century. The novel is considered a
+     most faithful picture of English country life in that period.
+
+The home I had come to as [v]vicar was in a little neighborhood
+consisting of farmers who tilled their own grounds and were equal
+strangers to [v]opulence and poverty. As they had almost all the
+conveniences of life within themselves, they seldom visited towns or
+cities in search of [v]superfluity. Remote from the polite, they still
+retained the [v]primeval simplicity of manners; and, frugal by habit,
+they scarce knew that temperance was a virtue. They wrought with
+cheerfulness on days of labor, but observed festivals as intervals of
+idleness and pleasure. They kept up the Christmas carol, sent love-knots
+on Valentine morning, ate pancakes on [v]Shrovetide, showed their wit on
+the first of April, and religiously cracked nuts on [v]Michaelmas-eve.
+Being apprised of our approach, the whole neighborhood came out to meet
+their minister, dressed in their finest clothes and preceded by a
+[v]pipe and [v]tabor: a feast, also, was provided for our reception, at
+which we sat cheerfully down, and what the conversation wanted in wit
+was made up in laughter.
+
+Our little habitation was situated at the foot of a sloping hill,
+sheltered with a beautiful underwood behind, and a prattling river
+before; on one side a meadow, on the other a green. My farm consisted of
+about twenty acres of excellent land. Nothing could exceed the neatness
+of my little enclosures, the elms and hedgerows appearing with
+inexpressible beauty. My house consisted of but one story, and was
+covered with [v]thatch, which gave it an air of great snugness; the
+walls on the inside were nicely whitewashed, and my daughters undertook
+to adorn them with pictures of their own designing. Though the same room
+served us for parlor and kitchen, that only made it the warmer. Besides,
+as it was kept with the utmost neatness,--the dishes, plates and coppers
+being well scoured and all disposed in bright rows on the shelves--the
+eye was agreeably relieved and did not want richer furniture. There were
+three other apartments: one for my wife and me; another for our two
+daughters within our own; and the third, with two beds, for the rest of
+the children.
+
+The little republic to which I gave laws was regulated in the following
+manner: by sunrise we all assembled in our common apartment, the fire
+being previously kindled by the servant. After we had saluted each other
+with proper ceremony--for I always thought fit to keep up some
+mechanical forms of good breeding, without which freedom ever destroys
+friendship--we all bent in gratitude to that Being who gave us another
+day. This duty performed, my son and I went to pursue our usual industry
+abroad, while my wife and daughters employed themselves in providing
+breakfast, which was always ready at a certain time. I allowed half an
+hour for this meal, and an hour for dinner, which time was taken up in
+innocent mirth between my wife and daughters, and in [v]philosophical
+arguments between my son and me.
+
+As we rose with the sun, so we never pursued our labors after it was
+gone down, but returned home to the expecting family, where smiling
+looks, a neat hearth, and a pleasant fire were prepared for our
+reception. Nor were we without guests; sometimes Farmer Flamborough, our
+talkative neighbor, and often a blind piper, would pay us a visit and
+taste our gooseberry wine, for the making of which we had lost neither
+the recipe nor the reputation. These harmless people had several ways of
+being good company; while one played, the other would sing some soothing
+ballad--"Johnny Armstrong's Last Good-Night," or "The Cruelty of Barbara
+Allen." The night was concluded in the manner we began the morning, my
+youngest boys being appointed to read the lessons of the day; and he
+that read loudest, distinctest and best was to have an halfpenny on
+Sunday to put into the poor-box. This encouraged in them a wholesome
+rivalry to do good.
+
+When Sunday came, it was, indeed, a day of finery, which all my
+[v]sumptuary edicts could not restrain. How well soever I fancied my
+lectures against pride had conquered the vanity of my daughters, yet I
+still found them secretly attached to all their former finery; they
+still loved laces, ribbons, and bugles, and my wife herself retained a
+passion for her crimson [v]paduasoy, because I formerly happened to say
+it became her.
+
+The first Sunday, in particular, their behavior served to mortify me. I
+had desired my girls the preceding night to be dressed early the next
+day, for I always loved to be at church a good while before the rest of
+the congregation. They punctually obeyed my directions; but when we were
+to assemble in the morning at breakfast, down came my wife and
+daughters, dressed out in all their former splendor--their hair
+plastered up with [v]pomatum, their faces [v]patched to taste, their
+trains bundled up in a heap behind and rustling at every motion. I could
+not help smiling at their vanity, particularly that of my wife, from
+whom I expected more discretion. In this [v]exigence, therefore, my only
+resource was to order my son, with an important air, to call our coach.
+The girls were amazed at the command, but I repeated it, with more
+solemnity than before.
+
+"Surely, you jest!" cried my wife. "We can walk perfectly well; we want
+no coach to carry us now."
+
+"You mistake, child," returned I; "we do want a coach, for if we walk
+to church in this trim, the very children in the parish will hoot after
+us."
+
+"Indeed!" replied my wife. "I always imagined that my Charles was fond
+of seeing his children neat and handsome about him."
+
+"You may be as neat as you please," interrupted I, "and I shall love you
+the better for it; but all this is not neatness, but frippery. These
+rufflings and pinkings and patchings will only make us hated by all the
+wives of our neighbors. No, my children," continued I, more gravely,
+"those gowns must be altered into something of a plainer cut, for finery
+is very unbecoming in us who want the means of [v]decency."
+
+This remonstrance had the proper effect. They went with great composure,
+that very instant, to change their dress; and the next day I had the
+satisfaction of finding my daughters, at their own request, employed in
+cutting up their trains into Sunday waist-coats for Dick and Bill, the
+two little ones; and, what was still more satisfactory, the gowns seemed
+improved by this [v]curtailing.
+
+But the reformation lasted but for a short while. My wife and daughters
+were visited by the wives of some of the richer neighbors and by a
+squire who lived near by, on whom they set more store than on the plain
+farmers' wives who were nearer us in worldly station. I now began to
+find that all my long and painful lectures upon temperance, simplicity,
+and contentment were entirely disregarded. Some distinctions lately
+paid us by our betters awakened that pride which I had laid asleep, but
+not removed. Our windows again, as formerly, were filled with washes for
+the neck and face. The sun was dreaded as an enemy to the skin without
+doors and the fire as a spoiler of the complexion within. My wife
+observed that rising too early would hurt her daughters' eyes, that
+working after dinner would redden their noses, and she convinced me that
+the hands never looked so white as when they did nothing.
+
+Instead, therefore, of finishing George's shirts, we now had the girls
+new-modeling their old gauzes. The poor Miss Flamboroughs, their former
+gay companions, were cast off as mean acquaintance, and the whole
+conversation ran upon high life and high-lived company, with pictures,
+taste, and Shakespeare.
+
+But we could have borne all this, had not a fortune-telling gypsy come
+to raise us into perfect [v]sublimity. The tawny [v]sibyl no sooner
+appeared than my girls came running to me for a shilling apiece to cross
+her hand with silver. To say the truth, I was tired of being always
+wise, and could not help gratifying their request, because I loved to
+see them happy. I gave each of them a shilling; after they had been
+closeted up with the fortune-teller for some time, I knew by their
+looks, upon their returning, that they had been promised something
+great.
+
+"Well, my girls, how have you sped? Tell me, Livy, has the
+fortune-teller given thee a penny-worth?"
+
+"She positively declared that I am to be married to a squire in less
+than a twelvemonth."
+
+"Well, now, Sophy, my child," said I, "and what sort of husband are you
+to have?"
+
+"I am to have a lord soon after my sister has married the squire," she
+replied.
+
+"How," cried I, "is that all you are to have for your two shillings?
+Only a lord and a squire for two shillings! You fools, I could have
+promised you a prince and a [v]nabob for half the money."
+
+This curiosity of theirs, however, was attended with very serious
+effects. We now began to think ourselves designed by the stars to
+something exalted, and already anticipated our future grandeur.
+
+In this agreeable time my wife had the most lucky dreams in the world,
+which she took care to tell us every morning, with great solemnity and
+exactness. It was one night a coffin and cross-bones, the sign of an
+approaching wedding; at another time she imagined her daughters' pockets
+filled with farthings, a certain sign they would shortly be stuffed with
+gold. The girls themselves had their omens. They saw rings in the
+candle, purses bounced from the fire, and love-knots lurked in the
+bottom of every teacup.
+
+Toward the end of the week we received a card from two town ladies, in
+which, with their compliments, they hoped to see our family at church
+the Sunday following. All Saturday morning I could perceive, in
+consequence of this, my wife and daughters in close conference together,
+and now and then glancing at me with looks that betrayed a [v]latent
+plot. To be sincere, I had strong suspicions that some absurd proposal
+was preparing for appearing with splendor the next day. In the evening
+they began their operations in a very regular manner, and my wife
+undertook to conduct the siege. After tea, when I seemed in fine
+spirits, she began thus:
+
+"I fancy, Charles, my dear, we shall have a great deal of good company
+at our church to-morrow."
+
+"Perhaps we may, my dear," returned I, "though you need be under no
+uneasiness about that; you shall have a sermon, whether there be or
+not."
+
+"That is what I expect," returned she; "but I think, my dear, we ought
+to appear there as decently as possible, for who knows what may happen?"
+
+"Your precautions," replied I, "are highly commendable. A decent
+behavior and appearance in church is what charms me. We should be devout
+and humble, cheerful and serene."
+
+"Yes," cried she, "I know that; but I mean we should go there in as
+proper a manner as possible; not like the scrubs about us."
+
+"You are quite right, my dear," returned I, "and I was going to make the
+same proposal. The proper manner of going is to go as early as
+possible, to have time for meditation before the sermon begins."
+
+"Phoo! Charles," interrupted she, "all that is very true, but not what I
+would be at. I mean, we should go there [v]genteelly. You know the
+church is two miles off, and I protest I don't like to see my daughters
+trudging up to their pew all blowzed and red with walking, and looking
+for all the world as if they had been winners at a [v]smock race. Now,
+my dear, my proposal is this: there are our two plough-horses, the colt
+that has been in our family these nine years and his companion,
+Blackberry, that has scarce done an earthly thing for this month past.
+They are both grown fat and lazy. Why should they not do something as
+well as we? And let me tell you, when Moses has trimmed them a little,
+they will cut a very tolerable figure."
+
+To this proposal I objected that walking would be twenty times more
+genteel than such a paltry conveyance, as Blackberry was wall-eyed, and
+the colt wanted a tail; that they had never been broken to the rein, but
+had an hundred vicious tricks, and that we had but one saddle and
+[v]pillion in the whole house. All these objections, however, were
+overruled, so that I was obliged to comply.
+
+The next morning I perceived them not a little busy in collecting such
+materials as might be necessary for the expedition; but as I found it
+would be a business of time, I walked on to the church before, and they
+promised speedily to follow. I waited near an hour in the reading desk
+for their arrival; but not finding them come as I expected, I was
+obliged to begin, and went through the service, not without some
+uneasiness at finding them absent.
+
+This was increased when all was finished, and no appearance of the
+family. I therefore walked back by the horseway, which was five miles
+round, though the footway was but two; and when I had got about half-way
+home, I perceived the procession marching slowly forward toward the
+church--my son, my wife, and the two little ones exalted on one horse,
+and my two daughters upon the other. It was then very near dinner-time.
+
+I demanded the cause of their delay, but I soon found, by their looks,
+that they had met with a thousand misfortunes on the road. The horses
+had, at first, refused to move from the door, till a neighbor was kind
+enough to beat them forward for about two hundred yards with his cudgel.
+Next, the straps of my wife's pillion broke down, and they were obliged
+to stop to repair them before they could proceed. After that, one of the
+horses took it into his head to stand still, and neither blows nor
+entreaties could prevail with him to proceed. They were just recovering
+from this dismal situation when I found them; but, perceiving everything
+safe, I own their mortification did not much displease me, as it gave
+me many opportunities of future triumph, and would teach my daughters
+more humility.
+
+OLIVER GOLDSMITH.
+
+
+=HELPS TO STUDY=
+
+     Describe the neighborhood and the home to which the vicar took his
+     family; also their manner of living. Relate the two attempts the
+     ladies made to appear at church in great style. What happened to
+     raise the hopes of better days for the daughters? How were these
+     hopes encouraged? What superstitions did the wife and daughters
+     believe? Give your opinion of the vicar and of each member of the
+     family.
+
+
+SUPPLEMENTARY READING
+
+     The School for Scandal--Richard Brinsley Sheridan.
+     She Stoops to Conquer--Oliver Goldsmith.
+     Life of Oliver Goldsmith--Washington Irving.
+     David Copperfield--Charles Dickens.
+     Barnaby Rudge--Charles Dickens.
+
+
+
+
+    Some have too much, yet still do crave;
+        I little have, and seek no more.
+    They are but poor, though much they have,
+        And I am rich with little store:
+    They poor, I rich; they beg, I give;
+    They lack, I leave; they pine, I live.
+
+    SIR EDWARD DYER.
+
+
+
+
+THE LITTLE BOY IN THE BALCONY
+
+
+My special amusement in New York is riding on the elevated railway. It
+is curious to note how little one can see on the crowded sidewalks of
+this city. It is simply a rush of the same people--hurrying this way or
+that on the same errands, doing the same shopping or eating at the same
+restaurants. It is a [v]kaleidoscope with infinite combinations but the
+same effects. You see it to-day, and it is the same as yesterday.
+Occasionally in the multitude you hit upon a [v]_genre_ specimen, or an
+odd detail, such as a prim little dog that sits upright all day and
+holds in its mouth a cup for pennies for its blind master, or an old
+bookseller, with a grand head and the deliberate motions of a scholar,
+moldering in a stall--but the general effect is one of sameness and soon
+tires and bewilders.
+
+Once on the elevated road, however, a new world is opened, full of the
+most interesting objects. The cars sweep by the upper stories of the
+houses, and, running never too swiftly to allow observation, disclose
+the secrets of a thousand homes, and bring to view people and things
+never dreamed of by the giddy, restless crowd that sends its impatient
+murmur from the streets below. In a course of several months' pretty
+steady riding from Twenty-third Street, which is the station for the
+Fifth Avenue Hotel, to Rector, which overlooks Wall Street, I have made
+many acquaintances along the route, and on reaching the city my first
+curiosity is in their behalf.
+
+One of these is a boy about six years of age--akin in his fragile body
+and his serious mien--a youngster that is very precious to me. I first
+saw this boy on a little balcony about three feet by four, projecting
+from the window of a poverty-stricken fourth floor. He was leaning over
+the railing, his white, thoughtful head just clearing the top, holding a
+short, round stick in his hand. The little fellow made a pathetic
+picture, all alone there above the street, so friendless and desolate,
+and his pale face came between me and my business many a time that day.
+On going uptown that evening just as night was falling, I saw him still
+at his place, white and patient and silent.
+
+Every day afterward I saw him there, always with the short stick in his
+hand. Occasionally he would walk around the balcony, rattling the stick
+in a solemn manner against the railing, or poke it across from one
+corner to another and sit on it. This was the only playing I ever saw
+him do, and the stick was the only plaything he had. But he was never
+without it. His little hand always held it, and I pictured him every
+morning when he awoke from his joyless sleep, picking up his poor toy
+and going out to his balcony, as other boys go to play. Or perhaps he
+slept with it, as little ones do with dolls and whip-tops.
+
+I could see that the room beyond the window was bare. I never saw any
+one in it. The heat must have been terrible, for it could have had no
+ventilation. Once I missed the boy from the balcony, but saw his white
+head moving about slowly in the dusk of the room. Gradually the little
+fellow became a burden to me. I found myself continually thinking of
+him, and troubled with that remorse that thoughtless people feel even
+for suffering for which they are not in the slightest degree
+responsible. Not that I ever saw any suffering on his face. It was
+patient, thoughtful, serious, but with never a sign of petulance. What
+thoughts filled that young head--what contemplation took the place of
+what should have been the [v]ineffable upspringing of childish
+emotion--what complaint or questioning were living behind that white
+face--no one could guess. In an older person the face would have
+betokened a resignation that found peace in the hope of things
+hereafter. In this child, without hope or aspiration, it was sad beyond
+expression.
+
+One day as I passed I nodded at him. He made no sign in return. I
+repeated the nod on another trip, waving my hand at him--but without
+avail. At length, in response to an unusually winning exhortation, his
+pale lips trembled into a smile, but a smile that was soberness itself.
+Wherever I went that day that smile went with me. Wherever I saw
+children playing in the parks, or trotting along with their hands
+nestled in strong fingers that guided and protected, I thought of that
+tiny watcher in the balcony--joyless, hopeless, friendless--a desolate
+mite, hanging between the blue sky and the gladsome streets, lifting his
+wistful face now to the peaceful heights of the one, and now looking
+with grave wonder on the ceaseless tumult of the other. At length--but
+why go any further? Why is it necessary to tell that the boy had no
+father, that his mother was bedridden from his birth, and that his
+sister pasted labels in a drug-house, and he was thus left to himself.
+
+It is sufficient to say that I went to Coney Island yesterday, and
+watched the bathers and the children--listened to the crisp, lingering
+music of the waves--ate a robust lunch on the pier--wandered in and out
+among the booths, tents, and hub-bub--and that through all these
+pleasures I had a companion that enjoyed them with a gravity that I can
+never hope to [v]emulate, but with a soulfulness that was touching. As I
+came back in the boat, the breezes singing through the [v]cordage, music
+floating from the fore-deck, and the sun lighting with its dying rays
+the shipping that covered the river, there was sitting in front of me a
+very pale but very happy bit of a boy, open-eyed with wonder, but sober
+and self-contained, clasping tightly in his little fingers a short,
+battered stick. And finally, whenever I pass by a certain overhanging
+balcony now, I am sure of a smile from an intimate and esteemed friend
+who lives there.
+
+HENRY W. GRADY.
+
+
+
+
+ARIEL'S TRIUMPH[141-*]
+
+
+     This story is taken from Booth Tarkington's novel, _The Conquest of
+     Canaan_, which gives an admirable description of modern life in an
+     American town. Joe Louden, the hero, and Ariel Tabor, the heroine,
+     were both friendless and, in a way, forlorn. How both of them
+     triumphed over obstacles and won success and happiness is the theme
+     of a book which is notable for keen observation of character and
+     for a quiet and delightful humor.
+
+
+I
+
+Ariel had worked all the afternoon over her mother's wedding-gown, and
+two hours were required by her toilet for the dance. She curled her hair
+frizzily, burning it here and there, with a slate-pencil heated over a
+lamp-chimney, and she placed above one ear three or four large
+artificial roses, taken from an old hat of her mother's, which she had
+found in a trunk in the store-room. Possessing no slippers, she
+carefully blacked and polished her shoes, which had been clumsily
+resoled, and fastened into the strings of each small rosettes of red
+ribbon; after which she practised swinging the train of her skirt until
+she was proud of her manipulation of it.
+
+She had no powder, but found in her grandfather's room a lump of
+magnesia, which he was in the habit of taking for heartburn, and passed
+it over and over her brown face and hands. Then a lingering gaze into
+her small mirror gave her joy at last; she yearned so hard to see
+herself charming that she did see herself so. Admiration came, and she
+told herself that she was more attractive to look at than she had ever
+been in her life, and that, perhaps, at last she might begin to be
+sought for like other girls. The little glass showed a sort of
+prettiness in her thin, unmatured young face; tripping dance-tunes ran
+through her head, her feet keeping the time--ah, she did so hope to
+dance often that night! Perhaps--perhaps she might be asked for every
+number. And so, wrapping an old water-proof cloak about her, she took
+her grandfather's arm and sallied forth, with high hopes in her beating
+heart.
+
+It was in the dressing-room that the change began to come. Alone, at
+home in her own ugly little room, she had thought herself almost
+beautiful; but here in the brightly lighted chamber crowded with the
+other girls it was different. There was a big [v]cheval-glass at one end
+of the room, and she faced it, when her turn came--for the mirror was
+popular--with a sinking spirit. There was the contrast, like a picture
+painted and framed. The other girls all wore their hair after the
+fashion introduced to Canaan by Mamie Pike the week before, on her
+return from a visit to Chicago. None of them had "crimped" and none had
+bedecked their tresses with artificial flowers. Her alterations of the
+wedding-dress had not been successful; the skirt was too short in front
+and higher on one side than on the other, showing too plainly the
+heavy-soled shoes, which had lost most of their polish in the walk
+through the snow. The ribbon rosettes were fully revealed, and as she
+glanced at their reflection, she heard the words, "Look at that train
+and those rosettes!" whispered behind her, and saw in the mirror two
+pretty young women turn away with their handkerchiefs over their mouths
+and retreat hurriedly to an alcove. All the feet in the room except
+Ariel's were in dainty kid or satin slippers of the color of the dresses
+from which they glimmered out, and only Ariel wore a train.
+
+She went away from the mirror and pretended to be busy with a hanging
+thread in her sleeve.
+
+She was singularly an alien in the chattering room, although she had
+been born and had lived all her life in the town. Perhaps her position
+among the young ladies may be best defined by the remark, generally
+current among them that evening, to the effect that it was "very sweet
+of Mamie to invite her." Ariel was not like the others; she was not of
+them, and never had been. Indeed, she did not know them very well. Some
+of them nodded to her and gave her a word of greeting pleasantly; all of
+them whispered about her with wonder and suppressed amusement, but none
+talked to her. They were not unkindly, but they were young and eager and
+excited over their own interests,--which were then in the "gentlemen's
+dressing-room."
+
+Each of the other girls had been escorted by a youth of the place, and,
+one by one, joining these escorts in the hall outside the door, they
+descended the stairs, until only Ariel was left. She came down alone
+after the first dance had begun, and greeted her young hostess's mother
+timidly. Mrs. Pike--a small, frightened-looking woman with a ruby
+necklace--answered her absently, and hurried away to see that the
+[v]imported waiters did not steal anything.
+
+Ariel sat in one of the chairs against the wall and watched the dancers
+with a smile of eager and benevolent interest. In Canaan no parents, no
+guardians or aunts were haled forth o' nights to [v]duenna the
+junketings of youth; Mrs. Pike did not reappear, and Ariel sat
+conspicuously alone; there was nothing else for her to do, but it was
+not an easy matter.
+
+When the first dance reached an end, Mamie Pike came to her for a moment
+with a cheery welcome, and was immediately surrounded by a circle of
+young men and women, flushed with dancing, shouting as was their wont,
+laughing [v]inexplicably over words and phrases and unintelligible
+[v]monosyllables, as if they all belonged to a secret society and these
+cries were symbols of things exquisitely humorous, which only they
+understood. Ariel laughed with them more heartily than any other, so
+that she might seem to be of them and as merry as they were; but almost
+immediately she found herself outside of the circle, and presently they
+all whirled away into another dance, and she was left alone again.
+
+So she sat, no one coming near her, through several dances, trying to
+maintain the smile of delighted interest upon her face, though she felt
+the muscles of her face beginning to ache with their fixedness, her eyes
+growing hot and glazed. All the other girls were provided with partners
+for every dance, with several young men left over, these latter lounging
+[v]hilariously together in the doorways. Ariel was careful not to glance
+toward them, but she could not help hating them. Once or twice between
+the dances she saw Miss Pike speak appealingly to one of the
+[v]superfluous, glancing, at the same time, in her own direction, and
+Ariel could see, too, that the appeal proved unsuccessful, until at last
+Mamie approached her, leading Norbert Flitcroft, partly by the hand,
+partly by will power. Norbert was an excessively fat boy, and at the
+present moment looked as patient as the blind. But he asked Ariel if she
+was "engaged for the next dance," and, Mamie, having flitted away, stood
+[v]disconsolately beside her, waiting for the music to begin. Ariel was
+grateful for him.
+
+"I think you must be very good-natured, Mr. Flitcroft," she said, with
+an air of [v]raillery.
+
+"No, I'm not," he replied, [v]plaintively. "Everybody thinks I am,
+because I'm fat, and they expect me to do things they never dream of
+asking anybody else to do. I'd like to see 'em even _ask_ 'Gene Bantry
+to go and do some of the things they get me to do! A person isn't
+good-natured just because he's fat," he concluded, morbidly, "but he
+might as well be!"
+
+"Oh, I meant good-natured," she returned, with a sprightly laugh,
+"because you're willing to waltz with me."
+
+"Oh, well," he returned, sighing, "that's all right."
+
+The orchestra flourished into "La Paloma"; he put his arm mournfully
+about her, and taking her right hand with his left, carried her arm out
+to a rigid right angle, beginning to pump and balance for time. They
+made three false starts and then got away. Ariel danced badly; she
+hopped and lost the step, but they persevered, bumping against other
+couples continually. Circling breathlessly into the next room, they
+passed close to a long mirror, in which Ariel saw herself, although in a
+flash, more bitterly contrasted to the others than in the cheval-glass
+of the dressing-room. The clump of roses was flopping about her neck,
+her crimped hair looked frowzy, and there was something terribly wrong
+about her dress. Suddenly she felt her train to be [v]grotesque, as a
+thing following her in a nightmare.
+
+A moment later she caught her partner making a [v]burlesque face of
+suffering over her shoulder, and, turning her head quickly, saw for
+whose benefit he had constructed it. Eugene Bantry, flying expertly by
+with Mamie, was bestowing upon Mr. Flitcroft a commiserative wink. The
+next instant she tripped in her train and fell to the floor at Eugene's
+feet, carrying her partner with her.
+
+There was a shout of laughter. The young hostess stopped Eugene, who
+would have gone on, and he had no choice but to stoop to Ariel's
+assistance.
+
+"It seems to be a habit of mine," she said, laughing loudly.
+
+She did not appear to see the hand he offered, but got on her feet
+without help and walked quickly away with Norbert, who proceeded to live
+up to the character he had given himself.
+
+"Perhaps we had better not try it again," she laughed.
+
+"Well, I should think not," he returned with the frankest gloom. With
+the air of conducting her home, he took her to the chair against the
+wall whence he had brought her. There his responsibility for her seemed
+to cease. "Will you excuse me?" he asked, and there was no doubt he felt
+that he had been given more than his share that evening, even though he
+was fat.
+
+"Yes, indeed." Her laughter was continuous. "I should think you _would_
+be glad to get rid of me after that. Ha, ha, ha! Poor Mr. Flitcroft, you
+know you are!"
+
+It was the deadly truth, and the fat one, saying, "Well, if you'll
+excuse me now," hurried away with a step which grew lighter as the
+distance from her increased. Arrived at the haven of a far doorway, he
+mopped his brow and shook his head grimly in response to frequent
+rallyings.
+
+Ariel sat through more dances, interminable dances and intermissions, in
+that same chair, in which it began to seem she was to live out the rest
+of her life. Now and then, if she thought people were looking at her as
+they passed, she broke into a laugh and nodded slightly, as if still
+amused over her mishap.
+
+After a long time she rose, and laughing cheerfully to Mr. Flitcroft,
+who was standing in the doorway and replied with a wan smile, stepped
+out quickly into the hall, where she almost ran into her great-uncle,
+Jonas Tabor. He was going toward the big front doors with Judge Pike,
+having just come out of the latter's library, down the hall.
+
+Jonas was breathing heavily and was shockingly pale, though his eyes
+were very bright. He turned his back upon his grandniece sharply and
+went out of the door. Ariel reëntered the room whence she had come. She
+laughed again to her fat friend as she passed him, went to the window
+and looked out. The porch seemed deserted and was faintly illuminated by
+a few Japanese lanterns. She sprang out, dropped upon the divan, and
+burying her face in her hands, cried heart-brokenly.
+
+Presently she felt something alive touch her foot, and, her breath
+catching with alarm, she started to rise. A thin hand, issuing from a
+shabby sleeve, had stolen out between two of the green tubs and was
+pressing upon one of her shoes.
+
+"Sh!" warned a voice. "Don't make a noise!"
+
+The warning was not needed; she had recognized the hand and sleeve
+instantly. It was her playmate and lifelong friend, Joe Louden.
+
+"What were you going on about?" he asked angrily.
+
+"Nothing," she answered. "I wasn't. You must go away; you know the Judge
+doesn't like you."
+
+"What were you crying about?" interrupted the uninvited guest.
+
+"Nothing, I tell you!" she repeated, the tears not ceasing to gather in
+her eyes. "I wasn't."
+
+"I want to know what it was," he insisted. "Didn't the fools ask you to
+dance! Ah! You needn't tell me. That's it. I've been here, watching, for
+the last three dances and you weren't in sight till you came to the
+window. Well, what do you care about that for!"
+
+"I don't," she answered. "I don't!" Then suddenly, without being able to
+prevent it, she sobbed.
+
+"No," he said, gently, "I see you don't. And you let yourself be a fool
+because there are a lot of fools in there."
+
+She gave way, all at once, to a gust of sorrow and bitterness; she bent
+far over and caught his hand and laid it against her wet cheek. "Oh,
+Joe," she whispered, brokenly, "I think we have such hard lives, you and
+I! It doesn't seem right--while we're so young! Why can't we be like the
+others? Why can't we have some of the fun?"
+
+He withdrew his hand, with the embarrassment and shame he would have
+felt had she been a boy.
+
+"Get out!" he said, feebly.
+
+She did not seem to notice, but, still stooping, rested her elbows on
+her knees and her face in her hands. "I try so hard to have some fun, to
+be like the rest--and it's always a mistake, always, always, always!"
+She rocked herself slightly from side to side. "I'm a fool, it's the
+truth, or I wouldn't have come to-night. I want to be attractive--I want
+to be in things. I want to laugh as they do--"
+
+"To laugh, just to laugh, and not because there's something funny?"
+
+"Yes, I do, I do! And to know how to dress and to wear my hair--there
+must be some place where you can learn those things. I've never had any
+one to show me! It's only lately I've cared, but I'm seventeen, Joe--"
+She faltered, came to a stop, and her whole body was shaken with sobs.
+"I hate myself so for crying--for everything!"
+
+Just then a colored waiter, smiling graciously, came out upon the porch,
+bearing a tray of salad, hot oysters, and coffee. At his approach, Joe
+had fallen prone on the floor in the shadow. Ariel shook her head to the
+proffer of refreshments.
+
+"I don't want any," she murmured.
+
+The waiter turned away in pity and was reëntering the window when a
+passionate whisper fell upon his ear as well as upon Ariel's.
+
+_"Take it!"_
+
+"Ma'am?" said the waiter.
+
+"I've changed my mind," she replied quickly. The waiter, his elation
+restored, gave of his viands with the [v]superfluous bounty loved by his
+race when distributing the product of the wealthy.
+
+When he had gone, "Give me everything that's hot," said Joe. "You can
+keep the salad."
+
+"I couldn't eat it or anything else," she answered, thrusting the plate
+between the palms.
+
+For a time there was silence. From within the house came the continuous
+babble of voices and laughter, the clink of [v]cutlery on china. The
+young people spent a long time over their supper. By and by the waiter
+returned to the veranda, deposited a plate of colored ices upon Ariel's
+knees with a noble gesture, and departed.
+
+"No ice for me," said Joe.
+
+"Won't you please go now?" she entreated.
+
+"It wouldn't be good manners," he joked. "They might think I only came
+for the supper."
+
+"Give me the dish and coffee-cup," she whispered, impatiently. "Suppose
+the waiter came and had to look for them? Quick!"
+
+A bottle-shaped figure appeared in the window, and she had no time to
+take the plate and cup which were being pushed through the palm-leaves.
+She whispered a word of warning, and the dishes were hurriedly withdrawn
+as Norbert Flitcroft, wearing a solemn expression of injury, came out
+upon the veranda.
+
+"They want you. Some one's come for you."
+
+"Oh, is grandfather waiting?" She rose.
+
+"It isn't your grandfather that has come for you," answered the fat one,
+slowly. "It is Eskew Arp. Something's happened."
+
+She looked at him for a moment, beginning to tremble violently, her eyes
+growing wide with fright.
+
+"Is my grandfather--is he sick?"
+
+"You'd better go and see. Old Eskew's waiting in the hall. He'll tell
+you."
+
+She was by him and through the window instantly. Mr. Arp was waiting in
+the hall, talking in a low voice to Mrs. Pike.
+
+"Your grandfather's all right," he told the frightened girl quickly. "He
+sent me for you. Just hurry and get your things."
+
+She was with him again in a moment, and seizing the old man's arm,
+hurried him down the steps and toward the street almost at a run.
+
+"You're not telling me the truth," she said. "You're not telling me the
+truth!"
+
+"Nothing has happened to Roger Tabor," panted Mr. Arp. "We're going this
+way, not that." They had come to the gate, and as she turned to the
+right he pulled her sharply to the left.
+
+"Where are we going?" she demanded.
+
+"To your Uncle Jonas's."
+
+"Why?" she cried, in supreme astonishment. "What do you want to take me
+there for? Don't you know that he doesn't like me--that he has stopped
+speaking to me?"
+
+"Yes," said the old man, grimly; "he has stopped speaking to everybody."
+
+These startling words told Ariel that her uncle was dead. They did not
+tell her what she was soon to learn--that he had died rich, and that,
+failing other heirs, she and her grandfather had inherited his fortune.
+
+
+II
+
+It was Sunday in Canaan--Sunday some years later. Joe Louden was sitting
+in the shade of Main Street bridge, smoking a cigar. He was alone; he
+was always alone, for he had been away a long time, and had made few
+friends since his return.
+
+A breeze wandered up the river and touched the leaves and grass to life.
+The young corn, deep green in the bottom-land, moved with a [v]staccato
+flurry; the stirring air brought a smell of blossoms; the distance took
+on faint lavender hazes which blended the outlines of the fields, lying
+like square coverlets on the long slope of rising ground beyond the
+bottom-land, and empurpled the blue woodland shadows of the groves.
+
+For the first time it struck Joe that it was a beautiful day. He opened
+his eyes and looked about him whimsically. Then he shook his head again.
+A lady had just emerged from the bridge and was coming toward him.
+
+It would be hard to get at Joe's first impressions of her. We can find
+conveyance for only the broadest and heaviest. At first sight of her,
+there was preëminently the shock of seeing anything so exquisite in his
+accustomed world. For she was exquisite; she was that, and much more,
+from the ivory [v]ferrule of the parasol she carried, to the light and
+slender foot-print she left in the dust of the road. Joe knew at once
+that nothing like her had ever before been seen in Canaan.
+
+He had little knowledge of the millinery arts, and he needed none to see
+the harmony of the things she wore. Her dress and hat and gloves and
+parasol showed a pale lavender overtint like that which he had seen
+overspreading the western slope. Under the summer hat her very dark hair
+swept back over the temples with something near trimness in the extent
+to which it was withheld from being fluffy. It may be that this approach
+to trimness, after all, was the true key to the mystery of the lady who
+appeared to Joe.
+
+She was to pass him--so he thought--and as she drew nearer, his breath
+came faster. And then he realized that something wonderful was happening
+to him.
+
+She had stopped directly in front of him; stopped and stood looking at
+him with her clear eyes. He did not lift his own to her; a great and
+unaccountable shyness beset him. He had risen and removed his hat,
+trying not to clear his throat--his everyday sense urging upon him that
+she was a stranger in Canaan who had lost her way.
+
+"Can I--can I--" he stammered, blushing, meaning to finish with "direct
+you," or "show you the way."
+
+Then he looked at her again and saw what seemed to him the strangest
+sight of life. The lady's eyes had filled with tears--filled and
+overfilled.
+
+"I'll sit here on the log with you," she said. "You don't need to dust
+it!" she went on, tremulously. And even then he did not know who she
+was.
+
+There was a silence, for if the dazzled young man could have spoken at
+all, he could have found nothing to say; and, perhaps, the lady would
+not trust her own voice just then. His eyes had fallen again; he was
+too dazed, and, in truth, too panic-stricken now, to look at her. She
+was seated beside him and had handed him her parasol in a little way
+which seemed to imply that, of course, he had reached for it, so that it
+was to be seen how used she was to have all such things done for her. He
+saw that he was expected to furl the dainty thing; he pressed the catch
+and let down the top timidly, as if fearing to break or tear it; and, as
+it closed, held near his face, he caught a very faint, sweet, spicy
+[v]emanation from it like wild roses and cinnamon.
+
+"Do you know me?" asked the lady at last.
+
+For answer he could only stare at her, dumfounded; he lifted an unsteady
+hand toward her appealingly. Her manner underwent an April change. She
+drew back lightly; he was favored with the most delicious low laugh he
+had ever heard.
+
+"I'm glad you're the same, Joe!" she said. "I'm glad you're the same,
+and I'm glad I've changed, though that isn't why you have forgotten me."
+
+He arose uncertainly and took three or four backward steps from her. She
+sat before him, radiant with laughter, the loveliest creature he had
+ever seen; but between him and this charming vision there swept, through
+the warm, scented June air, the dim picture of a veranda all in darkness
+and the faint music of violins.
+
+_"Ariel Tabor!"_
+
+"Isn't it about time you were recognizing me?" she said.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Sensations were rare in staid, dull, commonplace Canaan, but this fine
+Sunday morning the town was treated to one of the most memorable
+sensations in its history. The town, all except Joe Louden, had known
+for weeks that Ariel Tabor was coming home from abroad, but it had not
+seen her. And when she walked along the street with Joe, past the Sunday
+church-returning crowds, it is not quite truth to say that all except
+the children came to a dead halt, but it is not very far from it. The
+air was thick with subdued exclamations and whisperings.
+
+Joe had not known her. The women recognized her, [v]infallibly, at first
+sight; even those who had quite forgotten her. And the women told their
+men. Hence the un-Sunday-like demeanor of the procession, for few towns
+held it more unseemly to stand and stare at passers-by, especially on
+the Sabbath. But Ariel Tabor had returned.
+
+A low but increasing murmur followed the two as they proceeded. It ran
+up the street ahead of them; people turned to look back and paused, so
+that Ariel and Joe had to walk round one or two groups. They had, also,
+to walk round Norbert Flitcroft, which was very like walking round a
+group. Mr. Flitcroft was one of the few (he was waddling home alone)
+who did not identify Miss Tabor, and her effect upon him was
+extraordinary. His mouth opened and he gazed [v]stodgily, his widening
+eyes like sun-dogs coming out of a fog. Mr. Flitcroft experienced a few
+moments of trance; came out of it stricken through and through; felt
+nervously of his tie; resolutely fell in behind, and followed, at a
+distance of some forty paces, determined to learn what household this
+heavenly visitor honored, and thrilling with the intention to please
+that same household with his own presence as soon and as often as
+possible.
+
+Ariel flushed a little when she perceived the extent of their
+conspicuousness; but it was not the blush that Joe remembered had
+reddened the tanned skin of old; for her brownness had gone long ago,
+though it had not left her merely pink and white. There was a delicate
+rosiness rising from her cheeks to her temples, as the earliest dawn
+rises.
+
+Joe kept trying to realize that this lady of wonder was Ariel Tabor, but
+he could not; he could not connect the shabby Ariel, whom he had treated
+as one boy treats another, with this young woman of the world. Although
+he had only a dim perception of the staring and whispering which greeted
+and followed them, Ariel, of course, was thoroughly aware of it, though
+the only sign she gave was the slight blush, which very soon
+disappeared.
+
+Ariel paused before the impressive front of Judge Pike's large mansion.
+Joe's face expressed surprise.
+
+"Don't you know?" she said. "I'm staying here. Judge Pike has charge of
+all my property. Come to see me this afternoon."
+
+With a last charming smile, Ariel turned and left the dazed young man on
+the sidewalk.
+
+That walk was but the beginning of her triumph. Judge Pike's of a summer
+afternoon was the swirling social center of Canaan, but on that
+particular Sunday afternoon every unattached male in the town who
+possessed the privilege of calling at the big house appeared. They
+filled the chairs in the wide old-fashioned hall where Ariel received
+them, and overpoured on the broad steps of the old-fashioned spiral
+staircase, where Mr. Flitcroft, on account of his size, occupied two
+steps and a portion of a third. And Ariel was the center of it all!
+BOOTH TARKINGTON.
+
+
+=HELPS TO STUDY=
+
+     I. Describe Ariel's pitiful attempts at beautifying herself when
+     dressing for the dance. When did she realize her failure? How were
+     her anticipations of the dance realized? What kind of girl was
+     Mamie Pike? Give reasons for your answer. At what point were you
+     most sorry for Ariel? With what startling news did the evening end?
+
+     II. Give an account of the meeting between the old playmates.
+     Describe the scenes as they walked along the street. What do you
+     think was the greatest part of Ariel's "triumph?" Was she spoiled
+     by her wealth? How do you know?
+
+
+SUPPLEMENTARY READING
+
+     Little Women--Louisa M. Alcott.
+     Pride and Prejudice--Jane Austen.
+
+
+FOOTNOTE:
+
+[141-*] Copyright by Harper & Brothers.
+
+
+
+
+THE CLOUD
+
+
+    I bring fresh showers for the thirsting flowers,
+        From the seas and the streams;
+    I bear light shade for the leaves when laid
+        In their noonday dreams.
+    From my wings are shaken the dews that waken
+        The sweet buds every one,
+    When rocked to rest on their mother's breast,
+        As she dances about the sun.
+    I wield the flail of the lashing hail,
+        And whiten the green plains under;
+    And then again I dissolve it in rain;
+        And laugh as I pass in thunder.
+
+    I sift the snow on the mountains below,
+        And their great pines groan aghast;
+    And all the night 'tis my pillow white,
+        While I sleep in the arms of the blast.
+    Sublime on the towers of my skyey bowers
+        Lightning, my pilot, sits;
+    In a cavern under is fettered the thunder;
+        It struggles and howls at fits.
+    Over earth and ocean, with gentle motion,
+        This pilot is guiding me,
+    Lured by the love of the [v]genii that move
+        In the depths of the purple sea;
+    Over the rills and the crags and the hills,
+        Over the lakes and the plains,
+    Wherever he dream, under mountain or stream.
+        The spirit he loves remains;
+    And I all the while bask in heaven's blue smile,
+        Whilst he is dissolving in rains.
+
+    I am the daughter of the earth and water,
+        And the nursling of the sky;
+    I pass through the pores of the ocean and shores;
+        I change, but I cannot die.
+    For after the rain, when, with never a stain,
+        The pavilion of heaven is bare,
+    And the winds and sunbeams, with their convex gleams,
+        Build up the blue dome of air,--
+    I silently laugh at my own cenotaph,
+        And out of the caverns of rain,
+        I rise and unbuild it again.
+
+    PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY.
+
+
+=HELPS TO STUDY=
+
+     Make a list of the things the cloud does. Read aloud the lines in
+     which the poet tells of each of these. Why is lightning spoken of
+     as the pilot of the cloud? Where does it sit? Where is the thunder?
+     How is the cloud "the daughter of the earth and water"? How "a
+     nursling of the sky"? Explain "I change, but I cannot die." A
+     cenotaph is a memorial built to one who is buried elsewhere. Why
+     should the clear sky be the cloud's cenotaph? How does the
+     reappearing of the cloud unbuild it?
+
+
+
+
+NEW ENGLAND WEATHER
+
+
+There is a [v]sumptuous variety about the New England weather that
+compels the stranger's admiration--and regret. The weather is always
+doing something there; always attending strictly to business; always
+getting up new designs and trying them on the people to see how they
+will go. But it gets through more business in spring than in any other
+season. In the spring I have counted one hundred and thirty-six
+different kinds of weather within four and twenty hours. It was I who
+made the fame and fortune of the man who had that marvelous collection
+of weather on exhibition at the Centennial, which so astounded the
+foreigners. He was going to travel around the world and get specimens
+from all climes. I said, "Don't do it; just come to New England on a
+favorable spring day." I told him what we could do in the way of style,
+variety, and quantity. Well, he came, and he made his collection in four
+days. As to variety, he confessed that he got hundreds of kinds of
+weather that he had never heard of before. And as to quantity, after he
+had picked out and discarded all that was blemished in any way, he not
+only had weather enough, but weather to spare, weather to hire out,
+weather to sell, weather to deposit, weather to invest, and weather to
+give to the poor.
+
+Old Probabilities has a mighty reputation for accurate prophecy and
+thoroughly deserves it. You take up the paper and observe how crisply
+and confidently he checks off what to-day's weather is going to be on
+the Pacific, down South, in the Middle States, in the Wisconsin region.
+See him sail along in the joy and pride of his power till he gets to New
+England, and then see his tail drop. _He_ doesn't know what the weather
+is going to be in New England. Well, he mulls over it, and by and by he
+gets out something like this: "Probable northeast to southwest winds,
+varying to the southward and westward and eastward and points between;
+high and low barometer, swapping around from place to place; probable
+areas of rain, snow, hail, and drought, succeeded or preceded by
+earthquakes with thunder and lightning." Then he jots down this
+postscript from his wandering mind, to cover accidents: "But it is
+possible that the program may be wholly changed in the meantime." Yes,
+one of the brightest gems in the New England weather is the dazzling
+uncertainty of it. There is certain to be plenty of weather, but you
+never can tell which end of the procession is going to move first.
+
+But, after all, there are at least two or three things about that
+weather (or, if you please, the effects produced by it) which we
+residents would not like to part with. If we hadn't our bewitching
+autumn foliage, we should still have to credit the weather with one
+feature which compensates for all its bullying vagaries--the ice storm.
+Every bough and twig is strung with ice beads, frozen dewdrops, and the
+whole tree sparkles cold and white like the [v]Shah of Persia's diamond
+plume. Then the wind waves the branches, and the sun comes out and turns
+all those myriads of beads and drops to prisms that glow and burn and
+flash with all manner of colored fires; which change and change again,
+with inconceivable rapidity, from blue to red, from red to green, and
+green to gold. The tree becomes a spraying fountain, a very explosion of
+dazzling jewels, and it stands there the [v]acme, the climax, the
+supremest possibility in art or nature, of bewildering, intoxicating,
+intolerable magnificence. One cannot make the words too strong. Month
+after month I lay up hate and grudge against the New England weather;
+but when the ice storm comes at last I say: "There, I forgive you now;
+you are the most enchanting weather in the world."
+
+MARK TWAIN.
+
+
+
+=HELPS TO STUDY=
+
+     Mark Twain's humor was noted for exaggeration. Find examples of
+     exaggeration in this selection. Old Probabilities was the name
+     signed by a weather prophet of the period. How was he affected by
+     New England weather? At what point did Twain drop his fun and begin
+     a beautiful tribute to a New England landscape? How does the
+     tribute close?
+
+
+SUPPLEMENTARY READING
+
+     Three Men in a Boat--Jerome K. Jerome.
+     The House Boat on the Styx--John Kendrick Bangs.
+
+[Illustration: Silence Deep and White]
+
+
+
+
+THE FIRST SNOWFALL
+
+
+    The snow had begun in the gloaming,
+      And busily all the night
+    Had been heaping fields and highway
+      With a silence deep and white.
+
+    Every pine and fir and hemlock
+      Wore ermine too dear for an earl,
+    And the poorest twig on the elm tree
+      Was ridged inch deep with pearl.
+
+    From sheds new roofed with Carrara
+      Came chanticleer's muffled crow,
+    The stiff rails were softened to swan's-down
+      And still fluttered down the snow.
+
+    I stood and watched by the window
+      That noiseless work of the sky,
+    And the sudden flurries of snowbirds,
+      Like brown leaves whirling by.
+
+    I thought of a mound in sweet Auburn
+      Where a little headstone stood;
+    How the flakes were folding it gently,
+      As did robins the babes in the wood.
+
+    Up spoke our own little Mabel,
+      Saying, "Father, who makes it snow?"
+    And I told of the good All-Father
+      Who cares for us here below.
+
+    Again I looked at the snowfall,
+      And thought of the leaden sky
+    That arched o'er our first great sorrow,
+      When that mound was heaped so high.
+
+    I remembered the gradual patience
+      That fell from that cloud like snow,
+    Flake by flake, healing and hiding
+      The scar on our deep-plunged woe.
+
+    And again to the child I whispered,
+      "The snow that husheth all,
+    Darling, the merciful Father
+      Alone can make it fall."
+
+    Then, with eyes that saw not, I kissed her;
+      And she, kissing back, could not know
+    That _my_ kiss was given to her sister,
+      Folded close under deepening snow.
+
+    JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL.
+
+
+=HELPS TO STUDY=
+
+     When did the snow begin? How do you know? What time is it now? Is
+     snow still falling? Read the lines that show this. Of what sorrow
+     does the snow remind the poet? Read the lines which show that peace
+     had come to the parents. Make a list of the comparisons (or
+     similes) used by the poet. Read the lines which show that the storm
+     was a quiet one. Which lines do you like best?
+
+
+
+
+OLD EPHRAIM
+
+
+For some days after our arrival on the Bighorn range we did not come
+across any grizzly. There were plenty of black-tail deer in the woods,
+and we encountered a number of bands of cow and calf elk, or of young
+bulls; but after several days' hunting, we were still without any game
+worth taking home, and we had seen no sign of grizzly, which was the
+game we were especially anxious to kill, for neither Merrifield nor I
+had ever seen a bear alive.
+
+Sometimes we hunted in company; sometimes each of us went out alone. One
+day we had separated; I reached camp early in the afternoon, and waited
+a couple of hours before Merrifield put in an appearance.
+
+At last I heard a shout, and he came in sight galloping at speed down an
+open glade, and waving his hat, evidently having had good luck; and when
+he reined in his small, wiry cow-pony, we saw that he had packed behind
+his saddle the fine, glossy pelt of a black bear. Better still, he
+announced that he had been off about ten miles to a perfect tangle of
+ravines and valleys where bear sign was very thick; and not of black
+bear either, but of grizzly. The black bear (the only one we got on the
+mountains) he had run across by accident.
+
+Merrifield's tale made me decide to shift camp at once, and go over to
+the spot where the bear-tracks were plentiful. Next morning we were off,
+and by noon pitched camp by a clear brook, in a valley with steep,
+wooded sides.
+
+That afternoon we again went out, and I shot a fine bull elk. I came
+home alone toward nightfall, walking through a reach of burnt forest,
+where there was nothing but charred tree-trunks and black mold. When
+nearly through it I came across the huge, half-human footprints of a
+great grizzly, which must have passed by within a few minutes. It gave
+me rather an eery feeling in the silent, lonely woods, to see for the
+first time the unmistakable proofs that I was in the home of the mighty
+lord of the wilderness.
+
+That evening we almost had a visit from one of the animals we were
+after. Several times we had heard at night the musical calling of the
+bull elk--a sound to which no writer has as yet done justice. This
+particular night, when we were in bed and the fire was smoldering, we
+were roused by a ruder noise--a kind of grunting or roaring whine,
+answered by the frightened snorts of the ponies. It was a bear which had
+evidently not seen the fire, as it came from behind the bank, and had
+probably been attracted by the smell of the horses. After it made out
+what we were, it stayed round a short while, again uttered its peculiar
+roaring grunt, and went off; we had seized our rifles and had run out
+into the woods, but in the darkness could see nothing; indeed it was
+rather lucky we did not stumble across the bear, as he could have made
+short work of us when we were at such a disadvantage.
+
+Next day we went off on a long tramp through the woods and along the
+sides of the canyons. There were plenty of berry bushes growing in
+clusters; and all around these there were fresh tracks of bear. But the
+grizzly is also a flesh-eater, and has a great liking for [v]carrion. On
+visiting the place where Merrifield had killed the black bear, we found
+that the grizzlies had been there before us, and had utterly devoured
+the carcass, with cannibal relish. Hardly a scrap was left, and we
+turned our steps toward where lay the bull elk I had killed. It was
+quite late in the afternoon when we reached the place.
+
+A grizzly had evidently been at the carcass during the preceding night,
+for his great footprints were in the ground all around it, and the
+carcass itself was gnawed and torn, and partially covered with earth and
+leaves--the grizzly has a curious habit of burying all of his prey that
+he does not at the moment need.
+
+The forest was composed mainly of what are called ridge-pole pines,
+which grow close together, and do not branch out until the stems are
+thirty or forty feet from the ground. Beneath these trees we walked over
+a carpet of pine needles, upon which our moccasined feet made no sound.
+The woods seemed vast and lonely, and their silence was broken now and
+then by the strange noises always to be heard in the great pine
+forests.
+
+We climbed up along the trunk of a dead tree that had toppled over until
+its upper branches struck in the limb crotch of another, which thus
+supported it at an angle half-way in its fall. When above the ground far
+enough to prevent the bear's smelling us, we sat still to wait for his
+approach; until, in the gathering gloom, we could no longer see the
+sights of our rifles. It was useless to wait longer; and we clambered
+down and stole out to the edge of the woods. The forest here covered one
+side of a steep, almost canyon-like ravine, whose other side was bare
+except for rock and sage-brush. Once out from under the trees there was
+still plenty of light, although the sun had set, and we crossed over
+some fifty yards to the opposite hillside, and crouched down under a
+bush to see if perchance some animal might not also leave the cover.
+
+Again we waited quietly in the growing dusk until the pine trees in our
+front blended into one dark, frowning mass. At last, as we were rising
+to leave, we heard the sound of the breaking of a dead stick, from the
+spot where we knew the carcass lay. "Old Ephraim" had come back to the
+carcass. A minute afterward, listening with strained ears, we heard him
+brush by some dry twigs. It was entirely too dark to go in after him;
+but we made up our minds that on the morrow he should be ours.
+
+Early next morning we were over at the elk carcass, and, as we expected,
+found that the bear had eaten his fill of it during the night. His
+tracks showed him to be an immense fellow, and were so fresh that we
+doubted if he had left long before we arrived; and we made up our minds
+to follow him up and try to find his lair. The bears that lived on these
+mountains had evidently been little disturbed; indeed, the Indians and
+most of the white hunters are rather chary of meddling with "Old
+Ephraim," as the mountain men style the grizzly. The bears thus seemed
+to have very little fear of harm, and we thought it likely that the bed
+of the one who had fed on the elk would not be far away.
+
+My companion was a skillful tracker, and we took up the trail at once.
+For some distance it led over the soft, yielding carpet of moss and pine
+needles, and the footprints were quite easily made out, although we
+could follow them but slowly; for we had, of course, to keep a sharp
+look-out ahead and around us as we walked noiselessly on in the somber
+half-light always prevailing under the great pine trees.
+
+After going a few hundred yards the tracks turned off on a well-beaten
+path made by the elk; the woods were in many places cut up by these game
+trails, which had often become as distinct as ordinary footpaths. The
+beast's footprints were perfectly plain in the dust, and he had lumbered
+along up the path until near the middle of the hillside, where the
+ground broke away and there were hollows and boulders. Here there had
+been a windfall, and the dead trees lay among the living, piled across
+one another in all directions; while between and around them sprouted up
+a thick growth of young spruces and other evergreens. The trail turned
+off into the tangled thicket, within which it was almost certain we
+should find our quarry. We could still follow the tracks, by the slight
+scrapes of the claws on the bark, or by the bent and broken twigs; and
+we advanced with noiseless caution.
+
+When in the middle of the thicket we crossed what was almost a
+breastwork of fallen logs, and Merrifield, who was leading, passed by
+the upright stem of a great pine. As soon as he was by it, he sank
+suddenly on one knee, turning half round, his face fairly aflame with
+excitement; and as I strode past him, with my rifle at the ready, there,
+not ten steps off, was the great bear, slowly rising from his bed among
+the young spruces. He had heard us, but apparently hardly knew exactly
+where or what we were, for he reared up on his haunches sideways to us.
+
+Then he saw us and dropped down again on all-fours, the shaggy hair on
+his neck and shoulders seeming to bristle as he turned toward us. As he
+sank down on his fore feet, I had raised the rifle; his head was bent
+slightly down, and when I saw the top of the white bead fairly between
+his small, glittering, evil eyes, I pulled trigger. Half-rising up, the
+huge beast fell over on his side in the death throes, the ball having
+gone into his brain, striking as fairly between the eyes as if the
+distance had been measured.
+
+The whole thing was over in twenty seconds from the time I caught sight
+of the game; indeed, it was over so quickly that the grizzly did not
+have time to show fight. He was a monstrous fellow, much larger than any
+I have seen since. As near as we could estimate, he must have weighed
+above twelve hundred pounds.
+
+THEODORE ROOSEVELT.
+
+
+=HELPS TO STUDY=
+
+     Theodore Roosevelt, President of the United States from 1901 to
+     1909, was one of the greatest hunters of the present generation. As
+     he was in weak health as a young man, he went West and lived for
+     some time the life of a ranchman and hunter, killing much wild
+     game. In later years he went on a great hunting trip to Africa, and
+     finally explored the wilds of the Amazon river, in South America,
+     in search of game and adventure. "Old Ephraim" narrates one of his
+     earlier hunting experiences, and is taken from the book, _The
+     Hunting Trips of a Ranchman_.
+
+     Give an account of the capture of the grizzly bear. Why did not
+     Merrifield fire? Compare the weight of the bear with that of the
+     average cow or horse. Tell of any bear hunt of which you know.
+
+
+SUPPLEMENTARY READING
+
+     Watchers of the Trail--Charles C. D. Roberts.
+     Monarch, the Bear--Ernest Thompson Seton.
+     Wild Animals I Have Known--Ernest Thompson Seton.
+     African Game Trails--Theodore Roosevelt.
+
+
+
+
+MIDWINTER
+
+
+    The speckled sky is dim with snow,
+    The light flakes falter and fall slow;
+    Athwart the hill-top, rapt and pale,
+    Silently drops a silvery veil;
+    And all the valley is shut in
+    By flickering curtains gray and thin.
+
+    But cheerily the chickadee
+    Singeth to me on fence and tree;
+    The snow sails round him as he sings,
+    White as the down of angels' wings.
+
+    I watch the slow flakes as they fall
+    On bank and briar and broken wall;
+    Over the orchard, waste and brown,
+    All noiselessly they settle down,
+    Tipping the apple-boughs, and each
+    Light quivering twig of plum and peach.
+
+    On turf and curb and bower-roof
+    The snow-storm spreads its ivory woof;
+    It paves with pearl the garden-walk;
+    And lovingly round tattered stalk
+    And shivering stem its magic weaves
+    A mantle fair as lily-leaves.
+
+    All day it snows: the sheeted post
+    Gleams in the dimness like a ghost;
+    All day the blasted oak has stood
+    A muffled wizard of the wood;
+    Garland and airy cap adorn
+    The sumach and the wayside thorn,
+    And clustering spangles lodge and shine
+    In the dark tresses of the pine.
+
+    The ragged bramble, dwarfed and old,
+    Shrinks like a beggar in the cold;
+    In [v]surplice white the cedar stands,
+    And blesses him with priestly hands.
+
+    Still cheerily the chickadee
+    Singeth to me on fence and tree:
+    But in my inmost ear is heard
+    The music of a holier bird;
+    And heavenly thoughts as soft and white
+    As snow-flakes on my soul alight,
+    Clothing with love my lonely heart,
+    Healing with peace each bruised part,
+    Till all my being seems to be
+    Transfigured by their purity.
+
+    JOHN TOWNSEND TROWBRIDGE.
+
+
+=HELPS TO STUDY=
+
+     When did this storm begin? Read lines which show this. Give reasons
+     for your answer. What comparisons are used by the poet in
+     describing the snowfall? Which comparison do you like best? What
+     healing thought does the storm bring to the poet? Compare it with
+     the same thought in _The First Snowfall_.
+
+
+
+
+A GEORGIA FOX HUNT[177-*]
+
+
+I
+
+In the season of 1863, the Rockville Hunting Club, which had been newly
+organized, was at the height of its success. It was composed of men too
+old to go in the army, and of young men who were not old enough, or who,
+from one cause and another, were exempted from military service.
+Ostensibly, its object was to encourage the noble sport of fox-hunting
+and to bind by closer ties the congenial souls whose love for horse and
+hound and horn bordered on enthusiasm. This, I say, was its
+[v]ostensible object, for it seems to me, looking back upon that
+terrible time, that the main purpose of the association was to devise
+new methods of forgetting the sickening [v]portents of disaster that
+were even then thick in the air. Any suggestion or plan calculated to
+relieve the mind from the weight of the horror of those desperate days
+was eagerly seized upon and utilized. With the old men and the fledgling
+boys in the neighborhood of Rockville, the desire to escape momentarily
+the realities of the present took the shape of fox-hunting and other
+congenial amusements. With the women--ah well! Heaven only knows how
+they sat dumb and silent over their great anguish and grief, cheering
+the helpless and comforting and succoring the sick and wounded. It was
+a mystery to me then, and it is a mystery to me now.
+
+About the first of November the writer hereof received a long-expected
+letter from Tom Tunison, the secretary of the club, who was on a visit
+to Monticello. It was brief and breezy.
+
+"Young man," he wrote, "they are coming. They are going to give us a
+[v]ruffle. Their dogs are good, but they lack form and finish as well as
+discipline--plenty of bottom but no confidence. I haven't hesitated to
+put up our horn as the prize. Get the boys together and tell them about
+it, and see that our own eleven are in fighting trim. You won't believe
+it, but Sue, Herndon, Kate, and Walthall are coming with the party; and
+the fair de Compton, who set all the Monticello boys wild last year when
+she got back from Macon, vows and declares she is coming, too. Remember
+the 15th. Be prepared."
+
+I took in the situation at a glance. Tom, in his reckless style, had
+bantered a party of Jasper county men as to the superiority of their
+dogs, and had even offered to give them an opportunity to gain the
+silver-mounted horn won by the Rockville club in Hancock county the year
+before. The Jasper county men, who were really breeding some excellent
+dogs, accepted the challenge, and Tom had invited them to share the
+hospitality of the plantation home called "Bachelors' Hall."
+
+If the truth must be confessed, I was not at all grieved at the
+announcement in Tom's letter, apart from the agreeable change in the
+social atmosphere that would result from the presence of ladies in
+"Bachelors' Hall." I was eagerly anxious to test the mettle of a
+favorite hound--Flora--whose care and training had cost me a great deal
+of time and trouble. Although it was her first season in the field, she
+had already become the pet and pride of the Rockville club, the members
+of which were not slow to sound her praises. Flora was an experiment.
+She was the result of a cross between the Henry hound (called in Georgia
+the "Birdsong dog," in honor of the most successful breeder) and a
+Maryland hound. She was a grand-daughter of the famous Hodo and in
+everything except her color (she was white with yellow ears) was the
+exact reproduction of that magnificent fox-hound. I was anxious to see
+her put to the test.
+
+It was with no small degree of satisfaction, therefore, that I informed
+Aunt Patience, the cook, of Tom's programme. Aunt Patience was a
+privileged character, whose comments upon people and things were free
+and frequent; when she heard that a party of hunters, accompanied by
+ladies, proposed to make the hall their temporary headquarters, her
+remarks were ludicrously indignant.
+
+"Well, ef dat Marse Tom ain't de beatinest white man dat I ever sot eyes
+on--'way off yander givin' way his vittles fo' he buy um at de sto'!
+How I know what Marse Tom want, an' tel I know, whar I gwineter git um?
+He better be home yer lookin' atter deze lazy niggers, stidder
+high-flyin' wid dem Jasper county folks. Ef dez enny vittles on dis
+plan'ash'n, hits more'n I knows un. En he'll go runnin' roun' wid dem
+harum-skarum gals twell I boun' he don't fetch dat pipe an' dat 'backer
+what he said he would. Can't fool me 'bout de gals what grows up deze
+days. Dey duz like dey wanter stan' up an' cuss dersef' case dey wuzent
+borned men."
+
+"Why, Aunt Patience, your Marse Tom says Miss de Compton is as pretty as
+a pink and as fine as a fiddle."
+
+"Law, chile! you needn't talk 'bout de gals to dis ole 'omen. I done
+know um fo' you wuz borned. W'en you see Miss Compton you see all de
+balance un um. Deze is new times. Marse Tom's mammy useter spin her
+fifteen cents o' wool a day--w'en you see Miss Compton wid a hank er
+yarn in 'er han', you jes' sen' me word."
+
+Whereupon, Aunt Patience gave her head handkerchief a vigorous wrench,
+and went her way--the good old soul--even then considering how she
+should best set about preparing a genuine surprise for her young master
+in the shape of daily feasts for a dozen guests. I will not stop here to
+detail the character of this preparation or to dwell upon its success.
+It is enough to say that Tom Tunison praised Aunt Patience to the
+skies; and, as if this were not sufficient to make her happy, he
+produced a big clay pipe, three plugs of real "manufac terbacker," which
+was hard to get in those times, a red shawl, and twelve yards of calico.
+
+The fortnight that followed the arrival of Tom's guests was one long to
+be remembered, not only in the [v]annals of the Rockville Hunting Club
+but in the annals of Rockville itself. The fair de Compton literally
+turned the heads of old men and young boys, and even succeeded in
+conquering the critics of her own sex. She was marvelously beautiful,
+and her beauty was of a kind to haunt one in one's dreams. It was easy
+to perceive that she had made a conquest of Tom, and I know that every
+suggestion he made and every project he planned had for its sole end and
+aim the enjoyment of Miss Carrie de Compton.
+
+It was several days before the minor details of the contest, which was
+at once the excuse for and the object of the visit of Tom's guests,
+could be arranged, but finally everything was "[v]amicably adjusted,"
+and the day appointed. The night before the hunt, the club and the
+Jasper county visitors assembled in Tom Tunison's parlor for a final
+discussion of the event.
+
+"In order," said Tom, "to give our friends and guests an opportunity
+fully to test the speed and bottom of their kennels, it has been decided
+to pay our respects to 'Old Sandy'."
+
+"And pray, Mr. Tunison, who is 'Old Sandy'?" queried Miss de Compton.
+
+"He is a fox, Miss de Compton, and a tough one. He is a trained fox. He
+has been hunted so often by the inferior packs in his neighborhood that
+he is well-nigh [v]invincible. He is so well known that he has not been
+hunted, except by accident, for two seasons. He is not as suspicious as
+he was two years ago, but we must be careful if we want to get within
+hearing distance of him to-morrow morning."
+
+"Do any of the ladies go with us?" asked Jack Herndon.
+
+"I go, for one," responded Miss de Compton, and in a few minutes all the
+ladies had decided to go along, even if they found it inconvenient to
+participate actively in the hunt.
+
+"Then," said Tom, rising, "we must say good night. Uncle Plato will
+sound 'Boots and Saddle' at four o'clock to-morrow morning."
+
+"Four o'clock!" exclaimed the ladies in dismay.
+
+"At four precisely," answered Tom, and the ladies with pretty little
+gestures of mock despair swept upstairs while Tom brought out cigars for
+the boys.
+
+My friend little knew how delighted I was that "Old Sandy" was to be put
+through his paces. He little knew how carefully I had studied the
+peculiarities of this famous fox--how often when training Flora I had
+taken her out and followed "Old Sandy" through all his ranges, how I
+had "felt of" both his speed and bottom and knew all his weak points.
+
+
+II
+
+Morning came, and with it Uncle Plato's bugle call. Aunt Patience was
+ready with a smoking hot breakfast, and everybody was in fine spirits.
+As the eager, happy crowd filed down the broad avenue that led to the
+hall, the fair de Compton, who had been delayed in mounting, rode by my
+side.
+
+"You choose your escort well," I ventured to say.
+
+"I have a weakness for children," she replied; "particularly for
+children who know what they are about. Plato has told me that if I
+desired to see all of the hunt without much trouble, to follow you. I am
+selfish, you perceive."
+
+We rode over the red hills and under the russet trees until we came to
+"Old Sandy's" favorite haunt. Here a council of war was held, and it was
+decided that Tom and a portion of the hunters should skirt the fields,
+while another portion led by Miss de Compton and myself should enter and
+bid the fox good morning. Uncle Plato, who had been given the cue,
+followed me with the dogs, and in a few moments we were very near the
+particular spot where I hoped to find the venerable deceiver of dogs and
+men. The hounds were already sallying hither and thither, anxious and
+evidently expectant.
+
+Five minutes went by without a whimper from the pack. There was not a
+sound save the eager rustling of the dogs through the sedge and
+undergrowth. The ground was familiar to Flora, and I watched her with
+pride as with powerful strides she circled around. Suddenly she paused
+and flung her head in the air, making a beautiful picture where she
+stood poised, as if listening. My heart gave a great thump. It was a
+trick of hers, and I knew that "Old Sandy" had been around within the
+past twenty-four hours! With a rush, a bound, and an eager cry, my
+favorite came toward us, and the next moment "Old Sandy," who had been
+lying almost at our horses' feet, was up and away with Flora right at
+his heels. A wild hope seized me that my favorite would run into the shy
+veteran before he could get out of the field. But no! One of the Jasper
+county hunters, rendered momentarily insane by excitement, endeavored to
+ride the fox down with his horse, and in another moment Sir Reynard was
+over the fence and into the woodland beyond, followed by the hounds.
+They made a splendid but [v]ineffectual burst of speed, for when "Old
+Sandy" found himself upon the blackjack hills he was foot-loose. The
+morning, however, was fine--just damp enough to leave the scent of the
+fox hanging breast high in the air, whether he shaped his course over
+lowlands or highlands.
+
+[Illustration: The Beginning of the Fox Hunt]
+
+In the midst of all the confusion that had ensued, Miss de Compton
+remained cool, serene, and apparently indifferent, but I observed a
+glow upon her face and a sparkle in her eyes, as Tom Tunison, riding his
+gallant gray and heading the hunters, easily and gracefully took a
+couple of fences when the hounds veered to the left.
+
+"Our Jasper county friend has saved 'Old Sandy,' Miss de Compton," I
+said, "but he has given us an opportunity of witnessing some very fine
+sport. The fox is so badly frightened that he may endeavor in the
+beginning to outfoot the dogs, but in the end he will return to his
+range, and then I hope to show you what a cunning old customer he is. If
+Flora doesn't fail us at the critical moment, you will have the honor of
+wearing his brush on your saddle."
+
+"Youth is always confident," replied Miss de Compton.
+
+"In this instance, however, I have the advantage of knowing both hound
+and fox. Flora has a few weaknesses, but I think she understands what is
+expected of her to-day."
+
+Thus bantering and chaffing each other, we turned our horses' heads in a
+direction [v]oblique to that taken by the other hunters, who, with the
+exception of Tom Tunison and Jack Herndon, now well up with the dogs,
+were struggling along as best they could. For a half mile or more we
+cantered down a lane, then turned into a stubble field, and made for a
+hill crowned and skirted by a growth of blackjack, through which an
+occasional pine had broken, as it seemed, in a vain but noble effort to
+touch the sky. Once upon the summit of the hills, we had a majestic view
+upon all sides. The fresh morning breezes blew crisp and cool and
+bracing, but were not uncomfortable after the exercise we had taken; and
+as the clouds that had muffled up the east dispersed themselves or were
+dissolved, the generous sun spread layer upon layer of golden light upon
+hill and valley and forest and stream.
+
+Away to the left we could hear the hounds, and the music of their
+voices, toyed with by the playful wind, rolled itself into melodious
+little echoes that broke pleasantly upon the ear, now loud, now faint,
+now far and now near. The first burst of speed, which had been terrific,
+had settled down into a steady run, but I knew by the sound that the
+pace was still tremendous, and I imagined I could hear the silvery
+tongue of Flora as she led the eager pack. The cries of the hounds,
+however, grew fainter and fainter, until presently they were lost in the
+distance.
+
+"He is making a straight shoot for the Turner [v]old fields, two miles
+away," I remarked, by way of explanation.
+
+"And pray, why are we here?" Miss de Compton asked.
+
+"To be in at the death. (The fair de Compton smiled [v]sarcastically.)
+In the Turner old fields the fox will make his grand double, gain upon
+the dogs, head for yonder hill, and come down the ravine upon our
+right. At the fence here, within plain view, he will attempt a trick
+that has heretofore always been successful, and which has given him a
+reputation as a trained fox. I depend upon the intelligence of Flora to
+see through 'Old Sandy's' [v]strategy, but if she hesitates a moment, we
+must set her right."
+
+I spoke with the confidence of one having experience, and Miss de
+Compton smiled and was content. We had little time for further
+conversation, for in a few minutes I observed a dark shadow emerge from
+the undergrowth on the opposite hill and slip quickly across the open
+space of fallow land. It crossed the ravine that intersected the valley,
+stole quietly through the stubble to the fence, and there paused a
+moment, as if hesitating. In a low voice I called Miss de Compton's
+attention to the figure, but she refused to believe that it was the same
+fox we had aroused thirty minutes before. Howbeit, it was the
+[v]veritable "Old Sandy" himself. I should have known him among a
+thousand foxes. He was not in as fine feather as when, at the start, he
+had swung his brush across Flora's nose--the pace had told on him--but
+he still moved with an air of confidence.
+
+Then and there Miss de Compton beheld a display of fox tactics shrewd
+enough to excite the admiration of the most indifferent--a display of
+cunning that seemed to be something higher than instinct.
+
+"Old Sandy" paused only a moment. With a bound he gained the top of
+the fence, stopped to pull something from one of his fore
+feet--probably a cockle bur--and then carefully balancing himself,
+proceeded to walk the fence. By this time, the music of the dogs was
+again heard in the distance, but "Old Sandy" took his time.
+One--two--three--seven--ten--twenty panels of the fence were cleared.
+Pausing, he again subjected his fore feet to examination, and licked
+them carefully. Then he proceeded on his journey along the fence until
+he was at least one hundred yards from where he left the ground. Here
+he paused for the first time, gathered himself together, leaped
+through the air, and rushed away. As he did so, the full note of the
+pack burst upon our ears as the hounds reached the brow of the hill
+from the lowlands on the other side.
+
+"Upon my word!" exclaimed Miss de Compton; "that fox ought to go free. I
+shall beg Mr. Tunison--"
+
+But before she finished her sentence the dogs came into view, and I
+could hardly restrain a shout of triumph as I saw Flora running easily
+and unerringly far to the front. Behind her, led by Captain--and so
+close together that, as Uncle Plato afterward remarked, "You mout kivver
+de whole caboodle wid a hoss-blanket"--were the remainder of the Tunison
+kennel, while the Jasper county hounds were strung out behind in wild
+but heroic confusion. I felt strongly tempted to give the view-halloo,
+and push "Old Sandy" to the wall at once, but I knew that the fair de
+Compton would regard the exploit with severe [v]reprobation forever
+after. Across the ravine and to the fence the dogs came, their voices,
+as they got nearer, crashing through the silence like a chorus of
+demons.
+
+Now was the critical moment. If Flora should fail me--!
+
+Several of the older dogs topped the rails, and scattered through the
+undergrowth. Flora came over with them, made a small circle, with her
+sensitive nose to the damp earth, and then went rushing down the fence.
+Past the point where "Old Sandy" took his flying leap she ran, turned
+suddenly to the left, and came swooping back in a wide circle. I had
+barely time to warn Miss de Compton that she must prepare to do a little
+rapid riding, when my favorite, with a fierce cry of delight that
+thrilled me through and through, picked up the blazing [v]drag, and away
+we went with a scream and a shout. I felt in my very bones that "Old
+Sandy" was doomed. I had never seen Flora so prompt and eager; I had
+never observed the scent to be better. Everything was auspicious.
+
+We went like the wind. Miss de Compton rode well, and the long stretches
+of stubble land through which the chase led were unbroken by ditch or
+fence. The pace of the hounds was simply terrific, and I knew that no
+fox on earth could long stand up before the white demon that led the
+hunt with such splendor.
+
+Five--ten--fifteen minutes we rushed at the heels of the rearmost dogs,
+until, suddenly, we found ourselves in the midst of the pack. The scent
+was lost! Flora ran about in wide circles, followed by the greater
+portion of the dogs. To the left, to the right they went. At that
+moment, chancing to look back, I caught a glimpse of "Old Sandy," broken
+down and bedraggled, making his way toward a clump of briars. He had
+played his last [v]trump and lost. Pushed by the dogs, he had dropped in
+his tracks and literally allowed them to run over him. I rode at him
+with a shout; there was a short, sharp race, and in a few moments [v]_La
+Mort_ was sounded over the famous fox on the horn that the Jasper county
+boys did not win.
+
+JOEL CHANDLER HARRIS.
+
+
+=HELPS TO STUDY=
+
+     This gives a good picture of a fox hunt in the South in the long
+     ago. Tell what you like best about it. Who is telling the story?
+     Was he young or old? How do you know? What opinion do you form of
+     the "fair de Compton"? See if you can get an old man, perhaps a
+     negro, to tell you of a fox hunt he has seen.
+
+SUPPLEMENTARY READING
+
+     In Ole Virginia--Thomas Nelson Page.
+     Old Creole Days--George W. Cable.
+     Swallow Barn--John P. Kennedy.
+     The Prophet of the Great Smoky Mountains--Charles Egbert Craddock.
+
+
+FOOTNOTE:
+
+[177-*] From the _Atlanta Constitution_.
+
+
+
+
+RAIN AND WIND
+
+
+    I hear the hoofs of horses
+      Galloping over the hill,
+    Galloping on and galloping on,
+      When all the night is shrill
+    With wind and rain that beats the pane--
+      And my soul with awe is still.
+
+    For every dripping window
+      Their headlong rush makes bound,
+    Galloping up and galloping by,
+      Then back again and around,
+    Till the gusty roofs ring with their hoofs,
+      And the draughty cellars sound.
+
+    And then I hear black horsemen
+      Hallooing in the night;
+    Hallooing and hallooing,
+      They ride o'er vale and height,
+    And the branches snap and the shutters clap
+      With the fury of their flight.
+
+    All night I hear their gallop,
+      And their wild halloo's alarm;
+    The tree-tops sound and vanes go round
+      In forest and on farm;
+    But never a hair of a thing is there--
+      Only the wind and the storm.
+
+    MADISON JULIUS CAWEIN.
+
+
+
+
+THE SOUTHERN SKY
+
+
+Presently the stars begin to peep out, timidly at first, as if to see
+whether the elements here below had ceased their strife, and if the
+scene on earth be such as they, from bright spheres aloft, may shed
+their sweet influences upon. Sirius, or that blazing world Argus, may be
+the first watcher to send down a feeble ray; then follow another and
+another, all smiling meekly; but presently, in the short twilight of the
+latitude, the bright leaders of the starry host blaze forth in all their
+glory, and the sky is decked and spangled with superb brilliants.
+
+In the twinkling of an eye, and faster than the admiring gazer can tell,
+the stars seem to leap out from their hiding-places. By invisible hands,
+and in quick succession, the constellations are hung out; first of all,
+and with dazzling glory, in the azure depths of space appears the great
+Southern Cross. That shining symbol lends a holy grandeur to the scene,
+making it still more impressive.
+
+Alone in the night-watch, after the sea-breeze has sunk to rest, I have
+stood on deck under those beautiful skies, gazing, admiring, rapt. I
+have seen there, above the horizon at once and shining with a splendor
+unknown to other latitudes, every star of the [v]first magnitude--save
+only six--that is contained in the catalogue of the one hundred
+principal fixed stars.
+
+There lies the city on the seashore, wrapped in sleep. The sky looks
+solid, like a vault of steel set with diamonds. The stillness below is
+in harmony with the silence above, and one almost fears to speak, lest
+the harsh sound of the human voice, reverberating through those vaulted
+"chambers of the south," should wake up echo and drown the music that
+fills the soul.
+
+Orion is there, just about to march down into the sea; but Canopus and
+Sirius, with Castor and his twin brother, and [v]Procyon, Argus, and
+Regulus--these are high up in their course; they look down with great
+splendor, smiling peacefully as they precede the Southern Cross on its
+western way. And yonder, farther still, away to the south, float the
+Magellanic clouds, and the "Coal Sacks"--those mysterious, dark spots in
+the sky, which seem as though it had been rent, and these were holes in
+the "azure robe of night," looking out into the starless, empty, black
+abyss beyond. One who has never watched the southern sky in the
+stillness of the night, after the sea-breeze with its turmoil is done,
+can have no idea of its grandeur, beauty, and loveliness.
+
+MATTHEW FONTAINE MAURY.
+
+
+=HELPS TO STUDY=
+
+     Do you know any of the stars or the constellations mentioned? Some
+     of them are seen in our latitude, but the southern sky Maury
+     describes is south of the equator. The "Southern Cross" is seen
+     only below the equator. The "Magellan Clouds" are not far from the
+     South Pole.
+
+
+
+
+DAFFODILS
+
+
+    I wandered lonely as a cloud
+      That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
+    When all at once I saw a crowd,
+      A host of golden daffodils,--
+    Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
+    Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.
+
+    Continuous as the stars that shine
+      And twinkle on the milky way,
+    They stretched in never-ending line
+      Along the margin of the bay.
+    Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
+    Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.
+
+    The waves beside them danced, but they
+      Outdid the sparkling waves in glee,--
+    A poet could not but be gay
+      In such a [v]jocund company.
+    I gazed, and gazed, but little thought
+    What wealth the show to me had brought.
+
+    For oft, when on my couch I lie,
+      In vacant or in pensive mood,
+    They flash upon that inward eye
+      Which is the bliss of solitude;
+    And then my heart with pleasure fills,
+    And dances with the daffodils.
+
+    WILLIAM WORDSWORTH.
+
+
+
+
+DAWN
+
+
+I had occasion, a few weeks since, to take the early train from
+Providence to Boston; and for this purpose I rose at two o'clock in the
+morning. Everything around was wrapped in darkness and hushed in
+silence. It was a mild, serene, midsummer night,--the sky was without a
+cloud,--the winds were [v]whist. The moon, then in the last quarter, had
+just risen, and the stars shone with a luster but little affected by her
+presence.
+
+Jupiter, two hours high, was the herald of the day; the [v]Pleiades,
+just above the horizon, shed their sweet influence in the east; Lyra
+sparkled near the [v]zenith; Andromeda veiled her newly discovered
+glories from the naked eye in the south; the steady Pointers, far
+beneath the pole, looked meekly up from the depths of the north to their
+sovereign.
+
+Such was the glorious spectacle as I entered the train. As we proceeded,
+the timid approach of twilight became more perceptible; the intense blue
+of the sky began to soften; the smaller stars, like little children,
+went first to rest; the sister-beams of the Pleiades soon melted
+together; but the bright constellations of the west and north remained
+unchanged. Steadily the wondrous transfiguration went on. Hands of
+angels, hidden from mortal eyes, shifted the scenery of the heavens; the
+glories of night dissolved into the glories of the dawn.
+
+The blue sky now turned more softly gray; the great watch-stars shut up
+their holy eyes; the east began to kindle. Faint streaks of purple soon
+blushed along the sky; the whole celestial concave was filled with the
+inflowing tides of the morning light, which came pouring down from above
+in one great ocean of radiance; till at length, as we reached the Blue
+Hills, a flash of purple fire blazed out from above the horizon, and
+turned the dewy teardrops of flower and leaf into rubies and diamonds.
+In a few seconds, the everlasting gates of the morning were thrown wide
+open, and the lord of day, arrayed in glories too severe for the gaze of
+man, began his state.
+
+I do not wonder at the superstition of the ancient [v]Magians, who, in
+the morning of the world, went up to the hilltops of Central Asia, and,
+ignorant of the true God, adored the most glorious work of His hand. But
+I am filled with amazement, when I am told that, in this enlightened age
+and in the heart of the Christian world, there are persons who can
+witness this daily manifestation of the power and wisdom of the Creator,
+and yet say in their hearts, "There is no God."
+
+EDWARD EVERETT.
+
+
+=HELPS TO STUDY=
+
+     What experience did Everett describe? What impresses the mood of
+     the early morning? In what latitude did Everett live? What stars
+     and constellations did he mention? Trace the steps by which he
+     pictured the sunrise. Why did he not wonder at the belief of the
+     "ancient Magians"? What thought does cause amazement?
+
+
+
+
+SPRING
+
+
+    Spring, with that nameless [v]pathos in the air
+    Which dwells with all things fair--
+    Spring, with her golden suns and silver rain,
+    Is with us once again.
+
+    Out in the lonely woods, the jasmine burns
+    Its fragrant lamps, and turns
+    Into a royal court, with green festoons,
+    The banks of dark [v]lagoons.
+
+    In the deep heart of every forest tree,
+    The blood is all aglee;
+    And there's a look about the leafless bowers,
+    As if they dreamed of flowers.
+
+    Yet still, on every side we trace the hand
+    Of Winter in the land,
+    Save where the maple reddens on the lawn,
+    Flushed by the season's dawn;
+
+    Or where, like those strange [v]semblances we find
+    That age to childhood bind,
+    The elm puts on, as if in Nature's scorn,
+    The brown of Autumn corn.
+
+    [Illustration: The Woods in Spring]
+
+    As yet the turf is dark, although you know
+    That, not a span below,
+    A thousand germs are groping through the gloom,
+    And soon will burst their tomb.
+
+    In gardens, you may note, amid the dearth,
+    The crocus breaking earth;
+    And near the snowdrop's tender white and green,
+    The violet in its screen.
+
+    But many gleams and showers need must pass
+    Along the budding grass,
+    And weeks go by, before the enamored South
+    Shall kiss the rose's mouth.
+
+    Still there's a sense of blossoms yet unborn,
+    In the sweet airs of morn;
+    One almost looks to see the very street
+    Grow purple at his feet.
+
+    At times, a fragrant breeze comes floating by,
+    And brings, you know not why,
+    A feeling as when eager crowds await
+    Before a palace gate
+
+    Some wondrous pageant; and you scarce would start,
+    If from a beech's heart,
+    A blue-eyed [v]Dryad, stepping forth, should say,
+    "Behold me! I am May!"
+
+    HENRY TIMROD.
+
+
+
+
+AMONG THE CLIFFS
+
+
+It was a critical moment. There was a stir other than that of the wind
+among the pine needles and dry leaves that carpeted the ground.
+
+The wary wild turkeys lifted their long necks with that peculiar cry of
+half-doubting surprise so familiar to a sportsman, then all was still
+for an instant. The world was steeped in the noontide sunlight, the
+mountain air tasted of the fresh [v]sylvan fragrance that pervaded the
+forest, the foliage blamed with the red and gold of autumn, the distant
+[v]Chilhowee heights were delicately blue.
+
+That instant's doubt sealed the doom of one of the flock. As the turkeys
+stood in momentary suspense, the sunlight gilding their bronze feathers
+to a brighter sheen, there was a movement in the dense undergrowth. The
+flock took suddenly to wing,--a flash from among the leaves, the sharp
+crack of a rifle, and one of the birds fell heavily over the bluff and
+down toward the valley.
+
+The young mountaineer's exclamation of triumph died in his throat. He
+came running to the verge of the crag, and looked down ruefully into the
+depths where his game had disappeared.
+
+"Waal, sir," he broke forth pathetically, "this beats my time! If my
+luck ain't enough ter make a horse laugh!"
+
+He did not laugh, however; perhaps his luck was calculated to stir only
+[v]equine risibility. The cliff was almost perpendicular; at the depth
+of twenty feet a narrow ledge projected, but thence there was a sheer
+descent, down, down, down, to the tops of the tall trees in the valley
+far below.
+
+As Ethan Tynes looked wistfully over the precipice, he started with a
+sudden surprise. There on the narrow ledge lay the dead turkey.
+
+The sight sharpened Ethan's regrets. He had made a good shot, and he
+hated to relinquish his game. While he gazed in dismayed meditation, an
+idea began to kindle in his brain. Why could he not let himself down to
+the ledge by those long, strong vines that hung over the edge of the
+cliff?
+
+It was risky, Ethan knew, terribly risky. But then,--if only the vines
+were strong!
+
+He tried them again and again with all his might, selected several of
+the largest, grasped them hard and fast, and then slipped lightly off
+the crag.
+
+He waited motionless for a moment. His movements had dislodged clods of
+earth and fragments of rock from the verge of the cliff, and until these
+had ceased to rattle about his head and shoulders he did not begin his
+downward journey.
+
+Now and then as he went he heard the snapping of twigs, and again a
+branch would break, but the vines which supported him were tough and
+strong to the last. Almost before he knew it, he stood upon the ledge,
+and with a great sigh of relief he let the vines swing loose.
+
+"Waal, that warn't sech a mighty job at last. But law, if it hed been
+Peter Birt 'stid of me, that thar wild tur-r-key would hev laid on this
+hyar ledge plumb till the Jedgmint Day!"
+
+He walked deftly along the ledge, picked up the bird, and tied it to one
+of the vines with a string which he took from his pocket, intending to
+draw it up when he should be once more on the top of the crag. These
+preparations complete, he began to think of going back.
+
+He caught the vines on which he had made the descent, but before he had
+fairly left the ledge, he felt that they were giving way.
+
+He paused, let himself slip back to a secure foothold, and tried their
+strength by pulling with all his force.
+
+Presently down came the whole mass in his hands. The friction against
+the sharp edges of the rock over which they had been stretched with a
+strong tension had worn them through. His first emotion was one of
+intense thankfulness that they had fallen while he was on the ledge
+instead of midway in his [v]precarious ascent.
+
+"Ef they hed kem down whilst I war a-goin' up, I'd hev been flung down
+ter the bottom o' the valley, 'kase this ledge air too narrer ter hev
+cotched me."
+
+He glanced down at the somber depths beneath. "Thar wouldn't hev been
+enough left of me ter pick up on a shovel!" he exclaimed, with a tardy
+realization of his foolish recklessness.
+
+The next moment a mortal terror seized him. What was to be his fate? To
+regain the top of the cliff by his own exertions was an impossibility.
+
+He cast his despairing eyes up the ascent, as sheer and as smooth as a
+wall, without a crevice which might afford a foothold, or a shrub to
+which he might cling. His strong head was whirling as he again glanced
+downward to the unmeasured [v]abyss beneath. He softly let himself sink
+into a sitting posture, his heels dangling over the frightful depths,
+and addressed himself resolutely to the consideration of the terrible
+danger in which he was placed.
+
+Taken at its best, how long was it to last? Could he look to any human
+being for deliverance? He reflected with growing dismay that the place
+was far from any dwelling, and from the road that wound along the ridge.
+There was no errand that could bring a man to this most unfrequented
+portion of the deep woods, unless an accident should hither direct some
+hunter's step. It was quite possible, nay, probable, that years might
+elapse before the forest solitude would again be broken by human
+presence.
+
+His brothers would search for him when he should be missed from
+home,--but such boundless stretches of forest! They might search for
+weeks and never come near this spot. He would die here, he would
+starve,--no, he would grow drowsy when exhausted and fall--fall--fall!
+
+He was beginning to feel that morbid fascination that sometimes seizes
+upon those who stand on great heights,--an overwhelming impulse to
+plunge downward. His only salvation was to look up. He would look up to
+the sky.
+
+And what were these words he was beginning to remember faintly? Had not
+the [v]circuit-rider said in his last sermon that not even a sparrow
+falls to the ground unmarked of God? There was a definite strength in
+this suggestion. He felt less lonely as he stared resolutely at the big
+blue sky. There came into his heart a sense of encouragement, of hope.
+He would keep up as long and as bravely as he could, and if the worst
+should come,--was he indeed so solitary? He would hold in remembrance
+the sparrow's fall of Scripture.
+
+He had so nerved himself to meet his fate that he thought it was a fancy
+when he heard a distant step. But it did not die away, it grew more and
+more distinct,--a shambling step that curiously stopped at intervals and
+kicked the fallen leaves.
+
+He sought to call out, but he seemed to have lost his voice. Not a sound
+issued from his thickened tongue and his dry throat. The step came
+nearer. It would presently pass. With a mighty effort Ethan sent forth
+a wild, hoarse cry.
+
+The rocks [v]reverberated it, the wind carried it far, and certainly
+there was an echo of its despair and terror in a shrill scream set up on
+the verge of the crag. Then Ethan heard the shambling step scampering
+off very fast indeed.
+
+The truth flashed upon him. It was some child, passing on an
+unimaginable errand through the deep woods, frightened by his sudden
+cry.
+
+"Stop, bubby!" he shouted; "stop a minute! It's Ethan Tynes that's
+callin' of ye. Stop a minute, bubby!"
+
+The step paused at a safe distance, and the shrill pipe of a little boy
+demanded, "Whar is ye, Ethan Tynes?"
+
+"I'm down hyar on the ledge o' the bluff. Who air ye ennyhow?"
+
+"George Birt," promptly replied the little boy. "What air ye doin' down
+thar? I thought it was Satan a-callin' of me. I never seen nobody."
+
+"I kem down hyar on vines arter a tur-r-key I shot. The vines bruk, an'
+I hev got no way ter git up agin. I want ye ter go ter yer mother's
+house, an' tell yer brother Pete ter bring a rope hyar fur me ter climb
+up by."
+
+Ethan expected to hear the shambling step going away with a [v]celerity
+in keeping with the importance of the errand. On the contrary, the step
+was approaching the crag.
+
+A moment of suspense, and there appeared among the jagged ends of the
+broken vines a small red head, a deeply freckled face, and a pair of
+sharp, eager blue eyes. George Birt had carefully laid himself down on
+his stomach, only protruding his head beyond the verge of the crag, that
+he might not fling away his life in his curiosity.
+
+"Did ye git it?" he asked, with bated breath.
+
+"Git what?" demanded poor Ethan, surprised and impatient.
+
+"The tur-r-key--what ye hev done been talkin' 'bout," said George Birt.
+
+Ethan had lost all interest in the turkey.
+
+"Yes, yes; but run along, bub. I mought fall off'n this hyar place,--I'm
+gittin' stiff sittin' still so long,--or the wind mought blow me off.
+The wind is blowing toler'ble brisk."
+
+"Gobbler or hen?" asked George Birt eagerly.
+
+"It air a hen," said Ethan. "But look-a-hyar, George, I'm a-waitin' on
+ye an' if I'd fall off'n this hyar place, I'd be ez dead ez a door-nail
+in a minute."
+
+"Waal, I'm goin' now," said George Birt, with gratifying alacrity. He
+raised himself from his [v]recumbent position, and Ethan heard him
+shambling off, kicking every now and then at the fallen leaves as he
+went.
+
+Presently, however, he turned and walked back nearly to the brink of the
+cliff. Then he prostrated himself once more at full length,--for the
+mountain children are very careful of precipices,--snaked along
+dexterously to the verge of the crag, and protruding his red head
+cautiously, began to [v]parley once more, trading on Ethan's
+necessities.
+
+"Ef I go on this errand fur ye," he said, looking very sharp indeed,
+"will ye gimme one o' the whings of that thar wild tur-r-key?"
+
+He coveted the wing-feathers, not the joint of the fowl. The "whing" of
+the domestic turkey is used by the mountain women as a fan, and is
+considered an elegance as well as a comfort. George Birt [v]aped the
+customs of his elders, regardless of sex,--a characteristic of very
+small boys.
+
+"Oh, go 'long, bubby!" exclaimed poor Ethan, in dismay at the
+[v]dilatoriness and indifference of his [v]unique deliverer. "I'll give
+ye both o' the whings." He would have offered the turkey willingly, if
+"bubby" had seemed to crave it.
+
+"Waal, I'm goin' now." George Birt rose from the ground and started off
+briskly, [v]exhilarated by the promise of both the "whings."
+
+Ethan was angry indeed when he heard the boy once more shambling back.
+Of course one should regard a deliverer with gratitude, especially a
+deliverer from mortal peril; but it may be doubted if Ethan's gratitude
+would have been great enough to insure that small red head against a
+vigorous rap, if it had been within rapping distance, when it was once
+more cautiously protruded over the verge of the cliff.
+
+"I kem back hyar ter tell ye," the [v]doughty deliverer began, with an
+air of great importance, and magnifying his office with an extreme
+relish, "that I can't go an' tell Pete 'bout'n the rope till I hev done
+kem back from the mill. I hev got old Sorrel hitched out hyar a piece,
+with a bag o' corn on his back, what I hev ter git ground at the mill.
+My mother air a-settin' at home now a-waitin' fur that thar corn-meal
+ter bake dodgers with. An' I hev got a dime ter pay at the mill; it war
+lent ter my dad las' week. An' I'm afeard ter walk about much with this
+hyar dime; I mought lose it, ye know. An' I can't go home 'thout the
+meal; I'll ketch it ef I do. But I'll tell Pete arter I git back from
+the mill."
+
+"The mill!" echoed Ethan, aghast. "What air ye doin' on this side o' the
+mounting, ef ye air a-goin' ter the mill? This ain't the way ter the
+mill."
+
+"I kem over hyar," said the little boy, still with much importance of
+manner, notwithstanding a slight suggestion of embarrassment on his
+freckled face, "ter see 'bout'n a trap that I hev sot fur squir'ls. I'll
+see 'bout my trap, an' then I hev ter go ter the mill, 'kase my mother
+air a-settin' in our house now a-waitin' fur meal ter bake corn-dodgers.
+Then I'll tell Pete whar ye air, an' what ye said 'bout'n the rope. Ye
+must jes' wait fur me hyar."
+
+Poor Ethan could do nothing else.
+
+As the echo of the boy's shambling step died in the distance, a
+redoubled sense of loneliness fell upon Ethan Tynes. But he endeavored
+to [v]solace himself with the reflection that the important mission to
+the squirrel-trap and the errand to the mill could not last forever, and
+before a great while Peter Birt and his rope would be upon the crag.
+
+This idea [v]buoyed him up as the hours crept slowly by. Now and then he
+lifted his head and listened with painful intentness. He felt stiff in
+every muscle, and yet he had a dread of making an effort to change his
+[v]constrained position. He might lose control of his rigid limbs, and
+fall into those dread depths beneath.
+
+His patience at last began to give way; his heart was sinking. The
+messenger had been even more [v]dilatory than he was prepared to expect.
+Why did not Pete come? Was it possible that George had forgotten to tell
+of his danger. The sun was going down, leaving a great glory of gold and
+crimson clouds and an [v]opaline haze upon the purple mountains. The
+last rays fell on the bronze feathers of the turkey still lying tied to
+the broken vines on the ledge.
+
+And now there were only frowning masses of dark clouds in the west; and
+there were frowning masses of clouds overhead. The shadow of the coming
+night had fallen on the autumnal foliage in the deep valley; in the
+place of the opaline haze was only a gray mist.
+
+And presently there came, sweeping along between the parallel mountain
+ranges, a somber raincloud. The lad could hear the heavy drops splashing
+on the tree-tops in the valley, long, long before he felt them on his
+head.
+
+The roll of thunder sounded among the crags. Then the rain came down
+tumultuously, not in columns but in livid sheets. The lightnings rent
+the sky, showing, as it seemed to him, glimpses of the glorious
+brightness within,--too bright for human eyes.
+
+He clung desperately to his precarious perch. Now and then a fierce rush
+of wind almost tore him from it. Strange fancies beset him. The air was
+full of that wild [v]symphony of nature, the wind and the rain, the
+pealing thunder, and the thunderous echo among the cliffs, and yet he
+thought he could hear his own name ringing again and again through all
+the tumult, sometimes in Pete's voice, sometimes in George's shrill
+tones.
+
+Ethan became vaguely aware, after a time, that the rain had ceased, and
+the moon was beginning to shine through rifts in the clouds. The wind
+continued unabated, but, curiously enough, he could not hear it now. He
+could hear nothing; he could think of nothing. His consciousness was
+beginning to fail.
+
+George Birt had indeed forgotten him,--forgotten even the promised
+"whings." Not that he had discovered anything so extraordinary in his
+trap, for it was empty, but when he reached the mill, he found that the
+miller had killed a bear and captured a cub, and the orphan, chained to
+a post, had deeply absorbed George Birt's attention.
+
+To [v]sophisticated people, the boy might have seemed as [v]grotesque as
+the cub. George wore an unbleached cotton shirt. The waistband of his
+baggy jeans trousers encircled his body just beneath his armpits,
+reaching to his shoulder-blades behind, and nearly to his collar-bone in
+front. His red head was only partly covered by a fragment of an old
+white wool hat; and he looked at the cub with a curiosity as intense as
+that with which the cub looked at him. Each was taking first lessons in
+natural history.
+
+As long as there was daylight enough left to see that cub, did George
+Birt stand and stare at the little beast. Then he clattered home on old
+Sorrel in the closing darkness, looking like a very small pin on the top
+of a large pincushion.
+
+At home, he found the elders unreasonable,--as elders usually are
+considered. Supper had been waiting an hour or so for the lack of meal
+for dodgers. He "caught it" considerably, but not sufficiently to impair
+his appetite for the dodgers. After all this, he was ready enough for
+bed when a small boy's bedtime came. But as he was nodding before the
+fire, he heard a word that roused him to a new excitement and
+stimulated his memory.
+
+"These hyar chips air so wet they won't burn," said his mother. "I'll
+take my tur-r-key whing an' fan the fire."
+
+"Law!" he exclaimed. "Thar, now! Ethan Tynes never gimme that thar wild
+tur-r-key's whings like he promised."
+
+"Whar did ye happen ter see Ethan?" asked Pete, interested in his
+friend.
+
+"Seen him in the woods, an' he promised me the tur-r-key whings."
+
+"What fur?" inquired Pete, a little surprised by this uncalled-for
+generosity.
+
+"Waal,"--there was an expression of embarrassment on the important
+freckled face, and the small red head nodded forward in an explanatory
+manner,--"he fell off'n the bluffs arter the tur-r-key whings--I mean,
+he went down to the ledge arter the tur-r-key, and the vines bruk an' he
+couldn't git up no more. An' he tole me that ef I'd tell ye ter fotch
+him a rope ter pull up by, he would gimme the whings. That happened
+a--leetle--while--arter dinner-time."
+
+"Who got him a rope ter pull up by?" demanded Pete.
+
+There was again on the important face that indescribable shade of
+embarrassment. "Waal,"--the youngster balanced this word judicially,--"I
+forgot 'bout'n the tur-key whings till this minute. I reckon he's thar
+yit."
+
+"Mebbe this hyar wind an' rain hev beat him off'n the ledge!" exclaimed
+Pete, appalled and rising hastily. "I tell ye now," he added, turning to
+his mother, "the best use ye kin make o' that boy is ter put him on the
+fire fur a back-log."
+
+Pete made his preparations in great haste. He took the rope from the
+well, asked the [v]crestfallen and browbeaten junior a question or two
+relative to the place, mounted old Sorrel without a saddle, and in a few
+minutes was galloping at headlong speed through the night.
+
+The rain was over by the time he had reached the sulphur spring to which
+George had directed him, but the wind was still high, and the broken
+clouds were driving fast across the face of the moon.
+
+By the time he had hitched his horse to a tree and set out on foot to
+find the cliff, the moonbeams, though brilliant, were so [v]intermittent
+that his progress was fitful and necessarily cautious. When the disk
+shone out full and clear, he made his way rapidly enough, but when the
+clouds intervened, he stood still and waited.
+
+"I ain't goin' ter fall off'n the bluff 'thout knowin' it," he said to
+himself, in one of these [v]eclipses, "ef I hev ter stand hyar all
+night."
+
+The moonlight was brilliant and steady when he reached the verge of the
+crag. He identified the spot by the mass of broken vines, and more
+positively by Ethan's rifle lying upon the ground just at his feet. He
+called, but received no response.
+
+"Hev Ethan fell off, sure enough?" he asked himself, in great dismay and
+alarm. Then he shouted again and again. At last there came an answer, as
+though the speaker had just awaked.
+
+"Pretty nigh beat out, I'm a-thinkin'!" commented Pete. He tied one end
+of the cord around the trunk of a tree, knotted it at intervals, and
+flung it over the bluff.
+
+At first Ethan was almost afraid to stir. He slowly put forth his hand
+and grasped the rope. Then, his heart beating tumultuously, he rose to
+his feet.
+
+He stood still for an instant to steady himself and get his breath.
+Nerving himself for a strong effort, he began the ascent, hand over
+hand, up and up and up, till once more he stood upon the crest of the
+crag.
+
+And, now that all danger was over, Pete was disposed to scold. "I'm
+a-thinkin'," said Pete severely, "ez thar ain't a critter on this hyar
+mounting, from a b'ar ter a copperhead, that could hev got in sech a
+fix, 'ceptin' ye, Ethan Tynes."
+
+And Ethan was silent.
+
+"What's this hyar thing at the end o' the rope?" asked Pete, as he began
+to draw the cord up, and felt a weight still suspended.
+
+"It air the tur-r-key," said Ethan meekly, "I tied her ter the e-end o'
+the rope afore I kem up."
+
+"Waal, sir!" exclaimed Pete, in indignant surprise.
+
+And George, for duty performed, was [v]remunerated with the two
+"whings," although it still remains a question in the mind of Ethan
+whether or not he deserved them.
+
+CHARLES EGBERT CRADDOCK.
+
+
+=HELPS TO STUDY=
+
+     Tell what happened to Ethan Tynes one day when he was hunting. How
+     was he rescued? What qualities did Ethan show in his hour of trial?
+     Give your opinion of George Birt; of Pete. Find out all you can
+     about life in the mountains of East Tennessee.
+
+
+SUPPLEMENTARY READING
+
+     The Prophet of the Great Smoky Mountains--Charles Egbert Craddock.
+     The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come--John Fox, Jr.
+     June--John Fox, Jr.
+
+
+
+
+    The poetry of earth is ceasing never:
+        On a lone winter evening, when the frost
+      Has wrought a silence, from the stove there shrills
+    The cricket's song, in the warmth increasing ever,
+        And seems to one in drowsiness half lost,
+      The grasshopper's among some grassy hills.
+
+    JOHN KEATS.
+
+
+
+
+A DEAL IN BEARS
+
+
+When a whaling ship is beset in the ice of Davis Straits, there is
+little work for her second engineer, once the engines have been nicely
+tallowed down. Now, I am no man that can sit in his berth and laze. If
+I've no work to do, I get a-thinking about my home at [v]Ballindrochater
+and the ministry, which my father intended I should have adorned, and
+what a fool I've made of myself, and this is depressing. I was not
+over-popular already on the _Gleaner_ on account of some prophecies I
+had made in anger, which had unfortunately come true. The crew, and the
+captain, too, had come to fear my prophetic powers.
+
+At last I bethought me of sporting on the ice. There was head-money
+offered for all bears, foxes, seals, musk-oxen, and such like that were
+shot and gathered. So I went to the skipper, and he gave me a Henry
+rifle, well rusted, and eight cartridges.
+
+"Show me you can use those, McTodd," says he, "and I'll give you more."
+
+I made a big mistake with that rusty old gun. I may be a sportsman, but
+before that I'm an engineer, and it seemed to me that Heaven sent metal
+into this world to be kept bright and clean. So I took the rifle all to
+pieces and made the parts as smooth and sweet as you'd see in a
+gun-maker's shop, barring rust-pits, and gave them a nice daubing of oil
+against the Arctic weather. Then I put on some thick clothes I had
+made, and all the other clothes I could get loaned me, and climbed out
+over the rail on to the [v]floe.
+
+The _Gleaner_ lay in a bay some two miles from the shore, and let me
+tell you, if you do not know it, that Arctic ice is no skating-rink.
+There are great hills, and knolls, and bergs, and valleys spread all
+over, and even where it's about level, the underfoot is as hard going as
+a newly-metalled road before the steam-roller has passed over it.
+
+The air was clear enough when I left the bark, and though the [v]mercury
+was out of use and coiled up snugly in the bulb, it wasn't as cold as
+you might think, for just then there was no wind. It's a breeze up in
+the Arctic that makes you feel the chill. There was no sun, of course;
+there never is sun up there in that dreary winter: but the stars were
+burning blue and clear, and every now and then a big [v]catherine wheel
+of [v]aurora would show off, for all the world like a firework
+exhibition.
+
+My! but it was lonely, though, once you had left the ship behind! There
+was just the scrunching of your feet on the frost [v]rime, and not
+another sound in the world. Even the ice was frozen too hard to squeak.
+And overhead in that purple-black Heaven you never knew Who was looking
+down at you. Out there in that cold, bare, black, icy silence, I had
+occasion to remember that Neil Angus McTodd had been a sinner in his
+time, and it made me shiver when I glanced up toward those blue, cold
+stars and the deep purple darkness that lay between and behind them.
+
+It may be that I was thinking less of my hunting than was advisable, for
+of a sudden I woke up to the sound of heavy feet padding over the crisp
+frost rime. I turned me round sharply enough, but as far as the dim
+light carried there was nothing alive to be seen through the gloom. As
+soon as I stopped, the footsteps stopped, too, and I don't mind
+admitting that my scalp tickled.
+
+However, when I'd hauled up the hammer of the Henry, and it dropped into
+position with a good, wholesome _cluck_, my nervousness very soon
+filtered out. There's a comfort about a heavy-bore rifle like a
+Henry--which is the kind always used by whalers and sealers--that you
+can't get from those fancy little guns. And then, as it seemed that the
+animal, whatever it might be, wasn't going to move till I did, I
+shuffled my high sealskin boots on the crisp snow to make believe that I
+was tramping again.
+
+The creature started after me promptly. It was hard to tell the
+direction, because every sound in that icy silence was echoed by a
+thousand bergs and hummocks of ice; but presently from behind a small
+splintered ridge of the floe there strolled out what seemed to me the
+largest bear in the Arctic regions. You must know that the night air
+there has a [v]deceptive light--it enlarges things--and the beast
+appeared to me as standing some five feet six inches high at the
+shoulder, and measuring some twenty feet from nose to tail.
+
+There was myself and there was the bear in the dark middle of that awful
+loneliness, with no one to interfere; and as there was only one of us to
+get home, I preferred it should not be he. So I took a brace on myself,
+and stood with the Henry ready to fire.
+
+There was nothing you might call [v]diffidence about that bear. He
+slouched along up to me at a steady walk, with the hair and skin on him
+swinging about as though it was too large for his carcass and he was
+wearing a misfit. He seemed to look upon me as dinner, and no hurry
+needful. There was a sort of calm certainty about him that made me
+angry.
+
+I was not what you might call a marksman in those days, and so I set a
+bit of [v]hummock about ten yards off as a limit where I could not very
+conveniently miss, and waited until the bear should come opposite that.
+Well, he came to it right enough in his own time. There was, as I have
+said before, no diffidence about the creature. And then I raised the
+Henry and fired her off.
+
+_Cluck_ went the hammer on the nipple, but there was no bang.
+
+My! it was a misfire, and there was the bear coming down on me as steady
+and unconcerned as a [v]traction engine! I clawed out that cartridge
+and crammed in another. The bitter cold of the metal skinned my fingers
+like escaping steam. Then I cocked the gun again, shouldered it, and
+pulled trigger again.
+
+Once more she wouldn't go off!
+
+The bear was now nearly on top of me and was beginning to rear on its
+hind legs. Somehow the rifle came into my hand muzzle-end, and I hit the
+great brute across the eyes with the butt hard enough to have felled an
+ox.
+
+I might as well have struck it with a cane. _Whack_ came a big
+yellow-white paw, the Henry went flying, and my wrists tingled with the
+jar; and there was I left looking, I've no doubt you'll think, very
+humorous.
+
+The bear might have finished me then if it had chosen. But it must needs
+turn aside to go snuffling at the rifle and lick the oil off the locks.
+I turned and footed it.
+
+Now, at the best of times, I am no [v]sprinter, and in the great
+mountain of clothes one wears up there in the cold Arctic night, no man
+can make much speed. Besides, the way was that uneven it was a case of
+hands and scramble more often than plain running over the sharp, spiky
+level.
+
+The bear, once he had finished his snuffle and lick at the Henry, came
+on at a dreadful pace, making nothing of those obstacles that balked
+me,--he had been born up there, you know. He laid himself out--I could
+see over my shoulder--like one of those American trotting horses, caring
+nothing for the ups and downs and ankle-breaking ice. In about two
+shakes he was snorting at my heels again, till I could almost feel his
+hot breath. The bundle of clothes hampered me. I stripped off my outer
+over-all and let it drop behind me.
+
+The bear stopped and snuffed that, but I didn't stay to watch him. I got
+a good fifty [v]fathoms ahead of him whilst he was thus occupied. But
+presently, when he'd got all his satisfaction out of that, on he comes
+again, and I had to give him my coat. I hadn't a chance of equaling him
+in pace, but the trick with the clothing never tired him. Fifty fathoms
+was the least gain I made over a single piece, and as I got lower down
+toward my skin he stayed over the clothes longer.
+
+But still the _Gleaner_ was a long way off, over very tumbled ice, and
+there I was careering on in a costume which was barely enough for
+decency, and certainly insufficient for the climate.
+
+However, it was little enough the bear cared for such refinements as
+those. I stripped off my last garment as I ran, and gained nigh on two
+hundred yards whilst he investigated it; and there were the bark's upper
+spars showing above the hummocks half a mile away, with me in nothing
+but my long seal-skin boots!
+
+But there was no help for it. Up came the hot breath behind me, and I
+leaned up against a hummock and stripped off a boot. I hailed the
+_Gleaner_ with what breath I had left, but no one gave heed. Away went
+the other boot, and there I was running, mother-naked, over the jagged
+floe, leaving blood on every footmark.
+
+Right up to the vessel did the outrageous beast chase me, and then when
+I got on board and called for guns, it slunk away into the shadows of a
+berg and was seen no more. My feet were cut to the bone; I was
+frost-nipped in twenty places, and you may imagine I had had a poor
+enough time of it. But the thought of that canvas over-all which I had
+thrown away first kept me cheerful. It was indeed a very humorous
+circumstance. Ye see it was a borrowed one.
+
+I got down below to a berth, and the steward, who was rated as a doctor,
+tended me. But Captain Black put sourness on the whole affair. He came
+down to my bunk and said, "Where's that Henry?"
+
+"Lying quiet on the ice," said I.
+
+"Do you mean to say you left that rifle behind? My rifle!"
+
+"I did that same. The thing wasn't strong enough to fire a cartridge. I
+tried two."
+
+And then Black used violent and unjustifiable language. I was in no
+condition to give him a fair exchange. Besides, I made an unfortunate
+admission. I owned up to taking the rifle apart and cleaning her. I
+owned up, too, that I'd been free with the oil.
+
+Black stuck out his face at me, and his fringe of beard fairly bristled.
+
+"And you call yourself an engineer! You talk about having gone through
+the shops! Put your filthy engine-room oil on my Henry's locks, would
+you? Why, you idiot, have you yet to learn that oil freezes up here as
+hard as cheese, and you've made up the lock space of that poor rifle
+into one solid chunk?"
+
+"I never thought of that."
+
+"To look at your face, you've yet to start thinking at all."
+
+So we had it out, and as I was now aroused, I gave him some words on the
+inefficient way he ran his ship. At last I threatened to prophesy again,
+and this cooled him off. I offered to go hunting bears for him and he
+became quite polite.
+
+"I'll make you an offer touching those bears," he said. "For every skin
+you bring here aboard, I'll give you seven shillings [v]bonus above your
+share as a member of the ship's company. I'll give you another rifle,
+two rifles if you like, and a fine bag of cartridges. But, you beggar, I
+make one condition. You take yourself off and away from the ship to do
+your hunting. You may make yourself a snow house to stay in, and live on
+the meat you kill."
+
+"You wish to murder me?"
+
+"I wish to be rid of you, and that's the truth. Man, I believe you're
+Jonah resurrected. We've had no luck since first you put your foot on my
+deck planks. And, what's more, the crew is of my way of thinking. So,
+refuse my offer, and I'll put you in irons and keep you there till I can
+fling you ashore at [v]Dundee."
+
+Now there is no doubt Black meant what he said, and so I did not waste
+dignity by arguing with him. I had no taste for the irons, and as for
+being turned out on the ice--well, I had a plan ahead. But I didn't
+intend to leave Black more comfortable than I could help.
+
+So I shut my eyes and said that the ship would have very bad luck that
+winter, that there would be much sickness aboard. (This was an easy
+guess.) I said, considering this fact, I was glad to leave such an
+unwholesome ship.
+
+The crew were just aching to get rid of me. This prophesying sort of
+grows on a man; once you've started it, you've got to go on with it at
+all costs, and I could no more resist just letting my few remarks slip
+round amongst the men than I can resist eating when I'm hungry.
+
+The nerves of the _Gleaner_ people were in strings from the cold and the
+blackness of the Arctic night, and it put the horrors on the lot of
+them. The one thing they wanted was to see the last of me. They gave me
+almost anything I fancied, but my means of transport were small. There
+was a bit of a sledge, which I packed with some food, two Henry rifles
+and a few tools, five hundred cartridges, and the clothes I stood in. No
+more could be taken.
+
+Then I went on deck into the bitter cold and over the side, and stood on
+the ice, ready to start on my journey. The crew lined the rail to see me
+off, and I can tell you their faces were very different. The older ones
+were savage and cared little how soon Jonah might die. The younger ones
+were crying to see a fellow driven away into that icy loneliness, far
+from shelter.
+
+But for myself I didn't care. I had method in all this performance. Soon
+after we were beset in the ice, a family of Esquimaux had come on the
+_Gleaner_ to pay a polite call and get what they could out of us. They
+were that dirty you could have chipped them with a scaling hammer, but
+they were very friendly. One buck who stepped down into the engine
+room--[v]Amatikita, he said his name was--had some English, and came to
+the point as straight as anything.
+
+"Give me a [v]dlink, Cappie," says he.
+
+"This is a dry ship," says I.
+
+"Plenty dlink in that box," says he, handling an oil-can.
+
+"Oh, if that's what you want, take it," I told him, and he clapped the
+nozzle between his lips, and sucked down a gill of [v]cylinder
+lubricating oil as though it had been water.
+
+"You seem to like it," I said; "have some more."
+
+But that was his fill. He thanked me and asked me to visit his village
+when I could get away from the ship. And just then some of his friends
+were caught pilfering, and the whole crew of them were bundled away.
+
+Now I had noted that most of these Esquimaux had bits of bearskins
+amongst their other furs, and it was that I had in mind when I fell out
+with Captain Black. Amatikita had pointed out the direction in which his
+village lay, and it was to that I intended making my way with as little
+delay as possible. But I kept this to myself, and let no word of it slip
+out on the _Gleaner_. Indeed, when I was over the bark's rails, I headed
+off due north across the ice. I climbed and stumbled on in this
+direction till I was well out of their sight and hearing amongst the
+hummocks, and then I turned at right angles for the shore.
+
+The cold up yonder in that Arctic night takes away your breath; it seems
+to take the manhood out of you. You stumble along gasping. By a chance I
+came on an Esquimaux sealing, and he beat and thumped me into
+wakefulness. Then he packed me on to his dog-sleigh, and took my own bit
+of a sled behind, and set his fourteen-foot whip cracking, and off we
+set.
+
+Well, you have to be pretty far gone if you can stay asleep with an
+[v]Innuit's dog-sledge jolting and jumping beneath you, and I was well
+awakened, especially as the Esquimaux sat on top of me. And so in time
+we brought up at the huts, and a good job, too. I'd been tramping in the
+wrong direction, so it turned out, and, besides, if I had come to the
+village, I might well have walked over the top of it, as it was drifted
+up level with snow. There was a bit of a rabbit-hole giving entrance to
+each hut, with some three fathoms of tunnel underground, and skin
+curtains to keep out the draught, but once inside you might think
+yourself in a [v]stoke-hold again. There was the same smell of oil, and
+almost the same warmth. I tell you, it was fine after that slicing cold
+outside.
+
+It was Amatikita's house I was brought to, and he was very hospitable.
+They took off my outer clothes and put them on the rack above the
+soapstone lamp to dry, and waited on me most kindly. Indeed, they
+recognized me as a superior at once, and kept on doing it. They put
+tender young seal-meat in the dish above the lamp, and when it was
+cooked I ate my part of the stew, and then got up and took the best
+place on the raised sleeping-bench at the farther side of the hut. I cut
+a fill for my pipe, lit up and passed the plug, and presently we were
+all smoking, happy as you please.
+
+Amatikita spoke up like a man. "Very pleased to see you, Cappie. What
+you come for? What you want?"
+
+"You're a man of business," I said. "You waste no time. I like that.
+What I want is bearskins. The jackets of big, white, baggy-trousered
+polar bears, you know; and I brought along a couple of tip-top rifles
+for you to get them with. Now, I make you a fair offer. Get me all the
+bears in the North Polar regions, and you shall have my Henrys and all
+the cartridges that are left over. And as for the meat, you shall have
+that as your own share of the game."
+
+"You want shoot those bears yourself?"
+
+"Not if I can help it. I'm an engineer, and a good one at that. But as a
+sportsman I've had but little experience, and don't seem drawn toward
+learning. It is too draughty up here, just at present, for my taste.
+I'll stay and keep house, and maybe do a bit of repairing and inventing
+among the furniture. I've brought along a hand-vice and a bag of tools
+with me, and if you can supply drift-wood and some scrap-iron, I'll make
+this turf-house of yours a real cottage."
+
+The deal was made. I worked away with my tools, and whenever those
+powdering winter gales eased for a little, Amatikita and his friends
+would go off with the howling dog-sledges and the Henrys, and it was
+rare that they'd come back without one bear, and often they'd bring two
+or even three. These white bears sleep through the black winter months
+in hollows in the cliffs, and the Esquimaux know their lairs, though
+it's rare enough they dare tackle them. Small blame, too, you'd say, if
+you saw the flimsy bone-tipped lances and harpoons, which are all they
+are armed with.
+
+With a good, smashing, heavy-bore Henry rifle it is a different thing.
+The Esquimaux were no cowards. They would walk up within a yard of a
+bear, when the dogs had ringed it, and blow half its head away with a
+single shot. And then they would draw the carcass up to the huts with
+the dog trains, and the women would skin and dress the meat, and
+Amatikita and the others would gorge themselves.
+
+At last the long winter wore away. Amatikita dived in through the
+entrance of the hut one day and told me that the ice-floe was beginning
+to break. The news affected me like the blow of a whip. I went out into
+the open and found the sun up. The men were overhauling their skin
+canoes. The snow was wet underfoot and seafowl were swooping around. The
+floe was still sound where it joined the shore, but two seaward lanes of
+blue water showed between the ice, and in one of them a whale was
+spouting pale gray mist.
+
+It was high time for me to be off. So the bearskins were fastened by
+thongs to the sledges and word was shouted to the dog leader of each
+team. The dogs started, and presently away went the teams full tilt, the
+sledges leaping and crashing in their wake, with the drivers and a
+certain Scotch engineer who was unused to such [v]acrobatics clinging
+on top of the packs. My! but yon was a wild ride over the rotten,
+cracking, sodden floe, under the fresh, bright sunshine of that Arctic
+spring morn!
+
+Presently round the flank of a small ice-berg we came in view of the
+_Gleaner_. She was still beset in the ice; but the hands were hard at
+work beating the ice from the rigging and cutting a gutter around her in
+the floe, so that she might float when the time came. They knocked off
+work when we drove up.
+
+"Good-day, Captain Black," I said. "I've been troubling myself over
+bearskins, and I'll ask you for seven shillings head money on
+twenty-nine."
+
+"You've shot twenty-nine bears? You're lying to me."
+
+"The skins are there, and you can count them for yourself."
+
+His color changed when the Esquimaux passed the skins over the side. And
+I clambered aboard the ship along with them.
+
+W. CUTCLIFFE HYNE.
+
+
+=HELPS TO STUDY=
+
+     Tell this story briefly, using your own words. What mistake did
+     McTodd make in preparing for the hunt? What amused you most? How
+     did McTodd show his shrewdness, even if he was not a good hunter?
+     What do you learn about the Arctic region?
+
+
+SUPPLEMENTARY READING
+
+     The Frozen Pirate--W. Clark Russell.
+     The Casting Away of Mrs. Leeks and Mrs. Aleshine--Frank R. Stockton.
+
+
+
+
+LOCHINVAR
+
+
+    Oh, young Lochinvar is come out of the west:--
+    Through all the wide Border his steed was the best,
+    And save his good broadsword he weapons had none;
+    He rode all unarmed, and he rode all alone.
+    So faithful in love, and so dauntless in war,
+    There never was knight like the young Lochinvar.
+
+    He stayed not for [v]brake, and he stopped not for stone,
+    He swam the Esk river where ford there was none;
+    But ere he alighted at Netherby gate
+    The bride had consented, the gallant came late:
+    For a laggard in love, and a dastard in war
+    Was to wed the fair Ellen of brave Lochinvar.
+
+    So boldly he entered the Netherby Hall,
+    Among bride's-men and kinsmen and brothers and all:
+    Then spoke the bride's father, his hand on his sword
+    (For the poor craven bridegroom said never a word),
+    "Oh, come ye in peace here, or come ye in war,
+    Or to dance at our bridal, young Lord Lochinvar?"
+
+    "I long wooed your daughter, my suit you denied;--
+    Love swells like the Solway, but ebbs like its tide--
+    And now am I come with this lost love of mine,
+    To lead but one measure, drink one cup of wine.
+    There are maidens in Scotland more lovely by far,
+    That would gladly be bride to the young Lochinvar."
+
+    The bride kissed the goblet; the knight took it up,
+    He quaffed of the wine, and he threw down the cup.
+    She looked down to blush, and she looked up to sigh,
+    With a smile on her lips and a tear in her eye.
+    He took her soft hand, ere her mother could bar,--
+    "Now tread we a measure!" said young Lochinvar.
+
+    So stately his form, and so lovely her face,
+    That never a hall such a [v]galliard did grace;
+    While her mother did fret, and her father did fume,
+    And the bridegroom stood dangling his bonnet and plume,
+    And the bride-maidens whispered, "'Twere better by far
+    To have matched our fair cousin with young Lochinvar."
+
+    One touch to her hand, and one word in her ear,
+    When they reached the hall door, and the charger stood near;
+    So light to the [v]croup the fair lady he swung,
+    So light to the saddle before her he sprung!
+    "She is won! we are gone, over bank, bush, and [v]scar;
+    They'll have fleet steeds that follow," quoth young Lochinvar.
+
+    There was mounting 'mong Græmes of the Netherby clan;
+    Fosters, Fenwicks, and Musgraves, they rode and they ran;
+    There was racing and chasing on Cannobie lea,
+    But the lost bride of Netherby ne'er did they see.
+    So daring in love, and so dauntless in war;
+    Have ye e'er heard of gallant like young Lochinvar?
+
+    SIR WALTER SCOTT.
+
+
+=HELPS TO STUDY=
+
+     Read the poem through and tell the story briefly. Where is the
+     scene laid? _Border_ here means the part of Scotland bordering on
+     England. Who is the hero? Give your opinion of him. Find the
+     expressions used by the poet to inspire admiration for Lochinvar.
+     Give your opinion of the bridegroom. Quote lines that express the
+     poet's opinion of him. What word is used instead of _thicket_ in
+     the second stanza? a _loiterer_? a _coward_? Why do you suppose the
+     bride had consented? Why did her father put his hand on his sword?
+     What reason did Lochinvar give for coming to the feast? Why did he
+     act as if he did not care? Was the bride willing to marry "the
+     laggard in love"? How do you know? Describe the scene as the two
+     danced. What do you suppose was the "one word in her ear"?
+
+     Read aloud the lines describing Lochinvar's ride to Netherby Hall.
+     Read those describing the ride from the hall. Notice the galloping
+     movement of the verse.
+
+
+
+
+IN LABRADOR
+
+
+I
+
+Trafford and Marjorie were in Labrador to spend the winter. It was a
+queer idea for a noted [v]scientist and rich and successful business man
+to cut himself loose from the world of London and go out into the Arctic
+storm and darkness of one of the bleakest quarters of the globe. But
+Trafford had fallen into a discontent with living, a weariness of the
+round of work and pleasure, and it was in the hope of winning back his
+lost zest and happiness that he had made up his mind to try the cure of
+the wilderness. Marjorie had insisted, like a good wife, on leaving
+children and home and comfort and accompanying him into the frozen
+wilds.
+
+The voyage across the sea and the march inland into Labrador were
+uneventful. Trafford chose his winter-quarters on the side of a low
+razor-hacked, rocky mountain ridge, about fifty feet above a little
+river. Not a dozen miles away from them, they reckoned, was the Height
+of Land, the low watershed between the waters that go to the Atlantic
+and those that go to Hudson's Bay. North and north-east of them the
+country rose to a line of low crests, with here and there a yellowing
+patch of last year's snow, and across the valley were slopes covered in
+places by woods of stunted pine. It had an empty spaciousness of
+effect; the one continually living thing seemed to be the river,
+hurrying headlong, noisily, perpetually, in an eternal flight from this
+high desolation.
+
+For nearly four weeks indeed they were occupied very closely in fixing
+their cabin and making their other preparations, and crept into their
+bunks at night as tired as wholesome animals who drop to sleep. At any
+time the weather might break; already there had been two overcast days
+and a frowning conference of clouds in the north. When at last storms
+began, they knew there would be nothing for it but to keep in the hut
+until the world froze up.
+
+The weather broke at last. One might say it smashed itself over their
+heads. There came an afternoon darkness swift and sudden, a wild gale,
+and an icy sleet that gave place in the night to snow, so that Trafford
+looked out next morning to see a maddening chaos of small white flakes,
+incredibly swift, against something that was neither darkness nor light.
+Even with the door but partly ajar, a cruelty of cold put its claw
+within, set everything that was movable swaying and clattering, and made
+Marjorie hasten shuddering to heap fresh logs upon the fire. Once or
+twice Trafford went out to inspect tent and roof and store-shed; several
+times, wrapped to the nose, he battled his way for fresh wood, and for
+the rest of the blizzard they kept to the hut. It was slumberously
+stuffy, but comfortingly full of flavors of tobacco and food. There
+were two days of intermission and a day of gusts and icy sleet again,
+turning with one extraordinary clap of thunder to a wild downpour of
+dancing lumps of ice, and then a night when it seemed all Labrador,
+earth and sky together, was in hysterical protest against inconceivable
+wrongs.
+
+And then the break was over; the annual freezing-up accomplished; winter
+had established itself; the snowfall moderated and ceased, and an
+ice-bound world shone white and sunlit under a cloudless sky.
+
+One morning Trafford found the footmarks of some catlike creature in the
+snow near the bushes where he was accustomed to get firewood; they led
+away very plainly up the hill, and after breakfast he took his knife and
+rifle and snowshoes and went after the lynx--for that he decided the
+animal must be. There was no urgent reason why he should want to kill a
+lynx, unless perhaps that killing it made the store-shed a trifle safer;
+but it was the first trail of any living thing for many days; it
+promised excitement; some [v]primitive instinct perhaps urged him.
+
+The morning was a little overcast, and very cold between the gleams of
+wintry sunshine. "Good-by, dear wife!" he said, and then as she
+remembered afterward came back a dozen yards to kiss her. "I'll not be
+long," he said. "The beast's prowling, and if it doesn't get wind of me,
+I ought to find it in an hour." He hesitated for a moment. "I'll not be
+long," he repeated, and she had an instant's wonder whether he hid from
+her the same dread of loneliness that she concealed. Up among the
+tumbled rocks he turned, and she was still watching him. "Good-by!" he
+cried and waved, and the willow thickets closed about him.
+
+She forced herself to the petty duties of the day, made up the fire from
+the pile he had left for her, set water to boil, put the hut in order,
+brought out sheets and blankets to air, and set herself to wash up. She
+wished she had been able to go with him. The sky cleared presently, and
+the low December sun lit all the world about her, but it left her spirit
+desolate.
+
+She did not expect him to return until midday, and she sat herself down
+on a log before the fire to darn a pair of socks as well as she could.
+For a time this unusual occupation held her attention and then her hands
+became slow and at last inactive, and she fell into reverie. Thoughts
+came quick and fast of her children in England so far away.
+
+What was that? She flashed to her feet.
+
+It seemed to her she had heard the sound of a shot, and a quick, brief
+wake of echoes. She looked across the icy waste of the river, and then
+up the tangled slopes of the mountain. Her heart was beating fast. It
+must have been up there, and no doubt Trafford had killed his beast.
+Some shadow of doubt she would not admit crossed that obvious
+suggestion. The wilderness was making her as nervously responsive as a
+creature of the wild.
+
+There came a second shot; this time there was no doubt of it. Then the
+desolate silence closed about her again.
+
+Marjorie stood for a long time, staring at the shrubby slopes that rose
+to the barren rock wilderness of the purple mountain crest. She sighed
+deeply at last, and set herself to make up the fire and prepare for the
+midday meal. Once, far away across the river, she heard the howl of a
+wolf.
+
+Time seemed to pass very slowly that day. Marjorie found herself going
+repeatedly to the space between the day tent and the sleeping hut from
+which she could see the stunted wood that had swallowed her husband up,
+and after what seemed a long hour her watch told her it was still only
+half-past twelve. And the fourth or fifth time that she went to look out
+she was set a-tremble again by the sound of a third shot. And then at
+regular intervals out of that distant brown-purple jumble of thickets
+against the snow came two more shots. "Something has happened," she
+said, "something has happened," and stood rigid. Then she became active,
+seized the rifle that was always at hand when she was alone, fired into
+the sky, and stood listening.
+
+Prompt came an answering shot.
+
+"He wants me," said Marjorie. "Something--perhaps he has killed
+something too big to bring!"
+
+She was for starting at once, and then remembered this was not the way
+of the wilderness.
+
+She thought and moved very rapidly. Her mind catalogued possible
+requirements,--rifle, hunting knife, the oilskin bag with matches, and
+some chunks of dry paper, the [v]rucksack. Besides, he would be hungry.
+She took a saucepan and a huge chunk of cheese and biscuit. Then a
+brandy flask is sometimes handy--one never knows,--though nothing was
+wrong, of course. Needles and stout thread, and some cord. Snowshoes. A
+waterproof cloak could be easily carried. Her light hatchet for wood.
+She cast about to see if there was anything else. She had almost
+forgotten cartridges--and a revolver. Nothing more. She kicked a stray
+brand or so into the fire, put on some more wood, damped the fire with
+an armful of snow to make it last longer, and set out toward the willows
+into which he had vanished.
+
+There was a rustling and snapping of branches as she pushed her way
+through the bushes, a little stir that died insensibly into quiet again;
+and then the camping place became very still.
+
+Trafford's trail led Marjorie through the thicket of dwarf willows and
+down to the gully of the rivulet which they had called Marjorie Trickle;
+it had long since become a trough of snow-covered, rotten ice. The trail
+crossed this and, turning sharply uphill, went on until it was clear of
+shrubs and trees, and, in the windy open of the upper slopes, it crossed
+a ridge and came over the lip of a large desolate valley with slopes of
+ice and icy snow. Here Marjorie spent some time in following his loops
+back on the homeward trail before she saw what was manifestly the final
+trail running far away out across the snow, with the [v]spoor of the
+lynx, a lightly-dotted line, to the right of it. She followed this
+suggestion of the trail, put on her snowshoes, and shuffled her way
+across this valley, which opened as she proceeded. She hoped that over
+the ridge she would find Trafford, and scanned the sky for the faintest
+discoloration of a fire, but there was none. That seemed odd to her, but
+the wind was in her face, and perhaps it beat the smoke down. Then as
+her eyes scanned the hummocky ridge ahead, she saw something, something
+very intent and still, that brought her heart into her mouth. It was a
+big gray wolf, standing with back haunched and head down, watching and
+scenting something beyond.
+
+Marjorie had an instinctive fear of wild animals, and it still seemed
+dreadful to her that they should go at large, uncaged. She suddenly
+wanted Trafford violently, wanted him by her side. Also, she thought of
+leaving the trail, going back to the bushes. But presently her nerve
+returned. In the wastes one did not fear wild beasts, one had no fear of
+them. But why not fire a shot to let him know she was near?
+
+The beast flashed round with an animal's instantaneous change of pose,
+and looked at her. For a couple of seconds, perhaps, woman and brute
+regarded one another across a quarter of a mile of snowy desolation.
+
+Suppose it came toward her!
+
+She would fire--and she would fire at it. Marjorie made a guess at the
+range and aimed very carefully. She saw the snow fly two yards ahead of
+the grisly shape, and then in an instant the beast had vanished over the
+crest.
+
+She reloaded, and stood for a moment waiting for Trafford's answer. No
+answer came. "Queer!" she whispered, "queer!"--and suddenly such a
+horror of anticipation assailed her that she started running and
+floundering through the snow to escape it. Twice she called his name,
+and once she just stopped herself from firing a shot.
+
+Over the ridge she would find him. Surely she would find him over the
+ridge!
+
+She now trampled among rocks, and there was a beaten place where
+Trafford must have waited and crouched. Then on and down a slope of
+tumbled boulders. There came a patch where he had either thrown himself
+down or fallen; it seemed to her he must have been running.
+
+Suddenly, a hundred feet or so away, she saw a patch of violently
+disturbed snow--snow stained a dreadful color, a snow of scarlet
+crystals! Three strides and Trafford was in sight.
+
+She had a swift conviction that he was dead. He was lying in a crumpled
+attitude on a patch of snow between [v]convergent rocks, and the lynx, a
+mass of blood-smeared, silvery fur, was in some way mixed up with him.
+She saw as she came nearer that the snow was disturbed round about them,
+and discolored [v]copiously, yellow, and in places bright red, with
+congealed and frozen blood. She felt no fear now and no emotion; all her
+mind was engaged with the clear, bleak perception of the fact before
+her. She did not care to call to him again. His head was hidden by the
+lynx's body, as if he was burrowing underneath the creature; his legs
+were twisted about each other in a queer, unnatural attitude.
+
+Then, as she dropped off a boulder, and came nearer, Trafford moved. A
+hand came out and gripped the rifle beside him; he suddenly lifted a
+dreadful face, horribly scarred and torn, and crimson with frozen blood;
+he pushed the gray beast aside, rose on an elbow, wiped his sleeve
+across his eyes, stared at her, grunted, and flopped forward. He had
+fainted.
+
+Marjorie was now as clear-minded and as self-possessed as a woman in a
+shop. In another moment she was kneeling by his side. She saw, by the
+position of his knife and the huge rip in the beast's body, that he had
+stabbed the lynx to death as it clawed his head; he must have shot and
+wounded it and then fallen upon it. His knitted cap was torn to ribbons,
+and hung upon his neck. Also his leg was manifestly injured--how, she
+could not tell. It was evident that he must freeze if he lay here, and
+it seemed to her that perhaps he had pulled the dead brute over him to
+protect his torn skin from the extremity of cold. The lynx was already
+rigid, its clumsy paws asprawl,--and the torn skin and clot upon
+Trafford's face were stiff as she put her hands about his head to raise
+him. She turned him over on his back--how heavy he seemed?--and forced
+brandy between his teeth. Then, after a moment's hesitation, she poured
+a little brandy on his wounds.
+
+She glanced at his leg, which was surely broken, and back at his face.
+Then she gave him more brandy, and his eyelids flickered. He moved his
+hand weakly. "The blood," he said, "kept getting in my eyes."
+
+She gave him brandy once again, wiped his face, and glanced at his leg.
+Something ought to be done to that, Marjorie thought. But things must be
+done in order.
+
+The woman stared up at the darkling sky with its gray promise of snow,
+and down the slopes of the mountain. Clearly they must stay the night
+here. They were too high for wood among these rocks, but three or four
+hundred yards below there were a number of dwarfed fir trees. She had
+brought an ax, so that a fire was possible. Should she go back to camp
+and get the tent?
+
+Trafford was trying to speak again. "I got--"
+
+"Yes?"
+
+"Got my leg in that crack."
+
+Was he able to advise her? She looked at him, and then perceived that
+she must bind up his head and face. She knelt behind him and raised his
+head on her knee. She had a thick silk neck muffler, and this she
+supplemented by a band she cut and tore from her inner vest. She bound
+this, still warm from her body, about him, and wrapped her dark cloak
+round his shoulders. The next thing was a fire. Five yards away,
+perhaps, a great mass of purple [v]gabbro hung over a patch of nearly
+snowless moss. A hummock to the westward offered shelter from the bitter
+wind, the icy draught, that was soughing down the valley. Always in
+Labrador, if you can, you camp against a rock surface; it shelters you
+from the wind, guards your back.
+
+"Dear!" she said.
+
+"Awful hole," said Trafford.
+
+"What?" she cried sharply.
+
+"Put you in an awful hole," he said. "Eh?"
+
+"Listen," she said, and shook his shoulder. "Look! I want to get you up
+against that rock."
+
+"Won't make much difference," replied Trafford, and opened his eyes.
+"Where?" he asked.
+
+"There."
+
+He remained quite quiet for a second perhaps. "Listen to me," he said.
+"Go back to camp."
+
+"Yes," she said.
+
+"Go back to camp. Make a pack of all the strongest
+food--strenthin'--strengthrin' food--you know?" He seemed unable to
+express himself.
+
+"Yes," she said.
+
+"Down the river. Down--down. Till you meet help."
+
+"Leave you?"
+
+He nodded his head and winced.
+
+"You're always plucky," he said. "Look facts in the face. Children.
+Thought it over while you were coming." A tear oozed from his eye.
+"Don't be a fool, Madge. Kiss me good-by. Don't be a fool. I'm done.
+Children."
+
+She stared at him and her spirit was a luminous mist of tears. "You old
+_coward_," she said in his ear, and kissed the little patch of rough and
+bloody cheek beneath his eye. Then she knelt up beside him. "_I'm_ boss
+now, old man," she said. "I want to get you to that place there under
+the rock. If I drag, can you help?"
+
+He answered obstinately: "You'd better go."
+
+"I'll make you comfortable first," she returned.
+
+He made an enormous effort, and then, with her quick help and with his
+back to her knee, had raised himself on his elbows.
+
+"And afterward?" he asked.
+
+"Build a fire."
+
+"Wood?"
+
+"Down there."
+
+"Two bits of wood tied on my leg--splints. Then I can drag myself. See?
+Like a blessed old walrus."
+
+He smiled and she kissed his bandaged face again.
+
+"Else it hurts," he apologized, "more than I can stand."
+
+She stood up again, put his rifle and knife to his hand, for fear of
+that lurking wolf, abandoning her own rifle with an effort, and went
+striding and leaping from rock to rock toward the trees below. She made
+the chips fly, and was presently towing three venerable pine dwarfs,
+bumping over rock and crevice, back to Trafford. She flung them down,
+stood for a moment bright and breathless, then set herself to hack off
+the splints he needed from the biggest stem. "Now," she said, coming to
+him.
+
+"A fool," he remarked, "would have made the splints down there.
+You're--_good_, Marjorie."
+
+She lugged his leg out straight, put it into the natural and least
+painful pose, padded it with moss and her torn handkerchief, and bound
+it up. As she did so a handful of snowflakes came whirling about them.
+She was now braced up to every possibility. "It never rains," she said
+grimly, "but it pours," and went on with her bone-setting. He was badly
+weakened by pain and shock, and once he spoke to her sharply. "Sorry,"
+he said a moment later.
+
+She rolled him over on his chest, and left him to struggle to the
+shelter of the rock while she went for more wood.
+
+The sky alarmed her. The mountains up the valley were already hidden by
+driven rags of slaty snowstorms. This time she found a longer but easier
+path for dragging her boughs and trees; she determined she would not
+start the fire until nightfall, nor waste any time in preparing food
+until then. There were dead boughs for kindling--more than enough. It
+was snowing quite fast by the time she got up to him with her second
+load, and a premature twilight already obscured and exaggerated the
+rocks and mounds about her. She gave some of her cheese to Trafford, and
+gnawed some herself on her way down to the wood again. She regretted
+that she had brought neither candles nor lantern, because then she might
+have kept on until the cold night stopped her, and she reproached
+herself bitterly because she had brought no tea. She could forgive
+herself the lantern, for she had never expected to be out after dark,
+but the tea was inexcusable. She muttered self-reproaches while she
+worked like two men among the trees, panting puffs of mist that froze
+upon her lips and iced the knitted wool that covered her chin. "Why
+don't they teach a girl to handle an ax?" she cried.
+
+
+II
+
+When at last the wolfish cold of the Labrador night had come, it found
+Trafford and Marjorie seated almost warmly on a bed of pine boughs
+between the sheltering dark rock behind and a big but well-husbanded
+fire in front, drinking a queer-tasting but not unsavory soup of
+lynx-flesh, which she had fortified with the remainder of the brandy.
+Then they tried roast lynx and ate a little, and finished with some
+scraps of cheese and deep draughts of hot water.
+
+The snowstorm poured incessantly out of the darkness to become flakes of
+burning fire in the light of the flames, flakes that vanished magically,
+but it only reached them and wetted them in occasional gusts. What did
+it matter for the moment if the dim snowheaps rose and rose about them?
+A glorious fatigue, an immense self-satisfaction, possessed Marjorie;
+she felt that they had both done well.
+
+"I am not afraid of to-morrow now," she said at last.
+
+Trafford was smoking his pipe and did not speak for a moment. "Nor I,"
+he said at last. "Very likely we'll get through with it." He added after
+a pause: "I thought I was done for. A man--loses heart--after a loss of
+blood."
+
+"The leg's better?"
+
+"Hot as fire." His humor hadn't left him. "It's a treat," he said. "The
+hottest thing in Labrador."
+
+Later Marjorie slept, but on a spring as it were, lest the fire should
+fall. She replenished it with boughs, tucked in the half-burnt logs, and
+went to sleep again. Then it seemed to her that some invisible hand was
+pouring a thin spirit on the flames that made them leap and crackle and
+spread north and south until they filled the heavens with a gorgeous
+glow. The snowstorm was overpast, leaving the sky clear and all the
+westward heaven alight with the trailing, crackling, leaping curtains of
+the [v]aurora, brighter than she had ever seen them before. Quite
+clearly visible beyond the smolder of the fire, a wintry waste of rock
+and snow, boulder beyond boulder, passed into a [v]dun obscurity. The
+mountain to the right of them lay long and white and stiff, a shrouded
+death. All earth was dead and waste, and the sky alive and coldly
+marvelous, signalling and astir. She watched the changing, shifting
+colors, and they made her think of the gathering banners of inhuman
+hosts, the stir and marshaling of icy giants for ends stupendous and
+indifferent to all the trivial impertinence of man's existence! Marjorie
+felt a passionate desire to pray.
+
+The bleak, slow dawn found Marjorie intently busy. She had made up the
+fire, boiled water and washed and dressed Trafford's wounds, and made
+another soup of lynx. But Trafford had weakened in the night; the soup
+nauseated him; he refused it and tried to smoke and was sick, and then
+sat back rather despairfully after a second attempt to persuade her to
+leave him there to die. This failure of his spirit distressed her and a
+little astonished her, but it only made her more resolute to go through
+with her work. She had awakened cold, stiff and weary, but her fatigue
+vanished with movement; she toiled for an hour replenishing her pile of
+fuel, made up the fire, put his gun ready to his hand, kissed him,
+abused him lovingly for the trouble he gave her until his poor torn face
+lit in response, and then parting on a note of cheerful confidence, set
+out to return to the hut. She found the way not altogether easy to make
+out; wind and snow had left scarcely a trace of their tracks, and her
+mind was full of the stores she must bring and the possibility of moving
+Trafford nearer to the hut. She was startled to see by the fresh, deep
+spoor along the ridge how near the wolf had dared approach them in the
+darkness.
+
+Ever and again Marjorie had to halt and look back to get her direction
+right. As it was, she came through the willow scrub nearly half a mile
+above the hut, and had to follow the steep bank of the frozen river.
+Once she nearly slipped upon an icy slope of rock.
+
+One possibility she did not dare to think of during that time--a
+blizzard now would cut her off absolutely from any return to Trafford.
+Short of that, she believed she could get through.
+
+Her quick mind was full of all she had to do. At first she had thought
+chiefly of Trafford's immediate necessities, of food and some sort of
+shelter. She had got a list of things in her head--meat extract,
+bandages, [v]corrosive sublimate by way of antiseptic, brandy, a tin of
+beef, some bread, and so forth; she went over it several times to be
+sure of it, and then for a time she puzzled about a tent. She thought
+she could manage a bale of blankets on her back, and that she could rig
+a sleeping tent for herself and Trafford out of them and some bent
+sticks. The big tent would be too much to strike and shift. And then her
+mind went on to a bolder enterprise, which was to get him home. The
+nearer she could bring him to the log hut, the nearer they would be to
+supplies.
+
+She cast about for some sort of sledge. The snow was too soft and broken
+for runners, especially among the trees, but if she could get a flat of
+smooth wood, she thought she might be able to drag him. She decided to
+try the side of her bunk, which she could easily get off. She would
+have, of course, to run it edgewise through the thickets and across the
+ravine, but after that she would have almost clear going up to the steep
+place of broken rocks within two hundred yards of him. The idea of a
+sledge grew upon her, and she planned to nail a rope along the edge and
+make a kind of harness for herself.
+
+Marjorie found the camping-place piled high with drifted snow, which had
+invaded tent and hut, and that some beast, a wolverine she guessed, had
+been into the hut, devoured every candle-end and the uppers of
+Trafford's well-greased second boots, and had then gone to the corner of
+the store-shed and clambered up to the stores. She took no account of
+its [v]depredations there, but set herself to make a sledge and get her
+supplies together. There was a gleam of sunshine, though she did not
+like the look of the sky and she was horribly afraid of what might be
+happening to Trafford. She carried her stuff through the wood and across
+the ravine, and returned for her improvised sledge. She was still
+struggling with that among the trees when it began to snow again.
+
+It was hard then not to be frantic in her efforts. As it was, she packed
+her stuff so loosely on the planking that she had to repack it, and she
+started without putting on her snowshoes, and floundered fifty yards
+before she discovered that omission. The snow was now falling fast,
+darkling the sky and hiding everything but objects close at hand, and
+she had to use all of her wits to determine her direction: she knew she
+must go down a long slope and then up to the ridge, and it came to her
+as a happy inspiration that if she bore to the left she might strike
+some recognizable vestige of her morning's trail. She had read of people
+walking in circles when they have no light or guidance, and that
+troubled her until she bethought herself of the little compass on her
+watch chain. By that she kept her direction. She wished very much she
+had timed herself across the waste, so that she could tell when she
+approached the ridge.
+
+Soon her back and shoulders were aching violently, and the rope across
+her chest was tugging like some evil-tempered thing. But she did not
+dare to rest. The snow was now falling thick and fast; the flakes traced
+white spirals and made her head spin, so that she was constantly falling
+away to the southwestward and then correcting herself by the compass.
+She tried to think how this zig-zagging might affect her course, but the
+snow whirls confused her mind and a growing anxiety would not let her
+pause to think.
+
+Marjorie felt blinded; it seemed to be snowing inside her eyes so that
+she wanted to rub them. Soon the ground must rise to the ridge, she told
+herself; it must surely rise. Then the sledge came bumping at her heels
+and she perceived that she was going down hill. She consulted the
+compass and found she was facing south. She turned sharply to the right
+again. The snowfall became a noiseless, pitiless torture to sight and
+mind.
+
+The sledge behind her struggled to hold her back, and the snow balled
+under her snowshoes. She wanted to stop and rest, take thought, sit for
+a moment. She struggled with herself and kept on. She tried walking with
+shut eyes, and tripped and came near sprawling. "Oh God!" she cried, "Oh
+God!" too stupefied for more [v]articulate prayers. She was leaden with
+fatigue.
+
+Would the rise of the ground to the ribs of rock never come?
+
+A figure, black and erect, stood in front of her suddenly, and beyond
+appeared a group of black, straight antagonists. She staggered on toward
+them, gripping her rifle with some muddled idea of defense, and in
+another moment she was brushing against the branches of a stunted fir,
+which shed thick lumps of snow upon her feet. What trees were these? Had
+she ever passed any trees? No! There were no trees on her way to
+Trafford.
+
+At that Marjorie began whimpering like a tormented child. But even as
+she wept, she turned her sledge about to follow the edge of the wood.
+She was too much downhill, she thought, and must bear up again.
+
+She left the trees behind, made an angle uphill to the right, and was
+presently among trees again. Again she left them and again came back to
+them. She screamed with anger and twitched her sledge along. She wiped
+at the snowstorm with her arm as though to wipe it away; she wanted to
+stamp on the universe.
+
+And she ached, she ached.
+
+Suddenly something caught her eye ahead, something that gleamed; it was
+exactly like a long, bare, rather pinkish bone standing erect on the
+ground. Just because it was strange and queer she ran forward to it. As
+she came nearer, she perceived that it was a streak of barked trunk; a
+branch had been torn off a pine tree and the bark stripped down to the
+root. And then came another, poking its pinkish wounds above the snow.
+And there were chips! This filled her with wonder. Some one had been
+cutting wood! There must be Indians or trappers near, she thought, and
+of a sudden realized that the wood-cutter could be none other than
+herself.
+
+She turned to the right and saw the rocks rising steeply, close at hand.
+"Oh Ragg!" she cried, and fired her rifle in the air.
+
+Ten seconds, twenty seconds, and then so loud and near it amazed her,
+came his answering shot.
+
+In another moment Marjorie had discovered the trail she had made
+overnight and that morning by dragging firewood. It was now a shallow,
+soft white trench. Instantly her despair and fatigue had gone from her.
+Should she take a load of wood with her? she asked herself, in addition
+to the weight behind her, and immediately had a better idea. She would
+unload and pile her stuff here, and bring him down on the sledge closer
+to the wood. The woman looked about and saw two rocks that diverged,
+with a space between. She flashed schemes. She would trample the snow
+hard and flat, put her sledge on it, pile boughs and make a canopy of
+blanket overhead and behind. Finally there would be a fine, roaring
+fire in front.
+
+She tossed her provisions down and ran up the broad windings of her
+pine-tree trail to Trafford, with the sledge bumping behind her.
+Marjorie ran as lightly as though she had done nothing that day.
+
+She found Trafford markedly recovered, weak and quiet, with snow
+drifting over his feet, his rifle across his knees, and his pipe alight.
+"Back already"--
+
+He hesitated. "No grub?"
+
+The wife knelt over him, gave his rough, unshaven cheek a swift kiss,
+and rapidly explained her plan.
+
+Marjorie carried it out with all of the will-power that was hers. In
+three days' time, in spite of the snow, in spite of every other
+obstacle, they were back in the hut, and Trafford was comfortably
+settled in bed. The icy vastness of Labrador still lay around them to
+infinite distances on every side, but the two might laugh at storm and
+darkness now in their cosy hut, with plenty of fuel and food and light.
+
+H. G. WELLS.
+
+
+=HELPS TO STUDY=
+
+     I. Describe the location of Trafford's camp; also the coming of
+     winter. Give in your own words an account of the adventure that
+     befell the two.
+
+     II. Name some characteristics Marjorie showed in the critical
+     situation. What did she do that impressed you most? What would you
+     have done in similar circumstances?
+
+
+SUPPLEMENTARY READING
+
+     Youth--Joseph Conrad.
+     Prairie Folks--Hamlin Garland.
+     Northern Lights--Sir Gilbert Parker.
+
+
+
+
+THE BUGLE SONG
+
+      The splendor falls on castle walls
+        The snowy summits old in story;
+      The long light shakes across the lakes,
+        And the wild cataract leaps in glory.
+    Blow, bugle, blow, set the wild echoes flying,
+    Blow, bugle; answer, echoes, dying, dying, dying.
+
+      O hark, O hear! how thin and clear,
+        And thinner, clearer, farther going!
+      O, sweet and far from cliff and scar
+        The horns of Elfland faintly blowing!
+    Blow, let us hear the purple glens replying:
+    Blow, bugle; answer, echoes, dying, dying, dying.
+
+      O love, they die in yon rich sky,
+        They faint on hill or field or river;
+      Our echoes roll from soul to soul,
+        And grow for ever and for ever.
+    Blow, bugle, blow, set the wild echoes flying.
+    And answer, echoes, answer, dying, dying, dying.
+
+    ALFRED TENNYSON.
+
+
+
+
+THE SIEGE OF THE CASTLE
+
+
+     This story is an extract from Sir Walter Scott's novel, _Ivanhoe_,
+     which describes life in England during the Middle Ages, something
+     more than a century after the Norman Conquest. The hatred between
+     the conquering Normans and the conquered Saxons still continued,
+     and is graphically pictured by Scott. _Ivanhoe_ centers about the
+     household of one Cedric the Saxon, who was a great upholder of the
+     traditions of his unfortunate people. Wilfred of Ivanhoe, Cedric's
+     son, entered the service of the Norman king of England, Richard I,
+     and accompanied him to the Holy Land on the Third Crusade. His
+     father disowned the young knight for what he considered disloyalty
+     to his Saxon blood. Ivanhoe, returning to England, participated in
+     a great tournament at Ashby, in which he won fame under the
+     disguise of the "Disinherited Knight." Among the other knights who
+     took part in the tournament were the Normans, Maurice de Bracy,
+     Reginald Front-de-Boeuf, and Brian de Bois-Guilbert, a Knight
+     Templar. Two sides fought in the tournament, one representing the
+     English, the other representing the foreign element in the land. An
+     unknown knight, clad in black armor, brought victory to the English
+     side, but left the field without disclosing his identity. An
+     archery contest held at the tournament was won by a wonderful
+     bowman who gave his name as Locksley. Ivanhoe, who fought with
+     great valor, was badly wounded. Cedric had been accompanied to
+     Ashby by his beautiful ward, the Lady Rowena, whose wealth and
+     loveliness excited the cupidity of the lawless Norman knights. "The
+     Siege of the Castle" opens with Cedric's discovery of his son's
+     identity, and recounts the stirring incidents that follow the
+     tournament. It gives a wonderful picture of warfare as it was
+     hundreds of years ago, before the age of gunpowder.
+
+
+I
+
+When Cedric the Saxon saw his son drop down senseless in the great
+tournament at Ashby, his first impulse was to order him into the care of
+his own attendants, but the words choked in his throat. He could not
+bring himself to acknowledge, in the presence of such an assembly, the
+son whom he had renounced and disinherited for his allegiance to the
+Norman king of England, Richard of the Lion Heart. However, he ordered
+one of the officers of his household, his cupbearer, to convey Ivanhoe
+to Ashby as soon as the crowd had dispersed. But the man was anticipated
+in this good office. The crowd dispersed, indeed, but the wounded knight
+was nowhere to be seen.
+
+It seemed as if the fairies had conveyed Ivanhoe from the spot; and
+Cedric's officer might have adopted some such theory to account for his
+disappearance, had he not suddenly cast his eyes on a person attired
+like a squire, in whom he recognized the features of his fellow-servant
+Gurth, who had run away from his master. Anxious about Ivanhoe's fate,
+Gurth was searching for him everywhere and, in so doing, he neglected
+the concealment on which his own safety depended. The cupbearer deemed
+it his duty to secure Gurth as a fugitive of whose fate his master was
+to judge. Renewing his inquiries concerning the fate of Ivanhoe, all
+that the cupbearer could learn was that the knight had been raised by
+certain well-attired grooms, under the direction of a veiled woman, and
+placed in a litter, which had immediately transported him out of the
+press. The officer, on receiving this intelligence, resolved to return
+to his master, carrying along with him Gurth, the swineherd, as a
+deserter from Cedric's service.
+
+The Saxon had been under intense [v]apprehensions concerning his son;
+but no sooner was he informed that Ivanhoe was in careful hands than
+paternal anxiety gave way anew to the feeling of injured pride and
+resentment at what he termed Wilfred's [v]filial disobedience.
+
+"Let him wander his way," said Cedric; "let those leech his wounds for
+whose sake he encountered them. He is fitter to do the juggling tricks
+of the Norman chivalry than to maintain the fame and honor of his
+English ancestry with the [v]glaive and [v]brown-bill, the good old
+weapons of the country."
+
+The old Saxon now prepared for his return to Rotherwood, with his ward,
+the Lady Rowena, and his following. It was during the bustle preceding
+his departure that Cedric, for the first time, cast his eyes upon the
+deserter Gurth. He was in no very placid humor and wanted but a pretext
+for wreaking his anger upon some one.
+
+"The [v]gyves!" he cried. "Dogs and villains, why leave ye this knave
+unfettered?"
+
+Without daring to remonstrate, the companions of Gurth bound him with a
+halter, as the readiest cord which occurred. He submitted to the
+operation without any protest, except that he darted a reproachful look
+at his master.
+
+"To horse, and forward!" ordered Cedric.
+
+"It is indeed full time," said the Saxon prince Athelstane, who
+accompanied Cedric, "for if we ride not faster, the preparations for our
+supper will be altogether spoiled."
+
+The travelers, however, used such speed as to reach the convent of Saint
+Withold's before the apprehended evil took place. The abbot, himself of
+ancient Saxon descent, received the noble Saxons with the profuse
+hospitality of their nation, wherein they indulged to a late hour. They
+took leave of their reverend host the next morning after they had shared
+with him a [v]sumptuous breakfast, which Athelstane particularly
+appreciated.
+
+The superstitious Saxons, as they left the convent, were inspired with a
+feeling of coming evil by the behavior of a large, lean black dog,
+which, sitting upright, howled most piteously when the foremost riders
+left the gate, and presently afterward, barking wildly and jumping to
+and fro, seemed bent on attaching itself to the party.
+
+"In my mind," said Athelstane, "we had better turn back and abide with
+the abbot until the afternoon. It is unlucky to travel where your path
+is crossed by a monk, a hare, or a howling dog, until you have eaten
+your next meal."
+
+"Away!" said Cedric impatiently; "the day is already too short for our
+journey. For the dog, I know it to be the cur of the runaway slave
+Gurth, a useless fugitive like its master."
+
+So saying and rising at the same time in his stirrups, impatient at the
+interruption of his journey, he launched his [v]javelin at poor Fangs,
+who, having lost his master, was now rejoicing at his reappearance. The
+javelin inflicted a wound upon the animal's shoulder and narrowly missed
+pinning him to the earth; Fangs fled howling from the presence of the
+enraged [v]thane. Gurth's heart swelled within him, for he felt this
+attempted slaughter of his faithful beast in a degree much deeper than
+the harsh treatment he had himself received. Having in vain raised his
+hand to his eyes, he said to Wamba, the jester, who, seeing his master's
+ill humor, had prudently retreated to the rear, "I pray thee, do me the
+kindness to wipe my eyes with the skirt of thy mantle; the dust offends
+me, and these bonds will not let me help myself one way or another."
+
+Wamba did him the service he required, and they rode side by side for
+some time, during which Gurth maintained a moody silence. At length he
+could repress his feelings no longer.
+
+"Friend Wamba," said he, "of all those who are fools enough to serve
+Cedric, thou alone hast sufficient dexterity to make thy folly
+acceptable to him. Go to him, therefore, and tell him that neither for
+love nor fear will Gurth serve him longer. He may strike the head from
+me--he may scourge me--he may load me with irons--but henceforth he
+shall never compel me either to love or obey him. Go to him and tell him
+that Gurth renounces his service."
+
+"Assuredly," replied Wamba, "fool as I am, I will not do your fool's
+errand. Cedric hath another javelin stuck into his girdle, and thou
+knowest he doth not always miss his mark."
+
+"I care not," returned Gurth, "how soon he makes a mark of me. Yesterday
+he left Wilfred, my young master, in his blood. To-day he has striven to
+kill the only other living creature that ever showed me kindness. By
+Saint Edward, Saint Dunstan, Saint Withold, and every other saint, I
+will never forgive him!"
+
+At noon, upon the motion of Athelstane, the travelers paused in a
+woodland shade by a fountain to repose their horses and partake of some
+provisions with which the hospitable abbot had loaded a [v]sumpter mule.
+Their repast was a pretty long one; and the interruption made it
+impossible for them to hope to reach Rotherwood without traveling all
+night, a conviction which induced them to proceed on their way at a more
+hasty pace than they had hitherto used.
+
+The travelers had now reached the verge of the wooded country and were
+about to plunge into its recesses, held dangerous at that time from the
+number of outlaws whom oppression and poverty had driven to despair and
+who occupied the forests in such large bands as could easily bid
+defiance to the feeble police of the period. From these rovers, however,
+Cedric and Athelstane accounted themselves secure, as they had in
+attendance ten servants, besides Wamba and Gurth, whose aid could not be
+counted upon, the one being a jester and the other a captive. It may be
+added that in traveling thus late through the forest, Cedric and
+Athelstane relied on their descent and character as well as their
+courage. The outlaws were chiefly peasants and [v]yeomen of Saxon
+descent, and were generally supposed to respect the persons and property
+of their countrymen.
+
+Before long, as the travelers journeyed on their way, they were alarmed
+by repeated cries for assistance; and when they rode up to the place
+whence the cries came, they were surprised to find a horse-litter placed
+on the ground. Beside it sat a very beautiful young woman richly dressed
+in the Jewish fashion, while an old man, whose yellow cap proclaimed him
+to belong to the same nation, walked up and down with gestures of the
+deepest despair and wrung his hands.
+
+When he began to come to himself out of his agony of terror, the old
+man, named Isaac of York, explained that he had hired a bodyguard of
+six men at Ashby, together with mules for carrying the litter of a sick
+friend. This party had undertaken to escort him to Doncaster. They had
+come thus far in safety; but having received information from a
+wood-cutter that a strong band of outlaws was lying in wait in the woods
+before them, Isaac's [v]mercenaries had not only taken to flight, but
+had carried off the horses which bore the litter and left the Jew and
+his daughter without the means either of defense or of retreat. Isaac
+ended by imploring the Saxons to let him travel with them. Cedric and
+Athelstane were somewhat in doubt as to what to do, but the matter was
+settled by Rowena's intervention.
+
+"The man is old and feeble," she said to Cedric, "the maiden young and
+beautiful, their friend sick and in peril of his life. We cannot leave
+them in this extremity. Let the men unload two of the sumpter-mules and
+put the baggage behind two of the [v]serfs. The mules may transport the
+litter, and we have led-horses for the old man and his daughter."
+
+Cedric readily assented to what was proposed, and the change of baggage
+was hastily achieved; for the single word "outlaws" rendered every one
+sufficiently alert, and the approach of twilight made the sound yet more
+impressive. Amid the bustle, Gurth was taken from horseback, in the
+course of which removal he prevailed upon the jester to slack the cord
+with which his arms were bound. It was so negligently refastened,
+perhaps intentionally, on the part of Wamba, that Gurth found no
+difficulty in freeing his arms altogether, and then, gliding into the
+thicket, he made his escape from the party.
+
+His departure was hardly noticed in the apprehension of the moment. The
+path upon which the party traveled was now so narrow as not to admit,
+with any sort of convenience, above two riders abreast, and began to
+descend into a dingle, traversed by a brook, the banks of which were
+broken, swampy, and overgrown with dwarf willows. Cedric and Athelstane,
+who were at the head of their [v]retinue, saw the risk of being attacked
+in this pass, but neither knew anything else to do than hasten through
+the defile as fast as possible. Advancing, therefore, without much
+order, they had just crossed the brook with a part of their followers,
+when they were assailed, in front, flank, and rear at once, by a band of
+armed men. The shout of a "White dragon! Saint George for merry
+England!" the war cry of the Saxons, was heard on every side, and on
+every side enemies appeared with a rapidity of advance and attack which
+seemed to multiply their numbers.
+
+Both the Saxon chiefs were made prisoners at the same moment. Cedric,
+the instant an enemy appeared, launched at him his javelin, which,
+taking better effect than that which he had hurled at Fangs, nailed the
+man against an oak-tree that happened to be close behind him. Thus far
+successful, Cedric spurred his horse against a second, drawing his sword
+and striking with such inconsiderate fury that his weapon encountered a
+thick branch which hung over him, and he was disarmed by the violence of
+his own blow. He was instantly made prisoner and pulled from his horse
+by two or three of the [v]banditti who crowded around him. Athelstane
+shared his captivity, his bridle having been seized and he himself
+forcibly dismounted long before he could draw his sword.
+
+The attendants, embarrassed with baggage and surprised and terrified at
+the fate of their master, fell an easy prey to the assailants; while the
+Lady Rowena and the Jew and his daughter experienced the same
+misfortune.
+
+Of all the train none escaped but Wamba, who showed upon the occasion
+much more courage than those who pretended to greater sense. He
+possessed himself of a sword belonging to one of the domestics, who was
+just drawing it, laid it about him like a lion, drove back several who
+approached him, and made a brave though ineffectual effort to succor his
+master. Finding himself overpowered, the jester threw himself from his
+horse, plunged into a thicket, and, favored by the general confusion,
+escaped from the scene of action.
+
+Suddenly a voice very near him called out in a low and cautious tone,
+"Wamba!" and, at the same time, a dog which he recognized as Fangs
+jumped up and fawned upon him. "Gurth!" answered Wamba with the same
+caution, and the swineherd immediately stood before him.
+
+"What is the matter?" he asked. "What mean these cries and that clashing
+of swords?"
+
+"Only a trick of the times," answered Wamba. "They are all prisoners."
+
+"Who are prisoners?"
+
+"My lord, and my lady, and Athelstane, and the others."
+
+"In the name of God," demanded Gurth, "how came they prisoners? and to
+whom?"
+
+"They are prisoners to green [v]cassocks and black [v]vizors," answered
+Wamba. "They all lie tumbled about on the green, like the crab-apples
+that you shake down to your swine. And I would laugh at it," added the
+honest jester, "if I could for weeping."
+
+He shed tears of unfeigned sorrow.
+
+Gurth's countenance kindled. "Wamba," he said, "thou hast a weapon and
+thy heart was ever stronger than thy brain. We are only two, but a
+sudden attack from men of resolution might do much. Follow me!"
+
+"Whither, and for what purpose?" asked the jester.
+
+"To rescue Cedric."
+
+"But you renounced his service just now."
+
+"That," said Gurth, "was while he was fortunate. Follow me."
+
+As the jester was about to obey, a third person suddenly made his
+appearance and commanded them both to halt. From his dress and arms
+Wamba would have conjectured him to be one of the outlaws who had just
+assailed his master; but, besides that he wore no mask, the glittering
+baldric across his shoulders, with the rich bugle horn which it
+supported, as well as the calm and commanding expression of his voice
+and manner, made the jester recognize the archer who had won the prize
+at the tournament and who was known as Locksley.
+
+"What is the meaning of all this?" the man demanded. "Who are they that
+rifle and ransom and make prisoners in these forests?"
+
+"You may look at their cassocks close by," replied Wamba, "and see
+whether they be thy children's coats or no, for they are as like thine
+own as one green pea-pod is like another."
+
+"I will learn that presently," returned Locksley: "and I charge ye, on
+peril of your lives, not to stir from this place where ye stand until I
+have returned. Obey me, and it shall be the better for you and your
+masters. Yet stay; I must render myself as like these men as possible."
+
+So saying, he drew a [v]vizard from his pouch, and, repeating his
+charges to them to stand fast, went to reconnoitre.
+
+"Shall we stay, Gurth?" asked Wamba; "or shall we give him [v]leg-bail?
+In my foolish mind, he had all the equipage of a thief too much in
+readiness to be himself a true man."
+
+"Let him be the devil," said Gurth, "an he will. We can be no worse for
+waiting his return. If he belongs to that party, he must already have
+given them the alarm, and it will avail us nothing either to fight or
+fly."
+
+The yeoman returned in the course of a few minutes.
+
+"Friend Gurth," he said, "I have mingled among yon men and have learned
+to whom they belong, and whither they are bound. There is, I think, no
+chance that they will proceed to any actual violence against their
+prisoners. For three men to attack them at this moment were little else
+than madness; for they are good men of war and have, as such, placed
+sentinels to give the alarm when any one approaches. But I trust soon to
+gather such a force as may act in defiance of all their precautions. You
+are both servants, and, as I think, faithful servants of Cedric the
+Saxon, the friend of the rights of Englishmen. He shall not want English
+hands to help him in this extremity. Come then with me, until I gather
+more aid."
+
+So saying, he walked through the wood at a great pace, followed by the
+jester and the swineherd. The three men proceeded with occasional
+converse but, for the most part, in silence for about three hours.
+Finally they arrived at a small opening in the forest, in the center of
+which grew an oak-tree of enormous magnitude, throwing its twisted
+branches in every direction. Beneath this tree four or five yeomen lay
+stretched on the ground, while another, as sentinel, walked to and fro
+in the moonlight.
+
+Upon hearing the sound of feet approaching, the watch instantly gave the
+alarm, and the sleepers as suddenly started up and bent their bows. Six
+arrows placed on the string were pointed toward the quarter from which
+the travelers approached, when their guide, being recognized, was
+welcomed with every token of respect and attachment.
+
+"Where is the miller?" was Locksley's first question.
+
+"On the road toward Rotherham."
+
+"With how many?" demanded the leader, for such he seemed to be.
+
+"With six men, and good hope of booty, if it please Saint Nicholas."
+
+"Devoutly spoken," said Locksley. "And where is Allan-a-Dale?"
+
+"Walked up toward the [v]Watling Street, to watch for the Prior of
+Jorvaulx."
+
+"That is well thought on also," replied the captain. "And where is the
+friar?"
+
+"In his cell."
+
+"Thither will I go," said Locksley. "Disperse and seek your companions.
+Collect what force you can, for there's game afoot that must be hunted
+hard and will turn to bay. Meet me here at daybreak. And stay," he
+added; "I have forgotten what is most necessary of the whole. Two of you
+take the road quickly toward Torquilstone, the castle of
+[v]Front-de-Boeuf. A set of gallants, who have been [v]masquerading in
+such guise as our own, are carrying a band of prisoners thither. Watch
+them closely, for, even if they reach the castle before we collect our
+force, our honor is concerned to punish them, and we will find means to
+do so. Keep a good watch on them, therefore, and despatch one of your
+comrades to bring the news of the yeomen thereabouts."
+
+The men promised obedience and departed on their several errands.
+Meanwhile, their leader and his two companions, who now looked upon him
+with great respect as well as some fear, pursued their way to the chapel
+where dwelt the friar mentioned by Locksley. Presently they reached a
+little moonlit glade, in front of which stood an ancient and ruinous
+chapel and beside it a rude hermitage of stone half-covered with ivy
+vines.
+
+The sounds which proceeded at that moment from the latter place were
+anything but churchly. In fact, the hermit and another voice were
+performing at the full extent of very powerful lungs an old
+drinking-song, of which this was the burden:
+
+    Come, trowl the brown bowl to me,
+      Bully boy, bully boy;
+    Come trowl the brown bowl to me:
+      Ho! jolly Jenkin, I spy a knave drinking;
+    Come trowl the brown bowl to me.
+
+"Now, that is not ill sung," said Wamba, who had thrown in a few of his
+own flourishes to help out the chorus. "But who, in the saint's name,
+ever expected to have heard such a jolly chant come from a hermit's cell
+at midnight?"
+
+"Marry, that should I," said Gurth, "for the jolly Clerk of Copmanhurst
+is a known man and kills half the deer that are stolen in this walk. Men
+say that the deer-keeper has complained of him and that he will be
+stripped of his [v]cowl and [v]cope altogether if he keep not better
+order."
+
+While they were thus speaking, Locksley's loud and repeated knocks had
+at length disturbed the [v]anchorite and his guest, who was a knight of
+singularly powerful build and open, handsome face, and in black armor.
+
+"By my beads," said the hermit, "here come other guests. I would not for
+my cowl that they found us in this goodly exercise. All men have
+enemies, sir knight; and there be those malignant enough to construe the
+hospitable refreshment I have been offering to you, a weary traveler,
+into drinking and gluttony, vices alike alien to my profession and my
+disposition."
+
+"Base [v]calumniators!" replied the knight. "I would I had the
+chastising of them. Nevertheless, holy clerk, it is true that all have
+their enemies; and there be those in this very land whom I would rather
+speak to through the bars of my helmet than bare-faced."
+
+"Get thine iron pot on thy head, then, sir knight," said the hermit,
+"while I remove these pewter flagons."
+
+He struck up a thundering [v]_De profundis clamavi_, under cover of
+which he removed the apparatus of their banquet, while the knight,
+laughing heartily and arming himself all the while, assisted his host
+with his voice from time to time as his mirth permitted.
+
+"What devil's [v]matins are you after at this hour?" demanded a voice
+from outside.
+
+"Heaven forgive you, sir traveler!" said the hermit, whose own noise
+prevented him from recognizing accents which were tolerably familiar to
+him. "Wend on your way, in the name of God and Saint Dunstan, and
+disturb not the devotions of me and my holy brother."
+
+"Mad priest," answered the voice from without; "open to Locksley!"
+
+"All's safe--all's right," said the hermit to his companion.
+
+"But who is he?" asked the Black Knight. "It imports me much to know."
+
+"Who is he?" answered the hermit. "I tell thee he is a friend."
+
+"But what friend?" persisted the knight; "for he may be a friend to thee
+and none of mine."
+
+"What friend?" replied the hermit; "that now is one of the questions
+that is more easily asked than answered."
+
+"Well, open the door," ordered the knight, "before he beat it from its
+hinges."
+
+The hermit speedily unbolted his portal and admitted Locksley, with his
+two companions.
+
+"Why, hermit," was the yeoman's first question as soon as he beheld the
+knight, "what boon companion hast thou here?"
+
+"A brother of our order," replied the friar, shaking his head; "we have
+been at our devotions all night."
+
+"He is a monk of the church militant," answered Locksley; "and there be
+more of them abroad. I tell thee, friar, thou must lay down the
+[v]rosary and take up the [v]quarter-staff; we shall need every one of
+our merry men, whether clerk or layman. But," he added, taking a step
+aside, "art thou mad--to give admittance to a knight thou dost not know?
+Hast thou forgotten our agreement?"
+
+"Good yeoman," said the knight, coming forward, "be not wroth with my
+merry host. He did but afford me the hospitality which I would have
+compelled from him if he had refused it."
+
+"Thou compel!" cried the friar. "Wait but till I have changed this gray
+gown for a green cassock, and if I make not a quarter-staff ring twelve
+upon thy pate, I am neither true clerk nor good woodsman."
+
+While he spoke thus he stript off his gown and appeared in a close
+buckram doublet and lower garment, over which he speedily did on a
+cassock of green and hose of the same color.
+
+"I pray thee [v]truss my points," he said to Wamba, "and thou shalt have
+a cup of sack for thy labor."
+
+"[v]Gramercy for thy sack," returned Wamba; "but thinkest thou that it
+is lawful for me to aid you to transmew thyself from a holy hermit into
+a sinful forester?"
+
+So saying, he accommodated the friar with his assistance in tying the
+endless number of points, as the laces which attached the hose to the
+doublet were then termed.
+
+While they were thus employed, Locksley led the knight a little apart
+and addressed him thus: "Deny it not, sir knight, you are he who played
+so glorious a part at the tournament at Ashby."
+
+"And what follows, if you guess truly, good yeoman?"
+
+"For my purpose," said the yeoman, "thou shouldst be as well a good
+Englishman as a good knight; for that which I have to speak of concerns,
+indeed, the duty of every honest man, but is more especially that of a
+true-born native of England."
+
+"You can speak to no one," replied the knight, "to whom England, and
+the life of every Englishman, can be dearer than to me."
+
+"I would willingly believe so," said the woodsman; "and never had this
+country such need to be supported by those who love her. A band of
+villains, in the disguise of better men than themselves, have become
+masters of the persons of a noble Englishman named Cedric the Saxon,
+together with his ward and his friend, Athelstane of Coningsburgh, and
+have transported them to a castle in this forest called Torquilstone. I
+ask of thee, as a good knight and a good Englishman, wilt thou aid in
+their rescue?"
+
+"I am bound by my vow to do so," replied the knight; "but I would
+willingly know who you are who request my assistance in their behalf?"
+
+"I am," said the forester, "a nameless man; but I am a friend of my
+country and my country's friends. Believe, however, that my word, when
+pledged, is as [v]inviolate as if I wore golden spurs."
+
+"I willingly believe it," returned the knight. "I have been accustomed
+to study men's countenances, and I can read in thine honesty and
+resolution. I will, therefore, ask thee no farther questions but aid
+thee in setting at freedom these oppressed captives, which done, I trust
+we shall part better acquainted and well satisfied with each other."
+
+When the friar was at length ready, Locksley turned to his companions.
+
+"Come on, my masters," he said; "tarry not to talk. I say, come on: we
+must collect all our forces, and few enough shall we have if we are to
+storm the castle of Reginald Front-de-Boeuf."
+
+
+II
+
+While these measures were taking in behalf of Cedric and his companions,
+the armed men by whom the latter had been seized hurried their captives
+along toward the place of security, where they intended to imprison
+them. But darkness came on fast, and the paths of the wood seemed but
+imperfectly known to the [v]marauders. They were compelled to make
+several long halts and once or twice to return on their road to resume
+the direction which they wished to pursue. It was, therefore, not until
+the light of the summer morn had dawned upon them that they could travel
+in full assurance that they held the right path.
+
+In vain Cedric [v]expostulated with his guards, who refused to break
+their silence for his wrath or his protests. They continued to hurry him
+along, traveling at a very rapid rate, until, at the end of an avenue of
+huge trees, arose Torquilstone, the hoary and ancient castle of Reginald
+Front-de-Boeuf. It was a fortress of no great size, consisting of a
+donjon, or large and high square tower, surrounded by buildings of
+inferior height. Around the exterior wall was a deep moat, supplied with
+water from a neighboring rivulet. Front-de-Boeuf, whose character
+placed him often at feud with his neighbors, had made considerable
+additions to the strength of his castle by building towers upon the
+outward wall, so as to flank it at every angle. The access, as usual in
+castles of the period, lay through an arched [v]barbican or outwork,
+which was defended by a small turret.
+
+Cedric no sooner saw the turrets of Front-de-Boeuf's castle raise their
+gray and moss-grown battlements, glimmering in the morning sun, above
+the woods by which they were surrounded than he instantly augured more
+truly concerning the cause of his misfortune.
+
+"I did injustice," he said, "to the thieves and outlaws of these woods,
+when I supposed such banditti to belong to their bands. I might as
+justly have confounded the foxes of these brakes with the ravening
+wolves of France!"
+
+Arrived before the castle, the prisoners were compelled by their guards
+to alight and were hastened across the drawbridge into the castle. They
+were immediately conducted to an apartment where a hasty repast was
+offered them, of which none but Athelstane felt any inclination to
+partake. Neither did he have much time to do justice to the good cheer
+placed before him, for the guards gave him and Cedric to understand that
+they were to be imprisoned in a chamber apart from Rowena. Resistance
+was vain; and they were compelled to follow to a large room, which,
+rising on clumsy Saxon pillars, resembled the [v]refectories and
+chapter-houses which may still be seen in the most ancient parts of our
+most ancient monasteries.
+
+The Lady Rowena was next separated from her train and conducted with
+courtesy, indeed, but still without consulting her inclination, to a
+distant apartment. The same alarming distinction was conferred on the
+young Jewess, Rebecca, in spite of the entreaties of her father, who
+offered money in the extremity of his distress that she might be
+permitted to abide with him.
+
+"Base unbeliever," answered one of his guards, "when thou hast seen thy
+lair, thou wilt not wish thy daughter to partake it."
+
+Without further discussion, the old Jew was dragged off in a different
+direction from the other prisoners. The domestics, after being searched
+and disarmed, were confined in another part of the castle.
+
+The three leaders of the banditti and the men who had planned and
+carried out the outrage, Norman knights,--Front-de-Boeuf, the brutal
+owner of the castle; Maurice de Bracy, a free-lance, who sought to wed
+the Lady Rowena by force and so had arranged the attack, and Brian de
+[v]Bois-Guilbert, a distinguished member of the famous order of
+[v]Knights Templar,--had a short discussion together and then
+separated. Front-de-Boeuf immediately sought the apartment where Isaac
+of York tremblingly awaited his fate.
+
+The Jew had been hastily thrown into a dungeon-vault of the castle, the
+floor of which was deep beneath the level of the earth, and very damp,
+being lower than the moat itself. The only light was received through
+one or two loop-holes far above the reach of the captive's hand. These
+[v]apertures admitted, even at midday, only a dim and uncertain light,
+which was changed for utter darkness long before the rest of the castle
+had lost the blessing of day. Chains and shackles, which had been the
+portion of former captives, hung rusted and empty on the walls of the
+prison, and in the rings of one of these sets of fetters there remained
+two moldering bones which seemed those of the human leg.
+
+At one end of this ghastly apartment was a large fire-grate, over the
+top of which were stretched some transverse iron bars, half devoured
+with rust.
+
+The whole appearance of the dungeon might have appalled a stouter heart
+than that of Isaac, who, nevertheless, was more composed under the
+imminent pressure of danger than he had seemed to be while affected by
+terrors of which the cause was as yet remote and [v]contingent. It was
+not the first time that Isaac had been placed in circumstances so
+dangerous. He had, therefore, experience to guide him, as well as a hope
+that he might again be delivered from the peril.
+
+The Jew remained without altering his position for nearly three hours,
+at the end of which time steps were heard on the dungeon stair. The
+bolts screamed as they were withdrawn, the hinges creaked as the wicket
+opened, and Reginald Front-de-Boeuf, followed by two Saracen slaves of
+the Templar, entered the prison.
+
+Front-de-Boeuf, a tall and strong man, whose life had been spent in
+public war or in private feuds and broils and who had hesitated at no
+means of extending his [v]feudal power, had features corresponding to
+his character, and which strongly expressed the fiercer and more evil
+passions of the mind. The scars with which his visage was seamed would,
+on features of a different cast, have excited the sympathy due to the
+marks of honorable valor; but in the peculiar case of Front-de-Boeuf
+they only added to the ferocity of his countenance and to the dread
+which his presence inspired. The formidable baron was clad in a leathern
+doublet, fitted close to his body, which was frayed and soiled with the
+stains of his armor. He had no weapon, except a [v]poniard at his belt,
+which served to counter-balance the weight of the bunch of rusty keys
+that hung at his right side.
+
+The black slaves who attended Front-de-Boeuf were attired in jerkins and
+trousers of coarse linen, their sleeves being tucked up above the elbow,
+like those of butchers when about to exercise their functions in the
+slaughter-house. Each had in his hand a small [v]pannier; and when they
+entered the dungeon, they paused at the door until Front-de-Boeuf
+himself carefully locked and double-locked it. Having taken this
+precaution, he advanced slowly up the apartment toward the Jew, upon
+whom he kept his eye fixed as if he wished to paralyze him with his
+glance, as some animals are said to fascinate their prey.
+
+The Jew sat with his mouth agape and his eyes fixed on the savage baron
+with such earnestness of terror that his frame seemed literally to
+shrink together and diminish in size while encountering the fierce
+Norman's fixed and baleful gaze. The unhappy Isaac was deprived not only
+of the power of rising to make the [v]obeisance which his fear had
+dictated, but he could not even doff his cap or utter any word of
+supplication, so strongly was he agitated by the conviction that
+tortures and death were impending over him.
+
+On the other hand, the stately form of the Norman appeared to dilate in
+magnitude, like that of the eagle, which ruffles up its plumage when
+about to pounce on its defenseless prey. He paused within three steps of
+the corner in which the unfortunate Hebrew had now, as it were, coiled
+himself up into the smallest possible space, and made a sign for one of
+the slaves to approach. The black [v]satellite came forward accordingly,
+and producing from his basket a large pair of scales and several
+weights, he laid them at the feet of Front-de-Boeuf and retired to the
+respectful distance at which his companion had already taken his
+station.
+
+The motions of these men were slow and solemn, as if there impended over
+their souls some [v]preconception of horror and cruelty. Front-de-Boeuf
+himself opened the scene by addressing his ill-fated captive.
+
+"Most accursed dog," he said, awakening with his deep and sullen voice
+the echoes of the dungeon vault, "seest thou these scales?"
+
+The unhappy Jew returned a feeble affirmative.
+
+"In these very scales shalt thou weigh me out," said the relentless
+baron, "a thousand silver pounds, after the just measure and weight of
+the Tower of London."
+
+"Holy Abraham!" returned the Jew, finding voice through the very
+extremity of his danger; "heard man ever such a demand? Who ever heard,
+even in a minstrel's tale, of such a sum as a thousand pounds of silver?
+What human eyes were ever blessed with the sight of so great a mass of
+treasure? Not within the walls of York, ransack my house and that of all
+my tribe, wilt thou find the [v]tithe of that huge sum of silver that
+thou speakest of."
+
+"I am reasonable," answered Front-de-Boeuf, "and if silver be scant, I
+refuse not gold. At the rate of a mark of gold for each six pounds of
+silver, thou shalt free thy unbelieving carcass from such punishment as
+thy heart has never even conceived in thy wildest imaginings."
+
+"Have mercy on me, noble knight!" pleaded Isaac. "I am old, and poor,
+and helpless. It were unworthy to triumph over me. It is a poor deed to
+crush a worm."
+
+"Old thou mayst be," replied the knight, "and feeble thou mayst be; but
+rich it is known thou art."
+
+"I swear to you, noble knight," said Isaac, "by all which I believe and
+all which we believe in common--"
+
+"Perjure not thyself," interrupted the Norman, "and let not thy
+obstinacy seal thy doom, until thou hast seen and well considered the
+fate that awaits thee. This prison is no place for trifling. Prisoners
+ten thousand times more distinguished than thou have died within these
+walls, and their fate has never been known. But for thee is reserved a
+long and lingering death, to which theirs was luxury."
+
+He again made a signal for the slaves to approach and spoke to them
+apart in their own language; for he had been a crusader in Palestine,
+where, perhaps, he had learned his lesson of cruelty. The Saracens
+produced from their baskets a quantity of charcoal, a pair of bellows,
+and a flask of oil. While the one struck a light with a flint and steel,
+the other disposed the charcoal in the large rusty grate which we have
+already mentioned and exercised the bellows until the fuel came to a red
+glow.
+
+"Seest thou, Isaac," said Front-de-Boeuf, "the range of iron bars above
+that glowing charcoal? On that warm couch thou shalt lie, stripped of
+thy clothes as if thou wert to rest on a bed of down. One of these
+slaves shall maintain the fire beneath thee, while the other shall
+anoint thy wretched limbs with oil, lest the roast should burn. Now
+choose betwixt such a scorching bed and the payment of a thousand pounds
+of silver; for, by the head of my father, thou hast no other [v]option."
+
+"It is impossible," exclaimed the miserable Isaac; "it is impossible
+that your purpose can be real! The good God of nature never made a heart
+capable of exercising such cruelty!"
+
+"Trust not to that, Isaac," said Front-de-Boeuf; "it were a fatal error.
+Dost thou think that I who have seen a town sacked, in which thousands
+perished by sword, by flood, and by fire, will blench from my purpose
+for the outcries of a single wretch? Be wise, old man; discharge thyself
+of a portion of thy superfluous wealth; repay to the hands of a
+Christian a part of what thou hast acquired by [v]usury. Thy cunning may
+soon swell out once more thy shriveled purse, but neither leech nor
+medicine can restore thy scorched hide and flesh wert thou once
+stretched on these bars. Tell down thy [v]ransom, I say, and rejoice
+that at such a rate thou canst redeem thyself from a dungeon, the
+secrets of which few have returned to tell. I waste no more words with
+thee. Choose between thy [v]dross and thy flesh and blood, and as thou
+choosest so shall it be."
+
+"So may Abraham and all the fathers of our people assist me!" said
+Isaac; "I cannot make the choice because I have not the means of
+satisfying your [v]exorbitant demand!"
+
+"Seize him and strip him, slaves," said the knight.
+
+The assistants, taking their directions more from the baron's eye and
+hand than his tongue, once more stepped forward, laid hands on the
+unfortunate Isaac, plucked him up from the ground, and holding him
+between them, waited the hard-hearted baron's further signal. The
+unhappy man eyed their countenances and that of Front-de-Boeuf in the
+hope of discovering some symptoms of softening; but that of the baron
+showed the same cold, half-sullen, half-sarcastic smile, which had been
+the prelude to his cruelty; and the savage eyes of the Saracens, rolling
+gloomily under their dark brows, evinced rather the secret pleasure
+which they expected from the approaching scene than any reluctance to be
+its agents. The Jew then looked at the glowing furnace, over which he
+was presently to be stretched, and, seeing no chance of his tormentor's
+relenting, his resolution gave way.
+
+"I will pay," he said, "the thousand pounds of silver--that is, I will
+pay it with the help of my brethren, for I must beg as a mendicant at
+the door of our synagogue ere I make up so unheard-of a sum. When and
+where must it be delivered?" he inquired with a sigh.
+
+"Here," replied Front-de-Boeuf. "Weighed it must be--weighed and told
+down on this very dungeon floor. Thinkest thou I will part with thee
+until thy ransom is secure?"
+
+"Then let my daughter Rebecca go forth to York," said Isaac, "with your
+safe conduct, noble knight, and so soon as man and horse can return, the
+treasure--" Here he groaned deeply, but added, after the pause of a few
+seconds,--"the treasure shall be told down on this floor."
+
+"Thy daughter!" said Front-de-Boeuf, as if surprised. "By Heavens,
+Isaac, I would I had known of this! I gave yonder black-browed girl to
+Sir Brian de Bois-Guilbert, to be his prisoner. She is not in my power."
+
+The yell which Isaac raised at this unfeeling communication made the
+very vault to ring, and astounded the two Saracens so much that they let
+go their hold of the victim. He availed himself of his freedom to throw
+himself on the pavement and clasp the knees of Front-de-Boeuf.
+
+"Take all that you have asked," said he--"take ten times more--reduce me
+to ruin and to beggary, if thou wilt--nay, pierce me with thy poniard,
+broil me on that furnace, but spare my daughter! Will you deprive me of
+my sole remaining comfort in life?"
+
+"I would," said the Norman, somewhat relenting, "that I had known of
+this before. I thought you loved nothing but your money-bags."
+
+"Think not so vilely of me," returned Isaac, eager to improve the moment
+of apparent sympathy. "I love mine own, even as the hunted fox, the
+tortured wildcat loves its young."
+
+"Be it so," said Front-de-Boeuf; "but it aids us not now. I cannot help
+what has happened or what is to follow. My word is passed to my comrade
+in arms that he shall have the maiden as his share of the spoil, and I
+would not break it for ten Jews and Jewesses to boot. Take thought
+instead to pay me the ransom thou hast promised, or woe betide thee!"
+
+"Robber and villain!" cried the Jew, "I will pay thee nothing--not one
+silver penny will I pay thee unless my daughter is delivered to me in
+safety!"
+
+"Art thou in thy senses, Israelite?" asked the Norman sternly. "Hast thy
+flesh and blood a charm against heated iron and scalding oil?"
+
+"I care not!" replied the Jew, rendered desperate by paternal affection;
+"my daughter is my flesh and blood, dearer to me a thousand times than
+those limbs thy cruelty threatens. No silver will I give thee unless I
+were to pour it molten down thy [v]avaricious throat--no, not a silver
+penny will I give thee, [v]Nazarene, were it to save thee from the deep
+damnation thy whole life has merited. Take my life, if thou wilt, and
+say that the Jew, amidst his tortures, knew how to disappoint the
+Christian."
+
+"We shall see that," said Front-de-Boeuf; "for by the blessed [v]rood
+thou shalt feel the extremities of fire and steel! Strip him, slaves,
+and chain him down upon the bars."
+
+In spite of the feeble struggles of the old man, the Saracens had
+already torn from him his upper garment and were proceeding totally to
+disrobe him, when the sound of a bugle, twice winded without the castle,
+penetrated even to the recesses of the dungeon. Immediately after voices
+were heard calling for Sir Reginald Front-de-Boeuf. Unwilling to be
+found engaged in his hellish occupation, the savage baron gave the
+slaves a signal to restore Isaac's garment; and, quitting the dungeon
+with his attendants, he left the Jew to thank God for his own
+deliverance or to lament over his daughter's captivity, as his personal
+or parental feelings might prove the stronger.
+
+
+III
+
+When the bugle sounded, De Bracy was engaged in pressing his suit with
+the Saxon heiress Rowena, whom he had carried off under the impression
+that she would speedily surrender to his rough wooing. But he found her
+[v]obdurate as well as tearful and in no humor to listen to his
+professions of devotion. It was, therefore, with some relief that the
+free-lance heard the summons at the barbican. Going into the hall of
+the castle, De Bracy was presently joined by Bois-Guilbert.
+
+"Where is Front-de-Boeuf!" the latter asked.
+
+"He is [v]negotiating with the Jew, I suppose," replied De Bracy,
+coolly; "probably the howls of Isaac have drowned the blast of the
+bugle. But we will make the [v]vassals call him."
+
+They were soon after joined by Front-de-Boeuf, who had only tarried to
+give some necessary directions.
+
+"Let us see the cause of this cursed clamor," he said. "Here is a letter
+which has just been brought in, and, if I mistake not, it is in Saxon."
+
+He looked at it, turning it round and round as if he had some hopes of
+coming at the meaning by inverting the position of the paper, and then
+handed it to De Bracy.
+
+"It may be magic spells for aught I know," said De Bracy, who possessed
+his full proportion of the ignorance which characterized the chivalry of
+the period.
+
+"Give it to me," said the Templar. "We have that of the priestly
+character that we have some knowledge to enlighten our valor."
+
+"Let us profit by your most reverend knowledge, then," returned De
+Bracy. "What says the scroll?"
+
+"It is a formal letter of defiance," answered Bois-Guilbert; "but, by
+our Lady of Bethlehem, if it be not a foolish jest, it is the most
+extraordinary [v]cartel that ever went across the drawbridge of a
+baronial castle."
+
+"Jest!" exclaimed Front-de-Boeuf. "I would gladly know who dares jest
+with me in such a matter! Read it, Sir Brian."
+
+The Templar accordingly read as follows:
+
+"I, Wamba, the son of Witless, jester to a noble and free-born man,
+Cedric of Rotherwood, called the Saxon: and I, Gurth, the son of
+Beowulph, the swineherd--"
+
+"Thou art mad!" cried Front-de-Boeuf, interrupting the reader.
+
+"By Saint Luke, it is so set down," answered the Templar. Then, resuming
+his task, he went on: "I, Gurth, the son of Beowulph, swineherd unto the
+said Cedric, with the assistance of our allies and confederates, who
+make common cause with us in this our feud, namely, the good knight,
+called for the present the Black Knight, and the stout yeoman, Robert
+Locksley, called Cleve-the-wand: Do you, Reginald Front-de-Boeuf, and
+your allies and accomplices whomsoever, to wit, that whereas you have,
+without cause given or feud declared, wrongfully and by mastery, seized
+upon the person of our lord and master, the said Cedric; also upon the
+person of a noble and free-born damsel, the Lady Rowena; also upon the
+person of a noble and free-born man, Athelstane of Coningsburgh; also
+upon the persons of certain free-born men, their vassals; also upon
+certain serfs, their born bondsmen; also upon a certain Jew, named
+Isaac of York, together with his daughter, and certain horses and mules:
+therefore, we require and demand that the said persons be within an hour
+after the delivery hereof delivered to us, untouched and unharmed in
+body and goods. Failing of which, we do pronounce to you that we hold ye
+as robbers and traitors and will wager our bodies against ye in battle
+and do our utmost to your destruction. Signed by us upon the eve of
+Saint Withold's day, under the great oak in the Hart-hill Walk, the
+above being written by a holy man, clerk to God and Saint Dunstan in the
+chapel of Copmanhurst."
+
+The knights heard this uncommon document read from end to end and then
+gazed upon each other in silent amazement, as being utterly at a loss to
+know what it could portend. De Bracy was the first to break silence by
+an uncontrollable fit of laughter, wherein he was joined, though with
+more moderation, by the Templar. Front-de-Boeuf, on the contrary, seemed
+impatient of their ill-timed [v]jocularity.
+
+"I give you plain warning," he said, "fair sirs, that you had better
+consult how to bear yourselves under these circumstances than to give
+way to such misplaced merriment."
+
+"Front-de-Boeuf has not recovered his temper since his overthrow in the
+tournament," said De Bracy to the Templar. "He is cowed at the very idea
+of a cartel, though it be from a fool and a swineherd."
+
+"I would thou couldst stand the whole brunt of this adventure thyself,
+De Bracy," answered Front-de-Boeuf. "These fellows dared not to have
+acted with such inconceivable impudence had they not been supported by
+some strong bands. There are enough outlaws in this forest to resent my
+protecting the deer. I did but tie one fellow, who was taken red-handed
+and in the fact, to the horns of a wild stag, which gored him to death
+in five minutes, and I had as many arrows shot at me as were launched in
+the tournament. Here, fellow," he added to one of his attendants, "hast
+thou sent out to see by what force this precious challenge is to be
+supported?"
+
+"There are at least two hundred men assembled in the woods," answered a
+squire who was in attendance.
+
+"Here is a proper matter!" said Front-de-Boeuf. "This comes of lending
+you the use of my castle. You cannot manage your undertaking quietly,
+but you must bring this nest of hornets about my ears!"
+
+"Of hornets?" echoed De Bracy. "Of stingless drones rather--a band of
+lazy knaves who take to the wood and destroy the venison rather than
+labor for their maintenance."
+
+"Stingless!" replied Front-de-Boeuf. "Fork-headed shafts of a cloth-yard
+in length, and these shot within the breadth of a French crown, are
+sting enough."
+
+"For shame, sir knight!" said the Templar. "Let us summon our people
+and sally forth upon them. One knight--ay, one man-at-arms--were enough
+for twenty such peasants."
+
+"Enough, and too much," agreed De Bracy. "I should be ashamed to couch
+lance against them."
+
+"True," answered Front-de-Boeuf, drily, "were they black Turks or Moors,
+Sir Templar, or the craven peasants of France, most valiant De Bracy;
+but these are English yeomen, over whom we shall have no advantage save
+what we may derive from our arms and horses, which will avail us little
+in the glades of the forest. Sally, saidst thou? We have scarce men
+enough to defend the castle. The best of mine are at York; so is your
+band, De Bracy; and we have scarce twenty, besides the handful that were
+engaged in this mad business."
+
+"Thou dost not fear," said the Templar, "that they can assemble in force
+sufficient to attempt the castle?"
+
+"Not so, Sir Brian," answered Front-de-Boeuf. "These outlaws have indeed
+a daring captain; but without machines, scaling ladders, and experienced
+leaders my castle may defy them."
+
+"Send to thy neighbors," suggested the Templar. "Let them assemble their
+people and come to the rescue of three knights, besieged by a jester and
+swineherd in the baronial castle of Reginald Front-de-Boeuf!"
+
+"You jest, sir knight," answered the baron; "but to whom shall I send?
+My allies are at York, where I should have also been but for this
+infernal enterprise."
+
+"Then send to York and recall our people," said De Bracy. "If these
+[v]churls abide the shaking of my standard, I will give them credit for
+the boldest outlaws that ever bent bow in greenwood."
+
+"And who shall bear such a message?" said Front-de-Boeuf. "The knaves
+will beset every path and rip the errand out of the man's bosom. I have
+it," he added, after pausing for a moment. "Sir Templar, thou canst
+write as well as read, and if we can but find writing materials, thou
+shalt return an answer to this bold challenge."
+
+Paper and pen were presently brought, and Bois-Guilbert sat down and
+wrote, in the French language, an epistle of the following tenor:
+
+"Sir Reginald Front-de-Boeuf, with his noble and knightly allies and
+confederates, receives no defiances at the hands of slaves, bondsmen, or
+fugitives. If the person calling himself the Black Knight hath indeed a
+claim to the honors of chivalry, he ought to know that he stands
+degraded by his present association and has no right to ask reckoning at
+the hands of good men of noble blood. Touching the prisoners we have
+made, we do in Christian charity require you to send a man of religion
+to receive their confession and reconcile them with God; since it is our
+fixed intention to execute them this morning before noon, so that their
+heads, being placed on the battlements, shall show to all men how
+lightly we esteem those who have bestirred themselves in their rescue.
+Wherefore, as above, we require you to send a priest to reconcile them
+with God, in doing which you shall render them the last earthly
+service."
+
+This letter, being folded, was delivered to the squire, and by him to
+the messenger who waited without, as the answer to that which he had
+brought.
+
+
+IV
+
+About one hour afterward a man arrayed in the cowl and frock of a
+hermit, and having his knotted cord twisted around his middle, stood
+before the portal of the castle of Front-de-Boeuf. The warder demanded
+of him his name and errand.
+
+"[v]_Pax vobiscum_," answered the priest, "I am a poor brother of the
+[v]Order of St. Francis who come hither to do my office to certain
+unhappy prisoners now secured within this castle."
+
+"Thou art a bold friar," said the warder, "to come hither, where, saving
+our own drunken confessor, a rooster of thy feather hath not crowed
+these twenty years."
+
+With these words, he carried to the hall of the castle his unwonted
+intelligence that a friar stood before the gate and desired admission.
+With no small wonder he received his master's command to admit the holy
+man immediately; and, having previously manned the entrance to guard
+against surprise, he obeyed, without farther scruple, the order given
+him.
+
+"Who and whence art thou, priest?" demanded Front-de-Boeuf.
+
+"_Pax vobiscum_," reiterated the priest, with trembling voice. "I am a
+poor servant of Saint Francis, who, traveling through this wilderness,
+have fallen among thieves, which thieves have sent me unto this castle
+in order to do my ghostly office on two persons condemned by your
+honorable justice."
+
+"Ay, right," answered Front-de-Boeuf; "and canst thou tell me, the
+number of those banditti?"
+
+"Gallant sir," said the priest, "[v]_nomen illis legio_, their name is
+legion."
+
+"Tell me in plain terms what numbers there are, or, priest, thy cloak
+and cord will ill protect thee from my wrath."
+
+"Alas!" said the friar, "[v]_cor meum eructavit_, that is to say, I was
+like to burst with fear! But I conceive they may be--what of yeomen,
+what of commons--at least five hundred men."
+
+"What!" said the Templar, who came into the hall that moment, "muster
+the wasps so thick here? It is time to stifle such a mischievous brood."
+Then taking Front-de-Boeuf aside, "Knowest thou the priest?"
+
+"He is a stranger from a distant convent," replied Front-de-Boeuf; "I
+know him not."
+
+"Then trust him not with our purpose in words," urged the Templar. "Let
+him carry a written order to De Bracy's company of Free Companions, to
+repair instantly to their master's aid. In the meantime, and that the
+shaveling may suspect nothing, permit him to go freely about his task of
+preparing the Saxon hogs for the slaughter-house."
+
+"It shall be so," said Front-de-Boeuf. And he forthwith appointed a
+domestic to conduct the friar to the apartment where Cedric and
+Athelstane were confined.
+
+The natural impatience of Cedric had been rather enhanced than
+diminished by his confinement. He walked from one end of the hall to the
+other, with the attitude of a man who advances to charge an enemy or
+storm the breach of a beleaguered place, sometimes ejaculating to
+himself and sometimes addressing Athelstane. The latter stoutly and
+[v]stoically awaited the issue of the adventure, digesting in the
+meantime, with great composure, the liberal meal which he had made at
+noon and not greatly troubling himself about the duration of the
+captivity.
+
+"_Pax vobiscum_!" pronounced the priest, entering the apartment. "The
+blessing of Saint Dunstan, Saint Dennis, Saint Duthoc, and all other
+saints whatsoever, be upon ye and about ye."
+
+"Enter freely," said Cedric to the friar; "with what intent art thou
+come hither?"
+
+"To bid you prepare yourselves for death," was the reply.
+
+"It is impossible!" said Cedric, starting. "Fearless and wicked as they
+are, they dare not attempt such open and [v]gratuitous cruelty!"
+
+"Alas!" returned the priest, "to restrain them by their sense of
+humanity is the same as to stop a runaway horse with a bridle of silk
+thread. Bethink thee, therefore, Cedric, and you also, Athelstane, what
+crimes you have committed in the flesh, for this very day will ye be
+called to answer at a higher [v]tribunal."
+
+"Hearest thou this, Athelstane?" said Cedric. "We must rouse up our
+hearts to this last action, since better it is we should die like men
+than live like slaves."
+
+"I am ready," answered Athelstane, "to stand the worst of their malice,
+and shall walk to my death with as much composure as ever I did to my
+dinner."
+
+"Let us, then, unto our holy [v]gear, father," said Cedric.
+
+"Wait yet a moment, good [v]uncle," said the priest in a voice very
+different from his solemn tones of a moment before; "better look before
+you leap in the dark."
+
+"By my faith!" cried Cedric; "I should know that voice."
+
+"It is that of your trusty slave and jester," answered the priest,
+throwing back his cowl and revealing the face of Wamba. "Take a fool's
+advice, and you will not be here long."
+
+"How meanest thou, knave?" demanded the Saxon.
+
+"Even thus," replied Wamba; "take thou this frock and cord and march
+quietly out of the castle, leaving me your cloak and girdle to take the
+long leap in thy stead."
+
+"Leave thee in my stead!" exclaimed Cedric, astonished at the proposal;
+"why, they would hang thee, my poor knave."
+
+"E'en let them do as they are permitted," answered Wamba. "I trust--no
+disparagement to your birth--that the son of Witless may hang in a chain
+with as much gravity as the chain hung upon his ancestor the
+[v]alderman."
+
+"Well, Wamba," said Cedric, "for one thing will I grant thy request. And
+that is, if thou wilt make the exchange of garments with Lord Athelstane
+instead of me."
+
+"No," answered Wamba; "there were little reason in that. Good right
+there is that the son of Witless should suffer to save the son of
+Hereward; but little wisdom there were in his dying for the benefit of
+one whose fathers were strangers to his."
+
+"Villain," cried Cedric, "the fathers of Athelstane were monarchs of
+England!"
+
+"They might be whomsoever they pleased," replied Wamba; "but my neck
+stands too straight on my shoulders to have it twisted for their sake.
+Wherefore, good my master, either take my proffer yourself, or suffer me
+to leave this dungeon as free as I entered."
+
+"Let the old tree wither," persisted Cedric, "so the stately hope of the
+forest be preserved. Save the noble Athelstane, my trusty Wamba! It is
+the duty of each who has Saxon blood in his veins. Thou and I will abide
+together the utmost rage of our oppressors, while he, free and safe,
+shall arouse the awakened spirits of our countrymen to avenge us."
+
+"Not so, father Cedric," said Athelstane, grasping his hand--for, when
+roused to think or act, his deeds and sentiments were not unbecoming his
+high race--"not so. I would rather remain in this hall a week without
+food save the prisoner's stinted loaf, or drink save the prisoner's
+measure of water, than embrace the opportunity to escape which the
+slave's untaught kindness has [v]purveyed for his master. Go, noble
+Cedric. Your presence without may encourage friends to our rescue; your
+remaining here would ruin us all."
+
+"And is there any prospect, then, of rescue from without?" asked Cedric,
+looking at the jester.
+
+"Prospect indeed!" echoed Wamba. "Let me tell you that when you fill my
+cloak you are wrapped in a general's cassock. Five hundred men are there
+without, and I was this morning one of their chief leaders. My fool's
+cap was a [v]casque, and my [v]bauble a truncheon. Well, we shall see
+what good they will make by exchanging a fool for a wise man. Truly, I
+fear they will lose in valor what they may gain in discretion. And so
+farewell, master, and be kind to poor Gurth and his dog Fangs; and let
+my [v]coxcomb hang in the hall at Rotherwood in memory that I flung away
+my life for my master--like a faithful fool!"
+
+The last word came out with a sort of double expression, betwixt jest
+and earnest. The tears stood in Cedric's eyes.
+
+"Thy memory shall be preserved," he said, "while fidelity and affection
+have honor upon earth. But that I trust I shall find the means of saving
+Rowena and thee, Athelstane, and thee also, my poor Wamba, thou shouldst
+not overbear me in this matter."
+
+The exchange of dress was now accomplished, when a sudden doubt struck
+Cedric.
+
+"I know no language but my own and a few words of their mincing Norman.
+How shall I bear myself like a reverend brother?"
+
+"The spell lies in two words," replied Wamba: "_Pax vobiscum_ will
+answer all queries. If you go or come, eat or drink, bless or ban, _Pax
+vobiscum_ carries you through it all. It is as useful to a friar as a
+broomstick to a witch or a wand to a conjurer. Speak it but thus, in a
+deep, grave tone,--_Pax vobiscum_!--it is irresistible. Watch and ward,
+knight and squire, foot and horse, it acts as a charm upon them all. I
+think, if they bring me out to be hanged to-morrow, as is much to be
+doubted they may, I will try its weight."
+
+"If such prove the case," said his master, "my religious orders are soon
+taken. _Pax vobiscum_! I trust I shall remember the password. Noble
+Athelstane, farewell; and farewell, my poor boy, whose heart might make
+amends for a weaker head. I will save you, or return and die with you.
+Farewell."
+
+"Farewell, noble Cedric," said Athelstane; "remember it is the true part
+of a friar to accept refreshment, if you are offered any."
+
+Thus exhorted, Cedric sallied forth upon his expedition and presently
+found himself in the presence of Front-de-Boeuf. The Saxon, with some
+difficulty, compelled himself to make obeisance to the haughty baron,
+who returned his courtesy with a slight inclination of the head.
+
+"Thy penitents, father," said the latter, "have made a long [v]shrift.
+It is the better for them, since it is the last they shall ever make.
+Hast thou prepared them for death?"
+
+"I found them," said Cedric, in such French as he could command,
+"expecting the worst, from the moment they knew into whose power they
+had fallen."
+
+"How now, sir friar," replied Front-de-Boeuf, "thy speech, me thinks,
+smacks of the rude Saxon tongue?"
+
+"I was bred in the convent of Saint Withold of Burton," answered Cedric.
+
+"Ay," said the baron; "it had been better for thee to have been a
+Norman, and better for my purpose, too; but need has no choice of
+messengers. That Saint Withold's of Burton is a howlet's nest worth the
+harrying. The day will soon come that the frock shall protect the Saxon
+as little as the mail-coat."
+
+"God's will be done!" returned Cedric, in a voice tremulous with
+passion, which Front-de-Boeuf imputed to fear.
+
+"I see," he said, "thou dreamest already that our men-at-arms are in thy
+refectory and thy ale-vaults. But do me one cast of thy holy office and
+thou shalt sleep as safe in thy cell as a snail within his shell of
+proof."
+
+"Speak your commands," replied Cedric, with suppressed emotion.
+
+"Follow me through this passage, then, that I may dismiss thee by the
+postern."
+
+As he strode on his way before the supposed friar, Front-de-Boeuf thus
+schooled him in the part which he desired he should act.
+
+"Thou seest, sir friar, yon herd of Saxon swine who have dared to
+environ this castle of Torquilstone. Tell them whatever thou hast a mind
+of the weakness of this [v]fortalice, or aught else that can detain
+them before it for twenty-four hours. Meantime bear this scroll--but
+soft--canst thou read, sir priest?"
+
+"Not a jot I," answered Cedric, "save on my [v]breviary; and then I know
+the characters because I have the holy service by heart, praised be
+Saint Withold!"
+
+"The fitter messenger for my purpose. Carry thou this scroll to the
+castle of Philip de [v]Malvoisin; say it cometh from me and is written
+by the Templar, Brian de Bois-Guilbert, and that I pray him to send it
+to York with all speed man and horse can make. Meanwhile, tell him to
+doubt nothing he shall find us whole and sound behind our battlement.
+Shame on it, that we should be compelled to hide thus by a pack of
+runagates who are wont to fly even at the flash of our pennons and the
+tramp of our horses! I say to thee, priest, contrive some cast of thine
+art to keep the knaves where they are until our friends bring up their
+lances."
+
+With these words, Front-de-Boeuf led the way to a postern where, passing
+the moat on a single plank, they reached a small barbican, or exterior
+defense, which communicated with the open field by a well-fortified
+sally-port.
+
+"Begone, then; and if thou wilt do mine errand, and return hither when
+it is done, thou shalt see Saxon flesh cheap as ever was hog's in the
+shambles of Sheffield. And, hark thee! thou seemest to be a jolly
+confessor--come hither after the onslaught and thou shalt have as much
+good wine as would drench thy whole convent."
+
+"Assuredly we shall meet again," answered Cedric.
+
+"Something in the hand the whilst," continued the Norman; and, as they
+parted at the postern door, he thrust in Cedric's reluctant hand a gold
+[v]byzant, adding, "Remember, I will flay off both cowl and skin if thou
+failest in thy purpose."
+
+The supposed priest passed out of the door without further words.
+
+Front-de-Boeuf turned back within the castle.
+
+"Ho! Giles jailer," he called, "let them bring Cedric of Rotherwood
+before me, and the other churl, his companion--him I mean of
+Coningsburgh--Athelstane there, or what call they him? Their very names
+are an encumbrance to a Norman knight's mouth, and have, as it were, a
+flavor of bacon. Give me a stoop of wine, as jolly Prince John would
+say, that I may wash away the relish. Place it in the armory, and
+thither lead the prisoners."
+
+His commands were obeyed; and upon entering that Gothic apartment, hung
+with many spoils won by his own valor and that of his father, he found a
+flagon of wine on a massive oaken table, and the two Saxon captives
+under the guard of four of his dependants. Front-de-Boeuf took a long
+draught of wine and then addressed his prisoners, for the imperfect
+light prevented his perceiving that the more important of them had
+escaped.
+
+"Gallants of England," said Front-de-Boeuf, "how relish ye your
+entertainment at Torquilstone? Faith and Saint Dennis, an ye pay not a
+rich ransom, I will hang ye up by the feet from the iron bars of these
+windows till the kites and hooded crows have made skeletons of you!
+Speak out, ye Saxon dogs, what bid ye for your worthless lives? What say
+you, you of Rotherwood?"
+
+"Not a [v]doit I," answered poor Wamba, "and for hanging up by the feet,
+my brain has been topsy-turvy ever since the [v]biggin was bound first
+around my head; so turning me upside down may peradventure restore it
+again."
+
+"Hah!" cried Front-de-Boeuf, "what have we here?"
+
+And with the back of his hand he struck Cedric's cap from the head of
+the jester, and throwing open his collar, discovered the fatal badge of
+servitude, the silver collar round his neck.
+
+"Giles--Clement--dogs and varlets!" called the furious Norman, "what
+villain have you brought me here?"
+
+"I think I can tell you," said De Bracy, who just entered the apartment.
+"This is Cedric's clown."
+
+"Go," ordered Front-de-Boeuf; "fetch me the right Cedric hither, and I
+pardon your error for once--the rather that you but mistook a fool for
+a Saxon [v]franklin."
+
+"Ay, but," said Wamba, "your chivalrous excellency will find there are
+more fools than franklins among us."
+
+"What means this knave?" said Front-de-Boeuf, looking toward his
+followers, who, lingering and loath, faltered forth their belief that if
+this were not Cedric who was there in presence, they knew not what was
+become of him.
+
+"Heavens!" exclaimed De Bracy. "He must have escaped in the monk's
+garments!"
+
+"Fiends!" echoed Front-de-Boeuf. "It was then the boar of Rotherwood
+whom I ushered to the postern and dismissed with my own hands! And
+thou," he said to Wamba, "whose folly could over-reach the wisdom of
+idiots yet more gross than thyself. I will give thee holy orders, I will
+shave thy crown for thee! Here, let them tear the scalp from his head
+and pitch him headlong from the battlements. Thy trade is to jest: canst
+thou jest now?"
+
+"You deal with me better than your word, noble knight," whimpered forth
+poor Wamba, whose habits of [v]buffoonery were not to be overcome even
+by the immediate prospect of death; "if you give me the red cap you
+propose, out of a simple monk you will make a [v]cardinal."
+
+"The poor wretch," said De Bracy, "is resolved to die in his vocation."
+The next moment would have been Wamba's last but for an unexpected
+interruption. A hoarse shout, raised by many voices, bore to the inmates
+of the hall the tidings that the besiegers were advancing to the attack.
+There was a moment's silence in the hall, which was broken by De Bracy.
+"To the battlements," he said; "let us see what these knaves do
+without."
+
+So saying, he opened a latticed window which led to a sort of projecting
+balcony, and immediately called to those in the apartment, "Saint
+Dennis, it is time to stir! They bring forward [v]mantelets and
+[v]pavisses, and the archers muster on the skirts of the wood like a
+dark cloud before a hail-storm."
+
+Front-de-Boeuf also looked out upon the field and immediately snatched
+his bugle. After winding a long and loud blast, he commanded his men to
+their posts on the walls.
+
+"De Bracy, look to the eastern side, where the walls are lowest. Noble
+Bois-Guilbert, thy trade hath well taught thee how to attack and defend,
+so look thou to the western side. I myself will take post at the
+barbican. Our numbers are few, but activity and courage may supply that
+defect, since we have only to do with rascal clowns."
+
+The Templar had in the meantime been looking out on the proceedings of
+the besiegers with deeper attention than Front-de-Boeuf or his giddy
+companion.
+
+"By the faith of mine order," he said, "these men approach with more
+touch of discipline than could have been judged, however they come by
+it. See ye how dexterously they avail themselves of every cover which a
+tree or bush affords and avoid exposing themselves to the shot of our
+cross-bows? I spy neither banner nor pennon, and yet I will gage my
+golden chain that they are led by some noble knight or gentleman
+skillful in the practice of wars."
+
+"I espy him," said De Bracy; "I see the waving of a knight's crest and
+the gleam of his armor. See yon tall man in the black mail who is busied
+marshaling the farther troop of the rascally yeomen. By Saint Dennis, I
+hold him to be the knight who did so well in the tournament at Ashby."
+
+The demonstrations of the enemy's approach cut off all farther
+discourse. The Templar and De Bracy repaired to their posts and, at the
+head of the few followers they were able to muster, awaited with calm
+determination the threatened assault, while Front-de-Boeuf went to see
+that all was secure in the besieged fortress.
+
+
+V
+
+In the meantime, the wounded Wilfred of Ivanhoe had been gradually
+recovering his strength. Taken into her litter by Rebecca when his own
+father hesitated to succor him, the young knight had lain in a stupor
+through all the experiences of the journey and the capture of Cedric's
+party by the Normans. De Bracy, who, bad as he was, was not without some
+[v]compunction, on finding the occupant of the litter to be Ivanhoe, had
+placed the invalid under the charge of two of his squires, who were
+directed to state to any inquirers that he was a wounded comrade. This
+explanation was now accordingly returned by these men to Front-de-Boeuf,
+when, in going the round of the castle, he questioned them why they did
+not make for the battlements upon the alarm of the attack.
+
+"A wounded comrade!" he exclaimed in great wrath and astonishment. "No
+wonder that churls and yeomen wax so presumptuous as even to lay leaguer
+before castles, and that clowns and swineherds send defiances to nobles,
+since men-at-arms have turned sick men's nurses. To the battlements, ye
+loitering villains!" he cried, raising his [v]stentorian voice till the
+arches rang again; "to the battlements, or I will splinter your bones
+with this truncheon."
+
+The men, who, like most of their description, were fond of enterprise
+and detested inaction, went joyfully to the scene of danger, and the
+care of Ivanhoe fell to Rebecca, who occupied a neighboring apartment
+and who was not kept in close confinement.
+
+The beautiful young Jewess rejoined the knight, whom she had so signally
+befriended, at the moment of the beginning of the attack on the castle.
+Ivanhoe, already much better and chafing at his enforced inaction,
+resembled the war-horse who scenteth the battle afar.
+
+"If I could but drag myself to yonder window," he said, "that I might
+see how this brave game is like to go--if I could strike but a single
+blow for our deliverance! It is in vain; I am alike nerveless and
+weaponless!"
+
+"Fret not thyself, noble knight," answered Rebecca, "the sounds have
+ceased of a sudden. It may be they join not battle."
+
+"Thou knowest naught of it," returned Wilfred, impatiently; "this dead
+pause only shows that the men are at their posts on the walls and expect
+an instant attack. What we have heard was but the distant muttering of
+the storm, which will burst anon in all its fury. Could I but reach
+yonder window!"
+
+"Thou wilt injure thyself by the attempt, noble knight," replied the
+attendant. Then she added, "I myself will stand at the lattice and
+describe to you as I can what passes without."
+
+"You must not; you shall not!" exclaimed Ivanhoe. "Each lattice will
+soon be a mark for the archers; some random shaft may strike you. At
+least cover thy body with yonder ancient buckler and show as little of
+thyself as may be."
+
+Availing herself of the protection of the large, ancient shield, which
+she placed against the lower part of the window, Rebecca, with
+tolerable security, could witness part of what was passing without the
+castle and report to Ivanhoe the preparations being made for the
+storming. From where she stood she had a full view of the outwork likely
+to be the first object of the assault. It was a fortification of no
+great height or strength, intended to protect the postern-gate through
+which Cedric had been recently dismissed by Front-de-Boeuf. The castle
+moat divided this species of barbican from the rest of the fortress, so
+that, in case of its being taken, it was easy to cut off the
+communication with the main building by withdrawing the temporary
+bridge. In the outwork was a sally-port corresponding to the postern of
+the castle, and the whole was surrounded by a strong palisade. From the
+mustering of the assailants in a direction nearly opposite the outwork,
+it seemed plain that this point had been selected for attack.
+
+Rebecca communicated this to Ivanhoe, and added, "The skirts of the wood
+seem lined with archers, although only a few are advanced from its dark
+shadow."
+
+"Under what banner?" asked Ivanhoe.
+
+"Under no ensign of war which I can observe," answered Rebecca.
+
+"A singular novelty," muttered the knight, "to advance to storm such a
+castle without pennon or banner displayed! Seest thou who they are that
+act as leaders? Or, are all of them but stout yeomen?"
+
+"A knight clad in sable armor is the most conspicuous," she replied; "he
+alone is armed from head to foot, and he seems to assume the direction
+of all around him."
+
+"Seem there no other leaders?" demanded the anxious inquirer.
+
+"None of mark and distinction that I can behold from this station," said
+Rebecca. "They appear even now preparing to attack. God of Zion protect
+us! What a dreadful sight! Those who advance first bear huge shields and
+defenses made of plank; the others follow, bending their bows as they
+come on. They raise their bows! God of Moses, forgive the creatures thou
+hast made!"
+
+Her description was suddenly interrupted by the signal for assault,
+which was the blast of a shrill bugle, at once answered by a flourish of
+the Norman trumpets from the battlements. The shouts of both parties
+augmented the fearful din, the assailants crying, "Saint George for
+merry England!" and the Normans answering them with cries of
+"[v]_Beauseant! Beauseant!_"
+
+It was not, however, by clamor that the contest was to be decided, and
+the desperate efforts of the assailants were met by an equally vigorous
+defense on the part of the besieged. The archers, trained by their
+woodland pastimes to the most effective use of the longbow, shot so
+rapidly and accurately that no point at which a defender could show the
+least part of his person escaped their [v]cloth-yard shafts. By this
+heavy discharge, which continued as thick and sharp as hail, two or
+three of the garrison were slain and several others wounded. But,
+confident in their armor of proof and in the cover which their situation
+afforded, the followers of Front-de-Boeuf, and his allies, showed an
+obstinacy in defense proportioned to the fury of the attack, replying
+with the discharge of their large cross-bows to the close and continued
+shower of arrows. As the assailants were necessarily but indifferently
+protected, they received more damage than they did.
+
+"And I must lie here like a bedridden monk," exclaimed Ivanhoe, "while
+the game that gives me freedom or death is played out by the hands of
+others! Look from the window once again, kind maiden, but beware that
+you are not marked by the archers beneath--look out once more and tell
+me if they yet advance to the storm."
+
+With patient courage, Rebecca again took post at the lattice.
+
+"What dost thou see?" demanded the wounded knight.
+
+"Nothing but the cloud of arrows flying so thick as to dazzle mine eyes
+and hide the bowmen who shoot them."
+
+"That cannot endure," remarked Ivanhoe. "If they press not on to carry
+the castle by pure force of arms, the archery may avail but little
+against stone walls and bulwarks. Look for the sable knight and see how
+he bears himself, for as the leader is, so will his followers be."
+
+"I see him not," said Rebecca.
+
+"Foul craven!" exclaimed Ivanhoe; "does he blench from the helm when the
+wind blows highest?"
+
+"He blenches not! he blenches not!" cried Rebecca. "I see him now; he
+heads a body of men close under the outer barrier of the barbican. They
+pull down the piles and palisades; they hew down the barriers with axes.
+His high black plume floats over the throng, like a raven over the field
+of the slain. They have made a breach in the barriers--they rush
+in--they are thrust back! Front-de-Boeuf heads the defenders; I see his
+gigantic form above the press. They throng again to the breach, and the
+pass is disputed hand to hand, and man to man. Have mercy, God!"
+
+She turned her head from the lattice, as if unable longer to endure a
+sight so terrible.
+
+"Look forth again, Rebecca," urged Ivanhoe, mistaking the cause of her
+retiring; "the archery must in some degree have ceased, since they are
+now fighting hand to hand. Look again; there is less danger."
+
+Rebecca again looked forth and almost immediately exclaimed: "Holy
+prophets of the law! Front-de-Boeuf and the Black Knight fight hand to
+hand in the breach, amid the roar of their followers, who watch the
+progress of the strife." She then uttered a loud shriek, "He is down! he
+is down!"
+
+"Who is down?" cried Ivanhoe; "tell me which has fallen?"
+
+"The Black Knight," answered Rebecca, faintly; then shouted with joyful
+eagerness, "But no--the name of the Lord of Hosts be blessed!--he is on
+foot again and fights as if there were twenty men's strength in his
+single arm. His sword is broken--he snatches an ax from a yeoman--he
+presses Front-de-Boeuf with blow on blow. The giant stoops and totters
+like an oak under the steel of a woodsman--he falls--he falls!"
+
+"Front-de-Boeuf?" exclaimed Ivanhoe.
+
+"Front-de-Boeuf!" answered the Jewess. "His men rush to the rescue,
+headed by the haughty Templar--their united force compels the champion
+to pause--they drag Front-de-Boeuf within the walls."
+
+"The assailants have won the barriers, have they not?" Ivanhoe eagerly
+queried.
+
+"They have! they have!" answered Rebecca; "and they press the besieged
+hard on the outer wall. Some plant ladders, some swarm like bees and
+endeavor to ascend upon the shoulders of each other. Down go stones,
+beams, and trunks of trees on their heads, and as fast as they bear the
+wounded to the rear, fresh men supply their places. Great God! hast thou
+given men thine own image, that it should be thus cruelly defaced by the
+hands of their brethren!"
+
+"Think not of that," said Ivanhoe. "This is no time for such thoughts.
+Who yield--who push their way?"
+
+"The ladders are thrown down," replied Rebecca, shuddering; "the
+soldiers lie groveling under them like crushed reptiles; the besieged
+have the better."
+
+"Saint George strike for us!" exclaimed the knight; "do the false yeomen
+give way?"
+
+"No," exclaimed Rebecca, "they bear themselves right yeomanly--the Black
+Knight approaches the postern with his huge ax--the thundering blows he
+deals you may hear above all the din of the battle. Stones and beams are
+hailed down on the bold champion--he regards them no more than if they
+were thistle-down or feathers!"
+
+"By Saint John of Acre," cried Ivanhoe, raising himself joyfully on his
+couch, "methought there was but one man in England that might do such a
+deed!"
+
+"The postern-gate shakes," continued Rebecca; "it crashes--it is
+splintered by his blows--they rush in--the outwork is won! Oh, God! they
+hurl the defenders from the battlements--they throw them into the
+moat--men, if ye indeed be men, spare them that can resist no longer!"
+
+"The bridge--the bridge which communicates with the castle--have they
+won that pass?"
+
+"No," replied Rebecca. "The Templar has destroyed the plank on which
+they crossed--few of the defenders escaped with him into the castle--the
+shrieks and cries you hear tell the fate of the others! Alas! I see it
+is more difficult to look on victory than on battle."
+
+"What do they now, maiden?" asked Ivanhoe. "Look forth yet again; this
+is no time to faint at bloodshed."
+
+"It is over for the time," answered Rebecca. "Our friends strengthen
+themselves within the outwork which they have mastered; it affords them
+so good a shelter from the foeman's shot that the garrison only bestow a
+few bolts on it from interval to interval, as if to disquiet rather than
+to injure them."
+
+"Our friends," said Wilfred, "will surely not abandon an enterprise so
+gloriously begun and so happily attained. Oh, no! I will put my faith in
+the good knight whose ax hath rent heart-of-oak and bars of iron."
+
+
+VI
+
+During the interval of quiet which followed the first success of the
+besiegers, the Black Knight was employed in causing to be constructed a
+sort of floating bridge, or long raft, by means of which he hoped to
+cross the moat in despite of the resistance of the enemy. This was a
+work of some time.
+
+When the raft was completed, the Black Knight addressed the besiegers:
+"It avails not waiting here longer, my friends; the sun is descending in
+the west, and I may not tarry for another day. Besides, it will be a
+marvel if the horsemen do not come upon us from York, unless we speedily
+accomplish our purpose. Wherefore, one of you go to Locksley and bid him
+commence a discharge of arrows on the opposite side of the castle, and
+move forward as if about to assault it; while you, true Englishmen,
+stand by me and be ready to thrust the raft end-long over the moat
+whenever the postern on our side is thrown open. Follow me boldly
+across, and aid me to burst yon sally-port in the main wall of the
+castle. As many of you as like not this service, or are but ill-armed,
+do you man the top of the outwork, draw your bowstrings to your ears and
+quell with your shot whoever shall appear upon the rampant. Noble
+Cedric, wilt thou take the direction of those that remain?"
+
+"Not so," answered the Saxon. "Lead I cannot, but my posterity curse me
+in my grave if I follow not with the foremost wherever thou shalt point
+the way!"
+
+"Yet, bethink thee, noble Saxon," said the knight, "thou hast neither
+hauberk nor corslet, nor aught but that light helmet, [v]target, and
+sword."
+
+"The better," replied Cedric; "I shall be the lighter to climb these
+walls. And--forgive the boast, sir knight--thou shalt this day see the
+naked breast of a Saxon as boldly presented to the battle as ever you
+beheld the steel corslet of a Norman warrior."
+
+"In the name of God, then," said the knight, "fling open the door and
+launch the floating bridge!"
+
+The portal which led from the inner wall of the barbican, now held by
+the besiegers, to the moat and corresponded with a sally-port in the
+main wall of the castle was suddenly opened. The temporary bridge was
+immediately thrust forward and extended its length between the castle
+and outwork, forming a slippery and precarious passage for two men
+abreast to cross the moat. Well aware of the importance of taking the
+foe by surprise, the Black Knight, closely followed by Cedric, threw
+himself upon the bridge and reached the opposite shore. Here he began to
+thunder with his ax on the gate of the castle, protected in part from
+the shot and stones cast by the defenders by the ruins of the former
+drawbridge, which the Templar had demolished in his retreat from the
+barbican, leaving the [v]counterpoise still attached to the upper part
+of the portal. The followers of the knight had no such shelter; two were
+instantly shot with cross-bow bolts, and two more fell into the moat.
+The others retreated back into the barbican.
+
+[Illustration: [See page 323]
+
+He Began to Thunder on the Gate]
+
+The situation of Cedric and the Black Knight was now truly dangerous and
+would have been still more so but for the constancy of the archers in
+the barbican, who ceased not to shower their arrows on the battlements,
+distracting the attention of those by whom they were manned and thus
+affording a respite to their two chiefs from the storm of missiles,
+which must otherwise have overwhelmed them. But their situation was
+eminently perilous, and was becoming more so with every moment.
+
+"Shame on ye all!" cried De Bracy to the soldiers around him; "do ye
+call yourselves cross-bowmen and let these two dogs keep their station
+under the walls of the castle? Heave over the coping stones from the
+battlement, an better may not be. Get pick-ax and levers and down with
+that huge pinnacle!" pointing to a heavy piece of stone-carved work that
+projected from the parapet.
+
+At this moment Locksley whipped up the courage of his men.
+
+"Saint George for England!" he cried. "To the charge, bold yeomen! Why
+leave ye the good knight and noble Cedric to storm the pass alone? Make
+in, yeomen! The castle is taken. Think of honor; think of spoil. One
+effort and the place is ours."
+
+With that he bent his good bow and sent a shaft right through the breast
+of one of the men-at-arms, who, under De Bracy's direction, was
+loosening a fragment from one of the battlements to precipitate on the
+heads of Cedric and the Black Knight. A second soldier caught from the
+hands of the dying man the iron crow, with which he had heaved up and
+loosened the stone pinnacle, when, receiving an arrow through his
+headpiece, he dropped from the battlement into the moat a dead man. The
+men-at-arms were daunted, for no armor seemed proof against the shot of
+this tremendous archer.
+
+"Do you give ground, base knaves?" cried De Bracy. "[v]_Mountjoy Saint
+Dennis_! Give me the lever."
+
+Snatching it up, he again assailed the loosened pinnacle, which was of
+weight enough, if thrown down, not only to have destroyed the remnant of
+the drawbridge, which sheltered the two foremost assailants, but also to
+have sunk the rude float of planks over which they had crossed. All saw
+the danger, and the boldest, even the stout friar himself, avoided
+setting a foot on the raft. Thrice did Locksley bend his shaft against
+De Bracy, and thrice did his arrow bound back from the knight's armor of
+proof.
+
+"Curse on thy Spanish steel-coat!" said Locksley; "had English smith
+forged it, these arrows had gone through it as if it had been silk." He
+then began to call out: "Comrades! friends! noble Cedric! bear back and
+let the ruin fall."
+
+His warning voice was unheard, for the din which the Black Knight
+himself occasioned by his strokes upon the postern would have drowned
+twenty war-trumpets. The faithful Gurth indeed sprang forward on the
+planked bridge to warn Cedric of his impending fate, or to share it with
+him. But his warning would have come too late; the massive pinnacle
+already tottered, and De Bracy, who still heaved at his task, would have
+accomplished it, had not the voice of the Templar sounded close in his
+ear.
+
+"All is lost, De Bracy; the castle burns."
+
+"Thou art mad to say so," replied the knight.
+
+"It is all in a light flame on the western side," returned
+Bois-Guilbert. "I have striven in vain to extinguish it."
+
+"What is to be done?" cried De Bracy. "I vow to Saint Nicholas of
+Limoges a candlestick of pure gold--"
+
+"Spare thy vow," said the Templar, "and mark me. Lead thy men down, as
+if to a sally; throw the postern-gate open. There are but two men who
+occupy the float; fling them into the moat and push across to the
+barbican. I will charge from the main gate and attack the barbican on
+the outside. If we can regain that post, we shall defend ourselves until
+we are relieved or, at least, until they grant us fair quarter."
+
+"It is well thought upon," replied De Bracy; "I will play my part."
+
+De Bracy hastily drew his men together and rushed down to the
+postern-gate, which he caused instantly to be thrown open. Scarce was
+this done ere the portentous strength of the Black Knight forced his
+way inward in despite of De Bracy and his followers. Two of the foremost
+instantly fell, and the rest gave way, notwithstanding all their
+leader's efforts to stop them.
+
+"Dogs!" cried De Bracy; "will ye let two men win our only pass for
+safety?"
+
+"He is the devil!" replied a veteran man-at-arms, bearing back from the
+blows of their sable antagonist.
+
+"And if he be the devil," said De Bracy, "would you fly from him into
+the mouth of hell? The castle burns behind us, villains! Let despair
+give you courage, or let me forward. I will cope with this champion
+myself."
+
+And well and chivalrously did De Bracy that day maintain the fame he had
+acquired in the civil wars of that dreadful period. The vaulted passages
+in which the two redoubted champions were now fighting hand to hand rang
+with the furious blows they dealt each other, De Bracy with his sword,
+the Black Knight with his ponderous ax. At length the Norman received a
+blow, which, though its force was partly parried by his shield,
+descended yet with such violence on his crest that he measured his
+length on the paved floor.
+
+"Yield thee, De Bracy," said the Black Knight, stooping over him and
+holding against the bars of his helmet the fatal poniard with which
+knights despatched their enemies; "yield thee, Maurice de Bracy, rescue
+or no rescue, or thou art but a dead man. Speak!"
+
+The gallant Norman, seeing the hopelessness of further resistance,
+yielded, and was allowed to rise.
+
+"Let me tell thee what it imports thee to know," he said. "Wilfred of
+Ivanhoe is wounded and a prisoner, and will perish in the burning castle
+without present help."
+
+"Wilfred of Ivanhoe!" exclaimed the Black Knight. "The life of every man
+in the castle shall answer if a hair of his head be singed. Show me his
+chamber!"
+
+"Ascend yonder stair," directed De Bracy. "It leads to his apartment."
+
+The turret was now in bright flames, which flashed out furiously from
+window and shot-hole. But, in other parts, the great thickness of the
+walls and the vaulted roofs of the apartments resisted the progress of
+the fire, and there the rage of man still triumphed; for the besiegers
+pursued the defenders of the castle from chamber to chamber. Most of the
+garrison resisted to the uttermost; few of them asked quarter--none
+received it. The air was filled with groans and the clashing of arms.
+
+Through this scene of confusion the Black Knight rushed in quest of
+Ivanhoe, whom he found in Rebecca's charge. The knight, picking up the
+wounded man as if he were a child, bore him quickly to safety. In the
+meantime, Cedric had gone in search of Rowena, followed by the faithful
+Gurth. The noble Saxon was so fortunate as to reach his ward's
+apartment just as she had abandoned all hope of safety and sat in
+expectation of instant death. He committed her to the charge of Gurth,
+to be carried without the castle. The loyal Cedric then hastened in
+quest of his friend Athelstane, determined at every risk to himself to
+save the prince. But ere Cedric penetrated as far as the old hall in
+which he himself had been a prisoner, the inventive genius of Wamba had
+procured liberation for himself and his companion.
+
+When the noise of the conflict announced that it was at the hottest, the
+jester began to shout with the utmost power of his lungs, "Saint George
+and the Dragon! Bonny Saint George for merry England! The castle is
+won!" These sounds he rendered yet more fearful by banging against each
+other two or three pieces of rusty armor which lay scattered around the
+hall.
+
+The guards at once ran to tell the Templar that foemen had entered the
+old hall. Meantime the prisoners found no difficulty in making their
+escape into the court of the castle, which was now the last scene of the
+contest. Here sat the fierce Templar, mounted on horseback and
+surrounded by several of the garrison, who had united their strength in
+order to secure the last chance of safety and retreat which remained to
+them. The principal, and now the single remaining drawbridge, had been
+lowered by his orders, but the passage was beset; for the archers, who
+had hitherto only annoyed the castle on that side by their missiles, no
+sooner saw the flames breaking out and the bridge lowered than they
+thronged to the entrance. On the other hand, a party of the besiegers
+who had entered by the postern on the opposite side were now issuing
+into the court-yard and attacking with fury the remnant of the defenders
+in the rear.
+
+Animated, however, by despair and the example of their gallant leader,
+the remaining soldiers of the castle fought with the utmost valor; and,
+being well armed, they succeeded in driving back the assailants.
+
+Crying aloud, "Those who would save themselves, follow me!"
+Bois-Guilbert pushed across the drawbridge, dispersing the archers who
+would have stopped them. He was followed by the Saracen slaves and some
+five or six men-at-arms, who had mounted their horses. The Templar's
+retreat was rendered perilous by the number of arrows shot at him and
+his party; but this did not prevent him from galloping round to the
+barbican, where he expected to find De Bracy.
+
+"De Bracy!" he shouted, "art thou there?"
+
+"I am here," answered De Bracy, "but a prisoner."
+
+"Can I rescue thee?" cried Bois-Guilbert.
+
+"No," said the other. "I have rendered myself."
+
+Upon hearing this, the Templar galloped off with his followers, leaving
+the besiegers in complete possession of the castle.
+
+Fortunately, by this time all the prisoners had been rescued and stood
+together without the castle, while the yeomen ran through the apartments
+seeking to save from the devouring flames such valuables as might be
+found. They were soon driven out by the fiery element. The towering
+flames surmounted every obstruction and rose to the evening skies one
+huge and burning beacon, seen far and wide through the adjacent country.
+Tower after tower crashed down, with blazing roof and rafter.
+
+The victors, assembling in large bands, gazed with wonder not unmixed
+with fear upon the flames, in which their own ranks and arms glanced
+dusky red. The voice of Locksley was at length heard, "Shout, yeomen!
+the den of tyrants is no more! Let each bring his spoil to the tree in
+Hart-hill Walk, for there we will make just partition among ourselves,
+together with our worthy allies in this great deed of vengeance."
+
+SIR WALTER SCOTT.
+
+
+=HELPS TO STUDY=
+
+     I. Tell what you find out about Cedric and his son, Ivanhoe, or the
+     "Disinherited Knight." What impression do you get of Cedric's
+     character? of Athelstane's? What was the first adventure the
+     travelers had? Who was "the sick friend" the Jews were assisting?
+     What further adventure befell the travelers? How did Gurth show his
+     true character? Who came to the aid of Gurth and Wamba? What did
+     Wamba mean by "whether they be thy children's coats or no"? What
+     impression do you get of the stranger? Describe the scene in the
+     hermit's abode. What impression do you get of him? Of the Black
+     Knight?
+
+     II. Who had made Cedric's party prisoners? Why? Tell what Cedric
+     said when he discovered who his captors were. What disposition was
+     made of the prisoners? Describe the scene in Isaac's cell. How was
+     Front-de-Boeuf interrupted?
+
+     III. What challenge did the knights receive? How did they answer
+     it?
+
+     IV. Who came in the character of a priest? What plan did he carry
+     out? How? How did Cedric act his part? Describe the scene when the
+     escape was discovered. How was Front-de-Boeuf prevented from doing
+     Wamba harm?
+
+     V. How did Ivanhoe fall to the care of Rebecca? Where did Rebecca
+     take her station? Describe the scenes she saw. What knight led the
+     assault? How did Rebecca describe him? Can you guess who the Black
+     Knight was? Whom did Ivanhoe think of when he said, "Methought
+     there was but one man in England that might do such a deed"?
+
+     VI. What plan did the Black Knight make? How was it executed? Which
+     of the assailants proved themselves especial heroes? What was De
+     Bracy's plan? How was its accomplishment prevented? What plan for
+     escape did the Templar have? How did it end? Tell how Ivanhoe,
+     Rowena, Athelstane and Wamba were liberated. Tell what became of
+     the knights. Who do you think Locksley was?
+
+     All of the party were rescued except Rebecca, who was carried off
+     by Bois-Guilbert and accused of witchcraft. You will have to read
+     the novel, _Ivanhoe_, to learn of the further adventures of her,
+     Rowena, the Black Knight, and Ivanhoe.
+
+
+SUPPLEMENTARY READING
+
+     The Talisman--Sir Walter Scott.
+     The White Company--A. Conan Doyle.
+     When Knighthood Was in Flower--Charles Major.
+     The Last of the Barons--Edward Bulwer-Lytton.
+     Don Quixote--Miguel de Cervantes.
+     The Idylls of the King--Alfred Tennyson.
+     Scottish Chiefs--Jane Porter.
+
+
+
+
+SEA FEVER
+
+
+    I must go down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky,
+    And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by;
+    And the wheel's kick and the wind's song and the white sail's shaking,
+    And a gray mist on the sea's face, and a gray dawn breaking.
+
+    I must go down to the seas again, for the call of the running tide
+    Is a wild call and a clear call that may not be denied;
+    And all I ask is a windy day with the white clouds flying,
+    And the flung spray and the blown [v]spume, and the sea-gulls crying.
+
+    I must go down to the seas again, to the vagrant gypsy life,
+    To the gull's way and the whale's way where the wind's like a whetted
+        knife;
+    And all I ask is a merry yarn from a laughing fellow-rover,
+    And quiet sleep and a sweet dream when the long trick's over.
+
+    JOHN MASEFIELD.
+
+
+
+
+A GREYPORT LEGEND
+
+
+    They ran through the streets of the seaport town;
+      They peered from the decks of the ships that lay:
+    The cold sea-fog that comes whitening down
+      Was never as cold or white as they.
+        "Ho, Starbuck, and Pinckney, and Tenterden,
+        Run for your shallops, gather your men,
+      Scatter your boats on the lower bay!"
+
+    Good cause for fear! In the thick midday
+      The hulk that lay by the rotting pier,
+    Filled with the children in happy play,
+      Parted its moorings and drifted clear;
+        Drifted clear beyond reach or call,--
+        Thirteen children they were in all,--
+    All adrift in the lower bay!
+
+    Said a hard-faced skipper, "God help us all!
+      She will not float till the turning tide!"
+    Said his wife, "My darling will hear _my_ call,
+      Whether in sea or heaven she abide!"
+        And she lifted a quavering voice and high,
+        Wild and strange as a sea-bird's cry,
+      Till they shuddered and wondered at her side.
+
+    The fog drove down on each laboring crew,
+      Veiled each from each and the sky and shore;
+    There was not a sound but the breath they drew,
+      And the lap of water and creak of oar.
+        And they felt the breath of the downs fresh blown
+        O'er leagues of clover and cold gray stone,
+      But not from the lips that had gone before.
+
+    They came no more. But they tell the tale
+      That, when fogs are thick on the harbor reef,
+    The mackerel-fishers shorten sail;
+      For the signal they know will bring relief,
+        For the voices of children, still at play
+        In a phantom-hulk that drifts alway
+      Through channels whose waters never fail.
+
+    It is but a foolish shipman's tale,
+      A theme for a poet's idle page;
+    But still, when the mists of doubt prevail,
+      And we lie becalmed by the shores of age,
+        We hear from the misty troubled shore
+        The voice of the children gone before,
+      Drawing the soul to its anchorage!
+
+    BRET HARTE.
+
+
+=HELPS TO STUDY=
+
+     Read the poem and tell the story found in it. Why was every one so
+     "cold and white"? What was the great danger? What happened to
+     prevent the sailors' getting to the hulk? What is the tale that is
+     told? What is the thought the poet leaves with us in the last
+     stanza?
+
+
+
+
+A HUNT BENEATH THE OCEAN
+
+
+     This story is taken from _Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea_,
+     the book that foreshadowed the modern submarine. Monsieur Aronnax,
+     a scientist, with two companions, Ned Land and Conseil, was rescued
+     at sea by a strange craft, the _Nautilus_, owned and commanded by
+     one Captain Nemo, who hated mankind and never went ashore on
+     inhabited land. Monsieur Aronnax remained on the submarine for
+     months in a kind of captivity and met with many wonderful
+     adventures. It should be noted that modern inventions have already
+     outstripped many of the author's imaginings.
+
+On returning to my room with Ned and Conseil, I found upon my table a
+note addressed to me. I opened it impatiently. It was written in a bold
+clear hand, and ran as follows:
+
+"November 16, 1867.
+
+To Professor Aronnax, on board the _Nautilus_:
+
+Captain Nemo invites Professor Aronnax to a hunting party, which will
+take place to-morrow morning in the forest of the island of Crespo. He
+hopes that nothing will prevent the professor from being present, and he
+will with pleasure see him joined by his companions."
+
+"A hunt!" exclaimed Ned.
+
+"And in the forests of the island of Crespo!" added Conseil.
+
+"Oh, then the gentleman is going on [v]_terra firma_?" asked Ned Land.
+
+"That seems to be clearly indicated," said I, reading the letter once
+more.
+
+"Well, we must accept," said Ned. "Once more on dry land, we shall know
+what to do. Indeed, I shall not be sorry to eat a piece of fresh
+venison."
+
+I contented myself with replying, "Let us see where the island of Crespo
+is."
+
+I consulted the [v]planisphere and in 32° 40' north latitude, and 157°
+50' west [v]longitude, I found a small island recognized in 1801 by
+Captain Crespo, and marked in the ancient Spanish maps as Rocca de la
+Platta, or Silver Rock.
+
+I showed this little rock lost in the midst of the North Pacific to my
+companions.
+
+"If Captain Nemo does sometimes go on dry ground," said I, "he at least
+chooses desert islands."
+
+Ned Land shrugged his shoulders without speaking, and Conseil and he
+left me. After supper, which was served by the steward, mute and
+impassive, I went to bed, not without some anxiety.
+
+The next morning, the 7th of November, I felt on awakening that the
+_Nautilus_ was perfectly still. I dressed quickly and entered the
+saloon. Captain Nemo was there, waiting for me. He rose, bowed, and
+asked me if it was convenient for me to accompany him. I simply replied
+that my companions and myself were ready to follow him.
+
+We entered the room where breakfast was served.
+
+"M. Aronnax," said the captain, "pray share my breakfast without
+ceremony; we will chat as we eat. Though I promised you a walk in the
+forest, I did not undertake to find hotels there; so breakfast as a man
+should who will most likely not have his dinner till very late."
+
+I did honor to the repast. It was composed of several kinds of fish, and
+different sorts of seaweed. Our drink consisted of pure water, to which
+the captain added some drops of a fermented liquor extracted from a
+seaweed. Captain Nemo ate at first without saying a word. Then he began:
+
+"Professor, when I proposed to you to hunt in my submarine forest of
+Crespo, you evidently thought me mad. Sir, you should never judge
+lightly of any man."
+
+"But, captain, believe me--"
+
+"Be kind enough to listen, and you will then see whether you have any
+cause to accuse me of folly and contradiction."
+
+"I listen."
+
+"You know as well as I do, professor, that man can live under water,
+providing he carries with him a sufficient supply of breathable air. In
+submarine works, the workman, clad in an [v]impervious dress, with his
+head in a metal helmet, receives air from above by means of
+forcing-pumps and [v]regulators."
+
+"That is a diving apparatus," said I.
+
+"Just so. But under these conditions the man is not at liberty; he is
+attached to the pump which sends him air through a rubber tube, and if
+we were obliged to be thus held to the _Nautilus_, we could not go far."
+
+"And the means of getting free?" I asked.
+
+"It is to use the Rouquayrol apparatus, invented by two of your own
+countrymen, which I have brought to perfection for my own use and which
+will allow you to risk yourself without any organ of the body suffering.
+It consists of a reservoir of thick iron plates, in which I store the
+air under a pressure of fifty [v]atmospheres. This reservoir is fixed on
+the back by means of braces, like a soldier's knapsack. Its upper part
+forms a box in which the air is kept by means of a bellows, and
+therefore cannot escape unless at its [v]normal tension. In the
+Rouquayrol apparatus such as we use, two rubber pipes leave this box and
+join a sort of tent which holds the nose and mouth; one is to introduce
+fresh air, the other to let out foul, and the tongues close one or the
+other pipe according to the wants of the [v]respirator. But I, in
+encountering great pressures at the bottom of the sea, was obliged to
+shut my head like that of a diver in a ball of copper; and it is into
+this ball of copper that the two pipes, the inspirator and the
+expirator, open. Do you see?"
+
+"Perfectly, Captain Nemo. But the air that you carry with you must soon
+be used; when it contains only fifteen per cent of oxygen it is no
+longer fit to breathe."
+
+"Right! But I told you, M. Aronnax, that the pumps of the _Nautilus_
+allow me to store the air under considerable pressure; and the reservoir
+of the apparatus can furnish breathable air for nine or ten hours."
+
+"I have no further objections to make," I answered. "I will only ask one
+thing, captain--how can you light your road at the bottom of the sea?"
+
+"With the Ruhmkorff apparatus, M. Aronnax. One is carried on the back,
+the other is fastened to the waist. It is composed of a [v]bunsen pile,
+which I do not work with bichromate of potash but with sodium. A wire is
+introduced which collects the electricity produced, and directs it
+toward a lantern. In this lantern is a spiral glass which contains a
+small quantity of carbonic acid gas. When the apparatus is at work, this
+gas becomes luminous, giving out a white and continuous light. Thus
+provided, I can breathe and I can see."
+
+"Captain Nemo, to all my objections you make such crushing answers that
+I dare no longer doubt. But if I am forced to admit the Rouquayrol and
+Ruhmkorff apparatus, I must be allowed some reservations with regard to
+the gun I am to carry."
+
+"But it is not a gun for powder," he said.
+
+"Then it is an air-gun?" I asked.
+
+"Doubtless. How would you have me manufacture gunpowder on board,
+without saltpeter, sulphur, or charcoal?"
+
+"Besides," I added, "to fire under water in a medium eight hundred and
+fifty times denser than the air, we must conquer a very considerable
+resistance."
+
+"That would be no difficulty. There exist guns which can fire under
+these conditions. But I repeat, having no powder, I use air under great
+pressure, which the pumps of the _Nautilus_ furnish abundantly."
+
+"But this air must be rapidly used?"
+
+"Well, have I not my Rouquayrol reservoir, which can furnish it at need?
+A tap is all that is required. Besides, M. Aronnax, you must see
+yourself that during our submarine hunt we can spend but little air."
+
+"But it seems to me that in this twilight, and in the midst of this
+fluid, which is very dense compared with the atmosphere, shots could not
+go far or easily prove fatal."
+
+"On the contrary," replied Nemo, "with this gun every blow is mortal;
+however lightly the animal is touched, it falls dead as if struck by a
+thunderbolt."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Because the balls sent by this gun are not ordinary balls, but little
+cases of glass, of which I have a large supply. These glass cases are
+covered with a shell of steel and weighted with a pellet of lead; they
+are real [v]Leyden jars, into which electricity is forced to a very high
+tension. With the slightest shock they are discharged, and the animal,
+however strong it may be, falls dead."
+
+Captain Nemo then led me aft; and in passing before Ned and Conseil's
+cabin, I called my two companions, who followed immediately. Conseil was
+delighted at the idea of exploring the sea, but Ned declined to go when
+he learned that the hunt was to be a submarine one. We came to a kind of
+cell near the machinery-room, in which we were to put on our
+walking-dress. It was, in fact, the arsenal and wardrobe of the
+_Nautilus_. A dozen diving-suits hung from the partition, awaiting our
+use.
+
+At the captain's call two of the ship's crew came to help us dress in
+these heavy and impervious clothes, made of rubber without seam and
+constructed expressly to resist considerable pressure. One might have
+taken this diving apparatus for a suit of armor, both supple and
+resisting. It formed trousers and waistcoat; the trousers were finished
+off with thick boots, weighted with heavy leaden soles. The texture of
+the waistcoat was held together by bands of copper, which crossed the
+chest, protecting it from the great pressure of the water and leaving
+the lungs free to act. The sleeves ended in gloves, which in no way
+restrained the movement of the hands. There was a vast difference
+noticeable between this dress and the old-fashioned diving-suit.
+
+Captain Nemo and one of his companions, Conseil and myself, were soon
+enveloped in the dresses; there remained nothing more to be done but
+inclose our heads in the metal boxes. Captain Nemo thrust his head into
+the helmet, Conseil and I did the same. The upper part of our dress
+terminated in a copper collar, upon which was screwed the metal helmet.
+Three holes, protected by thick glass, allowed us to see in all
+directions by simply turning our heads in the interior of the
+head-dress. As soon as it was in position, the Rouquayrol apparatus on
+our backs began to act; and, for my part, I could breathe with ease.
+
+With the Ruhmkorff lamp hanging from my belt, and the gun in my hand, I
+was ready to set out. But to speak the truth, imprisoned in these heavy
+garments and glued to the deck by the leaden soles, it was impossible
+for me to take a step. This state of things, however, was provided for.
+I felt myself being pushed into a little room next the wardrobe-room. My
+companions followed, towed along in the same way. I heard a water-tight
+door, furnished with stopper-plates, close upon us, and we were wrapped
+in profound darkness.
+
+After some minutes, a loud hissing was heard; I felt the cold mount from
+my feet to my chest. Evidently from some part of the vessel they had, by
+means of a tap, given entrance to the water, which was invading us and
+with which the room was soon filled. A second door cut in the side of
+the _Nautilus_ then opened. We saw a faint light. In another instant our
+feet trod the bottom of the sea.
+
+How can I retrace the impression left upon me by that walk under the
+waters? Words are impotent to relate such wonders. Captain Nemo walked
+in front, his companion followed some steps behind. Conseil and I
+remained near each other, as if an exchange of words had been possible
+through our metallic cases. I no longer felt the weight of my clothing,
+or of my shoes, of my reservoir of air, or my thick helmet, in the midst
+of which my head rattled like an almond in its shell.
+
+The light which lit the soil thirty feet below the surface of the ocean
+astonished me by its power. The solar rays shone through the watery mass
+easily and dissipated all color, and I clearly distinguished objects at
+a distance of a hundred and fifty yards. Beyond that the tints darkened
+into fine gradations of [v]ultramarine and faded into vague obscurity.
+We were walking on fine, even sand, not wrinkled as on a flat shore,
+which retains the impression of the billows. This dazzling carpet,
+really a reflector, repelled the rays of the sun with wonderful
+intensity, which accounted for the vibration which penetrated every atom
+of liquid. Shall I be believed when I say that, at a depth of thirty
+feet, I could see as well as if I was in broad daylight?
+
+For a quarter of an hour I trod on this sand; the hull of the
+_Nautilus_, resembling a long shoal, disappeared by degrees; but its
+lantern would help to guide us back when darkness should overtake us in
+the waters. Soon forms of objects outlined in the distance became
+discernible. I recognized magnificent rocks, hung with a tapestry of
+[v]zoophytes of the most beautiful kind.
+
+It was then about ten o'clock in the morning, and the rays of the sun
+struck the surface of the waves at rather an oblique angle; at the touch
+of the light, decomposed by [v]refraction as through a prism, flowers,
+rocks, plants, and shells were shaded at the edges by the seven solar
+colors. It was a marvelous feast for the eyes, this complication of
+colored tints, a perfect [v]kaleidoscope of green, yellow, orange,
+violet, indigo, and blue!
+
+All these wonders I saw in the space of a quarter of a mile, scarcely
+stopping and following Captain Nemo, who beckoned me on by signs. Soon
+the nature of the soil changed; to the sandy plain succeeded an extent
+of slimy mud; we then traveled over a plain of seaweed of wild and
+luxuriant vegetation. This sward was of close texture and soft to the
+feet, rivaling the softest carpet woven by the hand of man. While
+verdure was spread at our feet, it did not abandon our heads. A light
+network of marine plants grew on the surface of the water.
+
+We had been gone from the _Nautilus_ an hour and a half. It was near
+noon; I knew this by the [v]perpendicularity of the sun's rays, which
+were no longer refracted. The magical colors disappeared by degrees and
+the shades of emerald and sapphire were effaced. We walked with a
+regular step, which rang upon the ground with astonishing intensity;
+indeed the slightest noise was transmitted with a quickness and
+vividness to which the ear is unaccustomed on earth, water being a
+better conductor of sound than air in the [v]ratio of four to one. At
+this period the earth sloped downward; the light took a uniform tint. We
+were at a depth of a hundred and five yards.
+
+At this depth I could still see the rays of the sun, though feebly; to
+their intense brilliancy had succeeded a reddish twilight, but we could
+find our way well enough. It was not necessary to resort to the
+Ruhmkorff apparatus as yet. At this moment Captain Nemo stopped and
+waited till I joined him, pointing then to an obscure mass which loomed
+in the shadow at a short distance.
+
+"It is the forest of the island of Crespo," thought I, and I was not
+mistaken.
+
+This under-sea forest was composed of large tree-plants; and the moment
+we penetrated under its vast [v]arcades I was struck by the singular
+position of their branches: not an herb which carpeted the ground, not a
+branch which clothed the trees was either broken or bent, nor did they
+extend in a [v]horizontal direction; all stretched up toward the surface
+of the sea. Not a filament, not a ribbon, however thin, but kept as
+straight as a rod of iron. They were motionless, yet when bent to one
+side by the hand they directly resumed their former position. Truly it
+was a region of perpendicularity.
+
+I soon accustomed myself to this fantastic position, as well as to the
+comparative darkness which surrounded us. The sights were very
+wonderful. Under numerous shrubs as large as trees on land were massed
+bushes of living flowers--animals rather than plants--of various colors
+and glowing softly in the obscurity of the ocean depth. Fish flies flew
+from branch to branch like a swarm of humming-birds, while swarms of
+marine creatures rose at our feet like a flight of snipes.
+
+In about an hour Captain Nemo gave the signal to halt. I, for my part,
+was not sorry, and we stretched ourselves under an arbor of plants, the
+long thin blades of which stood up like arrows. I felt an irresistible
+desire to sleep, an experience which happens to all divers. My eyes soon
+closed behind the thick glasses and I fell into a heavy slumber. Captain
+Nemo and his companion, stretched in the clear crystal, set me the
+example.
+
+How long I remained buried in this drowsiness I cannot judge; but when I
+woke, the sun seemed sinking toward the horizon. Captain Nemo had
+already risen, and I was beginning to stretch my limbs when an
+unexpected sight brought me briskly to my feet.
+
+A few steps off, a monster sea-spider, about forty inches high, was
+watching me with squinting eyes, ready to spring on me. Though my
+diver's dress was thick enough to defend me from the bite of this
+animal, I could not help shuddering with horror. Conseil and the sailor
+of the _Nautilus_ awoke at this moment. Captain Nemo pointed out the
+hideous creature, which a blow from the butt end of a gun knocked over;
+I saw the claws of the monster writhe in horrible convulsions. This
+incident reminded me that other animals more to be feared might haunt
+these obscure depths, against whose attacks my diving-clothes would not
+protect me.
+
+Indeed, I thought that this halt would mark the end of our walk; but I
+was mistaken, for instead of returning to the _Nautilus_, we continued
+our bold excursion. The ground was still on the incline; its declivity
+seemed to be getting greater and to be leading us to lower depths. It
+must have been about three o'clock when we reached a narrow valley
+between high walls; thanks to the perfection of our apparatus, we were
+far below the depth to which divers ever penetrate.
+
+At our great depth the darkness thickened; ten paces away not an object
+was visible. I was groping my way when I suddenly saw a brilliant white
+light flash out ahead; Captain Nemo had turned on his electric torch.
+The rest of us soon followed his example, and the sea, lit by our four
+lanterns, was illuminated for a circle of forty yards.
+
+Captain Nemo still plunged onward into the dark reaches of the forest,
+whose trees were getting scarcer at every step. At last, after about
+four hours, this marvelous excursion came to an end. A wall of superb
+rocks rose before us, a heap of gigantic blocks, an enormous granite
+shore. It was the prop of the island of Crespo. It was the earth!
+
+The return now began. Captain Nemo resumed his place at the head of his
+little band and directed the course without hesitation. I thought we
+were not following the road we had come, on our return to the
+_Nautilus_. The new way was very steep and consequently very painful; we
+approached the surface of the sea rapidly, but this ascent was not so
+sudden as to cause a too rapid relief from the pressure of the water,
+which would have been dangerous. Very soon light reappeared and grew,
+and as the sun was low on the horizon, the refraction edged all objects
+with a [v]spectral ring. At ten yards deep, we walked amid a shoal of
+little fishes, more numerous than the birds of the air; but no
+[v]aquatic game worthy of a shot had as yet met our gaze. Suddenly I saw
+the captain put his gun to his shoulder and follow a moving object into
+the shrubs. He fired; I heard a slight hissing and the creature fell
+stunned at some distance from us.
+
+It was a magnificent sea-otter, five feet long and very valuable. Its
+skin, chestnut-brown above and silvery underneath, would have made one
+of those beautiful furs so sought after in the Russian and Chinese
+markets. I admired the curious animal, with its rounded head ornamented
+with short ears, its round eyes, and white whiskers like those of a cat,
+and its webbed feet and nails and tufted tail. This precious beast,
+hunted and tracked by fishermen, has now become very rare and has sought
+refuge in the northern parts of the Pacific.
+
+Captain Nemo's companion threw the sea-otter over his shoulder, and we
+continued our journey. For an hour a plain of sand lay stretched before
+us, which sometimes rose to within two yards of the surface of the
+water. I then saw our image clearly reflected, drawn inversely, and
+above us appeared an identical group reflecting our movements: in a
+word, the image was like us in every point, except that the figures
+walked with their heads downward and their feet in the air.
+
+For two hours we followed these sandy plains, then fields of [v]algae
+very disagreeable to cross. Candidly, I felt that I could do no more
+when I saw a glimmer of light, which for a half-mile broke the darkness
+of the waters. It was the lantern of the _Nautilus_. Before twenty
+minutes were over we should be on board, and I should be able to breathe
+with ease, for it seemed that my reservoir supplied air very deficient
+in oxygen. But I did not reckon on an accidental meeting which delayed
+our arrival for some time.
+
+I had remained some steps behind, when presently I saw Captain Nemo come
+hurriedly toward me. With his strong hand he bent me to the ground,
+while his companion did the same to Conseil. At first I knew not what to
+think of this sudden attack, but I was soon reassured by seeing the
+captain lie down beside me and remain immovable.
+
+I was stretched on the ground, just under shelter of a bush of algae,
+when, raising my head, I saw some enormous mass, casting phosphorescent
+gleams, pass blusteringly by. My blood froze in my veins as I recognized
+two formidable sharks. They were man-eaters, terrible creatures with
+enormous tails and a dull glassy stare--monstrous brutes which could
+crush a whole man in their iron jaws! I noticed their silver undersides
+and their huge mouths bristling with teeth, from a very unscientific
+point of view and more as a possible victim than as a naturalist.
+
+Happily the [v]voracious creatures do not see well. They passed without
+noticing us, brushing us with their brownish fins, and we escaped by a
+miracle from a danger certainly greater than that of meeting a tiger
+full-face in a forest. Half an hour later, guided by the electric light,
+we reached the _Nautilus_. The outside door had been left open, and
+Captain Nemo closed it as soon as we entered the first cell. He then
+pressed a knob. I heard the pumps working in the midst of the vessel. I
+felt the water sinking from around me, and in a few minutes the cell
+was entirely empty. The inside door then opened, and we entered the
+vestry.
+
+Our diving-dress was taken off, not without some trouble; and fairly
+worn out from want of food and sleep, I returned to my room in great
+wonder at this surprising excursion at the bottom of the sea.
+
+JULES VERNE.
+
+
+=HELPS TO STUDY=
+
+     What was the hunt to which the adventurers were invited? Describe
+     the preparations for it. What kind of gun did the hunters carry?
+     Describe the descent to the bottom of the sea and the walk. What
+     impressed you most? Would you care to take a nap at the bottom of
+     the sea? What were the main incidents in the return trip? Find out
+     all you can about divers and about life on the floor of the ocean.
+
+
+SUPPLEMENTARY READING
+
+     The Mysterious Island--Jules Verne.
+     Thirty Strange Stories--H. G. Wells.
+     The Great Stone of Sardis--Frank R. Stockton.
+
+
+
+
+    Roll on, thou deep and dark blue ocean--roll!
+      Ten thousand fleets sweep over thee in vain;
+    Man marks the earth with ruin--his control
+      Stops with the shore; upon the watery plain
+      The wrecks are all thy deed, nor doth remain
+          A shadow of man's ravage.
+
+    LORD BYRON.
+
+
+
+
+UNDER SEAS
+
+
+     This story is a realistic description of a submarine cruise in the
+     recent war. The _Kate_ was a Russian underwater boat operating
+     against the German fleet in the Baltic Sea. Her experiences in this
+     terrible mode of fighting were the same as those of hundreds of
+     submarines belonging to the various warring powers. It may be
+     observed from the description how marvelous has been the advance of
+     science in the last generation. What Jules Verne imagined in his
+     book, _Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea_, the _Kate_
+     accomplished. This story of actual war is not less wonderful than
+     the vision of the romancer.
+
+Men were placed at the water-pumps, the oxygen containers, air-purifiers
+and [v]distilling machinery, and the [v]hatchways were thoroughly
+examined; the gunners took their posts at the torpedo tubes. The order
+had been given to move about as little as possible, to keep in the
+berths when not on duty, and not to talk and laugh. Then the watchman
+left the [v]conning tower, and the main hatchway was [v]hermetically
+closed.
+
+Captain Andrey gave the order to submerge and went over to the
+navigating compartment. Water rushed into the [v]ballast tanks, the boat
+grew heavy, and its rolling and pitching ceased: the _Kate_ sank and ran
+ahead under water, steering by means of the [v]periscope. Andrey pushed
+a button and a cone of pale blue rays poured from the tube. The
+[v]screen of the periscope grew alive with tiny waves, passing clouds,
+and a tail of smoke on the skyline. With his chin resting on his arm,
+Andrey scanned the image of the sea which lay before him. Presently the
+smoke vanished, and on the right hand appeared the hazy outline of land.
+
+At nightfall, the boat, taking advantage of the darkness, rose to the
+surface of the sea and sailed without lights. Andrey stood on the bridge
+throughout the night. The water was placid, the stars were screened by a
+light mist, and far away to the south the pale blue gleam of an enemy
+searchlight moved through the clouds.
+
+The boat was now approaching a mine field. At dawn, when the
+greenish-orange light began slowly to pervade the fleecy clouds, the
+_Kate_ sank to a great depth at a definitely fixed point in the sea.
+Steering solely by compass and map, she commenced to pick her way under
+the mines. Yakovlev was in charge of the steering apparatus, while
+Prince Bylopolsky calculated the [v]side drift and reported to the chief
+engineer in charge of the motors. Andrey, leaning over the map, gave
+orders to the man at the wheel.
+
+There was no sensation of movement, and it seemed as if the _Kate_ stood
+still amidst the eery darkness. The men for the most part were stretched
+on their backs, seeking to consume as little oxygen as possible. In
+spite of this precaution, however, the air was thick, and the sailors
+felt a tingling sensation in the ears.
+
+Suddenly the boat's keel struck against something hard, and a grating
+sound broke the stillness.
+
+"Stop! Stop!" called out Andrey, dashing forth from the navigating
+cabin.
+
+The pinions cracked and the motors ceased to pulsate. Immediately the
+air became hot, as in a Turkish bath. Andrey entered the water-tight
+conning tower, which was flooded with diluted, greenish light from the
+ports provided for the purpose of giving a view of the surrounding
+waters. He peered through the glass pane. Vague, blurred forms and
+shadows gradually became visible in the twilight of the deep. One of the
+shadows wavered and glided along the window, and the round, tragic eyes
+of a fish glanced at Andrey. The fish disappeared in the depths below
+the boat. Evidently the _Kate_ had not run aground, nor were there any
+submerged reefs in that quarter. Andrey gave an order to raise the boat
+several feet. Then numerous shadows leaped aside and scattered, and the
+captain plainly saw a jumbled heap of ropes and ladders. It was obvious
+that the _Kate_ had blundered into the remains of a sunken ship.
+
+The halt was unfortunate--indeed, might prove fatal. The uniform motion
+of the boat had been disturbed, the [v]orientation lost; the inevitable
+small error made at the point of submerging must have increased in the
+course beneath the waves. The _Kate_ had lost her way, and something
+must be done. Andrey drummed nervously on the window-pane as he
+thought. It was impossible to stay under water any longer, and yet to
+rise to the surface meant to be seen and attacked by enemy warships.
+Only in this way, however, was it possible to determine the boat's
+position.
+
+Andrey, giving an order for the boat to rise slowly, returned to his
+observation point. The water gradually grew clearer. Suddenly a dark
+ball moved down to meet the craft. "A mine!" flashed across Andrey's
+mind, and, overcoming the torpor which had begun to oppress his brain,
+he ordered the submarine to be swerved from her course. The ball moved
+away, but another appeared on the right. There was another change of
+direction. And now everywhere in the midst of the greenish twilight
+cast-iron shells lay in wait. The _Kate_ was in the toils of a mine net!
+
+Sea water, when viewed from a great height, is so transparent that large
+fishes can even be seen in it. Owing to this fact, the _Kate_ was
+discovered by two enemy [v]hydroplanes as she rose among the mines
+toward the surface of the bay. The aircraft were seen, however, and the
+boat dived again to a great depth.
+
+The _Kate_ now blindly groped her way forward. The motors worked at
+their top speed, and the body of the boat trembled. Hundreds of demons
+called horsepowers fiercely turned the various wheels, pinions, and
+shafts. The air was hot and stuffy; the men at the engine, stripped to
+the waist, worked feverishly. Speed was necessary, for only oxygen
+enough to sustain the crew for one hour remained in the lead cylinders.
+
+Yakovlev still sat at the compass, his elbows on his knees and his hands
+pressing his head. The men lounged in the cabins and corridors, their
+faces livid with suffocation. Prince Bylopolsky remained leaning over
+his [v]logarithmic tables, which had now become useless. From time to
+time he wiped his face, as if removing a net of invisible cobwebs.
+Finally he rose to his feet, took a few steps, and fainted dead away.
+
+Giving the order to proceed at full speed, Andrey hoped to pass the mine
+zone, even though some of his men succumbed for lack of air. Pale and
+excited, his hair in disorder, and his coat unbuttoned, he was
+everywhere at once, and his voice sustained the failing strength of the
+half-suffocated crew. Seeing the prince stretched unconscious on a
+berth, Andrey poured a few drops of brandy in his mouth and kissed his
+wet, childlike forehead. In making too rapid a movement, lurid flames
+danced before his eyes, and he bent back, striking his head against a
+sharp angle of an engine. He felt no pain from the blow.
+
+"Bad!" thought Andrey, and crawled over to the emergency oxygen
+container. He opened the faucet and inhaled the fragrant stream of gas.
+His head began to swim and a sweet fire ran through his veins. With an
+effort he rose to his feet. The outlines of the objects around him were
+strangely distinct, and the faces of the men imploringly turned to
+him--some of them bearded and high-cheekboned, others tender and
+childlike--seemed to him touchingly human....
+
+In the corridor Andrey came upon a man standing against the wall and
+gulping the air like a fish. Seeing the commander, he made an effort to
+cheer up and mumbled, "Beg pardon, sir; I'm a bit unwell." The captain
+leaned over and looked into his eyes, which a film of death was already
+beginning to veil. Andrey, turning to the telephone tube, gave a command
+to rise. The _Kate_ shook all over and dived upward. The ascent lasted
+four minutes and a half, at the end of which time the boat stood still
+and light fell on the screen of the periscope. The sailors crawled up to
+the main hatchway and unscrewed it. Cold salt air rushed into the boat,
+swelling the chests of the sufferers and turning their heads; the
+sensation of free breathing was delicious after the suffocation they had
+so long endured.
+
+Andrey, leaping on the bridge, found the evening sun suspended above
+vast masses of warm clouds and the sea quiet and peaceful. He began to
+take observations with the [v]sextant, which shook in his trembling
+hand. Presently a loud buzzing was heard in the sky, followed by the
+measured crackling of a machine gun; from the hull of the boat came a
+sharp rat-a-tat, as if some one was throwing dry peas on it. A
+hydroplane was circling above the _Kate_.
+
+Andrey bit his lip and kept on working; a squad of his men loaded their
+rifles. The hydroplane swooped down almost to the surface of the sea,
+then soared with a shrill "F-r-r-r" and flew right over the boat. A
+clean-shaven pilot sat motionless, his hands on the wheel; below him an
+observer gazed downward, waiting. Suddenly the latter lifted a bomb and
+threw it into a tube. The missile flashed in the air and plunged into
+the sea at the very side of the boat. One of the crew fired his rifle,
+and the observer threw up his leather-covered arms with outspread
+fingers. Slowly circling under the fire of the submarine crew, the
+aircraft rose toward the clouds and sailed off.
+
+Over the sky-ridge another aeroplane appeared, looking like a long thin
+line. Meantime the _Kate_ picked her way with graceful ease across the
+orange-colored waters as if cutting through molten glass. Andrey,
+buttoning his coat, said with a grimace, "Well, Yakovlev, the mines are
+behind us, but what are we going to do now?"
+
+"This region is full of reefs and sandbanks," replied Yakovlev.
+
+"That's just the trouble. I wouldn't risk sailing under the water. Wait
+a moment." He raised his hand.
+
+A violent whizzing sound came from the west; Andrey ordered greater
+speed. A [v]grenade hissed on the right, and a jet of water spurted up
+from the quiet surface. The _Kate_ tacked sharply toward the purpling
+horizon in the west, and behind, in her shadowy wake, another bomb burst
+and blossomed out into a small cloud. The boat then turned east again,
+but now in front of her, on both sides, everywhere, shells burst and
+sputtered fire. The scouting hydroplane dashed over the submarine like a
+bat; two pale faces looked down and disappeared. Then right above the
+stern of the _Kate_ a grenade exploded and one of the sailors dropped
+his rifle, clutched his face, toppled over the railing, and disappeared
+beneath the water.
+
+"All hands below!" cried Andrey; and, watching where the shells fell
+thickest, he began to give his orders. The _Kate_ circled like a
+run-down hare, while all along the darkening skyline the smoking stacks
+of mine-layers and destroyers were visible as the enemy's ruthless ring
+rapidly tightened about the submarine.
+
+Having had her wireless mast shot off by a shell, the _Kate_ now dashed
+toward the rocky shore, running awash. Six sparks shot up in the dark
+and six steel-clad demons hissed above the boat. The long shadow of a
+ship glided along the shore. The _Kate_ shook, and a sharp-nosed torpedo
+detached itself from her hull and glided away under the water to meet
+the [v]silhouette of the vessel. A moment passed, and a fluffy,
+mountainous mass of fire and water rose from the spot where the stacks
+of a mine-layer had projected shortly before. The mountain sank and the
+silhouette disappeared. The _Kate_ entered a baylet among the rocks,
+submerged, and lay on the sandy sea-bed.
+
+Two weeks the submarine remained in the inlet, completely cut off from
+the rest of the world. By day she hid in the deep, and only under the
+cover of night did she rise to the surface to get a supply of air. The
+greatest precautions were necessary, for there was little likelihood
+that the enemy believed the submarine to be destroyed.
+
+At the end of that time some action was inevitable, as the boat's
+supplies had given out; for three days the crew had fed on fish which
+one of the men had caught at great risk. Audrey decided to leave the bay
+and make a supreme effort to run the enemy's cordon.
+
+About daybreak, as the _Kate_ was nearing the surface of the sea, the
+crew became aware of a tremendous muffled cannonade; and when the boat
+emerged into a white fog, the whole coast shook and echoed with the roar
+and crash of a sea battle. Broadsides and terrific explosions alternated
+with the crackling of guns. It was as though a multitude of sea-devils
+coughed and blew and roared at each other.
+
+"Quick, sir," shouted Yakovlev, holding on to the railing; "we can break
+through now!" His teeth rattled.
+
+The preparations for the dash had been completed. A strong gale swept
+away the fog and drove its torn masses over the sea, laying bare the
+rocky shore. The _Kate_ dashed out of the bay into the open. The firing
+was now heard behind and on the right; the road to the port was open at
+last. The submarine rushed along, ripping in twain the frothing waves.
+
+In this moment of exaltation, to return safely to base, simply to do
+one's duty, seemed too little to these fearless men. The feeling that
+possessed them was not enthusiasm but a greediness, a yearning for
+destruction.
+
+"We cannot go away like this," Yakovlev shouted in Audrey's ear; "turn
+back or I will shoot myself!" The man was completely beside himself; his
+pale face twisted convulsively.
+
+Just then the sun arose, turning the rolling sea into a dull orange.
+Near at hand invisible ships thundered against each other. Suddenly a
+gray mountain-like shape emerged from the fog, enveloped in flame and
+smoke. Above its turrets, stacks, and masts fluttered a flag bearing a
+black eagle.
+
+Mad with the thought that the opportunity had come at last, Andrey
+rushed down the hatchway, knocking over Yakovlev on the way, and loaded
+the torpedo tube. The _Kate_ submerged a little, and sailing awash,
+headed straight for the enemy vessel.
+
+The shadow of the hostile ship glided along the periscope screen, every
+now and then wrapping itself into a cloud pierced with fiery needles of
+shots. The _Kate_ fired a torpedo but missed her aim. Leaning over the
+screen and biting his lips to bleeding, Andrey examined the tiny image
+of the vessel, one of the mightiest of battleships. The distance between
+the _Kate_ and the enemy vessel continued to decrease; the image of the
+ship already occupied half of the periscope screen.
+
+"Another torpedo!" shouted Andrey.
+
+At that very instant a blow was struck the boat and the periscope screen
+grew dark. Andrey ran out from the navigating compartment and shouted:
+
+"The periscope is shot away! Full speed forward!"
+
+The engineer seized the handle of a lever and asked, "Which way?"
+
+"Forward! forward!"
+
+Andrey went into the conning tower; straight in front of him foamy
+eddies whirled furiously. The dark hull of a ship appeared, obscuring
+the light.
+
+"Stop!" shouted Andrey. "Fire another one! Full speed backward!" He
+closed his eyes.
+
+For a moment it seemed to him that the end had come. He was hurled by
+the explosion of the torpedo into the corridor and dashed against the
+wall. The outcries of the men were drowned by the muffled thud of the
+inrushing water. The light went out; the _Kate_ began to rotate and
+sink.
+
+The boat did not stay long in the deep; freed from the weight of two
+torpedoes, she slowly began to rise, stopped before reaching the
+surface, and commenced to sink again as the water continued to leak into
+her hull.
+
+A sailor found Andrey in a narrow passage unconscious, though breathing
+regularly. The man dressed the captain's wounds, but could not bring him
+to his senses. Another sailor tried to revive Yakovlev, but soon saw
+that that officer was dead. All the available hands toiled at the pumps,
+while the engineer and his two assistants worked frantically at the
+engine.
+
+The _Kate_ was near the surface, but as the periscope and the indicator
+had been destroyed, it was impossible to tell precisely where she was.
+On the other hand, to unscrew the hatch and look out would subject the
+boat to the risk of being flooded. Finally, the engineer reported that
+it was necessary to replace the cylinder, but that this was difficult to
+do because the supply of candles was giving out. Kuritzyn, a sailor who
+had assumed command, ordered the men at the pumps to pump until they
+dropped dead, if necessary, but to raise the boat at least one yard. The
+men obeyed in grim silence. Presently the last candle went out. "It's
+all over, boys," said some one, and the pumps stopped. The only sound
+that now broke the silence was the monotonous splash of water leaking
+down on the periscope screen.
+
+"Follow me," said Kuritzyn hoarsely to two of the men. "Let us unscrew
+the hatches. What's the use of fooling any longer?"
+
+Feeling their way in the darkness, several men followed the leader into
+the corridor and up the spiral staircase in the main hatchway. When they
+reached the top, they grasped the bolts of the lid.
+
+"Here's our finish," said one of the men.
+
+Just then the sound of footsteps on the outside of the boat reached
+their ears. Some one was walking on the _Kate's_ hull!
+
+"Down to the ballast tanks!" Kuritzyn ordered. "When I fire, blow them
+out. We are ordered not to surrender the boat."
+
+With his revolver between his teeth, he pressed the bolt. The lid
+yielded; light and air rushed into the opening.
+
+"Hey, who is there?" Kuritzyn shouted.
+
+"Russians, Russians," replied a voice.
+
+"Thank God!" said Kuritzyn in a tone of intense gratitude.
+
+COUNT ALEXIS TOLSTOI.
+
+
+=HELPS TO STUDY=
+
+     Tell of the preparations made for the submerging of the _Kate_.
+     Describe the scene within the vessel. What accident halted the
+     boat? Describe the events that followed. Where did the _Kate_ find
+     anchorage? Describe her exit from the bay. What flag was it that
+     bore a black eagle? What was the fate of the ship bearing that
+     flag?
+
+
+SUPPLEMENTARY READING
+
+     Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea--Jules Verne.
+     The Pilot--J. Fenimore Cooper.
+
+
+
+
+A VOYAGE TO THE MOON
+
+
+     The moon, being the nearest to the earth of all the heavenly
+     bodies, has always occupied the imagination of men. Many fanciful
+     accounts have been written of voyages to the moon, of which the
+     following story by Edgar Allan Poe is among the best. So wonderful
+     has been the advance of science that it is conceivable that at some
+     distant time in the future the inhabitants of this world may
+     possibly be able to visit the beautiful body which lights the night
+     for us.
+
+
+I
+
+After a long and arduous devotion to the study of physics and astronomy,
+I, Hans Pfaal of Rotterdam, at length determined to construct a balloon
+of my own along original lines and to try a flight in it. Accordingly I
+had made an enormous bag out of cambric muslin, varnished with
+caoutchouc for protection against the weather. I procured all the
+instruments needed for a prolonged ascent and finally prepared for the
+inflation of the balloon. Herein lay my secret, my invention, the thing
+in which my balloon differed from all the balloons that had gone before.
+Out of a peculiar [v]metallic substance and a very common acid I was
+able to manufacture a gas of a density about 37.4 less than that of
+hydrogen, and thus by far the lightest substance ever known. It would
+serve to carry the balloon to heights greater than had been attained
+before, for hydrogen is the gas usually used.
+
+The hour for my experiment in ballooning finally arrived. I had chosen
+the night as the best time for the ascension, because I should thereby
+avoid annoyances caused by the curiosity of the ignorant and the idle.
+
+It was the first of April. The night was dark; there was not a star to
+be seen; and a drizzling rain, falling at intervals, made me very
+uncomfortable. But my chief anxiety was concerning the balloon, which,
+in spite of the varnish with which it was defended, began to grow rather
+heavy with the moisture. I therefore set my assistants to working, and
+in about four hours and a half I found the balloon sufficiently
+inflated. I attached the car and put all my implements in it--a
+telescope, a barometer, a thermometer, an [v]electrometer, a compass, a
+magnetic needle, a seconds watch, a bell, and other things. I had
+further procured a globe of glass, exhausted of air and carefully closed
+with a stopper, not forgetting a special apparatus for condensing air, a
+copious supply of water, and a large quantity of provisions, such as
+[v]pemmican, in which much [v]nutriment is contained in comparatively
+little bulk. I also secured a cat in the car.
+
+It was now nearly daybreak, and I thought it high time to take my
+departure. I immediately cut the single cord which held me to the earth,
+and was pleased to find that I shot upward with [v]inconceivable
+rapidity, carrying with all ease one hundred and seventy-five pounds of
+leaden ballast and able to have carried as much more.
+
+Scarcely, however, had I attained the height of fifty yards, when
+roaring and rumbling up after me in the most [v]tumultuous and terrible
+manner, came so dense a hurricane of fire and gravel and burning wood
+and blazing metal that my very heart sunk within me and I fell down in
+the car, trembling with terror. Some of my chemical materials had
+exploded immediately beneath me almost at the moment of my leaving
+earth. The balloon at first collapsed, then furiously expanded, then
+whirled round and round with sickening [v]velocity, and finally, reeling
+and staggering like a drunken man, hurled me over the rim of the car;
+and in the moment of my fall I lost consciousness.
+
+I had no knowledge of what had saved me. When I partially recovered the
+sense of existence, I found the day breaking, the balloon at a
+[v]prodigious height over a wilderness of ocean, and not a trace of land
+to be discovered far and wide within the limits of the vast horizon. My
+sensations, however, upon thus recovering, were by no means so
+[v]replete with agony as might have been anticipated. Indeed, there was
+much of madness in the calm survey which I began to take of my
+situation. I drew up to my eyes each of my hands, one after the other,
+and wondered what occurrence could have given rise to the swelling of
+the veins and the horrible blackness of the finger nails. I afterward
+carefully examined my head, shaking it repeatedly and feeling it with
+minute attention, until I succeeded in satisfying myself that it was
+not, as I had more than half suspected, larger than the balloon. It now
+occurred to me that I suffered great uneasiness in the joint of my left
+ankle, and a dim consciousness of my situation began to glimmer through
+my mind. I began to understand that my foot had caught in a rope and
+that I was hanging downward outside the car. But strange to say! I was
+neither astonished nor horror-stricken. If I felt any emotion at all, it
+was a sort of chuckling satisfaction at the cleverness I was about to
+display in getting myself out of this [v]dilemma.
+
+With great caution and deliberation, I put my hands behind my back and
+unfastened the large iron buckle which belonged to the waistband of my
+pantaloons. This buckle had three teeth, which, being somewhat rusty,
+turned with great difficulty on their axis. I brought them, however,
+after some trouble, at right angles to the body of the buckle and was
+glad to find them remain firm in that position. Holding with my teeth
+the instrument thus obtained, I proceeded to untie the knot of my
+cravat; it was at length accomplished. To one end of the cravat I then
+made fast the buckle, and the other end I tied, for greater security,
+tightly around my wrist. Drawing now my body upward, with a prodigious
+exertion of muscular force, I succeeded, at the very first trial, in
+throwing the buckle over the car, and entangling it, as I had
+anticipated, in the circular rim of the wicker-work.
+
+My body was now inclined toward the side of the car at an angle of about
+forty-five degrees; but it must not be understood that I was therefore
+only forty-five degrees below the [v]perpendicular. So far from it, I
+still lay nearly level with the plane of the horizon, for the change of
+position which I had acquired had forced the bottom of the car
+considerably outward from my position, which was accordingly one of the
+most extreme peril. It should be remembered, however, that when I fell
+from the car, if I had fallen with my face turned toward the balloon,
+instead of turned outwardly from it as it actually was--or if, in the
+second place, the cord by which I was suspended had chanced to hang over
+the upper edge instead of through a crevice near the bottom of the
+car--in either of these cases, I should have been unable to accomplish
+even as much as I had now accomplished. I had therefore every reason to
+be grateful, although, in point of fact, I was still too stupid to be
+anything at all, and hung for perhaps a quarter of an hour in that
+extraordinary manner, without making the slightest farther exertion, and
+in a singularly tranquil state of idiotic enjoyment.
+
+This feeling, however, did not fail to die rapidly away, and thereunto
+succeeded horror and dismay, and a sense of utter helplessness and ruin.
+In fact, the blood so long accumulating in the vessels of my head and
+throat, and which had hitherto buoyed up my spirits with delirium, had
+now begun to retire within its proper channels, and the distinctness
+which was thus added to my perception of the danger merely served to
+deprive me of the self-possession and courage to encounter it. But this
+weakness was, luckily for me, of no very great duration. In good time
+came to my rescue the spirit of despair, and with frantic cries and
+struggles, I jerked my body upward, till, at length, clutching with a
+vice-like grip the long-desired rim, I writhed my person over it and
+fell headlong and shuddering within the car.
+
+When I had recovered from the weakness caused by being so long in that
+position and the horror from which I had suffered, I found that all my
+implements were in place and that neither ballast nor provisions had
+been lost.
+
+It is now high time that I should explain the object of my voyage. I had
+been harassed for long by poverty and creditors. In this state of mind,
+wishing to live and yet wearied with life, my deep studies in astronomy
+opened a resource to my imagination. I determined to depart, yet
+live--to leave the world, yet continue to exist--in short, to be plain,
+I resolved, let come what would, to force a passage, if possible, to the
+moon.
+
+This was not so mad as it seems. The moon's actual distance from the
+earth was the first thing to be attended to. The mean or average
+interval between the centers of the two planets is only about 237,000
+miles. But at certain times the moon and earth are much nearer than at
+others, and if I could contrive to meet the moon at the moment when it
+was nearest earth, the above-mentioned distance would be materially
+lessened. But even taking the average distance and deducting the
+[v]radius of the earth and the moon, the actual interval to be traversed
+under average circumstances would be 231,920 miles. Now this, I
+reflected, was no very extraordinary distance. Traveling on the land has
+been repeatedly accomplished at the rate of sixty miles an hour; and
+indeed a much greater speed may be anticipated. But even at this
+velocity it would take me no more than 161 days to reach the surface of
+the moon. There were, however, many particulars inducing me to believe
+that my average rate of traveling might possibly very much exceed that
+of sixty miles an hour.
+
+The next point to be regarded was one of far greater importance. We know
+that at 18,000 feet above the surface of the earth we have passed
+one-half the material, or, at all events, one-half the [v]ponderable
+body of air upon the globe. It is also calculated that at a height of
+eighty miles the [v]rarefaction of air is so great that animal life can
+be sustained in no manner. But I did not fail to perceive that these
+calculations are founded on our experimental knowledge of the air in
+the immediate vicinity of the earth, and that it is taken for granted
+that animal life is incapable of [v]modification. I thought that no
+matter how high we may ascend we cannot arrive at a limit beyond which
+no atmosphere is to be found. It must exist, I argued, although it may
+exist in a state of [v]infinite rarefaction.
+
+Having adopted this view of the subject, I had little farther
+hesitation. Granting that on my passage I should meet with atmosphere
+essentially the same as at the surface of the earth, I thought that, by
+means of my very ingenious apparatus for that purpose, I should readily
+be able to condense it in sufficient quantity for breathing. This would
+remove the chief obstacle in a journey to the moon.
+
+I now turned to view the prospect beneath me. At twenty minutes past six
+o'clock, the barometer showed an elevation of 26,000 feet, or five miles
+to a fraction. The outlook seemed unbounded. I beheld as much as a
+sixteen-hundredth part of the whole surface of the globe. The sea
+appeared as unruffled as a mirror, although, by means of the telescope,
+I could perceive it to be in a state of violent agitation. I now began
+to experience, at intervals, severe pain in the head, especially about
+the ears, due to the rarefaction of the air. The cat seemed to suffer no
+inconvenience whatever.
+
+I was rising rapidly, and by seven o'clock the barometer indicated an
+altitude of no less than nine miles and a half. I began to find great
+difficulty in drawing my breath. My head, too, was excessively painful;
+and, having felt for some time a moisture about my cheeks, I at length
+discovered it to be blood, which was oozing quite fast from the drums of
+my ears. These symptoms were more than I had expected and occasioned me
+some alarm. At this juncture, very imprudently and without
+consideration, I threw out from the car three five-pound pieces of
+ballast. The increased rate of ascent thus obtained carried me too
+rapidly into a highly rarefied layer of atmosphere, and the result
+nearly proved fatal to my expedition and myself. I was suddenly seized
+with a spasm, which lasted for more than five minutes, and even when
+this in a measure ceased, I could catch my breath only at long
+intervals, and in a gasping manner--bleeding all the while copiously at
+the nose and ears and even slightly at the eyes.
+
+The cat mewed piteously, and, with her tongue hanging out of her mouth,
+staggered to and fro in the car as if under the influence of poison. I
+now too late discovered the great rashness of which I had been guilty in
+discharging my ballast, and my agitation was excessive. I expected
+nothing less than death, and death in a few minutes. I lay down in the
+bottom of the car and endeavored to collect my faculties. In this I so
+far succeeded as to determine upon the experiment of losing blood.
+Having no lancet, I was obliged to open a vein in my arm with the blade
+of a penknife. The blood had hardly commenced flowing when I experienced
+a sensible relief, and by the time I had lost about half a basin-full
+most of the worst symptoms were gone. The difficulty of breathing,
+however, was diminished in a very slight degree, and I found that it
+would be soon positively necessary to make use of my condenser.
+
+By eight o'clock I had actually attained an elevation of seventeen miles
+above the surface of the earth. Thus it seemed to me evident that my
+rate of ascent was not only on the increase, but that the progress would
+have been apparent to a slight extent even had I not discharged the
+ballast which I did. The pains in my head and ears returned at intervals
+and with violence, and I still continued to bleed occasionally at the
+nose; but upon the whole I suffered much less than might have been
+expected. I now unpacked the condensing apparatus and got it ready for
+immediate use.
+
+The view of the earth at this period of my ascension was beautiful
+indeed. To the westward, the northward, and the southward, as far as I
+could see, lay a boundless sheet of apparently unruffled ocean, which
+every moment gained a deeper and deeper tint of blue. At a vast distance
+to the eastward, although perfectly discernible, extended the islands of
+Great Britain, the entire Atlantic coasts of France and Spain, with a
+small portion of the northern part of the continent of Africa. Of
+individual edifices not a trace could be found, and the proudest cities
+of mankind had utterly faded away from the surface of the earth.
+
+At a quarter-past eight, being able no longer to draw breath without the
+most intolerable pain, I proceeded forthwith to adjust around the car
+the apparatus belonging to the condenser. I had prepared a very strong,
+perfectly air-tight gum-elastic bag. In this bag, which was of
+sufficient size, the entire car was in a manner placed. That is to say,
+the bag was drawn over the whole bottom of the car, up its sides and so
+on, up to the upper rim where the net-work is attached. Having pulled up
+the bag and made a complete inclosure on all sides, I was shut in an
+air-tight chamber.
+
+In the sides of this covering had been inserted three circular panes of
+thick but clear glass, through which I could see without difficulty
+around me in every horizontal direction. In that portion of the cloth
+forming the bottom was a fourth window corresponding with a small
+aperture in the floor of the car itself. This enabled me to see straight
+down, but I had been unable to fix a similar window above me and so I
+could expect to see no objects directly overhead.
+
+The condensing apparatus was connected with the outer air by a tube to
+admit air at one end and by a valve at the bottom of the car to eject
+foul air. By the time I had completed these arrangements and filled the
+chamber with condensed air by means of the apparatus, it wanted only ten
+minutes of nine o'clock. During the whole period of my being thus
+employed, I endured the most terrible distress from difficulty of
+respiration, and bitterly did I repent the foolhardiness of which I had
+been guilty in putting off to the last moment a matter of so much
+importance. But having at length accomplished it, I soon began to reap
+the benefit of my invention. Once again I breathed with perfect freedom
+and ease--and indeed why should I not? I was also agreeably surprised to
+find myself, in a great measure, relieved from the violent pains which
+had hitherto tormented me. A slight headache, accompanied by a sensation
+of fulness about the wrists, the ankles, and the throat, was nearly all
+of which I had now to complain.
+
+At twenty minutes before nine o'clock, the mercury attained its limit, or
+ran down, in the barometer. The instrument then indicated an altitude of
+twenty-five miles, and I consequently surveyed at that time an extent of
+the earth's area amounting to no less than one three-hundred-and-twentieth
+part of the entire surface.
+
+At half-past nine, I tried the experiment of throwing out a handful of
+feathers through the valve. They did not float as I had expected, but
+dropped down like a bullet and with the greatest velocity, being out of
+sight in a very few seconds. It occurred to me that the atmosphere was
+now far too rare to sustain even feathers; that they actually fell, as
+they appeared to do, with great speed, and that I had been surprised by
+the united velocities of their descent and my own rise.
+
+At six o'clock P. M., I perceived a great portion of the earth's visible
+area to the eastward involved in thick shadow, which continued to
+advance with great rapidity, until at five minutes before seven the
+whole surface in sight was enveloped in the darkness of night. It was
+not, however, until long after this time that the rays of the setting
+sun ceased to illumine the balloon, and this fact, although, of course,
+expected, did not fail to give me great pleasure. In the morning I
+should behold the rising [v]luminary many hours before the citizens of
+Rotterdam, in spite of their situation so much farther to the eastward,
+and thus, day after day, in proportion to the height ascended, I should
+enjoy the light of the sun for a longer and longer period. I now
+resolved to keep a journal of my passage, reckoning the days by
+twenty-four hours instead of by day and night.
+
+At ten o'clock, feeling sleepy, I determined to lie down for the rest of
+the night; but here a difficulty presented itself, which, obvious as it
+may appear, had escaped my attention up to the very moment of which I
+am now speaking. If I went to sleep, as I proposed, how could the air in
+the chamber be renewed in the meanwhile? To breath it more than an hour
+at the farthest would be impossible; or, even if this term could be
+extended to an hour and a quarter, the most ruinous consequences might
+ensue. This dilemma gave me no little anxiety; and it will hardly be
+believed that, after the dangers I had undergone, I should look upon
+this business in so serious a light as to give up all hope of
+accomplishing my ultimate design, and finally make up my mind to the
+necessity of a descent.
+
+But this hesitation was only momentary. I reflected that man is the
+slave of custom and that many things are deemed essential which are only
+the results of habit. It was certain that I could not do without sleep;
+but I might easily bring myself to feel no inconvenience from being
+awakened at intervals of an hour during the whole period of my repose.
+It would require but five minutes to renew the air, and the only
+difficulty was to contrive a method of arousing myself at the proper
+moment for so doing.
+
+This question caused me no little trouble to solve. I at length hit upon
+the following plan. My supply of water had been put on board in kegs of
+five gallons each and ranged securely around the interior of the car. I
+unfastened one of these and, taking two ropes, tied them tightly across
+the rim of the wicker-work from one side to the other, placing them
+about a foot apart and parallel, so as to form a kind of shelf, upon
+which I placed the keg and steadied it. About eight inches below these
+ropes I fastened another shelf made of thin plank, on which shelf, and
+beneath one of the rims of the keg, a small pitcher was placed. I bored
+a hole in the end of the keg over the pitcher and fitted in a plug of
+soft wood, which I pushed in or pulled out, until, after a few
+experiments, it arrived at that exact degree of tightness at which the
+water, oozing from the hole and falling into the pitcher below, would
+fill the latter to the brim in the period of sixty minutes. Having
+arranged all this, the rest of the plan was simple. My bed was so
+contrived upon the floor of the car as to bring my head, in lying down,
+immediately below the mouth of the pitcher. It was evident that, at the
+expiration of an hour, the pitcher, getting full, would be forced to run
+over and to run over at the mouth, which was somewhat lower than the
+rim. It was also evident that the water, falling from a height, could
+not do otherwise than fall on my face and awaken me even from the
+soundest slumber in the world.
+
+It was fully eleven by the time I had completed these arrangements, and
+I at once betook myself to bed with full confidence in my invention. Nor
+in this matter was I disappointed. Punctually every sixty minutes I was
+aroused by my trusty clock, when, having emptied the pitcher into the
+bung-hole of the keg and filled the chamber with condensed air, I
+retired again to bed. These regular interruptions to my slumber caused
+me less discomfort than I had anticipated; and when I finally arose for
+the day, it was seven o'clock and the sun was high above the horizon.
+
+I found the balloon at an immense height indeed, and the earth's
+roundness had now become strikingly manifest. Below me in the ocean lay
+a cluster of black specks, which undoubtedly were islands. Overhead, the
+sky was of a jetty black, and the stars were brilliantly visible; indeed
+they had been so constantly since the first day of ascent. Far away to
+the northward I saw a thin, white and exceedingly brilliant line, or
+streak, on the edge of the horizon, and I had no hesitation in supposing
+it to be the southern disc of the ices of the Polar sea. My curiosity
+was greatly excited, for I had hopes of passing on much farther to the
+north, and might possibly, at some period, find myself directly above
+the Pole itself. I now lamented that my great elevation would, in this
+case, prevent me from taking as accurate a survey as I could wish.
+
+My condensing apparatus continued in good order, and the balloon still
+ascended without any perceptible change. The cold was intense, and
+obliged me to wrap up closely in an overcoat. When darkness came over
+the earth, I went to bed, although it was for many hours afterward broad
+daylight all around me. The water-clock was punctual in its duty, and I
+slept until next morning soundly, with the exception of the periodical
+interruptions.
+
+APRIL 4TH. I arose in good health and spirits, and was astonished at the
+singular change which had taken place in the appearance of the sea. It
+had lost, in a great measure, the deep tint of blue it had hitherto
+worn, being now of a grayish-white and of a luster dazzling to the eye.
+The curve of the ocean had become so evident that the entire mass of
+water seemed to be tumbling headlong over the abyss of the horizon, and
+I found myself listening on tiptoe for the echoes of the mighty
+cataract. The islands were no longer visible; whether they had passed
+down the horizon to the southeast, or whether my increasing elevation
+had left them out of sight, it is impossible to say. I was inclined,
+however, to the latter opinion. The rim of ice to the northward was
+growing more and more apparent. The cold was by no means so intense.
+
+APRIL 5TH. I beheld the singular sight of the sun rising while nearly
+the whole visible surface of the earth continued to be involved in
+darkness. In time, however, the light spread itself over all, and I
+again saw the line of ice to the northward. It was now very distinct and
+appeared of a much darker hue than the waters of the ocean. I was
+evidently approaching it, and with great rapidity. I fancied I could
+again distinguish a strip of land to the eastward, and one also to the
+westward, but could not be certain.
+
+APRIL 6TH. I was surprised at finding the rim of ice at a very moderate
+distance, and an immense field of the same material stretching away off
+to the horizon in the north. It was evident that if the balloon held its
+present course, it would soon arrive above the Frozen Ocean, and I had
+now little doubt of ultimately seeing the Pole. During the whole of the
+day I continued to near the ice. Toward night the limits of my horizon
+very suddenly and materially increased, owing undoubtedly to the earth's
+form, which is round but flattened near the poles. When darkness at
+length overtook me, I went to bed in great anxiety, fearing to pass over
+the object of so much curiosity when I should have no opportunity of
+observing it.
+
+APRIL 7TH. I arose early, and, to my great joy, at length beheld what
+there could be no hesitation in supposing the northern Pole itself. It
+was there, beyond a doubt, and immediately beneath my feet; but alas! I
+had now ascended to so vast a distance that nothing could with accuracy
+be made out. Indeed, I estimated that at four o'clock in the morning of
+April the seventh the balloon had reached a height of not less than
+7,254 miles above the surface of the sea. At all events I undoubtedly
+beheld the whole of the earth's diameter; the entire northern hemisphere
+lay beneath me like a chart, and the great circle of the equator itself
+formed the boundary line of my horizon.
+
+APRIL 8TH. I found a sensible diminution in the earth's size, besides a
+material alteration in its general color and appearance. The whole area
+partook in different degrees of a tint of pale yellow, and in some
+portions had acquired a brilliancy even painful to the eye. My view was
+somewhat impeded by clouds near the earth, but nevertheless I could
+easily perceive that the balloon now hovered above the great lakes in
+North America and was holding a course due south which would soon bring
+me to the tropics. This circumstance did not fail to give me the most
+heartfelt satisfaction, and I hailed it as a happy omen of ultimate
+success. Indeed, the direction I had hitherto taken had filled me with
+uneasiness, for it was evident that had I continued it much longer,
+there would have been no possibility of my arriving at the moon at all,
+which revolves around the earth in the plane of the equator.
+
+APRIL 9TH. To-day the earth's diameter was greatly diminished, and the
+color of the surface assumed hourly a deeper tint of yellow. The balloon
+kept steadily on her course to the southward, and arrived at nine P. M.
+over the Mexican Gulf.
+
+APRIL 12TH. A singular alteration took place in regard to the direction
+of the balloon, and, although fully anticipated, afforded me the very
+greatest delight. Having reached, in its former course, about the
+twentieth parallel of southern latitude, it turned off suddenly at an
+acute angle to the eastward, and thus proceeded throughout the day,
+keeping nearly, if not altogether, in the exact plane of the moon's
+path around the earth.
+
+APRIL 13TH. Great decrease in the earth's apparent size. The moon could
+not be seen at all, being nearly above me. I still continued in the
+plane of the moon's path, but made little progress eastward.
+
+APRIL 14TH. Extremely rapid decrease in the size of the earth. To-day I
+became strongly impressed with the idea that the balloon was holding the
+direct course which would bring it immediately to the moon where it
+comes nearest the earth. The moon was directly overhead, and
+consequently hidden from my view. Great and long continued labor was
+necessary for the condensation of the atmosphere.
+
+APRIL 16TH. To-day, looking upward as well as I could, through each of
+the side windows alternately, I beheld, to my great delight, a very
+small portion of the moon's disk protruding, as it were, on all sides
+beyond the huge bulk of the balloon. My agitation was extreme, for I had
+now little doubt of soon reaching the end of my perilous voyage. Indeed,
+the labor required by the condenser had increased to such a degree that
+I had scarcely any respite from exertion. Sleep was a matter nearly out
+of question. I became quite ill, and my frame trembled with exhaustion.
+It was impossible that human nature could endure this state of intense
+suffering much longer.
+
+APRIL 17TH. This morning proved an epoch in my voyage. It will be
+remembered that on the thirteenth the earth had diminished; on the
+fourteenth, it had still further dwindled; on the fifteenth, a still
+more rapid decrease was observable; and on retiring for the night of the
+sixteenth, the earth had shrunk to small size. What, therefore, must
+have been my amazement, on awakening from a brief and disturbed slumber
+on the morning of this day, the seventeenth, at finding the surface
+beneath me so suddenly and wonderfully increased in volume as to seem
+but a comparatively short distance beneath me! I was thunderstruck! No
+words can give any adequate idea of the extreme, the absolute horror and
+astonishment, with which I was seized, possessed and altogether
+overwhelmed. My knees tottered beneath me--my teeth chattered--my hair
+started up on end. The balloon then had actually burst! These were the
+first ideas which hurried through my mind. The balloon had burst! I was
+falling--falling with the most impetuous, the most wonderful velocity!
+To judge from the immense distance already so quickly passed over, it
+could not be more than ten minutes at the farthest before I should meet
+the surface of the earth and be hurled into annihilation!
+
+But at length reflection came to my relief. I paused, I considered, and
+I began to doubt. The matter was impossible. I could not, in any reason,
+have so rapidly come down. Besides, although I was evidently approaching
+the surface below me, it was with a speed by no means commensurate with
+the velocity I had at first conceived. This consideration served to calm
+my mind, and I finally succeeded in looking at the matter in its proper
+point of view. In fact, amazement must have fairly deprived me of my
+senses when I could not see the vast difference in appearance between
+the surface below me and the surface of my mother earth. The latter was
+indeed over my head and completely hidden by the balloon, while the
+moon--the moon itself in all its glory--lay beneath me and at my feet!
+
+I had indeed arrived at the point where the attraction of the moon had
+proved stronger than the attraction of the earth, and so the moon now
+appeared to be below me and I was descending upon it. It lay beneath me
+like a chart, and I studied it with the deepest attention. The entire
+absence of ocean or sea, and indeed of any lake or river, or body of
+water whatsoever, struck me at the first glance as the most
+extraordinary feature in its appearance.
+
+APRIL 18TH. To-day I found an enormous increase in the moon's apparent
+bulk--and the evidently increased velocity of my descent began to fill
+me with alarm. I had relied on finding some atmosphere at the moon and
+on the resistance of this atmosphere to [v]gravitation as affording me a
+chance to land in safety. Should I prove to have been mistaken about the
+atmosphere, I had nothing better to expect than to be dashed into atoms
+against the rugged surface of the earth's [v]satellite. And indeed I
+had now every reason to be terrified. My distance from the moon was
+comparatively trivial, while the labor required by the condenser was
+diminished not at all, and I could discover no indication whatever of a
+decreasing rarity of the air.
+
+APRIL 19TH. This morning, to my great joy, about nine o'clock, the
+surface of the moon being frightfully near and my fears excited to the
+utmost, the pump of my condenser at length gave evident tokens of an
+alteration in the atmosphere. By ten, I had reason to believe its
+density considerably increased. By eleven, very little labor was
+necessary at the apparatus; and at twelve o'clock, with some hesitation,
+I ventured to open the car a little and suffered no inconvenience. I
+finally threw aside the gum-elastic chamber and unrigged it from around
+the car. As might have been expected, spasms and violent headache were
+the immediate consequences of an experiment so rash. But this was
+forgotten in consideration of other things. My approach was still rapid
+in the extreme; and it soon became certain that although I had probably
+not been deceived in the expectation of finding a fairly dense
+atmosphere, still I had been wrong in supposing that atmosphere dense
+enough to support the great weight contained in the car of the balloon.
+I was now close upon the planet and coming down with the most terrible
+rapidity. I lost not a moment, accordingly, in throwing overboard first
+my ballast, then my water-kegs, then my condensing apparatus and
+gum-elastic chamber, and finally every article within the car.
+
+But it was all to no purpose. I still fell with horrible speed, and was
+now not more than half a mile from the surface. As a last resource,
+therefore, having got rid of my coat, hat, and boots, I cut loose from
+the balloon the car itself, which was of no inconsiderable weight, and
+thus clinging with both hands to the net-work, I had barely time to
+observe that the whole country, as far as the eye could reach, was
+thickly sown with small habitations, ere I tumbled headlong into the
+very heart of a fantastic city and into the middle of a vast crowd of
+ugly little people. I turned from them, and gazing upward at the earth
+so lately left, and left perhaps forever, beheld it like a huge, dull
+copper shield, fixed immovably in the heavens overhead and tipped on one
+of its edges with a crescent border of the most brilliant gold.
+
+EDGAR ALLAN POE.
+
+
+=HELPS TO STUDY=
+
+     Describe the balloon Hans constructed. How did he extricate himself
+     from each difficulty he encountered? What characteristic did this
+     show? Note the changes in the appearance of the earth as he made
+     his journey. On what day did he see the North Pole? In what region
+     was he when he saw the moon? What did he find when he reached that
+     body?
+
+SUPPLEMENTARY READING
+
+     From the Earth to the Moon--Jules Verne.
+     The War of the Worlds--H. G. Wells.
+
+
+
+
+THE GREAT STONE OF SARDIS[391-*]
+
+
+     This fanciful tale is taken from Frank R. Stockton's _The Great
+     Stone of Sardis_. In this book the hero, Roland Clewe, is pictured
+     as a scientist who had made many startling discoveries and
+     inventions at his works in Sardis about the year 1946. One of his
+     inventions was an automatic shell. This was an enormous projectile,
+     the peculiarity of which was that its motive power was contained
+     within itself, very much as a rocket contains the explosives which
+     send it upward. The extraordinary piece of mechanism was of
+     [v]cylindrical form, eighteen feet in length and fourteen feet in
+     diameter. The forward end was [v]conical and not solid, being
+     formed of a number of flat steel rings, decreasing in size as they
+     approached the point of the cone. When not in operation these rings
+     did not touch one another, but they could be forced together by
+     pressure on the point of the cone. One day this shell fell from the
+     supports on which it lay, the conical end down, and ploughed its
+     way with terrific force into the earth--how far no one could tell.
+     Clewe determined to descend the hole in search of the shell by
+     means of an electric elevator. Margaret Raleigh, to whom he was
+     engaged, had gone to the seashore, and during her absence, Clewe
+     planned to make his daring venture.
+
+On the day that Margaret left Sardis, Roland began his preparations for
+descending the shaft. He had so thoroughly considered the machinery and
+appliances necessary for the undertaking and had worked out all his
+plans in such detail, in his mind and upon paper, that he knew exactly
+what he wanted to do. His orders for the great length of chain needed
+exhausted the stock of several factories, and the engines he obtained
+were even more powerful than he had intended them to be; but these he
+could procure immediately, and for smaller ones he would have been
+obliged to wait.
+
+The circular car which was intended to move up and down the shaft, and
+the peculiar machinery connected with it, together with the hoisting
+apparatus, were all made in his works. His skilled artisans labored
+steadily day and night.
+
+It was ten days before he was ready to make his descent. Margaret was
+still at the seashore. They had written to each other frequently, but
+neither had made mention of the great shaft. Even when he was ready to
+go down, Clewe said nothing to any one of an immediate intention of
+descending. There was a massive door which covered the mouth of the pit;
+this he ordered locked and went away.
+
+The next morning he walked into the building a little earlier than was
+his custom, called for the engineers, and for Bryce, who was to take
+charge of everything connected with the descent, and announced that he
+was going down that day.
+
+Bryce and the men who were to assist him looked very serious at this.
+Indeed, if their employer had been any other man than Roland Clewe, it
+is possible they might have remonstrated with him; but they knew him,
+and they said and did nothing more than what was their duty.
+
+The door of the shaft was removed, the car which had hung high above it
+was lowered to the mouth of the opening, and Roland stepped within it
+and seated himself. Above him and around him were placed [v]geological
+tools and instruments of many kinds, a lantern, food, and
+drink--everything, in fact, which he could possibly be presumed to need
+upon this extraordinary journey. A telephone was at his side by which he
+could communicate at any time with the surface of the earth. There were
+electric bells; there was everything to make his expedition safe and
+profitable. Finally he gave the word to start the engines; there were no
+ceremonies, and nothing was said out of the common.
+
+When the conical top of the car had descended below the surface, a steel
+grating, with holes for the passage of the chains, was let down over the
+mouth of the shaft, and the downward journey began. In the floor of the
+car were grated openings, through which Clewe could look downward; but,
+although the shaft below him was brilliantly illuminated by electric
+lights placed beneath the car, it failed to frighten him or make him
+dizzy to look down, for the [v]aperture did not appear to be very far
+below him. The upper part of the car was partially open, and bright
+lights shone upon the sides of the shaft.
+
+As he slowly descended, Clewe could see the various [v]strata appearing
+and disappearing in the order in which he knew them. Not far below the
+surface he passed cavities which he believed had held water; but there
+was no water in them now. He had expected these pockets, and had feared
+that upon their edges might be loosened patches of rock or soil, but
+everything seemed tightly packed and hard. If anything had been
+loosened, it had gone down already.
+
+Down, down he went until he came to the eternal rocks, where the inside
+of the shaft was polished as if it had been made of glass. The air
+became warmer and warmer, but Clewe knew that the heat would soon
+decrease. The character of the rocks changed, and he studied them as he
+went down, continually making notes.
+
+After a time the polished rocky sides of the shaft grew to be of a
+solemn sameness. Clewe ceased to take notes; he lighted a cigar and
+smoked. He tried to imagine what he would come to when he reached the
+bottom; it would be some sort of a cave, he thought, in which his shell
+had made an opening. He began to imagine what sort of a cave it would
+be, and how high the roof was from the floor. Clewe then suddenly
+wondered whether his gardener had remembered what he had told him about
+the flower-beds in front of the house; he wished certain changes made
+which Margaret had suggested. He tried to keep his mind on the
+flower-beds, but it drifted away to the cave below. He thought of the
+danger of coming into some underground body of water, where he would be
+drowned; but he knew that was a silly idea. If the shell had gone
+through [v]subterranean reservoirs, the water of these would have run
+out, and before it reached the bottom of the shaft would have dissipated
+into mist.
+
+Down, down he went. He looked at his watch; he had been in that car only
+an hour and a half. Was that possible? He had supposed he was almost at
+the bottom. Suddenly his mind reverted to the people above and the
+telephone. Why had not some of them spoken to him? It was shameful! He
+instantly called Bryce, and his heart leaped with joy when he heard the
+familiar voice in his ear. Now he talked steadily on for more than an
+hour. He had his gardener summoned, and told the man all that he wanted
+done in the flower-beds. He gave many directions in regard to the
+various operations at the works. There were two or three inventions in
+which he took particular interest, and of these he talked at great
+length with Bryce. Suddenly, in the midst of some talk about hollow
+steel rods, he told Bryce to let the engines run faster; there was no
+reason why the car should go so slowly.
+
+The windlasses moved with a little more rapidity, and Clewe now turned
+and looked at an indicator which was placed on the side of the car, a
+little over his head. This instrument showed the depth to which he had
+descended, but he had not looked at it before, for if anything would
+make him nervous, it would be the continual consideration of the depth
+to which he had descended.
+
+The indicator showed that he had gone down fourteen and one-eighth
+miles. Clewe turned and sat stiffly in his seat. He glanced down and saw
+beneath him only an illuminated hole, fading away at the bottom. Then he
+turned to speak to Bryce, but to his surprise, he could think of nothing
+to say. After that he lighted another cigar and sat quietly.
+
+Some minutes passed--he did not know how many--and he looked down
+through the gratings in the floor of the car. The electric light
+streamed downward through a deep [v]crevice, which did not now fade away
+into nothingness, but ended in something dark and glittering. Then, as
+he came nearer and nearer to this glittering thing, Clewe saw that it
+was his automatic shell, lying on its side; only a part of it was
+visible through the opening of the shaft which he was descending. In an
+instant, as it seemed to him, the car emerged from the shaft, and he
+seemed to be hanging in the air--at least there was nothing he could see
+except that great shell, lying some forty feet below him. But it was
+impossible that the shell should be lying on the air! He rang to stop
+the car.
+
+"Anything the matter?" cried Bryce.
+
+"Nothing at all," Clewe replied. "It's all right; I am near the
+bottom."
+
+In a state of the highest nervous excitement, Clewe gazed about him. He
+was no longer in a shaft; but where was he? Look around on what side he
+would, he saw nothing but the light going out from his lamps, light
+which seemed to extend indefinitely all about him. There appeared to be
+no limit to his vision in any direction. Then he leaned over the side of
+his car and looked downward. There lay the great shell directly under
+him, although under it and around it, extending as far beneath it as it
+extended in every other direction, shone the light from his own lamp.
+Nevertheless, that great shell, weighing many tons, lay as if it rested
+upon the solid ground!
+
+After a few moments, Clewe shut his eyes; they pained him. Something
+seemed to be coming into them like a fine frost in a winter wind. Then
+he called to Bryce to let the car descend very slowly. It went down,
+down, gradually approaching the great shell. When the bottom of the car
+was within two feet of it, Clewe rang to stop. He looked down at the
+complicated machine he had worked upon so long, with something like a
+feeling of affection. This he knew; it was his own. Gazing upon its
+familiar form, he felt that he had a companion in this region of
+unreality.
+
+Pushing back the sliding door of the car, Clewe sat upon the bottom and
+cautiously put out his feet and legs, lowering them until they touched
+the shell. It was firm and solid. Although he knew it must be so, the
+immovability of the great mass of iron gave him a sudden shock of
+mysterious fear. How could it be immovable when there was nothing under
+it--when it rested on air?
+
+But he must get out of that car, he must explore, he must find out.
+There certainly could be no danger so long as he clung to the shell.
+
+He cautiously got out of the car and let himself down upon the shell. It
+was not a pleasant surface to stand on, being uneven, with great spiral
+ribs, and Clewe sat down upon it, clinging to it with his hands.
+Presently he leaned over to one side and looked beneath him. The shadows
+of that shell went down, down, down into space, until it made him sick
+to look at them. He drew back quickly, clutched the shell with his arms,
+and shut his eyes. He felt as if he were about to drop with it into a
+measureless depth of atmosphere.
+
+[Illustration: He Put Out One Foot]
+
+But he soon raised himself. He had not come down there to be frightened,
+to let his nerves run away with him. He had come to find out things.
+What was it that this shell rested upon? Seizing two of the ribs with a
+strong clutch, he let himself hang over the sides of the shell until his
+feet were level with its lower side. They touched something hard. He
+pressed them downward; it was very hard. He raised himself and stood
+upon the substance which supported the shell. It was as solid as any
+rock. He looked down and saw his shadow stretching far beneath him. It
+seemed as if he were standing upon [v]petrified air. He put out one foot
+and moved a little, still holding on to the shell. He walked, as if upon
+solid air, to the foremost end of the long [v]projectile. It relieved
+him to turn his thoughts from what was around him to this familiar
+object. He found its conical end shattered.
+
+After a little he slowly made his way back to the other end of the
+shell, and now his eyes became somewhat accustomed to the great radiance
+about him. He thought he could perceive here and there faint signs of
+long, nearly horizontal lines--lines of different shades of light. Above
+him, as if it hung in the air, was the round, dark hole through which he
+had descended.
+
+He rose, took his hands from the shell, and made a few steps. He trod
+upon a horizontal surface, but in putting one foot forward, he felt a
+slight incline. It seemed to him, that he was about to slip downward!
+Instantly he retreated to the shell and clutched it in a sudden frenzy
+of fear.
+
+Standing thus, with his eyes still wandering, he heard the bell of the
+telephone ring. Without hesitation he mounted the shell and got into the
+car. Bryce was calling him.
+
+"Come up," he said. "You have been down there long enough. No matter
+what you have found, it is time for you to come up."
+
+"All right," said Roland. "You can haul me up, but go very slowly at
+first."
+
+The car rose. When it reached the orifice in the top of the cave of
+light, Clewe heard the conical steel top grate slightly as it touched
+the edge, for the car was still swinging a little from the motion given
+to it by his entrance; but it soon hung perfectly vertical and went
+silently up the shaft.
+
+Seated in the car, which was steadily ascending the great shaft, Roland
+Clewe took no notice of anything about him. He did not look at the
+brilliantly lighted interior of the shaft; he paid no attention to his
+instruments; he did not consult his watch, or glance at the dial which
+indicated the distance he had traveled. Several times the telephone bell
+rang, and Bryce inquired how he was getting along; but these questions
+he answered as briefly as possible, and sat looking down at his knees
+and seeing nothing.
+
+When he was half-way up, he suddenly became conscious that he was very
+hungry. He hurriedly ate some sandwiches and drank some water, and again
+gave himself up entirely to mental labor. When, at last, the noise of
+machinery above him and the sound of voices aroused him from his
+abstraction, and the car emerged upon the surface of the earth, Clewe
+hastily slid back the door and stepped out. At that instant he felt
+himself encircled by a pair of arms. Bryce was near by, and there were
+other men by the engines, but the owner of those arms thought nothing
+of this.
+
+"Margaret!" cried Clewe, "how came you here?"
+
+"I have been here all the time," she exclaimed; "or, at least, nearly
+all the time." And as she spoke she drew back and looked at him, her
+eyes full of happy tears. "Mr. Bryce telegraphed to me the instant he
+knew you were going down, and I was here before you had descended
+half-way."
+
+"What!" he cried. "And all those messages came from you?"
+
+"Nearly all," she answered. "But tell me, Roland--tell me; have you been
+successful?"
+
+"I am successful," he answered. "I have discovered everything!"
+
+Bryce came forward.
+
+"I will speak to you all very soon," said Clewe. "I can't tell you
+anything now. Margaret, let us go. I wish to talk to you, but not until
+I have been to my office. I will meet you at your house in a very few
+minutes." And with that he left the building and fairly ran to his
+office.
+
+A quarter of an hour later Roland entered Margaret's library, where she
+sat awaiting him. He carefully closed the doors and windows. They sat
+side by side upon the sofa.
+
+"Now, Roland," she said, "I cannot wait one second longer. What is it
+that you have discovered?"
+
+"When I arrived at the bottom of the shaft," he began, "I found myself
+in a cleft, I know not how large, made in a vast mass of transparent
+substance, hard as the hardest rock and as transparent as air in the
+light of my electric lamps. My shell rested securely upon this
+substance. I walked upon it. It seemed as if I could see miles below me.
+In my opinion, Margaret, that substance was once the head of a comet."
+
+"What is the substance?" she asked, hastily.
+
+"It is a mass of solid diamond!"
+
+Margaret screamed. She could not say one word.
+
+"Yes," said he, "I believe the whole central portion of the earth is one
+great diamond. When it was moving about in its orbit as a comet, the
+light of the sun streamed through this diamond and spread an enormous
+tail out into space; after a time this [v]nucleus began to burn."
+
+"Burn!" exclaimed Margaret.
+
+"Yes, the diamond is almost pure [v]carbon; why should it not burn? It
+burned and burned and burned. Ashes formed upon it and encircled it; it
+still burned, and when it was entirely covered with ashes it ceased to
+be transparent and ceased to be a comet; it became a planet, and
+revolved in a different orbit. It still burned within its covering of
+ashes, and these gradually changed to rock, to metal, to everything that
+forms the crust of the earth."
+
+She gazed upon him, entranced.
+
+"Some parts of this great central mass of carbon burn more fiercely than
+other parts. Some parts do not burn at all. In volcanic regions the
+fires rage; where my great shell went down it no longer burns. Now you
+have my theory. It is crude and rough, for I have tried to give it to
+you in as few words as possible."
+
+"Oh, Roland," she cried, "it is absurd! Diamond! Why, people will think
+you are crazy. You must not say such a thing as that to anybody. It is
+simply impossible that the greater part of this earth should be an
+enormous diamond."
+
+"Margaret," he answered, "nothing is impossible. The central portion of
+this earth is composed of something; it might just as well be diamond as
+anything else. In fact, if you consider the matter, it is more likely to
+be, because diamond is a very original substance. As I have said, it is
+almost pure carbon. I do not intend to repeat a word of what I have told
+you to any one--at least until the matter has been well considered--but
+I am not afraid of being thought crazy. Margaret, will you look at
+these?"
+
+He took from his pocket some shining substances resembling glass. Some
+of them were flat, some round; the largest was as big as a lemon; others
+were smaller fragments of various sizes.
+
+"These are pieces of the great diamond which were broken when the shell
+struck the bottom of the cave in which I found it. I picked them up as
+I felt my way around this shell, when walking upon what seemed to me
+solid air. I thrust them into my pocket, and I would not come to you,
+Margaret, with this story, until I had visited my office to find out
+what these fragments are. I tested them; their substance is diamond!"
+
+Half-dazed, she took the largest piece in her hand.
+
+"Roland," she whispered, "if this is really a diamond, there is nothing
+like it known to man!"
+
+"Nothing, indeed," said he.
+
+She sat staring at the great piece of glowing mineral which lay in her
+hand. Its surface was irregular; it had many faces; the subdued light
+from the window gave it the appearance of animated water. He felt it
+necessary to speak.
+
+"Even these little pieces," he said, "are most valuable jewels."
+
+"Roland," she suddenly cried, excitedly, "these are riches beyond
+imagination! What is common wealth to what you have discovered? Every
+living being on earth could--"
+
+"Ah, Margaret," he interrupted, "do not let your thoughts run that way.
+If my discovery should be put to the use of which you are thinking, it
+would bring poverty to the world, not wealth, and every diamond on earth
+would be worthless."
+
+She trembled. "And these--are they to be valued as common pebbles?"
+
+"Oh no," said he; "these broken fragments I have found are to us riches
+far beyond our wildest imagination."
+
+"Roland," she cried, "are you going down into that shaft for more of
+them?"
+
+"Never, never, never again," he answered. "What we have here is enough
+for us, and if I were offered all the good that there is in this world,
+which money cannot buy, I would never go down into that cleft again.
+There was one moment, as I stood in that cave, when an awful terror shot
+into my soul that I shall never be able to forget. In the light of my
+electric lamps, sent through a vast transparent mass, I could see
+nothing, but I could feel. I put out my foot, and I found it was upon a
+sloping surface. In another instant I might have slid--where? I cannot
+bear to think of it!" FRANK E. STOCKTON.
+
+=HELPS TO STUDY=
+
+     What happened to Clewe's automatic shell? What did he decide to do?
+     Tell of the preparations he made for his descent. What occurred
+     when he reached the end of the shaft? Of what was Clewe thinking so
+     intently while making his ascent? Why did he go at once to his
+     office? What conclusion did he reach as to the central part of the
+     earth? What did he have to prove the correctness of his theory? Why
+     was he unwilling ever to make the descent again? This story was
+     written about the end of the nineteenth century: what great
+     scientific discoveries have been made since then?
+
+
+SUPPLEMENTARY READING
+
+     A Journey to the Center of the Earth--Jules Verne.
+     The Adventures of Captain Horn--Frank R. Stockton.
+
+
+FOOTNOTE:
+
+[391-*] Copyright by Harper & Brothers.
+
+
+
+
+A STOP AT SUZANNE'S
+
+
+     The author of this sketch, a young American aviator, a resident of
+     Richmond, Virginia, was killed in battle in August, 1918.
+
+Suzanne is a very pretty girl, I was told, but the charm of "Suzanne's"
+wasn't with her alone, for, always, one spoke of the deliciously-tasting
+meal, how nice the old madame is, and how fine a chap is her _mari_, the
+father of Suzanne. Then of the garden in the back--and before you had
+finished listening you didn't know which was the most important thing
+about "Suzanne's." All you knew was that it was the place to go when on
+an aeroplane voyage.
+
+At the pilotage office I found five others ahead of me; all of us were
+bound in the same direction. We were given [v]barographs, altimeters and
+maps and full directions as to forced landings and what to do when lost.
+We hung around the voyage hangar until about eight in the morning, but
+there was a low mist and cloudy sky, so we could not start out until
+afternoon; and I didn't have luncheon at "Suzanne's."
+
+After noon several of the others started out, but I wanted to plan my
+supper stop for the second point, so I waited until about four o'clock
+before starting.
+
+Almost before I knew it a village, which on the map was twelve
+kilometers away, was slipping by beneath me and then off to one side was
+a forest, green and cool-looking and very regular around the edges.
+Pretty soon I came to a deep blue streak bordered by trees, and was so
+interested in it--it wound around under a railroad track, came up and
+brushed by lots of back gates and, finally, fell in a wide splash of
+silver over a little fall by a mill--that I forgot all about flying and
+suddenly woke up to the fact that one wing was about as low as it could
+get and that the nose of the machine was doing its best to follow the
+wing.
+
+Long before I came to the stopping point, I could see the little white
+hangar. The field is not large, but it is strange, so you come down
+rather anxiously, for if you can't make that field the first time, you
+never will be able to fly, they tell you before leaving. I glided down
+easily enough, for, after all, it is just that--either you can or you
+can't--and made a good-enough landing. The sergeant signed my paper, and
+a few minutes later away I went for "Suzanne's." The next stop is near a
+little village--Suzanne's village--so when I came to the field and
+landed I was sure to be too tired to go up again immediately. Instead,
+off I went to town after making things right with the man in charge.
+That wasn't a bit difficult, either, for all I did was to wink as hard
+as I could, and he understood perfectly.
+
+I knew where "Suzanne's" was, so I made directly for it. It was a little
+early, but you should never miss the [v]_apertif_. With that first,
+success is assured; without it, it is like getting out of bed on the
+wrong foot.
+
+Up I marched to the unimposing door and walked in to the main room--a
+big room, with long, wooden tables and benches and a zinc bar at one
+end, where all kinds of bottles rested. It isn't called "Suzanne's," of
+course; it only has that name among us.
+
+As I closed the door behind me and looked about, a _bonne_ was serving
+several men at a corner table, and behind the bar a big, red-faced,
+stout man was pouring stuff into bottles. He looked at me a moment and
+then with a tremendous "_Tiens!_" he came out from behind the tables and
+advanced toward me.
+
+"_Bon jour_," he said; "do you come from far?"
+
+"Oh, no," I answered, "only from ----."
+
+"_Tiens!_" he repeated; then, "Ah, you are from the school." _L'ecole_,
+he called it.
+
+From _l'ecole_, I admitted, and, taking me by the arm, he led me to a
+door at the rear. Through this he propelled me, and then in his huge
+voice he called "_Suzanne, un [v]pilote!_" and I was introduced.
+
+As he shut the door, I could just see the corner table with the three
+old men staring open-mouthed, the wine before them forgotten, the bread
+and cheese in their hands untasted; then, down the stairs came light
+steps and a rustle of skirts, and Suzanne was before me with smiling
+face and outstretched hand.
+
+Her instant welcome, the genuine smile! Almost immediately, I understood
+the fame of this little station, so far from everything but the air
+route.
+
+Her charm is indescribable. She is pretty, she is well dressed, but it
+isn't that. It is a sincerity of manner, complete hospitality; at once
+you are accepted as a bosom friend of the family--that is the charm of
+Suzanne's.
+
+After a few questions as to where I came from, how long I had been
+there, and where I was going, Suzanne led me upstairs to be presented to
+[v]"_Ma belle mere_," a white-haired old lady sitting in a big,
+straight-backed chair. Then, after more courtesies had been extended to
+me, Suzanne preceded me down to the garden and left me alone while she
+went in to see that the supper was exceptionally good.
+
+A soft footstep on the gravel walk sounded behind me, and I turned to
+see one of the most beautiful women I ever beheld. She was tall and
+slender, and as she came gracefully across the lawn she swung a little
+work bag from one arm. All in black she was, with a lace shawl over her
+bare head. Like every one in that most charming and hospitable house,
+there was no formality or show about her. She came, smiling, and sat on
+the bench beside me, drawing open her work bag. I could not help
+noticing, particularly, her beautiful eyes, for they told the story, a
+story too common here, except that her eyes had changed now to an
+expression of resigned peace. Then she told me about Suzanne.
+
+Long before, ages and ages ago it seemed, but really only four years, a
+huge, ungainly bird fell crashing to earth and from the wreck a man was
+taken, unconscious. He was carried to "Suzanne's," and she nursed him
+and cared for him until he was well again. "Suzanne was very happy
+then," madame told me. And no wonder, for the daring aviator and Suzanne
+were in love. She nursed him back to health, but when he went away he
+left his heart forever with her.
+
+They were engaged, and every little while he would fly over from his
+station to see Suzanne. Those were in the early days and aviation--well,
+even at that, it hasn't changed so much.
+
+One day a letter came for Suzanne, and with a catch at her throbbing
+heart she read that her _fiancé_ had been killed. [v]"_Mort pour la
+patrie_," it said, and Suzanne was never the same afterward.
+
+For many months the poor girl grieved, but, finally, she began to
+realize that what had happened to her had happened to thousands of other
+girls, too, and, gradually, she took up the attitude that you find
+throughout this glorious country. Only her eyes now tell the sad story.
+
+One evening two men walked into the café and from their talk Suzanne
+knew they were from _l'ecole_. She sat down and listened to them. They
+talked about the war, about aviation, about deeds of heroism, and
+Suzanne drank in every word, for they were talking the language of her
+dead lover. The two aviators stayed to dinner, but the big room was not
+good enough. They must come back to the family dinner--to the intimacy
+of the back room.
+
+They stayed all night and left early next morning, but before they left
+they wrote their names in a big book. To-day, Suzanne has the book,
+filled full of names, many now famous, many names that are only a
+memory--that is how it started.
+
+When the two pilots went back to _l'ecole_, they spoke in glowing terms
+of "Suzanne's," of the soft beds, of the delicious dinner, and, I think,
+mostly of Suzanne.
+
+Visitors came after that to eat at "Suzanne's," and to see her famous
+book. They came regularly and, finally, "Suzanne's" became an
+institution.
+
+Always, a _pilote_ was taken into the back room; he ate with the family,
+he told them all the news from _l'ecole_, and, in exchange, he heard
+stories about the early days, stories that will never be printed, but
+which embody examples of the heroism and intelligence that have done
+their part to develop aviation.
+
+Soon, we went in to dinner, and such a dinner! Truly, nothing is too
+good for an aviator at "Suzanne's," and they give of their best to these
+wandering strangers. They do not ask your name, they call every one
+_Monsieur_, but before you leave you sign the book and they all crowd
+around to look, without saying anything. Your name means nothing yet,
+but a year from now, perhaps, who can tell? In the first pages are
+names that have been bywords for years and some that are famous the
+world over.
+
+After dinner, Suzanne slipped away, presently to reappear with a special
+bottle and glasses. I felt sure this was part of the entertainment
+afforded all their winged visitors, for they went about it in a
+practised manner; each was familiar with his or her part, but to me it
+was all delightfully new.
+
+Our glasses were filled, and Suzanne raised hers up first. Without a
+word, she looked around the circle. Her eyes met them all, then rested
+with madame. She had not said a word; it was "papa" who proposed my
+health, and as the bottoms went up, Suzanne and madame both had a
+struggle to repress a tear. They were drinking my health, but their
+thoughts were far away, and in my heart I was wishing that happiness
+might again come to them. Suzanne certainly deserves it.
+
+When I returned to school, they asked, "Did you stop at 'Suzanne's'?"
+And now to the others, just ready to make the voyage, I always say, "Be
+sure to stop at 'Suzanne's'."
+
+GREAYER CLOVER.
+
+
+
+
+THE MAKING OF A MAN
+
+
+I
+
+Marmaduke, otherwise Doggie, Trevor owned a pleasant home set on fifteen
+acres of ground. He had an income of three thousand pounds a year. Old
+Peddle, the butler, and his wife, the housekeeper, saved him from
+domestic cares. He led a well-regulated life. His meals, his toilet, his
+music, his wall-papers, his drawing and embroidery, his sweet peas, his
+chrysanthemums, his postage stamps, and his social engagements filled
+the hours not claimed by slumber.
+
+In the town of Durdlebury, Doggie Trevor began to feel appreciated. He
+could play the piano, the harp, the viola, the flute, and the
+clarionette, and sing a mild tenor. Besides music, Doggie had other
+accomplishments. He could choose the exact shade of silk for a
+drawing-room sofa cushion, and he had an excellent gift for the
+selection of wedding-presents. All in all, Marmaduke Trevor was a young
+gentleman of exquisite taste.
+
+After breakfast on a certain July morning, Doggie, attired in a green
+shot-silk dressing-gown, entered his own particular room and sat down to
+think. In its way it was a very beautiful room--high, spacious,
+well-proportioned, facing southeast. The wall-paper, which Doggie had
+designed himself, was ivory white, with trimmings of peacock blue.
+[v]Vellum-bound books filled the cases; delicate water-colors adorned
+the walls. On his writing-table lay an ivory set: inkstand, pen-tray,
+blotter, and calendar. Bits of old embroidery, harmonizing with the
+peacock shades, were spread here and there. A spinet inlaid with ivory
+formed the center for the arrangement of other musical instruments--a
+viol, mandolins, and flutes. One tall, closed cabinet was devoted to
+Doggie's collection of wall-papers. Another held a collection of little
+dogs in china and porcelain--thousands of them; he got them from dealers
+from all over the world.
+
+An unwonted frown creased Doggie's brow, for several problems disturbed
+him. The morning sun disclosed, beyond doubt, discolorations, stains,
+and streaks on the wall-paper. It would have to be renewed.
+
+Then, his thoughts ran on to his cousin, Oliver Manningtree, who had
+just returned from the South Sea. It was Oliver, the strong and
+masculine, who had given him the name of Doggie years before, to his
+infinite disgust. And now every one in Durdlebury seemed to have gone
+crazy over the fellow. Doggie's uncle and aunt had hung on his lips
+while Oliver had boasted unblushingly of his adventures. Even the fair
+cousin Peggy, with whom Doggie was mildly in love, had listened
+open-eyed and open-mouthed to Oliver's tales of shipwreck in distant
+seas.
+
+Doggie had reached this point in his reflections when, to his horror,
+he heard a familiar voice outside the door.
+
+"All right," it said. "Don't worry, Peddle. I'll show myself in."
+
+The door burst open, and Oliver, pipe in mouth and hat on one side, came
+into the room.
+
+"Hello, Doggie!" he cried boisterously. "Thought I'd look you up. Hope
+I'm not disturbing you."
+
+"Not at all," said Doggie. "Do sit down."
+
+But Oliver walked about and looked at things.
+
+"I like your water colors," he said. "Did you collect them yourself!"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"I congratulate you on your taste. This is a beauty."
+
+The appreciation brought Doggie at once to his side. He took Oliver
+delightedly around the pictures, expounding their merits and their
+little histories. Doggie was just beginning to like the big fellow,
+when, stopping before the collection of china dogs, the latter spoiled
+everything.
+
+"My dear Doggie," he said, "is that your family?"
+
+"It's the finest collection of the kind in the world," replied Doggie
+stiffly, "and is worth several thousand pounds."
+
+Oliver heaved himself into a chair--that was Doggie's impression of his
+method of sitting down.
+
+"Forgive me, Doggie," he said, "but you're so funny. Pictures and music
+I can understand. But what on earth is the point of these little dogs?"
+
+Doggie was hurt. "It would be useless to try to explain," he said, with
+dignity. "And my name is Marmaduke."
+
+Oliver took off his hat and sent it skimming to the couch.
+
+"Look here, old chap," he said, "I seem to have put my foot in it. I
+didn't mean to, really. I'll call you Marmaduke, if you like, instead of
+Doggie--though it's a beast of a name. I'm a rough sort of chap. I've
+had ten years' pretty tough training. I've slept on boards; I've slept
+in the open without a cent to hire a board. I've gone cold and I've gone
+hungry, and men have knocked me about, and I've lost most of my
+politeness. In the wilds if a man once gets the name, say, of Duck-Eyed
+Joe, it sticks to him, and he accepts it, and answers to it, and signs
+it."
+
+"But I'm not in the wilds," objected Marmaduke, "and haven't the
+slightest intention of ever leading the unnatural and frightful life you
+describe. So what you say doesn't apply to me."
+
+Oliver, laughing, clapped him on the shoulder.
+
+"You don't give a fellow a chance," he said. "Look here, tell me, as man
+to man, what are you going to do with your life? Here you are, young,
+strong, educated, intelligent--"
+
+"I'm not strong," said Doggie.
+
+"A month's exercise would make you as strong as a mule," returned
+Oliver. "Here you are--what are you going to do with yourself?"
+
+"I don't admit that you have any right to question me," said Doggie.
+
+"Peggy and I had a talk," declared Oliver. "I said I'd take you out with
+me to the Islands and give you a taste for fresh air and salt water and
+exercise. I'll teach you how to sail a schooner and how to go about
+barefoot and swab decks."
+
+Doggie smiled pityingly, but said politely, "Your offer is kind, Oliver,
+but I don't think that sort of life would suit me."
+
+Being a man of intelligence, he realized that Oliver's offer arose from
+a genuine desire to do him service. But if a friendly bull out of the
+fulness of its affection invited you to accompany it to the meadow and
+eat grass, what could you do but courteously decline the invitation?
+
+"I'm really most obliged to you, Oliver," said Doggie, finally. "But our
+ideas are entirely different. You're primitive, you know. You seem to
+find your happiness in defying the elements, whereas I find mine in
+adopting the resources of civilization to defeat them."
+
+"Which means," said Oliver, rudely, "that you're afraid to roughen your
+hands and spoil your complexion."
+
+"If you like to put it that way."
+
+"You're an [v]effeminate little creature!" cried Oliver, losing his
+temper. "And I'm through with you. Go sit up and beg for biscuits."
+
+"Stop!" shouted Doggie, white with sudden anger, which shook him from
+head to foot. He marched to the door, his green silk dressing-gown
+flapping about him, and threw it wide open.
+
+"This is my house," he said. "I'm sorry to have to ask you to get out of
+it."
+
+And when the door was shut on Oliver, he threw himself, shaken, on the
+couch, hating Oliver and all his works more than ever. Go about barefoot
+and swab decks! It was madness. Besides being dangerous to health, it
+would be excruciating discomfort. And to be insulted for not grasping at
+such martyrdom! It was intolerable; and Doggie remained justly indignant
+the whole day long.
+
+
+II
+
+Then the war came. Doggie Trevor was both patriotic and polite. Having a
+fragment of the British army in his house, he did his best to make it
+comfortable. By January he had no doubt that the empire was in peril,
+that it was every man's duty to do his bit. He welcomed the newcomers
+with open arms, having unconsciously abandoned his attitude of
+superiority over mere brawn. It was every patriotic Englishman's duty
+to encourage brawn. He threw himself heart and soul into the
+entertainment of officers and men. They thought Doggie a capital fellow.
+
+"My dear chap," one would protest, "you're spoiling us. I don't say we
+don't like it and aren't grateful. We are. But we're supposed to rough
+it--to lead the simple life. You're treating us too well."
+
+"Impossible!" Doggie would reply. "Don't I know what we owe you fellows?
+In what other way can a helpless, delicate being like myself show his
+gratitude and in some sort of way serve his country?"
+
+When the sympathetic guest would ask what was the nature of his malady,
+Doggie would tap his chest vaguely and reply:
+
+"Constitutional. I've never been able to do things like other fellows.
+The least thing bowls me out."
+
+"Hard lines--especially just now!" the soldier would murmur.
+
+"Yes, isn't it?" Doggie would answer.
+
+Doggie never questioned his physical incapacity. His mother had brought
+him up to look on himself as a singularly frail creature, and the idea
+was as real to him as the war. He went about pitying himself and seeking
+pity.
+
+The months passed. The soldiers moved away from Durdlebury, and Doggie
+was left alone in his house. He felt solitary and restless. News came
+from Oliver that he had accepted an infantry commission and was in
+France. "A month of this sort of thing," he wrote, "would make our dear
+old Doggie sit up." Doggie sighed. If only he had been blessed with
+Oliver's constitution!
+
+One morning Briggins, his chauffeur, announced that he could stick it
+out no longer and was going to enlist. Then Doggie remembered a talk he
+had had with one of the young officers, who had expressed astonishment
+at his not being able to drive a car.
+
+"I shouldn't have the nerve," he had replied. "My nerves are all
+wrong--and I shouldn't have the strength to change tires and things."
+
+But now Doggie was confronted by the necessity of driving his own car,
+for chauffeurs were no longer to be had. To his amazement, he found that
+he did not die of nervous collapse when a dog crossed the road in front
+of the automobile, and that the fitting of detachable wheels did not
+require the strength of a Hercules. The first time he took Peggy out
+driving, he swelled with pride.
+
+"I'm so glad you can do something!" she said, after a silence.
+
+Although the girl was as kind as ever, Doggie had noticed of late a
+curious reserve in her manner. Conversation did not flow easily. She had
+fits of abstraction, from which, when rallied, she roused herself with
+an effort. Finally, one day, Peggy asked him blankly why he did not
+enlist.
+
+Doggie was horrified. "I'm not fit," he said, "I've no constitution. I'm
+an impossibility."
+
+"You thought you had nerves until you learned to drive the car," she
+answered. "Then you discovered that you hadn't. You fancy you've a weak
+heart. Perhaps if you walked thirty miles a day, you would discover that
+you hadn't that, either. And so with the rest of it."
+
+He swung round toward her. "Do you think I'm shamming so as to get out
+of serving in the army?" he demanded.
+
+"Not consciously. Unconsciously, I think you are. What does your doctor
+say?"
+
+Doggie was taken aback. He had no doctor, having no need for one. He
+made confession of the surprising fact. Peggy smiled.
+
+"That proves it," she said. "I don't believe you have anything wrong
+with you. This is plain talking. It's horrid, I know, but it's best to
+get through with it once and for all."
+
+Some men would have taken deep offense, but Doggie, conscientious if
+ineffective, was gnawed for the first time by a suspicion that Peggy
+might possibly be right. He desired to act honorably.
+
+"I'll do," he said, "whatever you think proper."
+
+"Good!" said Peggy. "Get Doctor Murdoch to overhaul you thoroughly with
+a view to the army. If he passes you, take a commission."
+
+She put out her hand. Doggie took it firmly.
+
+"Very well," he said. "I agree."
+
+"You're flabby," announced Doctor Murdoch, the next morning, to an
+anxious Doggie, after some minutes of thumping and listening, "but
+that's merely a matter of unused muscles. Physical training will set it
+right in no time. Otherwise, my dear Trevor, you're in splendid health.
+There's not a flaw in your whole constitution."
+
+Doggie crept out of bed, put on a violet dressing-gown, and wandered to
+his breakfast like a man in a nightmare. But he could not eat. He
+swallowed a cup of coffee and took refuge in his own room. He was
+frightened--horribly frightened, caught in a net from which there was no
+escape. He had given his word to join the army if he should be passed by
+Murdoch. He had been more than passed! Now he would have to join; he
+would have to fight. He would have to live in a muddy trench, sleep in
+mud, eat in mud, plow through mud. Doggie was shaken to his soul, but he
+had given his word and he had no thought of going back on it.
+
+The fateful little letter bestowing a commission on Doggie arrived two
+weeks later; he was a second lieutenant in a battalion of the new army.
+A few days afterward he set off for the training-camp.
+
+He wrote to Peggy regularly. The work was very hard, he said, and the
+hours were long. Sometimes he confessed himself too tired to write more
+than a few lines. It was a very strange life--one he never dreamed could
+have existed. There was the riding-school. Why hadn't he learned to ride
+as a boy? Peggy was filled with admiration for his courage. She realized
+that he was suffering acutely in his new and rough environment, but he
+made no complaint.
+
+Then there came a time when Doggie's letters grew rarer and shorter. At
+last they ceased altogether. One evening an unstamped envelope addressed
+to Peggy was put in the letter-box. The envelope contained a copy of the
+_Gazette_, and a sentence was underlined and adorned with exclamation
+marks:
+
+"Royal Fusileers. Second Lieutenant J. M. Trevor resigned his
+commission."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It had been a terrible blow to Doggie. The colonel had dealt as gently
+as he could in the final interview with him. He put his hand in a
+fatherly way on Doggie's shoulder and bade him not take the thing too
+much to heart. He--Doggie--had done his best, but the simple fact was
+that he was not cut out for an officer. These were merciless times, and
+in matters of life and death there could be no weak links in the chain.
+In Doggie's case there was no personal discredit. He had always
+conducted himself like a gentleman, but he lacked the qualities
+necessary for the command of men. He must send in his resignation.
+
+Doggie, after leaving the camp, took a room in a hotel and sat there
+most of the day, the mere pulp of a man. His one desire now was to
+escape from the eyes of his fellow-men. He felt that he bore the marks
+of his disgrace, obvious at a glance. He had been turned out of the army
+as a hopeless incompetent; he was worse than a slacker, for the slacker
+might have latent qualities he was without.
+
+Presently the sight of his late brother-officers added the gnaw of envy
+to his heart-ache. On the third day of his exile he moved into lodgings
+in Woburn Place. Here at least he could be quiet, untroubled by
+heart-rending sights and sounds. He spent most of his time in dull
+reading and dispirited walking.
+
+His failure preyed on his mind. He walked for miles every day, though
+without enjoyment. He wandered one evening in the dusk to Waterloo
+Bridge and gazed out over the parapet. The river stretched below, dark
+and peaceful. As he looked down on the rippling water, he presently
+became aware of a presence by his side. Turning his head, he found a
+soldier, an ordinary private, also leaning over the parapet.
+
+"I thought I wasn't mistaken in Mr. Marmaduke Trevor," said the soldier.
+
+Doggie started away, on the point of flight, dreading the possible
+insolence of one of the men of his late regiment. But the voice of the
+speaker rang in his ears with a strange familiarity, and the great
+fleshy nose, the high cheekbones, and the little gray eyes in the
+weather-beaten face suggested vaguely some one of the long ago. His
+dawning recognition amused the soldier.
+
+"Yes, laddie, it's your old Phineas. Phineas McPhail, M. A.--now private
+P. McPhail."
+
+It was no other than Doggie's tutor of his childhood days.
+
+"Very glad to see you," Doggie murmured.
+
+Phineas, gaunt and bony, took his arm. Doggie's instinctive craving for
+companionship made Phineas suddenly welcome.
+
+"Let us have a talk," he said. "Come to my rooms. There will be some
+dinner."
+
+"Will I come? Will I have dinner? Laddie, I will."
+
+In the Strand they hailed a taxi-cab and drove to Doggie's place.
+
+"You mention your rooms," said Phineas. "Are you residing permanently in
+London?"
+
+"Yes," said Doggie, sadly. "I never expect to leave it."
+
+A few minutes later they reached Woburn Place. Doggie showed Phineas
+into the sitting-room. The table was set for Doggie's dinner. Phineas
+looked around him in surprise. The tasteless furniture, the dreadful
+pictures on the walls, the coarse glass and the well-used plate on the
+table, the crumpled napkin in a ring--all came as a shock to Phineas,
+who had expected to find Marmaduke's rooms a reproduction of the
+fastidious prettiness of the peacock and ivory room in Durdlebury.
+
+"Laddie," he said, gravely, "you must excuse me if I take a liberty, but
+I cannot fit you into this environment. It cannot be that you have come
+down in the world?"
+
+"To bed-rock," replied Doggie.
+
+"Man, I'm sorry," said Phineas. "I know what coming down feels like. If
+I had money--"
+
+Doggie broke in with a laugh. "Pray don't distress yourself, Phineas.
+It's not a question of money at all. The last thing in the world I've
+had to think of has been money."
+
+"What is the trouble?" Phineas demanded.
+
+"That's a long story," answered Doggie. "In the meantime I had better
+give some orders about dinner."
+
+The dinner came in presently, not particularly well served. They sat
+down to it.
+
+"By the way," remarked Doggie, "you haven't told me why you became a
+soldier."
+
+"Chance," replied Phineas. "I have been going down in the world for some
+time, and no one seemed to want me except my country. She clamored for
+me at every corner. A recruiting sergeant in Trafalgar Square at last
+persuaded me to take the leap. That's how I became Private Phineas
+McPhail of the Tenth Wessex Rangers, at the compensation of one
+shilling and two pence per day."
+
+"Do you like it?" asked Doggie.
+
+Phineas rubbed the side of his nose thoughtfully.
+
+"In itself it is a vile life," he made answer. "The hours are absurd,
+the work is distasteful, and the mode of living repulsive. But it
+contents me. The secret of happiness lies in adapting one's self to
+conditions. I adapt myself wherever I happen to be. And now, may I,
+without impertinent curiosity, again ask what you meant when you said
+you had come down to bed-rock?"
+
+All of Doggie's rage and shame flared up at the question.
+
+"I've been thrown out of the army!" he cried. "I'm here in
+hiding--hiding from my family and the decent folk I'm ashamed to meet!"
+
+"Tell me all about it, laddie," urged Phineas, gently.
+
+Then Doggie broke down, and with a gush of unminded tears found
+expression for his stony despair. His story took a long time in the
+telling, and Phineas interjected a sympathetic "Ay, ay," from time to
+time.
+
+"And now," cried Doggie, his young face distorted and reddened, his
+sleek hair ruffled, and his hands appealingly outstretched, "what am I
+going to do?"
+
+"You've got to go back home," said Phineas. "You've got to whip up all
+the moral courage in you and go back to Durdlebury."
+
+"I won't," said Doggie, "I can't. I'd sooner die than go back there
+disgraced. I'd sooner enlist as a private soldier."
+
+"Enlist?" repeated Phineas, and he drew himself up straight and gaunt.
+"Well, why not?"
+
+"Enlist?" echoed Doggie, in a dull tone. "As a Tommy?"
+
+"As a Tommy," replied Phineas.
+
+"Enlist!" murmured Doggie. He thought of the alternatives--flight, which
+was craven; home, which he could not bear. Doggie rose from his chair
+with a new light in his eyes. He had come to the supreme moment of his
+life; he had made his great resolution. Yes, he would enlist as a
+private soldier in the British army.
+
+
+III
+
+A year later Doggie Trevor returned to Durdlebury. He had been laid up
+in hospital with a wounded leg, the result of fighting the German
+snipers in front of the first line trenches, and he was now on his way
+back to France. Durdlebury had not changed in the interval; it was
+Marmaduke Trevor that had changed. He measured about ten inches more
+around the chest than the year before, and his hands were red and
+calloused from hard work. He was as straight as an Indian now, and in
+his rough khaki uniform of a British private he looked every bit a
+man--yes, and more than that, a veteran soldier. For Doggie had passed
+through battle after battle, gas attacks, mine explosions, and months of
+dreary duty in water-filled trenches, where only brave and tough men
+could endure. He had been tried in the furnace and he had come out pure
+gold.
+
+Doggie entered the familiar Deanery, and was met by Peggy with a glad
+smile of welcome. His uncle, the Dean, appeared in the hall, florid,
+whitehaired, benevolent, and extended both hands to the homecoming
+warrior.
+
+"My dear boy," he said, "how glad I am to see you! Welcome back! And
+how's the wound?"
+
+Opening the drawing-room door, he pushed Doggie inside. A tall, lean
+figure in uniform, which had remained in the background by the
+fireplace, advanced with outstretched hand.
+
+"Hello, old chap!"
+
+Doggie took the hand in an honest grip.
+
+"Hello, Oliver!"
+
+"How goes it?" asked Oliver.
+
+"Splendid," said Doggie. "Are you all right?"
+
+"Tip-top," answered Oliver. He clapped his cousin on the shoulder. "My
+hat! you do look fit."
+
+He turned to the Dean. "Uncle Edward, isn't he a hundred times the man
+he was?"
+
+In a little while tea came. It appeared to Doggie, handing round the
+three-tiered cake-stand, that he had returned to some forgotten
+existence. The delicate china cup in his hand seemed too frail for the
+material usages of life, and he feared lest he break it, for Doggie was
+accustomed to the rough dishes of the private.
+
+The talk lay chiefly between Oliver and himself and ran on the war. Both
+men had been at Ypres and at Arras, where the British and German
+trenches lay only five yards apart.
+
+"I ought to be over there now," said Oliver, "but I just escaped
+shell-shock and I was sent home for two weeks."
+
+"My crowd is at the Somme," said Doggie.
+
+"You're well out of it, old chap," laughed Oliver.
+
+For the first time in his life Doggie began really to like Oliver.
+Oliver stood in his eyes in a new light, that of the typical officer,
+trusted and beloved by his men, and Doggie's heart went out to him.
+
+After some further talk, the men separated to dress for dinner.
+
+"You've got the green room, Marmaduke," said Peggy. "The one with the
+Chippendale furniture you used to covet so much."
+
+"I haven't got much to change into," laughed Doggie, looking down at his
+uniform.
+
+"You'll find Peddle up there waiting for you."
+
+When Doggie entered the green room, he found Peddle, who welcomed him
+with tears of joy and a display of all the luxuries of the toilet and
+adornment which Doggie had left behind at home. There were pots of
+[v]pomade and face cream, and nail polish; bottles of hair-wash and
+tooth-wash; half a dozen gleaming razors; the array of brushes and combs
+and [v]manicure set in [v]tortoise-shell with his crest in silver;
+bottles of scent; the purple silk dressing-gown; a soft-fronted shirt
+fitted with ruby and diamond sleeve-links; the dinner jacket and suit
+laid out on the glass-topped table, with tie and handkerchief; the silk
+socks, the glossy pumps.
+
+"My, Peddle!" cried Doggie, scratching his closely-cropped head. "What's
+all this?"
+
+Peddle, gray, bent, uncomprehending, regarded him blankly.
+
+"All what, sir?"
+
+"I only want to wash my hands," said Doggie.
+
+"But aren't you going to dress for dinner, sir?"
+
+"A private soldier's not allowed to wear [v]mufti," returned Doggie.
+
+"Who's to find out?"
+
+"There's Mr. Oliver; he's a major."
+
+"Ah, Mr. Marmaduke, he wouldn't mind. Miss Peggy gave me my orders, sir,
+and I think you can leave things to her."
+
+"All right, Peddle," laughed Doggie. "If it's Miss Peggy's decree, I'll
+change my clothes. I have all I want."
+
+"Are you sure you can manage, sir?" Peddle asked anxiously, for the time
+was when Doggie could not stick his legs into his trousers unless Peddle
+helped him.
+
+"Quite," said Doggie.
+
+"It seems rather roughing it, here at the Deanery, Mr. Marmaduke, after
+what you've been accustomed to at the Hall," said Peddle.
+
+"That's so," replied Doggie. "And it's martyrdom compared to what it is
+in the trenches. There we always have a major-general to lace our boots
+and a field-marshall to hand us coffee."
+
+Peddle looked blank, being utterly unable to comprehend the nature of a
+joke.
+
+A little later, when Doggie went downstairs to dinner, he found Peggy
+alone in the drawing-room.
+
+"Now you look more like a Christian gentleman," she said. "Confess: it's
+much more comfortable than your wretched private's uniform."
+
+"I'm not quite so sure," he replied, somewhat ruefully, indicating his
+dinner jacket, which was tightly constricted beneath the arms. "Already
+I've had to slit my waistcoat down the back. Poor old Peddle will have a
+fit when he sees it. I've grown a bit since these elegant rags were made
+for me."
+
+Oliver came in--in khaki. Doggie jumped up and pointed to him.
+
+"Look here, Peggy," he said; "I'll be sent to the guard-room."
+
+Oliver laughed. "I did change my uniform," he said. "I don't know where
+my dinner clothes are."
+
+"That's the best thing about being a major," spoke up Doggie. "They have
+heaps of suits. Poor Tommy has but one suit to his name."
+
+Then the Dean and his wife entered, and they went in to dinner. It was
+for Doggie the most pleasant of meals. He had the superbly healthy man's
+whole-hearted appreciation for unaccustomed good food. There were other
+and finer pleasures--the table with its exquisite [v]napery and china
+and glass and silver and flowers. There was the delightful atmosphere of
+peace and gentle living. And there was Oliver--a new Oliver.
+
+Most of all, Doggie appreciated Oliver's comrade-like attitude. It was a
+recognition of him as a soldier. He had "made good" in the eyes of one
+of the finest soldiers in the British army, and what else mattered? To
+Doggie the supreme joy of that pleasurable evening was the knowledge
+that he had done well in the eyes of Oliver. The latter wore on his
+tunic the white, mauve, and white ribbon of the Military Cross. Honor
+where honor was due. But he--Doggie--had been wounded, and Oliver
+frankly put them both on the same plane of achievement, thus wiping away
+with generous hand all the hated memories of the past.
+
+When the ladies left the room the Dean went with them, and the cousins
+were left alone.
+
+"And now," said Oliver, "don't you think you're a bit of a fool,
+Doggie?"
+
+"I know it," Doggie returned cheerfully. "The army has drummed that into
+me at any rate."
+
+"I mean in staying in the ranks," Oliver went on. "Why don't you apply
+for the Cadet Corps and get a commission again?"
+
+Doggie's brow grew dark. "I will tell you," he replied. "The only real
+happiness I've had in my life has been as a Tommy. I'm not talking
+foolishness. The only real friends I've ever made in my life are
+Tommies. I've a real life as a Tommy, and I'm satisfied. When I came to
+my senses after being thrown out for incompetence and I enlisted, I made
+a vow that I would stick it out as a Tommy without anybody's sympathy,
+least of all that of the people here. And as a Tommy I am a real soldier
+and do my part."
+
+Oliver smiled. "I'm glad you told me, old man. I appreciate it very
+much. I've been through the ranks myself and know what it is--the bad
+and the good. Many a man has found his soul that way--"
+
+"Heavens!" cried Doggie, starting to his feet. "Do you say that, too?"
+
+The cousins clasped hands. That was Oliver's final recognition of Doggie
+as a soldier and a man. Doggie had found his soul.
+
+W. J. LOCKE.
+
+
+
+
+IN FLANDERS FIELD
+
+
+    In Flanders fields, the poppies blow
+    Between the crosses, row on row,
+    That mark our places. In the sky
+    The larks, still bravely singing, fly,
+    Scarce heard amid the guns below.
+    We are the dead. Short days ago
+    We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
+    Loved and were loved, and now we lie
+    In Flanders fields.
+
+    Take up our quarrel with the foe!
+    To you, from failing hands, we throw
+    The torch. Be yours to lift it high!
+    If ye break faith with us who die,
+    We shall not sleep, though poppies blow
+    In Flanders fields.
+
+    JOHN MCCRAE.
+
+
+
+
+IN FLANDERS FIELD
+
+(AN ANSWER)
+
+    In Flanders fields, the cannon boom
+    And fitful flashes light the gloom,
+    While up above, like eagles, fly
+    The fierce destroyers of the sky;
+    With stains the earth wherein you lie
+    Is redder than the poppy bloom,
+              In Flanders fields.
+
+    Sleep on, ye brave. The shrieking shell,
+    The quaking trench, the startled yell,
+    The fury of the battle hell
+    Shall wake you not, for all is well.
+    Sleep peacefully, for all is well.
+    Your flaming torch aloft we bear,
+    With burning heart an oath we swear
+    To keep the faith, to fight it through,
+    To crush the foe or sleep with you
+            In Flanders fields.
+
+    C. B. GALBRAITH.
+
+
+
+
+A BALLAD OF HEROES
+
+    Because you passed, and now are not,--
+      Because in some remoter day
+    Your sacred dust from doubtful spot
+      Was blown of ancient airs away,--
+      Because you perished,--must men say
+    Your deeds were naught, and so profane
+      Your lives with that cold burden? Nay,
+      The deeds you wrought are not in vain!
+
+    Though, it may be above the plot
+      That hid your once imperial clay,
+    No greener than o'er men forgot
+      The unregarded grasses sway,--
+      Though there no sweeter is the lay
+    From careless bird,--though you remain
+      Without distinction of decay,--
+      The deeds you wrought are not in vain!
+
+    No. For while yet in tower or cot
+      Your story stirs the pulse's play;
+    And men forget the sordid lot--
+      The sordid care, of cities gray;--
+      While yet, beset in homelier fray,
+    They learn from you the lesson plain
+      That life may go, so Honor stay,--
+      The deeds you wrought are not in vain!
+
+    ENVOY
+
+    Heroes of old! I humbly lay
+      The laurel on your graves again;
+    Whatever men have done, men may,--
+      The deeds you wrought are not in vain!
+
+    AUSTIN DOBSON.
+
+
+
+
+DICTIONARY
+
+=a byss´=: a deep gulf.
+
+=ac´ me=: height.
+
+=ac ro bat´ ics=: gymnastics; athletic exercises.
+
+=ad´ age=: saying; proverb.
+
+=a e´ ri al=: airy.
+
+=a lac´ ri ty=: eagerness; spryness.
+
+=al´ der man=: here, a Saxon nobleman.
+
+=al´ gæ=: seaweeds.
+
+=al ter´ na tive=: a second choice.
+
+=A´ ma ti ki´ ta=: an Esquimau.
+
+=am´ i ca bly ad just´ ed=: arranged peacefully.
+
+=am´ phi the a ter=: a circular building with tiers of seats arranged
+around an open space.
+
+=an´ chor ite=: a hermit.
+
+=an´ nals=: records.
+
+=aped=: imitated.
+
+=ap er tif´= (teef): an appetizer.
+
+=ap´ er ture=: opening.
+
+=Ap´ pa lach´ ian=: a chain of mountains in the eastern United States.
+
+=ap pre hen´ sions=: fears.
+
+=a quat´ ic=: of the water.
+
+=ar cade´=: an arched gallery.
+
+=ar tic´ u late=: in regular words.
+
+=at´ mos phere=: air pressure at sea level used as a unit.
+
+=au ro´ ra=: the Northern Lights, the red glow in the sky in the Far North.
+
+=aus ter´ i ty=: soberness; sternness.
+
+=av a ri´ cious= (rish us): greedy of gain.
+
+
+=Bal lin droch´ a ter=: a Scotch village.
+
+=ban dit´ ti=: outlaws; bandits.
+
+=bar´ bi can=: a tower over a gate or bridge.
+
+=bar´ o graph=: an instrument for recording changes in the atmosphere.
+
+=ba rom´ e ter=: an instrument that determines the weight of the air, and
+thereby foretells changes in the weather.
+
+=ba rouche´=: a low, open carriage.
+
+=bau´ ble=: a wand carried by jesters.
+
+=Beau seant= (bo sa on´): "Well-seeming," an ancient French war cry.
+
+=be nig´ nant=: kind; helpful.
+
+=big´ gin=: a child's cap.
+
+=Bois-Guil bert= (bwa guel bare´): a knight of the Order of the Temple.
+
+=bo´ nus=: an extra payment not included in wages.
+
+=brake=: a thicket.
+
+=bre´ vi a ry=: a book containing a church service.
+
+=brown-bill=: a weapon consisting of a long staff with a hook-shaped blade
+at the top.
+
+=buf foon´ er y=: jesting; clownishness.
+
+=bun´ sen pile=: an electric cell containing zinc covered with sulphuric
+acid at one end, and carbon surrounded by nitric acid at the other.
+
+
+
+=buoyed= (booed): kept up; supported.
+
+=bur lesque´= (lesk): humorous; not serious.
+
+=byz´ ant=: a large gold coin.
+
+
+=ca lum´ ni a tor=: a slanderer.
+
+=car´ bon=: one of the chemical elements; charcoal is its best known form.
+
+=car´ di nal=: a priest of high rank who wears a small red cap.
+
+=car´ ri on=: decaying flesh.
+
+=car´ tel=: a defiance; a challenge.
+
+=casque= (cask): helmet.
+
+=cas´ sock=: a close-fitting garment resembling a modern coat.
+
+=catherine wheel=: a firework that turns around when lighted, throwing off
+a circle of sparks.
+
+=ce ler´ i ty=: quickness; promptness.
+
+=cel´ lar=: here, a wine-cellar.
+
+=che val-glass= (she´ val): a large mirror swinging in a frame.
+
+=Chil how´ ee=: a high mountain in east Tennessee.
+
+=chiv´ al rous=: knightly; warlike.
+
+=churls=: low, rude persons.
+
+=circuit-rider=: a preacher who ministers to a number of churches.
+
+=cloth-yard=: a yard in length.
+
+=col´ lo quy=: a discussion.
+
+=com punc´ tion=: remorse; repentance.
+
+=cone=: a body tapering to a point.
+
+=con´ ning tower=: a raised part of a vessel giving an outlook on the sea.
+
+=con strained´=: restricted; unfree.
+
+=con´ va les´ cence=: period of recovery.
+
+=con ver´ gent=: coming nearly together.
+
+=cope=: a long robe.
+
+=co´ pi ous ly=: plentifully.
+
+=cord´ age=: the ropes on a ship.
+
+=Cor´ do van=: made in Cordova, a Spanish city.
+
+=cor me´ um e rue ta´ vit=: "the heart of me burst forth."
+
+=cor rob´ o ra ted=: confirmed; agreed with.
+
+=cor ro´ sive sub´ li mate=: a substance containing mercury and useful for
+cleaning wounds.
+
+=coun´ ter-poise=: a weight used to pull up the drawbridge.
+
+=cowl=: a monk's hood.
+
+=cox´ comb=: a piece of red cloth worn by jesters on their caps.
+
+=crest fall´ en=: humiliated; humbled.
+
+=crev´ ice=: hole; opening.
+
+=cri´ sis=: critical period.
+
+=croup=: the space behind the saddle.
+
+=cur tail´ ing=: cutting down.
+
+=cut´ lery=: knives and forks.
+
+=cyl´ in der=: a part of machinery, like a piston, longer than broad and
+with a round surface.
+
+=cy lin´ dri cal=: shaped like a cylinder, that is, long but with a round
+surface, as a lead pencil.
+
+
+=decency=: here, a good appearance.
+
+=de cep´ tive=: misleading.
+
+=dep re da´ tion=: theft; despoiling.
+
+=De pro fun´ dis cla ma´ vi=: "I cried from the depths," a Latin psalm.
+
+=dif´ fi dence=: shyness.
+
+=dil´ a to´ ri ness=: slowness; delay.
+
+=dil´ a to ry=: slow.
+
+=di lem´ ma=: difficulty.
+
+=dis cerned´=: saw; understood.
+
+=dis con´ so late ly=: unhappily.
+
+=dis til´ ling=: for condensing sweet water from sea water.
+
+=dlink=: drink, in broken English.
+
+=doit=: a coin of small value.
+
+=do mes´ tic=: of the home.
+
+=Dom´ i nie=: a name sometimes given clergymen or schoolmasters.
+
+=doub´ let=: a garment covering the body from neck to waist.
+
+=dough ty= (dou´ ty): valiant; useful.
+
+=drag=: the scent of a fox.
+
+=dross=: money spoken of contemptuously, as something of no account.
+
+=Dry´ ad=: a wood nymph.
+
+=du en´ na=: chaperon.
+
+=dun=: brownish.
+
+=Dun dee´=: a Scotch seaport.
+
+
+=e clipse´=: darkening; obscuring.
+
+=ef fem´ i nate=: womanish.
+
+=e lec trom´ e ter=: an instrument which indicates the presence of
+electricity.
+
+=em a na´ tion=: a flowing forth.
+
+=em bel´ lish=: ornament; touch up.
+
+=em´ u late=: rival.
+
+=e´ quine=: pertaining to a horse.
+
+=Esh´ col=: a scene in the Bible.
+
+=ex ha la´ tion=: fumes; vapor.
+
+=ex hil´ a ra ted=: lifted up; greatly pleased.
+
+=ex´ i gence=: emergency.
+
+=ex or´ bi tant=: unreasonable; excessive.
+
+=ex pos´ tu la ted=: protested.
+
+
+=fath´ om=: a measure six feet in length.
+
+=fer´ rule=: the piece at the end of a parasol or umbrella.
+
+=feu´ dal=: relating to a lord of the Middle Ages.
+
+=fi del´ i ty=: faithfulness.
+
+=fil´ ial= (yal): due from a child to a parent.
+
+=first mag´ ni tude=: largest size; most importance.
+
+=floe=: the ocean frozen into an ice-field.
+
+=fort´ a lice=: a small fortress.
+
+=frank´ lin=: a Saxon gentleman.
+
+=Front-de-Boeuf= (front de beuf´): a Norman baron.
+
+
+=gab´ bro=: a kind of limestone rock.
+
+=gal´ liard= (yard): a gallant, valiant man.
+
+=gear=: affair; concern.
+
+=ge´ ni i= (e): spirits.
+
+=gen re= (zhan´ r): dealing with everyday life.
+
+=gen teel´ ly=: like gentlefolk; properly.
+
+=ge´ o log´ i cal=: relating to the substance of the earth.
+
+=glaive=: a weapon resembling an ax.
+
+=gra mer´ cy=: thanks.
+
+=gra tu´ i tous=: useless; unnecessary.
+
+=grav´ i ta´ tion=: the attraction of great bodies, such as the earth, for
+other bodies.
+
+=gren ade´=: a small bomb.
+
+=gro tesque´= (tesk): absurd; unsightly.
+
+=gyves= (jives): fetters; irons.
+
+
+=hatch´ way=: an opening in a deck.
+
+=Hen´ ri cus=: a settlement on the James river some distance above
+Jamestown.
+
+=her met´ i cal ly=: tightly; impenetrably.
+
+=hi la´ ri ously=: uproariously.
+
+=hor´ i zon´ tal=: on a level with the ground.
+
+=hum´ mock=: a knoll, or hillock.
+
+=hy´ dro plane=: an aeroplane which also moves on the water.
+
+
+=il lus´ tri ous=: distinguished; noted.
+
+=im port´ ed=: brought in from without.
+
+=im per´ vi ous=: impenetrable; not to be pierced.
+
+=in´ con ceiv´ a ble=: beyond the understanding.
+
+=in ef´ fa ble=: very great; beyond measure.
+
+=in´ ef fec´ tu al=: unavailing; without effect.
+
+=in ex´ pli ca bly=: not to be explained.
+
+=in fal´ li bly=: unerringly.
+
+=in´ fin ite= (it): immeasurable.
+
+=in i ti a tive= (in ish´ i a tive): an act which begins something.
+
+=In´ nu it=: an American Esquimau.
+
+=in ter mit´ tent=: unsteady; not regular.
+
+=in vin´ ci ble=: not to be conquered.
+
+=in vi´ o late=: unbroken; undefiled.
+
+
+=jave´ lin= (jav): a short spear used for throwing.
+
+=joc´ u lar´ i ty=: mirth.
+
+=joc´ und=: merry; sportive.
+
+=Jove=: the king of the gods; here, the chief person of the household.
+
+=jun´ to=: a group of men; a council.
+
+
+=ka lei´ do scope=: an instrument in which small pieces of colored glass
+slide about and form pleasing shapes.
+
+=Ki was´ sa=: a name for the Great Spirit, or God.
+
+=Knights Templar=: an order of knights serving in Palestine and taking
+their name from a palace in Jerusalem called Solomon's Temple.
+
+
+=la goons=: lakes connecting with the sea.
+
+=La Mort= (mor): "Death," sounded on a horn when the game is killed.
+
+=la´ tent=: hidden; not revealed; also, in preparation.
+
+=leg-bail=: escape by flight.
+
+=Ley´ den jar=: a glass bottle used to accumulate electricity.
+
+=log´ a rith´ mic tables=: mathematical tables used to calculate a ship's
+position.
+
+=Long House=: a name for the Iroquois Indians, derived from their long
+communal houses.
+
+=lon´ gi tude=: distance on the earth's surface from east to west.
+
+=lu´ mi na ry=: a body that gives light.
+
+
+=Ma belle mere= (mare): "My pretty mother."
+
+=Ma´ gi ans=: wise men of ancient Persia.
+
+=mal´ a dy=: disease.
+
+=Mal voi sin= (mal vwa zan´): a Norman baron.
+
+=man´ i cure set=: instruments used on the finger nails.
+
+=man´ tel et=: a movable shelter of wood.
+
+=ma rau´ ders=: robbers.
+
+=mar´ i=: husband.
+
+=masque= (mask): a kind of theatrical performance.
+
+=mas´ que rad´ ing=: going in disguise.
+
+=ma ter´ nal=: motherly.
+
+=mat´ ins=: a morning service of the ancient church.
+
+=mer´ ce na ry=: a hired soldier; a hireling.
+
+=mer´ cu ry=: quicksilver, used in the thermometer.
+
+=me tal´ lic=: composed of metal.
+
+=Michael mas eve= (mick´ el mas): September 28.
+
+=Mi´ das=: a king in Greek myth whose touch turned everything to gold.
+
+=mod´ i fi ca´ tion=: change.
+
+=Mon´ a cans=: an Indian tribe originally living west of Richmond,
+Virginia.
+
+=mon´ o syl´ la ble=: a single syllable.
+
+=Mort pour la patrie=: "Dead for country."
+
+=Mount joy St. Dennis= (den ny´): the war cry of ancient France.
+
+=muf´ ti= (ty): ordinary clothes.
+
+
+=na bob=: a millionaire: a wealthy man from India.
+
+=na´ per y=: table linen.
+
+=Naz´ a rene=: a name sometimes applied to Christians, from Jesus of
+Nazareth.
+
+=ne go´ ti a ting=: bargaining.
+
+=niche= (nitch): an opening in a wall.
+
+=no´ men il´ lis le´ gi o=: "the name of them is legion."
+
+=nor´ mal=: accustomed; usual.
+
+=nu´ cle us=: a central mass.
+
+=nu´ tri ment=: nourishment.
+
+
+=ob´ du rate=: not to be moved.
+
+=o bei sance= (o ba´ sans): a bending of the body; a bow.
+
+=ob lique´= (leek): a slanting direction.
+
+=old fields=: fields no longer cultivated.
+
+=o´ pa line=: the color of opals; grayish-white.
+
+=O´ pe chan´ ca nough= (no): the leading Indian chief in Virginia in the
+early period.
+
+=op´ tion=: choice.
+
+=op´ u lence=: wealth.
+
+=order=: a society of monks, with an organization and convents.
+
+=o´ ri en ta tion=: adjustment.
+
+=os ten´ si ble=: apparent; professed.
+
+
+=pad´ u a soy´=: a rich, heavy silk.
+
+=Pa mun´ keys=: an Indian tribe originally living along the Pamunkey and
+York rivers in Virginia.
+
+=pan´ de mo´ ni um=: the place of devils; also, and usually, a riotous
+scene.
+
+=pan´ nier= (yer): a wicker basket.
+
+=par´ ley=: talk; discussion.
+
+=Pas´ pa heghs= (hays): an Indian tribe of Virginia.
+
+=patched=: adorned with small patches of black cloth.
+
+=pa´ thos=: sadness.
+
+=pa visse´=: a large shield.
+
+=Pax´ vo bis´ cum=: "Peace be with you!"
+
+=pem´ mi can=: powdered meat pressed into cakes.
+
+=per´ i scope=: an instrument projecting above a submarine which gives a
+view of the sea surface.
+
+=per´ pen dic´ u lar=: straight up and down.
+
+=per´ pen dic´ u lar´ i ty=: straightness up and down.
+
+=pet´ ri fied=: turned to stone.
+
+=phil´ o soph´ i cal=: wise; learned.
+
+=pil´ lion= (yun): a cushion used by women in riding horseback.
+
+=pi lote= (pe loat´): an aeroplane pilot.
+
+=pin´ na cle=: summit.
+
+=pipe=: a musical instrument resembling a flute.
+
+=plain´ tive ly=: complainingly.
+
+=plan´ i sphere=: the representation of the earth on a plane; a map of the
+world.
+
+=Ple ia des= (ple´ ya dees): a group of six stars in the constellation
+Taurus.
+
+=pol lute´=: to stain; to befoul.
+
+=po made´=: a perfumed ointment.
+
+=po ma´ tum=: a perfumed ointment.
+
+=pon´ der a ble=: weighable; having heaviness.
+
+=pon´ der ous=: heavy; unwieldy.
+
+=pon´ iard= (yard): a dagger.
+
+=por´ tents=: signs; omens.
+
+=Pow´ ha tan=: the James river; also the name of Opechancanough's
+predecessor.
+
+=pre ca´ ri ous=: uncertain; dangerous.
+
+=pre´ con cep´ tion=: a foreshadowing; an idea of something to come.
+
+=pri me´ val=: original.
+
+=prim´ i tive=: original; coming down from afar.
+
+=Pro´ cy on= (si): a first-magnitude star.
+
+=pro di gious= (pro dij´ us): immense.
+
+=pro ject´ ile=: something projected with force, or fired.
+
+=pur veyed´=: brought.
+
+
+=quarter-staff=: a short pole, used as a walking-staff and a weapon.
+
+
+=ra´ di us=: the distance from the center of a body to its surface.
+
+=rail´ ler y=: jesting.
+
+=ran´ som=: a sum paid for the release of a prisoner.
+
+=rar´ e fac´ tion=: the making thin; less dense.
+
+=ra´ ti o=: rate; measure.
+
+=re cip´ ro ca ted=: returned.
+
+=re cum´ bent=: lying down.
+
+=re fec´ to ry=: a dining-room in a convent.
+
+=re frac´ tion=: the bending from a straight line which occurs when a ray
+of light passes out of the air into water.
+
+=reg´ u la tor=: a contrivance for controlling motion.
+
+=re mu´ ner a ted=: rewarded; presented with.
+
+=re nowned´=: famous.
+
+=re plete´=: filled.
+
+=rep´ ro ba´ tion=: condemnation; disapproval.
+
+=res´ pi ra´ tor=: a device covering the mouth and nose and preventing the
+breathing of outside air.
+
+=ret´ i nue=: a train of attendants.
+
+=re ver´ ber a ted=: reflected; echoed.
+
+=rime=: hoarfrost.
+
+=Rolfe, John=: the first Englishman to plant tobacco in Virginia; the
+husband of Pocahontas.
+
+=rood=: cross.
+
+=ro´ sa ry=: a string of beads used in counting prayers.
+
+=ru´ bi cund=: ruddy; red.
+
+=rucksack=: a napsack worn by Arctic travelers.
+
+=rue´ ful=: sad; distressed.
+
+=ruffle=: a contest.
+
+
+=sar cas´ ti cal ly=: ironically; humorously.
+
+=sat´ el lite=: an attendant; also, a body revolving around another, as
+the moon.
+
+=scar=: a cliff.
+
+=sci´ en tist=: one learned in the natural sciences, as chemistry,
+physics, etc.
+
+=screen=: a surface on which the reflection from the periscope is thrown.
+
+=sem´ blance=: likeness.
+
+=serf=: a kind of slave; an unfree laborer.
+
+=sex´ tant=: an instrument used to determine a ship's position by
+observing the sun and other objects.
+
+=Shah=: ruler; king.
+
+=shrift=: confession made to a priest.
+
+=Shrovetide=: the days just before the beginning of Lent.
+
+=sib´ yl=: prophetess.
+
+=side drift=: the drift of a vessel to one side or the other of a course.
+
+=sil hou ette= (sil oo et´): the black shadow of an object.
+
+=sin´ gu lar´ i ty=: strangeness.
+
+=smock race=: a race in which the contestants are hampered by garments.
+
+=sliv´ er=: a long splinter.
+
+=sol´ ace=: comfort.
+
+=so phis´ ti ca ted=: experienced; worldly-wise.
+
+=spec´ tral=: of graded colors.
+
+=spin´ et=: a musical instrument like a piano.
+
+=spoor=: trail; foot-marks.
+
+=sprint´ er=: a runner; a foot-racer.
+
+=spume=: froth; foam.
+
+=stac ca´ to=: disconnected; jerky.
+
+=states´ man=: one concerned in the governing of a country.
+
+=sten to´ ri an=: loud; thundering.
+
+=stodg´ i ly=: with distended eyes.
+
+=sto´ ic al ly=: patiently; without complaint.
+
+=stoke-hold=: the room containing a ship's boilers.
+
+=stra´ ta=: the layers of rock composing the crust of the earth.
+
+=strat´ e gy=: the use of artifice; clever planning.
+
+=Stuy´ ves ant=: a Dutch colonial governor of New York.
+
+=sub lim´ i ty=: grandeur; magnificence.
+
+=sub´ ter ra´ ne an=: beneath the earth; in a cavity.
+
+=sump´ ter mule=: a beast of burden.
+
+=sump´ tu a ry=: relating to expense.
+
+=sump´ tu ous=: plentiful; extravagant.
+
+=su´ per flu´ i ty=: more than is needed.
+
+=su per´ flu ous=: not needed.
+
+=sur´ plice=: a white outer garment worn by priests.
+
+=Sus´ que han´ nocks=: an Indian tribe originally inhabiting Maryland and
+Pennsylvania.
+
+=sword of Damascus=: a sword made from steel wrought in Damascus, Syria.
+
+=syl´ van=: of the woods.
+
+=sym´ pho ny=: harmony; music.
+
+
+=ta´ bor=: a small drum.
+
+=tac´ i turn= (tas): silent.
+
+=tam´ bour frame=: frame for embroidery.
+
+=tap´ es try=: a curtain for a wall ornamented with worked pictures.
+
+=tar´ get=: a small shield.
+
+=ter´ ma gant=: quarrelsome; scolding.
+
+=ter´ ra fir´ ma=: the firm earth.
+
+=thane=: a Saxon land-owner.
+
+=thatch=: straw or reeds.
+
+=Ti´ tan=: a giant of Greek myth.
+
+=tithe=: a tenth.
+
+=tor´ toise-shell=: the shell of a turtle.
+
+=traction engine=: a locomotive that draws vehicles along roads.
+
+=treasurer=: George Sandys.
+
+=tri bu´ nal=: a court of justice.
+
+=trump=: the card that takes other cards in a game.
+
+=truss=: tie.
+
+=tu mul´ tu ous=: riotous; very noisy.
+
+
+=ul´ tra ma rine´=: deep blue.
+
+=uncle=: a familiar form of address used by jesters.
+
+=u nique´= (neek): singular; unusual.
+
+=u´ su ry=: unlawful, or excessive interest.
+
+
+=vas´ sals=: subjects; dependents.
+
+=ve´ he ment=: passionate; forceful.
+
+=ve loc´ i ty=: speed.
+
+=vel´ lum=: leather.
+
+=ven´ er a´ tion=: respect; reverence.
+
+=ver´ dure=: vegetation; green growth.
+
+=ver´ i ta ble=: true; unmistakable.
+
+=vic´ ar=: a clergyman in charge of a parish.
+
+=vis´ count= (vi): a nobleman.
+
+=viz´ ard=: a mask.
+
+=viz´ or=: here, a mask.
+
+=vo ra´ cious= (shus): greedy; very hungry.
+
+
+=Wat´ ling Street=: a Roman road running from Dover to Chester.
+
+=wer´ o wance=: a chief of the Virginia Indians.
+
+=West, Francis=: afterward governor of Virginia.
+
+=whist=: still.
+
+
+=yeo´ man= (yo): a free laborer; often a small land-owner.
+
+
+=ze´ nith=: highest point; summit.
+
+=zo´ o phytes=: small sea animals growing together, as coral.
+
+
+
+
+
+Transcriber's Note
+
+The following printer's errors have been corrected:
+
+  56  Mountain" changed to Mountain."
+  97  all unwarned! changed to all unwarned!"
+  119 he shall" changed to he shall,"
+  125 good-bye changed to good-by
+  130 ruffllings changed to rufflings
+  151 reëentering changed to reëntering
+  163 processsion changed to procession
+  177 calculatued changed to calculated
+  223 langauge changed to language
+  230 but to seaward changed to but two seaward
+  236 Majorie changed to Marjorie
+  263 attemped changed to attempted
+  267 altogther changed to altogether
+  272 miller," changed to miller?"
+  277 accomodated changed to accommodated
+  278 rescue?' changed to rescue?"
+  286 Norman, and let changed to Norman, "and let
+  305 father, said changed to father," said
+  310 "Fiends!' changed "Fiends!"
+  317 "'Nothing changed to "Nothing
+  326 of proof." changed to of proof.
+  328 stop them." changed to stop them.
+  383 April. 5th. changed to April 5th.
+  386 hugh changed to huge
+  396 the bottom. changed to the bottom."
+  402 everything! changed to everything!"
+  409 said; do you changed to said; "do you
+  444 unwieldly changed to unwieldy
+  446 spoor; changed to spoor:
+
+Other errors
+
+  116 infantile not included in vocabulary section
+  117 peer not included in the vocabulary section
+  118 mien not included in the vocabulary section
+  282 contingent is not defined in the vocabulary section
+  354 ballast is not defined in the vocabulary section
+  440 corroborated not marked in the text
+  443 mari not marked in the text
+  444 pinnacle not marked in the text
+
+Inconsistent hyphenation
+
+  foot-marks / footmarks
+  north-east / northeast
+  seal-skin / sealskin
+  snow-flakes / snowflakes
+  water-proof / waterproof
+  white-haired / whitehaired
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's The Literary World Seventh Reader, by Various
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LITERARY WORLD SEVENTH READER ***
+
+***** This file should be named 19721-8.txt or 19721-8.zip *****
+This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
+        http://www.gutenberg.org/1/9/7/2/19721/
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+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Literary World Seventh Reader, 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: The Literary World Seventh Reader
+
+Author: Various
+
+Editor: John Calvin Metcalf
+          Sarah Withers
+          Hetty S. Browne
+
+Release Date: November 5, 2006 [EBook #19721]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LITERARY WORLD SEVENTH READER ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Julia Miller, and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+<div style="background-color: #EEE; padding: 0.5em 1em 0.5em 1em;">
+<p class="titlepage"><b>Transcriber&rsquo;s&nbsp;Note</b></p>
+
+<p class="noindent">Obvious typographical errors have been corrected. A <a href="#trans_note">list</a> of the changes
+is found at the end of the text. Inconsistencies in
+hyphenation have been maintained. A list of inconsistently
+hyphenated words is found at the end of the text.</p>
+</div>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 274px;">
+<a href="images/image01-full.jpg"><img src="images/image01.jpg" width="274" height="400" alt="Frontispiece" title="Frontispiece" /></a>
+</div>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">[1]</a></span></p>
+
+
+<p class="titlepage" style="font-size: 200%; margin-top: 2em;">THE LITERARY WORLD</p>
+
+<p class="titlepage" style="font-size: 300%; margin-top: 0em;">SEVENTH READER</p>
+
+<p class="titlepage">BY</p>
+
+<p class="titlepage" style="font-size: 150%">JOHN CALVIN METCALF</p>
+
+<p class="titlepage" style="font-size: 90%">PROFESSOR OF ENGLISH LITERATURE IN THE UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA</p>
+
+<p class="titlepage" style="font-size: 150%">SARAH WITHERS</p>
+
+<p class="titlepage" style="font-size: 90%">PRINCIPAL ELEMENTARY GRADES AND CRITIC TEACHER<br />
+WINTHROP NORMAL AND INDUSTRIAL COLLEGE<br />
+ROCK HILL. S.C.</p>
+
+<p class="titlepage">AND</p>
+
+<p class="titlepage" style="font-size: 150%">HETTY S. BROWNE</p>
+
+<p class="titlepage" style="font-size: 90%">EXTENSION WORKER IN RURAL SCHOOL PRACTICE<br />
+WINTHROP NORMAL AND INDUSTRIAL COLLEGE</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 143px;">
+<img src="images/image02.png" width="143" height="200" alt="colophon" title="colophon" />
+</div>
+
+<p class="titlepage" style="font-size: 130%">JOHNSON PUBLISHING COMPANY<br />
+RICHMOND, VIRGINIA</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">[2]</a></span></p>
+
+<p class="titlepage">COPYRIGHT, 1919<br />
+B. F. JOHNSON PUBLISHING COMPANY</p>
+
+<hr class="bbox" style="width: 4em; margin-top: 0em; margin-bottom: 0em;" />
+
+<p class="titlepage"><i>All Rights Reserved</i></p>
+
+<p class="titlepage">L.H.J.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[3]</a></span></p>
+
+
+<h2 class="chapterhead"><a name="ACKNOWLEDGMENTS" id="ACKNOWLEDGMENTS"></a>ACKNOWLEDGMENTS</h2>
+
+
+<p>For permission to use copyrighted material the authors and publishers
+express their indebtedness to the Macmillan Company for &#8220;A Deal in
+Bears&#8221; from <i>McTodd</i>, by W. Cutcliffe Hyne, and for &#8220;Sea Fever,&#8221; by John
+Masefield; to Duffield &amp; Company and Mr. H. G. Wells for &#8220;In Labrador&#8221;
+from <i>Marriage</i>; to the John Lane Company for &#8220;The Making of a Man&#8221; from
+<i>The Rough Road</i>, by W. J. Locke; to Dodd, Mead &amp; Company and Mr. Arthur
+Dobson for &#8220;A Ballad of Heroes,&#8221; and to Dodd, Mead &amp; Company for &#8220;Under
+Seas,&#8221; by Count Alexis Tolstoi; to G. P. Putnam&#8217;s Sons for &#8220;Old Ephraim&#8221;
+from <i>The Hunting Trips of a Ranchman</i>, by Theodore Roosevelt; to
+Houghton Mifflin Company for &#8220;A Greyport Legend,&#8221; by Bret Harte,
+&#8220;Midwinter,&#8221; by John Townsend Trowbridge, &#8220;The First Snowfall,&#8221; by James
+Russell Lowell, &#8220;Among the Cliffs&#8221; from <i>The Young Mountaineers</i>, by
+Charles Egbert Craddock (Mary N. Murfree), and for &#8220;The Friendship of
+Nantaquas&#8221; from <i>To Have and to Hold</i>, by Mary Johnston; to Harper &amp;
+Brothers for &#8220;The Great Stone of Sardis&#8221; from <i>The Great Stone of
+Sardis</i>, by Frank R. Stockton, and to Harper &amp; Brothers and Mr. Booth
+Tarkington for &#8220;Ariel&#8217;s Triumph&#8221; from <i>The Conquest of Canaan</i>.</p>
+
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[4]</a></span></p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[5]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2 class="chapterhead"><a name="TABLE_OF_CONTENTS" id="TABLE_OF_CONTENTS"></a>TABLE OF CONTENTS</h2>
+
+<table border="0" width="80%" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="Table of Contents">
+<tr>
+  <td class="tochead" colspan="3">LEGENDS OF OUR LAND</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td><span class="smcap"><a href="#RIP_VAN_WINKLE">Rip Van Winkle</a></span></td>
+  <td><i>Washington Irving</i></td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#RIP_VAN_WINKLE">9</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td><span class="smcap"><a href="#THE_GREAT_STONE_FACE">The Great Stone Face</a></span></td>
+  <td><i>Nathaniel Hawthorne</i></td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#THE_GREAT_STONE_FACE">33</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td><span class="smcap"><a href="#THE_COURTSHIP_OF_MILES_STANDISH">The Courtship of Miles Standish</a></span></td>
+  <td><i>Henry W. Longfellow</i></td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#THE_COURTSHIP_OF_MILES_STANDISH">59</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td><span class="smcap"><a href="#THE_FRIENDSHIP_OF_NANTAQUAS">The Friendship of Nantaquas</a></span></td>
+  <td><i>Mary Johnston</i></td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#THE_FRIENDSHIP_OF_NANTAQUAS">79</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tochead" colspan="3">HOME SCENES</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td><span class="smcap"><a href="#HARRY_ESMONDS_BOYHOOD">Harry Esmond&#8217;s Boyhood</a></span></td>
+  <td><i>Wm. Makepeace Thackeray</i></td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#HARRY_ESMONDS_BOYHOOD">112</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td><span class="smcap"><a href="#THE_FAMILY_HOLDS_ITS_HEAD_UP">The Family Holds Its Head Up</a></span></td>
+  <td><i>Oliver Goldsmith</i></td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#THE_FAMILY_HOLDS_ITS_HEAD_UP">126</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td><span class="smcap"><a href="#THE_LITTLE_BOY_IN_THE_BALCONY">The Little Boy in the Balcony</a></span></td>
+  <td><i>Henry W. Grady</i></td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#THE_LITTLE_BOY_IN_THE_BALCONY">138</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td><span class="smcap"><a href="#ARIELS_TRIUMPH">Ariel&#8217;s Triumph</a></span></td>
+  <td><i>Booth Tarkington</i></td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#ARIELS_TRIUMPH">141</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tochead" colspan="3">NATURE AND ANIMALS</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td><span class="smcap"><a href="#THE_CLOUD">The Cloud</a></span></td>
+  <td><i>Percy Bysshe Shelley</i></td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#THE_CLOUD">160</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td><span class="smcap"><a href="#NEW_ENGLAND_WEATHER">New England Weather</a></span></td>
+  <td><i>Mark Twain</i></td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#NEW_ENGLAND_WEATHER">162</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td><span class="smcap"><a href="#THE_FIRST_SNOWFALL">The First Snowfall</a></span></td>
+  <td><i>James Russell Lowell</i></td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#THE_FIRST_SNOWFALL">166</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td><span class="smcap"><a href="#OLD_EPHRAIM">Old Ephraim</a></span></td>
+  <td><i>Theodore Roosevelt</i></td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#OLD_EPHRAIM">168</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td><span class="smcap"><a href="#MIDWINTER">Midwinter</a></span></td>
+  <td><i>John Townsend Trowbridge</i></td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#MIDWINTER">175</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td><span class="smcap"><a href="#A_GEORGIA_FOX_HUNT">A Georgia Fox Hunt</a></span></td>
+  <td><i>Joel Chandler Harris</i></td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#A_GEORGIA_FOX_HUNT">177</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td><span class="smcap"><a href="#RAIN_AND_WIND">Rain and Wind</a></span></td>
+  <td><i>Madison Julius Cawein</i></td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#RAIN_AND_WIND">192</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td><span class="smcap"><a href="#THE_SOUTHERN_SKY">The Southern Sky</a></span></td>
+  <td><i>Matthew Fontaine Maury</i></td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#THE_SOUTHERN_SKY">193</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td><span class="smcap"><a href="#DAFFODILS">Daffodils</a></span></td>
+  <td><i>William Wordsworth</i></td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#DAFFODILS">195</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td><span class="smcap"><a href="#DAWN">Dawn</a></span></td>
+  <td><i>Edward Everett</i></td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#DAWN">196</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td><span class="smcap"><a href="#SPRING">Spring</a></span></td>
+  <td><i>Henry Timrod</i></td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#SPRING">198</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[6]</a></span></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tochead" colspan="3">MOVING ADVENTURE</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td><span class="smcap"><a href="#AMONG_THE_CLIFFS">Among the Cliffs</a></span></td>
+  <td><i>Charles Egbert Craddock</i></td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#AMONG_THE_CLIFFS">201</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td><span class="smcap"><a href="#A_DEAL_IN_BEARS">A Deal in Bears</a></span></td>
+  <td><i>W. Cutcliffe Hyne</i></td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#A_DEAL_IN_BEARS">217</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td><span class="smcap"><a href="#LOCHINVAR">Lochinvar</a></span></td>
+  <td><i>Sir Walter Scott</i></td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#LOCHINVAR">232</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td><span class="smcap"><a href="#IN_LABRADOR">In Labrador</a></span></td>
+  <td><i>H. G. Wells</i></td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#IN_LABRADOR">235</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td><span class="smcap"><a href="#THE_BUGLE_SONG">The Bugle Song</a></span></td>
+  <td><i>Alfred Tennyson</i></td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#THE_BUGLE_SONG">258</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td><span class="smcap"><a href="#THE_SIEGE_OF_THE_CASTLE">The Siege of the Castle</a></span></td>
+  <td><i>Sir Walter Scott</i></td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#THE_SIEGE_OF_THE_CASTLE">259</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tochead" colspan="3">MODERN WONDER TALES</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td><span class="smcap"><a href="#SEA_FEVER">Sea Fever</a></span></td>
+  <td><i>John Masefield</i></td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#SEA_FEVER">334</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td><span class="smcap"><a href="#A_GREYPORT_LEGEND">A Greyport Legend</a></span></td>
+  <td><i>Bret Harte</i></td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#A_GREYPORT_LEGEND">335</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td><span class="smcap"><a href="#A_HUNT_BENEATH_THE_OCEAN">A Hunt Beneath The Ocean</a></span></td>
+  <td><i>Jules Verne</i></td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#A_HUNT_BENEATH_THE_OCEAN">337</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td><span class="smcap"><a href="#UNDER_SEAS">Under Seas</a></span></td>
+  <td><i>Count Alexis Tolstoi</i></td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#UNDER_SEAS">354</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td><span class="smcap"><a href="#A_VOYAGE_TO_THE_MOON">A Voyage to the Moon</a></span></td>
+  <td><i>Edgar Allan Poe</i></td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#A_VOYAGE_TO_THE_MOON">367</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td><span class="smcap"><a href="#THE_GREAT_STONE_OF_SARDISA">The Great Stone of Sardis</a></span></td>
+  <td><i>Frank R. Stockton</i></td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#THE_GREAT_STONE_OF_SARDISA">391</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tochead" colspan="3">SKETCHES OF THE GREAT WAR</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td><span class="smcap"><a href="#A_STOP_AT_SUZANNES">A Stop At Suzanne&#8217;s</a></span></td>
+  <td><i>Greayer Clover</i></td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#A_STOP_AT_SUZANNES">407</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td><span class="smcap"><a href="#THE_MAKING_OF_A_MAN">The Making of a Man</a></span></td>
+  <td><i>W. J. Locke</i></td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#THE_MAKING_OF_A_MAN">414</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td><span class="smcap"><a href="#IN_FLANDERS_FIELD">In Flanders Fields</a></span></td>
+  <td><i>John McCrae</i></td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#IN_FLANDERS_FIELD">436</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td><span class="smcap"><a href="#IN_FLANDERS_FIELD2">In Flanders Fields (An Answer)</a></span></td>
+  <td><i>C. B. Galbraith</i></td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#IN_FLANDERS_FIELD">436</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td><span class="smcap"><a href="#A_BALLAD_OF_HEROES">A Ballad Of Heroes</a></span></td>
+  <td><i>Austin Dobson</i></td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#A_BALLAD_OF_HEROES">437</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td style="padding-top: 2em;"><span class="smcap"><a href="#DICTIONARY">Dictionary</a></span></td>
+  <td></td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#DICTIONARY">439</a></td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[7]</a></span></p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[8]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 290px;">
+<a href="images/image03-full.jpg"><img src="images/image03.jpg" width="290" height="400" alt="He Was Tempted to Repeat the Draught" title="He Was Tempted to Repeat the Draught" /></a>
+[See <a href="#Page_19">page 19</a>]<br />
+<b>He Was Tempted to Repeat the Draught</b>
+</div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[9]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 290px;">
+<a href="images/image04-full.png"><img src="images/image04.png" width="290" height="129" alt="Rip Van Winkle" title="Rip Van Winkle" /></a>
+</div>
+
+
+<h2 class="chapafterillus"><a name="RIP_VAN_WINKLE" id="RIP_VAN_WINKLE"></a>RIP VAN WINKLE</h2>
+
+<p class="sectionhead">I</p>
+
+
+<p>Whoever has made a voyage up the Hudson must remember the Catskill
+Mountains. They are a branch of the great <a name="Appalachian_text" id="Appalachian_text"></a><a href="#Appalachian" class="fnanchor">v</a>Appalachian<a name="FNanchor_A_1" id="FNanchor_A_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_A_1" class="fnanchor">9-*</a> family, and
+are seen away to the west of the river, swelling up to a noble height,
+and lording it over the surrounding country. Every change of season,
+every change of weather, indeed, every hour of the day, produces some
+change in the magical hues and shapes of these mountains, and they are
+regarded by all the goodwives, far and near, as perfect <a name="barometer_text" id="barometer_text"></a><a href="#barometer" class="fnanchor">v</a>barometers.</p>
+
+<p>At the foot of these fairy mountains the traveler may have seen the
+light smoke curling up from a village, whose shingle roofs gleam among
+the trees, just where the blue tints of the upland melt away into the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[10]</a></span>
+fresh green of the nearer landscape. It is a little village of great
+age, having been founded by some of the Dutch colonists in the early
+times of the province, just about the beginning of the government of the
+good Peter <a name="Stuyvesant_text" id="Stuyvesant_text"></a><a href="#Stuyvesant" class="fnanchor">v</a>Stuyvesant (may he rest in peace!), and there were some of
+the houses of the original settlers standing within a few years, built
+of small yellow bricks brought from Holland, having latticed windows and
+gable fronts, surmounted with weathercocks.</p>
+
+<p>In that same village, and in one of these very houses, there lived, many
+years since, while the country was yet a province of Great Britain, a
+simple, good-natured fellow, of the name of Rip Van Winkle. He was a
+descendant of the Van Winkles who figured so gallantly in the
+<a name="chivalrous_text" id="chivalrous_text"></a><a href="#chivalrous" class="fnanchor">v</a>chivalrous days of Peter Stuyvesant, and accompanied him to the siege
+of Fort Christina. He inherited, however, but little of the martial
+character of his ancestors. I have observed that he was a simple,
+good-natured man; he was, moreover, a kind neighbor and an obedient,
+henpecked husband.</p>
+
+<p>Certain it is that he was a great favorite among all the goodwives of
+the village, who took his part in all family squabbles; and never
+failed, whenever they talked those matters over in their evening
+gossipings, to lay all the blame on Dame Van Winkle. The children of the
+village, too, would shout with joy whenever he approached. He assisted
+at their sports, made their playthings, taught them to fly kites and
+shoot marbles,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[11]</a></span> and told them long stories of ghosts, witches, and
+Indians. Whenever he went dodging about the village, he was surrounded
+by a troop of them, hanging on his skirts, clambering on his back, and
+playing a thousand tricks on him; and not a dog would bark at him
+throughout the neighborhood.</p>
+
+<p>The great error in Rip&#8217;s composition was a strong dislike of all kinds
+of profitable labor. It could not be from the want of perseverance; for
+he would sit on a wet rock, with a rod as long and heavy as a lance, and
+fish all day without a murmur, even though he should not be encouraged
+by a single nibble. He would carry a fowling piece on his shoulder for
+hours together, trudging through woods and swamps, and up hill and down
+dale, to shoot a few squirrels or wild pigeons. He would never refuse to
+assist a neighbor even in the roughest toil, and was a foremost man at
+all country frolics for husking Indian corn, or building stone fences;
+the women of the village, too, used to employ him to run their errands,
+and to do such little odd jobs as their less obliging husbands would not
+do for them. In a word, Rip was ready to attend to anybody&#8217;s business
+but his own; but as to doing family duty, and keeping his farm in order,
+he found it impossible.</p>
+
+<p>His children, too, were as ragged and wild as if they belonged to
+nobody. His son Rip promised to inherit the habits, with the old
+clothes, of his father. He was generally seen trooping like a colt at
+his mother&#8217;s heels,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[12]</a></span> equipped in a pair of his father&#8217;s cast-off
+breeches, which he had much ado to hold up with one hand, as a fine lady
+does her train in bad weather.</p>
+
+<p>Rip Van Winkle, however, was one of those happy mortals, of foolish,
+well-oiled dispositions, who take the world easy, eat white bread or
+brown, whichever can be got with least thought or trouble, and would
+rather starve on a penny than work for a pound. If left to himself, he
+would have whistled life away in perfect contentment; but his wife kept
+continually dinning in his ear about his idleness, his carelessness, and
+the ruin he was bringing on his family. Morning, noon, and night, her
+tongue was incessantly going, and everything he said or did was sure to
+produce a torrent of household eloquence. Rip had but one way of
+replying to all lectures of the kind, and that, by frequent use, had
+grown into a habit. He shrugged his shoulders, shook his head, cast up
+his eyes, but said nothing. This, however, always provoked a fresh
+volley from his wife; so that he was fain to draw off his forces, and
+take to the outside of the house&mdash;the only side which, in truth, belongs
+to a henpecked husband.</p>
+
+<p>Rip&#8217;s sole <a name="domestic_text" id="domestic_text"></a><a href="#domestic" class="fnanchor">v</a>domestic adherent was his dog Wolf, who was as much
+henpecked as his master; for Dame Van Winkle regarded them as companions
+in idleness, and even looked upon Wolf with an evil eye, as the cause of
+his master&#8217;s going so often astray. True it is, in all points of spirit
+befitting an honorable dog, he was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[13]</a></span> as courageous an animal as ever
+scoured the woods; but what courage can withstand the ever-enduring and
+all-besetting terrors of a woman&#8217;s tongue? The moment Wolf entered the
+house his crest fell, his tail drooped to the ground or curled between
+his legs, he sneaked about with a gallows air, casting many a sidelong
+glance at Dame Van Winkle, and at the least flourish of a broomstick or
+ladle he would fly to the door with yelping precipitation.</p>
+
+<p>Times grew worse and worse with Rip Van Winkle as years of matrimony
+rolled on. A tart temper never mellows with age, and a sharp tongue is
+the only edged tool that grows keener with constant use. For a long
+while he used to console himself, when driven from home, by frequenting
+a kind of perpetual club of sages, philosophers, and other idle
+personages of the village, which held its sessions on a bench before a
+small inn, designated by a <a name="rubicund_text" id="rubicund_text"></a><a href="#rubicund" class="fnanchor">v</a>rubicund portrait of His Majesty George
+III. Here they used to sit in the shade of a long, lazy summer&#8217;s day,
+talking listlessly over village gossip, or telling endless sleepy
+stories about nothing. But it would have been worth any statesman&#8217;s
+money to have heard the profound discussions which sometimes took place,
+when by chance an old newspaper fell into their hands from some passing
+traveler. How solemnly they would listen to the contents, as drawled out
+by Derrick Van Bummel, the schoolmaster,&mdash;a dapper, learned little man,
+who was not to be<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[14]</a></span> daunted by the most gigantic word in the dictionary!
+and how sagely they would deliberate upon public events some months
+after they had taken place!</p>
+
+<p>The opinions of this <a name="junto_text" id="junto_text"></a><a href="#junto" class="fnanchor">v</a>junto were completely controlled by Nicholas
+Vedder, a patriarch of the village, and landlord of the inn, at the door
+of which he took his seat from morning till night, just moving
+sufficiently to avoid the sun, and keep in the shade of a large tree; so
+that the neighbors could tell the hour by his movements as accurately as
+by a sun-dial. It is true, he was rarely heard to speak, but smoked his
+pipe incessantly. His adherents, however (for every great man has his
+adherents), perfectly understood him, and knew how to gather his
+opinions. When anything that was read or related displeased him, he was
+observed to smoke his pipe vehemently, and to send forth short,
+frequent, and angry puffs; but, when pleased, he would inhale the smoke
+slowly and tranquilly, and emit it in light and placid clouds, and
+sometimes, taking the pipe from his mouth, and letting the fragrant
+vapor curl about his nose, would nod his head in approbation.</p>
+
+<p>From even this stronghold the unlucky Rip was at length routed by his
+<a name="termagant_text" id="termagant_text"></a><a href="#termagant" class="fnanchor">v</a>termagant wife, who would suddenly break in upon the tranquility of
+the assemblage, and call the members all to naught; nor was that august
+personage, Nicholas Vedder himself, sacred from the daring tongue of
+this terrible virago, who charged him with encouraging her husband in
+habits of idleness.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[15]</a></span>Poor Rip was at last reduced almost to despair; and his only
+<a name="alternative_text" id="alternative_text"></a><a href="#alternative" class="fnanchor">v</a>alternative, to escape from the labor of the farm and clamor of his
+wife, was to take gun in hand and stroll away into the woods. Here he
+would sometimes seat himself at the foot of a tree, and share the
+contents of his wallet with Wolf, with whom he sympathized as a
+fellow-sufferer in persecution. &#8220;Poor Wolf,&#8221; he would say, &#8220;thy mistress
+leads thee a dog&#8217;s life of it; but never mind, my lad, whilst I live
+thou shalt never want a friend to stand by thee.&#8221; Wolf would wag his
+tail, look wistfully in his master&#8217;s face; and if dogs can feel pity, I
+verily believe he <a name="reciprocated_text" id="reciprocated_text"></a><a href="#reciprocated" class="fnanchor">v</a>reciprocated the sentiment with all his heart.</p>
+
+<p>In a long ramble of the kind on a fine autumnal day, Rip had
+unconsciously scrambled to one of the highest parts of the Catskill
+Mountains. He was after his favorite sport of squirrel-shooting, and the
+still solitudes had echoed and re&euml;choed with the reports of his gun.
+Panting and fatigued, he threw himself, late in the afternoon, on a
+green knoll, covered with mountain herbage, that crowned the brow of a
+precipice. From an opening between the trees he could overlook all the
+lower country for many a mile of rich woodland. He saw at a distance the
+lordly Hudson, far, far below him, moving on its silent but majestic
+course, with the reflection of a purple cloud, or the sail of a lagging
+bark, here and there sleeping on its glassy bosom, and at last losing
+itself in the blue highlands.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[16]</a></span>On the other side he looked down into a deep mountain glen, wild and
+lonely, the bottom filled with fragments from the overhanging cliffs,
+and scarcely lighted by the reflected rays of the setting sun. For some
+time Rip lay musing on this scene; evening was gradually advancing; the
+mountains began to throw their long blue shadows over the valleys; he
+saw that it would be dark long before he could reach the village, and he
+heaved a heavy sigh when he thought of encountering the terrors of Dame
+Van Winkle.</p>
+
+<p>As he was about to descend, he heard a voice from a distance, hallooing,
+&#8220;Rip Van Winkle! Rip Van Winkle!&#8221; He looked round, but could see nothing
+but a crow winging its solitary flight across the mountain. He thought
+his fancy must have deceived him, and turned again to descend, when he
+heard the same cry ring through the still evening air: &#8220;Rip Van Winkle!
+Rip Van Winkle!&#8221;&mdash;at the same time Wolf bristled up his back, and giving
+a low growl, skulked to his master&#8217;s side, looking fearfully down into
+the glen. Rip now felt a vague apprehension stealing over him; he looked
+anxiously in the same direction, and perceived a strange figure slowly
+toiling up the rocks, and bending under the weight of something he
+carried on his back. He was surprised to see any human being in this
+lonely and unfrequented place; but supposing it to be some one of the
+neighborhood in need of his assistance, he hastened down to yield it.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[17]</a></span>On nearer approach he was still more surprised at the <a name="singularity_text" id="singularity_text"></a><a href="#singularity" class="fnanchor">v</a>singularity of
+the stranger&#8217;s appearance. He was a short, square-built old fellow, with
+thick bushy hair, and a grizzled beard. His dress was of the antique
+Dutch fashion,&mdash;a cloth jerkin strapped round the waist, and several
+pair of breeches, the outer one of ample volume, decorated with rows of
+buttons down the sides. He bore on his shoulder a stout keg that seemed
+full of liquor, and made signs for Rip to approach and assist him with
+the load. Though rather shy and distrustful of this new acquaintance,
+Rip complied with his usual <a name="alacrity_text" id="alacrity_text"></a><a href="#alacrity" class="fnanchor">v</a>alacrity, and relieving one another, they
+clambered up a narrow gully, apparently the dry bed of a mountain
+torrent.</p>
+
+<p>As they ascended, Rip every now and then heard long, rolling peals, like
+distant thunder, that seemed to issue out of a deep ravine, or rather
+cleft, between lofty rocks, toward which their rugged path conducted. He
+paused for an instant, but supposing it to be the muttering of one of
+those transient thundershowers which often take place in mountain
+heights, he proceeded. Passing through the ravine, they came to a
+hollow, like a small <a name="amphitheater_text" id="amphitheater_text"></a><a href="#amphitheater" class="fnanchor">v</a>amphitheater, surrounded by perpendicular
+precipices, over the brinks of which trees shot their branches, so that
+you only caught glimpses of the azure sky and the bright evening cloud.
+During the whole time Rip and his companion had labored on in silence;
+for though the former marveled greatly,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[18]</a></span> what could be the object of
+carrying a keg of liquor up this wild mountain, yet there was something
+strange and incomprehensible about the unknown that inspired awe and
+checked familiarity.</p>
+
+<p>On entering the amphitheater new objects of wonder presented themselves.
+On a level spot in the center was a company of odd-looking personages
+playing at ninepins. They were dressed in a quaint, outlandish fashion;
+some wore short doublets, others jerkins, with long knives in their
+belts, and most of them had enormous breeches, of similar style with
+that of the guide&#8217;s. Their visages, too, were peculiar: one had a large
+head, broad face, and small, piggish eyes; the face of another seemed to
+consist entirely of nose, and was surmounted by a white sugar-loaf hat,
+set off with a little red cock&#8217;s tail. They all had beards, of various
+shapes and colors. There was one who seemed to be the commander. He was
+a stout old gentleman, with a weather-beaten countenance; he wore a
+laced doublet, broad belt and hanger, high-crowned hat and feather, red
+stockings, and high-heeled shoes, with roses in them. The whole group
+reminded Rip of the figures in an old Flemish painting, in the parlor of
+<a name="Dominie_text" id="Dominie_text"></a><a href="#Dominie" class="fnanchor">v</a>Dominie Van Shaick, the village parson, which had been brought over
+from Holland at the time of the settlement.</p>
+
+<p>What seemed particularly odd to Rip was that, though these folks were
+evidently amusing themselves, yet they maintained the gravest faces, the
+most mys<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[19]</a></span>terious silence, and were, withal, the most melancholy party of
+pleasure he had ever witnessed. Nothing interrupted the stillness of the
+scene but the noise of the balls, which, whenever they were rolled,
+echoed along the mountains like rumbling peals of thunder.</p>
+
+<p>As Rip and his companion approached them, they suddenly desisted from
+their play, and stared at him with such fixed, statue-like gaze, and
+such strange, uncouth countenances, that his heart turned within him,
+and his knees smote together. His companion now emptied the contents of
+the keg into large flagons, and made signs to him to wait upon the
+company. He obeyed with fear and trembling; they quaffed the liquor in
+profound silence, and then returned to their game.</p>
+
+<p>By degrees Rip&#8217;s awe and apprehension subsided. He even ventured, when
+no eye was fixed upon him, to taste the beverage, which he found had
+much of the flavor of excellent Hollands. He was naturally a thirsty
+soul, and was soon tempted to repeat the draught. One taste provoked
+another; and he repeated his visits to the flagon so often that at
+length his senses were overpowered, his eyes swam in his head, his head
+gradually declined, and he fell into a deep sleep.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sectionhead">II</p>
+
+<p>On waking he found himself on the green knoll whence he had first seen
+the old man of the glen. He rubbed his eyes&mdash;it was a bright, sunny
+morning. The<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[20]</a></span> birds were hopping and twittering among the bushes, and
+the eagle was wheeling aloft, and breasting the pure mountain breeze.
+&#8220;Surely,&#8221; thought Rip, &#8220;I have not slept here all night.&#8221; He recalled
+the occurrences before he fell asleep. The strange man with a keg of
+liquor&mdash;the mountain ravine&mdash;the wild retreat among the rocks&mdash;the
+woe-begone party at ninepins&mdash;the flagon&mdash;&#8220;Oh! that flagon! that wicked
+flagon!&#8221; thought Rip; &#8220;what excuse shall I make to Dame Van Winkle?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>He looked round for his gun, but in place of the clean, well-oiled
+fowling piece, he found an old firelock lying by him, the barrel
+incrusted with rust, the lock falling off, and the stock worm-eaten. He
+now suspected that the grave revelers of the mountain had put a trick
+upon him and, having dosed him with liquor, had robbed him of his gun.
+Wolf, too, had disappeared, but he might have strayed away after a
+squirrel or partridge. He whistled after him, and shouted his name, but
+all in vain; the echoes repeated his whistle and shout, but no dog was
+to be seen.</p>
+
+<p>He determined to revisit the scene of the last evening&#8217;s gambol, and if
+he met with any of the party, to demand his dog and gun. As he rose to
+walk, he found himself stiff in the joints, and wanting in his usual
+activity. &#8220;These mountain beds do not agree with me,&#8221; thought Rip, &#8220;and
+if this frolic should lay me up with a fit of the rheumatism, I shall
+have a blessed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[21]</a></span> time with Dame Van Winkle.&#8221; With some difficulty he got
+down into the glen; he found the gully up which he and his companion had
+ascended the preceding evening; but to his astonishment a mountain
+stream was now foaming down it, leaping from rock to rock, and filling
+the glen with babbling murmurs. He, however, made shift to scramble up
+its sides, working his toilsome way through thickets of birch,
+sassafras, and witch-hazel, and sometimes tripped up or entangled by the
+wild grapevines that twisted their coils from tree to tree, and spread a
+kind of network in his path.</p>
+
+<p>At length he reached to where the ravine had opened through the cliffs
+to the amphitheater; but no traces of such opening remained. The rocks
+presented a high, impenetrable wall, over which the torrent came
+tumbling in a sheet of feathery foam, and fell into a broad, deep basin,
+black from the shadows of the surrounding forest. Here, then, poor Rip
+was brought to a stand. He again called and whistled after his dog; he
+was only answered by the cawing of a flock of idle crows sporting high
+in air about a dry tree that overhung a sunny precipice; and who, secure
+in their elevation, seemed to look down and scoff at the poor man&#8217;s
+perplexities. What was to be done?&mdash;the morning was passing away, and
+Rip felt famished for want of his breakfast. He grieved to give up his
+dog and gun; he dreaded to meet his wife; but it would not do to starve<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[22]</a></span>
+among the mountains. He shook his head, shouldered the rusty firelock,
+and, with a heart full of trouble and anxiety, turned his steps
+homeward.</p>
+
+<p>As he approached the village he met a number of people, but none whom he
+knew, which somewhat surprised him, for he had thought himself
+acquainted with every one in the country round. Their dress, too, was of
+a different fashion from that to which he was accustomed. They all
+stared at him with equal marks of surprise, and whenever they cast their
+eyes upon him, invariably stroked their chins. The constant recurrence
+of this gesture induced Rip, involuntarily, to do the same, when, to his
+astonishment, he found his beard had grown a foot long!</p>
+
+<p>He had now entered the skirts of the village. A troop of strange
+children ran at his heels, hooting after him, and pointing at his gray
+beard. The dogs, too, not one of which he recognized for an old
+acquaintance, barked at him as he passed. The very village was altered;
+it was larger and more populous. There were rows of houses which he had
+never seen before, and those which had been his familiar haunts had
+disappeared. Strange names were over the doors&mdash;strange faces at the
+windows&mdash;everything was strange. His mind now misgave him; he began to
+doubt whether both he and the world around him were not bewitched.
+Surely this was his native village, which he had left but the day
+before. There stood the Catskill Moun<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[23]</a></span>tains&mdash;there ran the silver Hudson
+at a distance&mdash;there was every hill and dale precisely as it had always
+been. Rip was sorely perplexed. &#8220;That flagon last night,&#8221; thought he,
+&#8220;has addled my poor head sadly!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>It was with some difficulty that he found the way to his own house,
+which he approached with silent awe, expecting every moment to hear the
+shrill voice of Dame Van Winkle. He found the house gone to decay&mdash;the
+roof fallen in, the windows shattered, and the doors off the hinges. A
+half-starved dog that looked like Wolf was skulking about it. Rip called
+him by name, but the cur snarled, showed his teeth, and passed on. This
+was an unkind cut indeed. &#8220;My very dog,&#8221; sighed Rip, &#8220;has forgotten me!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>He entered the house, which, to tell the truth, Dame Van Winkle had
+always kept in neat order. It was empty, forlorn, and apparently
+abandoned. He called loudly for his wife and children&mdash;the lonely
+chambers rang for a moment with his voice, and then all again was
+silence.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sectionhead">III</p>
+
+<p>He now hurried forth, and hastened to his old resort, the village
+inn&mdash;but it, too, was gone. A large, rickety wooden building stood in
+its place, with great gaping windows, some of them broken and mended
+with old hats and petticoats, and over the door was painted, &#8220;The Union
+Hotel, by Jonathan Doolittle.&#8221; Instead of the great tree that used to
+shelter the quiet<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[24]</a></span> little Dutch inn of yore, there now was reared a
+tall, naked pole, with something on the top that looked like a red
+nightcap, and from it was fluttering a flag, on which was a singular
+assemblage of stars and stripes; all this was strange and
+incomprehensible. He recognized on the sign, however, the ruby face of
+King George, under which he had smoked so many a peaceful pipe; but even
+this was singularly changed. The red coat was changed for one of blue
+and buff, a sword was held in the hand instead of a scepter, the head
+was decorated with a cocked hat, and underneath was painted in large
+characters, <span class="smcap">General Washington</span>.</p>
+
+<p>There was, as usual, a crowd of folk about the door, but none that Rip
+recollected. The very character of the people seemed changed. There was
+a busy, bustling tone about it, instead of the accustomed drowsy
+tranquility. He looked in vain for the sage Nicholas Vedder, with his
+broad face, double chin, and long pipe, uttering clouds of tobacco smoke
+instead of idle speeches; or Van Bummel, the schoolmaster, doling forth
+the contents of an ancient newspaper. In place of these, a lean fellow,
+with his pockets full of handbills, was haranguing vehemently about
+rights of citizens&mdash;elections&mdash;members of congress&mdash;Bunker&#8217;s
+Hill&mdash;heroes of seventy-six&mdash;and other words, which were a perfect
+jargon to the bewildered Van Winkle.</p>
+
+<p>The appearance of Rip, with his long, grizzled beard, his rusty fowling
+piece, his uncouth dress, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[25]</a></span> an army of women and children at his
+heels, soon attracted the attention of the tavern politicians. They
+crowded round him, eyeing him from head to foot with great curiosity.
+The orator bustled up to him, and, drawing him partly aside, inquired
+&#8220;On which side he voted?&#8221; Rip stared in vacant stupidity. Another short
+but busy little fellow pulled him by the arm, and, rising on tiptoe,
+inquired in his ear, &#8220;Whether he was Federal or Democrat?&#8221; Rip was
+equally at a loss to comprehend the question; when a knowing,
+self-important old gentleman, in a sharp cocked hat, made his way
+through the crowd, putting them to the right and left with his elbows as
+he passed, and planting himself before Van Winkle, with one arm akimbo,
+the other resting on his cane, his keen eyes and sharp hat penetrating,
+as it were, into his very soul, demanded, in an austere tone, &#8220;What
+brought him to the election with a gun on his shoulder, and a mob at his
+heels; and whether he meant to breed a riot in the village?&#8221;&mdash;&#8220;Alas!
+gentlemen,&#8221; cried Rip, somewhat dismayed, &#8220;I am a poor, quiet man, a
+native of the place, and a loyal subject of the king, God bless him!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Here a general shout burst from the bystanders&mdash;&#8220;A tory! a tory! a spy!
+a refugee! hustle him! away with him!&#8221; It was with great difficulty that
+the self-important man in the cocked hat restored order; and having
+assumed a tenfold <a name="austerity_text" id="austerity_text"></a><a href="#austerity" class="fnanchor">v</a>austerity of brow, demanded again of the unknown
+culprit, what he came there for,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[26]</a></span> and whom he was seeking! The poor man
+humbly assured him that he meant no harm, but merely came there in
+search of some of his neighbors.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Well&mdash;who are they? Name them.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Rip bethought himself a moment, and inquired, &#8220;Where&#8217;s Nicholas Vedder?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>There was a silence for a little while, when an old man replied, in a
+thin, piping voice, &#8220;Nicholas Vedder! why, he is dead and gone these
+eighteen years! There was a wooden tombstone in the churchyard that used
+to tell all about him, but that&#8217;s rotten and gone, too.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Where&#8217;s Brom Dutcher?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Oh, he went off to the army in the beginning of the war; some say he
+was killed at the storming of Stony Point; others say he was drowned in
+a squall at the foot of Anthony&#8217;s Nose. I don&#8217;t know; he never came back
+again.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Where&#8217;s Van Brummel, the schoolmaster?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;He went off to the wars, too, was a great militia general, and is now
+in congress.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Rip&#8217;s heart died away at hearing of these sad changes in his home and
+friends and finding himself thus alone in the world. Every answer
+puzzled him, too, by treating of such enormous lapses of time, and of
+matters which he could not understand: war&mdash;congress&mdash;Stony Point. He
+had no courage to ask after any more friends, but cried out in despair,
+&#8220;Does nobody here know Rip Van Winkle?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[27]</a></span>&#8220;Oh, Rip Van Winkle!&#8221; exclaimed two or three, &#8220;oh, to be sure! that&#8217;s
+Rip Van Winkle yonder, leaning against the tree.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Rip looked, and beheld a precise counterpart of himself, as he went up
+the mountain&mdash;apparently as lazy and certainly as ragged. The poor
+fellow was now completely confounded. He doubted his own identity, and
+whether he was himself or another man. In the midst of his bewilderment,
+the man in the cocked hat demanded who he was, and what was his name.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;God knows,&#8221; exclaimed he, at his wits&#8217; end; &#8220;I&#8217;m not myself&mdash;I&#8217;m
+somebody else&mdash;that&#8217;s me yonder&mdash;no&mdash;that&#8217;s somebody else got into my
+shoes&mdash;I was myself last night, but I fell asleep on the mountain, and
+they&#8217;ve changed my gun, and everything&#8217;s changed, and I&#8217;m changed, and I
+can&#8217;t tell what&#8217;s my name, or who I am!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>The bystanders began now to look at each other, nod, wink significantly,
+and tap their fingers against their foreheads. There was a whisper,
+also, about securing the gun, and keeping the old fellow from doing
+mischief, at the very suggestion of which the self-important man in the
+cocked hat retired with some precipitation. At this critical moment a
+fresh, comely woman pressed through the throng to get a peep at the
+gray-bearded man. She had a chubby child in her arms, which, frightened
+at his looks, began to cry.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[28]</a></span> &#8220;Hush, Rip,&#8221; cried she, &#8220;hush, you little
+fool; the old man won&#8217;t hurt you.&#8221; The name of the child, the air of the
+mother, the tone of her voice, all awakened a train of recollections in
+his mind. &#8220;What is your name, my good woman?&#8221; asked he.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Judith Gardenier.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;And your father&#8217;s name?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Ah, poor man, Rip Van Winkle was his name, but it&#8217;s twenty years since
+he went away from home with his gun, and never has been heard of
+since&mdash;his dog came home without him; but whether he shot himself, or
+was carried away by the Indians, nobody can tell. I was then but a
+little girl.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Rip had but one question more to ask; but he put it with a faltering
+voice:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Where&#8217;s your mother?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Oh, she, too, had died but a short time since; she broke a blood-vessel
+in a fit of passion at a New England peddler.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>There was a drop of comfort, at least, in this intelligence. The honest
+man could contain himself no longer. He caught his daughter and her
+child in his arms. &#8220;I am your father!&#8221; cried he&mdash;&#8220;Young Rip Van Winkle
+once&mdash;Old Rip Van Winkle now! Does nobody know poor Rip Van Winkle?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>All stood amazed until an old woman, tottering out from among the crowd,
+put her hand to her brow, and peering under it in his face for a moment,
+exclaimed,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[29]</a></span> &#8220;Sure enough! it is Rip Van Winkle&mdash;it is himself! Welcome
+home again, old neighbor. Why, where have you been these twenty long
+years?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Rip&#8217;s story was soon told, for the whole twenty years had been to him
+but as one night. The neighbors stared when they heard it; some were
+seen to wink at each other, and put their tongues in their cheeks: and
+the self-important man in the cocked hat, who when the alarm was over
+had returned to the field, screwed down the corners of his mouth, and
+shook his head&mdash;upon which there was a general shaking of the head
+throughout the assemblage.</p>
+
+<p>It was determined, however, to take the opinion of old Peter Vanderdonk,
+who was seen slowly advancing up the road. He was a descendant of the
+historian of that name, who wrote one of the earliest accounts of the
+province. Peter was the most ancient inhabitant of the village, and well
+versed in all the wonderful events and traditions of the neighborhood.
+He recollected Rip at once, and corroborated his story in the most
+satisfactory manner. He assured the company that it was a fact, handed
+down from his ancestor the historian, that the Catskill Mountains had
+always been haunted by strange beings. It was affirmed that the great
+Hendrick Hudson, the first discoverer of the river and country, kept a
+kind of vigil there every twenty years, with his crew of the
+<i>Half-moon</i>; being permitted in this way to revisit the scenes of his
+enter<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[30]</a></span>prise, and keep a guardian eye upon the river and the great city
+called by his name. His father had once seen them in their old Dutch
+dresses playing at ninepins in a hollow of the mountain; and he himself
+had heard, one summer afternoon, the sound of their balls, like distant
+peals of thunder.</p>
+
+<p>To make a long story short, the company broke up and returned to the
+more important concerns of the election. Rip&#8217;s daughter took him home to
+live with her; she had a snug, well-furnished house, and a stout, cheery
+farmer for a husband, whom Rip recollected for one of the urchins that
+used to climb upon his back. As to Rip&#8217;s son and heir, who was the ditto
+of himself, seen leaning against the tree, he was employed to work on
+the farm; but showed an hereditary disposition to attend to anything
+else but his business.</p>
+
+<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Washington Irving</span>.</p>
+
+
+<p class="heading">HELPS TO STUDY</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Rip Van Winkle&#8221; is the most beautiful of American legendary stories.
+Washington Irving, the author, taking the old idea of long sleep, as
+found in &#8220;The Sleeping Beauty&#8221; and other fairy tales, gave it an
+American setting and interwove in it the legend of Henry Hudson, the
+discoverer of the Hudson river, who was supposed to return to the scene
+of his achievement every twenty years, together with the shades of his
+crew.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>I. Where is the scene of this story laid? In which paragraph do you
+learn when the incident related in the story took place? Why does
+Irving speak of the mountains as &#8220;fairy mountains&#8221;? In which
+<span class='pagenum' style="font-size: 100%;"><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[31]</a></span>paragraph do you meet the principal characters? Give the opinion
+you form of Rip and his wife. Read sentences that show Rip&#8217;s good
+qualities&mdash;those that show his faults. What unusual thing happened
+to Rip on his walk? How was the dog affected? Give a full account
+of what happened afterward. Tell what impressed you most in this
+scene. Read aloud the lines that best describe the scenery.</p>
+
+<p>II. Describe Rip&#8217;s waking. What was his worst fear? How did he
+explain to himself the change in his gun and the disappearance of
+Wolf? How did he account for the stiffness of his joints? What was
+still his chief fear? Describe the changes which had taken place in
+the mountains. With what feeling did he turn homeward? Why? How did
+he discover the alteration in his own appearance? How did the
+children and dogs treat him? Why was this particularly hard for Rip
+to understand? What other changes did he find? What remained
+unaltered? How did Rip still account for the peculiar happenings?
+Describe Rip&#8217;s feelings as he turned to his own house, and its
+desolation.</p>
+
+<p>III. What change had been made in the sign over the inn? Why? What
+important thing was taking place in the village? Why did the speech
+of the &#8220;lean fellow&#8221; seem &#8220;perfect jargon&#8221; to Rip? Why did he not
+understand the questions asked him? What happened when Rip made his
+innocent reply to the self-important gentleman? How did he at last
+learn of the lapse of time? What added to his bewilderment? How was
+the mystery explained? Note the question Rip reserved for the last
+and the effect the answer had upon him. How did Peter Vanderdonk
+explain the strange happening? What is the happy ending? Do you
+like Rip? Why?</p></div>
+
+
+<p class="heading">SUPPLEMENTARY READING</p>
+
+<ul class="supread">
+  <li>Urashima&mdash;Graded Classics III.</li>
+  <li>Vice Versa&mdash;F. Anstey.</li>
+  <li>Peter Pan&mdash;James Barrie.</li>
+  <li>The Legend of Sleepy Hollow&mdash;Washington Irving.</li>
+  <li>A Christmas Carol&mdash;Charles Dickens.</li>
+  <li>Enoch Arden&mdash;Alfred Tennyson.</li>
+</ul>
+
+
+<div class="footnotes">
+<p><a name="Footnote_A_1" id="Footnote_A_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_A_1"><span class="label">9-*</span></a> For words marked <span class="label">v</span>, see Dictionary.</p>
+</div>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[32]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 278px;">
+<a href="images/image05-full.jpg"><img src="images/image05.jpg" width="278" height="392" alt="The Great Stone Face" title="The Great Stone Face" /></a>
+<span class="caption">Photograph by Aldrich<br />
+<b>The Great Stone Face</b></span>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[33]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2 class="chapterhead"><a name="THE_GREAT_STONE_FACE" id="THE_GREAT_STONE_FACE"></a>THE GREAT STONE FACE</h2>
+
+
+<p class="sectionhead">I</p>
+
+<p>One afternoon when the sun was going down, a mother and her little boy
+sat at the door of their cottage, talking about the Great Stone Face.
+They had but to lift their eyes, and there it was plainly to be seen,
+though miles away, with the sunshine brightening all its features.</p>
+
+<p>And what was the Great Stone Face? The Great Stone Face was a work of
+Nature in her mood of majestic playfulness, formed on the perpendicular
+side of a mountain by some immense rocks, which had been thrown together
+in such a position as, when viewed at a proper distance, precisely to
+resemble the features of the human countenance. It seemed as if an
+enormous giant, or a <a name="Titan_text" id="Titan_text"></a><a href="#Titan" class="fnanchor">v</a>Titan, had sculptured his own likeness on the
+precipice. There was the broad arch of the forehead, a hundred feet in
+height; the nose, with its long bridge; and the vast lips, which, if
+they could have spoken, would have rolled their thunder accents from one
+end of the valley to the other.</p>
+
+<p>It was a happy lot for children to grow up to manhood or womanhood with
+the Great Stone Face before their eyes, for all the features were noble,
+and the expression was at once grand and sweet, as if it were the glow
+of a vast, warm heart that embraced all mankind in its affections, and
+had room for more.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[34]</a></span>As we began with saying, a mother and her little boy sat at their
+cottage door, gazing at the Great Stone Face, and talking about it. The
+child&#8217;s name was Ernest. &#8220;Mother,&#8221; said he, while the Titanic visage
+smiled on him, &#8220;I wish that it could speak, for it looks so very kindly
+that its voice must be pleasant. If I were to see a man with such a
+face, I should love him dearly.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;If an old prophecy should come to pass,&#8221; answered his mother, &#8220;we may
+see a man, some time or other, with exactly such a face as that.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;What prophecy do you mean, dear mother?&#8221; eagerly inquired Ernest. &#8220;Pray
+tell me all about it!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>So his mother told him a story that her own mother had told to her, when
+she herself was younger than little Ernest; a story, not of things that
+were past, but of what was yet to come; a story, nevertheless, so very
+old that even the Indians, who formerly inhabited this valley, had heard
+it from their forefathers, to whom, they believed, it had been murmured
+by the mountain streams, and whispered by the wind among the tree tops.
+The story said that at some future day a child should be born hereabouts
+who was destined to become the greatest and noblest man of his time, and
+whose countenance, in manhood, should bear an exact resemblance to the
+Great Stone Face.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;O mother, dear mother!&#8221; cried Ernest, clapping his hands above his
+head, &#8220;I do hope that I shall live<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[35]</a></span> to see him!&#8221; His mother was an
+affectionate and thoughtful woman, and felt that it was wisest not to
+discourage the hopes of her little boy. She only said to him, &#8220;Perhaps
+you may,&#8221; little thinking that the prophecy would one day come true.</p>
+
+<p>And Ernest never forgot the story that his mother told him. It was
+always in his mind whenever he looked upon the Great Stone Face. He
+spent his childhood in the log cottage where he was born, and was
+dutiful to his mother, and helpful to her in many things, assisting her
+much with his little hands, and more with his loving heart. In this
+manner, from a happy yet thoughtful child, he grew to be a mild, quiet,
+modest boy, sun-browned with labor in the fields, but with more
+intelligence in his face than is seen in many lads who have been taught
+at famous schools. Yet Ernest had had no teacher, save only that the
+Great Stone Face became one to him. When the toil of the day was over,
+he would gaze at it for hours, until he began to imagine that those vast
+features recognized him, and gave him a smile of kindness and
+encouragement in response to his own look of <a name="veneration_text" id="veneration_text"></a><a href="#veneration" class="fnanchor">v</a>veneration. We must not
+take upon us to affirm that this was a mistake, although the Face may
+have looked no more kindly at Ernest than at all the world besides. For
+the secret was that the boy&#8217;s tender simplicity <a name="discerned_text" id="discerned_text"></a><a href="#discerned" class="fnanchor">v</a>discerned what other
+people could not see; and thus the love, which was meant for all, became
+his alone.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[36]</a></span></p>
+
+<p class="sectionhead">II</p>
+
+<p>About this time, there went a rumor throughout the valley that the great
+man, foretold from ages long ago, who was to bear a resemblance to the
+Great Stone Face, had appeared at last. It seems that, many years
+before, a young man had left the valley and settled at a distant
+seaport, where, after getting together a little money, he had set up as
+a shopkeeper. His name&mdash;but I could never learn whether it was his real
+one, or a nickname that had grown out of his habits and success in
+life&mdash;was Gathergold.</p>
+
+<p>It might be said of him, as of <a name="Midas_text" id="Midas_text"></a><a href="#Midas" class="fnanchor">v</a>Midas in the fable, that whatever he
+touched with his finger immediately glistened, and grew yellow, and was
+changed at once into coin. And when Mr. Gathergold had become so rich
+that it would have taken him a hundred years only to count his wealth,
+he bethought himself of his native valley, and resolved to go back
+thither, and end his days where he was born. With this purpose in view,
+he sent a skillful architect to build him such a palace as should be fit
+for a man of his vast wealth to live in.</p>
+
+<p>As I have said above, it had already been rumored in the valley that Mr.
+Gathergold had turned out to be the person so long and vainly looked
+for, and that his visage was the perfect and undeniable likeness of the
+Great Stone Face. People were the more ready to believe that this must
+needs be the fact when they beheld the splendid edifice that rose, as if
+by enchantment, on<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[37]</a></span> the site of his father&#8217;s old weather-beaten
+farmhouse. The exterior was of marble, so dazzling white that it seemed
+as though the whole structure might melt away in the sunshine, like
+those humbler ones which Mr. Gathergold, in his young playdays, had been
+accustomed to build of snow. It had a richly ornamented portico,
+supported by tall pillars, beneath which was a lofty door, studded with
+silver knobs, and made of a kind of variegated wood that had been
+brought from beyond the sea. The windows, from the floor to the ceiling
+of each stately apartment, were each composed of but one enormous pane
+of glass. Hardly anybody had been permitted to see the interior of this
+palace; but it was reported to be far more gorgeous than the outside,
+insomuch that whatever was iron or brass in other houses was silver or
+gold in this; and Mr. Gathergold&#8217;s bedchamber, especially, made such a
+glittering appearance that no ordinary man would have been able to close
+his eyes there. But, on the other hand, Mr. Gathergold was now so
+accustomed to wealth that perhaps he could not have closed his eyes
+unless where the gleam of it was certain to find its way beneath his
+eyelids.</p>
+
+<p>In due time, the mansion was finished; next came the upholsterers, with
+magnificent furniture; then a whole troop of black and white servants,
+the harbingers of Mr. Gathergold, who, in his own majestic person, was
+expected to arrive at sunset. Our friend Ernest,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[38]</a></span> meanwhile, had been
+deeply stirred by the idea that the great man, the noble man, the man of
+prophecy, after so many ages of delay, was at length to appear in his
+native valley. He knew, boy as he was, that there were a thousand ways
+in which Mr. Gathergold, with his vast wealth, might transform himself
+into an angel of beneficence, and assume a control over human affairs as
+wide and <a name="benignant_text" id="benignant_text"></a><a href="#benignant" class="fnanchor">v</a>benignant as the smile of the Great Stone Face. Full of
+faith and hope, Ernest doubted not that what the people said was true,
+and that now he was to behold the living likeness of those wondrous
+features on the mountain side. While the boy was still gazing up the
+valley, and fancying, as he always did, that the Great Stone Face
+returned his gaze and looked kindly at him, the rumbling of wheels was
+heard, approaching swiftly along the winding road.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Here he comes!&#8221; cried a group of people who were assembled to witness
+the arrival. &#8220;Here comes the great Mr. Gathergold!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>A carriage, drawn by four horses, dashed round the turn of the road.
+Within it, thrust partly out of the window, appeared the face of a
+little old man, with a skin as yellow as gold. He had a low forehead,
+small, sharp eyes, puckered about with innumerable wrinkles, and very
+thin lips, which he made still thinner by pressing them forcibly
+together.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;The very image of the Great Stone Face!&#8221; shouted the people. &#8220;Sure
+enough, the old prophecy is true.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[39]</a></span>And, what greatly perplexed Ernest, they seemed actually to believe that
+here was the likeness which they spoke of. By the roadside there chanced
+to be an old beggar woman and two little beggar children, stragglers
+from some far-off region, who, as the carriage rolled onward, held out
+their hands and lifted up their doleful voices, most piteously
+beseeching charity. A yellow claw&mdash;the very same that had clawed
+together so much wealth&mdash;poked itself out of the coach window, and
+dropped some copper coins upon the ground; so that, though the great
+man&#8217;s name seems to have been Gathergold, he might just as suitably have
+been nicknamed Scattercopper. Still, nevertheless, with an earnest
+shout, and evidently with as much good faith as ever, the people
+bellowed:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;He is the very image of the Great Stone Face!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>But Ernest turned sadly from the wrinkled shrewdness of that visage and
+gazed up the valley, where, amid a gathering mist, gilded by the last
+sunbeams, he could still distinguish those glorious features which had
+impressed themselves into his soul. Their aspect cheered him. What did
+the benign lips seem to say?</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;He will come! Fear not, Ernest; the man will come!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>The years went on, and Ernest ceased to be a boy. He had grown to be a
+young man now. He attracted little notice from the other inhabitants of
+the valley, for they saw nothing remarkable in his way of life, save<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[40]</a></span>
+that, when the labor of the day was over, he still loved to go apart and
+gaze and meditate upon the Great Stone Face. According to their idea of
+the matter, however, it was a pardonable folly, for Ernest was
+industrious, kind, and neighborly, and neglected no duty for the sake of
+this idle habit. They knew not that the Great Stone Face had become a
+teacher to him, and that the sentiment which was expressed in it would
+enlarge the young man&#8217;s heart, and fill it with wider and deeper
+sympathies than other hearts. They knew not that thence would come a
+better wisdom than could be learned from books, and a better life than
+could be molded on the example of other human lives. Neither did Ernest
+know that the thoughts and affections which came to him so naturally, in
+the fields and at the fireside, were of a higher tone than those which
+all men shared with him. A simple soul,&mdash;simple as when his mother first
+taught him the old prophecy,&mdash;he beheld the marvelous features beaming
+down the valley, and still wondered that their human counterpart was so
+long in making his appearance.</p>
+
+<p>By this time poor Mr. Gathergold was dead and buried; and the oddest
+part of the matter was that his wealth, which was the body and spirit of
+his existence, had disappeared before his death, leaving nothing of him
+but a living skeleton, covered over with a wrinkled, yellow skin. Since
+the melting away of his gold, it had been very generally allowed that
+there was no such<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[41]</a></span> striking resemblance, after all, betwixt the ignoble
+features of the ruined merchant and that majestic face upon the mountain
+side. So the people ceased to honor him during his lifetime, and quietly
+forgot him after his decease. Once in a while, it is true, his memory
+was brought up in connection with the magnificent palace which he had
+built, and which had long ago been turned into a hotel for the
+accommodation of strangers, multitudes of whom came, every summer, to
+visit that famous natural curiosity, the Great Stone Face. The man of
+prophecy was yet to come.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sectionhead">III</p>
+
+<p>It so happened that a native-born son of the valley, many years before,
+had enlisted as a soldier, and, after a great deal of hard fighting, had
+now become an illustrious commander. Whatever he may be called in
+history, he was known in camps and on the battlefield under the nickname
+of Old Blood-and-Thunder. This war-worn veteran, being now weary of a
+military life, and of the roll of the drum and the clangor of the
+trumpet that had so long been ringing in his ears, had lately signified
+a purpose of returning to his native valley, hoping to find repose where
+he remembered to have left it. The inhabitants, his old neighbors and
+their grown-up children, were resolved to welcome the <a name="renowned_text" id="renowned_text"></a><a href="#renowned" class="fnanchor">v</a>renowned
+warrior with a salute of cannon and a public dinner; and all the more
+enthusiastically because it was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[42]</a></span> believed that at last the likeness of
+the Great Stone Face had actually appeared. A friend of Old
+Blood-and-Thunder, traveling through the valley, was said to have been
+struck with the resemblance. Moreover, the schoolmates and early
+acquaintances of the general were ready to testify, on oath, that, to
+the best of their recollection, the general had been exceedingly like
+the majestic image, even when a boy, only that the idea had never
+occurred to them at that period. Great, therefore, was the excitement
+throughout the valley; and many people, who had never once thought of
+glancing at the Great Stone Face for years before, now spent their time
+in gazing at it, for the sake of knowing exactly how General
+Blood-and-Thunder looked.</p>
+
+<p>On the day of the great festival, Ernest, and all the other people of
+the valley, left their work and proceeded to the spot where the banquet
+was prepared. As he approached, the loud voice of the Rev. Dr.
+Battleblast was heard, beseeching a blessing on the good things set
+before them, and on the distinguished friend of peace in whose honor
+they were assembled. The tables were arranged in a cleared space of the
+woods, shut in by the surrounding trees, except where a vista opened
+eastward, and afforded a distant view of the Great Stone Face. Over the
+general&#8217;s chair, which was a relic from the home of Washington, there
+was an arch of green boughs and laurel surmounted by his country&#8217;s
+banner, beneath which he had won his victories.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[43]</a></span> Our friend Ernest
+raised himself on his tiptoes, in hopes to get a glimpse of the
+celebrated guest; but there was a mighty crowd about the tables anxious
+to hear the toasts and speeches, and to catch any word that might fall
+from the general in reply; and a volunteer company, doing duty as a
+guard, pricked with their bayonets at any particularly quiet person
+among the throng. So Ernest, being of a modest character, was thrust
+quite into the background, where he could see no more of Old
+Blood-and-Thunder&#8217;s face than if it had been still blazing on the
+battlefield. To console himself he turned toward the Great Stone Face,
+which, like a faithful and long-remembered friend, looked back and
+smiled upon him through the forest. Meantime, however, he could overhear
+the remarks of various individuals who were comparing the features of
+the hero with the face on the distant mountain side.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;&#8217;Tis the same face, to a hair!&#8221; cried one man, cutting a caper for joy.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Wonderfully like, that&#8217;s a fact!&#8221; responded another.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Like! Why, I call it Old Blood-and-Thunder himself, in a monstrous
+looking-glass!&#8221; cried a third. &#8220;And why not? He&#8217;s the greatest man of
+this or any other age, beyond a doubt.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;The general! The general!&#8221; was now the cry. &#8220;Hush! Silence! Old
+Blood-and-Thunder&#8217;s going to make a speech.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[44]</a></span>Even so; for, the cloth being removed, the general&#8217;s health had been
+drunk amid shouts of applause, and he now stood upon his feet to thank
+the company. Ernest saw him. There he was, over the shoulders of the
+crowd, from the two glittering epaulets and embroidered collar upward,
+beneath the arch of green boughs with intertwined laurel, and the banner
+drooping as if to shade his brow! And there, too, visible in the same
+glance, appeared the Great Stone Face! And was there, indeed, such a
+resemblance as the crowd had testified? Alas, Ernest could not recognize
+it! He beheld a war-worn and weather-beaten countenance, full of energy,
+and expressive of an iron will; but the gentle wisdom, the deep, broad,
+tender sympathies were altogether wanting in Old Blood-and-Thunder&#8217;s
+visage.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;This is not the man of prophecy,&#8221; sighed Ernest to himself, as he made
+his way out of the throng. &#8220;And must the world wait longer yet?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>The mists had gathered about the distant mountain side, and there were
+seen the grand and awful features of the Great Stone Face, awful but
+benignant, as if a mighty angel were sitting among the hills and
+enrobing himself in a cloud vesture of gold and purple. As he looked,
+Ernest could hardly believe but that a smile beamed over the whole
+visage, with a radiance still brightening, although without motion of
+the lips. It was probably the effect of the western sunshine, melting
+the thin vapors that had swept between him and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[45]</a></span> the object that he had
+gazed at. But&mdash;as it always did&mdash;the aspect of his marvelous friend made
+Ernest as hopeful as if he had never hoped in vain.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Fear not, Ernest,&#8221; said his heart, even as if the Great Face were
+whispering him&mdash;&#8220;fear not, Ernest.&#8221;</p>
+
+
+<p class="sectionhead">IV</p>
+
+<p>More years sped swiftly and tranquilly away. Ernest still dwelt in his
+native valley, and was now a man of middle age. By slow degrees he had
+become known among the people. Now, as heretofore, he labored for his
+bread, and was the same simple-hearted man that he had always been. But
+he had thought and felt so much, he had given so many of the best hours
+of his life to unworldly hopes for some great good to mankind, that it
+seemed as though he had been talking with the angels, and had imbibed a
+portion of their wisdom unawares. It was visible in the calm beneficence
+of his daily life, the quiet stream of which had made a wide, green
+margin all along its course. Not a day passed by that the world was not
+the better because this man, humble as he was, had lived. He never
+stepped aside from his own path, yet would always reach a blessing to
+his neighbor. Almost involuntarily, too, he had become a preacher. The
+pure and high simplicity of his thought, which took shape in the good
+deeds that dropped silently from his hand, flowered also forth in
+speech. He uttered truths that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[46]</a></span> molded the lives of those who heard him.
+His hearers, it may be, never suspected that Ernest, their own neighbor
+and familiar friend, was more than an ordinary man; least of all did
+Ernest himself suspect it; but thoughts came out of his mouth that no
+other human lips had spoken.</p>
+
+<p>When the people&#8217;s minds had had a little time to cool, they were ready
+enough to acknowledge their mistake in imagining a similarity between
+General Blood-and-Thunder and the benign visage on the mountain side.
+But now, again, there were reports and many paragraphs in the
+newspapers, affirming that the likeness of the Great Stone Face had
+appeared upon the broad shoulders of a certain eminent <a name="statesman_text" id="statesman_text"></a><a href="#statesman" class="fnanchor">v</a>statesman. He,
+like Mr. Gathergold and Old Blood-and-Thunder, was a native of the
+valley, but had left it in his early days, and taken up the trades of
+law and politics. Instead of the rich man&#8217;s wealth and the warrior&#8217;s
+sword he had but a tongue, and it was mightier than both together. So
+wonderfully eloquent was he that, whatever he might choose to say, his
+hearers had no choice but to believe him; wrong looked like right, and
+right like wrong. His voice, indeed, was a magic instrument: sometimes
+it rumbled like the thunder; sometimes it warbled like the sweetest
+music. In good truth, he was a wondrous man; and when his tongue had
+acquired him all other imaginable success,&mdash;when it had been heard in
+halls of state and in the courts of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[47]</a></span> princes,&mdash;after it had made him
+known all over the world, even as a voice crying from shore to
+shore,&mdash;it finally persuaded his countrymen to select him for the
+presidency. Before this time,&mdash;indeed, as soon as he began to grow
+celebrated,&mdash;his admirers had found out the resemblance between him and
+the Great Stone Face; and so much were they struck by it that throughout
+the country this distinguished gentleman was known by the name of Old
+Stony Phiz.</p>
+
+<p>While his friends were doing their best to make him President, Old Stony
+Phiz, as he was called, set out on a visit to the valley where he was
+born. Of course he had no other object than to shake hands with his
+fellow-citizens, and neither thought nor cared about any effect which
+his progress through the country might have upon the election.
+Magnificent preparations were made to receive the <a name="illustrious_text" id="illustrious_text"></a><a href="#illustrious" class="fnanchor">v</a>illustrious
+statesmen; a cavalcade of horsemen set forth to meet him at the boundary
+line of the State, and all the people left their business and gathered
+along the wayside to see him pass. Among these was Ernest. Though more
+than once disappointed, as we have seen, he had such a hopeful and
+confiding nature that he was always ready to believe in whatever seemed
+beautiful and good. He kept his heart continually open, and thus was
+sure to catch the blessing from on high, when it should come. So now
+again, as buoyantly as ever, he went forth to behold the likeness of the
+Great Stone Face.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[48]</a></span>The cavalcade came prancing along the road, with a great clattering of
+hoofs and a mighty cloud of dust, which rose up so dense and high that
+the visage of the mountain side was completely hidden from Ernest&#8217;s
+eyes. All the great men of the neighborhood were there on horseback:
+militia officers, in uniform; the member of congress; the sheriff of the
+county; the editors of newspapers; and many a farmer, too, had mounted
+his patient steed, with his Sunday coat upon his back. It really was a
+very brilliant spectacle, especially as there were numerous banners
+flaunting over the cavalcade, on some of which were gorgeous portraits
+of the illustrious statesman and the Great Stone Face, smiling
+familiarly at one another, like two brothers. If the pictures were to be
+trusted, the resemblance, it must be confessed, was marvelous. We must
+not forget to mention that there was a band of music, which made the
+echoes of the mountains ring with the loud triumph of its strains, so
+that airy and soul-thrilling melodies broke out among all the heights
+and hollows, as if every nook of his native valley had found a voice to
+welcome the distinguished guest. But the grandest effect was when the
+far-off mountain precipice flung back the music; for then the Great
+Stone Face itself seemed to be swelling the triumphant chorus, in
+acknowledgment that, at length, the man of prophecy was come.</p>
+
+<p>All this while the people were throwing up their<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[49]</a></span> hats and shouting with
+such enthusiasm that the heart of Ernest kindled up, and he likewise
+threw up his hat and shouted as loudly as the loudest, &#8220;Huzza for the
+great man! Huzza for Old Stony Phiz!&#8221; But as yet he had not seen him.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Here he is now!&#8221; cried those who stood near Ernest. &#8220;There! There! Look
+at Old Stony Phiz and then at the Old Man of the Mountain, and see if
+they are not as like as two twin brothers!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>In the midst of all this gallant array came an open <a name="barouche_text" id="barouche_text"></a><a href="#barouche" class="fnanchor">v</a>barouche, drawn
+by four white horses; and in the barouche, with his massive head
+uncovered, sat the illustrious statesman, Old Stony Phiz himself.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Confess it,&#8221; said one of Ernest&#8217;s neighbors to him, &#8220;the Great Stone
+Face has met its match at last!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Now, it must be owned that, at his first glimpse of the countenance
+which was bowing and smiling from the barouche, Ernest did fancy that
+there was a resemblance between it and the old familiar face upon the
+mountain side. The brow, with its massive depth and loftiness, and all
+the other features, indeed, were bold and strong. But the grand
+expression of a divine sympathy that illuminated the mountain visage
+might here be sought in vain.</p>
+
+<p>Still Ernest&#8217;s neighbor was thrusting his elbow into his side, and
+pressing him for an answer.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Confess! Confess! Is not he the very picture of your Old Man of the
+Mountain?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[50]</a></span>&#8220;No!&#8221; said Ernest, bluntly; &#8220;I see little or no likeness.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Then so much the worse for the Great Stone Face!&#8221; answered his
+neighbor. And again he set up a shout for Old Stony Phiz.</p>
+
+<p>But Ernest turned away, melancholy, and almost despondent; for this was
+the saddest of his disappointments, to behold a man who might have
+fulfilled the prophecy, and had not willed to do so. Meantime, the
+cavalcade, the banners, the music, and the barouches swept past him,
+with the shouting crowd in the rear, leaving the dust to settle down,
+and the Great Stone Face to be revealed again, with the grandeur that it
+had worn for untold centuries.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Lo, here I am, Ernest!&#8221; the benign lips seemed to say. &#8220;I have waited
+longer than thou, and am not yet weary. Fear not; the man will come.&#8221;</p>
+
+
+<p class="sectionhead">V</p>
+
+<p>The years hurried onward, treading in their haste on one another&#8217;s
+heels. And now they began to bring white hairs and scatter them over the
+head of Ernest; they made wrinkles across his forehead and furrows in
+his cheeks. He was an aged man. But not in vain had he grown old; more
+than the white hairs on his head were the wise thoughts in his mind. And
+Ernest had ceased to be obscure. Unsought for, undesired, had come the
+fame which so many seek, and made him<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[51]</a></span> known in the great world, beyond
+the limits of the valley in which he had dwelt so quietly. College
+professors, and even the active men of cities, came from far to see and
+converse with Ernest; for the report had gone abroad that this simple
+farmer had ideas unlike those of other men, and a tranquil majesty as if
+he had been talking with the angels as his daily friends. Ernest
+received these visitors with the gentle sincerity that had marked him
+from boyhood, and spoke freely with them of whatever came uppermost, or
+lay deepest in his heart or their own. While they talked together his
+face would kindle and shine upon them, as with a mild evening light.
+When his guests took leave and went their way, and passing up the
+valley, paused to look at the Great Stone Face, they imagined that they
+had seen its likeness in a human countenance, but could not remember
+where.</p>
+
+<p>While Ernest had been growing up and growing old, a bountiful Providence
+had granted a new poet to this earth. He, likewise, was a native of the
+valley, but had spent the greater part of his life at a distance from
+that romantic region, pouring out his sweet music amid the bustle and
+din of cities. Often, however, did the mountains which had been familiar
+to him in his childhood lift their snowy peaks into the clear atmosphere
+of his poetry. Neither was the Great Stone Face forgotten, for he had
+celebrated it in a poem which was grand enough to have been uttered by
+its lips.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[52]</a></span>The songs of this poet found their way to Ernest. He read them after his
+customary toil, seated on the bench before his cottage door, where for
+such a length of time he had filled his repose with thought, by gazing
+at the Great Stone Face. And now, as he read stanzas that caused the
+soul to thrill within him, he lifted his eyes to the vast countenance
+beaming on him so benignantly.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;O majestic friend,&#8221; he said, addressing the Great Stone Face, &#8220;is not
+this man worthy to resemble thee?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>The Face seemed to smile, but answered not a word.</p>
+
+<p>Now it happened that the poet, though he dwelt so far away, had not only
+heard of Ernest, but had meditated much upon his character, until he
+deemed nothing so desirable as to meet this man whose untaught wisdom
+walked hand in hand with the noble simplicity of his life. One summer
+morning, therefore, he took passage by the railroad, and, in the decline
+of the afternoon, alighted from the cars at no great distance from
+Ernest&#8217;s cottage. The great hotel, which had formerly been the palace of
+Mr. Gathergold, was close at hand, but the poet, with his carpetbag on
+his arm, inquired at once where Ernest dwelt, and was resolved to be
+accepted as his guest.</p>
+
+<p>Approaching the door, he there found the good old man, holding a volume
+in his hand, which he read, and then, with a finger between the leaves,
+looked lovingly at the Great Stone Face.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[53]</a></span>&#8220;Good evening,&#8221; said the poet. &#8220;Can you give a traveler a night&#8217;s
+lodging?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Willingly,&#8221; answered Ernest. And then he added, smiling, &#8220;Methinks I
+never saw the Great Stone Face look so hospitably at a stranger.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>The poet sat down on the bench beside him, and he and Ernest talked
+together. Often had the poet conversed with the wittiest and the wisest,
+but never before with a man like Ernest, whose thoughts and feelings
+gushed up with such a natural freedom, and who made great truths so
+familiar by his simple utterance of them. Angels, as had been so often
+said, seemed to have wrought with him at his labor in the fields; angels
+seemed to have sat with him by the fireside. So thought the poet. And
+Ernest, on the other hand, was moved by the living images which the poet
+flung out of his mind, and which peopled all the air about the cottage
+door with shapes of beauty.</p>
+
+<p>As Ernest listened to the poet, he imagined that the Great Stone Face
+was bending forward to listen, too. He gazed earnestly into the poet&#8217;s
+glowing eyes.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Who are you, my strangely gifted guest!&#8221; he said.</p>
+
+<p>The poet laid his finger on the volume that Ernest had been reading.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You have read these poems,&#8221; said he. &#8220;You know me, then,&mdash;for I wrote
+them.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Again, and still more earnestly than before, Ernest examined the poet&#8217;s
+features; then turned toward the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[54]</a></span> Great Stone Face; then back to his
+guest. But his countenance fell; he shook his head, and mournfully
+sighed.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Wherefore are you sad?&#8221; inquired the poet.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Because,&#8221; replied Ernest, &#8220;all through life I have awaited the
+fulfillment of a prophecy; and when I read these poems, I hoped that it
+might be fulfilled in you.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You hoped,&#8221; answered the poet, faintly smiling, &#8220;to find in me the
+likeness of the Great Stone Face. And you are disappointed, as formerly
+with Mr. Gathergold, and Old Blood-and-Thunder, and Old Stony Phiz. Yes,
+Ernest, it is my doom. You must add my name to the illustrious three,
+and record another failure of your hopes. For&mdash;in shame and sadness do I
+speak it, Ernest&mdash;I am not worthy.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;And why?&#8221; asked Ernest. He pointed to the volume. &#8220;Are not those
+thoughts divine?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You can hear in them the far-off echo of a heavenly song,&#8221; replied the
+poet. &#8220;But my life, dear Ernest, has not corresponded with my thought. I
+have had grand dreams, but they have been only dreams, because I have
+lived&mdash;and that, too, by my own choice&mdash;among poor and mean realities.
+Sometimes even&mdash;shall I dare to say it?&mdash;I lack faith in the grandeur,
+the beauty, and the goodness which my own works are said to have made
+more evident in nature and in human life. Why, then, pure seeker of the
+good and true, shouldst thou hope to find me in yonder image of the
+divine?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[55]</a></span>The poet spoke sadly, and his eyes were dim with tears. So, likewise,
+were those of Ernest.</p>
+
+<p>At the hour of sunset, as had long been his frequent custom, Ernest was
+to speak to an assemblage of the neighboring inhabitants in the open
+air. He and the poet, arm in arm, still talking together as they went
+along, proceeded to the spot. It was a small nook among the hills, with
+a gray precipice behind, the stern front of which was relieved by the
+pleasant foliage of many creeping plants, that made a <a name="tapestry_text" id="tapestry_text"></a><a href="#tapestry" class="fnanchor">v</a>tapestry for
+the naked rock by hanging their festoons from all its rugged angles. At
+a small elevation above the ground, set in a rich framework of verdure,
+there appeared a <a name="niche_text" id="niche_text"></a><a href="#niche" class="fnanchor">v</a>niche, spacious enough to admit a human figure. Into
+this natural pulpit Ernest ascended and threw a look of familiar
+kindness around upon his audience. They stood, or sat, or reclined upon
+the grass, as seemed good to each, with the departing sunshine falling
+over them. In another direction was seen the Great Stone Face, with the
+same cheer, combined with the same solemnity, in its benignant aspect.</p>
+
+<p>Ernest began to speak, giving to the people of what was in his heart and
+mind. His words had power, because they accorded with his thoughts; and
+his thoughts had reality and depth, because they harmonized with the
+life which he had always lived. The poet, as he listened, felt that the
+being and character of Ernest were a nobler strain of poetry than he
+had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[56]</a></span> ever written. His eyes glistening with tears, he gazed
+reverentially at the venerable man, and said within himself that never
+was there an aspect so worthy of a prophet and a sage as that mild,
+sweet, thoughtful countenance with the glory of white hair diffused
+about it. At a distance, but distinctly to be seen, high up in the
+golden light of the setting sun, appeared the Great Stone Face, with
+hoary mists around it, like the white hairs around the brow of Ernest.</p>
+
+<p>At that moment, in sympathy with a thought which he was about to utter,
+the face of Ernest assumed a grandeur of expression, so full of
+benevolence, that the poet, by an irresistible impulse, threw his arms
+aloft, and shouted:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Behold! Behold! Ernest is himself the likeness of the Great Stone
+Face!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Then all the people looked and saw that what the deep-sighted poet said
+was true. The prophecy was fulfilled. The man had appeared at last.</p>
+
+<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Nathaniel Hawthorne.</span></p>
+
+
+<p class="heading">HELPS TO STUDY</p>
+
+<p>The Great Stone Face is a rock formation in the Franconia Notch of the
+White Mountains of New Hampshire, known as &#8220;The Old Man of the
+<a name="corr1" id="corr1"></a>Mountain.&#8221;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>I. What picture do you get from Part I? Tell in your own words what
+the mother told Ernest about the Great Stone Face. Who had carved
+the face? How? Find something that is one hundred feet high, and
+picture to yourself the immensity of the whole face, judging by the
+forehead alone. Describe Ernest&#8217;s childhood and his education.</p></div>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[57]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>II. What reason had the people for thinking that the great man had
+come in the person of Mr. Gathergold? Explain the reference to
+Midas. What was there in Mr. Gathergold&#8217;s appearance and action to
+disappoint Ernest? What comforted him? Why were the people willing
+to believe that Mr. Gathergold was the image of the Great Stone
+Face? What caused them to decide that he was not? What was there to
+indicate that Ernest would become a great and good man?</p>
+
+<p>III. What new character is now introduced? Wherein was Old
+Blood-and-Thunder lacking in resemblance to the Great Stone Face?
+Compare him with Mr. Gathergold and decide which was the greater
+character? How was Ernest comforted in his second disappointment?</p>
+
+<p>IV. What kind of man had Ernest become? What figure comes into the
+story now? Find a sentence that gives a clew to the character of
+Stony Phiz. Compare him with the characters previously introduced.
+Why was Ernest more disappointed than before? Where did he again
+look for comfort?</p>
+
+<p>V. What changes did the hurrying years bring Ernest? What sentence
+indicates who the man of prophecy might be? Who is now introduced
+in the story? Give the opinion that Ernest and the poet had of each
+other. Find the sentence which explains why the poet failed. Who
+was the first to recognize in Ernest the likeness to the Great
+Stone Face? Why did Hawthorne have a poet to make the discovery? In
+what way was Ernest great? How had he become so? What trait of
+Ernest&#8217;s character is shown in the last sentence?</p>
+
+<p>The story is divided into five parts. Make an outline telling what
+is the topic of each part.</p></div>
+
+
+<p class="heading">SUPPLEMENTARY READING</p>
+
+<ul class="supread">
+  <li>The Sketch Book&mdash;Washington Irving.</li>
+  <li>Old Curiosity Shop&mdash;Charles Dickens.</li>
+  <li>Pendennis&mdash;William Makepeace Thackeray.</li>
+  <li>The Snow-Image&mdash;Nathaniel Hawthorne.</li>
+  <li>The Legend Beautiful&mdash;Henry W. Longfellow.</li>
+  <li>William Wilson&mdash;Edgar Allan Poe.</li>
+</ul>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[58]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 291px;">
+<a href="images/image06-full.jpg"><img src="images/image06.jpg" width="291" height="400" alt="Priscilla and John Alden" title="Priscilla and John Alden" /></a>
+<span class="caption">Priscilla and John Alden</span>
+</div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[59]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2 class="chapterhead"><a name="THE_COURTSHIP_OF_MILES_STANDISH" id="THE_COURTSHIP_OF_MILES_STANDISH"></a>THE COURTSHIP OF MILES STANDISH</h2>
+
+
+<p class="sectionhead">I</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">In the Old Colony days, in Plymouth the land of the Pilgrims,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To and fro in a room of his simple and primitive dwelling,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Clad in <a name="doublet_text" id="doublet_text"></a><a href="#doublet" class="fnanchor">v</a>doublet and hose, and boots of <a name="Cordovan_text" id="Cordovan_text"></a><a href="#Cordovan" class="fnanchor">v</a>Cordovan leather,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Strode, with a martial air, Miles Standish the Puritan Captain.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Buried in thought he seemed, with hands behind him, and pausing<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Ever and anon to behold the glittering weapons of warfare,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Hanging in shining array along the walls of the chamber,&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Cutlass and corslet of steel, and his trusty <a name="sword_text" id="sword_text"></a><a href="#sword" class="fnanchor">v</a>sword of Damascus.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Short of stature he was, but strongly built and athletic,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Broad in the shoulders, deep-chested, with muscles and sinews of iron;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Brown as a nut was his face, but his russet beard was already<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Flaked with patches of snow, as hedges sometimes in November.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Near him was seated John Alden, his friend, and household companion,<br /></span>
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[60]</a></span><span class="i0">Writing with diligent speed at a table of pine by the window;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Fair-haired, azure-eyed, with delicate Saxon complexion.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Youngest of all was he of the men who came in the May Flower.<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">(Standish takes up a book and reads a moment.)<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Suddenly breaking the silence, the diligent scribe interrupting,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Spake, in the pride of his heart, Miles Standish the Captain of Plymouth.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">&#8220;Look at these arms,&#8221; he said, &#8220;the warlike weapons that hang here<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Burnished and bright and clean, as if for parade or inspection!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">This is the sword of Damascus I fought with in Flanders; this breastplate,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Well, I remember the day! once saved my life in a skirmish;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Here in front you can see the very dint of the bullet.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Had it not been of sheer steel, the forgotten bones of Miles Standish<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Would at this moment be mold, in the grave in the Flemish morasses.&#8221;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Thereupon answered John Alden, but looked not up from his writing:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">&#8220;Truly the breath of the Lord hath slackened the speed of the bullet;<br /></span>
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[61]</a></span><span class="i0">He in his mercy preserved you to be our shield and our weapon!&#8221;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Still the Captain continued, unheeding the words of the stripling:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">&#8220;See how bright they are burnished, as if in an arsenal hanging;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That is because I have done it myself, and not left it to others.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Serve yourself, would you be well served, is an excellent <a name="adage_text" id="adage_text"></a><a href="#adage" class="fnanchor">v</a>adage;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">So I take care of my arms, as you of your pens and your inkhorn.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Then, too, there are my soldiers, my great, invincible army,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Twelve men, all equipped, having each his rest and his matchlock,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Eighteen shillings a month, together with diet and pillage,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And, like Caesar, I know the name of each of my soldiers!&#8221;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">All was silent again; the Captain continued his reading.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Nothing was heard in the room but the hurrying pen of the stripling<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Writing epistles important to go next day by the May Flower,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Ready to sail on the morrow, or next day at latest, God willing,<br /></span>
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[62]</a></span><span class="i0">Homeward bound with the tidings of all that terrible winter,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Letters written by Alden and full of the name of Priscilla,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Full of the name and the fame of the Puritan maiden Priscilla.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Every sentence began or closed with the name of Priscilla,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Till the treacherous pen, to which he confided the secret<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Strove to betray it by singing and shouting the name of Priscilla!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Finally closing his book, with a bang of its <a name="ponderous_text" id="ponderous_text"></a><a href="#ponderous" class="fnanchor">v</a>ponderous cover,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Sudden and loud as the sound of a soldier grounding his musket,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Thus to the young man spake Miles Standish the Captain of Plymouth:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">&#8220;When you have finished your work, I have something important to tell you.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Be not however in haste; I can wait; I shall not be impatient!&#8221;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Straightway Alden replied, as he folded the last of his letters,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Pushing his papers aside, and giving respectful attention:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">&#8220;Speak; for whenever you speak, I am always ready to listen,<br /></span>
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[63]</a></span><span class="i0">Always ready to hear whatever pertains to Miles Standish.&#8221;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Thereupon answered the Captain, embarrassed, and culling his phrases:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">&#8220;&#8217;Tis not good for a man to be alone, say the Scriptures.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">This I have said before, and again and again I repeat it;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Every hour in the day, I think it, and feel it, and say it.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Since Rose Standish died, my life has been weary and dreary;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Sick at heart have I been, beyond the healing of friendship.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Oft in my lonely hours have I thought of the maiden Priscilla,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Patient, courageous, and strong, and said to myself, that if ever<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">There were angels on earth, as there are angels in heaven,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Two have I seen and known; and the angel whose name is Priscilla<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Holds in my desolate life the place which the other abandoned.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Long have I cherished the thought, but never have dared to reveal it,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Being a coward in this, though valiant enough for the most part.<br /></span>
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[64]</a></span><span class="i0">Go to the damsel Priscilla, the loveliest maiden of Plymouth;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Say that a blunt old captain, a man not of words but of actions,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Offers his hand and his heart, the hand and heart of a soldier.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Not in these words, you know, but this in short is my meaning;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I am a maker of war, and not a maker of phrases.&#8221;<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">When he had spoken, John Alden, the fair-haired, <a name="taciturn_text" id="taciturn_text"></a><a href="#taciturn" class="fnanchor">v</a>taciturn stripling,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">All aghast at his words, surprised, embarrassed, bewildered,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Trying to mask his dismay by treating the subject with lightness,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Trying to smile, and yet feeling his heart stand still in his bosom,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Thus made answer and spake, or rather stammered than answered:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">&#8220;Such a message as that, I am sure I should mangle and mar it;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">If you would have it well done&mdash;I am only repeating your maxim&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">You must do it yourself, you must not leave it to others!&#8221;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But with the air of a man whom nothing can turn from his purpose,<br /></span>
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[65]</a></span><span class="i0">Gravely shaking his head, made answer the Captain of Plymouth:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">&#8220;Truly the maxim is good, and I do not mean to gainsay it;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But we must use it discreetly, and not waste powder for nothing.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Now, as I said before, I was never a maker of phrases.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I can march up to a fortress and summon the place to surrender,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But march up to a woman with such a proposal, I dare not.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I&#8217;m not afraid of bullets, nor shot from the mouth of a cannon,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But of a thundering No! point-blank from the mouth of a woman,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That I confess I am afraid of, nor am I ashamed to confess it!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Surely you cannot refuse what I ask in the name of our friendship!&#8221;<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Then made answer John Alden: &#8220;The name of friendship is sacred;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">What you demand in that name, I have not the power to deny you!&#8221;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">So the strong will prevailed, subduing and molding the gentler,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Friendship prevailed over love, and Alden went on his errand.<br /></span>
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[66]</a></span></div></div>
+
+
+<p class="sectionhead">II</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">So the strong will prevailed, and Alden went on his errand,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Out of the street of the village, and into the paths of the forest,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Into the tranquil woods, where bluebirds and robins were building<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Towns in the populous trees, with hanging gardens of <a name="verdure_text" id="verdure_text"></a><a href="#verdure" class="fnanchor">v</a>verdure,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Peaceful, <a name="aerial_text" id="aerial_text"></a><a href="#aerial" class="fnanchor">v</a>aerial cities of joy and affection and freedom.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">All around him was calm, but within him commotion and conflict,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Love contending with friendship, and self with each generous impulse.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">So through the Plymouth woods John Alden went on his errand;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Saw the new-built house, and people at work in a meadow;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Heard, as he drew near the door, the musical voice of Priscilla<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Singing the hundredth Psalm, the grand old Puritan anthem,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Full of the breath of the Lord, consoling and comforting many.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Then, as he opened the door, he beheld the form of the maiden<br /></span>
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[67]</a></span><span class="i0">Seated beside her wheel, and the carded wool like a snow-drift<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Piled at her knee, her white hands feeding the ravenous spindle,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">While with her foot on the treadle she guided the wheel in its motion.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">So he entered the house; and the hum of the wheel and the singing<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Suddenly ceased; for Priscilla, aroused by his step on the threshold,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Rose as he entered, and gave him her hand, in signal of welcome,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Saying, &#8220;I knew it was you, when I heard your step in the passage;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For I was thinking of you, as I sat there singing and spinning.&#8221;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Awkward and dumb with delight, that a thought of him had been mingled<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Thus in the sacred psalm, that came from the heart of the maiden,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Silent before her he stood.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">&#8220;I have been thinking all day,&#8221; said gently the Puritan maiden,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">&#8220;Dreaming all night, and thinking all day, of the hedgerows of England,&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">They are in blossom now, and the country is all like a garden;<br /></span>
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[68]</a></span><span class="i0">Thinking of lanes and fields, and the song of the lark and the linnet,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Seeing the village street, and familiar faces of neighbors<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Going about as of old, and stopping to gossip together.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Kind are the people I live with, and dear to me my religion;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Still my heart is so sad that I wish myself back in Old England.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">You will say it is wrong, but I cannot help it; I almost<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Wish myself back in Old England, I feel so lonely and wretched.&#8221;<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Thereupon answered the youth: &#8220;Indeed I do not condemn you;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Stouter hearts than a woman&#8217;s have quailed in this terrible winter.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Yours is tender and trusting, and needs a stronger to lean on;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">So I have come to you now, with an offer and proffer of marriage<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Made by a good man and true, Miles Standish the Captain of Plymouth!&#8221;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Thus he delivered his message, the dexterous writer of letters,&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Did not <a name="embellish_text" id="embellish_text"></a><a href="#embellish" class="fnanchor">v</a>embellish the theme, nor array it in beautiful phrases,<br /></span>
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[69]</a></span><span class="i0">But came straight to the point and blurted it out like a schoolboy;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Even the Captain himself could hardly have said it more bluntly.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Mute with amazement and sorrow, Priscilla the Puritan maiden<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Looked into Alden&#8217;s face, her eyes dilated with wonder,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Feeling his words like a blow, that stunned and rendered her speechless;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Till at length she exclaimed, interrupting the ominous silence:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">&#8220;If the great Captain of Plymouth is so very eager to wed me,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Why does he not come himself and take trouble to woo me?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">If I am not worth the wooing, I surely am not worth the winning!&#8221;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Then John Alden began explaining and smoothing the matter,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Making it worse as he went, by saying the Captain was busy,&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Had no time for such things;&mdash;such things! the words grating harshly,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Fell on the ear of Priscilla; and swift as a flash she made answer:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">&#8220;Has he not time for such things, as you call it, before he is married,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Would he be likely to find it, or make it, after the wedding?&#8221;<br /></span>
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[70]</a></span><span class="i0">Still John Alden went on, unheeding the words of Priscilla,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Urging the suit of his friend, explaining, persuading, expanding.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But as he warmed and glowed, in his simple and eloquent language,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Quite forgetful of self, and full of the praise of his rival,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Archly the maiden smiled, and with eyes overrunning with laughter,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Said, in a tremulous voice, &#8220;Why don&#8217;t you speak for yourself, John?&#8221;<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p class="blockquot">With conflicting feelings of love for Priscilla and duty to his friend,
+Miles Standish, John Alden does not &#8220;speak for himself,&#8221; but returns to
+Plymouth to tell Standish the result of the interview.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Then John Alden spake, and related the wondrous adventure,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">From beginning to end, minutely, just as it happened;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">How he had seen Priscilla, and how he had sped in his courtship,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Only smoothing a little and softening down her refusal.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But when he came at length to the words Priscilla had spoken,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Words so tender and cruel: &#8220;Why don&#8217;t you speak for yourself, John?&#8221;<br /></span>
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[71]</a></span><span class="i0">Up leaped the Captain of Plymouth, and stamped on the floor, till his armor<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Clanged on the wall, where it hung, with a sound of sinister omen.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">All his pent-up wrath burst forth in a sudden explosion,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">E&#8217;en as a hand grenade, that scatters destruction around it.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Wildly he shouted and loud: &#8220;John Alden! you have betrayed me!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Me, Miles Standish, your friend! have supplanted, defrauded, betrayed me!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">You, who lived under my roof, whom I cherished and loved as a brother;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Henceforth let there be nothing between us save war, and implacable hatred!&#8221;<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">So spake the Captain of Plymouth, and strode about in the chamber,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Chafing and choking with rage; like cords were the veins on his temples.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But in the midst of his anger a man appeared at the doorway,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Bringing in uttermost haste a message of urgent importance,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Rumors of danger and war and hostile incursions of Indians!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Straightway the Captain paused, and, without further question or parley,<br /></span>
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[72]</a></span><span class="i0">Took from the nail on the wall his sword with its scabbard of iron,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Buckled the belt round his waist, and, frowning fiercely, departed.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Alden was left alone. He heard the clank of the scabbard<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Growing fainter and fainter, and dying away in the distance.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Then he arose from his seat, and looked forth into the darkness,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Felt the cool air blow on his cheek, that was hot with the insult,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Lifted his eyes to the heavens and, folding his hands as in childhood,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Prayed in the silence of night to the Father who seeth in secret.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+<p class="sectionhead">III.</p>
+
+<p class="blockquot">A report comes to the settlement that Miles Standish has been killed in
+a fight with the Indians. John Alden, feeling that Standish&#8217;s death has
+freed him from the need of keeping his own love for Priscilla silent,
+woos and wins her. At last the wedding-day arrives.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">This was the wedding-morn of Priscilla the Puritan maiden.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Friends were assembled together; the Elder and Magistrate also<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Graced the scene with their presence, and stood like the Law and the Gospel,<br /></span>
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[73]</a></span><span class="i0">One with the sanction of earth and one with the blessing of heaven.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Simple and brief was the wedding, as that of Ruth and of Boaz.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Softly the youth and the maiden repeated the words of betrothal,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Taking each other for husband and wife in the Magistrate&#8217;s presence,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">After the Puritan way, and the laudable custom of Holland.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Fervently then, and devoutly, the excellent Elder of Plymouth<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Prayed for the hearth and the home, that were founded that day in affection,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Speaking of life and death, and imploring Divine benedictions.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Lo! when the service was ended, a form appeared on the threshold,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Clad in armor of steel, a somber and sorrowful figure!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Why does the bridegroom start and stare at the strange apparition?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Why does the bride turn pale, and hide her face on his shoulder?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Is it a phantom of air,&mdash;a bodiless, spectral illusion?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Is it a ghost from the grave, that has come to forbid the betrothal?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Long had it stood there unseen, a guest uninvited, unwelcomed;<br /></span>
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[74]</a></span><span class="i0">Over its clouded eyes there had passed at times an expression<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Softening the gloom and revealing the warm heart hidden beneath them.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Once it had lifted its hand, and moved its lips, but was silent,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">As if an iron will had mastered the fleeting intention;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But when were ended the troth and the prayer and the last benediction,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Into the room it strode, and the people beheld with amazement<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Bodily there in his armor Miles Standish, the Captain of Plymouth!<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Grasping the bridegroom&#8217;s hand, he said with emotion, &#8220;Forgive me!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I have been angry and hurt,&mdash;too long have I cherished the feeling;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I have been cruel and hard, but now, thank God! it is ended.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Mine is the same hot blood that leaped in the veins of Hugh Standish,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Sensitive, swift to resent, but as swift in atoning for error.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Never so much as now was Miles Standish the friend of John Alden.&#8221;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Thereupon answered the bridegroom: &#8220;Let all be forgotten between us,&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[75]</a></span><span class="i0">All save the dear old friendship, and that shall grow older and dearer!&#8221;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Then the Captain advanced, and, bowing, saluted Priscilla,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Wishing her joy of her wedding, and loudly lauding her husband.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Then he said with a smile: &#8220;I should have remembered the adage,&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">If you would be well served, you must serve yourself; and, moreover,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">No man can gather cherries in Kent at the season of Christmas!&#8221;<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Great was the people&#8217;s amazement, and greater yet their rejoicing,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Thus to behold once more the sunburnt face of their Captain,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Whom they had mourned as dead; and they gathered and crowded about him,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Eager to see him and hear him, forgetful of bride and of bridegroom,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Questioning, answering, laughing, and each interrupting the other,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Till the good Captain declared, being quite overpowered and bewildered,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He had rather by far break into an Indian encampment,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Than come again to a wedding to which he had not been invited.<br /></span>
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[76]</a></span><span class="i0">Meanwhile the bridegroom went forth and stood with the bride at the doorway,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Breathing the perfumed air of that warm and beautiful morning.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Touched with autumnal tints, but lonely and sad in the sunshine,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Lay extended before them the land of toil and privation;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But to their eyes transfigured, it seemed as the Garden of Eden,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Filled with the presence of God, whose voice was the sound of the ocean.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Soon was their vision disturbed by the noise and stir of departure,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Friends coming forth from the house, and impatient of longer delaying.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Then from a stall near at hand, amid exclamations of wonder,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Alden the thoughtful, the careful, so happy, so proud of Priscilla,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Brought out his snow-white bull, obeying the hand of its master,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Led by a cord that was tied to an iron ring in its nostrils,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Covered with crimson cloth, and a cushion placed for a saddle.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">She should not walk, he said, through the dust and heat of the noonday;<br /></span>
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[77]</a></span><span class="i0">Nay, she should ride like a queen, not plod along like a peasant.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Somewhat alarmed at first, but reassured by the others,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Placing her hand on the cushion, her foot in the hand of her husband,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Gayly, with joyous laugh, Priscilla mounted her palfrey.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Onward the bridal procession now moved to the new habitation,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Happy husband and wife, and friends conversing together.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Down through the golden leaves the sun was pouring his splendors,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Gleaming on purple grapes, that, from branches above them suspended,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Mingled their odorous breath with the balm of the pine and the fir-tree,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Wild and sweet as the clusters that grew in the valley of <a name="Eshcol_text" id="Eshcol_text"></a><a href="#Eshcol" class="fnanchor">v</a>Eshcol.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Like a picture it seemed of the primitive, pastoral ages,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Fresh with the youth of the world, and recalling Rebecca and Isaac,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Old and yet ever new, and simple and beautiful always,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Love immortal and young in the endless succession of lovers,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">So through the Plymouth woods passed onward the bridal procession.<br /></span>
+<span class="i18 smcap">Henry W. Longfellow.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[78]</a></span></p>
+
+
+<p class="heading">HELPS TO STUDY</p>
+
+<p>Miles Standish was one of the early settlers of Plymouth colony. He came
+over soon after the landing of the <i>Mayflower</i> and was made captain of
+the colony because of his military experience. The feeble settlement was
+in danger from the Indians, and Standish&#8217;s services were of great
+importance. He was one of the leaders of Plymouth for a number of years.
+Longfellow shaped the legend of his courtship into one of the most
+beautiful poems of American literature, vividly describing the hardships
+and perils of the early life of New England.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>I. Where is the scene of the story laid? At what time did it begin?
+What is the first impression you get of Miles Standish? of John
+Alden? Read the lines that bring out the soldierly qualities of the
+one and the studious nature of the other. What lines show that
+Standish had fought on foreign soil? Read the lines that show John
+Alden&#8217;s interest in Priscilla. What request did Standish make of
+Alden? How was it received? Why did Alden accept the task?</p>
+
+<p>II. What time of the year was it? How do you know? Contrast Alden&#8217;s
+feelings with the scene around him. What were Priscilla&#8217;s feelings
+toward Alden? Quote lines that show this. How did he fulfill his
+task? With what question did Priscilla finally meet his eloquent
+appeal in behalf of his friend? How did Standish receive Alden&#8217;s
+report? What interruption occurred?</p>
+
+<p>III. What report brought about the marriage of John Alden and
+Priscilla? Read the lines that describe the beauty of their
+wedding-day. What time of year was it? How do you know? What custom
+was followed in the marriage ceremony? Look in the Bible for a
+description of the marriage of Ruth and Boaz. Find other biblical
+references in the poem. Who appeared at the end of the ceremony?
+How was he received? Contrast his mood now with the mood when he
+left to fight the Indians. What adage did he use to show the
+difference between his age and Priscilla&#8217;s? Describe the final
+scene of the wedding&mdash;the procession to the new home. Tell what you
+know of early life in Massachusetts.</p></div>
+
+
+<p class="heading">SUPPLEMENTARY READING</p>
+
+<ul class="supread">
+  <li>Gareth and Lynette&mdash;Alfred Tennyson.</li>
+  <li>The Courtin&#8217;&mdash;James Russell Lowell.</li>
+  <li>Evangeline&mdash;Henry W. Longfellow.</li>
+</ul>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[79]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2 class="chapterhead"><a name="THE_FRIENDSHIP_OF_NANTAQUAS" id="THE_FRIENDSHIP_OF_NANTAQUAS"></a>THE FRIENDSHIP OF NANTAQUAS</h2>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>This story is taken from Mary Johnston&#8217;s novel, <i>To Have and to
+Hold</i>, which describes the early settlement of Virginia. The most
+important event of this period was the Indian massacre of 1622. For
+some years the whites and Indians had lived in peace, and it was
+believed that there would be no further trouble from the savages.
+However, Opechancanough, the head chief of the Powhatan
+confederacy, formed a plot against the white men and suddenly
+attacked them with great fury. Hundreds of the English settlers
+were slain. The author of the novel, taking the bare outline of the
+massacre as given in the early histories, has woven around it the
+graphic story of Captain Ralph Percy and his saving of the colony.
+Percy, unlike Miles Standish, is not a historical character.</p></div>
+
+
+<p class="sectionhead">I.</p>
+
+<p>A man who hath been a soldier and adventurer into far and strange
+countries must needs have faced Death many times and in many guises. I
+had learned to know that grim countenance, and to have no great fear of
+it. The surprise of our sudden capture by the Indians had now worn away,
+and I no longer struggled to loose my bonds, Indian-tied and not to be
+loosened.</p>
+
+<p>Another slow hour and I bethought me of Diccon, my servant and companion
+in captivity, and spoke to him, asking him how he did. He answered from
+the other side of the lodge that was our prison, but the words were
+scarcely out of his mouth before our guard broke in upon us, commanding
+silence.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[80]</a></span>It was now moonlight without the lodge and very quiet. The night was far
+gone; already we could smell the morning, and it would come apace.
+Knowing the swiftness of that approach and what the early light would
+bring, I strove for a courage which should be the steadfastness of the
+Christian and not the vainglorious pride of the heathen.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly, in the first gray dawn, as at a trumpet&#8217;s call, the village
+awoke. From the long communal houses poured forth men, women, and
+children; fires sprang up, dispersing the mist, and a commotion arose
+through the length and breadth of the place. The women made haste with
+their cooking and bore maize cakes and broiled fish to the warriors, who
+sat on the ground in front of the royal lodge. Diccon and I were loosed,
+brought without, and allotted our share of the food. We ate sitting side
+by side with our captors, and Diccon, with a great cut across his head,
+even made merry.</p>
+
+<p>In the usual order of things in an Indian village, the meal over,
+tobacco should have followed. But now not a pipe was lit, and the women
+made haste to take away the platters and to get all things in readiness
+for what was to follow. The <a name="werowance_text" id="werowance_text"></a><a href="#werowance" class="fnanchor">v</a>werowance of the <a name="Paspaheghs_text" id="Paspaheghs_text"></a><a href="#Paspaheghs" class="fnanchor">v</a>Paspaheghs rose to
+his feet, cast aside his mantle, and began to speak. He was a man in the
+prime of life, of a great figure, strong as a <a name="Susquehannock_text" id="Susquehannock_text"></a><a href="#Susquehannock" class="fnanchor">v</a>Susquehannock, and a
+savage cruel and crafty beyond measure. Over his breast, stained<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[81]</a></span> with
+strange figures, hung a chain of small bones, and the scalp locks of his
+enemies fringed his moccasins. No player could be more skillful in
+gesture and expression, no poet more nice in the choice of words, no
+general more quick to raise a wild enthusiasm in the soldiers to whom he
+called. All Indians are eloquent, but this savage was a leader among
+them.</p>
+
+<p>He spoke now to some effect. Commencing with a day in the moon of
+blossoms when for the first time winged canoes brought white men into
+the <a name="Powhatan_text" id="Powhatan_text"></a><a href="#Powhatan" class="fnanchor">v</a>Powhatan, he came down through year after year to the present
+hour, ceased, and stood in silence, regarding his triumph. It was
+complete. In its wild excitement the village was ready then and there to
+make an end of us, who had sprung to our feet and stood with our backs
+against a great bay tree, facing the maddened throng. Much the best
+would it be for us if the tomahawks left the hands that were drawn back
+to throw, if the knives that were flourished in our faces should be
+buried to the haft in our hearts; and so we courted death, striving with
+word and look to infuriate our executioners to the point of forgetting
+their former purpose in the passion for instant vengeance. It was not to
+be. The werowance spoke again, pointing to the hills which were dimly
+seen through the mist. A moment, and the hands clenched upon the weapons
+fell; another, and we were upon the march.</p>
+
+<p>As one man, the village swept through the forest to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[82]</a></span>ward the rising
+ground that was but a few bowshots away. The young men bounded ahead to
+make the preparation; but the approved warriors and the old men went
+more sedately, and with them walked Diccon and I, as steady of step as
+they. The women and children for the most part brought up the rear,
+though a few impatient hags ran past us. One of these women bore a great
+burning torch, the flame and smoke streaming over her shoulder as she
+ran. Others carried pieces of bark heaped with the <a name="sliver_text" id="sliver_text"></a><a href="#sliver" class="fnanchor">v</a>slivers of pine of
+which every wigwam has store.</p>
+
+<p>The sun was yet to rise when we reached a hollow amongst the low red
+hills. The place was a natural amphitheater, well fitted for a
+spectacle. Those Indians who could not crowd into the narrow level
+spread themselves over the rising ground and looked down with fierce
+laughter upon the driving of the stakes which the young men had brought.
+The women and children scattered into the woods beyond the cleft between
+the hills and returned bearing great armfuls of dry branches. Taunting
+laughter, cries of savage triumph, the shaking of rattles, and the
+furious beating of two great drums combined to make a clamor deafening
+me to stupor. Above the horizon was the angry reddening of the heavens
+and the white mist curling up like smoke.</p>
+
+<p>I sat down beside Diccon on the log. I did not speak to him, nor he to
+me; there seemed no need of speech.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[83]</a></span> In the <a name="pandemonium_text" id="pandemonium_text"></a><a href="#pandemonium" class="fnanchor">v</a>pandemonium to which the
+world had narrowed, the one familiar, matter-of-course thing was that he
+and I were to die together.</p>
+
+<p>The stakes were in the ground and painted red, the wood was properly
+fixed. The Indian woman who held the torch that was to light the pile
+ran past us, whirling the wood around her head to make it blaze more
+fiercely. As she went by she lowered the brand and slowly dragged it
+across my wrists. The beating of the drums suddenly ceased, and the loud
+voices died away.</p>
+
+<p>Seeing that they were coming for us, Diccon and I rose to await them.
+When they were nearly upon us, I turned to him and held out my hand.</p>
+
+<p>He made no motion to take it. Instead, he stood with fixed eyes looking
+past me and slightly upward. A sudden pallor had overspread the bronze
+of his face.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;There&#8217;s a verse somewhere,&#8221; he said in a quiet voice,&mdash;&#8220;it&#8217;s in the
+Bible, I think&mdash;I heard it once long ago: &#8216;I will look unto the hills
+from whence cometh my help.&#8217; Look, sir!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>I turned and followed with my eyes the pointing of his finger. In front
+of us the bank rose steeply, bare to the summit,&mdash;no trees, only the red
+earth, with here and there a low growth of leafless bushes. Behind it
+was the eastern sky. Upon the crest, against the sunrise, stood the
+figure of a man&mdash;an Indian. From one shoulder hung an otterskin, and a
+great bow was in his hand. His limbs were bare, and as he stood
+motionless,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[84]</a></span> bathed in the rosy light, he looked like some bronze god,
+perfect from the beaded moccasins to the calm, uneager face below the
+feathered head-dress. He had but just risen above the brow of the hill;
+the Indians in the hollow saw him not.</p>
+
+<p>While Diccon and I stared, our tormentors were upon us. They came a
+dozen or more at once, and we had no weapons. Two hung on my arms, while
+a third laid hold of my doublet to rend it from me. An arrow whistled
+over our heads and stuck into a tree behind us. The hands that clutched
+me dropped, and with a yell the busy throng turned their faces in the
+direction whence had come the arrow.</p>
+
+<p>The Indian who had sent that dart before him was descending the bank. An
+instant&#8217;s breathless hush while they stared at the solitary figure; then
+the dark forms bent forward for the rush straightened, and there arose a
+cry of recognition. &#8220;The son of Powhatan! The son of Powhatan!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>He came down the hillside to the level of the hollow, the authority of
+his look and gesture making way for him through the crowd that surged
+this way and that, and walked up to us where we stood, hemmed round but
+no longer in the clutch of our enemies.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You were never more welcome, Nantaquas,&#8221; I said to him, heartily.</p>
+
+<p>Taking my hand in his, the chief turned to his frowning countrymen. &#8220;Men
+of the <a name="Pamunkeys_text" id="Pamunkeys_text"></a><a href="#Pamunkeys" class="fnanchor">v</a>Pamunkeys!&#8221; he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[85]</a></span> cried, &#8220;this is Nantaquas&#8217; friend, and so the
+friend of all the tribes that called Powhatan &#8216;father.&#8217; The fire is not
+for him nor for his servant; keep it for the <a name="Monacans_text" id="Monacans_text"></a><a href="#Monacans" class="fnanchor">v</a>Monacans and for the
+dogs of the <a name="Long_text" id="Long_text"></a><a href="#Long" class="fnanchor">v</a>Long House! The calumet is for the friend of Nantaquas,
+and the dance of the maidens, the noblest buck and the best of the
+fish-weirs.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>There was a surging forward of the Indians and a fierce murmur of
+dissent. The werowance, standing out from the throng, lifted his voice.
+&#8220;There was a time,&#8221; he cried, &#8220;when Nantaquas was the panther crouched
+upon the bough above the leader of the herd; now Nantaquas is a tame
+panther and rolls at the white men&#8217;s feet! There was a time when the
+word of the son of Powhatan weighed more than the lives of many dogs
+such as these, but I know not why we should put out the fire at his
+command! He is war chief no longer, for <a name="Opechancanough_text" id="Opechancanough_text"></a><a href="#Opechancanough" class="fnanchor">v</a>Opechancanough will have no
+tame panther to lead the tribes. Opechancanough is our head, and he
+kindleth a fire indeed. We will give to this man what fuel we choose,
+and to-night Nantaquas may look for his bones!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>He ended, and a great clamor arose. The Paspaheghs would have cast
+themselves upon us again but for a sudden action of the young chief, who
+had stood motionless, with raised hand and unmoved face, during the
+werowance&#8217;s bitter speech. Now he flung up his hand, and in it was a
+bracelet of gold, carved and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[86]</a></span> twisted like a coiled snake and set with a
+green stone. I had never seen the toy before, but evidently others had.
+The excited voices fell, and the Indians, Pamunkeys and Paspaheghs
+alike, stood as though turned to stone.</p>
+
+<p>Nantaquas smiled coldly. &#8220;This day hath Opechancanough made me war chief
+again. We have smoked the peace pipe together&mdash;my father&#8217;s brother and
+I&mdash;in the starlight, sitting before his lodge, with the wide marshes and
+the river dark at our feet. Singing birds in the forest have been many;
+evil tales have they told; Opechancanough has stopped his ears against
+their false singing. My friends are his friends, my brother is his
+brother, my word is his word: witness the armlet that hath no like.
+Opechancanough is at hand; he comes through the forest with his two
+hundred warriors. Will you, when you lie at his feet, have him ask you,
+&#8216;Where is the friend of my friend, of my war chief?&#8217;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>There came a long, deep breath from the Indians, then a silence in which
+they fell back, slowly and sullenly&mdash;whipped hounds but with the will to
+break that leash of fear.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Hark!&#8221; said Nantaquas, smiling. &#8220;I hear Opechancanough and his warriors
+coming over the leaves.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>The noise of many footsteps was indeed audible, coming toward the hollow
+from the woods beyond. With a burst of cries, the priests and the
+conjurer<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[87]</a></span> whirled away to bear the welcome of Okee to the royal
+worshipper, and at their heels went the chief men of the Pamunkeys. The
+werowance of the Paspaheghs was one that sailed with the wind; he
+listened to the deepening sound and glanced at the son of Powhatan where
+he stood, calm and confident, then smoothed his own countenance and made
+a most pacific speech, in which all the blame of the late proceedings
+was laid upon the singing birds. When he had done speaking, the young
+men tore the stakes from the earth and threw them into a thicket, while
+the women plucked apart the newly kindled fire and flung the brands into
+a little nearby stream, where they went out in a cloud of hissing steam.</p>
+
+<p>I turned to the Indian who had wrought this miracle. &#8220;Art sure it is not
+a dream, Nantaquas? I think that Opechancanough would not lift a finger
+to save me from all the deaths the tribes could invent.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Opechancanough is very wise,&#8221; he answered quietly. &#8220;He says that now
+the English will believe in his love indeed when they see that he holds
+dear even one who might be called his enemy, who hath spoken against him
+at the Englishmen&#8217;s council fire. He says that for five suns Captain
+Percy shall feast with him, and then shall go back free to Jamestown. He
+thinks that then Captain Percy will not speak against him any more,
+calling his love to the white men only words with no good deeds
+behind.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[88]</a></span>He spoke simply, out of the nobility of his nature, believing his own
+speech. I that was older, and had more knowledge of men and the masks
+they wear, was but half deceived. My belief in the hatred of the dark
+emperor was not shaken, and I looked yet to find the drop of poison
+within this honey flower. How poisoned was that bloom, God knows I could
+not guess!</p>
+
+<p>By this time we three were alone in the hollow, for all the savages, men
+and women, had gone forth to meet the Indian whose word was law from the
+falls of the far west to the Chesapeake. The sun now rode above the low
+hills, pouring its gold into the hollow and brightening all the world
+besides. A chant raised by the Indians grew nearer, and the rustling of
+the leaves beneath many feet more loud and deep; then all noise ceased
+and Opechancanough entered the hollow alone. An eagle feather was thrust
+through his scalp lock; over his naked breast, which was neither painted
+nor pricked into strange figures, hung a triple row of pearls; his
+mantle was woven of bluebird feathers, as soft and sleek as satin. The
+face of this barbarian was as dark, cold, and impassive as death. Behind
+that changeless mask, as in a safe retreat, the subtle devil that was
+the man might plot destruction and plan the laying of dreadful mines.</p>
+
+<p>I stepped forward and met him on the spot where the fire had been. For a
+minute neither spoke. It was true that I had striven against him many a
+time, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[89]</a></span> I knew that he knew it. It was also true that without his aid
+Nantaquas could not have rescued us from that dire peril. And it was
+again the truth that an Indian neither forgives nor forgets. He was my
+saviour, and I knew that mercy had been shown for some dark reason which
+I could not divine. Yet I owed him thanks and gave them as shortly and
+simply as I could.</p>
+
+<p>He heard me out with neither liking nor disliking nor any other emotion
+written upon his face; but when I had finished, as though he had
+suddenly bethought himself, he smiled and held out his hand, white-man
+fashion.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Singing birds have lied to Captain Percy,&#8221; he said. &#8220;Opechancanough
+thinks that Captain Percy will never listen to them again. The chief of
+the Powhatans is a lover of the white men, of the English, and of other
+white men. He would call the Englishmen his brothers and be taught of
+them how to rule and to whom to pray&#8221;&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Let Opechancanough go with me to Jamestown,&#8221; I replied. &#8220;He hath the
+wisdom of the woods; let him come and gain that of the town.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>The emperor smiled again. &#8220;I will come to Jamestown soon, but not to-day
+or to-morrow or the next day. And Captain Percy must smoke the peace
+pipe in my lodge above the Pamunkey and watch my young men and maidens
+dance, and eat with me five days. Then he may go back to Jamestown with
+presents for the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[90]</a></span> great white father there and with a message from me
+that I am coming soon to learn of the white man.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>For five days I tarried in the great chief&#8217;s lodge in his own village
+above the marshes of the Pamunkey. I will allow that the dark emperor to
+whom we were so much beholden gave us courteous keeping. The best of the
+hunt was ours, the noblest fish, the most delicate roots. We were alive
+and sound of limb, well treated and with the promise of release; we
+might have waited, seeing that wait we must, in some measure of content.
+We did not so. There was a horror in the air. From the marshes that were
+growing green, from the sluggish river, from the rotting leaves and cold
+black earth and naked forest, it rose like an <a name="exhalation_text" id="exhalation_text"></a><a href="#exhalation" class="fnanchor">v</a>exhalation. We knew not
+what it was, but we breathed it in, and it went to the marrow of our
+bones.</p>
+
+<p>The savage emperor we rarely saw, though we were bestowed so near to him
+that his sentinels served for ours. Like some god, he kept within his
+lodge, the hanging mats between him and the world without. At other
+times, issuing from that retirement, he would stride away into the
+forest. Picked men went with him, and they were gone for hours; but when
+they returned they bore no trophies, brute or human. What they did we
+could not guess. If escape had been possible, we would not have awaited
+the doubtful fulfillment of the promise made us. But the vigilance of
+the Indians never slept; they watched us like hawks, night and day.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[91]</a></span>In the early morning of the fifth day, when we came from our wigwam, it
+was to find Nantaquas sitting by the fire, magnificent in the paint and
+trappings of the ambassador, motionless as a piece of bronze and
+apparently quite unmindful of the admiring glances of the women who
+knelt about the fire preparing our breakfast. When he saw us he rose and
+came to meet us, and I embraced him, I was so glad to see him.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;The Rappahannocks feasted me long,&#8221; he said. &#8220;I was afraid that Captain
+Percy would be gone to Jamestown before I was back on the Pamunkey.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Shall I ever see Jamestown again, Nantaquas?&#8221; I demanded. &#8220;I have my
+doubts.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>He looked me full in the eyes, and there was no doubting the candor of
+his own. &#8220;You go with the next sunrise,&#8221; he answered. &#8220;Opechancanough
+has given me his word.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I am glad to hear it,&#8221; I said. &#8220;Why have we been kept at all? Why did
+he not free us five days agone?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>He shook his head. &#8220;I do not know. Opechancanough has many thoughts
+which he shares with no man. But now he will send you with presents for
+the governor, and with messages of his love for the white men. There
+will be a great feast to-day, and to-night the young men and maidens
+will dance before you. Then in the morning you will go.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>When we had sat by the fire for an hour, the old men and the warriors
+came to visit us, and the smoking<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[92]</a></span> began. The women laid mats in a great
+half circle, and each savage took his seat with perfect breeding: that
+is, in absolute silence and with a face like a stone. The peace paint
+was upon them all&mdash;red, or red and white&mdash;and they sat and looked at the
+ground until I had made the speech of welcome. Soon the air was dense
+with fragrant smoke; in the thick blue haze the sweep of painted figures
+had the seeming of some fantastic dream. An old man arose and made a
+long and touching speech, with much reference to calumets and buried
+hatchets. Then they waited for my contribution of honeyed words. The
+Pamunkeys, living at a distance from the settlements, had but little
+English, and the learning of the Paspaheghs was not much greater. I
+repeated to them the better part of a canto of Master Spenser&#8217;s <i>Faery
+Queen</i>, after which I told them the moving story of the Moor of Venice.
+It answered the purpose to admiration.</p>
+
+<p>The day wore on, with relay after relay of food, which we must taste at
+least, with endless smoking of pipes and speeches which must be listened
+to and answered. When evening came and our entertainers drew off to
+prepare for the dance, they left us as wearied as by a long day&#8217;s march.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly, as we sat staring at the fire, we were beset by a band of
+maidens, coming out of the woods, painted, with antlers upon their heads
+and pine branches in their hands. They danced about us, now advancing<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[93]</a></span>
+until the green needles met above our heads, now retreating until there
+was a space of turf between us. They moved with grace, keeping time to a
+plaintive song, now raised by the whole choir, now fallen to a single
+voice.</p>
+
+<p>The Indian girls danced more and more swiftly, and their song changed,
+becoming gay and shrill and sweet. Higher and higher rang the notes,
+faster and faster moved the dark feet; then quite suddenly song and
+motion ceased together. From the darkness now came a burst of savage
+cries only less appalling than the war whoop itself. In a moment the men
+of the village had rushed from the shadow of the trees into the broad,
+firelit space before us. They circled around us, then around the fire;
+now each man danced and stamped and muttered to himself. For the most
+part they were painted red, but some were white from head to
+heel&mdash;statues come to life&mdash;while others had first oiled their bodies,
+then plastered them over with small, bright-colored feathers.</p>
+
+<p>Diccon and I watched that uncouth spectacle, that Virginian <a name="masque_text" id="masque_text"></a><a href="#masque" class="fnanchor">v</a>masque,
+as we had watched many another one, with disgust and weariness. It would
+last, we knew, for the better part of the night. For a time we must stay
+and testify our pleasure, but after a while we might retire, and leave
+the women and children the sole spectators. They never wearied of gazing
+at the rhythmic movement.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[94]</a></span>I observed that among the ranks of the women one girl watched not the
+dancers but us. Now and then she glanced impatiently at the wheeling
+figures, but her eyes always returned to us. At length I became aware
+that she must have some message to deliver or warning to give. Once when
+I made a slight motion as if to go to her, she shook her head and laid
+her finger on her lips.</p>
+
+<p>Presently I rose and, making my way to the werowance of the village,
+where he sat with his eyes fixed on the spectacle, told him that I was
+wearied and would go to my hut, to rest for the few hours that yet
+remained of the night. He listened dreamily, but made no offer to escort
+me. After a moment he acquiesced in my departure, and Diccon and I
+quietly left the press of savages and began to cross the firelit turf
+between them and our lodge. When we had reached its entrance, we paused
+and looked back to the throng we had left. Every back seemed turned to
+us, every eye intent upon the leaping figures. Swiftly and silently we
+walked across the bit of even ground to the friendly trees and found
+ourselves in a thin strip of shadow. Beneath the trees, waiting for us,
+was the Indian maid. She would not speak or tarry, but flitted before us
+as dusk and noiseless as a moth, and we followed her into the darkness
+beyond the firelight. Here a wigwam rose in our path; the girl, holding
+aside the mats that covered the entrance, motioned to us to enter.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[95]</a></span> A
+fire was burning within the lodge and it showed us Nantaquas standing
+with folded arms.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Nantaquas!&#8221; I exclaimed, and would have touched him but that with a
+slight motion of his hand he kept me back.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Well!&#8221; I asked at last. &#8220;What is the matter, my friend?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>For a full minute he made no answer, and when he did speak his voice
+matched his strained and troubled features.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;My <i>friend</i>,&#8221; he said, &#8220;I am going to show myself a friend indeed to
+the English, to the strangers who were not content with their own
+hunting-grounds beyond the great salt water. When I have done this, I do
+not know that Captain Percy will call me &#8216;friend&#8217;.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You were wont to speak plainly, Nantaquas,&#8221; I answered him. &#8220;I am not
+fond of riddles.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Again he waited, as though he found speech difficult. I stared at him in
+amazement, he was so changed in so short a time.</p>
+
+<p>He spoke at last: &#8220;When the dance is over and the fires are low and the
+sunrise is at hand, Opechancanough will come to you to bid you farewell.
+He will give you the pearls he wears about his neck for a present to the
+governor and a bracelet for yourself. Also he will give you three men
+for a guard through the forest. He has messages of love to send the
+white men, and he would send them by you who were his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[96]</a></span> enemy and his
+captive. So all the white men shall believe in his love.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Well!&#8221; I said drily as he paused. &#8220;I will bear the messages. What
+next?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Your guards will take you slowly through the forest, stopping to eat
+and sleep. For them there is no need to run like the stag with the
+hunter behind it.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Then we should make for Jamestown as for life,&#8221; I said, &#8220;not sleeping
+or eating or making pause?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Yes,&#8221; he replied, &#8220;if you would not die, you and all your people.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>In the silence of the hut the fire crackled, and the branches of the
+trees outside, bent by the wind, made a grating sound against the bark
+roof.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;How die?&#8221; I asked at last. &#8220;Speak out!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Die by the arrow and the tomahawk,&#8221; he answered,&mdash;&#8220;yea, and by the guns
+you have given the red men. To-morrow&#8217;s sun, and the next, and the
+next&mdash;three suns&mdash;and the tribes will fall upon the English. At the same
+hour, when the men are in the fields and the women and children are in
+the houses, they will strike&mdash;all the tribes, as one man; and from where
+the Powhatan falls over the rocks to the salt water beyond Accomac,
+there will not be one white man left alive.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>He ceased to speak, and for a minute the fire made the only sound in the
+hut. Then I asked, &#8220;All die? There are three thousand Englishmen in
+Virginia.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[97]</a></span>&#8220;They are scattered and unwarned. The fighting men of the villages of
+the Powhatan and the Pamunkey and the great bay are many, and they have
+sharpened their hatchets and filled their quivers with arrows.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Scattered!&#8221; I cried. &#8220;Strewn broadcast up and down the river&mdash;here a
+lonely house, there a cluster of two or three&mdash;the men in the fields or
+at the wharves, the women and children busy within doors, all <a name="corr2" id="corr2"></a>unwarned!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>I leaned against the side of the hut, for my heart beat like a
+frightened woman&#8217;s. &#8220;Three days!&#8221; I exclaimed. &#8220;If we go with all our
+speed, we shall be in time. When did you learn this thing?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;While you watched the dance,&#8221; the Indian answered, &#8220;Opechancanough and
+I sat within his lodge in the darkness. His heart was moved, and he
+talked to me of his own youth in a strange country, south of the sunset.
+Also he spoke to me of Powhatan, my father&mdash;of how wise he was and how
+great a chief before the English came, and how he hated them. And
+then&mdash;then I heard what I have told you!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;How long has this been planned?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;For many moons. I have been a child, fooled and turned aside from the
+trail; not wise enough to see it beneath the flowers, through the smoke
+of the peace pipes.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Why does Opechancanough send us back to the settlements?&#8221; I demanded.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[98]</a></span>&#8220;It is his fancy. Every hunter and trader and learner of our tongues,
+living in the villages or straying in the woods, has been sent back to
+Jamestown or his home with presents and fair words. You will lull the
+English in Jamestown into a faith in the smiling sky just before the
+storm bursts on them in fullest fury.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>There was a pause.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Nantaquas,&#8221; I said, &#8220;you are not the first child of Powhatan who has
+loved and shielded the white men.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Pocahontas was a woman, a child,&#8221; he answered. &#8220;Out of pity she saved
+your lives, not knowing that it was to the hurt of her people. Then you
+were few and weak and could not take your revenge. Now, if you die not,
+you will drink deep of vengeance&mdash;so deep that your lips may never leave
+the cup. More ships will come, and more; you will grow ever stronger.
+There may come a moon when the deep forests and the shining rivers will
+know us, to whom <a name="Kiwassa_text" id="Kiwassa_text"></a><a href="#Kiwassa" class="fnanchor">v</a>Kiwassa gave them, no more.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You will be with your people in the war?&#8221; I asked.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I am an Indian,&#8221; was his simple reply.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Come against us if you will,&#8221; I returned. &#8220;Nobly warned, fair upon our
+guard, we will meet you as knightly foe should be met.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Very slowly he raised his arm from his side and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[99]</a></span> held out his hand. His
+eyes met mine in somber inquiry, half eager, half proudly doubtful. I
+went to him at once and took his hand in mine. No word was spoken.
+Presently he withdrew his hand from my clasp, and, putting his finger to
+his lips, whistled low to the Indian girl. She drew aside the mats, and
+we passed out, Diccon and I, leaving him standing as we had found him,
+upright against the post, in the red firelight.</p>
+
+<p>Should we ever go through the woods, pass through that gathering storm,
+reach Jamestown, warn them there of the death that was rushing upon
+them? Should we ever leave that hated village? Would the morning ever
+come? It was an alarm that was sounding, and there were only two to
+hear; miles away beneath the mute stars English men and women lay
+asleep, with the hour thundering at their gates, and there was none to
+cry, &#8220;Awake!&#8221; I could have cried out in that agony of waiting, with the
+leagues on leagues to be traveled and the time so short! I saw, in my
+mind&#8217;s eye, the dark warriors gathering, tribe on tribe, war party on
+war party, thick crowding shadows of death, slipping through the silent
+forest ... and in the clearings the women and children!</p>
+
+<p>It came to an end, as all things earthly will. When the ruffled pools
+amid the marshes were rosy red beneath the sunrise, the women brought us
+food, and the warriors and old men gathered about us. I offered<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[100]</a></span> them
+bread and meat and told them that they must come to Jamestown to taste
+the white man&#8217;s cookery.</p>
+
+<p>Scarcely was the meal over when Opechancanough issued from his lodge,
+and, coming slowly up to us, took his seat upon the white mat that was
+spread for him. Through his scalp lock was stuck an eagle&#8217;s feather;
+across his face, from temple to chin, was a bar of red paint; the eyes
+above were very bright and watchful.</p>
+
+<p>One of his young men brought a great pipe, carved and painted, stem and
+bowl; it was filled with tobacco, lit, and borne to the emperor. He put
+it to his lips and smoked in silence, while the sun climbed higher and
+higher and the golden minutes that were more precious than heart&#8217;s blood
+went by swiftly.</p>
+
+<p>At last, his part in the solemn mockery played, he held out the pipe to
+me.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;The sky will fall, and the rivers will run dry, and the birds cease to
+sing,&#8221; he said, &#8220;before the smoke of this peace-pipe fades from the
+land.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>I took the symbol of peace and smoked it as silently and soberly as he
+had done before me, then laid it leisurely aside and held out my hand.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Come to Jamestown,&#8221; I said, &#8220;to smoke of the Englishman&#8217;s pipe and
+receive rich presents&mdash;a red robe like your brother Powhatan, and a cup
+from which you shall drink, you and all your people.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>But the cup I meant was that of punishment.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[101]</a></span>The savage laid his dark fingers in mine for an instant, withdrew them,
+and, rising to his feet, motioned to three Indians who stood out from
+the throng of warriors.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;These are Captain Percy&#8217;s guides and friends,&#8221; he announced. &#8220;The sun
+is high; it is time that he was gone. Here are presents for him and my
+brother the governor.&#8221; As he spoke, he took from his neck the rope of
+pearls and from his arm a copper bracelet, and laid both upon my palm.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Thank you, Opechancanough,&#8221; I said briefly. &#8220;When we meet again I will
+not greet you with empty thanks.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>We bade farewell to the noisy throng and went down to the river, where
+we found a canoe and rowers, crossed the stream, and entered the forest,
+which stretched black and forbidding before us&mdash;the blacker that we now
+knew the dreadful secret it guarded.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sectionhead">II</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>After leaving the Indian village, Captain Percy and Diccon found
+that their guides purposely delayed the march, so that they would
+not reach Jamestown until just before the beginning of the attack,
+when it would be too late for them to warn the English, if they
+suspected anything. Percy and Diccon, in this dilemma, surprised
+the Indian guides and killed them, then hurried on with all
+possible speed toward Jamestown. As they hastened through the
+forest, Diccon was shot by an Indian and mortally wounded; Captain
+Percy remained with him until his death, <span class='pagenum' style="font-size: 100%;"><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[102]</a></span>and again took up the
+journey, now alone and greatly fearing that he would arrive too
+late.</p></div>
+
+<p>The dusk had quite fallen when I reached the neck of land. Arriving at
+the palisade that protected Jamestown, I beat upon the gate and called
+to the warden to open. He did so with starting eyes. Giving him a few
+words and cautioning him to raise no alarm in the town, I hurried by him
+into the street and down it toward the house that was set aside for the
+governor of Virginia, Sir Francis Wyatt.</p>
+
+<p>The governor&#8217;s door was open, and in the hall servingmen were moving to
+and fro. When I came in upon them, they cried out as if it had been a
+ghost, and one fellow let a silver dish fall to the floor with a
+clatter. They shook with fright and stood back as I passed them without
+a word and went on to the governor&#8217;s great room. The door was ajar, and
+I pushed it open and stood for a minute on the threshold. They were all
+there&mdash;the principal men of the colony, the governor, the <a name="treasurer_text" id="treasurer_text"></a><a href="#treasurer" class="fnanchor">v</a>treasurer,
+<a name="West_text" id="West_text"></a><a href="#West" class="fnanchor">v</a>West, <a name="Rolfe_text" id="Rolfe_text"></a><a href="#Rolfe" class="fnanchor">v</a>John Rolfe.</p>
+
+<p>At sight of me the governor sprang to his feet; through the treasurer&#8217;s
+lips came a long, sighing breath; West&#8217;s dark face was ashen. I came
+forward to the table, and leaned my weight upon it; for all the waves of
+the sea were roaring in my ears and the lights were going up and down.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Are you man or spirit!&#8221; cried Rolfe through white lips. &#8220;Are you Ralph
+Percy?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[103]</a></span>&#8220;Yes,&#8221; I said, &#8220;I am Percy.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>With an effort I drew myself erect, and standing so, told my tidings,
+quietly and with circumstance, so as to leave no room for doubt as to
+their verity, or as to the sanity of him who brought them. They listened
+with shaking limbs and gasping breath; for it was the fall and wiping
+out of a people of which I brought warning.</p>
+
+<p>When all was told I thought to ask a question myself; but before my
+tongue could frame it, the roaring of the sea became so loud that I
+could hear naught else, and the lights all ran together into a wheel of
+fire. Then in a moment all sounds ceased and to the lights succeeded the
+blackness of outer darkness.</p>
+
+<p>When I awoke from the sleep into which I must have passed from that
+swoon, it was to find myself lying in a room flooded with sunshine. For
+a moment I lay still, wondering where I was and how I came there. A drum
+beat, a dog barked, and a man&#8217;s quick voice gave a command. The sounds
+stung me into remembrance.</p>
+
+<p>There were many people in the street. Women hurried by to the fort with
+white, scared faces, their arms filled with household gear; children ran
+beside them; men went to and fro, the most grimly silent, but a few
+talking loudly.</p>
+
+<p>I could not see the palisade across the neck, but I knew that it was
+there that the fight&mdash;if fight there<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[104]</a></span> were&mdash;would be made. Should the
+Indians take the palisade, there would yet be the houses of the town,
+and, last of all, the fort in which to make a stand. I believed not that
+they would take it, for Indian warfare ran more to ambuscade and
+surprise than to assault in the open field.</p>
+
+<p>The drum beat again, and a messenger from the palisade came down the
+street at a run.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;They&#8217;re in the woods over against us, thicker than ants!&#8221; he cried to
+West, who was coming along the way. &#8220;A boat has just drifted ashore,
+with two men in it, dead and scalped!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>I looked again at the neck of land and the forest beyond, and now, as if
+by magic, from the forest and up and down the river as far as the eye
+could reach, rose here and there thin columns of smoke. Suddenly, as I
+stared, three or four white smoke puffs, like giant flowers, started out
+of the shadowy woods across the neck. Following the crack of the
+muskets&mdash;fired out of pure bravado by the Indians&mdash;came the yelling of
+the savages. The sound was prolonged and deep, as though issuing from
+many throats.</p>
+
+<p>The street, when I went out into it, was very quiet. All windows and
+doors were closed and barred. The yelling from the forest had ceased for
+the moment, but I knew well that it would soon begin with doubled noise.
+I hurried along the street to the palisade, where all the men of
+Jamestown were gathered, armed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[105]</a></span> and helmeted and breast-plated, waiting
+for the foe in grim silence.</p>
+
+<p>Through a loophole in the gate of the palisade I looked and saw the
+sandy neck joining the town to the mainland, and the deep and dark woods
+beyond, the fairy mantle giving invisibility to the foe. I drew back
+from my loophole and held out my hand to a woman for a loaded musket. A
+quick murmur like the drawing of a breath came from our line. The
+governor, standing near me, cast an anxious glance along the stretch of
+wooden stakes that were neither so high nor so thick as they should have
+been.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I am new to this warfare, Captain Percy,&#8221; he said. &#8220;Do they think to
+use those logs they carry as battering rams?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;As scaling ladders, your honor,&#8221; I replied. &#8220;It is possible that we may
+have some sword play after all.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;We&#8217;ll take your advice the next time we build a palisade, Ralph Percy,&#8221;
+muttered West on my other side. Mounting the breastwork that we had
+thrown up to shelter the women who were to load the muskets, he coolly
+looked over the pales at the oncoming savages.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Wait until they pass the blasted pine, men!&#8221; he cried. &#8220;Then give them
+a hail of lead that will beat them back to the Pamunkey.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>An arrow whistled by his ear; a second struck him<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[106]</a></span> on the shoulder but
+pierced not his coat of mail. He came down from his dangerous post with
+a laugh.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;If the leader could be picked off&#8221;&mdash;I said. &#8220;It&#8217;s a long shot, but
+there&#8217;s no harm in trying.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>As I spoke I raised my gun to my shoulder, but West leaned across Rolfe,
+who stood between us, and plucked me by the sleeve.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You&#8217;ve not looked at him closely,&#8221; he said. &#8220;Look again.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>I did as he told me, and lowered my musket. It was not for me to send
+that Indian leader to his account. Rolfe&#8217;s lips tightened and a sudden
+pallor overspread his face. &#8220;Nantaquas?&#8221; he muttered in my ear, and I
+nodded yes.</p>
+
+<p>The volley that we fired full into the ranks of our foe was deadly, and
+we looked to see them turn and flee, as they had fled so often before at
+a hot volley. But this time they were led by one who had been trained in
+English steadfastness. Broken for the moment by our fire, they rallied
+and came on yelling, bearing logs, thick branches of trees, oars tied
+together&mdash;anything by whose help they could hope to surmount the
+palisade. We fired again, but they had planted their ladders. Before we
+could snatch the loaded muskets from the women a dozen painted figures
+appeared above the sharpened stakes. A moment, and they and a score
+behind them had leaped down upon us.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[107]</a></span>It was no time now to skulk behind a palisade. At all hazards, that tide
+from the forest must be stemmed. Those that were among us we might kill,
+but more were swarming after them, and from the neck came the exultant
+yelling of madly hurrying reinforcements.</p>
+
+<p>We flung open the gates. I drove my sword through the heart of an Indian
+who would have opposed me, and, calling for my men to follow, sprang
+forward. Perhaps thirty came at my call; together we made for the
+opening. A party of the savages in our midst interposed. We set upon
+them with sword and musket butt, and though they fought like very devils
+drove them before us through the gateway. Behind us were wild clamor,
+the shrieking of women, the stern shouts of the English, the whooping of
+the savages; before us a rush that must be met and turned.</p>
+
+<p>It was done. A moment&#8217;s fierce fighting, then the Indians wavered,
+broke, and fled. Like sheep we drove them before us, across the neck, to
+the edge of the forest, into which they plunged. Into that ambush we
+cared not to follow, but fell back to the palisade and the town,
+believing, and with reason, that the lesson had been taught. The strip
+of sand was strewn with the dead and the dying, but they belonged not to
+us. Our dead numbered but three, and we bore their bodies with us.</p>
+
+<p>Within the palisade we found the English in sufficiently good case. Of
+the score or more Indians cut<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[108]</a></span> off by us from their mates and penned
+within that death trap, half at least were already dead, run through
+with sword and pike, shot down with the muskets that there was now time
+to load. The remainder, hemmed about, pressed against the wall, were
+fast meeting with a like fate. They stood no chance against us; we cared
+not to make prisoners of them; it was a slaughter, but they had taken
+the <a name="initiative_text" id="initiative_text"></a><a href="#initiative" class="fnanchor">v</a>initiative. They fought with the courage of despair, striving to
+spring in upon us, and striking when they could with hatchet and knife.
+They were brave men that we slew that day.</p>
+
+<p>At last there was left but the leader&mdash;unharmed, unwounded, though time
+and again he had striven to close with some one of us, to strike and to
+die striking with his fellows. Behind him was the wall; of the half
+circle which he faced, well-nigh all were old soldiers and servants of
+the colony. We were swordsmen all. When in his desperation he would have
+thrown himself upon us, we contented ourselves with keeping him at
+sword&#8217;s length, and at last West sent the knife in the dark hand
+whirling over the palisade. Some one had shouted to the musketeers to
+spare him.</p>
+
+<p>When he saw that he stood alone, he stepped back against the wall, drew
+himself up to his full height, and folded his arms. Perhaps he thought
+that we would shoot him down then and there; perhaps he saw himself a
+captive amongst us, a show for the idle and for the strangers that the
+ships brought in.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[109]</a></span>The din had ceased, and we the living, the victors, stood and looked at
+the vanquished dead at our feet, and at the dead beyond the gates, and
+at the neck upon which was no living foe, and at the blue sky bending
+over all. Our hearts told us, and truly, that the lesson had been
+taught, and that no more forever need we at Jamestown fear an Indian
+attack. And then we looked at him whose life we had spared.</p>
+
+<p>He opposed our gaze with his folded arms and his head held high and his
+back against the wall. Slowly, as one man and with no spoken word, we
+fell back, the half circle straightening into a line, and leaving a
+clear pathway to the open gates. The wind had ceased to blow, and a
+sunny stillness lay upon the sand and the rough-hewn wooden stakes and a
+little patch of tender grass. The church bell began to ring.</p>
+
+<p>The Indian out of whose path to life and freedom we had stepped glanced
+from the line of lowered steel to the open gates and the forest beyond,
+and understood. For a full minute he waited, not moving a muscle, still
+and stately as some noble masterpiece in bronze. Then he stepped from
+the shadow of the wall and moved past us, with his eyes fixed on the
+forest; there was no change in the superb calm of his face. He went by
+the huddled dead and the long line of the living that spoke no word, and
+out of the gates and across the neck, walking slowly, that we might yet
+shoot him down if we saw fit to repent ourselves. He<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[110]</a></span> reached the shadow
+of the trees: a moment, and the forest had back her own.</p>
+
+<p>We sheathed our swords and listened to the governor&#8217;s few earnest words
+of thankfulness and recognition; and then we set to work to search for
+ways to reach and aid those who might be yet alive in the plantations
+above and below us.</p>
+
+<p>Presently there came a great noise from the watchers on the river-bank,
+and a cry that boats were coming down the stream. It was so, and there
+were in them white men, nearly all of whom had wounds to show, and
+cowering women and children&mdash;all that were left of the people for miles
+along the James.</p>
+
+<p>Then began that strange procession that lasted throughout the afternoon
+and night and into the next day, when a sloop dropped down from
+<a name="Henricus_text" id="Henricus_text"></a><a href="#Henricus" class="fnanchor">v</a>Henricus with the news that the English were in force there to stand
+their ground, although their loss had been heavy. Hour after hour they
+came as fast as sail and oar could bring them, the panic-stricken folk,
+whose homes were burned, whose kindred were slain, who had themselves
+escaped as by a miracle. Each boatload had the same tale to tell of
+treachery, surprise, and fiendish butchery.</p>
+
+<p>Before the dawning we had heard from all save the remoter settlements.
+The blow had been struck and the hurt was deep. But it was not beyond
+remedy, thank God! We took stern measures for our protec<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[111]</a></span>tion, and the
+wound to the colony was soon healed; vengeance was meted out to those
+who had set upon us in the dark and had failed to reach the heart. The
+colony of Virginia had passed through its greatest trial and had
+survived&mdash;for what greater ends, under Providence, I knew not.</p>
+
+<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Mary Johnston.</span></p>
+
+
+<p class="heading">HELPS TO STUDY</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>I. Describe the situation in which Percy and Diccon found
+themselves. What preparations did the Indians make for the death of
+the two men? How were they interrupted? Tell what happened after
+the appearance of Nantaquas? How were the five days spent? How did
+Nantaquas come to the rescue of the white men a second time? What
+did Opechancanough do to try to deepen the impression of
+friendship?</p>
+
+<p>II. What happened on the way to Jamestown? Describe the scene when
+Percy entered the governor&#8217;s house. Give an account of the fight at
+the palisade. Why was Nantaquas spared? What was the result of the
+Indian attack? Give your opinion of Nantaquas. Of what Indian in
+<i>The Last of the Mohicans</i> does he remind you? Of whom does
+Opechancanough remind you?</p>
+
+<p>Find out all you can of life in Virginia at the time this story was
+written. Compare the life there with the life in Plymouth colony.</p></div>
+
+
+<p class="heading">SUPPLEMENTARY READING</p>
+
+<ul class="supread">
+  <li>Prisoners of Hope&mdash;Mary Johnston.</li>
+  <li>My Lady Pokahontas&mdash;John Esten Cooke.</li>
+  <li>The Wept of Wish-ton-wish&mdash;J. Fenimore Cooper.</li>
+  <li>Hiawatha&mdash;Henry W. Longfellow.</li>
+  <li>Old Virginia and Her Neighbors&mdash;John Fiske.</li>
+</ul>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[112]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2 class="chapterhead"><a name="HARRY_ESMONDS_BOYHOOD" id="HARRY_ESMONDS_BOYHOOD"></a>HARRY ESMOND&#8217;S BOYHOOD</h2>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p><i>Henry Esmond</i>, by William Makepeace Thackeray, is considered one
+of the greatest, if not the greatest, of historical novels. It
+describes life in England during the first years of the eighteenth
+century, dealing chiefly with people of wealth and high position.
+&#8220;Harry Esmond&#8217;s Boyhood&#8221; narrates the early career of the hero, who
+was a poor orphan and an inmate of the family of his kinsman, the
+Viscount of Castlewood.</p></div>
+
+<p>Harry Esmond had lived to be past fourteen years old; had never
+possessed but two friends, and had a fond and affectionate heart that
+would fain attach itself to somebody, and did not seem at rest until it
+had found a friend who would take charge of it.</p>
+
+<p>At last he found such a friend in his new mistress, the lady of
+Castlewood. The instinct which led Harry Esmond to admire and love the
+gracious person, the fair apparition whose beauty and kindness had so
+moved him when he first beheld her, became soon a devoted affection and
+passion of gratitude, which entirely filled his young heart that as yet
+had had very little kindness for which to be thankful.</p>
+
+<p>There seemed, as the boy thought, in every look or gesture of this fair
+creature, an angelical softness and bright pity&mdash;in motion or repose she
+seemed gracious alike; the tone of her voice, though she uttered words
+ever so trivial, gave him a pleasure that amounted almost to anguish. It
+cannot be called love, that a lad<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[113]</a></span> of fourteen years of age felt for an
+exalted lady, his mistress, but it was worship. To catch her glance; to
+divine her errand, and run on it before she had spoken it; to watch,
+follow, adore her, became the business of his life. Meanwhile, as is the
+way often, his idol had idols of her own, and never thought of or
+suspected the admiration of her little adorer.</p>
+
+<p>My Lady had on her side three idols: first and foremost, <a name="Jove_text" id="Jove_text"></a><a href="#Jove" class="fnanchor">v</a>Jove and
+supreme ruler, was her lord, Harry&#8217;s patron, the good <a name="viscount_text" id="viscount_text"></a><a href="#viscount" class="fnanchor">v</a>Viscount of
+Castlewood. All wishes of his were laws with her. If he had a headache,
+she was ill. If he frowned, she trembled. If he joked, she smiled and
+was charmed. If he went a-hunting, she was always at the window to see
+him ride away. She made dishes for his dinner; spiced his wine for him;
+hushed the house when he slept in his chair, and watched for a look when
+he woke. Her eyes were never tired of looking at his face and wondering
+at its perfection. Her little son was his son, and had his father&#8217;s look
+and curly brown hair. Her daughter Beatrix was his daughter, and had his
+eyes&mdash;were there ever such beautiful eyes in the world? All the house
+was arranged so as to bring him ease and give him pleasure.</p>
+
+<p>Harry Esmond was happy in this pleasant home. The happiest period of all
+his life was this; and the young mother, with her daughter and son, and
+the orphan lad whom she protected, read and worked and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[114]</a></span> played, and were
+children together. If the lady looked forward&mdash;as what fond woman does
+not?&mdash;toward the future, she had no plans from which Harry Esmond was
+left out; and a thousand and a thousand times, in his passionate and
+impetuous way, he vowed that no power should separate him from his
+mistress; and only asked for some chance to happen by which he might
+show his <a name="fidelity_text" id="fidelity_text"></a><a href="#fidelity" class="fnanchor">v</a>fidelity to her.</p>
+
+<p>The second fight which Harry Esmond had was at fourteen years of age,
+with Bryan Hawkshaw, Sir John Hawkshaw&#8217;s son, who, advancing the opinion
+that Lady Castlewood henpecked my Lord, put Harry in so great a fury
+that Harry fell on him and with such rage that the other boy, who was
+two years older and far bigger than he, had by far the worst of the
+assault. It was interrupted by Doctor Tusher, the clergyman, who was
+just walking out of the dinner-room.</p>
+
+<p>Bryan Hawkshaw got up bleeding at the nose, having indeed been
+surprised, as many a stronger man might have been, by the fury of the
+attack on him.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You little beggar,&#8221; he said, &#8220;I&#8217;ll murder you for this.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>And indeed he was big enough.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Beggar or not,&#8221; said Harry, grinding his teeth, &#8220;I have a couple of
+swords, and if you like to meet me, as man to man, on the terrace
+to-night&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>And here, the doctor coming up, the <a name="colloquy_text" id="colloquy_text"></a><a href="#colloquy" class="fnanchor">v</a>colloquy of the young champions
+ended. Very likely, big as he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[115]</a></span> was, Hawkshaw did not care to continue a
+fight with such a ferocious opponent as this had been.</p>
+
+<p>One day, some time later, Doctor Tusher ran into Castlewood House, with
+a face of consternation, saying that smallpox had made its appearance at
+the blacksmith&#8217;s house in the village, which was also an alehouse, and
+that one of the maids there was down with it.</p>
+
+<p>Now, there was a pretty girl at this inn, called Nancy Sievewright, a
+bouncing, fresh-looking lass, whose face was as red as the hollyhocks
+over the pales of the garden behind the inn. Somehow it often happened
+that Harry Esmond fell in with Nance Sievewright&#8217;s bonny face. When
+Doctor Tusher brought the news that the smallpox was at the
+blacksmith&#8217;s, Harry Esmond&#8217;s first thought was of alarm for poor Nancy,
+and then of shame and disquiet for the Castlewood family, lest he might
+have brought this infection; for the truth is that Mr. Harry had been
+sitting in a back room for an hour that day, where Nancy Sievewright was
+with a little brother who complained of headache, and was lying crying
+in a chair by the corner of the fire or in Nancy&#8217;s lap.</p>
+
+<p>Little Beatrix screamed at the news; and my Lord cried out, &#8220;God bless
+me!&#8221; He was a brave man, and not afraid of death in any shape but this.
+&#8220;We will take the children and ride away to Walcote,&#8221; he said.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[116]</a></span>To love children and be gentle with them was an instinct rather than
+merit in Harry Esmond; so much so that he thought almost with a feeling
+of shame of his liking for them and of the softness into which it
+betrayed him. On this day the poor fellow had not only had his young
+friend, the milkmaid&#8217;s brother, on his knee, but had been drawing
+pictures and telling stories to the little Frank Castlewood, who was
+never tired of Harry&#8217;s tales and of his pictures of soldiers and horses.
+As luck would have it, Beatrix had not on that evening taken her usual
+place, which generally she was glad enough to have, on Harry&#8217;s knee. For
+Beatrix, from the earliest time, was jealous of every caress which was
+given her little brother Frank. She would fling away even from the
+<a name="maternal_text" id="maternal_text"></a><a href="#maternal" class="fnanchor">v</a>maternal arms, if she saw Frank had been there before her; insomuch
+that Lady Esmond was obliged not to show her love for her son in
+presence of the little girl, and embrace one or the other alone. Beatrix
+would turn pale and red with rage if she caught signs of intelligence or
+affection between Frank and his mother; would sit apart and not speak
+for a whole night if she thought the boy had a better fruit or a larger
+cake than hers; would fling away a ribbon if he had one, and would utter
+<a name="infantile_text" id="infantile_text"></a><a href="#infantile" class="fnanchor">v</a>infantile sarcasms about the favor shown her brother.</p>
+
+<p>So it chanced upon this very day, when poor Harry Esmond had had the
+blacksmith&#8217;s son and the <a name="peer_text" id="peer_text"></a><a href="#peer" class="fnanchor">v</a>peer&#8217;s<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[117]</a></span> son, alike upon his knee, little
+Beatrix, who would come to him willingly enough with her book and
+writing, had refused him, seeing the place occupied by her brother.
+Luckily for her, she had sat at the farther end of the room, away from
+him, playing with a spaniel dog which she had, and talking to Harry
+Esmond over her shoulder, as she pretended to caress the dog, saying
+that Fido would love her, and she would love Fido and nothing but Fido
+all her life.</p>
+
+<p>When, then, the news was brought that the little boy at the blacksmith&#8217;s
+was ill with the smallpox, poor Harry Esmond felt a shock of alarm, not
+so much for himself as for his mistress&#8217;s son, whom he might have
+brought into peril. Beatrix, who had pouted sufficiently, her little
+brother being now gone to bed, was for taking her place on Esmond&#8217;s
+knee. But as she advanced toward him, he started back and placed the
+great chair on which he was sitting between him and her&mdash;saying in the
+French language to Lady Castlewood, &#8220;Madam, the child must not approach
+me. I must tell you that I was at the blacksmith&#8217;s to-day and had his
+little boy on my lap.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Where you took my son afterward,&#8221; Lady Castlewood said, very angry and
+turning red. &#8220;I thank you, sir, for giving him such company. Beatrix,&#8221;
+she said in English, &#8220;I forbid you to touch Harry Esmond. Come away,
+child; come to your room. And you, sir, had you not better go back to
+the alehouse?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[118]</a></span>Her eyes, ordinarily so kind, darted flashes of anger as she spoke; and
+she tossed up her head (which hung down commonly) with the <a name="mien_text" id="mien_text"></a><a href="#mien" class="fnanchor">v</a>mien of a
+princess.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Heyday!&#8221; said my Lord, who was standing by the fireplace, &#8220;Rachel, what
+are you in a passion about? Though it does you good to get in a
+passion&mdash;you look very handsome!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;It is, my Lord, because Mr. Harry Esmond, having nothing to do with his
+time here, and not having a taste for our company, has been to the
+blacksmith&#8217;s alehouse, where he has some friends.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>My Lord burst out with a laugh.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Take Mistress Beatrix to bed,&#8221; my Lady cried at this moment to her
+woman, who came in with her Ladyship&#8217;s tea. &#8220;Put her into my room&mdash;no,
+into yours,&#8221; she added quickly. &#8220;Go, my child: go, I say; not a word.&#8221;
+And Beatrix, quite surprised at so sudden a tone of authority from one
+who was seldom accustomed to raise her voice, went out of the room with
+a scared face and waited even to burst out crying until she got
+upstairs.</p>
+
+<p>For once, her mother took little heed of her. &#8220;My Lord,&#8221; she said, &#8220;this
+young man&mdash;your relative&mdash;told me just now in French&mdash;he was ashamed to
+speak in his own language&mdash;that he had been at the blacksmith&#8217;s all day,
+where he has had that little wretch who is now ill of the smallpox on
+his knee. And he comes home reeking from that place&mdash;yes, reeking<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[119]</a></span> from
+it&mdash;and takes my boy into his lap without shame, and sits down by me. He
+may have killed Frank for what I know&mdash;killed our child! Why was he
+brought in to disgrace our house? Why is he here? Let him go&mdash;let him
+go, I say, and <a name="pollute_text" id="pollute_text"></a><a href="#pollute" class="fnanchor">v</a>pollute the place no more!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>She had never before uttered a syllable of unkindness to Harry Esmond,
+and her cruel words smote the poor boy so that he stood for some moments
+bewildered with grief and rage at the injustice of such a stab from such
+a hand. He turned quite white from red, which he had been before.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;If my coming nigh your boy pollutes him,&#8221; he said, &#8220;it was not so
+always. Good-night, my Lord. Heaven bless you and yours for your
+goodness to me. I have tired her Ladyship&#8217;s kindness out, and I will
+go.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;He wants to go to the alehouse&mdash;let him go!&#8221; cried my Lady.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I&#8217;ll be hanged if he <a name="corr3" id="corr3"></a>shall,&#8221; said my Lord. &#8220;I didn&#8217;t think you could be
+so cruel, Rachel!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Her reply was to burst into a flood of tears, and to quit the room with
+a rapid glance at Harry Esmond, as my Lord put his broad hand on Harry&#8217;s
+shoulder.</p>
+
+<p>In a little while my Lady came back, looking very pale, with a
+handkerchief in her hand. Instantly advancing to Harry Esmond, she took
+his hand. &#8220;I beg your pardon, Harry,&#8221; she said. &#8220;I spoke very
+unkindly.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[120]</a></span>My Lord broke out: &#8220;There may be no harm done. Leave the boy alone.&#8221; She
+looked a little red, and pressed the lad&#8217;s hand as she dropped it.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;There is no use, my Lord,&#8221; she said. &#8220;Frank was on his knee as he was
+making pictures and was running constantly from Harry to me. The evil is
+done, if any.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Not with me,&#8221; cried my Lord. &#8220;I&#8217;ve been smoking.&#8221; And he lighted his
+pipe again with a coal. &#8220;As the disease is in the village&mdash;plague take
+it!&mdash;I would have you leave it. We&#8217;ll go to-morrow to Walcote.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I have no fear,&#8221; said my Lady. &#8220;I may have had it as an infant.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I won&#8217;t run the risk,&#8221; said my Lord. &#8220;I&#8217;m as bold as any man, but I&#8217;ll
+not bear that.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Take Beatrix with you and go,&#8221; said my Lady. &#8220;For us the mischief is
+done.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>My Lord, calling away Doctor Tusher, bade him come in the oak parlor and
+have a pipe.</p>
+
+<p>When the lady and the boy were alone, there was a silence of some
+moments, during which he stood looking at the fire whilst her Ladyship
+busied herself with the <a name="tambour_text" id="tambour_text"></a><a href="#tambour" class="fnanchor">v</a>tambour frame and needles.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I am sorry,&#8221; she said, after a pause, in a hard, dry voice&mdash;&#8220;I repeat I
+am sorry that I said what I said. It was not at all my wish that you
+should leave us, I am sure, unless you found pleasure elsewhere. But you
+must see that, at your age, and with your<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[121]</a></span> tastes, it is impossible that
+you can continue to stay upon the intimate footing in which you have
+been in this family. You have wished to go to college, and I think &#8217;tis
+quite as well that you should be sent thither. I did not press the
+matter, thinking you a child, as you are indeed in years&mdash;quite a child.
+But now I shall beg my Lord to despatch you as quick as possible; and
+will go on with Frank&#8217;s learning as well as I can. And&mdash;and I wish you a
+good night, Harry.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>With this she dropped a stately curtsy, and, taking her candle, went
+away through the tapestry door, which led to her apartments. Esmond
+stood by the fireplace, blankly staring after her. Indeed, he scarce
+seemed to see until she was gone, and then her image was impressed upon
+him and remained forever fixed upon his memory. He saw her retreating,
+the taper lighting up her marble face, her scarlet lip quivering, and
+her shining golden hair. He went to his own room and to bed, but could
+not get to sleep until daylight, and woke with a violent headache.</p>
+
+<p>He had brought the contagion with him from the alehouse, sure enough,
+and was presently laid up with the smallpox, which spared the hall no
+more than it did the cottage.</p>
+
+<p>When Harry Esmond had passed through the <a name="crisis_text" id="crisis_text"></a><a href="#crisis" class="fnanchor">v</a>crisis of the <a name="malady_text" id="malady_text"></a><a href="#malady" class="fnanchor">v</a>malady and
+returned to health again, he found that little Frank Esmond had also
+suffered and rallied from the disease, and that his mother was down<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[122]</a></span>
+with it. Nor could young Esmond agree in Doctor Tusher&#8217;s <a name="vehement_text" id="vehement_text"></a><a href="#vehement" class="fnanchor">v</a>vehement
+protestations to my Lady, when he visited her during her
+<a name="convalescence_text" id="convalescence_text"></a><a href="#convalescence" class="fnanchor">v</a>convalescence, that the malady had not in the least impaired her
+charms; whereas, in spite of these fine speeches, Harry thought that her
+Ladyship&#8217;s beauty was very much injured by the smallpox. The delicacy of
+her rosy complexion was gone; her eyes had lost their brilliancy, her
+hair fell, and she looked older. When Tusher in his courtly way vowed
+and protested that my Lady&#8217;s face was none the worse, the lad broke out
+and said, &#8220;It is worse, and my mistress is not near so handsome as she
+was.&#8221; On this poor Lady Castlewood gave a <a name="rueful_text" id="rueful_text"></a><a href="#rueful" class="fnanchor">v</a>rueful smile and a look
+into a little mirror she had, which showed her, I suppose, that what the
+stupid boy said was only too true, for she turned away from the glass
+and her eyes filled with tears.</p>
+
+<p>The sight of these always created a sort of rage of pity in Esmond&#8217;s
+heart, and seeing them on the face of the lady whom he loved best, the
+young blunderer sank down on his knees and besought her to pardon him,
+saying that he was a fool and an idiot. Doctor Tusher told him that he
+was a bear, and a bear he would remain, at which speech poor Harry was
+so dumb-stricken that he did not even growl.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;He is my bear, and I will not have him baited, doctor,&#8221; said my Lady,
+putting her hand kindly on the boy&#8217;s head, as he was still kneeling at
+her feet. &#8220;How<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[123]</a></span> your hair has come off! And mine, too!&#8221; she added with
+another sigh.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;It is not for myself that I care,&#8221; my Lady said to Harry, when the
+parson had taken his leave; &#8220;but am I very much changed! Alas! I fear
+&#8217;tis too true.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Madam, you have the dearest, and kindest, and sweetest face in the
+world, I think,&#8221; the lad said; and indeed he thought so.</p>
+
+<p>For Harry Esmond his benefactress&#8217; sweet face had lost none of its
+charms. It had always the kindest of looks and smiles for him&mdash;and
+beauty of every sort. She would call him &#8220;Mr. Tutor,&#8221; and she herself,
+as well as the two children, went to school to him. Of the pupils the
+two young people were but lazy scholars, and my Lord&#8217;s son only learned
+what he liked, which was but little. Mistress Beatrix chattered French
+prettily, and sang sweetly, but this from her mother&#8217;s teaching, not
+Harry Esmond&#8217;s. But if the children were careless, &#8217;twas a wonder how
+eagerly the mother learned from her young tutor&mdash;and taught him, too.
+She saw the <a name="latent_text" id="latent_text"></a><a href="#latent" class="fnanchor">v</a>latent beauties and hidden graces in books; and the
+happiest hours of young Esmond&#8217;s life were those passed in the company
+of this kind mistress and her children.</p>
+
+<p>These happy days were to end soon, however; and it was by Lady
+Castlewood&#8217;s own decree that they were brought to a conclusion. It
+happened about Christmas-tide, Harry Esmond being now past sixteen<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[124]</a></span>
+years of age. A messenger came from Winchester one day, bearer of the
+news that my Lady&#8217;s aunt was dead and had left her fortune of &pound;2,000
+among her six nieces. Many a time afterward Harry Esmond recalled the
+flushed face and eager look wherewith, after this intelligence, his kind
+lady regarded him. When my Lord heard of the news, he did not make any
+long face. &#8220;The money will come very handy to furnish the music-room and
+the <a name="cellar_text" id="cellar_text"></a><a href="#cellar" class="fnanchor">v</a>cellar,&#8221; he said, &#8220;which is getting low, and buy your Ladyship a
+coach and a couple of horses. Beatrix, you shall have a <a name="spinet_text" id="spinet_text"></a><a href="#spinet" class="fnanchor">v</a>spinet; and
+Frank, you shall have a little horse from Hexton fair; and Harry, you
+shall have five pounds to buy some books.&#8221; So spoke my Lord, who was
+generous with his own, and indeed with other folks&#8217; money. &#8220;I wish your
+aunt would die once a year, Rachel; we could spend your money, and all
+your sisters&#8217;, too.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I have but one aunt&mdash;and&mdash;and I have another use for the money,&#8221; said
+my Lady, turning red.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Another use, my dear; and what do you know about money?&#8221; cried my Lord.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I intend it for Harry Esmond to go to college. Cousin Harry,&#8221; said my
+Lady, &#8220;you mustn&#8217;t stay any longer in this dull place, but make a name
+for yourself.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Is Harry going away? You don&#8217;t mean to say you will go away?&#8221; cried out
+Beatrix and Frank at one breath.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[125]</a></span>&#8220;But he will come back, and this will always be his home,&#8221; replied my
+Lady, with blue eyes looking a celestial kindness; &#8220;and his scholars
+will always love him, won&#8217;t they?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Rachel, you&#8217;re a good woman,&#8221; said my Lord. &#8220;I wish you joy, my
+kinsman,&#8221; he continued, giving Harry Esmond a hearty slap on the
+shoulder, &#8220;I won&#8217;t balk your luck. Go to Cambridge, boy.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>When Harry Esmond went away for Cambridge, little Frank ran alongside
+his horse as far as the bridge, and there Harry stopped for a moment and
+looked back at the house where the best part of his life had been
+passed. And Harry remembered, all his life after, how he saw his
+mistress at the window looking out on him, the little Beatrix&#8217;s chestnut
+curls resting at her mother&#8217;s side. Both waved a farewell to him, and
+little Frank sobbed to leave him.</p>
+
+<p>The village people had <a name="corr4" id="corr4"></a>good-bye to say to him, too. All knew that Master
+Harry was going to college, and most of them had a kind word and a look
+of farewell. And with these things in mind, he rode out into the world.</p>
+
+<p class="right"><span class="smcap">William Makepeace Thackeray</span>.</p>
+
+
+<p class="heading">HELPS TO STUDY</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>Tell what you find out about the household in which Harry Esmond
+lived. What impression do you get of each person? What trouble did
+Harry bring upon the family? What change occurred in his life and
+now?</p></div>
+
+
+<p class="heading">SUPPLEMENTARY READING</p>
+
+<ul class="supread">
+  <li>The Virginians&mdash;William Makepeace Thackeray.</li>
+  <li>The Sir Roger de Coverley Papers&mdash;Steele and Addison.</li>
+</ul>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[126]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2 class="chapterhead"><a name="THE_FAMILY_HOLDS_ITS_HEAD_UP" id="THE_FAMILY_HOLDS_ITS_HEAD_UP"></a>THE FAMILY HOLDS ITS HEAD UP</h2>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>The story is an extract from Oliver Goldsmith&#8217;s famous novel, <i>The
+Vicar of Wakefield</i>. In this book Goldsmith describes the fortunes
+of the family of Doctor Primrose, a Church of England clergyman of
+the middle of the eighteenth century. The novel is considered a
+most faithful picture of English country life in that period.</p></div>
+
+<p>The home I had come to as <a name="vicar_text" id="vicar_text"></a><a href="#vicar" class="fnanchor">v</a>vicar was in a little neighborhood
+consisting of farmers who tilled their own grounds and were equal
+strangers to <a name="opulence_text" id="opulence_text"></a><a href="#opulence" class="fnanchor">v</a>opulence and poverty. As they had almost all the
+conveniences of life within themselves, they seldom visited towns or
+cities in search of <a name="superfluity_text" id="superfluity_text"></a><a href="#superfluity" class="fnanchor">v</a>superfluity. Remote from the polite, they still
+retained the <a name="primeval_text" id="primeval_text"></a><a href="#primeval" class="fnanchor">v</a>primeval simplicity of manners; and, frugal by habit,
+they scarce knew that temperance was a virtue. They wrought with
+cheerfulness on days of labor, but observed festivals as intervals of
+idleness and pleasure. They kept up the Christmas carol, sent love-knots
+on Valentine morning, ate pancakes on <a name="Shrovetide_text" id="Shrovetide_text"></a><a href="#Shrovetide" class="fnanchor">v</a>Shrovetide, showed their wit on
+the first of April, and religiously cracked nuts on <a name="Michaelmas_text" id="Michaelmas_text"></a><a href="#Michaelmas" class="fnanchor">v</a>Michaelmas-eve.
+Being apprised of our approach, the whole neighborhood came out to meet
+their minister, dressed in their finest clothes and preceded by a
+<a name="pipe_text" id="pipe_text"></a><a href="#pipe" class="fnanchor">v</a>pipe and <a name="tabor_text" id="tabor_text"></a><a href="#tabor" class="fnanchor">v</a>tabor: a feast, also, was provided for our reception, at
+which we sat cheerfully down, and what the conversation wanted in wit
+was made up in laughter.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[127]</a></span>Our little habitation was situated at the foot of a sloping hill,
+sheltered with a beautiful underwood behind, and a prattling river
+before; on one side a meadow, on the other a green. My farm consisted of
+about twenty acres of excellent land. Nothing could exceed the neatness
+of my little enclosures, the elms and hedgerows appearing with
+inexpressible beauty. My house consisted of but one story, and was
+covered with <a name="thatch_text" id="thatch_text"></a><a href="#thatch" class="fnanchor">v</a>thatch, which gave it an air of great snugness; the
+walls on the inside were nicely whitewashed, and my daughters undertook
+to adorn them with pictures of their own designing. Though the same room
+served us for parlor and kitchen, that only made it the warmer. Besides,
+as it was kept with the utmost neatness,&mdash;the dishes, plates and coppers
+being well scoured and all disposed in bright rows on the shelves&mdash;the
+eye was agreeably relieved and did not want richer furniture. There were
+three other apartments: one for my wife and me; another for our two
+daughters within our own; and the third, with two beds, for the rest of
+the children.</p>
+
+<p>The little republic to which I gave laws was regulated in the following
+manner: by sunrise we all assembled in our common apartment, the fire
+being previously kindled by the servant. After we had saluted each other
+with proper ceremony&mdash;for I always thought fit to keep up some
+mechanical forms of good breeding, without which freedom ever destroys
+friend<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[128]</a></span>ship&mdash;we all bent in gratitude to that Being who gave us another
+day. This duty performed, my son and I went to pursue our usual industry
+abroad, while my wife and daughters employed themselves in providing
+breakfast, which was always ready at a certain time. I allowed half an
+hour for this meal, and an hour for dinner, which time was taken up in
+innocent mirth between my wife and daughters, and in <a name="philosophical_text" id="philosophical_text"></a><a href="#philosophical" class="fnanchor">v</a>philosophical
+arguments between my son and me.</p>
+
+<p>As we rose with the sun, so we never pursued our labors after it was
+gone down, but returned home to the expecting family, where smiling
+looks, a neat hearth, and a pleasant fire were prepared for our
+reception. Nor were we without guests; sometimes Farmer Flamborough, our
+talkative neighbor, and often a blind piper, would pay us a visit and
+taste our gooseberry wine, for the making of which we had lost neither
+the recipe nor the reputation. These harmless people had several ways of
+being good company; while one played, the other would sing some soothing
+ballad&mdash;&#8220;Johnny Armstrong&#8217;s Last Good-Night,&#8221; or &#8220;The Cruelty of Barbara
+Allen.&#8221; The night was concluded in the manner we began the morning, my
+youngest boys being appointed to read the lessons of the day; and he
+that read loudest, distinctest and best was to have an halfpenny on
+Sunday to put into the poor-box. This encouraged in them a wholesome
+rivalry to do good.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[129]</a></span>When Sunday came, it was, indeed, a day of finery, which all my
+<a name="sumptuary_text" id="sumptuary_text"></a><a href="#sumptuary" class="fnanchor">v</a>sumptuary edicts could not restrain. How well soever I fancied my
+lectures against pride had conquered the vanity of my daughters, yet I
+still found them secretly attached to all their former finery; they
+still loved laces, ribbons, and bugles, and my wife herself retained a
+passion for her crimson <a name="paduasoy_text" id="paduasoy_text"></a><a href="#paduasoy" class="fnanchor">v</a>paduasoy, because I formerly happened to say
+it became her.</p>
+
+<p>The first Sunday, in particular, their behavior served to mortify me. I
+had desired my girls the preceding night to be dressed early the next
+day, for I always loved to be at church a good while before the rest of
+the congregation. They punctually obeyed my directions; but when we were
+to assemble in the morning at breakfast, down came my wife and
+daughters, dressed out in all their former splendor&mdash;their hair
+plastered up with <a name="pomatum_text" id="pomatum_text"></a><a href="#pomatum" class="fnanchor">v</a>pomatum, their faces <a name="patched_text" id="patched_text"></a><a href="#patched" class="fnanchor">v</a>patched to taste, their
+trains bundled up in a heap behind and rustling at every motion. I could
+not help smiling at their vanity, particularly that of my wife, from
+whom I expected more discretion. In this <a name="exigence_text" id="exigence_text"></a><a href="#exigence" class="fnanchor">v</a>exigence, therefore, my only
+resource was to order my son, with an important air, to call our coach.
+The girls were amazed at the command, but I repeated it, with more
+solemnity than before.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Surely, you jest!&#8221; cried my wife. &#8220;We can walk perfectly well; we want
+no coach to carry us now.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You mistake, child,&#8221; returned I; &#8220;we do want a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[130]</a></span> coach, for if we walk
+to church in this trim, the very children in the parish will hoot after
+us.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Indeed!&#8221; replied my wife. &#8220;I always imagined that my Charles was fond
+of seeing his children neat and handsome about him.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You may be as neat as you please,&#8221; interrupted I, &#8220;and I shall love you
+the better for it; but all this is not neatness, but frippery. These
+<a name="corr5" id="corr5"></a>rufflings and pinkings and patchings will only make us hated by all the
+wives of our neighbors. No, my children,&#8221; continued I, more gravely,
+&#8220;those gowns must be altered into something of a plainer cut, for finery
+is very unbecoming in us who want the means of <a name="decency_text" id="decency_text"></a><a href="#decency" class="fnanchor">v</a>decency.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>This remonstrance had the proper effect. They went with great composure,
+that very instant, to change their dress; and the next day I had the
+satisfaction of finding my daughters, at their own request, employed in
+cutting up their trains into Sunday waist-coats for Dick and Bill, the
+two little ones; and, what was still more satisfactory, the gowns seemed
+improved by this <a name="curtailing_text" id="curtailing_text"></a><a href="#curtailing" class="fnanchor">v</a>curtailing.</p>
+
+<p>But the reformation lasted but for a short while. My wife and daughters
+were visited by the wives of some of the richer neighbors and by a
+squire who lived near by, on whom they set more store than on the plain
+farmers&#8217; wives who were nearer us in worldly station. I now began to
+find that all my long and painful lectures upon temperance, simplicity,
+and contentment<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[131]</a></span> were entirely disregarded. Some distinctions lately
+paid us by our betters awakened that pride which I had laid asleep, but
+not removed. Our windows again, as formerly, were filled with washes for
+the neck and face. The sun was dreaded as an enemy to the skin without
+doors and the fire as a spoiler of the complexion within. My wife
+observed that rising too early would hurt her daughters&#8217; eyes, that
+working after dinner would redden their noses, and she convinced me that
+the hands never looked so white as when they did nothing.</p>
+
+<p>Instead, therefore, of finishing George&#8217;s shirts, we now had the girls
+new-modeling their old gauzes. The poor Miss Flamboroughs, their former
+gay companions, were cast off as mean acquaintance, and the whole
+conversation ran upon high life and high-lived company, with pictures,
+taste, and Shakespeare.</p>
+
+<p>But we could have borne all this, had not a fortune-telling gypsy come
+to raise us into perfect <a name="sublimity_text" id="sublimity_text"></a><a href="#sublimity" class="fnanchor">v</a>sublimity. The tawny <a name="sibyl_text" id="sibyl_text"></a><a href="#sibyl" class="fnanchor">v</a>sibyl no sooner
+appeared than my girls came running to me for a shilling apiece to cross
+her hand with silver. To say the truth, I was tired of being always
+wise, and could not help gratifying their request, because I loved to
+see them happy. I gave each of them a shilling; after they had been
+closeted up with the fortune-teller for some time, I knew by their
+looks, upon their returning, that they had been promised something
+great.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[132]</a></span>&#8220;Well, my girls, how have you sped? Tell me, Livy, has the
+fortune-teller given thee a penny-worth?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;She positively declared that I am to be married to a squire in less
+than a twelvemonth.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Well, now, Sophy, my child,&#8221; said I, &#8220;and what sort of husband are you
+to have?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I am to have a lord soon after my sister has married the squire,&#8221; she
+replied.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;How,&#8221; cried I, &#8220;is that all you are to have for your two shillings?
+Only a lord and a squire for two shillings! You fools, I could have
+promised you a prince and a <a name="nabob_text" id="nabob_text"></a><a href="#nabob" class="fnanchor">v</a>nabob for half the money.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>This curiosity of theirs, however, was attended with very serious
+effects. We now began to think ourselves designed by the stars to
+something exalted, and already anticipated our future grandeur.</p>
+
+<p>In this agreeable time my wife had the most lucky dreams in the world,
+which she took care to tell us every morning, with great solemnity and
+exactness. It was one night a coffin and cross-bones, the sign of an
+approaching wedding; at another time she imagined her daughters&#8217; pockets
+filled with farthings, a certain sign they would shortly be stuffed with
+gold. The girls themselves had their omens. They saw rings in the
+candle, purses bounced from the fire, and love-knots lurked in the
+bottom of every teacup.</p>
+
+<p>Toward the end of the week we received a card from two town ladies, in
+which, with their compli<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[133]</a></span>ments, they hoped to see our family at church
+the Sunday following. All Saturday morning I could perceive, in
+consequence of this, my wife and daughters in close conference together,
+and now and then glancing at me with looks that betrayed a <a name="latent_text2" id="latent_text2"></a><a href="#latent" class="fnanchor">v</a>latent
+plot. To be sincere, I had strong suspicions that some absurd proposal
+was preparing for appearing with splendor the next day. In the evening
+they began their operations in a very regular manner, and my wife
+undertook to conduct the siege. After tea, when I seemed in fine
+spirits, she began thus:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I fancy, Charles, my dear, we shall have a great deal of good company
+at our church to-morrow.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Perhaps we may, my dear,&#8221; returned I, &#8220;though you need be under no
+uneasiness about that; you shall have a sermon, whether there be or
+not.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;That is what I expect,&#8221; returned she; &#8220;but I think, my dear, we ought
+to appear there as decently as possible, for who knows what may happen?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Your precautions,&#8221; replied I, &#8220;are highly commendable. A decent
+behavior and appearance in church is what charms me. We should be devout
+and humble, cheerful and serene.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Yes,&#8221; cried she, &#8220;I know that; but I mean we should go there in as
+proper a manner as possible; not like the scrubs about us.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You are quite right, my dear,&#8221; returned I, &#8220;and I was going to make the
+same proposal. The proper<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[134]</a></span> manner of going is to go as early as
+possible, to have time for meditation before the sermon begins.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Phoo! Charles,&#8221; interrupted she, &#8220;all that is very true, but not what I
+would be at. I mean, we should go there <a name="genteelly_text" id="genteelly_text"></a><a href="#genteelly" class="fnanchor">v</a>genteelly. You know the
+church is two miles off, and I protest I don&#8217;t like to see my daughters
+trudging up to their pew all blowzed and red with walking, and looking
+for all the world as if they had been winners at a <a name="smock_text" id="smock_text"></a><a href="#smock" class="fnanchor">v</a>smock race. Now,
+my dear, my proposal is this: there are our two plough-horses, the colt
+that has been in our family these nine years and his companion,
+Blackberry, that has scarce done an earthly thing for this month past.
+They are both grown fat and lazy. Why should they not do something as
+well as we? And let me tell you, when Moses has trimmed them a little,
+they will cut a very tolerable figure.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>To this proposal I objected that walking would be twenty times more
+genteel than such a paltry conveyance, as Blackberry was wall-eyed, and
+the colt wanted a tail; that they had never been broken to the rein, but
+had an hundred vicious tricks, and that we had but one saddle and
+<a name="pillion_text" id="pillion_text"></a><a href="#pillion" class="fnanchor">v</a>pillion in the whole house. All these objections, however, were
+overruled, so that I was obliged to comply.</p>
+
+<p>The next morning I perceived them not a little busy in collecting such
+materials as might be necessary for the expedition; but as I found it
+would be a business<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[135]</a></span> of time, I walked on to the church before, and they
+promised speedily to follow. I waited near an hour in the reading desk
+for their arrival; but not finding them come as I expected, I was
+obliged to begin, and went through the service, not without some
+uneasiness at finding them absent.</p>
+
+<p>This was increased when all was finished, and no appearance of the
+family. I therefore walked back by the horseway, which was five miles
+round, though the footway was but two; and when I had got about half-way
+home, I perceived the procession marching slowly forward toward the
+church&mdash;my son, my wife, and the two little ones exalted on one horse,
+and my two daughters upon the other. It was then very near dinner-time.</p>
+
+<p>I demanded the cause of their delay, but I soon found, by their looks,
+that they had met with a thousand misfortunes on the road. The horses
+had, at first, refused to move from the door, till a neighbor was kind
+enough to beat them forward for about two hundred yards with his cudgel.
+Next, the straps of my wife&#8217;s pillion broke down, and they were obliged
+to stop to repair them before they could proceed. After that, one of the
+horses took it into his head to stand still, and neither blows nor
+entreaties could prevail with him to proceed. They were just recovering
+from this dismal situation when I found them; but, perceiving everything
+safe, I own their mortification<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[136]</a></span> did not much displease me, as it gave
+me many opportunities of future triumph, and would teach my daughters
+more humility.</p>
+
+<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Oliver Goldsmith.</span></p>
+
+
+<p class="heading">HELPS TO STUDY</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>Describe the neighborhood and the home to which the vicar took his
+family; also their manner of living. Relate the two attempts the
+ladies made to appear at church in great style. What happened to
+raise the hopes of better days for the daughters? How were these
+hopes encouraged? What superstitions did the wife and daughters
+believe? Give your opinion of the vicar and of each member of the
+family.</p></div>
+
+
+<p class="heading">SUPPLEMENTARY READING</p>
+
+<ul class="supread">
+  <li>The School for Scandal&mdash;Richard Brinsley Sheridan.</li>
+  <li>She Stoops to Conquer&mdash;Oliver Goldsmith.</li>
+  <li>Life of Oliver Goldsmith&mdash;Washington Irving.</li>
+  <li>David Copperfield&mdash;Charles Dickens.</li>
+  <li>Barnaby Rudge&mdash;Charles Dickens.</li>
+</ul>
+
+
+
+
+<div class="poem topspace"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Some have too much, yet still do crave;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">I little have, and seek no more.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">They are but poor, though much they have,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And I am rich with little store:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">They poor, I rich; they beg, I give;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">They lack, I leave; they pine, I live.<br /></span>
+
+<span class="i8 smcap">Sir Edward Dyer.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[137]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2 class="chapterhead"><a name="THE_LITTLE_BOY_IN_THE_BALCONY" id="THE_LITTLE_BOY_IN_THE_BALCONY"></a>THE LITTLE BOY IN THE BALCONY</h2>
+
+
+<p>My special amusement in New York is riding on the elevated railway. It
+is curious to note how little one can see on the crowded sidewalks of
+this city. It is simply a rush of the same people&mdash;hurrying this way or
+that on the same errands, doing the same shopping or eating at the same
+restaurants. It is a <a name="kaleidoscope_text" id="kaleidoscope_text"></a><a href="#kaleidoscope" class="fnanchor">v</a>kaleidoscope with infinite combinations but the
+same effects. You see it to-day, and it is the same as yesterday.
+Occasionally in the multitude you hit upon a <a name="genre_text" id="genre_text"></a><a href="#genre" class="fnanchor">v</a><i>genre</i> specimen, or an
+odd detail, such as a prim little dog that sits upright all day and
+holds in its mouth a cup for pennies for its blind master, or an old
+bookseller, with a grand head and the deliberate motions of a scholar,
+moldering in a stall&mdash;but the general effect is one of sameness and soon
+tires and bewilders.</p>
+
+<p>Once on the elevated road, however, a new world is opened, full of the
+most interesting objects. The cars sweep by the upper stories of the
+houses, and, running never too swiftly to allow observation, disclose
+the secrets of a thousand homes, and bring to view people and things
+never dreamed of by the giddy, restless crowd that sends its impatient
+murmur from the streets below. In a course of several months&#8217; pretty
+steady riding from Twenty-third Street, which is the station for the
+Fifth Avenue Hotel, to Rector, which overlooks Wall Street, I have made
+many ac<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[138]</a></span>quaintances along the route, and on reaching the city my first
+curiosity is in their behalf.</p>
+
+<p>One of these is a boy about six years of age&mdash;akin in his fragile body
+and his serious mien&mdash;a youngster that is very precious to me. I first
+saw this boy on a little balcony about three feet by four, projecting
+from the window of a poverty-stricken fourth floor. He was leaning over
+the railing, his white, thoughtful head just clearing the top, holding a
+short, round stick in his hand. The little fellow made a pathetic
+picture, all alone there above the street, so friendless and desolate,
+and his pale face came between me and my business many a time that day.
+On going uptown that evening just as night was falling, I saw him still
+at his place, white and patient and silent.</p>
+
+<p>Every day afterward I saw him there, always with the short stick in his
+hand. Occasionally he would walk around the balcony, rattling the stick
+in a solemn manner against the railing, or poke it across from one
+corner to another and sit on it. This was the only playing I ever saw
+him do, and the stick was the only plaything he had. But he was never
+without it. His little hand always held it, and I pictured him every
+morning when he awoke from his joyless sleep, picking up his poor toy
+and going out to his balcony, as other boys go to play. Or perhaps he
+slept with it, as little ones do with dolls and whip-tops.</p>
+
+<p>I could see that the room beyond the window was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[139]</a></span> bare. I never saw any
+one in it. The heat must have been terrible, for it could have had no
+ventilation. Once I missed the boy from the balcony, but saw his white
+head moving about slowly in the dusk of the room. Gradually the little
+fellow became a burden to me. I found myself continually thinking of
+him, and troubled with that remorse that thoughtless people feel even
+for suffering for which they are not in the slightest degree
+responsible. Not that I ever saw any suffering on his face. It was
+patient, thoughtful, serious, but with never a sign of petulance. What
+thoughts filled that young head&mdash;what contemplation took the place of
+what should have been the <a name="ineffable_text" id="ineffable_text"></a><a href="#ineffable" class="fnanchor">v</a>ineffable upspringing of childish
+emotion&mdash;what complaint or questioning were living behind that white
+face&mdash;no one could guess. In an older person the face would have
+betokened a resignation that found peace in the hope of things
+hereafter. In this child, without hope or aspiration, it was sad beyond
+expression.</p>
+
+<p>One day as I passed I nodded at him. He made no sign in return. I
+repeated the nod on another trip, waving my hand at him&mdash;but without
+avail. At length, in response to an unusually winning exhortation, his
+pale lips trembled into a smile, but a smile that was soberness itself.
+Wherever I went that day that smile went with me. Wherever I saw
+children playing in the parks, or trotting along with their hands
+nestled in strong fingers that guided and protected, I thought<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[140]</a></span> of that
+tiny watcher in the balcony&mdash;joyless, hopeless, friendless&mdash;a desolate
+mite, hanging between the blue sky and the gladsome streets, lifting his
+wistful face now to the peaceful heights of the one, and now looking
+with grave wonder on the ceaseless tumult of the other. At length&mdash;but
+why go any further? Why is it necessary to tell that the boy had no
+father, that his mother was bedridden from his birth, and that his
+sister pasted labels in a drug-house, and he was thus left to himself.</p>
+
+<p>It is sufficient to say that I went to Coney Island yesterday, and
+watched the bathers and the children&mdash;listened to the crisp, lingering
+music of the waves&mdash;ate a robust lunch on the pier&mdash;wandered in and out
+among the booths, tents, and hub-bub&mdash;and that through all these
+pleasures I had a companion that enjoyed them with a gravity that I can
+never hope to <a name="emulate_text" id="emulate_text"></a><a href="#emulate" class="fnanchor">v</a>emulate, but with a soulfulness that was touching. As I
+came back in the boat, the breezes singing through the <a name="cordage_text" id="cordage_text"></a><a href="#cordage" class="fnanchor">v</a>cordage, music
+floating from the fore-deck, and the sun lighting with its dying rays
+the shipping that covered the river, there was sitting in front of me a
+very pale but very happy bit of a boy, open-eyed with wonder, but sober
+and self-contained, clasping tightly in his little fingers a short,
+battered stick. And finally, whenever I pass by a certain overhanging
+balcony now, I am sure of a smile from an intimate and esteemed friend
+who lives there.</p>
+
+<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Henry W. Grady.</span></p>
+
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[141]</a></span></p>
+<h2 class="chapterhead"><a name="ARIELS_TRIUMPH" id="ARIELS_TRIUMPH"></a>ARIEL&#8217;S TRIUMPH<a name="FNanchor_141-1_2" id="FNanchor_141-1_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_141-1_2" class="fnanchor"><span style="font-size: smaller;">141-*</span></a></h2>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>This story is taken from Booth Tarkington&#8217;s novel, <i>The Conquest of
+Canaan</i>, which gives an admirable description of modern life in an
+American town. Joe Louden, the hero, and Ariel Tabor, the heroine,
+were both friendless and, in a way, forlorn. How both of them
+triumphed over obstacles and won success and happiness is the theme
+of a book which is notable for keen observation of character and
+for a quiet and delightful humor.</p></div>
+
+
+<p class="sectionhead">I</p>
+
+<p>Ariel had worked all the afternoon over her mother&#8217;s wedding-gown, and
+two hours were required by her toilet for the dance. She curled her hair
+frizzily, burning it here and there, with a slate-pencil heated over a
+lamp-chimney, and she placed above one ear three or four large
+artificial roses, taken from an old hat of her mother&#8217;s, which she had
+found in a trunk in the store-room. Possessing no slippers, she
+carefully blacked and polished her shoes, which had been clumsily
+resoled, and fastened into the strings of each small rosettes of red
+ribbon; after which she practised swinging the train of her skirt until
+she was proud of her manipulation of it.</p>
+
+<p>She had no powder, but found in her grandfather&#8217;s room a lump of
+magnesia, which he was in the habit of taking for heartburn, and passed
+it over and over her brown face and hands. Then a lingering gaze<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[142]</a></span> into
+her small mirror gave her joy at last; she yearned so hard to see
+herself charming that she did see herself so. Admiration came, and she
+told herself that she was more attractive to look at than she had ever
+been in her life, and that, perhaps, at last she might begin to be
+sought for like other girls. The little glass showed a sort of
+prettiness in her thin, unmatured young face; tripping dance-tunes ran
+through her head, her feet keeping the time&mdash;ah, she did so hope to
+dance often that night! Perhaps&mdash;perhaps she might be asked for every
+number. And so, wrapping an old water-proof cloak about her, she took
+her grandfather&#8217;s arm and sallied forth, with high hopes in her beating
+heart.</p>
+
+<p>It was in the dressing-room that the change began to come. Alone, at
+home in her own ugly little room, she had thought herself almost
+beautiful; but here in the brightly lighted chamber crowded with the
+other girls it was different. There was a big <a name="cheval_text" id="cheval_text"></a><a href="#cheval" class="fnanchor">v</a>cheval-glass at one end
+of the room, and she faced it, when her turn came&mdash;for the mirror was
+popular&mdash;with a sinking spirit. There was the contrast, like a picture
+painted and framed. The other girls all wore their hair after the
+fashion introduced to Canaan by Mamie Pike the week before, on her
+return from a visit to Chicago. None of them had &#8220;crimped&#8221; and none had
+bedecked their tresses with artificial flowers. Her alterations of the
+wedding-dress had not been success<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[143]</a></span>ful; the skirt was too short in front
+and higher on one side than on the other, showing too plainly the
+heavy-soled shoes, which had lost most of their polish in the walk
+through the snow. The ribbon rosettes were fully revealed, and as she
+glanced at their reflection, she heard the words, &#8220;Look at that train
+and those rosettes!&#8221; whispered behind her, and saw in the mirror two
+pretty young women turn away with their handkerchiefs over their mouths
+and retreat hurriedly to an alcove. All the feet in the room except
+Ariel&#8217;s were in dainty kid or satin slippers of the color of the dresses
+from which they glimmered out, and only Ariel wore a train.</p>
+
+<p>She went away from the mirror and pretended to be busy with a hanging
+thread in her sleeve.</p>
+
+<p>She was singularly an alien in the chattering room, although she had
+been born and had lived all her life in the town. Perhaps her position
+among the young ladies may be best defined by the remark, generally
+current among them that evening, to the effect that it was &#8220;very sweet
+of Mamie to invite her.&#8221; Ariel was not like the others; she was not of
+them, and never had been. Indeed, she did not know them very well. Some
+of them nodded to her and gave her a word of greeting pleasantly; all of
+them whispered about her with wonder and suppressed amusement, but none
+talked to her. They were not unkindly, but they were young and eager and
+excited over their own interests,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[144]</a></span>&mdash;which were then in the &#8220;gentlemen&#8217;s
+dressing-room.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Each of the other girls had been escorted by a youth of the place, and,
+one by one, joining these escorts in the hall outside the door, they
+descended the stairs, until only Ariel was left. She came down alone
+after the first dance had begun, and greeted her young hostess&#8217;s mother
+timidly. Mrs. Pike&mdash;a small, frightened-looking woman with a ruby
+necklace&mdash;answered her absently, and hurried away to see that the
+<a name="imported_text" id="imported_text"></a><a href="#imported" class="fnanchor">v</a>imported waiters did not steal anything.</p>
+
+<p>Ariel sat in one of the chairs against the wall and watched the dancers
+with a smile of eager and benevolent interest. In Canaan no parents, no
+guardians or aunts were haled forth o&#8217; nights to <a name="duenna_text" id="duenna_text"></a><a href="#duenna" class="fnanchor">v</a>duenna the
+junketings of youth; Mrs. Pike did not reappear, and Ariel sat
+conspicuously alone; there was nothing else for her to do, but it was
+not an easy matter.</p>
+
+<p>When the first dance reached an end, Mamie Pike came to her for a moment
+with a cheery welcome, and was immediately surrounded by a circle of
+young men and women, flushed with dancing, shouting as was their wont,
+laughing <a name="inexplicably_text" id="inexplicably_text"></a><a href="#inexplicably" class="fnanchor">v</a>inexplicably over words and phrases and unintelligible
+<a name="monosyllable_text" id="monosyllable_text"></a><a href="#monosyllable" class="fnanchor">v</a>monosyllables, as if they all belonged to a secret society and these
+cries were symbols of things exquisitely humorous, which only they
+understood. Ariel laughed with them more heartily than any other, so
+that she might seem to be of them and as merry as they were; but almost
+immediately she<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[145]</a></span> found herself outside of the circle, and presently they
+all whirled away into another dance, and she was left alone again.</p>
+
+<p>So she sat, no one coming near her, through several dances, trying to
+maintain the smile of delighted interest upon her face, though she felt
+the muscles of her face beginning to ache with their fixedness, her eyes
+growing hot and glazed. All the other girls were provided with partners
+for every dance, with several young men left over, these latter lounging
+<a name="hilariously_text" id="hilariously_text"></a><a href="#hilariously" class="fnanchor">v</a>hilariously together in the doorways. Ariel was careful not to glance
+toward them, but she could not help hating them. Once or twice between
+the dances she saw Miss Pike speak appealingly to one of the
+<a name="superfluous_text" id="superfluous_text"></a><a href="#superfluous" class="fnanchor">v</a>superfluous, glancing, at the same time, in her own direction, and
+Ariel could see, too, that the appeal proved unsuccessful, until at last
+Mamie approached her, leading Norbert Flitcroft, partly by the hand,
+partly by will power. Norbert was an excessively fat boy, and at the
+present moment looked as patient as the blind. But he asked Ariel if she
+was &#8220;engaged for the next dance,&#8221; and, Mamie, having flitted away, stood
+<a name="disconsolately_text" id="disconsolately_text"></a><a href="#disconsolately" class="fnanchor">v</a>disconsolately beside her, waiting for the music to begin. Ariel was
+grateful for him.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I think you must be very good-natured, Mr. Flitcroft,&#8221; she said, with
+an air of <a name="raillery_text" id="raillery_text"></a><a href="#raillery" class="fnanchor">v</a>raillery.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;No, I&#8217;m not,&#8221; he replied, <a name="plaintively_text" id="plaintively_text"></a><a href="#plaintively" class="fnanchor">v</a>plaintively. &#8220;Everybody thinks I am,
+because I&#8217;m fat, and they expect me<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[146]</a></span> to do things they never dream of
+asking anybody else to do. I&#8217;d like to see &#8217;em even <i>ask</i> &#8217;Gene Bantry
+to go and do some of the things they get me to do! A person isn&#8217;t
+good-natured just because he&#8217;s fat,&#8221; he concluded, morbidly, &#8220;but he
+might as well be!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Oh, I meant good-natured,&#8221; she returned, with a sprightly laugh,
+&#8220;because you&#8217;re willing to waltz with me.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Oh, well,&#8221; he returned, sighing, &#8220;that&#8217;s all right.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>The orchestra flourished into &#8220;La Paloma&#8221;; he put his arm mournfully
+about her, and taking her right hand with his left, carried her arm out
+to a rigid right angle, beginning to pump and balance for time. They
+made three false starts and then got away. Ariel danced badly; she
+hopped and lost the step, but they persevered, bumping against other
+couples continually. Circling breathlessly into the next room, they
+passed close to a long mirror, in which Ariel saw herself, although in a
+flash, more bitterly contrasted to the others than in the cheval-glass
+of the dressing-room. The clump of roses was flopping about her neck,
+her crimped hair looked frowzy, and there was something terribly wrong
+about her dress. Suddenly she felt her train to be <a name="grotesque_text" id="grotesque_text"></a><a href="#grotesque" class="fnanchor">v</a>grotesque, as a
+thing following her in a nightmare.</p>
+
+<p>A moment later she caught her partner making a <a name="burlesque_text" id="burlesque_text"></a><a href="#burlesque" class="fnanchor">v</a>burlesque face of
+suffering over her shoulder, and, turning her head quickly, saw for
+whose benefit he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[147]</a></span> had constructed it. Eugene Bantry, flying expertly by
+with Mamie, was bestowing upon Mr. Flitcroft a commiserative wink. The
+next instant she tripped in her train and fell to the floor at Eugene&#8217;s
+feet, carrying her partner with her.</p>
+
+<p>There was a shout of laughter. The young hostess stopped Eugene, who
+would have gone on, and he had no choice but to stoop to Ariel&#8217;s
+assistance.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;It seems to be a habit of mine,&#8221; she said, laughing loudly.</p>
+
+<p>She did not appear to see the hand he offered, but got on her feet
+without help and walked quickly away with Norbert, who proceeded to live
+up to the character he had given himself.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Perhaps we had better not try it again,&#8221; she laughed.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Well, I should think not,&#8221; he returned with the frankest gloom. With
+the air of conducting her home, he took her to the chair against the
+wall whence he had brought her. There his responsibility for her seemed
+to cease. &#8220;Will you excuse me?&#8221; he asked, and there was no doubt he felt
+that he had been given more than his share that evening, even though he
+was fat.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Yes, indeed.&#8221; Her laughter was continuous. &#8220;I should think you <i>would</i>
+be glad to get rid of me after that. Ha, ha, ha! Poor Mr. Flitcroft, you
+know you are!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[148]</a></span>It was the deadly truth, and the fat one, saying, &#8220;Well, if you&#8217;ll
+excuse me now,&#8221; hurried away with a step which grew lighter as the
+distance from her increased. Arrived at the haven of a far doorway, he
+mopped his brow and shook his head grimly in response to frequent
+rallyings.</p>
+
+<p>Ariel sat through more dances, interminable dances and intermissions, in
+that same chair, in which it began to seem she was to live out the rest
+of her life. Now and then, if she thought people were looking at her as
+they passed, she broke into a laugh and nodded slightly, as if still
+amused over her mishap.</p>
+
+<p>After a long time she rose, and laughing cheerfully to Mr. Flitcroft,
+who was standing in the doorway and replied with a wan smile, stepped
+out quickly into the hall, where she almost ran into her great-uncle,
+Jonas Tabor. He was going toward the big front doors with Judge Pike,
+having just come out of the latter&#8217;s library, down the hall.</p>
+
+<p>Jonas was breathing heavily and was shockingly pale, though his eyes
+were very bright. He turned his back upon his grandniece sharply and
+went out of the door. Ariel re&euml;ntered the room whence she had come. She
+laughed again to her fat friend as she passed him, went to the window
+and looked out. The porch seemed deserted and was faintly illuminated by
+a few Japanese lanterns. She sprang out, dropped upon the divan, and
+burying her face in her hands, cried heart-brokenly.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[149]</a></span>Presently she felt something alive touch her foot, and, her breath
+catching with alarm, she started to rise. A thin hand, issuing from a
+shabby sleeve, had stolen out between two of the green tubs and was
+pressing upon one of her shoes.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Sh!&#8221; warned a voice. &#8220;Don&#8217;t make a noise!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>The warning was not needed; she had recognized the hand and sleeve
+instantly. It was her playmate and lifelong friend, Joe Louden.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;What were you going on about?&#8221; he asked angrily.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Nothing,&#8221; she answered. &#8220;I wasn&#8217;t. You must go away; you know the Judge
+doesn&#8217;t like you.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;What were you crying about?&#8221; interrupted the uninvited guest.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Nothing, I tell you!&#8221; she repeated, the tears not ceasing to gather in
+her eyes. &#8220;I wasn&#8217;t.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I want to know what it was,&#8221; he insisted. &#8220;Didn&#8217;t the fools ask you to
+dance! Ah! You needn&#8217;t tell me. That&#8217;s it. I&#8217;ve been here, watching, for
+the last three dances and you weren&#8217;t in sight till you came to the
+window. Well, what do you care about that for!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I don&#8217;t,&#8221; she answered. &#8220;I don&#8217;t!&#8221; Then suddenly, without being able to
+prevent it, she sobbed.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;No,&#8221; he said, gently, &#8220;I see you don&#8217;t. And you let yourself be a fool
+because there are a lot of fools in there.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>She gave way, all at once, to a gust of sorrow and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[150]</a></span> bitterness; she bent
+far over and caught his hand and laid it against her wet cheek. &#8220;Oh,
+Joe,&#8221; she whispered, brokenly, &#8220;I think we have such hard lives, you and
+I! It doesn&#8217;t seem right&mdash;while we&#8217;re so young! Why can&#8217;t we be like the
+others? Why can&#8217;t we have some of the fun?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>He withdrew his hand, with the embarrassment and shame he would have
+felt had she been a boy.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Get out!&#8221; he said, feebly.</p>
+
+<p>She did not seem to notice, but, still stooping, rested her elbows on
+her knees and her face in her hands. &#8220;I try so hard to have some fun, to
+be like the rest&mdash;and it&#8217;s always a mistake, always, always, always!&#8221;
+She rocked herself slightly from side to side. &#8220;I&#8217;m a fool, it&#8217;s the
+truth, or I wouldn&#8217;t have come to-night. I want to be attractive&mdash;I want
+to be in things. I want to laugh as they do&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;To laugh, just to laugh, and not because there&#8217;s something funny?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Yes, I do, I do! And to know how to dress and to wear my hair&mdash;there
+must be some place where you can learn those things. I&#8217;ve never had any
+one to show me! It&#8217;s only lately I&#8217;ve cared, but I&#8217;m seventeen, Joe&mdash;&#8221;
+She faltered, came to a stop, and her whole body was shaken with sobs.
+&#8220;I hate myself so for crying&mdash;for everything!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Just then a colored waiter, smiling graciously, came out upon the porch,
+bearing a tray of salad, hot oysters,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[151]</a></span> and coffee. At his approach, Joe
+had fallen prone on the floor in the shadow. Ariel shook her head to the
+proffer of refreshments.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I don&#8217;t want any,&#8221; she murmured.</p>
+
+<p>The waiter turned away in pity and was <a name="corr6" id="corr6"></a>re&euml;ntering the window when a
+passionate whisper fell upon his ear as well as upon Ariel&#8217;s.</p>
+
+<p><i>&#8220;Take it!&#8221;</i></p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Ma&#8217;am?&#8221; said the waiter.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I&#8217;ve changed my mind,&#8221; she replied quickly. The waiter, his elation
+restored, gave of his viands with the <a name="superfluous_text2" id="superfluous_text2"></a><a href="#superfluous" class="fnanchor">v</a>superfluous bounty loved by his
+race when distributing the product of the wealthy.</p>
+
+<p>When he had gone, &#8220;Give me everything that&#8217;s hot,&#8221; said Joe. &#8220;You can
+keep the salad.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I couldn&#8217;t eat it or anything else,&#8221; she answered, thrusting the plate
+between the palms.</p>
+
+<p>For a time there was silence. From within the house came the continuous
+babble of voices and laughter, the clink of <a name="cutlery_text" id="cutlery_text"></a><a href="#cutlery" class="fnanchor">v</a>cutlery on china. The
+young people spent a long time over their supper. By and by the waiter
+returned to the veranda, deposited a plate of colored ices upon Ariel&#8217;s
+knees with a noble gesture, and departed.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;No ice for me,&#8221; said Joe.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Won&#8217;t you please go now?&#8221; she entreated.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;It wouldn&#8217;t be good manners,&#8221; he joked. &#8220;They might think I only came
+for the supper.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[152]</a></span>&#8220;Give me the dish and coffee-cup,&#8221; she whispered, impatiently. &#8220;Suppose
+the waiter came and had to look for them? Quick!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>A bottle-shaped figure appeared in the window, and she had no time to
+take the plate and cup which were being pushed through the palm-leaves.
+She whispered a word of warning, and the dishes were hurriedly withdrawn
+as Norbert Flitcroft, wearing a solemn expression of injury, came out
+upon the veranda.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;They want you. Some one&#8217;s come for you.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Oh, is grandfather waiting?&#8221; She rose.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;It isn&#8217;t your grandfather that has come for you,&#8221; answered the fat one,
+slowly. &#8220;It is Eskew Arp. Something&#8217;s happened.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>She looked at him for a moment, beginning to tremble violently, her eyes
+growing wide with fright.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Is my grandfather&mdash;is he sick?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You&#8217;d better go and see. Old Eskew&#8217;s waiting in the hall. He&#8217;ll tell
+you.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>She was by him and through the window instantly. Mr. Arp was waiting in
+the hall, talking in a low voice to Mrs. Pike.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Your grandfather&#8217;s all right,&#8221; he told the frightened girl quickly. &#8220;He
+sent me for you. Just hurry and get your things.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>She was with him again in a moment, and seizing the old man&#8217;s arm,
+hurried him down the steps and toward the street almost at a run.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[153]</a></span>&#8220;You&#8217;re not telling me the truth,&#8221; she said. &#8220;You&#8217;re not telling me the
+truth!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Nothing has happened to Roger Tabor,&#8221; panted Mr. Arp. &#8220;We&#8217;re going this
+way, not that.&#8221; They had come to the gate, and as she turned to the
+right he pulled her sharply to the left.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Where are we going?&#8221; she demanded.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;To your Uncle Jonas&#8217;s.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Why?&#8221; she cried, in supreme astonishment. &#8220;What do you want to take me
+there for? Don&#8217;t you know that he doesn&#8217;t like me&mdash;that he has stopped
+speaking to me?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Yes,&#8221; said the old man, grimly; &#8220;he has stopped speaking to everybody.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>These startling words told Ariel that her uncle was dead. They did not
+tell her what she was soon to learn&mdash;that he had died rich, and that,
+failing other heirs, she and her grandfather had inherited his fortune.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sectionhead">II</p>
+
+<p>It was Sunday in Canaan&mdash;Sunday some years later. Joe Louden was sitting
+in the shade of Main Street bridge, smoking a cigar. He was alone; he
+was always alone, for he had been away a long time, and had made few
+friends since his return.</p>
+
+<p>A breeze wandered up the river and touched the leaves and grass to life.
+The young corn, deep green<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[154]</a></span> in the bottom-land, moved with a <a name="staccato_text" id="staccato_text"></a><a href="#staccato" class="fnanchor">v</a>staccato
+flurry; the stirring air brought a smell of blossoms; the distance took
+on faint lavender hazes which blended the outlines of the fields, lying
+like square coverlets on the long slope of rising ground beyond the
+bottom-land, and empurpled the blue woodland shadows of the groves.</p>
+
+<p>For the first time it struck Joe that it was a beautiful day. He opened
+his eyes and looked about him whimsically. Then he shook his head again.
+A lady had just emerged from the bridge and was coming toward him.</p>
+
+<p>It would be hard to get at Joe&#8217;s first impressions of her. We can find
+conveyance for only the broadest and heaviest. At first sight of her,
+there was pre&euml;minently the shock of seeing anything so exquisite in his
+accustomed world. For she was exquisite; she was that, and much more,
+from the ivory <a name="ferrule_text" id="ferrule_text"></a><a href="#ferrule" class="fnanchor">v</a>ferrule of the parasol she carried, to the light and
+slender foot-print she left in the dust of the road. Joe knew at once
+that nothing like her had ever before been seen in Canaan.</p>
+
+<p>He had little knowledge of the millinery arts, and he needed none to see
+the harmony of the things she wore. Her dress and hat and gloves and
+parasol showed a pale lavender overtint like that which he had seen
+overspreading the western slope. Under the summer hat her very dark hair
+swept back over the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[155]</a></span> temples with something near trimness in the extent
+to which it was withheld from being fluffy. It may be that this approach
+to trimness, after all, was the true key to the mystery of the lady who
+appeared to Joe.</p>
+
+<p>She was to pass him&mdash;so he thought&mdash;and as she drew nearer, his breath
+came faster. And then he realized that something wonderful was happening
+to him.</p>
+
+<p>She had stopped directly in front of him; stopped and stood looking at
+him with her clear eyes. He did not lift his own to her; a great and
+unaccountable shyness beset him. He had risen and removed his hat,
+trying not to clear his throat&mdash;his everyday sense urging upon him that
+she was a stranger in Canaan who had lost her way.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Can I&mdash;can I&mdash;&#8221; he stammered, blushing, meaning to finish with &#8220;direct
+you,&#8221; or &#8220;show you the way.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Then he looked at her again and saw what seemed to him the strangest
+sight of life. The lady&#8217;s eyes had filled with tears&mdash;filled and
+overfilled.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I&#8217;ll sit here on the log with you,&#8221; she said. &#8220;You don&#8217;t need to dust
+it!&#8221; she went on, tremulously. And even then he did not know who she
+was.</p>
+
+<p>There was a silence, for if the dazzled young man could have spoken at
+all, he could have found nothing to say; and, perhaps, the lady would
+not trust her own<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[156]</a></span> voice just then. His eyes had fallen again; he was
+too dazed, and, in truth, too panic-stricken now, to look at her. She
+was seated beside him and had handed him her parasol in a little way
+which seemed to imply that, of course, he had reached for it, so that it
+was to be seen how used she was to have all such things done for her. He
+saw that he was expected to furl the dainty thing; he pressed the catch
+and let down the top timidly, as if fearing to break or tear it; and, as
+it closed, held near his face, he caught a very faint, sweet, spicy
+<a name="emanation_text" id="emanation_text"></a><a href="#emanation" class="fnanchor">v</a>emanation from it like wild roses and cinnamon.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Do you know me?&#8221; asked the lady at last.</p>
+
+<p>For answer he could only stare at her, dumfounded; he lifted an unsteady
+hand toward her appealingly. Her manner underwent an April change. She
+drew back lightly; he was favored with the most delicious low laugh he
+had ever heard.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I&#8217;m glad you&#8217;re the same, Joe!&#8221; she said. &#8220;I&#8217;m glad you&#8217;re the same,
+and I&#8217;m glad I&#8217;ve changed, though that isn&#8217;t why you have forgotten me.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>He arose uncertainly and took three or four backward steps from her. She
+sat before him, radiant with laughter, the loveliest creature he had
+ever seen; but between him and this charming vision there swept, through
+the warm, scented June air, the dim picture of a veranda all in darkness
+and the faint music of violins.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[157]</a></span><i>&#8220;Ariel Tabor!&#8221;</i></p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Isn&#8217;t it about time you were recognizing me?&#8221; she said.</p>
+
+<p class="titlepage" style="letter-spacing: 2em;"><b>. . . . . .</b></p>
+
+<p>Sensations were rare in staid, dull, commonplace Canaan, but this fine
+Sunday morning the town was treated to one of the most memorable
+sensations in its history. The town, all except Joe Louden, had known
+for weeks that Ariel Tabor was coming home from abroad, but it had not
+seen her. And when she walked along the street with Joe, past the Sunday
+church-returning crowds, it is not quite truth to say that all except
+the children came to a dead halt, but it is not very far from it. The
+air was thick with subdued exclamations and whisperings.</p>
+
+<p>Joe had not known her. The women recognized her, <a name="infallibly_text" id="infallibly_text"></a><a href="#infallibly" class="fnanchor">v</a>infallibly, at first
+sight; even those who had quite forgotten her. And the women told their
+men. Hence the un-Sunday-like demeanor of the procession, for few towns
+held it more unseemly to stand and stare at passers-by, especially on
+the Sabbath. But Ariel Tabor had returned.</p>
+
+<p>A low but increasing murmur followed the two as they proceeded. It ran
+up the street ahead of them; people turned to look back and paused, so
+that Ariel and Joe had to walk round one or two groups. They had, also,
+to walk round Norbert Flitcroft, which was very like walking round a
+group. Mr. Flitcroft was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[158]</a></span> one of the few (he was waddling home alone)
+who did not identify Miss Tabor, and her effect upon him was
+extraordinary. His mouth opened and he gazed <a name="stodgily_text" id="stodgily_text"></a><a href="#stodgily" class="fnanchor">v</a>stodgily, his widening
+eyes like sun-dogs coming out of a fog. Mr. Flitcroft experienced a few
+moments of trance; came out of it stricken through and through; felt
+nervously of his tie; resolutely fell in behind, and followed, at a
+distance of some forty paces, determined to learn what household this
+heavenly visitor honored, and thrilling with the intention to please
+that same household with his own presence as soon and as often as
+possible.</p>
+
+<p>Ariel flushed a little when she perceived the extent of their
+conspicuousness; but it was not the blush that Joe remembered had
+reddened the tanned skin of old; for her brownness had gone long ago,
+though it had not left her merely pink and white. There was a delicate
+rosiness rising from her cheeks to her temples, as the earliest dawn
+rises.</p>
+
+<p>Joe kept trying to realize that this lady of wonder was Ariel Tabor, but
+he could not; he could not connect the shabby Ariel, whom he had treated
+as one boy treats another, with this young woman of the world. Although
+he had only a dim perception of the staring and whispering which greeted
+and followed them, Ariel, of course, was thoroughly aware of it, though
+the only sign she gave was the slight blush, which very soon
+disappeared.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[159]</a></span>Ariel paused before the impressive front of Judge Pike&#8217;s large mansion.
+Joe&#8217;s face expressed surprise.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Don&#8217;t you know?&#8221; she said. &#8220;I&#8217;m staying here. Judge Pike has charge of
+all my property. Come to see me this afternoon.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>With a last charming smile, Ariel turned and left the dazed young man on
+the sidewalk.</p>
+
+<p>That walk was but the beginning of her triumph. Judge Pike&#8217;s of a summer
+afternoon was the swirling social center of Canaan, but on that
+particular Sunday afternoon every unattached male in the town who
+possessed the privilege of calling at the big house appeared. They
+filled the chairs in the wide old-fashioned hall where Ariel received
+them, and overpoured on the broad steps of the old-fashioned spiral
+staircase, where Mr. Flitcroft, on account of his size, occupied two
+steps and a portion of a third. And Ariel was the center of it all!</p>
+
+<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Booth Tarkington.</span></p>
+
+
+<p class="heading">HELPS TO STUDY</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>I. Describe Ariel&#8217;s pitiful attempts at beautifying herself when
+dressing for the dance. When did she realize her failure? How were
+her anticipations of the dance realized? What kind of girl was
+Mamie Pike? Give reasons for your answer. At what point were you
+most sorry for Ariel? With what startling news did the evening end?</p>
+
+<p>II. Give an account of the meeting between the old playmates.
+Describe the scenes as they walked along the street. What do you
+think was the greatest part of Ariel&#8217;s &#8220;triumph?&#8221; Was she spoiled
+by her wealth? How do you know?</p></div>
+
+
+<p class="heading">SUPPLEMENTARY READING</p>
+
+<ul class="supread">
+  <li>Little Women&mdash;Louisa M. Alcott.</li>
+  <li>Pride and Prejudice&mdash;Jane Austen.</li>
+</ul>
+
+
+<div class="footnotes">
+<p><a name="Footnote_141-1_2" id="Footnote_141-1_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor_141-1_2"><span class="label">141-*</span></a> Copyright by Harper &amp; Brothers.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[160]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2 class="chapterhead"><a name="THE_CLOUD" id="THE_CLOUD"></a>THE CLOUD</h2>
+
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">I bring fresh showers for the thirsting flowers,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">From the seas and the streams;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I bear light shade for the leaves when laid<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">In their noonday dreams.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">From my wings are shaken the dews that waken<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The sweet buds every one,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">When rocked to rest on their mother&#8217;s breast,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">As she dances about the sun.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I wield the flail of the lashing hail,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And whiten the green plains under;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And then again I dissolve it in rain;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And laugh as I pass in thunder.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">I sift the snow on the mountains below,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And their great pines groan aghast;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And all the night &#8217;tis my pillow white,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">While I sleep in the arms of the blast.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Sublime on the towers of my skyey bowers<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Lightning, my pilot, sits;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In a cavern under is fettered the thunder;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">It struggles and howls at fits.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Over earth and ocean, with gentle motion,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">This pilot is guiding me,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Lured by the love of the <a name="genii_text" id="genii_text"></a><a href="#genii" class="fnanchor">v</a>genii that move<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">In the depths of the purple sea;<br /></span>
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[161]</a></span><span class="i0">Over the rills and the crags and the hills,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Over the lakes and the plains,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Wherever he dream, under mountain or stream.<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The spirit he loves remains;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And I all the while bask in heaven&#8217;s blue smile,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Whilst he is dissolving in rains.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">I am the daughter of the earth and water,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And the nursling of the sky;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I pass through the pores of the ocean and shores;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">I change, but I cannot die.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For after the rain, when, with never a stain,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The pavilion of heaven is bare,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And the winds and sunbeams, with their convex gleams,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Build up the blue dome of air,&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I silently laugh at my own cenotaph,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And out of the caverns of rain,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">I rise and unbuild it again.<br /></span>
+<span class="i10 smcap">Percy Bysshe Shelley.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+
+<p class="heading">HELPS TO STUDY</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>Make a list of the things the cloud does. Read aloud the lines in
+which the poet tells of each of these. Why is lightning spoken of
+as the pilot of the cloud? Where does it sit? Where is the thunder?
+How is the cloud &#8220;the daughter of the earth and water&#8221;? How &#8220;a
+nursling of the sky&#8221;? Explain &#8220;I change, but I cannot die.&#8221; A
+cenotaph is a memorial built to one who is buried elsewhere. Why
+should the clear sky be the cloud&#8217;s cenotaph? How does the
+reappearing of the cloud unbuild it?</p></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[162]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2 class="chapterhead"><a name="NEW_ENGLAND_WEATHER" id="NEW_ENGLAND_WEATHER"></a>NEW ENGLAND WEATHER</h2>
+
+
+<p>There is a <a name="sumptuous_text" id="sumptuous_text"></a><a href="#sumptuous" class="fnanchor">v</a>sumptuous variety about the New England weather that
+compels the stranger&#8217;s admiration&mdash;and regret. The weather is always
+doing something there; always attending strictly to business; always
+getting up new designs and trying them on the people to see how they
+will go. But it gets through more business in spring than in any other
+season. In the spring I have counted one hundred and thirty-six
+different kinds of weather within four and twenty hours. It was I who
+made the fame and fortune of the man who had that marvelous collection
+of weather on exhibition at the Centennial, which so astounded the
+foreigners. He was going to travel around the world and get specimens
+from all climes. I said, &#8220;Don&#8217;t do it; just come to New England on a
+favorable spring day.&#8221; I told him what we could do in the way of style,
+variety, and quantity. Well, he came, and he made his collection in four
+days. As to variety, he confessed that he got hundreds of kinds of
+weather that he had never heard of before. And as to quantity, after he
+had picked out and discarded all that was blemished in any way, he not
+only had weather enough, but weather to spare, weather to hire out,
+weather to sell, weather to deposit, weather to invest, and weather to
+give to the poor.</p>
+
+<p>Old Probabilities has a mighty reputation for<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[163]</a></span> accurate prophecy and
+thoroughly deserves it. You take up the paper and observe how crisply
+and confidently he checks off what to-day&#8217;s weather is going to be on
+the Pacific, down South, in the Middle States, in the Wisconsin region.
+See him sail along in the joy and pride of his power till he gets to New
+England, and then see his tail drop. <i>He</i> doesn&#8217;t know what the weather
+is going to be in New England. Well, he mulls over it, and by and by he
+gets out something like this: &#8220;Probable northeast to southwest winds,
+varying to the southward and westward and eastward and points between;
+high and low barometer, swapping around from place to place; probable
+areas of rain, snow, hail, and drought, succeeded or preceded by
+earthquakes with thunder and lightning.&#8221; Then he jots down this
+postscript from his wandering mind, to cover accidents: &#8220;But it is
+possible that the program may be wholly changed in the meantime.&#8221; Yes,
+one of the brightest gems in the New England weather is the dazzling
+uncertainty of it. There is certain to be plenty of weather, but you
+never can tell which end of the <a name="corr7" id="corr7"></a>procession is going to move first.</p>
+
+<p>But, after all, there are at least two or three things about that
+weather (or, if you please, the effects produced by it) which we
+residents would not like to part with. If we hadn&#8217;t our bewitching
+autumn foliage, we should still have to credit the weather with one
+feature which compensates for all its bullying vagaries&mdash;the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[164]</a></span> ice storm.
+Every bough and twig is strung with ice beads, frozen dewdrops, and the
+whole tree sparkles cold and white like the <a name="Shah_text" id="Shah_text"></a><a href="#Shah" class="fnanchor">v</a>Shah of Persia&#8217;s diamond
+plume. Then the wind waves the branches, and the sun comes out and turns
+all those myriads of beads and drops to prisms that glow and burn and
+flash with all manner of colored fires; which change and change again,
+with inconceivable rapidity, from blue to red, from red to green, and
+green to gold. The tree becomes a spraying fountain, a very explosion of
+dazzling jewels, and it stands there the <a name="acme_text" id="acme_text"></a><a href="#acme" class="fnanchor">v</a>acme, the climax, the
+supremest possibility in art or nature, of bewildering, intoxicating,
+intolerable magnificence. One cannot make the words too strong. Month
+after month I lay up hate and grudge against the New England weather;
+but when the ice storm comes at last I say: &#8220;There, I forgive you now;
+you are the most enchanting weather in the world.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Mark Twain.</span></p>
+
+
+
+<p class="heading">HELPS TO STUDY</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>Mark Twain&#8217;s humor was noted for exaggeration. Find examples of
+exaggeration in this selection. Old Probabilities was the name
+signed by a weather prophet of the period. How was he affected by
+New England weather? At what point did Twain drop his fun and begin
+a beautiful tribute to a New England landscape? How does the
+tribute close?</p></div>
+
+
+<p class="heading">SUPPLEMENTARY READING</p>
+
+<ul class="supread">
+  <li>Three Men in a Boat&mdash;Jerome K. Jerome.</li>
+  <li>The House Boat on the Styx&mdash;John Kendrick Bangs.</li>
+</ul>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[165]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;">
+<a href="images/image07-full.jpg"><img src="images/image07.jpg" width="400" height="260" alt="Silence Deep and White" title="Silence Deep and White" /></a>
+<span class="caption"><b>Silence Deep and White</b></span>
+</div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[166]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2 class="chapterhead"><a name="THE_FIRST_SNOWFALL" id="THE_FIRST_SNOWFALL"></a>THE FIRST SNOWFALL</h2>
+
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">The snow had begun in the gloaming,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And busily all the night<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Had been heaping fields and highway<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">With a silence deep and white.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Every pine and fir and hemlock<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Wore ermine too dear for an earl,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And the poorest twig on the elm tree<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Was ridged inch deep with pearl.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">From sheds new roofed with Carrara<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Came chanticleer&#8217;s muffled crow,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The stiff rails were softened to swan&#8217;s-down<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And still fluttered down the snow.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">I stood and watched by the window<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">That noiseless work of the sky,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And the sudden flurries of snowbirds,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Like brown leaves whirling by.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">I thought of a mound in sweet Auburn<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Where a little headstone stood;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">How the flakes were folding it gently,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">As did robins the babes in the wood.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Up spoke our own little Mabel,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Saying, &#8220;Father, who makes it snow?&#8221;<br /></span>
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[167]</a></span><span class="i0">And I told of the good All-Father<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Who cares for us here below.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Again I looked at the snowfall,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And thought of the leaden sky<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That arched o&#8217;er our first great sorrow,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">When that mound was heaped so high.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">I remembered the gradual patience<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">That fell from that cloud like snow,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Flake by flake, healing and hiding<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The scar on our deep-plunged woe.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">And again to the child I whispered,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">&#8220;The snow that husheth all,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Darling, the merciful Father<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Alone can make it fall.&#8221;<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Then, with eyes that saw not, I kissed her;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And she, kissing back, could not know<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That <i>my</i> kiss was given to her sister,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Folded close under deepening snow.<br /></span>
+<span class="i8 smcap">James Russell Lowell.</span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+<p class="heading">HELPS TO STUDY</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>When did the snow begin? How do you know? What time is it now? Is
+snow still falling? Read the lines that show this. Of what sorrow
+does the snow remind the poet? Read the lines which show that peace
+had come to the parents. Make a list of the comparisons (or
+similes) used by the poet. Read the lines which show that the storm
+was a quiet one. Which lines do you like best?</p></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[168]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2 class="chapterhead"><a name="OLD_EPHRAIM" id="OLD_EPHRAIM"></a>OLD EPHRAIM</h2>
+
+
+<p>For some days after our arrival on the Bighorn range we did not come
+across any grizzly. There were plenty of black-tail deer in the woods,
+and we encountered a number of bands of cow and calf elk, or of young
+bulls; but after several days&#8217; hunting, we were still without any game
+worth taking home, and we had seen no sign of grizzly, which was the
+game we were especially anxious to kill, for neither Merrifield nor I
+had ever seen a bear alive.</p>
+
+<p>Sometimes we hunted in company; sometimes each of us went out alone. One
+day we had separated; I reached camp early in the afternoon, and waited
+a couple of hours before Merrifield put in an appearance.</p>
+
+<p>At last I heard a shout, and he came in sight galloping at speed down an
+open glade, and waving his hat, evidently having had good luck; and when
+he reined in his small, wiry cow-pony, we saw that he had packed behind
+his saddle the fine, glossy pelt of a black bear. Better still, he
+announced that he had been off about ten miles to a perfect tangle of
+ravines and valleys where bear sign was very thick; and not of black
+bear either, but of grizzly. The black bear (the only one we got on the
+mountains) he had run across by accident.</p>
+
+<p>Merrifield&#8217;s tale made me decide to shift camp at<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[169]</a></span> once, and go over to
+the spot where the bear-tracks were plentiful. Next morning we were off,
+and by noon pitched camp by a clear brook, in a valley with steep,
+wooded sides.</p>
+
+<p>That afternoon we again went out, and I shot a fine bull elk. I came
+home alone toward nightfall, walking through a reach of burnt forest,
+where there was nothing but charred tree-trunks and black mold. When
+nearly through it I came across the huge, half-human footprints of a
+great grizzly, which must have passed by within a few minutes. It gave
+me rather an eery feeling in the silent, lonely woods, to see for the
+first time the unmistakable proofs that I was in the home of the mighty
+lord of the wilderness.</p>
+
+<p>That evening we almost had a visit from one of the animals we were
+after. Several times we had heard at night the musical calling of the
+bull elk&mdash;a sound to which no writer has as yet done justice. This
+particular night, when we were in bed and the fire was smoldering, we
+were roused by a ruder noise&mdash;a kind of grunting or roaring whine,
+answered by the frightened snorts of the ponies. It was a bear which had
+evidently not seen the fire, as it came from behind the bank, and had
+probably been attracted by the smell of the horses. After it made out
+what we were, it stayed round a short while, again uttered its peculiar
+roaring grunt, and went off; we had seized our rifles and had run out
+into the woods, but in the darkness could<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[170]</a></span> see nothing; indeed it was
+rather lucky we did not stumble across the bear, as he could have made
+short work of us when we were at such a disadvantage.</p>
+
+<p>Next day we went off on a long tramp through the woods and along the
+sides of the canyons. There were plenty of berry bushes growing in
+clusters; and all around these there were fresh tracks of bear. But the
+grizzly is also a flesh-eater, and has a great liking for <a name="carrion_text" id="carrion_text"></a><a href="#carrion" class="fnanchor">v</a>carrion. On
+visiting the place where Merrifield had killed the black bear, we found
+that the grizzlies had been there before us, and had utterly devoured
+the carcass, with cannibal relish. Hardly a scrap was left, and we
+turned our steps toward where lay the bull elk I had killed. It was
+quite late in the afternoon when we reached the place.</p>
+
+<p>A grizzly had evidently been at the carcass during the preceding night,
+for his great footprints were in the ground all around it, and the
+carcass itself was gnawed and torn, and partially covered with earth and
+leaves&mdash;the grizzly has a curious habit of burying all of his prey that
+he does not at the moment need.</p>
+
+<p>The forest was composed mainly of what are called ridge-pole pines,
+which grow close together, and do not branch out until the stems are
+thirty or forty feet from the ground. Beneath these trees we walked over
+a carpet of pine needles, upon which our moccasined feet made no sound.
+The woods seemed vast and lonely, and their silence was broken now and
+then by the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[171]</a></span> strange noises always to be heard in the great pine
+forests.</p>
+
+<p>We climbed up along the trunk of a dead tree that had toppled over until
+its upper branches struck in the limb crotch of another, which thus
+supported it at an angle half-way in its fall. When above the ground far
+enough to prevent the bear&#8217;s smelling us, we sat still to wait for his
+approach; until, in the gathering gloom, we could no longer see the
+sights of our rifles. It was useless to wait longer; and we clambered
+down and stole out to the edge of the woods. The forest here covered one
+side of a steep, almost canyon-like ravine, whose other side was bare
+except for rock and sage-brush. Once out from under the trees there was
+still plenty of light, although the sun had set, and we crossed over
+some fifty yards to the opposite hillside, and crouched down under a
+bush to see if perchance some animal might not also leave the cover.</p>
+
+<p>Again we waited quietly in the growing dusk until the pine trees in our
+front blended into one dark, frowning mass. At last, as we were rising
+to leave, we heard the sound of the breaking of a dead stick, from the
+spot where we knew the carcass lay. &#8220;Old Ephraim&#8221; had come back to the
+carcass. A minute afterward, listening with strained ears, we heard him
+brush by some dry twigs. It was entirely too dark to go in after him;
+but we made up our minds that on the morrow he should be ours.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[172]</a></span>Early next morning we were over at the elk carcass, and, as we expected,
+found that the bear had eaten his fill of it during the night. His
+tracks showed him to be an immense fellow, and were so fresh that we
+doubted if he had left long before we arrived; and we made up our minds
+to follow him up and try to find his lair. The bears that lived on these
+mountains had evidently been little disturbed; indeed, the Indians and
+most of the white hunters are rather chary of meddling with &#8220;Old
+Ephraim,&#8221; as the mountain men style the grizzly. The bears thus seemed
+to have very little fear of harm, and we thought it likely that the bed
+of the one who had fed on the elk would not be far away.</p>
+
+<p>My companion was a skillful tracker, and we took up the trail at once.
+For some distance it led over the soft, yielding carpet of moss and pine
+needles, and the footprints were quite easily made out, although we
+could follow them but slowly; for we had, of course, to keep a sharp
+look-out ahead and around us as we walked noiselessly on in the somber
+half-light always prevailing under the great pine trees.</p>
+
+<p>After going a few hundred yards the tracks turned off on a well-beaten
+path made by the elk; the woods were in many places cut up by these game
+trails, which had often become as distinct as ordinary footpaths. The
+beast&#8217;s footprints were perfectly plain in the dust, and he had lumbered
+along up the path until near the middle of the hillside, where the
+ground broke away and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[173]</a></span> there were hollows and boulders. Here there had
+been a windfall, and the dead trees lay among the living, piled across
+one another in all directions; while between and around them sprouted up
+a thick growth of young spruces and other evergreens. The trail turned
+off into the tangled thicket, within which it was almost certain we
+should find our quarry. We could still follow the tracks, by the slight
+scrapes of the claws on the bark, or by the bent and broken twigs; and
+we advanced with noiseless caution.</p>
+
+<p>When in the middle of the thicket we crossed what was almost a
+breastwork of fallen logs, and Merrifield, who was leading, passed by
+the upright stem of a great pine. As soon as he was by it, he sank
+suddenly on one knee, turning half round, his face fairly aflame with
+excitement; and as I strode past him, with my rifle at the ready, there,
+not ten steps off, was the great bear, slowly rising from his bed among
+the young spruces. He had heard us, but apparently hardly knew exactly
+where or what we were, for he reared up on his haunches sideways to us.</p>
+
+<p>Then he saw us and dropped down again on all-fours, the shaggy hair on
+his neck and shoulders seeming to bristle as he turned toward us. As he
+sank down on his fore feet, I had raised the rifle; his head was bent
+slightly down, and when I saw the top of the white bead fairly between
+his small, glittering, evil eyes, I pulled trigger. Half-rising up, the
+huge beast<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[174]</a></span> fell over on his side in the death throes, the ball having
+gone into his brain, striking as fairly between the eyes as if the
+distance had been measured.</p>
+
+<p>The whole thing was over in twenty seconds from the time I caught sight
+of the game; indeed, it was over so quickly that the grizzly did not
+have time to show fight. He was a monstrous fellow, much larger than any
+I have seen since. As near as we could estimate, he must have weighed
+above twelve hundred pounds.</p>
+
+<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Theodore Roosevelt.</span></p>
+
+
+<p class="heading">HELPS TO STUDY</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>Theodore Roosevelt, President of the United States from 1901 to
+1909, was one of the greatest hunters of the present generation. As
+he was in weak health as a young man, he went West and lived for
+some time the life of a ranchman and hunter, killing much wild
+game. In later years he went on a great hunting trip to Africa, and
+finally explored the wilds of the Amazon river, in South America,
+in search of game and adventure. &#8220;Old Ephraim&#8221; narrates one of his
+earlier hunting experiences, and is taken from the book, <i>The
+Hunting Trips of a Ranchman</i>.</p>
+
+<p>Give an account of the capture of the grizzly bear. Why did not
+Merrifield fire? Compare the weight of the bear with that of the
+average cow or horse. Tell of any bear hunt of which you know.</p></div>
+
+
+<p class="heading">SUPPLEMENTARY READING</p>
+
+<ul class="supread">
+  <li>Watchers of the Trail&mdash;Charles C. D. Roberts.</li>
+  <li>Monarch, the Bear&mdash;Ernest Thompson Seton.</li>
+  <li>Wild Animals I Have Known&mdash;Ernest Thompson Seton.</li>
+  <li>African Game Trails&mdash;Theodore Roosevelt.</li>
+</ul>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[175]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2 class="chapterhead"><a name="MIDWINTER" id="MIDWINTER"></a>MIDWINTER</h2>
+
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">The speckled sky is dim with snow,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The light flakes falter and fall slow;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Athwart the hill-top, rapt and pale,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Silently drops a silvery veil;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And all the valley is shut in<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">By flickering curtains gray and thin.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">But cheerily the chickadee<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Singeth to me on fence and tree;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The snow sails round him as he sings,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">White as the down of angels&#8217; wings.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">I watch the slow flakes as they fall<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">On bank and briar and broken wall;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Over the orchard, waste and brown,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">All noiselessly they settle down,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Tipping the apple-boughs, and each<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Light quivering twig of plum and peach.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">On turf and curb and bower-roof<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The snow-storm spreads its ivory woof;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">It paves with pearl the garden-walk;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And lovingly round tattered stalk<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And shivering stem its magic weaves<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A mantle fair as lily-leaves.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">All day it snows: the sheeted post<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Gleams in the dimness like a ghost;<br /></span>
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[176]</a></span><span class="i0">All day the blasted oak has stood<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A muffled wizard of the wood;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Garland and airy cap adorn<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The sumach and the wayside thorn,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And clustering spangles lodge and shine<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In the dark tresses of the pine.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">The ragged bramble, dwarfed and old,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Shrinks like a beggar in the cold;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In <a name="surplice_text" id="surplice_text"></a><a href="#surplice" class="fnanchor">v</a>surplice white the cedar stands,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And blesses him with priestly hands.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Still cheerily the chickadee<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Singeth to me on fence and tree:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But in my inmost ear is heard<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The music of a holier bird;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And heavenly thoughts as soft and white<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">As snow-flakes on my soul alight,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Clothing with love my lonely heart,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Healing with peace each bruised part,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Till all my being seems to be<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Transfigured by their purity.<br /></span>
+<span class="i4 smcap">John Townsend Trowbridge.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+<p class="heading">HELPS TO STUDY</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>When did this storm begin? Read lines which show this. Give reasons
+for your answer. What comparisons are used by the poet in
+describing the snowfall? Which comparison do you like best? What
+healing thought does the storm bring to the poet? Compare it with
+the same thought in <i>The First Snowfall</i>.</p></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[177]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2 class="chapterhead"><a name="A_GEORGIA_FOX_HUNT" id="A_GEORGIA_FOX_HUNT"></a>A GEORGIA FOX HUNT<a name="FNanchor_177-1_3" id="FNanchor_177-1_3"></a><a href="#Footnote_177-1_3" class="fnanchor"><span style="font-size: smaller;">177-*</span></a></h2>
+
+
+<p class="sectionhead">I</p>
+
+<p>In the season of 1863, the Rockville Hunting Club, which had been newly
+organized, was at the height of its success. It was composed of men too
+old to go in the army, and of young men who were not old enough, or who,
+from one cause and another, were exempted from military service.
+Ostensibly, its object was to encourage the noble sport of fox-hunting
+and to bind by closer ties the congenial souls whose love for horse and
+hound and horn bordered on enthusiasm. This, I say, was its
+<a name="ostensible_text" id="ostensible_text"></a><a href="#ostensible" class="fnanchor">v</a>ostensible object, for it seems to me, looking back upon that
+terrible time, that the main purpose of the association was to devise
+new methods of forgetting the sickening <a name="portents_text" id="portents_text"></a><a href="#portents" class="fnanchor">v</a>portents of disaster that
+were even then thick in the air. Any suggestion or plan <a name="corr8" id="corr8"></a>calculated to
+relieve the mind from the weight of the horror of those desperate days
+was eagerly seized upon and utilized. With the old men and the fledgling
+boys in the neighborhood of Rockville, the desire to escape momentarily
+the realities of the present took the shape of fox-hunting and other
+congenial amusements. With the women&mdash;ah well! Heaven only knows how
+they sat dumb and silent over their great anguish and grief, cheering
+the helpless and comforting and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[178]</a></span> succoring the sick and wounded. It was
+a mystery to me then, and it is a mystery to me now.</p>
+
+<p>About the first of November the writer hereof received a long-expected
+letter from Tom Tunison, the secretary of the club, who was on a visit
+to Monticello. It was brief and breezy.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Young man,&#8221; he wrote, &#8220;they are coming. They are going to give us a
+<a name="ruffle_text" id="ruffle_text"></a><a href="#ruffle" class="fnanchor">v</a>ruffle. Their dogs are good, but they lack form and finish as well as
+discipline&mdash;plenty of bottom but no confidence. I haven&#8217;t hesitated to
+put up our horn as the prize. Get the boys together and tell them about
+it, and see that our own eleven are in fighting trim. You won&#8217;t believe
+it, but Sue, Herndon, Kate, and Walthall are coming with the party; and
+the fair de Compton, who set all the Monticello boys wild last year when
+she got back from Macon, vows and declares she is coming, too. Remember
+the 15th. Be prepared.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>I took in the situation at a glance. Tom, in his reckless style, had
+bantered a party of Jasper county men as to the superiority of their
+dogs, and had even offered to give them an opportunity to gain the
+silver-mounted horn won by the Rockville club in Hancock county the year
+before. The Jasper county men, who were really breeding some excellent
+dogs, accepted the challenge, and Tom had invited them to share the
+hospitality of the plantation home called &#8220;Bachelors&#8217; Hall.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[179]</a></span>If the truth must be confessed, I was not at all grieved at the
+announcement in Tom&#8217;s letter, apart from the agreeable change in the
+social atmosphere that would result from the presence of ladies in
+&#8220;Bachelors&#8217; Hall.&#8221; I was eagerly anxious to test the mettle of a
+favorite hound&mdash;Flora&mdash;whose care and training had cost me a great deal
+of time and trouble. Although it was her first season in the field, she
+had already become the pet and pride of the Rockville club, the members
+of which were not slow to sound her praises. Flora was an experiment.
+She was the result of a cross between the Henry hound (called in Georgia
+the &#8220;Birdsong dog,&#8221; in honor of the most successful breeder) and a
+Maryland hound. She was a grand-daughter of the famous Hodo and in
+everything except her color (she was white with yellow ears) was the
+exact reproduction of that magnificent fox-hound. I was anxious to see
+her put to the test.</p>
+
+<p>It was with no small degree of satisfaction, therefore, that I informed
+Aunt Patience, the cook, of Tom&#8217;s programme. Aunt Patience was a
+privileged character, whose comments upon people and things were free
+and frequent; when she heard that a party of hunters, accompanied by
+ladies, proposed to make the hall their temporary headquarters, her
+remarks were ludicrously indignant.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Well, ef dat Marse Tom ain&#8217;t de beatinest white man dat I ever sot eyes
+on&mdash;&#8217;way off yander givin&#8217;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[180]</a></span> way his vittles fo&#8217; he buy um at de sto&#8217;!
+How I know what Marse Tom want, an&#8217; tel I know, whar I gwineter git um?
+He better be home yer lookin&#8217; atter deze lazy niggers, stidder
+high-flyin&#8217; wid dem Jasper county folks. Ef dez enny vittles on dis
+plan&#8217;ash&#8217;n, hits more&#8217;n I knows un. En he&#8217;ll go runnin&#8217; roun&#8217; wid dem
+harum-skarum gals twell I boun&#8217; he don&#8217;t fetch dat pipe an&#8217; dat &#8217;backer
+what he said he would. Can&#8217;t fool me &#8217;bout de gals what grows up deze
+days. Dey duz like dey wanter stan&#8217; up an&#8217; cuss dersef&#8217; case dey wuzent
+borned men.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Why, Aunt Patience, your Marse Tom says Miss de Compton is as pretty as
+a pink and as fine as a fiddle.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Law, chile! you needn&#8217;t talk &#8217;bout de gals to dis ole &#8217;omen. I done
+know um fo&#8217; you wuz borned. W&#8217;en you see Miss Compton you see all de
+balance un um. Deze is new times. Marse Tom&#8217;s mammy useter spin her
+fifteen cents o&#8217; wool a day&mdash;w&#8217;en you see Miss Compton wid a hank er
+yarn in &#8217;er han&#8217;, you jes&#8217; sen&#8217; me word.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Whereupon, Aunt Patience gave her head handkerchief a vigorous wrench,
+and went her way&mdash;the good old soul&mdash;even then considering how she
+should best set about preparing a genuine surprise for her young master
+in the shape of daily feasts for a dozen guests. I will not stop here to
+detail the character of this preparation or to dwell upon its success.
+It is<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[181]</a></span> enough to say that Tom Tunison praised Aunt Patience to the
+skies; and, as if this were not sufficient to make her happy, he
+produced a big clay pipe, three plugs of real &#8220;manufac terbacker,&#8221; which
+was hard to get in those times, a red shawl, and twelve yards of calico.</p>
+
+<p>The fortnight that followed the arrival of Tom&#8217;s guests was one long to
+be remembered, not only in the <a name="annals_text" id="annals_text"></a><a href="#annals" class="fnanchor">v</a>annals of the Rockville Hunting Club
+but in the annals of Rockville itself. The fair de Compton literally
+turned the heads of old men and young boys, and even succeeded in
+conquering the critics of her own sex. She was marvelously beautiful,
+and her beauty was of a kind to haunt one in one&#8217;s dreams. It was easy
+to perceive that she had made a conquest of Tom, and I know that every
+suggestion he made and every project he planned had for its sole end and
+aim the enjoyment of Miss Carrie de Compton.</p>
+
+<p>It was several days before the minor details of the contest, which was
+at once the excuse for and the object of the visit of Tom&#8217;s guests,
+could be arranged, but finally everything was &#8220;<a name="amicably_text" id="amicably_text"></a><a href="#amicably" class="fnanchor">v</a>amicably adjusted,&#8221;
+and the day appointed. The night before the hunt, the club and the
+Jasper county visitors assembled in Tom Tunison&#8217;s parlor for a final
+discussion of the event.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;In order,&#8221; said Tom, &#8220;to give our friends and guests an opportunity
+fully to test the speed and bottom of their kennels, it has been decided
+to pay our respects to &#8216;Old Sandy&#8217;.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[182]</a></span>&#8220;And pray, Mr. Tunison, who is &#8216;Old Sandy&#8217;?&#8221; queried Miss de Compton.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;He is a fox, Miss de Compton, and a tough one. He is a trained fox. He
+has been hunted so often by the inferior packs in his neighborhood that
+he is well-nigh <a name="invincible_text" id="invincible_text"></a><a href="#invincible" class="fnanchor">v</a>invincible. He is so well known that he has not been
+hunted, except by accident, for two seasons. He is not as suspicious as
+he was two years ago, but we must be careful if we want to get within
+hearing distance of him to-morrow morning.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Do any of the ladies go with us?&#8221; asked Jack Herndon.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I go, for one,&#8221; responded Miss de Compton, and in a few minutes all the
+ladies had decided to go along, even if they found it inconvenient to
+participate actively in the hunt.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Then,&#8221; said Tom, rising, &#8220;we must say good night. Uncle Plato will
+sound &#8216;Boots and Saddle&#8217; at four o&#8217;clock to-morrow morning.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Four o&#8217;clock!&#8221; exclaimed the ladies in dismay.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;At four precisely,&#8221; answered Tom, and the ladies with pretty little
+gestures of mock despair swept upstairs while Tom brought out cigars for
+the boys.</p>
+
+<p>My friend little knew how delighted I was that &#8220;Old Sandy&#8221; was to be put
+through his paces. He little knew how carefully I had studied the
+peculiarities of this famous fox&mdash;how often when training Flora I had
+taken her out and followed &#8220;Old Sandy&#8221; through<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[183]</a></span> all his ranges, how I
+had &#8220;felt of&#8221; both his speed and bottom and knew all his weak points.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sectionhead">II</p>
+
+<p>Morning came, and with it Uncle Plato&#8217;s bugle call. Aunt Patience was
+ready with a smoking hot breakfast, and everybody was in fine spirits.
+As the eager, happy crowd filed down the broad avenue that led to the
+hall, the fair de Compton, who had been delayed in mounting, rode by my
+side.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You choose your escort well,&#8221; I ventured to say.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I have a weakness for children,&#8221; she replied; &#8220;particularly for
+children who know what they are about. Plato has told me that if I
+desired to see all of the hunt without much trouble, to follow you. I am
+selfish, you perceive.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>We rode over the red hills and under the russet trees until we came to
+&#8220;Old Sandy&#8217;s&#8221; favorite haunt. Here a council of war was held, and it was
+decided that Tom and a portion of the hunters should skirt the fields,
+while another portion led by Miss de Compton and myself should enter and
+bid the fox good morning. Uncle Plato, who had been given the cue,
+followed me with the dogs, and in a few moments we were very near the
+particular spot where I hoped to find the venerable deceiver of dogs and
+men. The hounds were already sallying hither and thither, anxious and
+evidently expectant.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[184]</a></span>Five minutes went by without a whimper from the pack. There was not a
+sound save the eager rustling of the dogs through the sedge and
+undergrowth. The ground was familiar to Flora, and I watched her with
+pride as with powerful strides she circled around. Suddenly she paused
+and flung her head in the air, making a beautiful picture where she
+stood poised, as if listening. My heart gave a great thump. It was a
+trick of hers, and I knew that &#8220;Old Sandy&#8221; had been around within the
+past twenty-four hours! With a rush, a bound, and an eager cry, my
+favorite came toward us, and the next moment &#8220;Old Sandy,&#8221; who had been
+lying almost at our horses&#8217; feet, was up and away with Flora right at
+his heels. A wild hope seized me that my favorite would run into the shy
+veteran before he could get out of the field. But no! One of the Jasper
+county hunters, rendered momentarily insane by excitement, endeavored to
+ride the fox down with his horse, and in another moment Sir Reynard was
+over the fence and into the woodland beyond, followed by the hounds.
+They made a splendid but <a name="ineffectual_text" id="ineffectual_text"></a><a href="#ineffectual" class="fnanchor">v</a>ineffectual burst of speed, for when &#8220;Old
+Sandy&#8221; found himself upon the blackjack hills he was foot-loose. The
+morning, however, was fine&mdash;just damp enough to leave the scent of the
+fox hanging breast high in the air, whether he shaped his course over
+lowlands or highlands.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px; margin-top: 2em; margin-bottom: 2em;">
+<a href="images/image08-full.jpg"><img src="images/image08.jpg" width="400" height="220" alt="The Beginning of the Fox Hunt" title="The Beginning of the Fox Hunt" /></a>
+<span class="caption"><b>The Beginning of the Fox Hunt</b></span>
+</div>
+
+<p>In the midst of all the confusion that had ensued, Miss de Compton
+remained cool, serene, and appar<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[185]</a><br /><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[186]</a></span>ently indifferent, but I observed a
+glow upon her face and a sparkle in her eyes, as Tom Tunison, riding his
+gallant gray and heading the hunters, easily and gracefully took a
+couple of fences when the hounds veered to the left.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Our Jasper county friend has saved &#8216;Old Sandy,&#8217; Miss de Compton,&#8221; I
+said, &#8220;but he has given us an opportunity of witnessing some very fine
+sport. The fox is so badly frightened that he may endeavor in the
+beginning to outfoot the dogs, but in the end he will return to his
+range, and then I hope to show you what a cunning old customer he is. If
+Flora doesn&#8217;t fail us at the critical moment, you will have the honor of
+wearing his brush on your saddle.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Youth is always confident,&#8221; replied Miss de Compton.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;In this instance, however, I have the advantage of knowing both hound
+and fox. Flora has a few weaknesses, but I think she understands what is
+expected of her to-day.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Thus bantering and chaffing each other, we turned our horses&#8217; heads in a
+direction <a name="oblique_text" id="oblique_text"></a><a href="#oblique" class="fnanchor">v</a>oblique to that taken by the other hunters, who, with the
+exception of Tom Tunison and Jack Herndon, now well up with the dogs,
+were struggling along as best they could. For a half mile or more we
+cantered down a lane, then turned into a stubble field, and made for a
+hill crowned and skirted by a growth of blackjack, through which an<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[187]</a></span>
+occasional pine had broken, as it seemed, in a vain but noble effort to
+touch the sky. Once upon the summit of the hills, we had a majestic view
+upon all sides. The fresh morning breezes blew crisp and cool and
+bracing, but were not uncomfortable after the exercise we had taken; and
+as the clouds that had muffled up the east dispersed themselves or were
+dissolved, the generous sun spread layer upon layer of golden light upon
+hill and valley and forest and stream.</p>
+
+<p>Away to the left we could hear the hounds, and the music of their
+voices, toyed with by the playful wind, rolled itself into melodious
+little echoes that broke pleasantly upon the ear, now loud, now faint,
+now far and now near. The first burst of speed, which had been terrific,
+had settled down into a steady run, but I knew by the sound that the
+pace was still tremendous, and I imagined I could hear the silvery
+tongue of Flora as she led the eager pack. The cries of the hounds,
+however, grew fainter and fainter, until presently they were lost in the
+distance.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;He is making a straight shoot for the Turner <a name="old_text" id="old_text"></a><a href="#old" class="fnanchor">v</a>old fields, two miles
+away,&#8221; I remarked, by way of explanation.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;And pray, why are we here?&#8221; Miss de Compton asked.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;To be in at the death. (The fair de Compton smiled <a name="sarcastically_text" id="sarcastically_text"></a><a href="#sarcastically" class="fnanchor">v</a>sarcastically.)
+In the Turner old fields the fox will make his grand double, gain upon
+the dogs,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[188]</a></span> head for yonder hill, and come down the ravine upon our
+right. At the fence here, within plain view, he will attempt a trick
+that has heretofore always been successful, and which has given him a
+reputation as a trained fox. I depend upon the intelligence of Flora to
+see through &#8216;Old Sandy&#8217;s&#8217; <a name="strategy_text" id="strategy_text"></a><a href="#strategy" class="fnanchor">v</a>strategy, but if she hesitates a moment, we
+must set her right.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>I spoke with the confidence of one having experience, and Miss de
+Compton smiled and was content. We had little time for further
+conversation, for in a few minutes I observed a dark shadow emerge from
+the undergrowth on the opposite hill and slip quickly across the open
+space of fallow land. It crossed the ravine that intersected the valley,
+stole quietly through the stubble to the fence, and there paused a
+moment, as if hesitating. In a low voice I called Miss de Compton&#8217;s
+attention to the figure, but she refused to believe that it was the same
+fox we had aroused thirty minutes before. Howbeit, it was the
+<a name="veritable_text" id="veritable_text"></a><a href="#veritable" class="fnanchor">v</a>veritable &#8220;Old Sandy&#8221; himself. I should have known him among a
+thousand foxes. He was not in as fine feather as when, at the start, he
+had swung his brush across Flora&#8217;s nose&mdash;the pace had told on him&mdash;but
+he still moved with an air of confidence.</p>
+
+<p>Then and there Miss de Compton beheld a display of fox tactics shrewd
+enough to excite the admiration of the most indifferent&mdash;a display of
+cunning that seemed to be something higher than instinct.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[189]</a></span>&#8220;Old Sandy&#8221; paused only a moment. With a bound he gained the top of
+the fence, stopped to pull something from one of his fore
+feet&mdash;probably a cockle bur&mdash;and then carefully balancing himself,
+proceeded to walk the fence. By this time, the music of the dogs was
+again heard in the distance, but &#8220;Old Sandy&#8221; took his time.
+One&mdash;two&mdash;three&mdash;seven&mdash;ten&mdash;twenty panels of the fence were cleared.
+Pausing, he again subjected his fore feet to examination, and licked
+them carefully. Then he proceeded on his journey along the fence until
+he was at least one hundred yards from where he left the ground. Here
+he paused for the first time, gathered himself together, leaped
+through the air, and rushed away. As he did so, the full note of the
+pack burst upon our ears as the hounds reached the brow of the hill
+from the lowlands on the other side.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Upon my word!&#8221; exclaimed Miss de Compton; &#8220;that fox ought to go free. I
+shall beg Mr. Tunison&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>But before she finished her sentence the dogs came into view, and I
+could hardly restrain a shout of triumph as I saw Flora running easily
+and unerringly far to the front. Behind her, led by Captain&mdash;and so
+close together that, as Uncle Plato afterward remarked, &#8220;You mout kivver
+de whole caboodle wid a hoss-blanket&#8221;&mdash;were the remainder of the Tunison
+kennel, while the Jasper county hounds were strung out behind<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[190]</a></span> in wild
+but heroic confusion. I felt strongly tempted to give the view-halloo,
+and push &#8220;Old Sandy&#8221; to the wall at once, but I knew that the fair de
+Compton would regard the exploit with severe <a name="reprobation_text" id="reprobation_text"></a><a href="#reprobation" class="fnanchor">v</a>reprobation forever
+after. Across the ravine and to the fence the dogs came, their voices,
+as they got nearer, crashing through the silence like a chorus of
+demons.</p>
+
+<p>Now was the critical moment. If Flora should fail me&mdash;!</p>
+
+<p>Several of the older dogs topped the rails, and scattered through the
+undergrowth. Flora came over with them, made a small circle, with her
+sensitive nose to the damp earth, and then went rushing down the fence.
+Past the point where &#8220;Old Sandy&#8221; took his flying leap she ran, turned
+suddenly to the left, and came swooping back in a wide circle. I had
+barely time to warn Miss de Compton that she must prepare to do a little
+rapid riding, when my favorite, with a fierce cry of delight that
+thrilled me through and through, picked up the blazing <a name="drag_text" id="drag_text"></a><a href="#drag" class="fnanchor">v</a>drag, and away
+we went with a scream and a shout. I felt in my very bones that &#8220;Old
+Sandy&#8221; was doomed. I had never seen Flora so prompt and eager; I had
+never observed the scent to be better. Everything was auspicious.</p>
+
+<p>We went like the wind. Miss de Compton rode well, and the long stretches
+of stubble land through which the chase led were unbroken by ditch or
+fence. The pace of the hounds was simply terrific, and I knew<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[191]</a></span> that no
+fox on earth could long stand up before the white demon that led the
+hunt with such splendor.</p>
+
+<p>Five&mdash;ten&mdash;fifteen minutes we rushed at the heels of the rearmost dogs,
+until, suddenly, we found ourselves in the midst of the pack. The scent
+was lost! Flora ran about in wide circles, followed by the greater
+portion of the dogs. To the left, to the right they went. At that
+moment, chancing to look back, I caught a glimpse of &#8220;Old Sandy,&#8221; broken
+down and bedraggled, making his way toward a clump of briars. He had
+played his last <a name="trump_text" id="trump_text"></a><a href="#trump" class="fnanchor">v</a>trump and lost. Pushed by the dogs, he had dropped in
+his tracks and literally allowed them to run over him. I rode at him
+with a shout; there was a short, sharp race, and in a few moments <a name="lamort_text" id="lamort_text"></a><a href="#lamort" class="fnanchor">v</a><i>La
+Mort</i> was sounded over the famous fox on the horn that the Jasper county
+boys did not win.</p>
+
+<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Joel Chandler Harris.</span></p>
+
+
+<p class="heading">HELPS TO STUDY</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>This gives a good picture of a fox hunt in the South in the long
+ago. Tell what you like best about it. Who is telling the story?
+Was he young or old? How do you know? What opinion do you form of
+the &#8220;fair de Compton&#8221;? See if you can get an old man, perhaps a
+negro, to tell you of a fox hunt he has seen.</p></div>
+
+<p class="heading">SUPPLEMENTARY READING</p>
+
+<ul class="supread">
+  <li>In Ole Virginia&mdash;Thomas Nelson Page.</li>
+  <li>Old Creole Days&mdash;George W. Cable.</li>
+  <li>Swallow Barn&mdash;John P. Kennedy.</li>
+  <li>The Prophet of the Great Smoky Mountains&mdash;Charles Egbert Craddock.</li>
+</ul>
+
+
+<div class="footnotes">
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_177-1_3" id="Footnote_177-1_3"></a><a href="#FNanchor_177-1_3"><span class="label">177-*</span></a> From the <i>Atlanta Constitution</i>.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[192]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2 class="chapterhead"><a name="RAIN_AND_WIND" id="RAIN_AND_WIND"></a>RAIN AND WIND</h2>
+
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">I hear the hoofs of horses<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Galloping over the hill,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Galloping on and galloping on,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">When all the night is shrill<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With wind and rain that beats the pane&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And my soul with awe is still.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">For every dripping window<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Their headlong rush makes bound,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Galloping up and galloping by,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Then back again and around,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Till the gusty roofs ring with their hoofs,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And the draughty cellars sound.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">And then I hear black horsemen<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Hallooing in the night;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Hallooing and hallooing,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">They ride o&#8217;er vale and height,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And the branches snap and the shutters clap<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">With the fury of their flight.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">All night I hear their gallop,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And their wild halloo&#8217;s alarm;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The tree-tops sound and vanes go round<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">In forest and on farm;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But never a hair of a thing is there&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Only the wind and the storm.<br /></span>
+<span class="i8 smcap">Madison Julius Cawein.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[193]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2 class="chapterhead"><a name="THE_SOUTHERN_SKY" id="THE_SOUTHERN_SKY"></a>THE SOUTHERN SKY</h2>
+
+
+<p>Presently the stars begin to peep out, timidly at first, as if to see
+whether the elements here below had ceased their strife, and if the
+scene on earth be such as they, from bright spheres aloft, may shed
+their sweet influences upon. Sirius, or that blazing world Argus, may be
+the first watcher to send down a feeble ray; then follow another and
+another, all smiling meekly; but presently, in the short twilight of the
+latitude, the bright leaders of the starry host blaze forth in all their
+glory, and the sky is decked and spangled with superb brilliants.</p>
+
+<p>In the twinkling of an eye, and faster than the admiring gazer can tell,
+the stars seem to leap out from their hiding-places. By invisible hands,
+and in quick succession, the constellations are hung out; first of all,
+and with dazzling glory, in the azure depths of space appears the great
+Southern Cross. That shining symbol lends a holy grandeur to the scene,
+making it still more impressive.</p>
+
+<p>Alone in the night-watch, after the sea-breeze has sunk to rest, I have
+stood on deck under those beautiful skies, gazing, admiring, rapt. I
+have seen there, above the horizon at once and shining with a splendor
+unknown to other latitudes, every star of the <a name="first_text" id="first_text"></a><a href="#first" class="fnanchor">v</a>first magnitude&mdash;save
+only six&mdash;that is contained in the catalogue of the one hundred
+principal fixed stars.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[194]</a></span>There lies the city on the seashore, wrapped in sleep. The sky looks
+solid, like a vault of steel set with diamonds. The stillness below is
+in harmony with the silence above, and one almost fears to speak, lest
+the harsh sound of the human voice, reverberating through those vaulted
+&#8220;chambers of the south,&#8221; should wake up echo and drown the music that
+fills the soul.</p>
+
+<p>Orion is there, just about to march down into the sea; but Canopus and
+Sirius, with Castor and his twin brother, and <a name="Procyon_text" id="Procyon_text"></a><a href="#Procyon" class="fnanchor">v</a>Procyon, Argus, and
+Regulus&mdash;these are high up in their course; they look down with great
+splendor, smiling peacefully as they precede the Southern Cross on its
+western way. And yonder, farther still, away to the south, float the
+Magellanic clouds, and the &#8220;Coal Sacks&#8221;&mdash;those mysterious, dark spots in
+the sky, which seem as though it had been rent, and these were holes in
+the &#8220;azure robe of night,&#8221; looking out into the starless, empty, black
+abyss beyond. One who has never watched the southern sky in the
+stillness of the night, after the sea-breeze with its turmoil is done,
+can have no idea of its grandeur, beauty, and loveliness.</p>
+
+<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Matthew Fontaine Maury.</span></p>
+
+
+<p class="heading">HELPS TO STUDY</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>Do you know any of the stars or the constellations mentioned? Some
+of them are seen in our latitude, but the southern sky Maury
+describes is south of the equator. The &#8220;Southern Cross&#8221; is seen
+only below the equator. The &#8220;Magellan Clouds&#8221; are not far from the
+South Pole.</p></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[195]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2 class="chapterhead"><a name="DAFFODILS" id="DAFFODILS"></a>DAFFODILS</h2>
+
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">I wandered lonely as a cloud<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">That floats on high o&#8217;er vales and hills,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">When all at once I saw a crowd,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">A host of golden daffodils,&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Beside the lake, beneath the trees,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Continuous as the stars that shine<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And twinkle on the milky way,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">They stretched in never-ending line<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Along the margin of the bay.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Ten thousand saw I at a glance,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">The waves beside them danced, but they<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Outdid the sparkling waves in glee,&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A poet could not but be gay<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">In such a <a name="jocund_text" id="jocund_text"></a><a href="#jocund" class="fnanchor">v</a>jocund company.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">I gazed, and gazed, but little thought<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">What wealth the show to me had brought.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">For oft, when on my couch I lie,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">In vacant or in pensive mood,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">They flash upon that inward eye<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Which is the bliss of solitude;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And then my heart with pleasure fills,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And dances with the daffodils.<br /></span>
+<span class="i6 smcap">William Wordsworth.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[196]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2 class="chapterhead"><a name="DAWN" id="DAWN"></a>DAWN</h2>
+
+
+<p>I had occasion, a few weeks since, to take the early train from
+Providence to Boston; and for this purpose I rose at two o&#8217;clock in the
+morning. Everything around was wrapped in darkness and hushed in
+silence. It was a mild, serene, midsummer night,&mdash;the sky was without a
+cloud,&mdash;the winds were <a name="whist_text" id="whist_text"></a><a href="#whist" class="fnanchor">v</a>whist. The moon, then in the last quarter, had
+just risen, and the stars shone with a luster but little affected by her
+presence.</p>
+
+<p>Jupiter, two hours high, was the herald of the day; the <a name="Pleiades_text" id="Pleiades_text"></a><a href="#Pleiades" class="fnanchor">v</a>Pleiades,
+just above the horizon, shed their sweet influence in the east; Lyra
+sparkled near the <a name="zenith_text" id="zenith_text"></a><a href="#zenith" class="fnanchor">v</a>zenith; Andromeda veiled her newly discovered
+glories from the naked eye in the south; the steady Pointers, far
+beneath the pole, looked meekly up from the depths of the north to their
+sovereign.</p>
+
+<p>Such was the glorious spectacle as I entered the train. As we proceeded,
+the timid approach of twilight became more perceptible; the intense blue
+of the sky began to soften; the smaller stars, like little children,
+went first to rest; the sister-beams of the Pleiades soon melted
+together; but the bright constellations of the west and north remained
+unchanged. Steadily the wondrous transfiguration went on. Hands of
+angels, hidden from mortal eyes, shifted the scenery of the heavens; the
+glories of night dissolved into the glories of the dawn.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[197]</a></span>The blue sky now turned more softly gray; the great watch-stars shut up
+their holy eyes; the east began to kindle. Faint streaks of purple soon
+blushed along the sky; the whole celestial concave was filled with the
+inflowing tides of the morning light, which came pouring down from above
+in one great ocean of radiance; till at length, as we reached the Blue
+Hills, a flash of purple fire blazed out from above the horizon, and
+turned the dewy teardrops of flower and leaf into rubies and diamonds.
+In a few seconds, the everlasting gates of the morning were thrown wide
+open, and the lord of day, arrayed in glories too severe for the gaze of
+man, began his state.</p>
+
+<p>I do not wonder at the superstition of the ancient <a name="Magians_text" id="Magians_text"></a><a href="#Magians" class="fnanchor">v</a>Magians, who, in
+the morning of the world, went up to the hilltops of Central Asia, and,
+ignorant of the true God, adored the most glorious work of His hand. But
+I am filled with amazement, when I am told that, in this enlightened age
+and in the heart of the Christian world, there are persons who can
+witness this daily manifestation of the power and wisdom of the Creator,
+and yet say in their hearts, &#8220;There is no God.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Edward Everett.</span></p>
+
+
+<p class="heading">HELPS TO STUDY</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>What experience did Everett describe? What impresses the mood of
+the early morning? In what latitude did Everett live? What stars
+and constellations did he mention? Trace the steps by which he
+pictured the sunrise. Why did he not wonder at the belief of the
+&#8220;ancient Magians&#8221;? What thought does cause amazement?</p></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[198]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2 class="chapterhead"><a name="SPRING" id="SPRING"></a>SPRING</h2>
+
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Spring, with that nameless <a name="pathos_text" id="pathos_text"></a><a href="#pathos" class="fnanchor">v</a>pathos in the air<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Which dwells with all things fair&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Spring, with her golden suns and silver rain,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Is with us once again.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Out in the lonely woods, the jasmine burns<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Its fragrant lamps, and turns<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Into a royal court, with green festoons,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The banks of dark <a name="lagoons_text" id="lagoons_text"></a><a href="#lagoons" class="fnanchor">v</a>lagoons.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">In the deep heart of every forest tree,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The blood is all aglee;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And there&#8217;s a look about the leafless bowers,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">As if they dreamed of flowers.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Yet still, on every side we trace the hand<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Of Winter in the land,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Save where the maple reddens on the lawn,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Flushed by the season&#8217;s dawn;<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Or where, like those strange <a name="semblance_text" id="semblance_text"></a><a href="#semblance" class="fnanchor">v</a>semblances we find<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That age to childhood bind,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The elm puts on, as if in Nature&#8217;s scorn,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The brown of Autumn corn.<br /></span>
+</div>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 262px; margin-top: 2em; margin-bottom: 2em;">
+<a href="images/image09-full.jpg"><img src="images/image09.jpg" width="262" height="400" alt="The Woods in Spring" title="The Woods in Spring" /></a>
+<span class="caption"><b>The Woods in Spring</b></span>
+</div>
+
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">As yet the turf is dark, although you know<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That, not a span below,<br /></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[199]</a><br style="display: inline" /><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[200]</a></span>
+<span class="i0">A thousand germs are groping through the gloom,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And soon will burst their tomb.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">In gardens, you may note, amid the dearth,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The crocus breaking earth;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And near the snowdrop&#8217;s tender white and green,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The violet in its screen.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">But many gleams and showers need must pass<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Along the budding grass,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And weeks go by, before the enamored South<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Shall kiss the rose&#8217;s mouth.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Still there&#8217;s a sense of blossoms yet unborn,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In the sweet airs of morn;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">One almost looks to see the very street<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Grow purple at his feet.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">At times, a fragrant breeze comes floating by,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And brings, you know not why,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A feeling as when eager crowds await<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Before a palace gate<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Some wondrous pageant; and you scarce would start,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">If from a beech&#8217;s heart,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">A blue-eyed <a name="Dryad_text" id="Dryad_text"></a><a href="#Dryad" class="fnanchor">v</a>Dryad, stepping forth, should say,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">&#8220;Behold me! I am May!&#8221;<br /></span>
+<span class="i12 smcap">Henry Timrod.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[201]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2 class="chapterhead"><a name="AMONG_THE_CLIFFS" id="AMONG_THE_CLIFFS"></a>AMONG THE CLIFFS</h2>
+
+
+<p>It was a critical moment. There was a stir other than that of the wind
+among the pine needles and dry leaves that carpeted the ground.</p>
+
+<p>The wary wild turkeys lifted their long necks with that peculiar cry of
+half-doubting surprise so familiar to a sportsman, then all was still
+for an instant. The world was steeped in the noontide sunlight, the
+mountain air tasted of the fresh <a name="sylvan_text" id="sylvan_text"></a><a href="#sylvan" class="fnanchor">v</a>sylvan fragrance that pervaded the
+forest, the foliage blamed with the red and gold of autumn, the distant
+<a name="Chilhowee_text" id="Chilhowee_text"></a><a href="#Chilhowee" class="fnanchor">v</a>Chilhowee heights were delicately blue.</p>
+
+<p>That instant&#8217;s doubt sealed the doom of one of the flock. As the turkeys
+stood in momentary suspense, the sunlight gilding their bronze feathers
+to a brighter sheen, there was a movement in the dense undergrowth. The
+flock took suddenly to wing,&mdash;a flash from among the leaves, the sharp
+crack of a rifle, and one of the birds fell heavily over the bluff and
+down toward the valley.</p>
+
+<p>The young mountaineer&#8217;s exclamation of triumph died in his throat. He
+came running to the verge of the crag, and looked down ruefully into the
+depths where his game had disappeared.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Waal, sir,&#8221; he broke forth pathetically, &#8220;this beats my time! If my
+luck ain&#8217;t enough ter make a horse laugh!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[202]</a></span>He did not laugh, however; perhaps his luck was calculated to stir only
+<a name="equine_text" id="equine_text"></a><a href="#equine" class="fnanchor">v</a>equine risibility. The cliff was almost perpendicular; at the depth
+of twenty feet a narrow ledge projected, but thence there was a sheer
+descent, down, down, down, to the tops of the tall trees in the valley
+far below.</p>
+
+<p>As Ethan Tynes looked wistfully over the precipice, he started with a
+sudden surprise. There on the narrow ledge lay the dead turkey.</p>
+
+<p>The sight sharpened Ethan&#8217;s regrets. He had made a good shot, and he
+hated to relinquish his game. While he gazed in dismayed meditation, an
+idea began to kindle in his brain. Why could he not let himself down to
+the ledge by those long, strong vines that hung over the edge of the
+cliff?</p>
+
+<p>It was risky, Ethan knew, terribly risky. But then,&mdash;if only the vines
+were strong!</p>
+
+<p>He tried them again and again with all his might, selected several of
+the largest, grasped them hard and fast, and then slipped lightly off
+the crag.</p>
+
+<p>He waited motionless for a moment. His movements had dislodged clods of
+earth and fragments of rock from the verge of the cliff, and until these
+had ceased to rattle about his head and shoulders he did not begin his
+downward journey.</p>
+
+<p>Now and then as he went he heard the snapping of twigs, and again a
+branch would break, but the vines which supported him were tough and
+strong to the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[203]</a></span> last. Almost before he knew it, he stood upon the ledge,
+and with a great sigh of relief he let the vines swing loose.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Waal, that warn&#8217;t sech a mighty job at last. But law, if it hed been
+Peter Birt &#8217;stid of me, that thar wild tur-r-key would hev laid on this
+hyar ledge plumb till the Jedgmint Day!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>He walked deftly along the ledge, picked up the bird, and tied it to one
+of the vines with a string which he took from his pocket, intending to
+draw it up when he should be once more on the top of the crag. These
+preparations complete, he began to think of going back.</p>
+
+<p>He caught the vines on which he had made the descent, but before he had
+fairly left the ledge, he felt that they were giving way.</p>
+
+<p>He paused, let himself slip back to a secure foothold, and tried their
+strength by pulling with all his force.</p>
+
+<p>Presently down came the whole mass in his hands. The friction against
+the sharp edges of the rock over which they had been stretched with a
+strong tension had worn them through. His first emotion was one of
+intense thankfulness that they had fallen while he was on the ledge
+instead of midway in his <a name="precarious_text" id="precarious_text"></a><a href="#precarious" class="fnanchor">v</a>precarious ascent.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Ef they hed kem down whilst I war a-goin&#8217; up, I&#8217;d hev been flung down
+ter the bottom o&#8217; the valley, &#8217;kase this ledge air too narrer ter hev
+cotched me.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[204]</a></span>He glanced down at the somber depths beneath. &#8220;Thar wouldn&#8217;t hev been
+enough left of me ter pick up on a shovel!&#8221; he exclaimed, with a tardy
+realization of his foolish recklessness.</p>
+
+<p>The next moment a mortal terror seized him. What was to be his fate? To
+regain the top of the cliff by his own exertions was an impossibility.</p>
+
+<p>He cast his despairing eyes up the ascent, as sheer and as smooth as a
+wall, without a crevice which might afford a foothold, or a shrub to
+which he might cling. His strong head was whirling as he again glanced
+downward to the unmeasured <a name="abyss_text" id="abyss_text"></a><a href="#abyss" class="fnanchor">v</a>abyss beneath. He softly let himself sink
+into a sitting posture, his heels dangling over the frightful depths,
+and addressed himself resolutely to the consideration of the terrible
+danger in which he was placed.</p>
+
+<p>Taken at its best, how long was it to last? Could he look to any human
+being for deliverance? He reflected with growing dismay that the place
+was far from any dwelling, and from the road that wound along the ridge.
+There was no errand that could bring a man to this most unfrequented
+portion of the deep woods, unless an accident should hither direct some
+hunter&#8217;s step. It was quite possible, nay, probable, that years might
+elapse before the forest solitude would again be broken by human
+presence.</p>
+
+<p>His brothers would search for him when he should be missed from
+home,&mdash;but such boundless stretches<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[205]</a></span> of forest! They might search for
+weeks and never come near this spot. He would die here, he would
+starve,&mdash;no, he would grow drowsy when exhausted and fall&mdash;fall&mdash;fall!</p>
+
+<p>He was beginning to feel that morbid fascination that sometimes seizes
+upon those who stand on great heights,&mdash;an overwhelming impulse to
+plunge downward. His only salvation was to look up. He would look up to
+the sky.</p>
+
+<p>And what were these words he was beginning to remember faintly? Had not
+the <a name="circuit_text" id="circuit_text"></a><a href="#circuit" class="fnanchor">v</a>circuit-rider said in his last sermon that not even a sparrow
+falls to the ground unmarked of God? There was a definite strength in
+this suggestion. He felt less lonely as he stared resolutely at the big
+blue sky. There came into his heart a sense of encouragement, of hope.
+He would keep up as long and as bravely as he could, and if the worst
+should come,&mdash;was he indeed so solitary? He would hold in remembrance
+the sparrow&#8217;s fall of Scripture.</p>
+
+<p>He had so nerved himself to meet his fate that he thought it was a fancy
+when he heard a distant step. But it did not die away, it grew more and
+more distinct,&mdash;a shambling step that curiously stopped at intervals and
+kicked the fallen leaves.</p>
+
+<p>He sought to call out, but he seemed to have lost his voice. Not a sound
+issued from his thickened tongue and his dry throat. The step came
+nearer. It<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[206]</a></span> would presently pass. With a mighty effort Ethan sent forth
+a wild, hoarse cry.</p>
+
+<p>The rocks <a name="reverberated_text" id="reverberated_text"></a><a href="#reverberated" class="fnanchor">v</a>reverberated it, the wind carried it far, and certainly
+there was an echo of its despair and terror in a shrill scream set up on
+the verge of the crag. Then Ethan heard the shambling step scampering
+off very fast indeed.</p>
+
+<p>The truth flashed upon him. It was some child, passing on an
+unimaginable errand through the deep woods, frightened by his sudden
+cry.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Stop, bubby!&#8221; he shouted; &#8220;stop a minute! It&#8217;s Ethan Tynes that&#8217;s
+callin&#8217; of ye. Stop a minute, bubby!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>The step paused at a safe distance, and the shrill pipe of a little boy
+demanded, &#8220;Whar is ye, Ethan Tynes?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I&#8217;m down hyar on the ledge o&#8217; the bluff. Who air ye ennyhow?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;George Birt,&#8221; promptly replied the little boy. &#8220;What air ye doin&#8217; down
+thar? I thought it was Satan a-callin&#8217; of me. I never seen nobody.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I kem down hyar on vines arter a tur-r-key I shot. The vines bruk, an&#8217;
+I hev got no way ter git up agin. I want ye ter go ter yer mother&#8217;s
+house, an&#8217; tell yer brother Pete ter bring a rope hyar fur me ter climb
+up by.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Ethan expected to hear the shambling step going away with a <a name="celerity_text" id="celerity_text"></a><a href="#celerity" class="fnanchor">v</a>celerity
+in keeping with the importance<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[207]</a></span> of the errand. On the contrary, the step
+was approaching the crag.</p>
+
+<p>A moment of suspense, and there appeared among the jagged ends of the
+broken vines a small red head, a deeply freckled face, and a pair of
+sharp, eager blue eyes. George Birt had carefully laid himself down on
+his stomach, only protruding his head beyond the verge of the crag, that
+he might not fling away his life in his curiosity.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Did ye git it?&#8221; he asked, with bated breath.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Git what?&#8221; demanded poor Ethan, surprised and impatient.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;The tur-r-key&mdash;what ye hev done been talkin&#8217; &#8217;bout,&#8221; said George Birt.</p>
+
+<p>Ethan had lost all interest in the turkey.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Yes, yes; but run along, bub. I mought fall off&#8217;n this hyar place,&mdash;I&#8217;m
+gittin&#8217; stiff sittin&#8217; still so long,&mdash;or the wind mought blow me off.
+The wind is blowing toler&#8217;ble brisk.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Gobbler or hen?&#8221; asked George Birt eagerly.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;It air a hen,&#8221; said Ethan. &#8220;But look-a-hyar, George, I&#8217;m a-waitin&#8217; on
+ye an&#8217; if I&#8217;d fall off&#8217;n this hyar place, I&#8217;d be ez dead ez a door-nail
+in a minute.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Waal, I&#8217;m goin&#8217; now,&#8221; said George Birt, with gratifying alacrity. He
+raised himself from his <a name="recumbent_text" id="recumbent_text"></a><a href="#recumbent" class="fnanchor">v</a>recumbent position, and Ethan heard him
+shambling off, kicking every now and then at the fallen leaves as he
+went.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[208]</a></span>Presently, however, he turned and walked back nearly to the brink of the
+cliff. Then he prostrated himself once more at full length,&mdash;for the
+mountain children are very careful of precipices,&mdash;snaked along
+dexterously to the verge of the crag, and protruding his red head
+cautiously, began to <a name="parley_text" id="parley_text"></a><a href="#parley" class="fnanchor">v</a>parley once more, trading on Ethan&#8217;s
+necessities.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Ef I go on this errand fur ye,&#8221; he said, looking very sharp indeed,
+&#8220;will ye gimme one o&#8217; the whings of that thar wild tur-r-key?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>He coveted the wing-feathers, not the joint of the fowl. The &#8220;whing&#8221; of
+the domestic turkey is used by the mountain women as a fan, and is
+considered an elegance as well as a comfort. George Birt <a name="aped_text" id="aped_text"></a><a href="#aped" class="fnanchor">v</a>aped the
+customs of his elders, regardless of sex,&mdash;a characteristic of very
+small boys.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Oh, go &#8217;long, bubby!&#8221; exclaimed poor Ethan, in dismay at the
+<a name="dilatoriness_text" id="dilatoriness_text"></a><a href="#dilatoriness" class="fnanchor">v</a>dilatoriness and indifference of his <a name="unique_text" id="unique_text"></a><a href="#unique" class="fnanchor">v</a>unique deliverer. &#8220;I&#8217;ll give
+ye both o&#8217; the whings.&#8221; He would have offered the turkey willingly, if
+&#8220;bubby&#8221; had seemed to crave it.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Waal, I&#8217;m goin&#8217; now.&#8221; George Birt rose from the ground and started off
+briskly, <a name="exhilarated_text" id="exhilarated_text"></a><a href="#exhilarated" class="fnanchor">v</a>exhilarated by the promise of both the &#8220;whings.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Ethan was angry indeed when he heard the boy once more shambling back.
+Of course one should regard a deliverer with gratitude, especially a
+deliverer from mortal peril; but it may be doubted if Ethan&#8217;s<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[209]</a></span> gratitude
+would have been great enough to insure that small red head against a
+vigorous rap, if it had been within rapping distance, when it was once
+more cautiously protruded over the verge of the cliff.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I kem back hyar ter tell ye,&#8221; the <a name="doughty_text" id="doughty_text"></a><a href="#doughty" class="fnanchor">v</a>doughty deliverer began, with an
+air of great importance, and magnifying his office with an extreme
+relish, &#8220;that I can&#8217;t go an&#8217; tell Pete &#8217;bout&#8217;n the rope till I hev done
+kem back from the mill. I hev got old Sorrel hitched out hyar a piece,
+with a bag o&#8217; corn on his back, what I hev ter git ground at the mill.
+My mother air a-settin&#8217; at home now a-waitin&#8217; fur that thar corn-meal
+ter bake dodgers with. An&#8217; I hev got a dime ter pay at the mill; it war
+lent ter my dad las&#8217; week. An&#8217; I&#8217;m afeard ter walk about much with this
+hyar dime; I mought lose it, ye know. An&#8217; I can&#8217;t go home &#8217;thout the
+meal; I&#8217;ll ketch it ef I do. But I&#8217;ll tell Pete arter I git back from
+the mill.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;The mill!&#8221; echoed Ethan, aghast. &#8220;What air ye doin&#8217; on this side o&#8217; the
+mounting, ef ye air a-goin&#8217; ter the mill? This ain&#8217;t the way ter the
+mill.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I kem over hyar,&#8221; said the little boy, still with much importance of
+manner, notwithstanding a slight suggestion of embarrassment on his
+freckled face, &#8220;ter see &#8217;bout&#8217;n a trap that I hev sot fur squir&#8217;ls. I&#8217;ll
+see &#8217;bout my trap, an&#8217; then I hev ter go ter the mill, &#8217;kase my mother
+air a-settin&#8217; in our house now a-waitin&#8217; fur meal ter bake corn-dodgers.
+Then I&#8217;ll tell Pete whar<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">[210]</a></span> ye air, an&#8217; what ye said &#8217;bout&#8217;n the rope. Ye
+must jes&#8217; wait fur me hyar.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Poor Ethan could do nothing else.</p>
+
+<p>As the echo of the boy&#8217;s shambling step died in the distance, a
+redoubled sense of loneliness fell upon Ethan Tynes. But he endeavored
+to <a name="solace_text" id="solace_text"></a><a href="#solace" class="fnanchor">v</a>solace himself with the reflection that the important mission to
+the squirrel-trap and the errand to the mill could not last forever, and
+before a great while Peter Birt and his rope would be upon the crag.</p>
+
+<p>This idea <a name="buoyed_text" id="buoyed_text"></a><a href="#buoyed" class="fnanchor">v</a>buoyed him up as the hours crept slowly by. Now and then he
+lifted his head and listened with painful intentness. He felt stiff in
+every muscle, and yet he had a dread of making an effort to change his
+<a name="constrained_text" id="constrained_text"></a><a href="#constrained" class="fnanchor">v</a>constrained position. He might lose control of his rigid limbs, and
+fall into those dread depths beneath.</p>
+
+<p>His patience at last began to give way; his heart was sinking. The
+messenger had been even more <a name="dilatory_text" id="dilatory_text"></a><a href="#dilatory" class="fnanchor">v</a>dilatory than he was prepared to expect.
+Why did not Pete come? Was it possible that George had forgotten to tell
+of his danger. The sun was going down, leaving a great glory of gold and
+crimson clouds and an <a name="opaline_text" id="opaline_text"></a><a href="#opaline" class="fnanchor">v</a>opaline haze upon the purple mountains. The
+last rays fell on the bronze feathers of the turkey still lying tied to
+the broken vines on the ledge.</p>
+
+<p>And now there were only frowning masses of dark clouds in the west; and
+there were frowning masses of clouds overhead. The shadow of the coming
+night had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[211]</a></span> fallen on the autumnal foliage in the deep valley; in the
+place of the opaline haze was only a gray mist.</p>
+
+<p>And presently there came, sweeping along between the parallel mountain
+ranges, a somber raincloud. The lad could hear the heavy drops splashing
+on the tree-tops in the valley, long, long before he felt them on his
+head.</p>
+
+<p>The roll of thunder sounded among the crags. Then the rain came down
+tumultuously, not in columns but in livid sheets. The lightnings rent
+the sky, showing, as it seemed to him, glimpses of the glorious
+brightness within,&mdash;too bright for human eyes.</p>
+
+<p>He clung desperately to his precarious perch. Now and then a fierce rush
+of wind almost tore him from it. Strange fancies beset him. The air was
+full of that wild <a name="symphony_text" id="symphony_text"></a><a href="#symphony" class="fnanchor">v</a>symphony of nature, the wind and the rain, the
+pealing thunder, and the thunderous echo among the cliffs, and yet he
+thought he could hear his own name ringing again and again through all
+the tumult, sometimes in Pete&#8217;s voice, sometimes in George&#8217;s shrill
+tones.</p>
+
+<p>Ethan became vaguely aware, after a time, that the rain had ceased, and
+the moon was beginning to shine through rifts in the clouds. The wind
+continued unabated, but, curiously enough, he could not hear it now. He
+could hear nothing; he could think of nothing. His consciousness was
+beginning to fail.</p>
+
+<p>George Birt had indeed forgotten him,&mdash;forgotten<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[212]</a></span> even the promised
+&#8220;whings.&#8221; Not that he had discovered anything so extraordinary in his
+trap, for it was empty, but when he reached the mill, he found that the
+miller had killed a bear and captured a cub, and the orphan, chained to
+a post, had deeply absorbed George Birt&#8217;s attention.</p>
+
+<p>To <a name="sophisticated_text" id="sophisticated_text"></a><a href="#sophisticated" class="fnanchor">v</a>sophisticated people, the boy might have seemed as <a name="grotesque_text2" id="grotesque_text2"></a><a href="#grotesque" class="fnanchor">v</a>grotesque as
+the cub. George wore an unbleached cotton shirt. The waistband of his
+baggy jeans trousers encircled his body just beneath his armpits,
+reaching to his shoulder-blades behind, and nearly to his collar-bone in
+front. His red head was only partly covered by a fragment of an old
+white wool hat; and he looked at the cub with a curiosity as intense as
+that with which the cub looked at him. Each was taking first lessons in
+natural history.</p>
+
+<p>As long as there was daylight enough left to see that cub, did George
+Birt stand and stare at the little beast. Then he clattered home on old
+Sorrel in the closing darkness, looking like a very small pin on the top
+of a large pincushion.</p>
+
+<p>At home, he found the elders unreasonable,&mdash;as elders usually are
+considered. Supper had been waiting an hour or so for the lack of meal
+for dodgers. He &#8220;caught it&#8221; considerably, but not sufficiently to impair
+his appetite for the dodgers. After all this, he was ready enough for
+bed when a small boy&#8217;s bedtime came. But as he was nodding before the
+fire, he heard<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[213]</a></span> a word that roused him to a new excitement and
+stimulated his memory.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;These hyar chips air so wet they won&#8217;t burn,&#8221; said his mother. &#8220;I&#8217;ll
+take my tur-r-key whing an&#8217; fan the fire.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Law!&#8221; he exclaimed. &#8220;Thar, now! Ethan Tynes never gimme that thar wild
+tur-r-key&#8217;s whings like he promised.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Whar did ye happen ter see Ethan?&#8221; asked Pete, interested in his
+friend.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Seen him in the woods, an&#8217; he promised me the tur-r-key whings.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;What fur?&#8221; inquired Pete, a little surprised by this uncalled-for
+generosity.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Waal,&#8221;&mdash;there was an expression of embarrassment on the important
+freckled face, and the small red head nodded forward in an explanatory
+manner,&mdash;&#8220;he fell off&#8217;n the bluffs arter the tur-r-key whings&mdash;I mean,
+he went down to the ledge arter the tur-r-key, and the vines bruk an&#8217; he
+couldn&#8217;t git up no more. An&#8217; he tole me that ef I&#8217;d tell ye ter fotch
+him a rope ter pull up by, he would gimme the whings. That happened
+a&mdash;leetle&mdash;while&mdash;arter dinner-time.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Who got him a rope ter pull up by?&#8221; demanded Pete.</p>
+
+<p>There was again on the important face that indescribable shade of
+embarrassment. &#8220;Waal,&#8221;&mdash;the youngster balanced this word judicially,&mdash;&#8220;I
+forgot<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">[214]</a></span> &#8217;bout&#8217;n the tur-key whings till this minute. I reckon he&#8217;s thar
+yit.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Mebbe this hyar wind an&#8217; rain hev beat him off&#8217;n the ledge!&#8221; exclaimed
+Pete, appalled and rising hastily. &#8220;I tell ye now,&#8221; he added, turning to
+his mother, &#8220;the best use ye kin make o&#8217; that boy is ter put him on the
+fire fur a back-log.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Pete made his preparations in great haste. He took the rope from the
+well, asked the <a name="crestfallen_text" id="crestfallen_text"></a><a href="#crestfallen" class="fnanchor">v</a>crestfallen and browbeaten junior a question or two
+relative to the place, mounted old Sorrel without a saddle, and in a few
+minutes was galloping at headlong speed through the night.</p>
+
+<p>The rain was over by the time he had reached the sulphur spring to which
+George had directed him, but the wind was still high, and the broken
+clouds were driving fast across the face of the moon.</p>
+
+<p>By the time he had hitched his horse to a tree and set out on foot to
+find the cliff, the moonbeams, though brilliant, were so <a name="intermittent_text" id="intermittent_text"></a><a href="#intermittent" class="fnanchor">v</a>intermittent
+that his progress was fitful and necessarily cautious. When the disk
+shone out full and clear, he made his way rapidly enough, but when the
+clouds intervened, he stood still and waited.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I ain&#8217;t goin&#8217; ter fall off&#8217;n the bluff &#8217;thout knowin&#8217; it,&#8221; he said to
+himself, in one of these <a name="eclipse_text" id="eclipse_text"></a><a href="#eclipse" class="fnanchor">v</a>eclipses, &#8220;ef I hev ter stand hyar all
+night.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>The moonlight was brilliant and steady when he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">[215]</a></span> reached the verge of the
+crag. He identified the spot by the mass of broken vines, and more
+positively by Ethan&#8217;s rifle lying upon the ground just at his feet. He
+called, but received no response.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Hev Ethan fell off, sure enough?&#8221; he asked himself, in great dismay and
+alarm. Then he shouted again and again. At last there came an answer, as
+though the speaker had just awaked.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Pretty nigh beat out, I&#8217;m a-thinkin&#8217;!&#8221; commented Pete. He tied one end
+of the cord around the trunk of a tree, knotted it at intervals, and
+flung it over the bluff.</p>
+
+<p>At first Ethan was almost afraid to stir. He slowly put forth his hand
+and grasped the rope. Then, his heart beating tumultuously, he rose to
+his feet.</p>
+
+<p>He stood still for an instant to steady himself and get his breath.
+Nerving himself for a strong effort, he began the ascent, hand over
+hand, up and up and up, till once more he stood upon the crest of the
+crag.</p>
+
+<p>And, now that all danger was over, Pete was disposed to scold. &#8220;I&#8217;m
+a-thinkin&#8217;,&#8221; said Pete severely, &#8220;ez thar ain&#8217;t a critter on this hyar
+mounting, from a b&#8217;ar ter a copperhead, that could hev got in sech a
+fix, &#8217;ceptin&#8217; ye, Ethan Tynes.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>And Ethan was silent.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;What&#8217;s this hyar thing at the end o&#8217; the rope?&#8221; asked Pete, as he began
+to draw the cord up, and felt a weight still suspended.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">[216]</a></span>&#8220;It air the tur-r-key,&#8221; said Ethan meekly, &#8220;I tied her ter the e-end o&#8217;
+the rope afore I kem up.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Waal, sir!&#8221; exclaimed Pete, in indignant surprise.</p>
+
+<p>And George, for duty performed, was <a name="remunerated_text" id="remunerated_text"></a><a href="#remunerated" class="fnanchor">v</a>remunerated with the two
+&#8220;whings,&#8221; although it still remains a question in the mind of Ethan
+whether or not he deserved them.</p>
+
+<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Charles Egbert Craddock.</span></p>
+
+
+<p class="heading">HELPS TO STUDY</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>Tell what happened to Ethan Tynes one day when he was hunting. How
+was he rescued? What qualities did Ethan show in his hour of trial?
+Give your opinion of George Birt; of Pete. Find out all you can
+about life in the mountains of East Tennessee.</p></div>
+
+
+<p class="heading">SUPPLEMENTARY READING</p>
+
+<ul class="supread">
+  <li>The Prophet of the Great Smoky Mountains&mdash;Charles Egbert Craddock.</li>
+  <li>The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come&mdash;John Fox, Jr.</li>
+  <li>June&mdash;John Fox, Jr.</li>
+</ul>
+
+
+
+
+<div class="poem topspace"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">The poetry of earth is ceasing never:<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">On a lone winter evening, when the frost<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Has wrought a silence, from the stove there shrills<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The cricket&#8217;s song, in the warmth increasing ever,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">And seems to one in drowsiness half lost,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The grasshopper&#8217;s among some grassy hills.<br /></span>
+<span class="i12 smcap">John Keats.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">[217]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2 class="chapterhead"><a name="A_DEAL_IN_BEARS" id="A_DEAL_IN_BEARS"></a>A DEAL IN BEARS</h2>
+
+
+<p>When a whaling ship is beset in the ice of Davis Straits, there is
+little work for her second engineer, once the engines have been nicely
+tallowed down. Now, I am no man that can sit in his berth and laze. If
+I&#8217;ve no work to do, I get a-thinking about my home at <a name="Ballindrochater_text" id="Ballindrochater_text"></a><a href="#Ballindrochater" class="fnanchor">v</a>Ballindrochater
+and the ministry, which my father intended I should have adorned, and
+what a fool I&#8217;ve made of myself, and this is depressing. I was not
+over-popular already on the <i>Gleaner</i> on account of some prophecies I
+had made in anger, which had unfortunately come true. The crew, and the
+captain, too, had come to fear my prophetic powers.</p>
+
+<p>At last I bethought me of sporting on the ice. There was head-money
+offered for all bears, foxes, seals, musk-oxen, and such like that were
+shot and gathered. So I went to the skipper, and he gave me a Henry
+rifle, well rusted, and eight cartridges.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Show me you can use those, McTodd,&#8221; says he, &#8220;and I&#8217;ll give you more.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>I made a big mistake with that rusty old gun. I may be a sportsman, but
+before that I&#8217;m an engineer, and it seemed to me that Heaven sent metal
+into this world to be kept bright and clean. So I took the rifle all to
+pieces and made the parts as smooth and sweet as you&#8217;d see in a
+gun-maker&#8217;s shop, barring rust-pits, and gave them a nice daubing of oil
+against the Arctic<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">[218]</a></span> weather. Then I put on some thick clothes I had
+made, and all the other clothes I could get loaned me, and climbed out
+over the rail on to the <a name="floe_text" id="floe_text"></a><a href="#floe" class="fnanchor">v</a>floe.</p>
+
+<p>The <i>Gleaner</i> lay in a bay some two miles from the shore, and let me
+tell you, if you do not know it, that Arctic ice is no skating-rink.
+There are great hills, and knolls, and bergs, and valleys spread all
+over, and even where it&#8217;s about level, the underfoot is as hard going as
+a newly-metalled road before the steam-roller has passed over it.</p>
+
+<p>The air was clear enough when I left the bark, and though the <a name="mercury_text" id="mercury_text"></a><a href="#mercury" class="fnanchor">v</a>mercury
+was out of use and coiled up snugly in the bulb, it wasn&#8217;t as cold as
+you might think, for just then there was no wind. It&#8217;s a breeze up in
+the Arctic that makes you feel the chill. There was no sun, of course;
+there never is sun up there in that dreary winter: but the stars were
+burning blue and clear, and every now and then a big <a name="catherinewheel_text" id="catherinewheel_text"></a><a href="#catherinewheel" class="fnanchor">v</a>catherine wheel
+of <a name="aurora_text" id="aurora_text"></a><a href="#aurora" class="fnanchor">v</a>aurora would show off, for all the world like a firework
+exhibition.</p>
+
+<p>My! but it was lonely, though, once you had left the ship behind! There
+was just the scrunching of your feet on the frost <a name="rime_text" id="rime_text"></a><a href="#rime" class="fnanchor">v</a>rime, and not
+another sound in the world. Even the ice was frozen too hard to squeak.
+And overhead in that purple-black Heaven you never knew Who was looking
+down at you. Out there in that cold, bare, black, icy silence, I had
+occasion to remember that Neil Angus McTodd had been a sinner in his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">[219]</a></span>
+time, and it made me shiver when I glanced up toward those blue, cold
+stars and the deep purple darkness that lay between and behind them.</p>
+
+<p>It may be that I was thinking less of my hunting than was advisable, for
+of a sudden I woke up to the sound of heavy feet padding over the crisp
+frost rime. I turned me round sharply enough, but as far as the dim
+light carried there was nothing alive to be seen through the gloom. As
+soon as I stopped, the footsteps stopped, too, and I don&#8217;t mind
+admitting that my scalp tickled.</p>
+
+<p>However, when I&#8217;d hauled up the hammer of the Henry, and it dropped into
+position with a good, wholesome <i>cluck</i>, my nervousness very soon
+filtered out. There&#8217;s a comfort about a heavy-bore rifle like a
+Henry&mdash;which is the kind always used by whalers and sealers&mdash;that you
+can&#8217;t get from those fancy little guns. And then, as it seemed that the
+animal, whatever it might be, wasn&#8217;t going to move till I did, I
+shuffled my high sealskin boots on the crisp snow to make believe that I
+was tramping again.</p>
+
+<p>The creature started after me promptly. It was hard to tell the
+direction, because every sound in that icy silence was echoed by a
+thousand bergs and hummocks of ice; but presently from behind a small
+splintered ridge of the floe there strolled out what seemed to me the
+largest bear in the Arctic regions. You must know that the night air
+there has a <a name="deceptive_text" id="deceptive_text"></a><a href="#deceptive" class="fnanchor">v</a>deceptive<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">[220]</a></span> light&mdash;it enlarges things&mdash;and the beast
+appeared to me as standing some five feet six inches high at the
+shoulder, and measuring some twenty feet from nose to tail.</p>
+
+<p>There was myself and there was the bear in the dark middle of that awful
+loneliness, with no one to interfere; and as there was only one of us to
+get home, I preferred it should not be he. So I took a brace on myself,
+and stood with the Henry ready to fire.</p>
+
+<p>There was nothing you might call <a name="diffidence_text" id="diffidence_text"></a><a href="#diffidence" class="fnanchor">v</a>diffidence about that bear. He
+slouched along up to me at a steady walk, with the hair and skin on him
+swinging about as though it was too large for his carcass and he was
+wearing a misfit. He seemed to look upon me as dinner, and no hurry
+needful. There was a sort of calm certainty about him that made me
+angry.</p>
+
+<p>I was not what you might call a marksman in those days, and so I set a
+bit of <a name="hummock_text" id="hummock_text"></a><a href="#hummock" class="fnanchor">v</a>hummock about ten yards off as a limit where I could not very
+conveniently miss, and waited until the bear should come opposite that.
+Well, he came to it right enough in his own time. There was, as I have
+said before, no diffidence about the creature. And then I raised the
+Henry and fired her off.</p>
+
+<p><i>Cluck</i> went the hammer on the nipple, but there was no bang.</p>
+
+<p>My! it was a misfire, and there was the bear coming down on me as steady
+and unconcerned as a <a name="traction_text" id="traction_text"></a><a href="#traction" class="fnanchor">v</a>traction<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">[221]</a></span> engine! I clawed out that cartridge
+and crammed in another. The bitter cold of the metal skinned my fingers
+like escaping steam. Then I cocked the gun again, shouldered it, and
+pulled trigger again.</p>
+
+<p>Once more she wouldn&#8217;t go off!</p>
+
+<p>The bear was now nearly on top of me and was beginning to rear on its
+hind legs. Somehow the rifle came into my hand muzzle-end, and I hit the
+great brute across the eyes with the butt hard enough to have felled an
+ox.</p>
+
+<p>I might as well have struck it with a cane. <i>Whack</i> came a big
+yellow-white paw, the Henry went flying, and my wrists tingled with the
+jar; and there was I left looking, I&#8217;ve no doubt you&#8217;ll think, very
+humorous.</p>
+
+<p>The bear might have finished me then if it had chosen. But it must needs
+turn aside to go snuffling at the rifle and lick the oil off the locks.
+I turned and footed it.</p>
+
+<p>Now, at the best of times, I am no <a name="sprinter_text" id="sprinter_text"></a><a href="#sprinter" class="fnanchor">v</a>sprinter, and in the great
+mountain of clothes one wears up there in the cold Arctic night, no man
+can make much speed. Besides, the way was that uneven it was a case of
+hands and scramble more often than plain running over the sharp, spiky
+level.</p>
+
+<p>The bear, once he had finished his snuffle and lick at the Henry, came
+on at a dreadful pace, making nothing of those obstacles that balked
+me,&mdash;he had been born up there, you know. He laid himself out<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">[222]</a></span>&mdash;I could
+see over my shoulder&mdash;like one of those American trotting horses, caring
+nothing for the ups and downs and ankle-breaking ice. In about two
+shakes he was snorting at my heels again, till I could almost feel his
+hot breath. The bundle of clothes hampered me. I stripped off my outer
+over-all and let it drop behind me.</p>
+
+<p>The bear stopped and snuffed that, but I didn&#8217;t stay to watch him. I got
+a good fifty <a name="fathom_text" id="fathom_text"></a><a href="#fathom" class="fnanchor">v</a>fathoms ahead of him whilst he was thus occupied. But
+presently, when he&#8217;d got all his satisfaction out of that, on he comes
+again, and I had to give him my coat. I hadn&#8217;t a chance of equaling him
+in pace, but the trick with the clothing never tired him. Fifty fathoms
+was the least gain I made over a single piece, and as I got lower down
+toward my skin he stayed over the clothes longer.</p>
+
+<p>But still the <i>Gleaner</i> was a long way off, over very tumbled ice, and
+there I was careering on in a costume which was barely enough for
+decency, and certainly insufficient for the climate.</p>
+
+<p>However, it was little enough the bear cared for such refinements as
+those. I stripped off my last garment as I ran, and gained nigh on two
+hundred yards whilst he investigated it; and there were the bark&#8217;s upper
+spars showing above the hummocks half a mile away, with me in nothing
+but my long seal-skin boots!</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">[223]</a></span>But there was no help for it. Up came the hot breath behind me, and I
+leaned up against a hummock and stripped off a boot. I hailed the
+<i>Gleaner</i> with what breath I had left, but no one gave heed. Away went
+the other boot, and there I was running, mother-naked, over the jagged
+floe, leaving blood on every footmark.</p>
+
+<p>Right up to the vessel did the outrageous beast chase me, and then when
+I got on board and called for guns, it slunk away into the shadows of a
+berg and was seen no more. My feet were cut to the bone; I was
+frost-nipped in twenty places, and you may imagine I had had a poor
+enough time of it. But the thought of that canvas over-all which I had
+thrown away first kept me cheerful. It was indeed a very humorous
+circumstance. Ye see it was a borrowed one.</p>
+
+<p>I got down below to a berth, and the steward, who was rated as a doctor,
+tended me. But Captain Black put sourness on the whole affair. He came
+down to my bunk and said, &#8220;Where&#8217;s that Henry?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Lying quiet on the ice,&#8221; said I.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Do you mean to say you left that rifle behind? My rifle!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I did that same. The thing wasn&#8217;t strong enough to fire a cartridge. I
+tried two.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>And then Black used violent and unjustifiable <a name="corr9" id="corr9"></a>language. I was in no
+condition to give him a fair<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">[224]</a></span> exchange. Besides, I made an unfortunate
+admission. I owned up to taking the rifle apart and cleaning her. I
+owned up, too, that I&#8217;d been free with the oil.</p>
+
+<p>Black stuck out his face at me, and his fringe of beard fairly bristled.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;And you call yourself an engineer! You talk about having gone through
+the shops! Put your filthy engine-room oil on my Henry&#8217;s locks, would
+you? Why, you idiot, have you yet to learn that oil freezes up here as
+hard as cheese, and you&#8217;ve made up the lock space of that poor rifle
+into one solid chunk?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I never thought of that.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;To look at your face, you&#8217;ve yet to start thinking at all.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>So we had it out, and as I was now aroused, I gave him some words on the
+inefficient way he ran his ship. At last I threatened to prophesy again,
+and this cooled him off. I offered to go hunting bears for him and he
+became quite polite.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I&#8217;ll make you an offer touching those bears,&#8221; he said. &#8220;For every skin
+you bring here aboard, I&#8217;ll give you seven shillings <a name="bonus_text" id="bonus_text"></a><a href="#bonus" class="fnanchor">v</a>bonus above your
+share as a member of the ship&#8217;s company. I&#8217;ll give you another rifle,
+two rifles if you like, and a fine bag of cartridges. But, you beggar, I
+make one condition. You take yourself off and away from the ship to do
+your hunting. You may make yourself a snow house to stay in, and live on
+the meat you kill.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">[225]</a></span>&#8220;You wish to murder me?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I wish to be rid of you, and that&#8217;s the truth. Man, I believe you&#8217;re
+Jonah resurrected. We&#8217;ve had no luck since first you put your foot on my
+deck planks. And, what&#8217;s more, the crew is of my way of thinking. So,
+refuse my offer, and I&#8217;ll put you in irons and keep you there till I can
+fling you ashore at <a name="Dundee_text" id="Dundee_text"></a><a href="#Dundee" class="fnanchor">v</a>Dundee.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Now there is no doubt Black meant what he said, and so I did not waste
+dignity by arguing with him. I had no taste for the irons, and as for
+being turned out on the ice&mdash;well, I had a plan ahead. But I didn&#8217;t
+intend to leave Black more comfortable than I could help.</p>
+
+<p>So I shut my eyes and said that the ship would have very bad luck that
+winter, that there would be much sickness aboard. (This was an easy
+guess.) I said, considering this fact, I was glad to leave such an
+unwholesome ship.</p>
+
+<p>The crew were just aching to get rid of me. This prophesying sort of
+grows on a man; once you&#8217;ve started it, you&#8217;ve got to go on with it at
+all costs, and I could no more resist just letting my few remarks slip
+round amongst the men than I can resist eating when I&#8217;m hungry.</p>
+
+<p>The nerves of the <i>Gleaner</i> people were in strings from the cold and the
+blackness of the Arctic night, and it put the horrors on the lot of
+them. The one thing they wanted was to see the last of me. They<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">[226]</a></span> gave me
+almost anything I fancied, but my means of transport were small. There
+was a bit of a sledge, which I packed with some food, two Henry rifles
+and a few tools, five hundred cartridges, and the clothes I stood in. No
+more could be taken.</p>
+
+<p>Then I went on deck into the bitter cold and over the side, and stood on
+the ice, ready to start on my journey. The crew lined the rail to see me
+off, and I can tell you their faces were very different. The older ones
+were savage and cared little how soon Jonah might die. The younger ones
+were crying to see a fellow driven away into that icy loneliness, far
+from shelter.</p>
+
+<p>But for myself I didn&#8217;t care. I had method in all this performance. Soon
+after we were beset in the ice, a family of Esquimaux had come on the
+<i>Gleaner</i> to pay a polite call and get what they could out of us. They
+were that dirty you could have chipped them with a scaling hammer, but
+they were very friendly. One buck who stepped down into the engine
+room&mdash;<a name="Amatikita_text" id="Amatikita_text"></a><a href="#Amatikita" class="fnanchor">v</a>Amatikita, he said his name was&mdash;had some English, and came to
+the point as straight as anything.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Give me a <a name="dlink_text" id="dlink_text"></a><a href="#dlink" class="fnanchor">v</a>dlink, Cappie,&#8221; says he.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;This is a dry ship,&#8221; says I.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Plenty dlink in that box,&#8221; says he, handling an oil-can.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Oh, if that&#8217;s what you want, take it,&#8221; I told him, and he clapped the
+nozzle between his lips, and sucked<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">[227]</a></span> down a gill of <a name="cylinder_text" id="cylinder_text"></a><a href="#cylinder" class="fnanchor">v</a>cylinder
+lubricating oil as though it had been water.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You seem to like it,&#8221; I said; &#8220;have some more.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>But that was his fill. He thanked me and asked me to visit his village
+when I could get away from the ship. And just then some of his friends
+were caught pilfering, and the whole crew of them were bundled away.</p>
+
+<p>Now I had noted that most of these Esquimaux had bits of bearskins
+amongst their other furs, and it was that I had in mind when I fell out
+with Captain Black. Amatikita had pointed out the direction in which his
+village lay, and it was to that I intended making my way with as little
+delay as possible. But I kept this to myself, and let no word of it slip
+out on the <i>Gleaner</i>. Indeed, when I was over the bark&#8217;s rails, I headed
+off due north across the ice. I climbed and stumbled on in this
+direction till I was well out of their sight and hearing amongst the
+hummocks, and then I turned at right angles for the shore.</p>
+
+<p>The cold up yonder in that Arctic night takes away your breath; it seems
+to take the manhood out of you. You stumble along gasping. By a chance I
+came on an Esquimaux sealing, and he beat and thumped me into
+wakefulness. Then he packed me on to his dog-sleigh, and took my own bit
+of a sled behind, and set his fourteen-foot whip cracking, and off we
+set.</p>
+
+<p>Well, you have to be pretty far gone if you can stay<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">[228]</a></span> asleep with an
+<a name="Innuit_text" id="Innuit_text"></a><a href="#Innuit" class="fnanchor">v</a>Innuit&#8217;s dog-sledge jolting and jumping beneath you, and I was well
+awakened, especially as the Esquimaux sat on top of me. And so in time
+we brought up at the huts, and a good job, too. I&#8217;d been tramping in the
+wrong direction, so it turned out, and, besides, if I had come to the
+village, I might well have walked over the top of it, as it was drifted
+up level with snow. There was a bit of a rabbit-hole giving entrance to
+each hut, with some three fathoms of tunnel underground, and skin
+curtains to keep out the draught, but once inside you might think
+yourself in a <a name="stoke_text" id="stoke_text"></a><a href="#stoke" class="fnanchor">v</a>stoke-hold again. There was the same smell of oil, and
+almost the same warmth. I tell you, it was fine after that slicing cold
+outside.</p>
+
+<p>It was Amatikita&#8217;s house I was brought to, and he was very hospitable.
+They took off my outer clothes and put them on the rack above the
+soapstone lamp to dry, and waited on me most kindly. Indeed, they
+recognized me as a superior at once, and kept on doing it. They put
+tender young seal-meat in the dish above the lamp, and when it was
+cooked I ate my part of the stew, and then got up and took the best
+place on the raised sleeping-bench at the farther side of the hut. I cut
+a fill for my pipe, lit up and passed the plug, and presently we were
+all smoking, happy as you please.</p>
+
+<p>Amatikita spoke up like a man. &#8220;Very pleased to see you, Cappie. What
+you come for? What you want?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">[229]</a></span>&#8220;You&#8217;re a man of business,&#8221; I said. &#8220;You waste no time. I like that.
+What I want is bearskins. The jackets of big, white, baggy-trousered
+polar bears, you know; and I brought along a couple of tip-top rifles
+for you to get them with. Now, I make you a fair offer. Get me all the
+bears in the North Polar regions, and you shall have my Henrys and all
+the cartridges that are left over. And as for the meat, you shall have
+that as your own share of the game.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You want shoot those bears yourself?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Not if I can help it. I&#8217;m an engineer, and a good one at that. But as a
+sportsman I&#8217;ve had but little experience, and don&#8217;t seem drawn toward
+learning. It is too draughty up here, just at present, for my taste.
+I&#8217;ll stay and keep house, and maybe do a bit of repairing and inventing
+among the furniture. I&#8217;ve brought along a hand-vice and a bag of tools
+with me, and if you can supply drift-wood and some scrap-iron, I&#8217;ll make
+this turf-house of yours a real cottage.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>The deal was made. I worked away with my tools, and whenever those
+powdering winter gales eased for a little, Amatikita and his friends
+would go off with the howling dog-sledges and the Henrys, and it was
+rare that they&#8217;d come back without one bear, and often they&#8217;d bring two
+or even three. These white bears sleep through the black winter months
+in hollows in the cliffs, and the Esquimaux know their lairs, though
+it&#8217;s rare enough they dare tackle them. Small<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">[230]</a></span> blame, too, you&#8217;d say, if
+you saw the flimsy bone-tipped lances and harpoons, which are all they
+are armed with.</p>
+
+<p>With a good, smashing, heavy-bore Henry rifle it is a different thing.
+The Esquimaux were no cowards. They would walk up within a yard of a
+bear, when the dogs had ringed it, and blow half its head away with a
+single shot. And then they would draw the carcass up to the huts with
+the dog trains, and the women would skin and dress the meat, and
+Amatikita and the others would gorge themselves.</p>
+
+<p>At last the long winter wore away. Amatikita dived in through the
+entrance of the hut one day and told me that the ice-floe was beginning
+to break. The news affected me like the blow of a whip. I went out into
+the open and found the sun up. The men were overhauling their skin
+canoes. The snow was wet underfoot and seafowl were swooping around. The
+floe was still sound where it joined the shore, but <a name="corr10" id="corr10"></a>two seaward lanes of
+blue water showed between the ice, and in one of them a whale was
+spouting pale gray mist.</p>
+
+<p>It was high time for me to be off. So the bearskins were fastened by
+thongs to the sledges and word was shouted to the dog leader of each
+team. The dogs started, and presently away went the teams full tilt, the
+sledges leaping and crashing in their wake, with the drivers and a
+certain Scotch engineer who was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">[231]</a></span> unused to such <a name="acrobatics_text" id="acrobatics_text"></a><a href="#acrobatics" class="fnanchor">v</a>acrobatics clinging
+on top of the packs. My! but yon was a wild ride over the rotten,
+cracking, sodden floe, under the fresh, bright sunshine of that Arctic
+spring morn!</p>
+
+<p>Presently round the flank of a small ice-berg we came in view of the
+<i>Gleaner</i>. She was still beset in the ice; but the hands were hard at
+work beating the ice from the rigging and cutting a gutter around her in
+the floe, so that she might float when the time came. They knocked off
+work when we drove up.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Good-day, Captain Black,&#8221; I said. &#8220;I&#8217;ve been troubling myself over
+bearskins, and I&#8217;ll ask you for seven shillings head money on
+twenty-nine.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You&#8217;ve shot twenty-nine bears? You&#8217;re lying to me.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;The skins are there, and you can count them for yourself.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>His color changed when the Esquimaux passed the skins over the side. And
+I clambered aboard the ship along with them.</p>
+
+<p class="right"><span class="smcap">W. Cutcliffe Hyne.</span></p>
+
+
+<p class="heading">HELPS TO STUDY</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>Tell this story briefly, using your own words. What mistake did
+McTodd make in preparing for the hunt? What amused you most? How
+did McTodd show his shrewdness, even if he was not a good hunter?
+What do you learn about the Arctic region?</p></div>
+
+
+<p class="heading">SUPPLEMENTARY READING</p>
+
+<ul class="supread">
+  <li>The Frozen Pirate&mdash;W. Clark Russell.</li>
+  <li>The Casting Away of Mrs. Leeks and Mrs. Aleshine&mdash;Frank R. Stockton.</li>
+</ul>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">[232]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2 class="chapterhead"><a name="LOCHINVAR" id="LOCHINVAR"></a>LOCHINVAR</h2>
+
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Oh, young Lochinvar is come out of the west:&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Through all the wide Border his steed was the best,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And save his good broadsword he weapons had none;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He rode all unarmed, and he rode all alone.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">So faithful in love, and so dauntless in war,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">There never was knight like the young Lochinvar.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">He stayed not for <a name="brake_text" id="brake_text"></a><a href="#brake" class="fnanchor">v</a>brake, and he stopped not for stone,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He swam the Esk river where ford there was none;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But ere he alighted at Netherby gate<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The bride had consented, the gallant came late:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For a laggard in love, and a dastard in war<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Was to wed the fair Ellen of brave Lochinvar.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">So boldly he entered the Netherby Hall,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Among bride&#8217;s-men and kinsmen and brothers and all:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Then spoke the bride&#8217;s father, his hand on his sword<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">(For the poor craven bridegroom said never a word),<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">&#8220;Oh, come ye in peace here, or come ye in war,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Or to dance at our bridal, young Lord Lochinvar?&#8221;<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&#8220;I long wooed your daughter, my suit you denied;&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Love swells like the Solway, but ebbs like its tide&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And now am I come with this lost love of mine,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To lead but one measure, drink one cup of wine.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">There are maidens in Scotland more lovely by far,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That would gladly be bride to the young Lochinvar.&#8221;<br /></span>
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233">[233]</a></span></div></div>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">The bride kissed the goblet; the knight took it up,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He quaffed of the wine, and he threw down the cup.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">She looked down to blush, and she looked up to sigh,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With a smile on her lips and a tear in her eye.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He took her soft hand, ere her mother could bar,&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">&#8220;Now tread we a measure!&#8221; said young Lochinvar.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">So stately his form, and so lovely her face,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That never a hall such a <a name="galliard_text" id="galliard_text"></a><a href="#galliard" class="fnanchor">v</a>galliard did grace;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">While her mother did fret, and her father did fume,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And the bridegroom stood dangling his bonnet and plume,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And the bride-maidens whispered, &#8220;&#8217;Twere better by far<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To have matched our fair cousin with young Lochinvar.&#8221;<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">One touch to her hand, and one word in her ear,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">When they reached the hall door, and the charger stood near;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">So light to the <a name="croup_text" id="croup_text"></a><a href="#croup" class="fnanchor">v</a>croup the fair lady he swung,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">So light to the saddle before her he sprung!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">&#8220;She is won! we are gone, over bank, bush, and <a name="scar_text" id="scar_text"></a><a href="#scar" class="fnanchor">v</a>scar;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">They&#8217;ll have fleet steeds that follow,&#8221; quoth young Lochinvar.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">There was mounting &#8217;mong Gr&aelig;mes of the Netherby clan;<br /></span>
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234">[234]</a></span><span class="i0">Fosters, Fenwicks, and Musgraves, they rode and they ran;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">There was racing and chasing on Cannobie lea,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But the lost bride of Netherby ne&#8217;er did they see.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">So daring in love, and so dauntless in war;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Have ye e&#8217;er heard of gallant like young Lochinvar?<br /></span>
+<span class="i12 smcap">Sir Walter Scott.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+<p class="heading">HELPS TO STUDY</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>Read the poem through and tell the story briefly. Where is the
+scene laid? <i>Border</i> here means the part of Scotland bordering on
+England. Who is the hero? Give your opinion of him. Find the
+expressions used by the poet to inspire admiration for Lochinvar.
+Give your opinion of the bridegroom. Quote lines that express the
+poet&#8217;s opinion of him. What word is used instead of <i>thicket</i> in
+the second stanza? a <i>loiterer</i>? a <i>coward</i>? Why do you suppose the
+bride had consented? Why did her father put his hand on his sword?
+What reason did Lochinvar give for coming to the feast? Why did he
+act as if he did not care? Was the bride willing to marry &#8220;the
+laggard in love&#8221;? How do you know? Describe the scene as the two
+danced. What do you suppose was the &#8220;one word in her ear&#8221;?</p>
+
+<p>Read aloud the lines describing Lochinvar&#8217;s ride to Netherby Hall.
+Read those describing the ride from the hall. Notice the galloping
+movement of the verse.</p></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235">[235]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2 class="chapterhead"><a name="IN_LABRADOR" id="IN_LABRADOR"></a>IN LABRADOR</h2>
+
+
+<p class="sectionhead">I</p>
+
+<p>Trafford and Marjorie were in Labrador to spend the winter. It was a
+queer idea for a noted <a name="scientist_text" id="scientist_text"></a><a href="#scientist" class="fnanchor">v</a>scientist and rich and successful business man
+to cut himself loose from the world of London and go out into the Arctic
+storm and darkness of one of the bleakest quarters of the globe. But
+Trafford had fallen into a discontent with living, a weariness of the
+round of work and pleasure, and it was in the hope of winning back his
+lost zest and happiness that he had made up his mind to try the cure of
+the wilderness. Marjorie had insisted, like a good wife, on leaving
+children and home and comfort and accompanying him into the frozen
+wilds.</p>
+
+<p>The voyage across the sea and the march inland into Labrador were
+uneventful. Trafford chose his winter-quarters on the side of a low
+razor-hacked, rocky mountain ridge, about fifty feet above a little
+river. Not a dozen miles away from them, they reckoned, was the Height
+of Land, the low watershed between the waters that go to the Atlantic
+and those that go to Hudson&#8217;s Bay. North and north-east of them the
+country rose to a line of low crests, with here and there a yellowing
+patch of last year&#8217;s snow, and across the valley were slopes covered in
+places by woods of stunted pine. It had an empty spaciousness of
+effect;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236">[236]</a></span> the one continually living thing seemed to be the river,
+hurrying headlong, noisily, perpetually, in an eternal flight from this
+high desolation.</p>
+
+<p>For nearly four weeks indeed they were occupied very closely in fixing
+their cabin and making their other preparations, and crept into their
+bunks at night as tired as wholesome animals who drop to sleep. At any
+time the weather might break; already there had been two overcast days
+and a frowning conference of clouds in the north. When at last storms
+began, they knew there would be nothing for it but to keep in the hut
+until the world froze up.</p>
+
+<p>The weather broke at last. One might say it smashed itself over their
+heads. There came an afternoon darkness swift and sudden, a wild gale,
+and an icy sleet that gave place in the night to snow, so that Trafford
+looked out next morning to see a maddening chaos of small white flakes,
+incredibly swift, against something that was neither darkness nor light.
+Even with the door but partly ajar, a cruelty of cold put its claw
+within, set everything that was movable swaying and clattering, and made
+<a name="corr11" id="corr11"></a>Marjorie hasten shuddering to heap fresh logs upon the fire. Once or
+twice Trafford went out to inspect tent and roof and store-shed; several
+times, wrapped to the nose, he battled his way for fresh wood, and for
+the rest of the blizzard they kept to the hut. It was slumberously
+stuffy, but comfortingly full of flavors of tobacco and food. There<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237">[237]</a></span>
+were two days of intermission and a day of gusts and icy sleet again,
+turning with one extraordinary clap of thunder to a wild downpour of
+dancing lumps of ice, and then a night when it seemed all Labrador,
+earth and sky together, was in hysterical protest against inconceivable
+wrongs.</p>
+
+<p>And then the break was over; the annual freezing-up accomplished; winter
+had established itself; the snowfall moderated and ceased, and an
+ice-bound world shone white and sunlit under a cloudless sky.</p>
+
+<p>One morning Trafford found the footmarks of some catlike creature in the
+snow near the bushes where he was accustomed to get firewood; they led
+away very plainly up the hill, and after breakfast he took his knife and
+rifle and snowshoes and went after the lynx&mdash;for that he decided the
+animal must be. There was no urgent reason why he should want to kill a
+lynx, unless perhaps that killing it made the store-shed a trifle safer;
+but it was the first trail of any living thing for many days; it
+promised excitement; some <a name="primitive_text" id="primitive_text"></a><a href="#primitive" class="fnanchor">v</a>primitive instinct perhaps urged him.</p>
+
+<p>The morning was a little overcast, and very cold between the gleams of
+wintry sunshine. &#8220;Good-by, dear wife!&#8221; he said, and then as she
+remembered afterward came back a dozen yards to kiss her. &#8220;I&#8217;ll not be
+long,&#8221; he said. &#8220;The beast&#8217;s prowling, and if it doesn&#8217;t get wind of me,
+I ought to find it in an hour.&#8221; He hesitated for a moment. &#8220;I&#8217;ll not be<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238">[238]</a></span>
+long,&#8221; he repeated, and she had an instant&#8217;s wonder whether he hid from
+her the same dread of loneliness that she concealed. Up among the
+tumbled rocks he turned, and she was still watching him. &#8220;Good-by!&#8221; he
+cried and waved, and the willow thickets closed about him.</p>
+
+<p>She forced herself to the petty duties of the day, made up the fire from
+the pile he had left for her, set water to boil, put the hut in order,
+brought out sheets and blankets to air, and set herself to wash up. She
+wished she had been able to go with him. The sky cleared presently, and
+the low December sun lit all the world about her, but it left her spirit
+desolate.</p>
+
+<p>She did not expect him to return until midday, and she sat herself down
+on a log before the fire to darn a pair of socks as well as she could.
+For a time this unusual occupation held her attention and then her hands
+became slow and at last inactive, and she fell into reverie. Thoughts
+came quick and fast of her children in England so far away.</p>
+
+<p>What was that? She flashed to her feet.</p>
+
+<p>It seemed to her she had heard the sound of a shot, and a quick, brief
+wake of echoes. She looked across the icy waste of the river, and then
+up the tangled slopes of the mountain. Her heart was beating fast. It
+must have been up there, and no doubt Trafford had killed his beast.
+Some shadow of doubt she would not admit crossed that obvious
+suggestion. The wilder<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239">[239]</a></span>ness was making her as nervously responsive as a
+creature of the wild.</p>
+
+<p>There came a second shot; this time there was no doubt of it. Then the
+desolate silence closed about her again.</p>
+
+<p>Marjorie stood for a long time, staring at the shrubby slopes that rose
+to the barren rock wilderness of the purple mountain crest. She sighed
+deeply at last, and set herself to make up the fire and prepare for the
+midday meal. Once, far away across the river, she heard the howl of a
+wolf.</p>
+
+<p>Time seemed to pass very slowly that day. Marjorie found herself going
+repeatedly to the space between the day tent and the sleeping hut from
+which she could see the stunted wood that had swallowed her husband up,
+and after what seemed a long hour her watch told her it was still only
+half-past twelve. And the fourth or fifth time that she went to look out
+she was set a-tremble again by the sound of a third shot. And then at
+regular intervals out of that distant brown-purple jumble of thickets
+against the snow came two more shots. &#8220;Something has happened,&#8221; she
+said, &#8220;something has happened,&#8221; and stood rigid. Then she became active,
+seized the rifle that was always at hand when she was alone, fired into
+the sky, and stood listening.</p>
+
+<p>Prompt came an answering shot.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;He wants me,&#8221; said Marjorie. &#8220;Something<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240">[240]</a></span>&mdash;perhaps he has killed
+something too big to bring!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>She was for starting at once, and then remembered this was not the way
+of the wilderness.</p>
+
+<p>She thought and moved very rapidly. Her mind catalogued possible
+requirements,&mdash;rifle, hunting knife, the oilskin bag with matches, and
+some chunks of dry paper, the <a name="rucksack_text" id="rucksack_text"></a><a href="#rucksack" class="fnanchor">v</a>rucksack. Besides, he would be hungry.
+She took a saucepan and a huge chunk of cheese and biscuit. Then a
+brandy flask is sometimes handy&mdash;one never knows,&mdash;though nothing was
+wrong, of course. Needles and stout thread, and some cord. Snowshoes. A
+waterproof cloak could be easily carried. Her light hatchet for wood.
+She cast about to see if there was anything else. She had almost
+forgotten cartridges&mdash;and a revolver. Nothing more. She kicked a stray
+brand or so into the fire, put on some more wood, damped the fire with
+an armful of snow to make it last longer, and set out toward the willows
+into which he had vanished.</p>
+
+<p>There was a rustling and snapping of branches as she pushed her way
+through the bushes, a little stir that died insensibly into quiet again;
+and then the camping place became very still.</p>
+
+<p>Trafford&#8217;s trail led Marjorie through the thicket of dwarf willows and
+down to the gully of the rivulet which they had called Marjorie Trickle;
+it had long since become a trough of snow-covered, rotten ice. The trail
+crossed this and, turning sharply uphill, went on<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241">[241]</a></span> until it was clear of
+shrubs and trees, and, in the windy open of the upper slopes, it crossed
+a ridge and came over the lip of a large desolate valley with slopes of
+ice and icy snow. Here Marjorie spent some time in following his loops
+back on the homeward trail before she saw what was manifestly the final
+trail running far away out across the snow, with the <a name="spoor_text" id="spoor_text"></a><a href="#spoor" class="fnanchor">v</a>spoor of the
+lynx, a lightly-dotted line, to the right of it. She followed this
+suggestion of the trail, put on her snowshoes, and shuffled her way
+across this valley, which opened as she proceeded. She hoped that over
+the ridge she would find Trafford, and scanned the sky for the faintest
+discoloration of a fire, but there was none. That seemed odd to her, but
+the wind was in her face, and perhaps it beat the smoke down. Then as
+her eyes scanned the hummocky ridge ahead, she saw something, something
+very intent and still, that brought her heart into her mouth. It was a
+big gray wolf, standing with back haunched and head down, watching and
+scenting something beyond.</p>
+
+<p>Marjorie had an instinctive fear of wild animals, and it still seemed
+dreadful to her that they should go at large, uncaged. She suddenly
+wanted Trafford violently, wanted him by her side. Also, she thought of
+leaving the trail, going back to the bushes. But presently her nerve
+returned. In the wastes one did not fear wild beasts, one had no fear of
+them. But why not fire a shot to let him know she was near?</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242">[242]</a></span>The beast flashed round with an animal&#8217;s instantaneous change of pose,
+and looked at her. For a couple of seconds, perhaps, woman and brute
+regarded one another across a quarter of a mile of snowy desolation.</p>
+
+<p>Suppose it came toward her!</p>
+
+<p>She would fire&mdash;and she would fire at it. Marjorie made a guess at the
+range and aimed very carefully. She saw the snow fly two yards ahead of
+the grisly shape, and then in an instant the beast had vanished over the
+crest.</p>
+
+<p>She reloaded, and stood for a moment waiting for Trafford&#8217;s answer. No
+answer came. &#8220;Queer!&#8221; she whispered, &#8220;queer!&#8221;&mdash;and suddenly such a
+horror of anticipation assailed her that she started running and
+floundering through the snow to escape it. Twice she called his name,
+and once she just stopped herself from firing a shot.</p>
+
+<p>Over the ridge she would find him. Surely she would find him over the
+ridge!</p>
+
+<p>She now trampled among rocks, and there was a beaten place where
+Trafford must have waited and crouched. Then on and down a slope of
+tumbled boulders. There came a patch where he had either thrown himself
+down or fallen; it seemed to her he must have been running.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly, a hundred feet or so away, she saw a patch of violently
+disturbed snow&mdash;snow stained a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243">[243]</a></span> dreadful color, a snow of scarlet
+crystals! Three strides and Trafford was in sight.</p>
+
+<p>She had a swift conviction that he was dead. He was lying in a crumpled
+attitude on a patch of snow between <a name="convergent_text" id="convergent_text"></a><a href="#convergent" class="fnanchor">v</a>convergent rocks, and the lynx, a
+mass of blood-smeared, silvery fur, was in some way mixed up with him.
+She saw as she came nearer that the snow was disturbed round about them,
+and discolored <a name="copiously_text" id="copiously_text"></a><a href="#copiously" class="fnanchor">v</a>copiously, yellow, and in places bright red, with
+congealed and frozen blood. She felt no fear now and no emotion; all her
+mind was engaged with the clear, bleak perception of the fact before
+her. She did not care to call to him again. His head was hidden by the
+lynx&#8217;s body, as if he was burrowing underneath the creature; his legs
+were twisted about each other in a queer, unnatural attitude.</p>
+
+<p>Then, as she dropped off a boulder, and came nearer, Trafford moved. A
+hand came out and gripped the rifle beside him; he suddenly lifted a
+dreadful face, horribly scarred and torn, and crimson with frozen blood;
+he pushed the gray beast aside, rose on an elbow, wiped his sleeve
+across his eyes, stared at her, grunted, and flopped forward. He had
+fainted.</p>
+
+<p>Marjorie was now as clear-minded and as self-possessed as a woman in a
+shop. In another moment she was kneeling by his side. She saw, by the
+position of his knife and the huge rip in the beast&#8217;s body, that he had
+stabbed the lynx to death as it clawed his head;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244">[244]</a></span> he must have shot and
+wounded it and then fallen upon it. His knitted cap was torn to ribbons,
+and hung upon his neck. Also his leg was manifestly injured&mdash;how, she
+could not tell. It was evident that he must freeze if he lay here, and
+it seemed to her that perhaps he had pulled the dead brute over him to
+protect his torn skin from the extremity of cold. The lynx was already
+rigid, its clumsy paws asprawl,&mdash;and the torn skin and clot upon
+Trafford&#8217;s face were stiff as she put her hands about his head to raise
+him. She turned him over on his back&mdash;how heavy he seemed?&mdash;and forced
+brandy between his teeth. Then, after a moment&#8217;s hesitation, she poured
+a little brandy on his wounds.</p>
+
+<p>She glanced at his leg, which was surely broken, and back at his face.
+Then she gave him more brandy, and his eyelids flickered. He moved his
+hand weakly. &#8220;The blood,&#8221; he said, &#8220;kept getting in my eyes.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>She gave him brandy once again, wiped his face, and glanced at his leg.
+Something ought to be done to that, Marjorie thought. But things must be
+done in order.</p>
+
+<p>The woman stared up at the darkling sky with its gray promise of snow,
+and down the slopes of the mountain. Clearly they must stay the night
+here. They were too high for wood among these rocks, but three or four
+hundred yards below there were a number of dwarfed fir trees. She had
+brought an ax, so<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245">[245]</a></span> that a fire was possible. Should she go back to camp
+and get the tent?</p>
+
+<p>Trafford was trying to speak again. &#8220;I got&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Yes?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Got my leg in that crack.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Was he able to advise her? She looked at him, and then perceived that
+she must bind up his head and face. She knelt behind him and raised his
+head on her knee. She had a thick silk neck muffler, and this she
+supplemented by a band she cut and tore from her inner vest. She bound
+this, still warm from her body, about him, and wrapped her dark cloak
+round his shoulders. The next thing was a fire. Five yards away,
+perhaps, a great mass of purple <a name="gabbro_text" id="gabbro_text"></a><a href="#gabbro" class="fnanchor">v</a>gabbro hung over a patch of nearly
+snowless moss. A hummock to the westward offered shelter from the bitter
+wind, the icy draught, that was soughing down the valley. Always in
+Labrador, if you can, you camp against a rock surface; it shelters you
+from the wind, guards your back.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Dear!&#8221; she said.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Awful hole,&#8221; said Trafford.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;What?&#8221; she cried sharply.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Put you in an awful hole,&#8221; he said. &#8220;Eh?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Listen,&#8221; she said, and shook his shoulder. &#8220;Look! I want to get you up
+against that rock.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Won&#8217;t make much difference,&#8221; replied Trafford, and opened his eyes.
+&#8220;Where?&#8221; he asked.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;There.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246">[246]</a></span>He remained quite quiet for a second perhaps. &#8220;Listen to me,&#8221; he said.
+&#8220;Go back to camp.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Yes,&#8221; she said.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Go back to camp. Make a pack of all the strongest
+food&mdash;strenthin&#8217;&mdash;strengthrin&#8217; food&mdash;you know?&#8221; He seemed unable to
+express himself.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Yes,&#8221; she said.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Down the river. Down&mdash;down. Till you meet help.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Leave you?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>He nodded his head and winced.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You&#8217;re always plucky,&#8221; he said. &#8220;Look facts in the face. Children.
+Thought it over while you were coming.&#8221; A tear oozed from his eye.
+&#8220;Don&#8217;t be a fool, Madge. Kiss me good-by. Don&#8217;t be a fool. I&#8217;m done.
+Children.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>She stared at him and her spirit was a luminous mist of tears. &#8220;You old
+<i>coward</i>,&#8221; she said in his ear, and kissed the little patch of rough and
+bloody cheek beneath his eye. Then she knelt up beside him. &#8220;<i>I&#8217;m</i> boss
+now, old man,&#8221; she said. &#8220;I want to get you to that place there under
+the rock. If I drag, can you help?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>He answered obstinately: &#8220;You&#8217;d better go.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I&#8217;ll make you comfortable first,&#8221; she returned.</p>
+
+<p>He made an enormous effort, and then, with her quick help and with his
+back to her knee, had raised himself on his elbows.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247">[247]</a></span>&#8220;And afterward?&#8221; he asked.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Build a fire.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Wood?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Down there.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Two bits of wood tied on my leg&mdash;splints. Then I can drag myself. See?
+Like a blessed old walrus.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>He smiled and she kissed his bandaged face again.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Else it hurts,&#8221; he apologized, &#8220;more than I can stand.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>She stood up again, put his rifle and knife to his hand, for fear of
+that lurking wolf, abandoning her own rifle with an effort, and went
+striding and leaping from rock to rock toward the trees below. She made
+the chips fly, and was presently towing three venerable pine dwarfs,
+bumping over rock and crevice, back to Trafford. She flung them down,
+stood for a moment bright and breathless, then set herself to hack off
+the splints he needed from the biggest stem. &#8220;Now,&#8221; she said, coming to
+him.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;A fool,&#8221; he remarked, &#8220;would have made the splints down there.
+You&#8217;re&mdash;<i>good</i>, Marjorie.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>She lugged his leg out straight, put it into the natural and least
+painful pose, padded it with moss and her torn handkerchief, and bound
+it up. As she did so a handful of snowflakes came whirling about them.
+She was now braced up to every possibility. &#8220;It never rains,&#8221; she said
+grimly, &#8220;but it pours,&#8221; and went on with her bone-setting. He was badly
+weak<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_248" id="Page_248">[248]</a></span>ened by pain and shock, and once he spoke to her sharply. &#8220;Sorry,&#8221;
+he said a moment later.</p>
+
+<p>She rolled him over on his chest, and left him to struggle to the
+shelter of the rock while she went for more wood.</p>
+
+<p>The sky alarmed her. The mountains up the valley were already hidden by
+driven rags of slaty snowstorms. This time she found a longer but easier
+path for dragging her boughs and trees; she determined she would not
+start the fire until nightfall, nor waste any time in preparing food
+until then. There were dead boughs for kindling&mdash;more than enough. It
+was snowing quite fast by the time she got up to him with her second
+load, and a premature twilight already obscured and exaggerated the
+rocks and mounds about her. She gave some of her cheese to Trafford, and
+gnawed some herself on her way down to the wood again. She regretted
+that she had brought neither candles nor lantern, because then she might
+have kept on until the cold night stopped her, and she reproached
+herself bitterly because she had brought no tea. She could forgive
+herself the lantern, for she had never expected to be out after dark,
+but the tea was inexcusable. She muttered self-reproaches while she
+worked like two men among the trees, panting puffs of mist that froze
+upon her lips and iced the knitted wool that covered her chin. &#8220;Why
+don&#8217;t they teach a girl to handle an ax?&#8221; she cried.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_249" id="Page_249">[249]</a></span></p>
+
+<p class="sectionhead">II</p>
+
+<p>When at last the wolfish cold of the Labrador night had come, it found
+Trafford and Marjorie seated almost warmly on a bed of pine boughs
+between the sheltering dark rock behind and a big but well-husbanded
+fire in front, drinking a queer-tasting but not unsavory soup of
+lynx-flesh, which she had fortified with the remainder of the brandy.
+Then they tried roast lynx and ate a little, and finished with some
+scraps of cheese and deep draughts of hot water.</p>
+
+<p>The snowstorm poured incessantly out of the darkness to become flakes of
+burning fire in the light of the flames, flakes that vanished magically,
+but it only reached them and wetted them in occasional gusts. What did
+it matter for the moment if the dim snowheaps rose and rose about them?
+A glorious fatigue, an immense self-satisfaction, possessed Marjorie;
+she felt that they had both done well.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I am not afraid of to-morrow now,&#8221; she said at last.</p>
+
+<p>Trafford was smoking his pipe and did not speak for a moment. &#8220;Nor I,&#8221;
+he said at last. &#8220;Very likely we&#8217;ll get through with it.&#8221; He added after
+a pause: &#8220;I thought I was done for. A man&mdash;loses heart&mdash;after a loss of
+blood.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;The leg&#8217;s better?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Hot as fire.&#8221; His humor hadn&#8217;t left him. &#8220;It&#8217;s<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_250" id="Page_250">[250]</a></span> a treat,&#8221; he said. &#8220;The
+hottest thing in Labrador.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Later Marjorie slept, but on a spring as it were, lest the fire should
+fall. She replenished it with boughs, tucked in the half-burnt logs, and
+went to sleep again. Then it seemed to her that some invisible hand was
+pouring a thin spirit on the flames that made them leap and crackle and
+spread north and south until they filled the heavens with a gorgeous
+glow. The snowstorm was overpast, leaving the sky clear and all the
+westward heaven alight with the trailing, crackling, leaping curtains of
+the <a name="aurora_text2" id="aurora_text2"></a><a href="#aurora" class="fnanchor">v</a>aurora, brighter than she had ever seen them before. Quite
+clearly visible beyond the smolder of the fire, a wintry waste of rock
+and snow, boulder beyond boulder, passed into a <a name="dun_text" id="dun_text"></a><a href="#dun" class="fnanchor">v</a>dun obscurity. The
+mountain to the right of them lay long and white and stiff, a shrouded
+death. All earth was dead and waste, and the sky alive and coldly
+marvelous, signalling and astir. She watched the changing, shifting
+colors, and they made her think of the gathering banners of inhuman
+hosts, the stir and marshaling of icy giants for ends stupendous and
+indifferent to all the trivial impertinence of man&#8217;s existence! Marjorie
+felt a passionate desire to pray.</p>
+
+<p>The bleak, slow dawn found Marjorie intently busy. She had made up the
+fire, boiled water and washed and dressed Trafford&#8217;s wounds, and made
+another soup of lynx. But Trafford had weakened in the night; the soup
+nauseated him; he refused it and tried to smoke<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_251" id="Page_251">[251]</a></span> and was sick, and then
+sat back rather despairfully after a second attempt to persuade her to
+leave him there to die. This failure of his spirit distressed her and a
+little astonished her, but it only made her more resolute to go through
+with her work. She had awakened cold, stiff and weary, but her fatigue
+vanished with movement; she toiled for an hour replenishing her pile of
+fuel, made up the fire, put his gun ready to his hand, kissed him,
+abused him lovingly for the trouble he gave her until his poor torn face
+lit in response, and then parting on a note of cheerful confidence, set
+out to return to the hut. She found the way not altogether easy to make
+out; wind and snow had left scarcely a trace of their tracks, and her
+mind was full of the stores she must bring and the possibility of moving
+Trafford nearer to the hut. She was startled to see by the fresh, deep
+spoor along the ridge how near the wolf had dared approach them in the
+darkness.</p>
+
+<p>Ever and again Marjorie had to halt and look back to get her direction
+right. As it was, she came through the willow scrub nearly half a mile
+above the hut, and had to follow the steep bank of the frozen river.
+Once she nearly slipped upon an icy slope of rock.</p>
+
+<p>One possibility she did not dare to think of during that time&mdash;a
+blizzard now would cut her off absolutely from any return to Trafford.
+Short of that, she believed she could get through.</p>
+
+<p>Her quick mind was full of all she had to do. At<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_252" id="Page_252">[252]</a></span> first she had thought
+chiefly of Trafford&#8217;s immediate necessities, of food and some sort of
+shelter. She had got a list of things in her head&mdash;meat extract,
+bandages, <a name="corrosive_text" id="corrosive_text"></a><a href="#corrosive" class="fnanchor">v</a>corrosive sublimate by way of antiseptic, brandy, a tin of
+beef, some bread, and so forth; she went over it several times to be
+sure of it, and then for a time she puzzled about a tent. She thought
+she could manage a bale of blankets on her back, and that she could rig
+a sleeping tent for herself and Trafford out of them and some bent
+sticks. The big tent would be too much to strike and shift. And then her
+mind went on to a bolder enterprise, which was to get him home. The
+nearer she could bring him to the log hut, the nearer they would be to
+supplies.</p>
+
+<p>She cast about for some sort of sledge. The snow was too soft and broken
+for runners, especially among the trees, but if she could get a flat of
+smooth wood, she thought she might be able to drag him. She decided to
+try the side of her bunk, which she could easily get off. She would
+have, of course, to run it edgewise through the thickets and across the
+ravine, but after that she would have almost clear going up to the steep
+place of broken rocks within two hundred yards of him. The idea of a
+sledge grew upon her, and she planned to nail a rope along the edge and
+make a kind of harness for herself.</p>
+
+<p>Marjorie found the camping-place piled high with drifted snow, which had
+invaded tent and hut, and that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_253" id="Page_253">[253]</a></span> some beast, a wolverine she guessed, had
+been into the hut, devoured every candle-end and the uppers of
+Trafford&#8217;s well-greased second boots, and had then gone to the corner of
+the store-shed and clambered up to the stores. She took no account of
+its <a name="depredation_text" id="depredation_text"></a><a href="#depredation" class="fnanchor">v</a>depredations there, but set herself to make a sledge and get her
+supplies together. There was a gleam of sunshine, though she did not
+like the look of the sky and she was horribly afraid of what might be
+happening to Trafford. She carried her stuff through the wood and across
+the ravine, and returned for her improvised sledge. She was still
+struggling with that among the trees when it began to snow again.</p>
+
+<p>It was hard then not to be frantic in her efforts. As it was, she packed
+her stuff so loosely on the planking that she had to repack it, and she
+started without putting on her snowshoes, and floundered fifty yards
+before she discovered that omission. The snow was now falling fast,
+darkling the sky and hiding everything but objects close at hand, and
+she had to use all of her wits to determine her direction: she knew she
+must go down a long slope and then up to the ridge, and it came to her
+as a happy inspiration that if she bore to the left she might strike
+some recognizable vestige of her morning&#8217;s trail. She had read of people
+walking in circles when they have no light or guidance, and that
+troubled her until she bethought herself of the little compass on her
+watch chain. By that she kept<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_254" id="Page_254">[254]</a></span> her direction. She wished very much she
+had timed herself across the waste, so that she could tell when she
+approached the ridge.</p>
+
+<p>Soon her back and shoulders were aching violently, and the rope across
+her chest was tugging like some evil-tempered thing. But she did not
+dare to rest. The snow was now falling thick and fast; the flakes traced
+white spirals and made her head spin, so that she was constantly falling
+away to the southwestward and then correcting herself by the compass.
+She tried to think how this zig-zagging might affect her course, but the
+snow whirls confused her mind and a growing anxiety would not let her
+pause to think.</p>
+
+<p>Marjorie felt blinded; it seemed to be snowing inside her eyes so that
+she wanted to rub them. Soon the ground must rise to the ridge, she told
+herself; it must surely rise. Then the sledge came bumping at her heels
+and she perceived that she was going down hill. She consulted the
+compass and found she was facing south. She turned sharply to the right
+again. The snowfall became a noiseless, pitiless torture to sight and
+mind.</p>
+
+<p>The sledge behind her struggled to hold her back, and the snow balled
+under her snowshoes. She wanted to stop and rest, take thought, sit for
+a moment. She struggled with herself and kept on. She tried walking with
+shut eyes, and tripped and came near sprawling. &#8220;Oh God!&#8221; she cried, &#8220;Oh
+God!&#8221; too stupefied for<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_255" id="Page_255">[255]</a></span> more <a name="articulate_text" id="articulate_text"></a><a href="#articulate" class="fnanchor">v</a>articulate prayers. She was leaden with
+fatigue.</p>
+
+<p>Would the rise of the ground to the ribs of rock never come?</p>
+
+<p>A figure, black and erect, stood in front of her suddenly, and beyond
+appeared a group of black, straight antagonists. She staggered on toward
+them, gripping her rifle with some muddled idea of defense, and in
+another moment she was brushing against the branches of a stunted fir,
+which shed thick lumps of snow upon her feet. What trees were these? Had
+she ever passed any trees? No! There were no trees on her way to
+Trafford.</p>
+
+<p>At that Marjorie began whimpering like a tormented child. But even as
+she wept, she turned her sledge about to follow the edge of the wood.
+She was too much downhill, she thought, and must bear up again.</p>
+
+<p>She left the trees behind, made an angle uphill to the right, and was
+presently among trees again. Again she left them and again came back to
+them. She screamed with anger and twitched her sledge along. She wiped
+at the snowstorm with her arm as though to wipe it away; she wanted to
+stamp on the universe.</p>
+
+<p>And she ached, she ached.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly something caught her eye ahead, something that gleamed; it was
+exactly like a long, bare, rather pinkish bone standing erect on the
+ground. Just<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_256" id="Page_256">[256]</a></span> because it was strange and queer she ran forward to it. As
+she came nearer, she perceived that it was a streak of barked trunk; a
+branch had been torn off a pine tree and the bark stripped down to the
+root. And then came another, poking its pinkish wounds above the snow.
+And there were chips! This filled her with wonder. Some one had been
+cutting wood! There must be Indians or trappers near, she thought, and
+of a sudden realized that the wood-cutter could be none other than
+herself.</p>
+
+<p>She turned to the right and saw the rocks rising steeply, close at hand.
+&#8220;Oh Ragg!&#8221; she cried, and fired her rifle in the air.</p>
+
+<p>Ten seconds, twenty seconds, and then so loud and near it amazed her,
+came his answering shot.</p>
+
+<p>In another moment Marjorie had discovered the trail she had made
+overnight and that morning by dragging firewood. It was now a shallow,
+soft white trench. Instantly her despair and fatigue had gone from her.
+Should she take a load of wood with her? she asked herself, in addition
+to the weight behind her, and immediately had a better idea. She would
+unload and pile her stuff here, and bring him down on the sledge closer
+to the wood. The woman looked about and saw two rocks that diverged,
+with a space between. She flashed schemes. She would trample the snow
+hard and flat, put her sledge on it, pile boughs and make a canopy of
+blanket overhead and behind.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_257" id="Page_257">[257]</a></span> Finally there would be a fine, roaring
+fire in front.</p>
+
+<p>She tossed her provisions down and ran up the broad windings of her
+pine-tree trail to Trafford, with the sledge bumping behind her.
+Marjorie ran as lightly as though she had done nothing that day.</p>
+
+<p>She found Trafford markedly recovered, weak and quiet, with snow
+drifting over his feet, his rifle across his knees, and his pipe alight.
+&#8220;Back already&#8221;&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>He hesitated. &#8220;No grub?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>The wife knelt over him, gave his rough, unshaven cheek a swift kiss,
+and rapidly explained her plan.</p>
+
+<p>Marjorie carried it out with all of the will-power that was hers. In
+three days&#8217; time, in spite of the snow, in spite of every other
+obstacle, they were back in the hut, and Trafford was comfortably
+settled in bed. The icy vastness of Labrador still lay around them to
+infinite distances on every side, but the two might laugh at storm and
+darkness now in their cosy hut, with plenty of fuel and food and light.</p>
+
+<p class="right"><span class="smcap">H. G. Wells.</span></p>
+
+
+<p class="heading">HELPS TO STUDY</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>I. Describe the location of Trafford&#8217;s camp; also the coming of
+winter. Give in your own words an account of the adventure that
+befell the two.</p>
+
+<p>II. Name some characteristics Marjorie showed in the critical
+situation. What did she do that impressed you most? What would you
+have done in similar circumstances?</p></div>
+
+
+<p class="heading">SUPPLEMENTARY READING</p>
+
+<ul class="supread">
+  <li>Youth&mdash;Joseph Conrad.</li>
+  <li>Prairie Folks&mdash;Hamlin Garland.</li>
+  <li>Northern Lights&mdash;Sir Gilbert Parker.</li>
+</ul>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_258" id="Page_258">[258]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2 class="chapterhead"><a name="THE_BUGLE_SONG" id="THE_BUGLE_SONG"></a>THE BUGLE SONG</h2>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i2">The splendor falls on castle walls<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">The snowy summits old in story;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The long light shakes across the lakes,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">And the wild cataract leaps in glory.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Blow, bugle, blow, set the wild echoes flying,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Blow, bugle; answer, echoes, dying, dying, dying.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i2">O hark, O hear! how thin and clear,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">And thinner, clearer, farther going!<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">O, sweet and far from cliff and scar<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">The horns of Elfland faintly blowing!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Blow, let us hear the purple glens replying:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Blow, bugle; answer, echoes, dying, dying, dying.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i2">O love, they die in yon rich sky,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">They faint on hill or field or river;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Our echoes roll from soul to soul,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">And grow for ever and for ever.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Blow, bugle, blow, set the wild echoes flying.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And answer, echoes, answer, dying, dying, dying.<br /></span>
+<span class="i12 smcap">Alfred Tennyson.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_259" id="Page_259">[259]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2 class="chapterhead"><a name="THE_SIEGE_OF_THE_CASTLE" id="THE_SIEGE_OF_THE_CASTLE"></a>THE SIEGE OF THE CASTLE</h2>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>This story is an extract from Sir Walter Scott&#8217;s novel, <i>Ivanhoe</i>,
+which describes life in England during the Middle Ages, something
+more than a century after the Norman Conquest. The hatred between
+the conquering Normans and the conquered Saxons still continued,
+and is graphically pictured by Scott. <i>Ivanhoe</i> centers about the
+household of one Cedric the Saxon, who was a great upholder of the
+traditions of his unfortunate people. Wilfred of Ivanhoe, Cedric&#8217;s
+son, entered the service of the Norman king of England, Richard I,
+and accompanied him to the Holy Land on the Third Crusade. His
+father disowned the young knight for what he considered disloyalty
+to his Saxon blood. Ivanhoe, returning to England, participated in
+a great tournament at Ashby, in which he won fame under the
+disguise of the &#8220;Disinherited Knight.&#8221; Among the other knights who
+took part in the tournament were the Normans, Maurice de Bracy,
+Reginald Front-de-Boeuf, and Brian de Bois-Guilbert, a Knight
+Templar. Two sides fought in the tournament, one representing the
+English, the other representing the foreign element in the land. An
+unknown knight, clad in black armor, brought victory to the English
+side, but left the field without disclosing his identity. An
+archery contest held at the tournament was won by a wonderful
+bowman who gave his name as Locksley. Ivanhoe, who fought with
+great valor, was badly wounded. Cedric had been accompanied to
+Ashby by his beautiful ward, the Lady Rowena, whose wealth and
+loveliness excited the cupidity of the lawless Norman knights. &#8220;The
+Siege of the Castle&#8221; opens with Cedric&#8217;s discovery of his son&#8217;s
+identity, and recounts the stirring incidents that follow the
+tournament. It gives a wonderful picture of warfare as it was
+hundreds of years ago, before the age of gunpowder.</p></div>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_260" id="Page_260">[260]</a></span></p>
+<p class="sectionhead">I</p>
+
+<p>When Cedric the Saxon saw his son drop down senseless in the great
+tournament at Ashby, his first impulse was to order him into the care of
+his own attendants, but the words choked in his throat. He could not
+bring himself to acknowledge, in the presence of such an assembly, the
+son whom he had renounced and disinherited for his allegiance to the
+Norman king of England, Richard of the Lion Heart. However, he ordered
+one of the officers of his household, his cupbearer, to convey Ivanhoe
+to Ashby as soon as the crowd had dispersed. But the man was anticipated
+in this good office. The crowd dispersed, indeed, but the wounded knight
+was nowhere to be seen.</p>
+
+<p>It seemed as if the fairies had conveyed Ivanhoe from the spot; and
+Cedric&#8217;s officer might have adopted some such theory to account for his
+disappearance, had he not suddenly cast his eyes on a person attired
+like a squire, in whom he recognized the features of his fellow-servant
+Gurth, who had run away from his master. Anxious about Ivanhoe&#8217;s fate,
+Gurth was searching for him everywhere and, in so doing, he neglected
+the concealment on which his own safety depended. The cupbearer deemed
+it his duty to secure Gurth as a fugitive of whose fate his master was
+to judge. Renewing his inquiries concerning the fate of Ivanhoe, all
+that the cupbearer could learn was that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_261" id="Page_261">[261]</a></span> the knight had been raised by
+certain well-attired grooms, under the direction of a veiled woman, and
+placed in a litter, which had immediately transported him out of the
+press. The officer, on receiving this intelligence, resolved to return
+to his master, carrying along with him Gurth, the swineherd, as a
+deserter from Cedric&#8217;s service.</p>
+
+<p>The Saxon had been under intense <a name="apprehensions_text" id="apprehensions_text"></a><a href="#apprehensions" class="fnanchor">v</a>apprehensions concerning his son;
+but no sooner was he informed that Ivanhoe was in careful hands than
+paternal anxiety gave way anew to the feeling of injured pride and
+resentment at what he termed Wilfred&#8217;s <a name="filial_text" id="filial_text"></a><a href="#filial" class="fnanchor">v</a>filial disobedience.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Let him wander his way,&#8221; said Cedric; &#8220;let those leech his wounds for
+whose sake he encountered them. He is fitter to do the juggling tricks
+of the Norman chivalry than to maintain the fame and honor of his
+English ancestry with the <a name="glaive_text" id="glaive_text"></a><a href="#glaive" class="fnanchor">v</a>glaive and <a name="brown_text" id="brown_text"></a><a href="#brown-bill" class="fnanchor">v</a>brown-bill, the good old
+weapons of the country.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>The old Saxon now prepared for his return to Rotherwood, with his ward,
+the Lady Rowena, and his following. It was during the bustle preceding
+his departure that Cedric, for the first time, cast his eyes upon the
+deserter Gurth. He was in no very placid humor and wanted but a pretext
+for wreaking his anger upon some one.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;The <a name="gyves_text" id="gyves_text"></a><a href="#gyves" class="fnanchor">v</a>gyves!&#8221; he cried. &#8220;Dogs and villains, why leave ye this knave
+unfettered?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_262" id="Page_262">[262]</a></span>Without daring to remonstrate, the companions of Gurth bound him with a
+halter, as the readiest cord which occurred. He submitted to the
+operation without any protest, except that he darted a reproachful look
+at his master.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;To horse, and forward!&#8221; ordered Cedric.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;It is indeed full time,&#8221; said the Saxon prince Athelstane, who
+accompanied Cedric, &#8220;for if we ride not faster, the preparations for our
+supper will be altogether spoiled.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>The travelers, however, used such speed as to reach the convent of Saint
+Withold&#8217;s before the apprehended evil took place. The abbot, himself of
+ancient Saxon descent, received the noble Saxons with the profuse
+hospitality of their nation, wherein they indulged to a late hour. They
+took leave of their reverend host the next morning after they had shared
+with him a <a name="sumptuous_text2" id="sumptuous_text2"></a><a href="#sumptuous" class="fnanchor">v</a>sumptuous breakfast, which Athelstane particularly
+appreciated.</p>
+
+<p>The superstitious Saxons, as they left the convent, were inspired with a
+feeling of coming evil by the behavior of a large, lean black dog,
+which, sitting upright, howled most piteously when the foremost riders
+left the gate, and presently afterward, barking wildly and jumping to
+and fro, seemed bent on attaching itself to the party.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;In my mind,&#8221; said Athelstane, &#8220;we had better turn back and abide with
+the abbot until the after<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_263" id="Page_263">[263]</a></span>noon. It is unlucky to travel where your path
+is crossed by a monk, a hare, or a howling dog, until you have eaten
+your next meal.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Away!&#8221; said Cedric impatiently; &#8220;the day is already too short for our
+journey. For the dog, I know it to be the cur of the runaway slave
+Gurth, a useless fugitive like its master.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>So saying and rising at the same time in his stirrups, impatient at the
+interruption of his journey, he launched his <a name="javelin_text" id="javelin_text"></a><a href="#javelin" class="fnanchor">v</a>javelin at poor Fangs,
+who, having lost his master, was now rejoicing at his reappearance. The
+javelin inflicted a wound upon the animal&#8217;s shoulder and narrowly missed
+pinning him to the earth; Fangs fled howling from the presence of the
+enraged <a name="thane_text" id="thane_text"></a><a href="#thane" class="fnanchor">v</a>thane. Gurth&#8217;s heart swelled within him, for he felt this
+<a name="corr12" id="corr12"></a>attempted slaughter of his faithful beast in a degree much deeper than
+the harsh treatment he had himself received. Having in vain raised his
+hand to his eyes, he said to Wamba, the jester, who, seeing his master&#8217;s
+ill humor, had prudently retreated to the rear, &#8220;I pray thee, do me the
+kindness to wipe my eyes with the skirt of thy mantle; the dust offends
+me, and these bonds will not let me help myself one way or another.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Wamba did him the service he required, and they rode side by side for
+some time, during which Gurth maintained a moody silence. At length he
+could repress his feelings no longer.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_264" id="Page_264">[264]</a></span>&#8220;Friend Wamba,&#8221; said he, &#8220;of all those who are fools enough to serve
+Cedric, thou alone hast sufficient dexterity to make thy folly
+acceptable to him. Go to him, therefore, and tell him that neither for
+love nor fear will Gurth serve him longer. He may strike the head from
+me&mdash;he may scourge me&mdash;he may load me with irons&mdash;but henceforth he
+shall never compel me either to love or obey him. Go to him and tell him
+that Gurth renounces his service.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Assuredly,&#8221; replied Wamba, &#8220;fool as I am, I will not do your fool&#8217;s
+errand. Cedric hath another javelin stuck into his girdle, and thou
+knowest he doth not always miss his mark.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I care not,&#8221; returned Gurth, &#8220;how soon he makes a mark of me. Yesterday
+he left Wilfred, my young master, in his blood. To-day he has striven to
+kill the only other living creature that ever showed me kindness. By
+Saint Edward, Saint Dunstan, Saint Withold, and every other saint, I
+will never forgive him!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>At noon, upon the motion of Athelstane, the travelers paused in a
+woodland shade by a fountain to repose their horses and partake of some
+provisions with which the hospitable abbot had loaded a <a name="sumpter_text" id="sumpter_text"></a><a href="#sumpter" class="fnanchor">v</a>sumpter mule.
+Their repast was a pretty long one; and the interruption made it
+impossible for them to hope to reach Rotherwood without traveling all
+night, a conviction which induced them to proceed on their way at a more
+hasty pace than they had hitherto used.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_265" id="Page_265">[265]</a></span>The travelers had now reached the verge of the wooded country and were
+about to plunge into its recesses, held dangerous at that time from the
+number of outlaws whom oppression and poverty had driven to despair and
+who occupied the forests in such large bands as could easily bid
+defiance to the feeble police of the period. From these rovers, however,
+Cedric and Athelstane accounted themselves secure, as they had in
+attendance ten servants, besides Wamba and Gurth, whose aid could not be
+counted upon, the one being a jester and the other a captive. It may be
+added that in traveling thus late through the forest, Cedric and
+Athelstane relied on their descent and character as well as their
+courage. The outlaws were chiefly peasants and <a name="yeoman_text" id="yeoman_text"></a><a href="#yeoman" class="fnanchor">v</a>yeomen of Saxon
+descent, and were generally supposed to respect the persons and property
+of their countrymen.</p>
+
+<p>Before long, as the travelers journeyed on their way, they were alarmed
+by repeated cries for assistance; and when they rode up to the place
+whence the cries came, they were surprised to find a horse-litter placed
+on the ground. Beside it sat a very beautiful young woman richly dressed
+in the Jewish fashion, while an old man, whose yellow cap proclaimed him
+to belong to the same nation, walked up and down with gestures of the
+deepest despair and wrung his hands.</p>
+
+<p>When he began to come to himself out of his agony of terror, the old
+man, named Isaac of York, explained<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_266" id="Page_266">[266]</a></span> that he had hired a bodyguard of
+six men at Ashby, together with mules for carrying the litter of a sick
+friend. This party had undertaken to escort him to Doncaster. They had
+come thus far in safety; but having received information from a
+wood-cutter that a strong band of outlaws was lying in wait in the woods
+before them, Isaac&#8217;s <a name="mercenary_text" id="mercenary_text"></a><a href="#mercenary" class="fnanchor">v</a>mercenaries had not only taken to flight, but
+had carried off the horses which bore the litter and left the Jew and
+his daughter without the means either of defense or of retreat. Isaac
+ended by imploring the Saxons to let him travel with them. Cedric and
+Athelstane were somewhat in doubt as to what to do, but the matter was
+settled by Rowena&#8217;s intervention.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;The man is old and feeble,&#8221; she said to Cedric, &#8220;the maiden young and
+beautiful, their friend sick and in peril of his life. We cannot leave
+them in this extremity. Let the men unload two of the sumpter-mules and
+put the baggage behind two of the <a name="serf_text" id="serf_text"></a><a href="#serf" class="fnanchor">v</a>serfs. The mules may transport the
+litter, and we have led-horses for the old man and his daughter.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Cedric readily assented to what was proposed, and the change of baggage
+was hastily achieved; for the single word &#8220;outlaws&#8221; rendered every one
+sufficiently alert, and the approach of twilight made the sound yet more
+impressive. Amid the bustle, Gurth was taken from horseback, in the
+course of which removal he prevailed upon the jester to slack the cord
+with which<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_267" id="Page_267">[267]</a></span> his arms were bound. It was so negligently refastened,
+perhaps intentionally, on the part of Wamba, that Gurth found no
+difficulty in freeing his arms <a name="corr13" id="corr13"></a>altogether, and then, gliding into the
+thicket, he made his escape from the party.</p>
+
+<p>His departure was hardly noticed in the apprehension of the moment. The
+path upon which the party traveled was now so narrow as not to admit,
+with any sort of convenience, above two riders abreast, and began to
+descend into a dingle, traversed by a brook, the banks of which were
+broken, swampy, and overgrown with dwarf willows. Cedric and Athelstane,
+who were at the head of their <a name="retinue_text" id="retinue_text"></a><a href="#retinue" class="fnanchor">v</a>retinue, saw the risk of being attacked
+in this pass, but neither knew anything else to do than hasten through
+the defile as fast as possible. Advancing, therefore, without much
+order, they had just crossed the brook with a part of their followers,
+when they were assailed, in front, flank, and rear at once, by a band of
+armed men. The shout of a &#8220;White dragon! Saint George for merry
+England!&#8221; the war cry of the Saxons, was heard on every side, and on
+every side enemies appeared with a rapidity of advance and attack which
+seemed to multiply their numbers.</p>
+
+<p>Both the Saxon chiefs were made prisoners at the same moment. Cedric,
+the instant an enemy appeared, launched at him his javelin, which,
+taking better effect than that which he had hurled at Fangs, nailed the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_268" id="Page_268">[268]</a></span>
+man against an oak-tree that happened to be close behind him. Thus far
+successful, Cedric spurred his horse against a second, drawing his sword
+and striking with such inconsiderate fury that his weapon encountered a
+thick branch which hung over him, and he was disarmed by the violence of
+his own blow. He was instantly made prisoner and pulled from his horse
+by two or three of the <a name="banditti_text" id="banditti_text"></a><a href="#banditti" class="fnanchor">v</a>banditti who crowded around him. Athelstane
+shared his captivity, his bridle having been seized and he himself
+forcibly dismounted long before he could draw his sword.</p>
+
+<p>The attendants, embarrassed with baggage and surprised and terrified at
+the fate of their master, fell an easy prey to the assailants; while the
+Lady Rowena and the Jew and his daughter experienced the same
+misfortune.</p>
+
+<p>Of all the train none escaped but Wamba, who showed upon the occasion
+much more courage than those who pretended to greater sense. He
+possessed himself of a sword belonging to one of the domestics, who was
+just drawing it, laid it about him like a lion, drove back several who
+approached him, and made a brave though ineffectual effort to succor his
+master. Finding himself overpowered, the jester threw himself from his
+horse, plunged into a thicket, and, favored by the general confusion,
+escaped from the scene of action.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly a voice very near him called out in a low and cautious tone,
+&#8220;Wamba!&#8221; and, at the same time,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_269" id="Page_269">[269]</a></span> a dog which he recognized as Fangs
+jumped up and fawned upon him. &#8220;Gurth!&#8221; answered Wamba with the same
+caution, and the swineherd immediately stood before him.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;What is the matter?&#8221; he asked. &#8220;What mean these cries and that clashing
+of swords?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Only a trick of the times,&#8221; answered Wamba. &#8220;They are all prisoners.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Who are prisoners?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;My lord, and my lady, and Athelstane, and the others.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;In the name of God,&#8221; demanded Gurth, &#8220;how came they prisoners? and to
+whom?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;They are prisoners to green <a name="cassock_text" id="cassock_text"></a><a href="#cassock" class="fnanchor">v</a>cassocks and black <a name="vizor_text" id="vizor_text"></a><a href="#vizor" class="fnanchor">v</a>vizors,&#8221; answered
+Wamba. &#8220;They all lie tumbled about on the green, like the crab-apples
+that you shake down to your swine. And I would laugh at it,&#8221; added the
+honest jester, &#8220;if I could for weeping.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>He shed tears of unfeigned sorrow.</p>
+
+<p>Gurth&#8217;s countenance kindled. &#8220;Wamba,&#8221; he said, &#8220;thou hast a weapon and
+thy heart was ever stronger than thy brain. We are only two, but a
+sudden attack from men of resolution might do much. Follow me!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Whither, and for what purpose?&#8221; asked the jester.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;To rescue Cedric.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;But you renounced his service just now.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;That,&#8221; said Gurth, &#8220;was while he was fortunate. Follow me.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_270" id="Page_270">[270]</a></span>As the jester was about to obey, a third person suddenly made his
+appearance and commanded them both to halt. From his dress and arms
+Wamba would have conjectured him to be one of the outlaws who had just
+assailed his master; but, besides that he wore no mask, the glittering
+baldric across his shoulders, with the rich bugle horn which it
+supported, as well as the calm and commanding expression of his voice
+and manner, made the jester recognize the archer who had won the prize
+at the tournament and who was known as Locksley.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;What is the meaning of all this?&#8221; the man demanded. &#8220;Who are they that
+rifle and ransom and make prisoners in these forests?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You may look at their cassocks close by,&#8221; replied Wamba, &#8220;and see
+whether they be thy children&#8217;s coats or no, for they are as like thine
+own as one green pea-pod is like another.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I will learn that presently,&#8221; returned Locksley: &#8220;and I charge ye, on
+peril of your lives, not to stir from this place where ye stand until I
+have returned. Obey me, and it shall be the better for you and your
+masters. Yet stay; I must render myself as like these men as possible.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>So saying, he drew a <a name="vizard_text" id="vizard_text"></a><a href="#vizard" class="fnanchor">v</a>vizard from his pouch, and, repeating his
+charges to them to stand fast, went to reconnoitre.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Shall we stay, Gurth?&#8221; asked Wamba; &#8220;or shall<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_271" id="Page_271">[271]</a></span> we give him <a name="legbail_text" id="legbail_text"></a><a href="#legbail" class="fnanchor">v</a>leg-bail?
+In my foolish mind, he had all the equipage of a thief too much in
+readiness to be himself a true man.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Let him be the devil,&#8221; said Gurth, &#8220;an he will. We can be no worse for
+waiting his return. If he belongs to that party, he must already have
+given them the alarm, and it will avail us nothing either to fight or
+fly.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>The yeoman returned in the course of a few minutes.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Friend Gurth,&#8221; he said, &#8220;I have mingled among yon men and have learned
+to whom they belong, and whither they are bound. There is, I think, no
+chance that they will proceed to any actual violence against their
+prisoners. For three men to attack them at this moment were little else
+than madness; for they are good men of war and have, as such, placed
+sentinels to give the alarm when any one approaches. But I trust soon to
+gather such a force as may act in defiance of all their precautions. You
+are both servants, and, as I think, faithful servants of Cedric the
+Saxon, the friend of the rights of Englishmen. He shall not want English
+hands to help him in this extremity. Come then with me, until I gather
+more aid.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>So saying, he walked through the wood at a great pace, followed by the
+jester and the swineherd. The three men proceeded with occasional
+converse but, for the most part, in silence for about three hours.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_272" id="Page_272">[272]</a></span>
+Finally they arrived at a small opening in the forest, in the center of
+which grew an oak-tree of enormous magnitude, throwing its twisted
+branches in every direction. Beneath this tree four or five yeomen lay
+stretched on the ground, while another, as sentinel, walked to and fro
+in the moonlight.</p>
+
+<p>Upon hearing the sound of feet approaching, the watch instantly gave the
+alarm, and the sleepers as suddenly started up and bent their bows. Six
+arrows placed on the string were pointed toward the quarter from which
+the travelers approached, when their guide, being recognized, was
+welcomed with every token of respect and attachment.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Where is the <a name="corr14" id="corr14"></a>miller?&#8221; was Locksley&#8217;s first question.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;On the road toward Rotherham.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;With how many?&#8221; demanded the leader, for such he seemed to be.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;With six men, and good hope of booty, if it please Saint Nicholas.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Devoutly spoken,&#8221; said Locksley. &#8220;And where is Allan-a-Dale?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Walked up toward the <a name="watling_text" id="watling_text"></a><a href="#watling" class="fnanchor">v</a>Watling Street, to watch for the Prior of
+Jorvaulx.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;That is well thought on also,&#8221; replied the captain. &#8220;And where is the
+friar?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;In his cell.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Thither will I go,&#8221; said Locksley. &#8220;Disperse and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_273" id="Page_273">[273]</a></span> seek your companions.
+Collect what force you can, for there&#8217;s game afoot that must be hunted
+hard and will turn to bay. Meet me here at daybreak. And stay,&#8221; he
+added; &#8220;I have forgotten what is most necessary of the whole. Two of you
+take the road quickly toward Torquilstone, the castle of
+<a name="Front_text" id="Front_text"></a><a href="#Front" class="fnanchor">v</a>Front-de-Boeuf. A set of gallants, who have been <a name="masquerading_text" id="masquerading_text"></a><a href="#masquerading" class="fnanchor">v</a>masquerading in
+such guise as our own, are carrying a band of prisoners thither. Watch
+them closely, for, even if they reach the castle before we collect our
+force, our honor is concerned to punish them, and we will find means to
+do so. Keep a good watch on them, therefore, and despatch one of your
+comrades to bring the news of the yeomen thereabouts.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>The men promised obedience and departed on their several errands.
+Meanwhile, their leader and his two companions, who now looked upon him
+with great respect as well as some fear, pursued their way to the chapel
+where dwelt the friar mentioned by Locksley. Presently they reached a
+little moonlit glade, in front of which stood an ancient and ruinous
+chapel and beside it a rude hermitage of stone half-covered with ivy
+vines.</p>
+
+<p>The sounds which proceeded at that moment from the latter place were
+anything but churchly. In fact, the hermit and another voice were
+performing at the full extent of very powerful lungs an old
+drinking-song, of which this was the burden:<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_274" id="Page_274">[274]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Come, trowl the brown bowl to me,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Bully boy, bully boy;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Come trowl the brown bowl to me:<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Ho! jolly Jenkin, I spy a knave drinking;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Come trowl the brown bowl to me.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>&#8220;Now, that is not ill sung,&#8221; said Wamba, who had thrown in a few of his
+own flourishes to help out the chorus. &#8220;But who, in the saint&#8217;s name,
+ever expected to have heard such a jolly chant come from a hermit&#8217;s cell
+at midnight?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Marry, that should I,&#8221; said Gurth, &#8220;for the jolly Clerk of Copmanhurst
+is a known man and kills half the deer that are stolen in this walk. Men
+say that the deer-keeper has complained of him and that he will be
+stripped of his <a name="cowl_text" id="cowl_text"></a><a href="#cowl" class="fnanchor">v</a>cowl and <a name="cope_text" id="cope_text"></a><a href="#cope" class="fnanchor">v</a>cope altogether if he keep not better
+order.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>While they were thus speaking, Locksley&#8217;s loud and repeated knocks had
+at length disturbed the <a name="anchorite_text" id="anchorite_text"></a><a href="#anchorite" class="fnanchor">v</a>anchorite and his guest, who was a knight of
+singularly powerful build and open, handsome face, and in black armor.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;By my beads,&#8221; said the hermit, &#8220;here come other guests. I would not for
+my cowl that they found us in this goodly exercise. All men have
+enemies, sir knight; and there be those malignant enough to construe the
+hospitable refreshment I have been offering to you, a weary traveler,
+into drinking and gluttony, vices alike alien to my profession and my
+disposition.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Base <a name="calumniator_text" id="calumniator_text"></a><a href="#calumniator" class="fnanchor">v</a>calumniators!&#8221; replied the knight. &#8220;I<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_275" id="Page_275">[275]</a></span> would I had the
+chastising of them. Nevertheless, holy clerk, it is true that all have
+their enemies; and there be those in this very land whom I would rather
+speak to through the bars of my helmet than bare-faced.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Get thine iron pot on thy head, then, sir knight,&#8221; said the hermit,
+&#8220;while I remove these pewter flagons.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>He struck up a thundering <a name="deprofundis_text" id="deprofundis_text"></a><a href="#deprofundis" class="fnanchor">v</a><i>De profundis clamavi</i>, under cover of
+which he removed the apparatus of their banquet, while the knight,
+laughing heartily and arming himself all the while, assisted his host
+with his voice from time to time as his mirth permitted.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;What devil&#8217;s <a name="matins_text" id="matins_text"></a><a href="#matins" class="fnanchor">v</a>matins are you after at this hour?&#8221; demanded a voice
+from outside.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Heaven forgive you, sir traveler!&#8221; said the hermit, whose own noise
+prevented him from recognizing accents which were tolerably familiar to
+him. &#8220;Wend on your way, in the name of God and Saint Dunstan, and
+disturb not the devotions of me and my holy brother.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Mad priest,&#8221; answered the voice from without; &#8220;open to Locksley!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;All&#8217;s safe&mdash;all&#8217;s right,&#8221; said the hermit to his companion.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;But who is he?&#8221; asked the Black Knight. &#8220;It imports me much to know.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Who is he?&#8221; answered the hermit. &#8220;I tell thee he is a friend.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_276" id="Page_276">[276]</a></span>&#8220;But what friend?&#8221; persisted the knight; &#8220;for he may be a friend to thee
+and none of mine.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;What friend?&#8221; replied the hermit; &#8220;that now is one of the questions
+that is more easily asked than answered.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Well, open the door,&#8221; ordered the knight, &#8220;before he beat it from its
+hinges.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>The hermit speedily unbolted his portal and admitted Locksley, with his
+two companions.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Why, hermit,&#8221; was the yeoman&#8217;s first question as soon as he beheld the
+knight, &#8220;what boon companion hast thou here?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;A brother of our order,&#8221; replied the friar, shaking his head; &#8220;we have
+been at our devotions all night.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;He is a monk of the church militant,&#8221; answered Locksley; &#8220;and there be
+more of them abroad. I tell thee, friar, thou must lay down the
+<a name="rosary_text" id="rosary_text"></a><a href="#rosary" class="fnanchor">v</a>rosary and take up the <a name="quarter_text" id="quarter_text"></a><a href="#quarter" class="fnanchor">v</a>quarter-staff; we shall need every one of
+our merry men, whether clerk or layman. But,&#8221; he added, taking a step
+aside, &#8220;art thou mad&mdash;to give admittance to a knight thou dost not know?
+Hast thou forgotten our agreement?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Good yeoman,&#8221; said the knight, coming forward, &#8220;be not wroth with my
+merry host. He did but afford me the hospitality which I would have
+compelled from him if he had refused it.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Thou compel!&#8221; cried the friar. &#8220;Wait but till I have changed this gray
+gown for a green cassock, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_277" id="Page_277">[277]</a></span> if I make not a quarter-staff ring twelve
+upon thy pate, I am neither true clerk nor good woodsman.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>While he spoke thus he stript off his gown and appeared in a close
+buckram doublet and lower garment, over which he speedily did on a
+cassock of green and hose of the same color.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I pray thee <a name="truss_text" id="truss_text"></a><a href="#truss" class="fnanchor">v</a>truss my points,&#8221; he said to Wamba, &#8220;and thou shalt have
+a cup of sack for thy labor.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;<a name="gramercy_text" id="gramercy_text"></a><a href="#gramercy" class="fnanchor">v</a>Gramercy for thy sack,&#8221; returned Wamba; &#8220;but thinkest thou that it
+is lawful for me to aid you to transmew thyself from a holy hermit into
+a sinful forester?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>So saying, he <a name="corr15" id="corr15"></a>accommodated the friar with his assistance in tying the
+endless number of points, as the laces which attached the hose to the
+doublet were then termed.</p>
+
+<p>While they were thus employed, Locksley led the knight a little apart
+and addressed him thus: &#8220;Deny it not, sir knight, you are he who played
+so glorious a part at the tournament at Ashby.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;And what follows, if you guess truly, good yeoman?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;For my purpose,&#8221; said the yeoman, &#8220;thou shouldst be as well a good
+Englishman as a good knight; for that which I have to speak of concerns,
+indeed, the duty of every honest man, but is more especially that of a
+true-born native of England.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You can speak to no one,&#8221; replied the knight,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_278" id="Page_278">[278]</a></span> &#8220;to whom England, and
+the life of every Englishman, can be dearer than to me.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I would willingly believe so,&#8221; said the woodsman; &#8220;and never had this
+country such need to be supported by those who love her. A band of
+villains, in the disguise of better men than themselves, have become
+masters of the persons of a noble Englishman named Cedric the Saxon,
+together with his ward and his friend, Athelstane of Coningsburgh, and
+have transported them to a castle in this forest called Torquilstone. I
+ask of thee, as a good knight and a good Englishman, wilt thou aid in
+their <a name="corr16" id="corr16"></a>rescue?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I am bound by my vow to do so,&#8221; replied the knight; &#8220;but I would
+willingly know who you are who request my assistance in their behalf?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I am,&#8221; said the forester, &#8220;a nameless man; but I am a friend of my
+country and my country&#8217;s friends. Believe, however, that my word, when
+pledged, is as <a name="inviolate_text" id="inviolate_text"></a><a href="#inviolate" class="fnanchor">v</a>inviolate as if I wore golden spurs.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I willingly believe it,&#8221; returned the knight. &#8220;I have been accustomed
+to study men&#8217;s countenances, and I can read in thine honesty and
+resolution. I will, therefore, ask thee no farther questions but aid
+thee in setting at freedom these oppressed captives, which done, I trust
+we shall part better acquainted and well satisfied with each other.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>When the friar was at length ready, Locksley turned to his companions.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_279" id="Page_279">[279]</a></span>&#8220;Come on, my masters,&#8221; he said; &#8220;tarry not to talk. I say, come on: we
+must collect all our forces, and few enough shall we have if we are to
+storm the castle of Reginald Front-de-Boeuf.&#8221;</p>
+
+
+<p class="sectionhead">II</p>
+
+<p>While these measures were taking in behalf of Cedric and his companions,
+the armed men by whom the latter had been seized hurried their captives
+along toward the place of security, where they intended to imprison
+them. But darkness came on fast, and the paths of the wood seemed but
+imperfectly known to the <a name="marauders_text" id="marauders_text"></a><a href="#marauders" class="fnanchor">v</a>marauders. They were compelled to make
+several long halts and once or twice to return on their road to resume
+the direction which they wished to pursue. It was, therefore, not until
+the light of the summer morn had dawned upon them that they could travel
+in full assurance that they held the right path.</p>
+
+<p>In vain Cedric <a name="expostulated_text" id="expostulated_text"></a><a href="#expostulated" class="fnanchor">v</a>expostulated with his guards, who refused to break
+their silence for his wrath or his protests. They continued to hurry him
+along, traveling at a very rapid rate, until, at the end of an avenue of
+huge trees, arose Torquilstone, the hoary and ancient castle of Reginald
+Front-de-Boeuf. It was a fortress of no great size, consisting of a
+donjon, or large and high square tower, surrounded by buildings of
+inferior height. Around the exterior wall was a deep moat, supplied with
+water from a neighboring rivulet.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_280" id="Page_280">[280]</a></span> Front-de-Boeuf, whose character
+placed him often at feud with his neighbors, had made considerable
+additions to the strength of his castle by building towers upon the
+outward wall, so as to flank it at every angle. The access, as usual in
+castles of the period, lay through an arched <a name="barbican_text" id="barbican_text"></a><a href="#barbican" class="fnanchor">v</a>barbican or outwork,
+which was defended by a small turret.</p>
+
+<p>Cedric no sooner saw the turrets of Front-de-Boeuf&#8217;s castle raise their
+gray and moss-grown battlements, glimmering in the morning sun, above
+the woods by which they were surrounded than he instantly augured more
+truly concerning the cause of his misfortune.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I did injustice,&#8221; he said, &#8220;to the thieves and outlaws of these woods,
+when I supposed such banditti to belong to their bands. I might as
+justly have confounded the foxes of these brakes with the ravening
+wolves of France!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Arrived before the castle, the prisoners were compelled by their guards
+to alight and were hastened across the drawbridge into the castle. They
+were immediately conducted to an apartment where a hasty repast was
+offered them, of which none but Athelstane felt any inclination to
+partake. Neither did he have much time to do justice to the good cheer
+placed before him, for the guards gave him and Cedric to understand that
+they were to be imprisoned in a chamber apart from Rowena. Resistance
+was vain; and they<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_281" id="Page_281">[281]</a></span> were compelled to follow to a large room, which,
+rising on clumsy Saxon pillars, resembled the <a name="refectory_text" id="refectory_text"></a><a href="#refectory" class="fnanchor">v</a>refectories and
+chapter-houses which may still be seen in the most ancient parts of our
+most ancient monasteries.</p>
+
+<p>The Lady Rowena was next separated from her train and conducted with
+courtesy, indeed, but still without consulting her inclination, to a
+distant apartment. The same alarming distinction was conferred on the
+young Jewess, Rebecca, in spite of the entreaties of her father, who
+offered money in the extremity of his distress that she might be
+permitted to abide with him.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Base unbeliever,&#8221; answered one of his guards, &#8220;when thou hast seen thy
+lair, thou wilt not wish thy daughter to partake it.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Without further discussion, the old Jew was dragged off in a different
+direction from the other prisoners. The domestics, after being searched
+and disarmed, were confined in another part of the castle.</p>
+
+<p>The three leaders of the banditti and the men who had planned and
+carried out the outrage, Norman knights,&mdash;Front-de-Boeuf, the brutal
+owner of the castle; Maurice de Bracy, a free-lance, who sought to wed
+the Lady Rowena by force and so had arranged the attack, and Brian de
+<a name="Bois_text" id="Bois_text"></a><a href="#Bois" class="fnanchor">v</a>Bois-Guilbert, a distinguished member of the famous order of
+<a name="Knights_text" id="Knights_text"></a><a href="#Knights" class="fnanchor">v</a>Knights Templar,&mdash;had a short discussion together and then
+separated.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_282" id="Page_282">[282]</a></span> Front-de-Boeuf immediately sought the apartment where Isaac
+of York tremblingly awaited his fate.</p>
+
+<p>The Jew had been hastily thrown into a dungeon-vault of the castle, the
+floor of which was deep beneath the level of the earth, and very damp,
+being lower than the moat itself. The only light was received through
+one or two loop-holes far above the reach of the captive&#8217;s hand. These
+<a name="aperture_text" id="aperture_text"></a><a href="#aperture" class="fnanchor">v</a>apertures admitted, even at midday, only a dim and uncertain light,
+which was changed for utter darkness long before the rest of the castle
+had lost the blessing of day. Chains and shackles, which had been the
+portion of former captives, hung rusted and empty on the walls of the
+prison, and in the rings of one of these sets of fetters there remained
+two moldering bones which seemed those of the human leg.</p>
+
+<p>At one end of this ghastly apartment was a large fire-grate, over the
+top of which were stretched some transverse iron bars, half devoured
+with rust.</p>
+
+<p>The whole appearance of the dungeon might have appalled a stouter heart
+than that of Isaac, who, nevertheless, was more composed under the
+imminent pressure of danger than he had seemed to be while affected by
+terrors of which the cause was as yet remote and <a name="contingent_text" id="contingent_text"></a><a href="#contingent" class="fnanchor">v</a>contingent. It was
+not the first time that Isaac had been placed in circumstances so
+dangerous. He had, therefore, experience to guide him, as well as a hope
+that he might again be delivered from the peril.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_283" id="Page_283">[283]</a></span>The Jew remained without altering his position for nearly three hours,
+at the end of which time steps were heard on the dungeon stair. The
+bolts screamed as they were withdrawn, the hinges creaked as the wicket
+opened, and Reginald Front-de-Boeuf, followed by two Saracen slaves of
+the Templar, entered the prison.</p>
+
+<p>Front-de-Boeuf, a tall and strong man, whose life had been spent in
+public war or in private feuds and broils and who had hesitated at no
+means of extending his <a name="feudal_text" id="feudal_text"></a><a href="#feudal" class="fnanchor">v</a>feudal power, had features corresponding to
+his character, and which strongly expressed the fiercer and more evil
+passions of the mind. The scars with which his visage was seamed would,
+on features of a different cast, have excited the sympathy due to the
+marks of honorable valor; but in the peculiar case of Front-de-Boeuf
+they only added to the ferocity of his countenance and to the dread
+which his presence inspired. The formidable baron was clad in a leathern
+doublet, fitted close to his body, which was frayed and soiled with the
+stains of his armor. He had no weapon, except a <a name="poniard_text" id="poniard_text"></a><a href="#poniard" class="fnanchor">v</a>poniard at his belt,
+which served to counter-balance the weight of the bunch of rusty keys
+that hung at his right side.</p>
+
+<p>The black slaves who attended Front-de-Boeuf were attired in jerkins and
+trousers of coarse linen, their sleeves being tucked up above the elbow,
+like those of butchers when about to exercise their functions in the
+slaughter-house. Each had in his hand a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_284" id="Page_284">[284]</a></span> small <a name="pannier_text" id="pannier_text"></a><a href="#pannier" class="fnanchor">v</a>pannier; and when they
+entered the dungeon, they paused at the door until Front-de-Boeuf
+himself carefully locked and double-locked it. Having taken this
+precaution, he advanced slowly up the apartment toward the Jew, upon
+whom he kept his eye fixed as if he wished to paralyze him with his
+glance, as some animals are said to fascinate their prey.</p>
+
+<p>The Jew sat with his mouth agape and his eyes fixed on the savage baron
+with such earnestness of terror that his frame seemed literally to
+shrink together and diminish in size while encountering the fierce
+Norman&#8217;s fixed and baleful gaze. The unhappy Isaac was deprived not only
+of the power of rising to make the <a name="obeisance_text" id="obeisance_text"></a><a href="#obeisance" class="fnanchor">v</a>obeisance which his fear had
+dictated, but he could not even doff his cap or utter any word of
+supplication, so strongly was he agitated by the conviction that
+tortures and death were impending over him.</p>
+
+<p>On the other hand, the stately form of the Norman appeared to dilate in
+magnitude, like that of the eagle, which ruffles up its plumage when
+about to pounce on its defenseless prey. He paused within three steps of
+the corner in which the unfortunate Hebrew had now, as it were, coiled
+himself up into the smallest possible space, and made a sign for one of
+the slaves to approach. The black <a name="satellite_text" id="satellite_text"></a><a href="#satellite" class="fnanchor">v</a>satellite came forward accordingly,
+and producing from his basket a large pair of scales and several
+weights, he laid them at the feet<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_285" id="Page_285">[285]</a></span> of Front-de-Boeuf and retired to the
+respectful distance at which his companion had already taken his
+station.</p>
+
+<p>The motions of these men were slow and solemn, as if there impended over
+their souls some <a name="preconception_text" id="preconception_text"></a><a href="#preconception" class="fnanchor">v</a>preconception of horror and cruelty. Front-de-Boeuf
+himself opened the scene by addressing his ill-fated captive.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Most accursed dog,&#8221; he said, awakening with his deep and sullen voice
+the echoes of the dungeon vault, &#8220;seest thou these scales?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>The unhappy Jew returned a feeble affirmative.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;In these very scales shalt thou weigh me out,&#8221; said the relentless
+baron, &#8220;a thousand silver pounds, after the just measure and weight of
+the Tower of London.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Holy Abraham!&#8221; returned the Jew, finding voice through the very
+extremity of his danger; &#8220;heard man ever such a demand? Who ever heard,
+even in a minstrel&#8217;s tale, of such a sum as a thousand pounds of silver?
+What human eyes were ever blessed with the sight of so great a mass of
+treasure? Not within the walls of York, ransack my house and that of all
+my tribe, wilt thou find the <a name="tithe_text" id="tithe_text"></a><a href="#tithe" class="fnanchor">v</a>tithe of that huge sum of silver that
+thou speakest of.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I am reasonable,&#8221; answered Front-de-Boeuf, &#8220;and if silver be scant, I
+refuse not gold. At the rate of a mark of gold for each six pounds of
+silver, thou shalt free thy unbelieving carcass from such punishment as<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_286" id="Page_286">[286]</a></span>
+thy heart has never even conceived in thy wildest imaginings.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Have mercy on me, noble knight!&#8221; pleaded Isaac. &#8220;I am old, and poor,
+and helpless. It were unworthy to triumph over me. It is a poor deed to
+crush a worm.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Old thou mayst be,&#8221; replied the knight, &#8220;and feeble thou mayst be; but
+rich it is known thou art.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I swear to you, noble knight,&#8221; said Isaac, &#8220;by all which I believe and
+all which we believe in common&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Perjure not thyself,&#8221; interrupted the <a name="corr17" id="corr17"></a>Norman, &#8220;and let not thy
+obstinacy seal thy doom, until thou hast seen and well considered the
+fate that awaits thee. This prison is no place for trifling. Prisoners
+ten thousand times more distinguished than thou have died within these
+walls, and their fate has never been known. But for thee is reserved a
+long and lingering death, to which theirs was luxury.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>He again made a signal for the slaves to approach and spoke to them
+apart in their own language; for he had been a crusader in Palestine,
+where, perhaps, he had learned his lesson of cruelty. The Saracens
+produced from their baskets a quantity of charcoal, a pair of bellows,
+and a flask of oil. While the one struck a light with a flint and steel,
+the other disposed the charcoal in the large rusty grate which we have
+already mentioned and exercised the bellows until the fuel came to a red
+glow.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_287" id="Page_287">[287]</a></span>&#8220;Seest thou, Isaac,&#8221; said Front-de-Boeuf, &#8220;the range of iron bars above
+that glowing charcoal? On that warm couch thou shalt lie, stripped of
+thy clothes as if thou wert to rest on a bed of down. One of these
+slaves shall maintain the fire beneath thee, while the other shall
+anoint thy wretched limbs with oil, lest the roast should burn. Now
+choose betwixt such a scorching bed and the payment of a thousand pounds
+of silver; for, by the head of my father, thou hast no other <a name="option_text" id="option_text"></a><a href="#option" class="fnanchor">v</a>option.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;It is impossible,&#8221; exclaimed the miserable Isaac; &#8220;it is impossible
+that your purpose can be real! The good God of nature never made a heart
+capable of exercising such cruelty!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Trust not to that, Isaac,&#8221; said Front-de-Boeuf; &#8220;it were a fatal error.
+Dost thou think that I who have seen a town sacked, in which thousands
+perished by sword, by flood, and by fire, will blench from my purpose
+for the outcries of a single wretch? Be wise, old man; discharge thyself
+of a portion of thy superfluous wealth; repay to the hands of a
+Christian a part of what thou hast acquired by <a name="usury_text" id="usury_text"></a><a href="#usury" class="fnanchor">v</a>usury. Thy cunning may
+soon swell out once more thy shriveled purse, but neither leech nor
+medicine can restore thy scorched hide and flesh wert thou once
+stretched on these bars. Tell down thy <a name="ransom_text" id="ransom_text"></a><a href="#ransom" class="fnanchor">v</a>ransom, I say, and rejoice
+that at such a rate thou canst redeem thyself from a dungeon, the
+secrets of which few have returned to tell. I waste no<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_288" id="Page_288">[288]</a></span> more words with
+thee. Choose between thy <a name="dross_text" id="dross_text"></a><a href="#dross" class="fnanchor">v</a>dross and thy flesh and blood, and as thou
+choosest so shall it be.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;So may Abraham and all the fathers of our people assist me!&#8221; said
+Isaac; &#8220;I cannot make the choice because I have not the means of
+satisfying your <a name="exorbitant_text" id="exorbitant_text"></a><a href="#exorbitant" class="fnanchor">v</a>exorbitant demand!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Seize him and strip him, slaves,&#8221; said the knight.</p>
+
+<p>The assistants, taking their directions more from the baron&#8217;s eye and
+hand than his tongue, once more stepped forward, laid hands on the
+unfortunate Isaac, plucked him up from the ground, and holding him
+between them, waited the hard-hearted baron&#8217;s further signal. The
+unhappy man eyed their countenances and that of Front-de-Boeuf in the
+hope of discovering some symptoms of softening; but that of the baron
+showed the same cold, half-sullen, half-sarcastic smile, which had been
+the prelude to his cruelty; and the savage eyes of the Saracens, rolling
+gloomily under their dark brows, evinced rather the secret pleasure
+which they expected from the approaching scene than any reluctance to be
+its agents. The Jew then looked at the glowing furnace, over which he
+was presently to be stretched, and, seeing no chance of his tormentor&#8217;s
+relenting, his resolution gave way.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I will pay,&#8221; he said, &#8220;the thousand pounds of silver&mdash;that is, I will
+pay it with the help of my brethren, for I must beg as a mendicant at
+the door of our synagogue ere I make up so unheard-of a sum.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_289" id="Page_289">[289]</a></span> When and
+where must it be delivered?&#8221; he inquired with a sigh.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Here,&#8221; replied Front-de-Boeuf. &#8220;Weighed it must be&mdash;weighed and told
+down on this very dungeon floor. Thinkest thou I will part with thee
+until thy ransom is secure?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Then let my daughter Rebecca go forth to York,&#8221; said Isaac, &#8220;with your
+safe conduct, noble knight, and so soon as man and horse can return, the
+treasure&mdash;&#8221; Here he groaned deeply, but added, after the pause of a few
+seconds,&mdash;&#8220;the treasure shall be told down on this floor.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Thy daughter!&#8221; said Front-de-Boeuf, as if surprised. &#8220;By Heavens,
+Isaac, I would I had known of this! I gave yonder black-browed girl to
+Sir Brian de Bois-Guilbert, to be his prisoner. She is not in my power.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>The yell which Isaac raised at this unfeeling communication made the
+very vault to ring, and astounded the two Saracens so much that they let
+go their hold of the victim. He availed himself of his freedom to throw
+himself on the pavement and clasp the knees of Front-de-Boeuf.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Take all that you have asked,&#8221; said he&mdash;&#8220;take ten times more&mdash;reduce me
+to ruin and to beggary, if thou wilt&mdash;nay, pierce me with thy poniard,
+broil me on that furnace, but spare my daughter! Will you deprive me of
+my sole remaining comfort in life?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_290" id="Page_290">[290]</a></span>&#8220;I would,&#8221; said the Norman, somewhat relenting, &#8220;that I had known of
+this before. I thought you loved nothing but your money-bags.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Think not so vilely of me,&#8221; returned Isaac, eager to improve the moment
+of apparent sympathy. &#8220;I love mine own, even as the hunted fox, the
+tortured wildcat loves its young.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Be it so,&#8221; said Front-de-Boeuf; &#8220;but it aids us not now. I cannot help
+what has happened or what is to follow. My word is passed to my comrade
+in arms that he shall have the maiden as his share of the spoil, and I
+would not break it for ten Jews and Jewesses to boot. Take thought
+instead to pay me the ransom thou hast promised, or woe betide thee!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Robber and villain!&#8221; cried the Jew, &#8220;I will pay thee nothing&mdash;not one
+silver penny will I pay thee unless my daughter is delivered to me in
+safety!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Art thou in thy senses, Israelite?&#8221; asked the Norman sternly. &#8220;Hast thy
+flesh and blood a charm against heated iron and scalding oil?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I care not!&#8221; replied the Jew, rendered desperate by paternal affection;
+&#8220;my daughter is my flesh and blood, dearer to me a thousand times than
+those limbs thy cruelty threatens. No silver will I give thee unless I
+were to pour it molten down thy <a name="avaricious_text" id="avaricious_text"></a><a href="#avaricious" class="fnanchor">v</a>avaricious throat&mdash;no, not a silver
+penny will I give thee, <a name="Nazarene_text" id="Nazarene_text"></a><a href="#Nazarene" class="fnanchor">v</a>Nazarene, were it to save thee from the deep
+damnation thy whole life has merited. Take my life, if thou wilt, and
+say that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_291" id="Page_291">[291]</a></span> the Jew, amidst his tortures, knew how to disappoint the
+Christian.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;We shall see that,&#8221; said Front-de-Boeuf; &#8220;for by the blessed <a name="rood_text" id="rood_text"></a><a href="#rood" class="fnanchor">v</a>rood
+thou shalt feel the extremities of fire and steel! Strip him, slaves,
+and chain him down upon the bars.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>In spite of the feeble struggles of the old man, the Saracens had
+already torn from him his upper garment and were proceeding totally to
+disrobe him, when the sound of a bugle, twice winded without the castle,
+penetrated even to the recesses of the dungeon. Immediately after voices
+were heard calling for Sir Reginald Front-de-Boeuf. Unwilling to be
+found engaged in his hellish occupation, the savage baron gave the
+slaves a signal to restore Isaac&#8217;s garment; and, quitting the dungeon
+with his attendants, he left the Jew to thank God for his own
+deliverance or to lament over his daughter&#8217;s captivity, as his personal
+or parental feelings might prove the stronger.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sectionhead">III</p>
+
+<p>When the bugle sounded, De Bracy was engaged in pressing his suit with
+the Saxon heiress Rowena, whom he had carried off under the impression
+that she would speedily surrender to his rough wooing. But he found her
+<a name="obdurate_text" id="obdurate_text"></a><a href="#obdurate" class="fnanchor">v</a>obdurate as well as tearful and in no humor to listen to his
+professions of devotion. It was, therefore, with some relief that the
+free-lance heard the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_292" id="Page_292">[292]</a></span> summons at the barbican. Going into the hall of
+the castle, De Bracy was presently joined by Bois-Guilbert.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Where is Front-de-Boeuf!&#8221; the latter asked.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;He is <a name="negotiating_text" id="negotiating_text"></a><a href="#negotiating" class="fnanchor">v</a>negotiating with the Jew, I suppose,&#8221; replied De Bracy,
+coolly; &#8220;probably the howls of Isaac have drowned the blast of the
+bugle. But we will make the <a name="vassals_text" id="vassals_text"></a><a href="#vassals" class="fnanchor">v</a>vassals call him.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>They were soon after joined by Front-de-Boeuf, who had only tarried to
+give some necessary directions.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Let us see the cause of this cursed clamor,&#8221; he said. &#8220;Here is a letter
+which has just been brought in, and, if I mistake not, it is in Saxon.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>He looked at it, turning it round and round as if he had some hopes of
+coming at the meaning by inverting the position of the paper, and then
+handed it to De Bracy.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;It may be magic spells for aught I know,&#8221; said De Bracy, who possessed
+his full proportion of the ignorance which characterized the chivalry of
+the period.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Give it to me,&#8221; said the Templar. &#8220;We have that of the priestly
+character that we have some knowledge to enlighten our valor.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Let us profit by your most reverend knowledge, then,&#8221; returned De
+Bracy. &#8220;What says the scroll?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;It is a formal letter of defiance,&#8221; answered Bois-Guilbert; &#8220;but, by
+our Lady of Bethlehem, if it be not a foolish jest, it is the most
+extraordinary <a name="cartel_text" id="cartel_text"></a><a href="#cartel" class="fnanchor">v</a>cartel that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_293" id="Page_293">[293]</a></span> ever went across the drawbridge of a
+baronial castle.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Jest!&#8221; exclaimed Front-de-Boeuf. &#8220;I would gladly know who dares jest
+with me in such a matter! Read it, Sir Brian.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>The Templar accordingly read as follows:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I, Wamba, the son of Witless, jester to a noble and free-born man,
+Cedric of Rotherwood, called the Saxon: and I, Gurth, the son of
+Beowulph, the swineherd&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Thou art mad!&#8221; cried Front-de-Boeuf, interrupting the reader.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;By Saint Luke, it is so set down,&#8221; answered the Templar. Then, resuming
+his task, he went on: &#8220;I, Gurth, the son of Beowulph, swineherd unto the
+said Cedric, with the assistance of our allies and confederates, who
+make common cause with us in this our feud, namely, the good knight,
+called for the present the Black Knight, and the stout yeoman, Robert
+Locksley, called Cleve-the-wand: Do you, Reginald Front-de-Boeuf, and
+your allies and accomplices whomsoever, to wit, that whereas you have,
+without cause given or feud declared, wrongfully and by mastery, seized
+upon the person of our lord and master, the said Cedric; also upon the
+person of a noble and free-born damsel, the Lady Rowena; also upon the
+person of a noble and free-born man, Athelstane of Coningsburgh; also
+upon the persons of certain free-born men, their vassals; also upon
+certain serfs, their born bondsmen; also upon a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_294" id="Page_294">[294]</a></span> certain Jew, named
+Isaac of York, together with his daughter, and certain horses and mules:
+therefore, we require and demand that the said persons be within an hour
+after the delivery hereof delivered to us, untouched and unharmed in
+body and goods. Failing of which, we do pronounce to you that we hold ye
+as robbers and traitors and will wager our bodies against ye in battle
+and do our utmost to your destruction. Signed by us upon the eve of
+Saint Withold&#8217;s day, under the great oak in the Hart-hill Walk, the
+above being written by a holy man, clerk to God and Saint Dunstan in the
+chapel of Copmanhurst.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>The knights heard this uncommon document read from end to end and then
+gazed upon each other in silent amazement, as being utterly at a loss to
+know what it could portend. De Bracy was the first to break silence by
+an uncontrollable fit of laughter, wherein he was joined, though with
+more moderation, by the Templar. Front-de-Boeuf, on the contrary, seemed
+impatient of their ill-timed <a name="jocularity_text" id="jocularity_text"></a><a href="#jocularity" class="fnanchor">v</a>jocularity.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I give you plain warning,&#8221; he said, &#8220;fair sirs, that you had better
+consult how to bear yourselves under these circumstances than to give
+way to such misplaced merriment.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Front-de-Boeuf has not recovered his temper since his overthrow in the
+tournament,&#8221; said De Bracy to the Templar. &#8220;He is cowed at the very idea
+of a cartel, though it be from a fool and a swineherd.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_295" id="Page_295">[295]</a></span>&#8220;I would thou couldst stand the whole brunt of this adventure thyself,
+De Bracy,&#8221; answered Front-de-Boeuf. &#8220;These fellows dared not to have
+acted with such inconceivable impudence had they not been supported by
+some strong bands. There are enough outlaws in this forest to resent my
+protecting the deer. I did but tie one fellow, who was taken red-handed
+and in the fact, to the horns of a wild stag, which gored him to death
+in five minutes, and I had as many arrows shot at me as were launched in
+the tournament. Here, fellow,&#8221; he added to one of his attendants, &#8220;hast
+thou sent out to see by what force this precious challenge is to be
+supported?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;There are at least two hundred men assembled in the woods,&#8221; answered a
+squire who was in attendance.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Here is a proper matter!&#8221; said Front-de-Boeuf. &#8220;This comes of lending
+you the use of my castle. You cannot manage your undertaking quietly,
+but you must bring this nest of hornets about my ears!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Of hornets?&#8221; echoed De Bracy. &#8220;Of stingless drones rather&mdash;a band of
+lazy knaves who take to the wood and destroy the venison rather than
+labor for their maintenance.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Stingless!&#8221; replied Front-de-Boeuf. &#8220;Fork-headed shafts of a cloth-yard
+in length, and these shot within the breadth of a French crown, are
+sting enough.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;For shame, sir knight!&#8221; said the Templar. &#8220;Let<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_296" id="Page_296">[296]</a></span> us summon our people
+and sally forth upon them. One knight&mdash;ay, one man-at-arms&mdash;were enough
+for twenty such peasants.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Enough, and too much,&#8221; agreed De Bracy. &#8220;I should be ashamed to couch
+lance against them.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;True,&#8221; answered Front-de-Boeuf, drily, &#8220;were they black Turks or Moors,
+Sir Templar, or the craven peasants of France, most valiant De Bracy;
+but these are English yeomen, over whom we shall have no advantage save
+what we may derive from our arms and horses, which will avail us little
+in the glades of the forest. Sally, saidst thou? We have scarce men
+enough to defend the castle. The best of mine are at York; so is your
+band, De Bracy; and we have scarce twenty, besides the handful that were
+engaged in this mad business.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Thou dost not fear,&#8221; said the Templar, &#8220;that they can assemble in force
+sufficient to attempt the castle?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Not so, Sir Brian,&#8221; answered Front-de-Boeuf. &#8220;These outlaws have indeed
+a daring captain; but without machines, scaling ladders, and experienced
+leaders my castle may defy them.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Send to thy neighbors,&#8221; suggested the Templar. &#8220;Let them assemble their
+people and come to the rescue of three knights, besieged by a jester and
+swineherd in the baronial castle of Reginald Front-de-Boeuf!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You jest, sir knight,&#8221; answered the baron; &#8220;but<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_297" id="Page_297">[297]</a></span> to whom shall I send?
+My allies are at York, where I should have also been but for this
+infernal enterprise.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Then send to York and recall our people,&#8221; said De Bracy. &#8220;If these
+<a name="churls_text" id="churls_text"></a><a href="#churls" class="fnanchor">v</a>churls abide the shaking of my standard, I will give them credit for
+the boldest outlaws that ever bent bow in greenwood.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;And who shall bear such a message?&#8221; said Front-de-Boeuf. &#8220;The knaves
+will beset every path and rip the errand out of the man&#8217;s bosom. I have
+it,&#8221; he added, after pausing for a moment. &#8220;Sir Templar, thou canst
+write as well as read, and if we can but find writing materials, thou
+shalt return an answer to this bold challenge.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Paper and pen were presently brought, and Bois-Guilbert sat down and
+wrote, in the French language, an epistle of the following tenor:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Sir Reginald Front-de-Boeuf, with his noble and knightly allies and
+confederates, receives no defiances at the hands of slaves, bondsmen, or
+fugitives. If the person calling himself the Black Knight hath indeed a
+claim to the honors of chivalry, he ought to know that he stands
+degraded by his present association and has no right to ask reckoning at
+the hands of good men of noble blood. Touching the prisoners we have
+made, we do in Christian charity require you to send a man of religion
+to receive their confession and reconcile them with God; since it is our
+fixed intention to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_298" id="Page_298">[298]</a></span> execute them this morning before noon, so that their
+heads, being placed on the battlements, shall show to all men how
+lightly we esteem those who have bestirred themselves in their rescue.
+Wherefore, as above, we require you to send a priest to reconcile them
+with God, in doing which you shall render them the last earthly
+service.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>This letter, being folded, was delivered to the squire, and by him to
+the messenger who waited without, as the answer to that which he had
+brought.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sectionhead">IV</p>
+
+<p>About one hour afterward a man arrayed in the cowl and frock of a
+hermit, and having his knotted cord twisted around his middle, stood
+before the portal of the castle of Front-de-Boeuf. The warder demanded
+of him his name and errand.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;<a name="Paxvobiscum_text" id="Paxvobiscum_text"></a><a href="#Paxvobiscum" class="fnanchor">v</a><i>Pax vobiscum</i>,&#8221; answered the priest, &#8220;I am a poor brother of the
+<a name="order_text" id="order_text"></a><a href="#order" class="fnanchor">v</a>Order of St. Francis who come hither to do my office to certain
+unhappy prisoners now secured within this castle.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Thou art a bold friar,&#8221; said the warder, &#8220;to come hither, where, saving
+our own drunken confessor, a rooster of thy feather hath not crowed
+these twenty years.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>With these words, he carried to the hall of the castle his unwonted
+intelligence that a friar stood before the gate and desired admission.
+With no small<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_299" id="Page_299">[299]</a></span> wonder he received his master&#8217;s command to admit the holy
+man immediately; and, having previously manned the entrance to guard
+against surprise, he obeyed, without farther scruple, the order given
+him.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Who and whence art thou, priest?&#8221; demanded Front-de-Boeuf.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;<i>Pax vobiscum</i>,&#8221; reiterated the priest, with trembling voice. &#8220;I am a
+poor servant of Saint Francis, who, traveling through this wilderness,
+have fallen among thieves, which thieves have sent me unto this castle
+in order to do my ghostly office on two persons condemned by your
+honorable justice.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Ay, right,&#8221; answered Front-de-Boeuf; &#8220;and canst thou tell me, the
+number of those banditti?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Gallant sir,&#8221; said the priest, &#8220;<a name="nomen_text" id="nomen_text"></a><a href="#nomen" class="fnanchor">v</a><i>nomen illis legio</i>, their name is
+legion.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Tell me in plain terms what numbers there are, or, priest, thy cloak
+and cord will ill protect thee from my wrath.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Alas!&#8221; said the friar, &#8220;<a name="cor_text" id="cor_text"></a><a href="#cor" class="fnanchor">v</a><i>cor meum eructavit</i>, that is to say, I was
+like to burst with fear! But I conceive they may be&mdash;what of yeomen,
+what of commons&mdash;at least five hundred men.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;What!&#8221; said the Templar, who came into the hall that moment, &#8220;muster
+the wasps so thick here? It is time to stifle such a mischievous brood.&#8221;
+Then taking Front-de-Boeuf aside, &#8220;Knowest thou the priest?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_300" id="Page_300">[300]</a></span>&#8220;He is a stranger from a distant convent,&#8221; replied Front-de-Boeuf; &#8220;I
+know him not.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Then trust him not with our purpose in words,&#8221; urged the Templar. &#8220;Let
+him carry a written order to De Bracy&#8217;s company of Free Companions, to
+repair instantly to their master&#8217;s aid. In the meantime, and that the
+shaveling may suspect nothing, permit him to go freely about his task of
+preparing the Saxon hogs for the slaughter-house.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;It shall be so,&#8221; said Front-de-Boeuf. And he forthwith appointed a
+domestic to conduct the friar to the apartment where Cedric and
+Athelstane were confined.</p>
+
+<p>The natural impatience of Cedric had been rather enhanced than
+diminished by his confinement. He walked from one end of the hall to the
+other, with the attitude of a man who advances to charge an enemy or
+storm the breach of a beleaguered place, sometimes ejaculating to
+himself and sometimes addressing Athelstane. The latter stoutly and
+<a name="stoically_text" id="stoically_text"></a><a href="#stoically" class="fnanchor">v</a>stoically awaited the issue of the adventure, digesting in the
+meantime, with great composure, the liberal meal which he had made at
+noon and not greatly troubling himself about the duration of the
+captivity.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;<i>Pax vobiscum</i>!&#8221; pronounced the priest, entering the apartment. &#8220;The
+blessing of Saint Dunstan, Saint Dennis, Saint Duthoc, and all other
+saints whatsoever, be upon ye and about ye.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_301" id="Page_301">[301]</a></span>&#8220;Enter freely,&#8221; said Cedric to the friar; &#8220;with what intent art thou
+come hither?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;To bid you prepare yourselves for death,&#8221; was the reply.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;It is impossible!&#8221; said Cedric, starting. &#8220;Fearless and wicked as they
+are, they dare not attempt such open and <a name="gratuitous_text" id="gratuitous_text"></a><a href="#gratuitous" class="fnanchor">v</a>gratuitous cruelty!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Alas!&#8221; returned the priest, &#8220;to restrain them by their sense of
+humanity is the same as to stop a runaway horse with a bridle of silk
+thread. Bethink thee, therefore, Cedric, and you also, Athelstane, what
+crimes you have committed in the flesh, for this very day will ye be
+called to answer at a higher <a name="tribunal_text" id="tribunal_text"></a><a href="#tribunal" class="fnanchor">v</a>tribunal.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Hearest thou this, Athelstane?&#8221; said Cedric. &#8220;We must rouse up our
+hearts to this last action, since better it is we should die like men
+than live like slaves.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I am ready,&#8221; answered Athelstane, &#8220;to stand the worst of their malice,
+and shall walk to my death with as much composure as ever I did to my
+dinner.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Let us, then, unto our holy <a name="gear_text" id="gear_text"></a><a href="#gear" class="fnanchor">v</a>gear, father,&#8221; said Cedric.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Wait yet a moment, good <a name="uncle_text" id="uncle_text"></a><a href="#uncle" class="fnanchor">v</a>uncle,&#8221; said the priest in a voice very
+different from his solemn tones of a moment before; &#8220;better look before
+you leap in the dark.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;By my faith!&#8221; cried Cedric; &#8220;I should know that voice.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_302" id="Page_302">[302]</a></span>&#8220;It is that of your trusty slave and jester,&#8221; answered the priest,
+throwing back his cowl and revealing the face of Wamba. &#8220;Take a fool&#8217;s
+advice, and you will not be here long.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;How meanest thou, knave?&#8221; demanded the Saxon.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Even thus,&#8221; replied Wamba; &#8220;take thou this frock and cord and march
+quietly out of the castle, leaving me your cloak and girdle to take the
+long leap in thy stead.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Leave thee in my stead!&#8221; exclaimed Cedric, astonished at the proposal;
+&#8220;why, they would hang thee, my poor knave.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;E&#8217;en let them do as they are permitted,&#8221; answered Wamba. &#8220;I trust&mdash;no
+disparagement to your birth&mdash;that the son of Witless may hang in a chain
+with as much gravity as the chain hung upon his ancestor the
+<a name="alderman_text" id="alderman_text"></a><a href="#alderman" class="fnanchor">v</a>alderman.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Well, Wamba,&#8221; said Cedric, &#8220;for one thing will I grant thy request. And
+that is, if thou wilt make the exchange of garments with Lord Athelstane
+instead of me.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;No,&#8221; answered Wamba; &#8220;there were little reason in that. Good right
+there is that the son of Witless should suffer to save the son of
+Hereward; but little wisdom there were in his dying for the benefit of
+one whose fathers were strangers to his.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Villain,&#8221; cried Cedric, &#8220;the fathers of Athelstane were monarchs of
+England!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_303" id="Page_303">[303]</a></span>&#8220;They might be whomsoever they pleased,&#8221; replied Wamba; &#8220;but my neck
+stands too straight on my shoulders to have it twisted for their sake.
+Wherefore, good my master, either take my proffer yourself, or suffer me
+to leave this dungeon as free as I entered.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Let the old tree wither,&#8221; persisted Cedric, &#8220;so the stately hope of the
+forest be preserved. Save the noble Athelstane, my trusty Wamba! It is
+the duty of each who has Saxon blood in his veins. Thou and I will abide
+together the utmost rage of our oppressors, while he, free and safe,
+shall arouse the awakened spirits of our countrymen to avenge us.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Not so, father Cedric,&#8221; said Athelstane, grasping his hand&mdash;for, when
+roused to think or act, his deeds and sentiments were not unbecoming his
+high race&mdash;&#8220;not so. I would rather remain in this hall a week without
+food save the prisoner&#8217;s stinted loaf, or drink save the prisoner&#8217;s
+measure of water, than embrace the opportunity to escape which the
+slave&#8217;s untaught kindness has <a name="purveyed_text" id="purveyed_text"></a><a href="#purveyed" class="fnanchor">v</a>purveyed for his master. Go, noble
+Cedric. Your presence without may encourage friends to our rescue; your
+remaining here would ruin us all.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;And is there any prospect, then, of rescue from without?&#8221; asked Cedric,
+looking at the jester.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Prospect indeed!&#8221; echoed Wamba. &#8220;Let me tell you that when you fill my
+cloak you are wrapped in a general&#8217;s cassock. Five hundred men are there
+with<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_304" id="Page_304">[304]</a></span>out, and I was this morning one of their chief leaders. My fool&#8217;s
+cap was a <a name="casque_text" id="casque_text"></a><a href="#casque" class="fnanchor">v</a>casque, and my <a name="bauble_text" id="bauble_text"></a><a href="#bauble" class="fnanchor">v</a>bauble a truncheon. Well, we shall see
+what good they will make by exchanging a fool for a wise man. Truly, I
+fear they will lose in valor what they may gain in discretion. And so
+farewell, master, and be kind to poor Gurth and his dog Fangs; and let
+my <a name="coxcomb_text" id="coxcomb_text"></a><a href="#coxcomb" class="fnanchor">v</a>coxcomb hang in the hall at Rotherwood in memory that I flung away
+my life for my master&mdash;like a faithful fool!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>The last word came out with a sort of double expression, betwixt jest
+and earnest. The tears stood in Cedric&#8217;s eyes.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Thy memory shall be preserved,&#8221; he said, &#8220;while fidelity and affection
+have honor upon earth. But that I trust I shall find the means of saving
+Rowena and thee, Athelstane, and thee also, my poor Wamba, thou shouldst
+not overbear me in this matter.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>The exchange of dress was now accomplished, when a sudden doubt struck
+Cedric.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I know no language but my own and a few words of their mincing Norman.
+How shall I bear myself like a reverend brother?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;The spell lies in two words,&#8221; replied Wamba: &#8220;<i>Pax vobiscum</i> will
+answer all queries. If you go or come, eat or drink, bless or ban, <i>Pax
+vobiscum</i> carries you through it all. It is as useful to a friar as a
+broomstick to a witch or a wand to a conjurer. Speak it but thus, in a
+deep, grave tone,&mdash;<i>Pax vobiscum</i>!&mdash;it<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_305" id="Page_305">[305]</a></span> is irresistible. Watch and ward,
+knight and squire, foot and horse, it acts as a charm upon them all. I
+think, if they bring me out to be hanged to-morrow, as is much to be
+doubted they may, I will try its weight.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;If such prove the case,&#8221; said his master, &#8220;my religious orders are soon
+taken. <i>Pax vobiscum</i>! I trust I shall remember the password. Noble
+Athelstane, farewell; and farewell, my poor boy, whose heart might make
+amends for a weaker head. I will save you, or return and die with you.
+Farewell.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Farewell, noble Cedric,&#8221; said Athelstane; &#8220;remember it is the true part
+of a friar to accept refreshment, if you are offered any.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Thus exhorted, Cedric sallied forth upon his expedition and presently
+found himself in the presence of Front-de-Boeuf. The Saxon, with some
+difficulty, compelled himself to make obeisance to the haughty baron,
+who returned his courtesy with a slight inclination of the head.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Thy penitents, <a name="corr18" id="corr18"></a>father,&#8221; said the latter, &#8220;have made a long <a name="shrift_text" id="shrift_text"></a><a href="#shrift" class="fnanchor">v</a>shrift.
+It is the better for them, since it is the last they shall ever make.
+Hast thou prepared them for death?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I found them,&#8221; said Cedric, in such French as he could command,
+&#8220;expecting the worst, from the moment they knew into whose power they
+had fallen.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;How now, sir friar,&#8221; replied Front-de-Boeuf, &#8220;thy<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_306" id="Page_306">[306]</a></span> speech, me thinks,
+smacks of the rude Saxon tongue?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I was bred in the convent of Saint Withold of Burton,&#8221; answered Cedric.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Ay,&#8221; said the baron; &#8220;it had been better for thee to have been a
+Norman, and better for my purpose, too; but need has no choice of
+messengers. That Saint Withold&#8217;s of Burton is a howlet&#8217;s nest worth the
+harrying. The day will soon come that the frock shall protect the Saxon
+as little as the mail-coat.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;God&#8217;s will be done!&#8221; returned Cedric, in a voice tremulous with
+passion, which Front-de-Boeuf imputed to fear.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I see,&#8221; he said, &#8220;thou dreamest already that our men-at-arms are in thy
+refectory and thy ale-vaults. But do me one cast of thy holy office and
+thou shalt sleep as safe in thy cell as a snail within his shell of
+proof.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Speak your commands,&#8221; replied Cedric, with suppressed emotion.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Follow me through this passage, then, that I may dismiss thee by the
+postern.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>As he strode on his way before the supposed friar, Front-de-Boeuf thus
+schooled him in the part which he desired he should act.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Thou seest, sir friar, yon herd of Saxon swine who have dared to
+environ this castle of Torquilstone. Tell them whatever thou hast a mind
+of the weakness of this <a name="fortalice_text" id="fortalice_text"></a><a href="#fortalice" class="fnanchor">v</a>fortalice, or aught else that can detain
+them<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_307" id="Page_307">[307]</a></span> before it for twenty-four hours. Meantime bear this scroll&mdash;but
+soft&mdash;canst thou read, sir priest?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Not a jot I,&#8221; answered Cedric, &#8220;save on my <a name="breviary_text" id="breviary_text"></a><a href="#breviary" class="fnanchor">v</a>breviary; and then I know
+the characters because I have the holy service by heart, praised be
+Saint Withold!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;The fitter messenger for my purpose. Carry thou this scroll to the
+castle of Philip de <a name="Malvoisin_text" id="Malvoisin_text"></a><a href="#Malvoisin" class="fnanchor">v</a>Malvoisin; say it cometh from me and is written
+by the Templar, Brian de Bois-Guilbert, and that I pray him to send it
+to York with all speed man and horse can make. Meanwhile, tell him to
+doubt nothing he shall find us whole and sound behind our battlement.
+Shame on it, that we should be compelled to hide thus by a pack of
+runagates who are wont to fly even at the flash of our pennons and the
+tramp of our horses! I say to thee, priest, contrive some cast of thine
+art to keep the knaves where they are until our friends bring up their
+lances.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>With these words, Front-de-Boeuf led the way to a postern where, passing
+the moat on a single plank, they reached a small barbican, or exterior
+defense, which communicated with the open field by a well-fortified
+sally-port.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Begone, then; and if thou wilt do mine errand, and return hither when
+it is done, thou shalt see Saxon flesh cheap as ever was hog&#8217;s in the
+shambles of Sheffield. And, hark thee! thou seemest to be a jolly
+con<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_308" id="Page_308">[308]</a></span>fessor&mdash;come hither after the onslaught and thou shalt have as much
+good wine as would drench thy whole convent.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Assuredly we shall meet again,&#8221; answered Cedric.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Something in the hand the whilst,&#8221; continued the Norman; and, as they
+parted at the postern door, he thrust in Cedric&#8217;s reluctant hand a gold
+<a name="byzant_text" id="byzant_text"></a><a href="#byzant" class="fnanchor">v</a>byzant, adding, &#8220;Remember, I will flay off both cowl and skin if thou
+failest in thy purpose.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>The supposed priest passed out of the door without further words.</p>
+
+<p>Front-de-Boeuf turned back within the castle.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Ho! Giles jailer,&#8221; he called, &#8220;let them bring Cedric of Rotherwood
+before me, and the other churl, his companion&mdash;him I mean of
+Coningsburgh&mdash;Athelstane there, or what call they him? Their very names
+are an encumbrance to a Norman knight&#8217;s mouth, and have, as it were, a
+flavor of bacon. Give me a stoop of wine, as jolly Prince John would
+say, that I may wash away the relish. Place it in the armory, and
+thither lead the prisoners.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>His commands were obeyed; and upon entering that Gothic apartment, hung
+with many spoils won by his own valor and that of his father, he found a
+flagon of wine on a massive oaken table, and the two Saxon captives
+under the guard of four of his dependants. Front-de-Boeuf took a long
+draught of wine and then addressed his prisoners, for the imperfect
+light pre<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_309" id="Page_309">[309]</a></span>vented his perceiving that the more important of them had
+escaped.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Gallants of England,&#8221; said Front-de-Boeuf, &#8220;how relish ye your
+entertainment at Torquilstone? Faith and Saint Dennis, an ye pay not a
+rich ransom, I will hang ye up by the feet from the iron bars of these
+windows till the kites and hooded crows have made skeletons of you!
+Speak out, ye Saxon dogs, what bid ye for your worthless lives? What say
+you, you of Rotherwood?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Not a <a name="doit_text" id="doit_text"></a><a href="#doit" class="fnanchor">v</a>doit I,&#8221; answered poor Wamba, &#8220;and for hanging up by the feet,
+my brain has been topsy-turvy ever since the <a name="biggin_text" id="biggin_text"></a><a href="#biggin" class="fnanchor">v</a>biggin was bound first
+around my head; so turning me upside down may peradventure restore it
+again.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Hah!&#8221; cried Front-de-Boeuf, &#8220;what have we here?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>And with the back of his hand he struck Cedric&#8217;s cap from the head of
+the jester, and throwing open his collar, discovered the fatal badge of
+servitude, the silver collar round his neck.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Giles&mdash;Clement&mdash;dogs and varlets!&#8221; called the furious Norman, &#8220;what
+villain have you brought me here?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I think I can tell you,&#8221; said De Bracy, who just entered the apartment.
+&#8220;This is Cedric&#8217;s clown.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Go,&#8221; ordered Front-de-Boeuf; &#8220;fetch me the right Cedric hither, and I
+pardon your error for once<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_310" id="Page_310">[310]</a></span>&mdash;the rather that you but mistook a fool for
+a Saxon <a name="franklin_text" id="franklin_text"></a><a href="#franklin" class="fnanchor">v</a>franklin.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Ay, but,&#8221; said Wamba, &#8220;your chivalrous excellency will find there are
+more fools than franklins among us.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;What means this knave?&#8221; said Front-de-Boeuf, looking toward his
+followers, who, lingering and loath, faltered forth their belief that if
+this were not Cedric who was there in presence, they knew not what was
+become of him.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Heavens!&#8221; exclaimed De Bracy. &#8220;He must have escaped in the monk&#8217;s
+garments!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p><a name="corr19" id="corr19"></a>&#8220;Fiends!&#8221; echoed Front-de-Boeuf. &#8220;It was then the boar of Rotherwood
+whom I ushered to the postern and dismissed with my own hands! And
+thou,&#8221; he said to Wamba, &#8220;whose folly could over-reach the wisdom of
+idiots yet more gross than thyself. I will give thee holy orders, I will
+shave thy crown for thee! Here, let them tear the scalp from his head
+and pitch him headlong from the battlements. Thy trade is to jest: canst
+thou jest now?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You deal with me better than your word, noble knight,&#8221; whimpered forth
+poor Wamba, whose habits of <a name="buffoonery_text" id="buffoonery_text"></a><a href="#buffoonery" class="fnanchor">v</a>buffoonery were not to be overcome even
+by the immediate prospect of death; &#8220;if you give me the red cap you
+propose, out of a simple monk you will make a <a name="cardinal_text" id="cardinal_text"></a><a href="#cardinal" class="fnanchor">v</a>cardinal.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;The poor wretch,&#8221; said De Bracy, &#8220;is resolved<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_311" id="Page_311">[311]</a></span> to die in his vocation.&#8221;
+The next moment would have been Wamba&#8217;s last but for an unexpected
+interruption. A hoarse shout, raised by many voices, bore to the inmates
+of the hall the tidings that the besiegers were advancing to the attack.
+There was a moment&#8217;s silence in the hall, which was broken by De Bracy.
+&#8220;To the battlements,&#8221; he said; &#8220;let us see what these knaves do
+without.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>So saying, he opened a latticed window which led to a sort of projecting
+balcony, and immediately called to those in the apartment, &#8220;Saint
+Dennis, it is time to stir! They bring forward <a name="mantelet_text" id="mantelet_text"></a><a href="#mantelet" class="fnanchor">v</a>mantelets and
+<a name="pavisse_text" id="pavisse_text"></a><a href="#pavisse" class="fnanchor">v</a>pavisses, and the archers muster on the skirts of the wood like a
+dark cloud before a hail-storm.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Front-de-Boeuf also looked out upon the field and immediately snatched
+his bugle. After winding a long and loud blast, he commanded his men to
+their posts on the walls.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;De Bracy, look to the eastern side, where the walls are lowest. Noble
+Bois-Guilbert, thy trade hath well taught thee how to attack and defend,
+so look thou to the western side. I myself will take post at the
+barbican. Our numbers are few, but activity and courage may supply that
+defect, since we have only to do with rascal clowns.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>The Templar had in the meantime been looking out on the proceedings of
+the besiegers with deeper attention than Front-de-Boeuf or his giddy
+companion.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_312" id="Page_312">[312]</a></span>&#8220;By the faith of mine order,&#8221; he said, &#8220;these men approach with more
+touch of discipline than could have been judged, however they come by
+it. See ye how dexterously they avail themselves of every cover which a
+tree or bush affords and avoid exposing themselves to the shot of our
+cross-bows? I spy neither banner nor pennon, and yet I will gage my
+golden chain that they are led by some noble knight or gentleman
+skillful in the practice of wars.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I espy him,&#8221; said De Bracy; &#8220;I see the waving of a knight&#8217;s crest and
+the gleam of his armor. See yon tall man in the black mail who is busied
+marshaling the farther troop of the rascally yeomen. By Saint Dennis, I
+hold him to be the knight who did so well in the tournament at Ashby.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>The demonstrations of the enemy&#8217;s approach cut off all farther
+discourse. The Templar and De Bracy repaired to their posts and, at the
+head of the few followers they were able to muster, awaited with calm
+determination the threatened assault, while Front-de-Boeuf went to see
+that all was secure in the besieged fortress.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sectionhead">V</p>
+
+<p>In the meantime, the wounded Wilfred of Ivanhoe had been gradually
+recovering his strength. Taken into her litter by Rebecca when his own
+father hesitated to succor him, the young knight had lain in a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_313" id="Page_313">[313]</a></span> stupor
+through all the experiences of the journey and the capture of Cedric&#8217;s
+party by the Normans. De Bracy, who, bad as he was, was not without some
+<a name="compunction_text" id="compunction_text"></a><a href="#compunction" class="fnanchor">v</a>compunction, on finding the occupant of the litter to be Ivanhoe, had
+placed the invalid under the charge of two of his squires, who were
+directed to state to any inquirers that he was a wounded comrade. This
+explanation was now accordingly returned by these men to Front-de-Boeuf,
+when, in going the round of the castle, he questioned them why they did
+not make for the battlements upon the alarm of the attack.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;A wounded comrade!&#8221; he exclaimed in great wrath and astonishment. &#8220;No
+wonder that churls and yeomen wax so presumptuous as even to lay leaguer
+before castles, and that clowns and swineherds send defiances to nobles,
+since men-at-arms have turned sick men&#8217;s nurses. To the battlements, ye
+loitering villains!&#8221; he cried, raising his <a name="stentorian_text" id="stentorian_text"></a><a href="#stentorian" class="fnanchor">v</a>stentorian voice till the
+arches rang again; &#8220;to the battlements, or I will splinter your bones
+with this truncheon.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>The men, who, like most of their description, were fond of enterprise
+and detested inaction, went joyfully to the scene of danger, and the
+care of Ivanhoe fell to Rebecca, who occupied a neighboring apartment
+and who was not kept in close confinement.</p>
+
+<p>The beautiful young Jewess rejoined the knight, whom she had so signally
+befriended, at the moment of the beginning of the attack on the castle.
+Ivanhoe,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_314" id="Page_314">[314]</a></span> already much better and chafing at his enforced inaction,
+resembled the war-horse who scenteth the battle afar.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;If I could but drag myself to yonder window,&#8221; he said, &#8220;that I might
+see how this brave game is like to go&mdash;if I could strike but a single
+blow for our deliverance! It is in vain; I am alike nerveless and
+weaponless!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Fret not thyself, noble knight,&#8221; answered Rebecca, &#8220;the sounds have
+ceased of a sudden. It may be they join not battle.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Thou knowest naught of it,&#8221; returned Wilfred, impatiently; &#8220;this dead
+pause only shows that the men are at their posts on the walls and expect
+an instant attack. What we have heard was but the distant muttering of
+the storm, which will burst anon in all its fury. Could I but reach
+yonder window!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Thou wilt injure thyself by the attempt, noble knight,&#8221; replied the
+attendant. Then she added, &#8220;I myself will stand at the lattice and
+describe to you as I can what passes without.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You must not; you shall not!&#8221; exclaimed Ivanhoe. &#8220;Each lattice will
+soon be a mark for the archers; some random shaft may strike you. At
+least cover thy body with yonder ancient buckler and show as little of
+thyself as may be.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Availing herself of the protection of the large, ancient shield, which
+she placed against the lower part<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_315" id="Page_315">[315]</a></span> of the window, Rebecca, with
+tolerable security, could witness part of what was passing without the
+castle and report to Ivanhoe the preparations being made for the
+storming. From where she stood she had a full view of the outwork likely
+to be the first object of the assault. It was a fortification of no
+great height or strength, intended to protect the postern-gate through
+which Cedric had been recently dismissed by Front-de-Boeuf. The castle
+moat divided this species of barbican from the rest of the fortress, so
+that, in case of its being taken, it was easy to cut off the
+communication with the main building by withdrawing the temporary
+bridge. In the outwork was a sally-port corresponding to the postern of
+the castle, and the whole was surrounded by a strong palisade. From the
+mustering of the assailants in a direction nearly opposite the outwork,
+it seemed plain that this point had been selected for attack.</p>
+
+<p>Rebecca communicated this to Ivanhoe, and added, &#8220;The skirts of the wood
+seem lined with archers, although only a few are advanced from its dark
+shadow.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Under what banner?&#8221; asked Ivanhoe.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Under no ensign of war which I can observe,&#8221; answered Rebecca.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;A singular novelty,&#8221; muttered the knight, &#8220;to advance to storm such a
+castle without pennon or banner displayed! Seest thou who they are that
+act<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_316" id="Page_316">[316]</a></span> as leaders? Or, are all of them but stout yeomen?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;A knight clad in sable armor is the most conspicuous,&#8221; she replied; &#8220;he
+alone is armed from head to foot, and he seems to assume the direction
+of all around him.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Seem there no other leaders?&#8221; demanded the anxious inquirer.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;None of mark and distinction that I can behold from this station,&#8221; said
+Rebecca. &#8220;They appear even now preparing to attack. God of Zion protect
+us! What a dreadful sight! Those who advance first bear huge shields and
+defenses made of plank; the others follow, bending their bows as they
+come on. They raise their bows! God of Moses, forgive the creatures thou
+hast made!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Her description was suddenly interrupted by the signal for assault,
+which was the blast of a shrill bugle, at once answered by a flourish of
+the Norman trumpets from the battlements. The shouts of both parties
+augmented the fearful din, the assailants crying, &#8220;Saint George for
+merry England!&#8221; and the Normans answering them with cries of
+&#8220;<a name="Beauseant_text" id="Beauseant_text"></a><a href="#Beauseant" class="fnanchor">v</a><i>Beauseant! Beauseant!</i>&#8220;</p>
+
+<p>It was not, however, by clamor that the contest was to be decided, and
+the desperate efforts of the assailants were met by an equally vigorous
+defense on the part of the besieged. The archers, trained by their
+woodland pastimes to the most effective use of the long<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_317" id="Page_317">[317]</a></span>bow, shot so
+rapidly and accurately that no point at which a defender could show the
+least part of his person escaped their <a name="clothyard_text" id="clothyard_text"></a><a href="#clothyard" class="fnanchor">v</a>cloth-yard shafts. By this
+heavy discharge, which continued as thick and sharp as hail, two or
+three of the garrison were slain and several others wounded. But,
+confident in their armor of proof and in the cover which their situation
+afforded, the followers of Front-de-Boeuf, and his allies, showed an
+obstinacy in defense proportioned to the fury of the attack, replying
+with the discharge of their large cross-bows to the close and continued
+shower of arrows. As the assailants were necessarily but indifferently
+protected, they received more damage than they did.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;And I must lie here like a bedridden monk,&#8221; exclaimed Ivanhoe, &#8220;while
+the game that gives me freedom or death is played out by the hands of
+others! Look from the window once again, kind maiden, but beware that
+you are not marked by the archers beneath&mdash;look out once more and tell
+me if they yet advance to the storm.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>With patient courage, Rebecca again took post at the lattice.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;What dost thou see?&#8221; demanded the wounded knight.</p>
+
+<p><a name="corr20" id="corr20"></a>&#8220;Nothing but the cloud of arrows flying so thick as to dazzle mine eyes
+and hide the bowmen who shoot them.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_318" id="Page_318">[318]</a></span>&#8220;That cannot endure,&#8221; remarked Ivanhoe. &#8220;If they press not on to carry
+the castle by pure force of arms, the archery may avail but little
+against stone walls and bulwarks. Look for the sable knight and see how
+he bears himself, for as the leader is, so will his followers be.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I see him not,&#8221; said Rebecca.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Foul craven!&#8221; exclaimed Ivanhoe; &#8220;does he blench from the helm when the
+wind blows highest?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;He blenches not! he blenches not!&#8221; cried Rebecca. &#8220;I see him now; he
+heads a body of men close under the outer barrier of the barbican. They
+pull down the piles and palisades; they hew down the barriers with axes.
+His high black plume floats over the throng, like a raven over the field
+of the slain. They have made a breach in the barriers&mdash;they rush
+in&mdash;they are thrust back! Front-de-Boeuf heads the defenders; I see his
+gigantic form above the press. They throng again to the breach, and the
+pass is disputed hand to hand, and man to man. Have mercy, God!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>She turned her head from the lattice, as if unable longer to endure a
+sight so terrible.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Look forth again, Rebecca,&#8221; urged Ivanhoe, mistaking the cause of her
+retiring; &#8220;the archery must in some degree have ceased, since they are
+now fighting hand to hand. Look again; there is less danger.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Rebecca again looked forth and almost immediately<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_319" id="Page_319">[319]</a></span> exclaimed: &#8220;Holy
+prophets of the law! Front-de-Boeuf and the Black Knight fight hand to
+hand in the breach, amid the roar of their followers, who watch the
+progress of the strife.&#8221; She then uttered a loud shriek, &#8220;He is down! he
+is down!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Who is down?&#8221; cried Ivanhoe; &#8220;tell me which has fallen?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;The Black Knight,&#8221; answered Rebecca, faintly; then shouted with joyful
+eagerness, &#8220;But no&mdash;the name of the Lord of Hosts be blessed!&mdash;he is on
+foot again and fights as if there were twenty men&#8217;s strength in his
+single arm. His sword is broken&mdash;he snatches an ax from a yeoman&mdash;he
+presses Front-de-Boeuf with blow on blow. The giant stoops and totters
+like an oak under the steel of a woodsman&mdash;he falls&mdash;he falls!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Front-de-Boeuf?&#8221; exclaimed Ivanhoe.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Front-de-Boeuf!&#8221; answered the Jewess. &#8220;His men rush to the rescue,
+headed by the haughty Templar&mdash;their united force compels the champion
+to pause&mdash;they drag Front-de-Boeuf within the walls.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;The assailants have won the barriers, have they not?&#8221; Ivanhoe eagerly
+queried.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;They have! they have!&#8221; answered Rebecca; &#8220;and they press the besieged
+hard on the outer wall. Some plant ladders, some swarm like bees and
+endeavor to ascend upon the shoulders of each other. Down go stones,
+beams, and trunks of trees on their heads, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_320" id="Page_320">[320]</a></span> as fast as they bear the
+wounded to the rear, fresh men supply their places. Great God! hast thou
+given men thine own image, that it should be thus cruelly defaced by the
+hands of their brethren!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Think not of that,&#8221; said Ivanhoe. &#8220;This is no time for such thoughts.
+Who yield&mdash;who push their way?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;The ladders are thrown down,&#8221; replied Rebecca, shuddering; &#8220;the
+soldiers lie groveling under them like crushed reptiles; the besieged
+have the better.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Saint George strike for us!&#8221; exclaimed the knight; &#8220;do the false yeomen
+give way?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;No,&#8221; exclaimed Rebecca, &#8220;they bear themselves right yeomanly&mdash;the Black
+Knight approaches the postern with his huge ax&mdash;the thundering blows he
+deals you may hear above all the din of the battle. Stones and beams are
+hailed down on the bold champion&mdash;he regards them no more than if they
+were thistle-down or feathers!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;By Saint John of Acre,&#8221; cried Ivanhoe, raising himself joyfully on his
+couch, &#8220;methought there was but one man in England that might do such a
+deed!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;The postern-gate shakes,&#8221; continued Rebecca; &#8220;it crashes&mdash;it is
+splintered by his blows&mdash;they rush in&mdash;the outwork is won! Oh, God! they
+hurl the defenders from the battlements&mdash;they throw them into the
+moat&mdash;men, if ye indeed be men, spare them that can resist no longer!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_321" id="Page_321">[321]</a></span>&#8220;The bridge&mdash;the bridge which communicates with the castle&mdash;have they
+won that pass?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;No,&#8221; replied Rebecca. &#8220;The Templar has destroyed the plank on which
+they crossed&mdash;few of the defenders escaped with him into the castle&mdash;the
+shrieks and cries you hear tell the fate of the others! Alas! I see it
+is more difficult to look on victory than on battle.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;What do they now, maiden?&#8221; asked Ivanhoe. &#8220;Look forth yet again; this
+is no time to faint at bloodshed.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;It is over for the time,&#8221; answered Rebecca. &#8220;Our friends strengthen
+themselves within the outwork which they have mastered; it affords them
+so good a shelter from the foeman&#8217;s shot that the garrison only bestow a
+few bolts on it from interval to interval, as if to disquiet rather than
+to injure them.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Our friends,&#8221; said Wilfred, &#8220;will surely not abandon an enterprise so
+gloriously begun and so happily attained. Oh, no! I will put my faith in
+the good knight whose ax hath rent heart-of-oak and bars of iron.&#8221;</p>
+
+
+<p class="sectionhead">VI</p>
+
+<p>During the interval of quiet which followed the first success of the
+besiegers, the Black Knight was employed in causing to be constructed a
+sort of floating bridge, or long raft, by means of which he hoped<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_322" id="Page_322">[322]</a></span> to
+cross the moat in despite of the resistance of the enemy. This was a
+work of some time.</p>
+
+<p>When the raft was completed, the Black Knight addressed the besiegers:
+&#8220;It avails not waiting here longer, my friends; the sun is descending in
+the west, and I may not tarry for another day. Besides, it will be a
+marvel if the horsemen do not come upon us from York, unless we speedily
+accomplish our purpose. Wherefore, one of you go to Locksley and bid him
+commence a discharge of arrows on the opposite side of the castle, and
+move forward as if about to assault it; while you, true Englishmen,
+stand by me and be ready to thrust the raft end-long over the moat
+whenever the postern on our side is thrown open. Follow me boldly
+across, and aid me to burst yon sally-port in the main wall of the
+castle. As many of you as like not this service, or are but ill-armed,
+do you man the top of the outwork, draw your bowstrings to your ears and
+quell with your shot whoever shall appear upon the rampant. Noble
+Cedric, wilt thou take the direction of those that remain?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Not so,&#8221; answered the Saxon. &#8220;Lead I cannot, but my posterity curse me
+in my grave if I follow not with the foremost wherever thou shalt point
+the way!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Yet, bethink thee, noble Saxon,&#8221; said the knight, &#8220;thou hast neither
+hauberk nor corslet, nor aught but that light helmet, <a name="target_text" id="target_text"></a><a href="#target" class="fnanchor">v</a>target, and
+sword.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;The better,&#8221; replied Cedric; &#8220;I shall be the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_323" id="Page_323">[323]</a></span> lighter to climb these
+walls. And&mdash;forgive the boast, sir knight&mdash;thou shalt this day see the
+naked breast of a Saxon as boldly presented to the battle as ever you
+beheld the steel corslet of a Norman warrior.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;In the name of God, then,&#8221; said the knight, &#8220;fling open the door and
+launch the floating bridge!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>The portal which led from the inner wall of the barbican, now held by
+the besiegers, to the moat and corresponded with a sally-port in the
+main wall of the castle was suddenly opened. The temporary bridge was
+immediately thrust forward and extended its length between the castle
+and outwork, forming a slippery and precarious passage for two men
+abreast to cross the moat. Well aware of the importance of taking the
+foe by surprise, the Black Knight, closely followed by Cedric, threw
+himself upon the bridge and reached the opposite shore. Here he began to
+thunder with his ax on the gate of the castle, protected in part from
+the shot and stones cast by the defenders by the ruins of the former
+drawbridge, which the Templar had demolished in his retreat from the
+barbican, leaving the <a name="counterpoise_text" id="counterpoise_text"></a><a href="#counterpoise" class="fnanchor">v</a>counterpoise still attached to the upper part
+of the portal. The followers of the knight had no such shelter; two were
+instantly shot with cross-bow bolts, and two more fell into the moat.
+The others retreated back into the barbican.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 275px; margin-top: 2em; margin-bottom: 2em;">
+<a href="images/image10-full.png"><img src="images/image10.jpg" width="275" height="400" alt="He Began to Thunder on the Gate" title="He Began to Thunder on the Gate" /></a>
+<span class="caption">[See <a href="#Page_323">page 323</a>]<br />
+<b>He Began to Thunder on the Gate</b></span>
+</div>
+
+<p>The situation of Cedric and the Black Knight was now truly dangerous and
+would have been still more<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_324" id="Page_324">[324]</a><br /><a name="Page_325" id="Page_325">[325]</a></span> so but for the constancy of the archers in
+the barbican, who ceased not to shower their arrows on the battlements,
+distracting the attention of those by whom they were manned and thus
+affording a respite to their two chiefs from the storm of missiles,
+which must otherwise have overwhelmed them. But their situation was
+eminently perilous, and was becoming more so with every moment.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Shame on ye all!&#8221; cried De Bracy to the soldiers around him; &#8220;do ye
+call yourselves cross-bowmen and let these two dogs keep their station
+under the walls of the castle? Heave over the coping stones from the
+battlement, an better may not be. Get pick-ax and levers and down with
+that huge pinnacle!&#8221; pointing to a heavy piece of stone-carved work that
+projected from the parapet.</p>
+
+<p>At this moment Locksley whipped up the courage of his men.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Saint George for England!&#8221; he cried. &#8220;To the charge, bold yeomen! Why
+leave ye the good knight and noble Cedric to storm the pass alone? Make
+in, yeomen! The castle is taken. Think of honor; think of spoil. One
+effort and the place is ours.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>With that he bent his good bow and sent a shaft right through the breast
+of one of the men-at-arms, who, under De Bracy&#8217;s direction, was
+loosening a fragment from one of the battlements to precipitate on the
+heads of Cedric and the Black Knight. A<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_326" id="Page_326">[326]</a></span> second soldier caught from the
+hands of the dying man the iron crow, with which he had heaved up and
+loosened the stone pinnacle, when, receiving an arrow through his
+headpiece, he dropped from the battlement into the moat a dead man. The
+men-at-arms were daunted, for no armor seemed proof against the shot of
+this tremendous archer.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Do you give ground, base knaves?&#8221; cried De Bracy. &#8220;<a name="Mountjoy_text" id="Mountjoy_text"></a><a href="#Mountjoy" class="fnanchor">v</a><i>Mountjoy Saint
+Dennis</i>! Give me the lever.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Snatching it up, he again assailed the loosened pinnacle, which was of
+weight enough, if thrown down, not only to have destroyed the remnant of
+the drawbridge, which sheltered the two foremost assailants, but also to
+have sunk the rude float of planks over which they had crossed. All saw
+the danger, and the boldest, even the stout friar himself, avoided
+setting a foot on the raft. Thrice did Locksley bend his shaft against
+De Bracy, and thrice did his arrow bound back from the knight&#8217;s armor of
+<a name="corr21" id="corr21"></a>proof.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Curse on thy Spanish steel-coat!&#8221; said Locksley; &#8220;had English smith
+forged it, these arrows had gone through it as if it had been silk.&#8221; He
+then began to call out: &#8220;Comrades! friends! noble Cedric! bear back and
+let the ruin fall.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>His warning voice was unheard, for the din which the Black Knight
+himself occasioned by his strokes upon the postern would have drowned
+twenty war-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_327" id="Page_327">[327]</a></span>trumpets. The faithful Gurth indeed sprang forward on the
+planked bridge to warn Cedric of his impending fate, or to share it with
+him. But his warning would have come too late; the massive pinnacle
+already tottered, and De Bracy, who still heaved at his task, would have
+accomplished it, had not the voice of the Templar sounded close in his
+ear.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;All is lost, De Bracy; the castle burns.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Thou art mad to say so,&#8221; replied the knight.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;It is all in a light flame on the western side,&#8221; returned
+Bois-Guilbert. &#8220;I have striven in vain to extinguish it.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;What is to be done?&#8221; cried De Bracy. &#8220;I vow to Saint Nicholas of
+Limoges a candlestick of pure gold&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Spare thy vow,&#8221; said the Templar, &#8220;and mark me. Lead thy men down, as
+if to a sally; throw the postern-gate open. There are but two men who
+occupy the float; fling them into the moat and push across to the
+barbican. I will charge from the main gate and attack the barbican on
+the outside. If we can regain that post, we shall defend ourselves until
+we are relieved or, at least, until they grant us fair quarter.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;It is well thought upon,&#8221; replied De Bracy; &#8220;I will play my part.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>De Bracy hastily drew his men together and rushed down to the
+postern-gate, which he caused instantly to be thrown open. Scarce was
+this done ere<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_328" id="Page_328">[328]</a></span> the portentous strength of the Black Knight forced his
+way inward in despite of De Bracy and his followers. Two of the foremost
+instantly fell, and the rest gave way, notwithstanding all their
+leader&#8217;s efforts to stop <a name="corr22" id="corr22"></a>them.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Dogs!&#8221; cried De Bracy; &#8220;will ye let two men win our only pass for
+safety?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;He is the devil!&#8221; replied a veteran man-at-arms, bearing back from the
+blows of their sable antagonist.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;And if he be the devil,&#8221; said De Bracy, &#8220;would you fly from him into
+the mouth of hell? The castle burns behind us, villains! Let despair
+give you courage, or let me forward. I will cope with this champion
+myself.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>And well and chivalrously did De Bracy that day maintain the fame he had
+acquired in the civil wars of that dreadful period. The vaulted passages
+in which the two redoubted champions were now fighting hand to hand rang
+with the furious blows they dealt each other, De Bracy with his sword,
+the Black Knight with his ponderous ax. At length the Norman received a
+blow, which, though its force was partly parried by his shield,
+descended yet with such violence on his crest that he measured his
+length on the paved floor.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Yield thee, De Bracy,&#8221; said the Black Knight, stooping over him and
+holding against the bars of his helmet the fatal poniard with which
+knights despatched their enemies; &#8220;yield thee, Maurice de Bracy, rescue<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_329" id="Page_329">[329]</a></span>
+or no rescue, or thou art but a dead man. Speak!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>The gallant Norman, seeing the hopelessness of further resistance,
+yielded, and was allowed to rise.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Let me tell thee what it imports thee to know,&#8221; he said. &#8220;Wilfred of
+Ivanhoe is wounded and a prisoner, and will perish in the burning castle
+without present help.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Wilfred of Ivanhoe!&#8221; exclaimed the Black Knight. &#8220;The life of every man
+in the castle shall answer if a hair of his head be singed. Show me his
+chamber!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Ascend yonder stair,&#8221; directed De Bracy. &#8220;It leads to his apartment.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>The turret was now in bright flames, which flashed out furiously from
+window and shot-hole. But, in other parts, the great thickness of the
+walls and the vaulted roofs of the apartments resisted the progress of
+the fire, and there the rage of man still triumphed; for the besiegers
+pursued the defenders of the castle from chamber to chamber. Most of the
+garrison resisted to the uttermost; few of them asked quarter&mdash;none
+received it. The air was filled with groans and the clashing of arms.</p>
+
+<p>Through this scene of confusion the Black Knight rushed in quest of
+Ivanhoe, whom he found in Rebecca&#8217;s charge. The knight, picking up the
+wounded man as if he were a child, bore him quickly to safety. In the
+meantime, Cedric had gone in search of Rowena, followed by the faithful
+Gurth. The noble<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_330" id="Page_330">[330]</a></span> Saxon was so fortunate as to reach his ward&#8217;s
+apartment just as she had abandoned all hope of safety and sat in
+expectation of instant death. He committed her to the charge of Gurth,
+to be carried without the castle. The loyal Cedric then hastened in
+quest of his friend Athelstane, determined at every risk to himself to
+save the prince. But ere Cedric penetrated as far as the old hall in
+which he himself had been a prisoner, the inventive genius of Wamba had
+procured liberation for himself and his companion.</p>
+
+<p>When the noise of the conflict announced that it was at the hottest, the
+jester began to shout with the utmost power of his lungs, &#8220;Saint George
+and the Dragon! Bonny Saint George for merry England! The castle is
+won!&#8221; These sounds he rendered yet more fearful by banging against each
+other two or three pieces of rusty armor which lay scattered around the
+hall.</p>
+
+<p>The guards at once ran to tell the Templar that foemen had entered the
+old hall. Meantime the prisoners found no difficulty in making their
+escape into the court of the castle, which was now the last scene of the
+contest. Here sat the fierce Templar, mounted on horseback and
+surrounded by several of the garrison, who had united their strength in
+order to secure the last chance of safety and retreat which remained to
+them. The principal, and now the single remaining drawbridge, had been
+lowered by his orders, but<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_331" id="Page_331">[331]</a></span> the passage was beset; for the archers, who
+had hitherto only annoyed the castle on that side by their missiles, no
+sooner saw the flames breaking out and the bridge lowered than they
+thronged to the entrance. On the other hand, a party of the besiegers
+who had entered by the postern on the opposite side were now issuing
+into the court-yard and attacking with fury the remnant of the defenders
+in the rear.</p>
+
+<p>Animated, however, by despair and the example of their gallant leader,
+the remaining soldiers of the castle fought with the utmost valor; and,
+being well armed, they succeeded in driving back the assailants.</p>
+
+<p>Crying aloud, &#8220;Those who would save themselves, follow me!&#8221;
+Bois-Guilbert pushed across the drawbridge, dispersing the archers who
+would have stopped them. He was followed by the Saracen slaves and some
+five or six men-at-arms, who had mounted their horses. The Templar&#8217;s
+retreat was rendered perilous by the number of arrows shot at him and
+his party; but this did not prevent him from galloping round to the
+barbican, where he expected to find De Bracy.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;De Bracy!&#8221; he shouted, &#8220;art thou there?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I am here,&#8221; answered De Bracy, &#8220;but a prisoner.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Can I rescue thee?&#8221; cried Bois-Guilbert.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;No,&#8221; said the other. &#8220;I have rendered myself.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Upon hearing this, the Templar galloped off with his followers, leaving
+the besiegers in complete possession of the castle.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_332" id="Page_332">[332]</a></span>Fortunately, by this time all the prisoners had been rescued and stood
+together without the castle, while the yeomen ran through the apartments
+seeking to save from the devouring flames such valuables as might be
+found. They were soon driven out by the fiery element. The towering
+flames surmounted every obstruction and rose to the evening skies one
+huge and burning beacon, seen far and wide through the adjacent country.
+Tower after tower crashed down, with blazing roof and rafter.</p>
+
+<p>The victors, assembling in large bands, gazed with wonder not unmixed
+with fear upon the flames, in which their own ranks and arms glanced
+dusky red. The voice of Locksley was at length heard, &#8220;Shout, yeomen!
+the den of tyrants is no more! Let each bring his spoil to the tree in
+Hart-hill Walk, for there we will make just partition among ourselves,
+together with our worthy allies in this great deed of vengeance.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Sir Walter Scott.</span></p>
+
+
+<p class="heading">HELPS TO STUDY</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>I. Tell what you find out about Cedric and his son, Ivanhoe, or the
+&#8220;Disinherited Knight.&#8221; What impression do you get of Cedric&#8217;s
+character? of Athelstane&#8217;s? What was the first adventure the
+travelers had? Who was &#8220;the sick friend&#8221; the Jews were assisting?
+What further adventure befell the travelers? How did Gurth show his
+true character? Who came to the aid of Gurth and Wamba? What did
+Wamba mean by &#8220;whether they be thy children&#8217;s coats or no&#8221;? What
+impression do you get of the stranger? Describe the scene in the
+hermit&#8217;s abode. What impression do you get of him? Of the Black
+Knight?</p>
+
+<p>II. Who had made Cedric&#8217;s party prisoners? Why? Tell what <span class='pagenum' style="font-size: 100%;"><a name="Page_333" id="Page_333">[333]</a></span>Cedric
+said when he discovered who his captors were. What disposition was
+made of the prisoners? Describe the scene in Isaac&#8217;s cell. How was
+Front-de-Boeuf interrupted?</p>
+
+<p>III. What challenge did the knights receive? How did they answer
+it?</p>
+
+<p>IV. Who came in the character of a priest? What plan did he carry
+out? How? How did Cedric act his part? Describe the scene when the
+escape was discovered. How was Front-de-Boeuf prevented from doing
+Wamba harm?</p>
+
+<p>V. How did Ivanhoe fall to the care of Rebecca? Where did Rebecca
+take her station? Describe the scenes she saw. What knight led the
+assault? How did Rebecca describe him? Can you guess who the Black
+Knight was? Whom did Ivanhoe think of when he said, &#8220;Methought
+there was but one man in England that might do such a deed&#8221;?</p>
+
+<p>VI. What plan did the Black Knight make? How was it executed? Which
+of the assailants proved themselves especial heroes? What was De
+Bracy&#8217;s plan? How was its accomplishment prevented? What plan for
+escape did the Templar have? How did it end? Tell how Ivanhoe,
+Rowena, Athelstane and Wamba were liberated. Tell what became of
+the knights. Who do you think Locksley was?</p>
+
+<p>All of the party were rescued except Rebecca, who was carried off
+by Bois-Guilbert and accused of witchcraft. You will have to read
+the novel, <i>Ivanhoe</i>, to learn of the further adventures of her,
+Rowena, the Black Knight, and Ivanhoe.</p></div>
+
+
+<p class="heading">SUPPLEMENTARY READING</p>
+
+<ul class="supread">
+  <li>The Talisman&mdash;Sir Walter Scott.</li>
+  <li>The White Company&mdash;A. Conan Doyle.</li>
+  <li>When Knighthood Was in Flower&mdash;Charles Major.</li>
+  <li>The Last of the Barons&mdash;Edward Bulwer-Lytton.</li>
+  <li>Don Quixote&mdash;Miguel de Cervantes.</li>
+  <li>The Idylls of the King&mdash;Alfred Tennyson.</li>
+  <li>Scottish Chiefs&mdash;Jane Porter.</li>
+</ul>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_334" id="Page_334">[334]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2 class="chapterhead"><a name="SEA_FEVER" id="SEA_FEVER"></a>SEA FEVER</h2>
+
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">I must go down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And the wheel&#8217;s kick and the wind&#8217;s song and the white sail&#8217;s shaking,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And a gray mist on the sea&#8217;s face, and a gray dawn breaking.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">I must go down to the seas again, for the call of the running tide<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Is a wild call and a clear call that may not be denied;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And all I ask is a windy day with the white clouds flying,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And the flung spray and the blown <a name="spume_text" id="spume_text"></a><a href="#spume" class="fnanchor">v</a>spume, and the sea-gulls crying.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">I must go down to the seas again, to the vagrant gypsy life,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To the gull&#8217;s way and the whale&#8217;s way where the wind&#8217;s like a whetted<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">knife;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And all I ask is a merry yarn from a laughing fellow-rover,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And quiet sleep and a sweet dream when the long trick&#8217;s over.<br /></span>
+<span class="i20 smcap">John Masefield.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_335" id="Page_335">[335]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2 class="chapterhead"><a name="A_GREYPORT_LEGEND" id="A_GREYPORT_LEGEND"></a>A GREYPORT LEGEND</h2>
+
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">They ran through the streets of the seaport town;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">They peered from the decks of the ships that lay:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The cold sea-fog that comes whitening down<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Was never as cold or white as they.<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">&#8220;Ho, Starbuck, and Pinckney, and Tenterden,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Run for your shallops, gather your men,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Scatter your boats on the lower bay!&#8221;<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Good cause for fear! In the thick midday<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The hulk that lay by the rotting pier,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Filled with the children in happy play,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Parted its moorings and drifted clear;<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Drifted clear beyond reach or call,&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Thirteen children they were in all,&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">All adrift in the lower bay!<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Said a hard-faced skipper, &#8220;God help us all!<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">She will not float till the turning tide!&#8221;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Said his wife, &#8220;My darling will hear <i>my</i> call,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Whether in sea or heaven she abide!&#8221;<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">And she lifted a quavering voice and high,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Wild and strange as a sea-bird&#8217;s cry,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Till they shuddered and wondered at her side.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">The fog drove down on each laboring crew,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Veiled each from each and the sky and shore;<br /></span>
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_336" id="Page_336">[336]</a></span><span class="i0">There was not a sound but the breath they drew,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And the lap of water and creak of oar.<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">And they felt the breath of the downs fresh blown<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">O&#8217;er leagues of clover and cold gray stone,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">But not from the lips that had gone before.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">They came no more. But they tell the tale<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">That, when fogs are thick on the harbor reef,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The mackerel-fishers shorten sail;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">For the signal they know will bring relief,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">For the voices of children, still at play<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">In a phantom-hulk that drifts alway<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Through channels whose waters never fail.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">It is but a foolish shipman&#8217;s tale,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">A theme for a poet&#8217;s idle page;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But still, when the mists of doubt prevail,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">And we lie becalmed by the shores of age,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">We hear from the misty troubled shore<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">The voice of the children gone before,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Drawing the soul to its anchorage!<br /></span>
+<span class="i16 smcap">Bret Harte.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+<p class="heading">HELPS TO STUDY</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>Read the poem and tell the story found in it. Why was every one so
+&#8220;cold and white&#8221;? What was the great danger? What happened to
+prevent the sailors&#8217; getting to the hulk? What is the tale that is
+told? What is the thought the poet leaves with us in the last
+stanza?</p></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_337" id="Page_337">[337]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2 class="chapterhead"><a name="A_HUNT_BENEATH_THE_OCEAN" id="A_HUNT_BENEATH_THE_OCEAN"></a>A HUNT BENEATH THE OCEAN</h2>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>This story is taken from <i>Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea</i>,
+the book that foreshadowed the modern submarine. Monsieur Aronnax,
+a scientist, with two companions, Ned Land and Conseil, was rescued
+at sea by a strange craft, the <i>Nautilus</i>, owned and commanded by
+one Captain Nemo, who hated mankind and never went ashore on
+inhabited land. Monsieur Aronnax remained on the submarine for
+months in a kind of captivity and met with many wonderful
+adventures. It should be noted that modern inventions have already
+outstripped many of the author&#8217;s imaginings.</p></div>
+
+<p>On returning to my room with Ned and Conseil, I found upon my table a
+note addressed to me. I opened it impatiently. It was written in a bold
+clear hand, and ran as follows:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;November 16, 1867.</p>
+
+<p>To Professor Aronnax, on board the <i>Nautilus</i>:</p>
+
+<p>Captain Nemo invites Professor Aronnax to a hunting party, which will
+take place to-morrow morning in the forest of the island of Crespo. He
+hopes that nothing will prevent the professor from being present, and he
+will with pleasure see him joined by his companions.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;A hunt!&#8221; exclaimed Ned.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;And in the forests of the island of Crespo!&#8221; added Conseil.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Oh, then the gentleman is going on <a name="terrafirma_text" id="terrafirma_text"></a><a href="#terrafirma" class="fnanchor">v</a><i>terra firma</i>?&#8221; asked Ned Land.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_338" id="Page_338">[338]</a></span>&#8220;That seems to be clearly indicated,&#8221; said I, reading the letter once
+more.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Well, we must accept,&#8221; said Ned. &#8220;Once more on dry land, we shall know
+what to do. Indeed, I shall not be sorry to eat a piece of fresh
+venison.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>I contented myself with replying, &#8220;Let us see where the island of Crespo
+is.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>I consulted the <a name="planisphere_text" id="planisphere_text"></a><a href="#planisphere" class="fnanchor">v</a>planisphere and in 32&deg; 40&acute; north latitude, and 157&deg;
+50&acute; west <a name="longitude_text" id="longitude_text"></a><a href="#longitude" class="fnanchor">v</a>longitude, I found a small island recognized in 1801 by
+Captain Crespo, and marked in the ancient Spanish maps as Rocca de la
+Platta, or Silver Rock.</p>
+
+<p>I showed this little rock lost in the midst of the North Pacific to my
+companions.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;If Captain Nemo does sometimes go on dry ground,&#8221; said I, &#8220;he at least
+chooses desert islands.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Ned Land shrugged his shoulders without speaking, and Conseil and he
+left me. After supper, which was served by the steward, mute and
+impassive, I went to bed, not without some anxiety.</p>
+
+<p>The next morning, the 7th of November, I felt on awakening that the
+<i>Nautilus</i> was perfectly still. I dressed quickly and entered the
+saloon. Captain Nemo was there, waiting for me. He rose, bowed, and
+asked me if it was convenient for me to accompany him. I simply replied
+that my companions and myself were ready to follow him.</p>
+
+<p>We entered the room where breakfast was served.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_339" id="Page_339">[339]</a></span>&#8220;M. Aronnax,&#8221; said the captain, &#8220;pray share my breakfast without
+ceremony; we will chat as we eat. Though I promised you a walk in the
+forest, I did not undertake to find hotels there; so breakfast as a man
+should who will most likely not have his dinner till very late.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>I did honor to the repast. It was composed of several kinds of fish, and
+different sorts of seaweed. Our drink consisted of pure water, to which
+the captain added some drops of a fermented liquor extracted from a
+seaweed. Captain Nemo ate at first without saying a word. Then he began:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Professor, when I proposed to you to hunt in my submarine forest of
+Crespo, you evidently thought me mad. Sir, you should never judge
+lightly of any man.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;But, captain, believe me&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Be kind enough to listen, and you will then see whether you have any
+cause to accuse me of folly and contradiction.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I listen.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You know as well as I do, professor, that man can live under water,
+providing he carries with him a sufficient supply of breathable air. In
+submarine works, the workman, clad in an <a name="impervious_text" id="impervious_text"></a><a href="#impervious" class="fnanchor">v</a>impervious dress, with his
+head in a metal helmet, receives air from above by means of
+forcing-pumps and <a name="regulator_text" id="regulator_text"></a><a href="#regulator" class="fnanchor">v</a>regulators.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;That is a diving apparatus,&#8221; said I.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Just so. But under these conditions the man is<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_340" id="Page_340">[340]</a></span> not at liberty; he is
+attached to the pump which sends him air through a rubber tube, and if
+we were obliged to be thus held to the <i>Nautilus</i>, we could not go far.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;And the means of getting free?&#8221; I asked.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;It is to use the Rouquayrol apparatus, invented by two of your own
+countrymen, which I have brought to perfection for my own use and which
+will allow you to risk yourself without any organ of the body suffering.
+It consists of a reservoir of thick iron plates, in which I store the
+air under a pressure of fifty <a name="atmosphere_text" id="atmosphere_text"></a><a href="#atmosphere" class="fnanchor">v</a>atmospheres. This reservoir is fixed on
+the back by means of braces, like a soldier&#8217;s knapsack. Its upper part
+forms a box in which the air is kept by means of a bellows, and
+therefore cannot escape unless at its <a name="normal_text" id="normal_text"></a><a href="#normal" class="fnanchor">v</a>normal tension. In the
+Rouquayrol apparatus such as we use, two rubber pipes leave this box and
+join a sort of tent which holds the nose and mouth; one is to introduce
+fresh air, the other to let out foul, and the tongues close one or the
+other pipe according to the wants of the <a name="respirator_text" id="respirator_text"></a><a href="#respirator" class="fnanchor">v</a>respirator. But I, in
+encountering great pressures at the bottom of the sea, was obliged to
+shut my head like that of a diver in a ball of copper; and it is into
+this ball of copper that the two pipes, the inspirator and the
+expirator, open. Do you see?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Perfectly, Captain Nemo. But the air that you carry with you must soon
+be used; when it contains only fifteen per cent of oxygen it is no
+longer fit to breathe.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_341" id="Page_341">[341]</a></span>&#8220;Right! But I told you, M. Aronnax, that the pumps of the <i>Nautilus</i>
+allow me to store the air under considerable pressure; and the reservoir
+of the apparatus can furnish breathable air for nine or ten hours.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I have no further objections to make,&#8221; I answered. &#8220;I will only ask one
+thing, captain&mdash;how can you light your road at the bottom of the sea?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;With the Ruhmkorff apparatus, M. Aronnax. One is carried on the back,
+the other is fastened to the waist. It is composed of a <a name="bunsen_text" id="bunsen_text"></a><a href="#bunsen" class="fnanchor">v</a>bunsen pile,
+which I do not work with bichromate of potash but with sodium. A wire is
+introduced which collects the electricity produced, and directs it
+toward a lantern. In this lantern is a spiral glass which contains a
+small quantity of carbonic acid gas. When the apparatus is at work, this
+gas becomes luminous, giving out a white and continuous light. Thus
+provided, I can breathe and I can see.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Captain Nemo, to all my objections you make such crushing answers that
+I dare no longer doubt. But if I am forced to admit the Rouquayrol and
+Ruhmkorff apparatus, I must be allowed some reservations with regard to
+the gun I am to carry.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;But it is not a gun for powder,&#8221; he said.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Then it is an air-gun?&#8221; I asked.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Doubtless. How would you have me manufacture gunpowder on board,
+without saltpeter, sulphur, or charcoal?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_342" id="Page_342">[342]</a></span>&#8220;Besides,&#8221; I added, &#8220;to fire under water in a medium eight hundred and
+fifty times denser than the air, we must conquer a very considerable
+resistance.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;That would be no difficulty. There exist guns which can fire under
+these conditions. But I repeat, having no powder, I use air under great
+pressure, which the pumps of the <i>Nautilus</i> furnish abundantly.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;But this air must be rapidly used?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Well, have I not my Rouquayrol reservoir, which can furnish it at need?
+A tap is all that is required. Besides, M. Aronnax, you must see
+yourself that during our submarine hunt we can spend but little air.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;But it seems to me that in this twilight, and in the midst of this
+fluid, which is very dense compared with the atmosphere, shots could not
+go far or easily prove fatal.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;On the contrary,&#8221; replied Nemo, &#8220;with this gun every blow is mortal;
+however lightly the animal is touched, it falls dead as if struck by a
+thunderbolt.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Why?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Because the balls sent by this gun are not ordinary balls, but little
+cases of glass, of which I have a large supply. These glass cases are
+covered with a shell of steel and weighted with a pellet of lead; they
+are real <a name="Leyden_text" id="Leyden_text"></a><a href="#Leyden" class="fnanchor">v</a>Leyden jars, into which electricity is forced to a very high
+tension. With the slightest shock they are discharged, and the animal,
+however strong it may be, falls dead.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_343" id="Page_343">[343]</a></span>Captain Nemo then led me aft; and in passing before Ned and Conseil&#8217;s
+cabin, I called my two companions, who followed immediately. Conseil was
+delighted at the idea of exploring the sea, but Ned declined to go when
+he learned that the hunt was to be a submarine one. We came to a kind of
+cell near the machinery-room, in which we were to put on our
+walking-dress. It was, in fact, the arsenal and wardrobe of the
+<i>Nautilus</i>. A dozen diving-suits hung from the partition, awaiting our
+use.</p>
+
+<p>At the captain&#8217;s call two of the ship&#8217;s crew came to help us dress in
+these heavy and impervious clothes, made of rubber without seam and
+constructed expressly to resist considerable pressure. One might have
+taken this diving apparatus for a suit of armor, both supple and
+resisting. It formed trousers and waistcoat; the trousers were finished
+off with thick boots, weighted with heavy leaden soles. The texture of
+the waistcoat was held together by bands of copper, which crossed the
+chest, protecting it from the great pressure of the water and leaving
+the lungs free to act. The sleeves ended in gloves, which in no way
+restrained the movement of the hands. There was a vast difference
+noticeable between this dress and the old-fashioned diving-suit.</p>
+
+<p>Captain Nemo and one of his companions, Conseil and myself, were soon
+enveloped in the dresses; there remained nothing more to be done but
+inclose our heads<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_344" id="Page_344">[344]</a></span> in the metal boxes. Captain Nemo thrust his head into
+the helmet, Conseil and I did the same. The upper part of our dress
+terminated in a copper collar, upon which was screwed the metal helmet.
+Three holes, protected by thick glass, allowed us to see in all
+directions by simply turning our heads in the interior of the
+head-dress. As soon as it was in position, the Rouquayrol apparatus on
+our backs began to act; and, for my part, I could breathe with ease.</p>
+
+<p>With the Ruhmkorff lamp hanging from my belt, and the gun in my hand, I
+was ready to set out. But to speak the truth, imprisoned in these heavy
+garments and glued to the deck by the leaden soles, it was impossible
+for me to take a step. This state of things, however, was provided for.
+I felt myself being pushed into a little room next the wardrobe-room. My
+companions followed, towed along in the same way. I heard a water-tight
+door, furnished with stopper-plates, close upon us, and we were wrapped
+in profound darkness.</p>
+
+<p>After some minutes, a loud hissing was heard; I felt the cold mount from
+my feet to my chest. Evidently from some part of the vessel they had, by
+means of a tap, given entrance to the water, which was invading us and
+with which the room was soon filled. A second door cut in the side of
+the <i>Nautilus</i> then opened. We saw a faint light. In another instant our
+feet trod the bottom of the sea.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_345" id="Page_345">[345]</a></span>How can I retrace the impression left upon me by that walk under the
+waters? Words are impotent to relate such wonders. Captain Nemo walked
+in front, his companion followed some steps behind. Conseil and I
+remained near each other, as if an exchange of words had been possible
+through our metallic cases. I no longer felt the weight of my clothing,
+or of my shoes, of my reservoir of air, or my thick helmet, in the midst
+of which my head rattled like an almond in its shell.</p>
+
+<p>The light which lit the soil thirty feet below the surface of the ocean
+astonished me by its power. The solar rays shone through the watery mass
+easily and dissipated all color, and I clearly distinguished objects at
+a distance of a hundred and fifty yards. Beyond that the tints darkened
+into fine gradations of <a name="ultramarine_text" id="ultramarine_text"></a><a href="#ultramarine" class="fnanchor">v</a>ultramarine and faded into vague obscurity.
+We were walking on fine, even sand, not wrinkled as on a flat shore,
+which retains the impression of the billows. This dazzling carpet,
+really a reflector, repelled the rays of the sun with wonderful
+intensity, which accounted for the vibration which penetrated every atom
+of liquid. Shall I be believed when I say that, at a depth of thirty
+feet, I could see as well as if I was in broad daylight?</p>
+
+<p>For a quarter of an hour I trod on this sand; the hull of the
+<i>Nautilus</i>, resembling a long shoal, disappeared by degrees; but its
+lantern would help to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_346" id="Page_346">[346]</a></span> guide us back when darkness should overtake us in
+the waters. Soon forms of objects outlined in the distance became
+discernible. I recognized magnificent rocks, hung with a tapestry of
+<a name="zoophytes_text" id="zoophytes_text"></a><a href="#zoophytes" class="fnanchor">v</a>zoophytes of the most beautiful kind.</p>
+
+<p>It was then about ten o&#8217;clock in the morning, and the rays of the sun
+struck the surface of the waves at rather an oblique angle; at the touch
+of the light, decomposed by <a name="refraction_text" id="refraction_text"></a><a href="#refraction" class="fnanchor">v</a>refraction as through a prism, flowers,
+rocks, plants, and shells were shaded at the edges by the seven solar
+colors. It was a marvelous feast for the eyes, this complication of
+colored tints, a perfect <a name="kaleidoscope_text2" id="kaleidoscope_text2"></a><a href="#kaleidoscope" class="fnanchor">v</a>kaleidoscope of green, yellow, orange,
+violet, indigo, and blue!</p>
+
+<p>All these wonders I saw in the space of a quarter of a mile, scarcely
+stopping and following Captain Nemo, who beckoned me on by signs. Soon
+the nature of the soil changed; to the sandy plain succeeded an extent
+of slimy mud; we then traveled over a plain of seaweed of wild and
+luxuriant vegetation. This sward was of close texture and soft to the
+feet, rivaling the softest carpet woven by the hand of man. While
+verdure was spread at our feet, it did not abandon our heads. A light
+network of marine plants grew on the surface of the water.</p>
+
+<p>We had been gone from the <i>Nautilus</i> an hour and a half. It was near
+noon; I knew this by the <a name="perpendicularity_text" id="perpendicularity_text"></a><a href="#perpendicularity" class="fnanchor">v</a>perpendicularity of the sun&#8217;s rays, which
+were no longer refracted.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_347" id="Page_347">[347]</a></span> The magical colors disappeared by degrees and
+the shades of emerald and sapphire were effaced. We walked with a
+regular step, which rang upon the ground with astonishing intensity;
+indeed the slightest noise was transmitted with a quickness and
+vividness to which the ear is unaccustomed on earth, water being a
+better conductor of sound than air in the <a name="ratio_text" id="ratio_text"></a><a href="#ratio" class="fnanchor">v</a>ratio of four to one. At
+this period the earth sloped downward; the light took a uniform tint. We
+were at a depth of a hundred and five yards.</p>
+
+<p>At this depth I could still see the rays of the sun, though feebly; to
+their intense brilliancy had succeeded a reddish twilight, but we could
+find our way well enough. It was not necessary to resort to the
+Ruhmkorff apparatus as yet. At this moment Captain Nemo stopped and
+waited till I joined him, pointing then to an obscure mass which loomed
+in the shadow at a short distance.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;It is the forest of the island of Crespo,&#8221; thought I, and I was not
+mistaken.</p>
+
+<p>This under-sea forest was composed of large tree-plants; and the moment
+we penetrated under its vast <a name="arcade_text" id="arcade_text"></a><a href="#arcade" class="fnanchor">v</a>arcades I was struck by the singular
+position of their branches: not an herb which carpeted the ground, not a
+branch which clothed the trees was either broken or bent, nor did they
+extend in a <a name="horizontal_text" id="horizontal_text"></a><a href="#horizontal" class="fnanchor">v</a>horizontal direction; all stretched up toward the surface
+of the sea. Not a filament, not a ribbon, however thin, but kept as
+straight<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_348" id="Page_348">[348]</a></span> as a rod of iron. They were motionless, yet when bent to one
+side by the hand they directly resumed their former position. Truly it
+was a region of perpendicularity.</p>
+
+<p>I soon accustomed myself to this fantastic position, as well as to the
+comparative darkness which surrounded us. The sights were very
+wonderful. Under numerous shrubs as large as trees on land were massed
+bushes of living flowers&mdash;animals rather than plants&mdash;of various colors
+and glowing softly in the obscurity of the ocean depth. Fish flies flew
+from branch to branch like a swarm of humming-birds, while swarms of
+marine creatures rose at our feet like a flight of snipes.</p>
+
+<p>In about an hour Captain Nemo gave the signal to halt. I, for my part,
+was not sorry, and we stretched ourselves under an arbor of plants, the
+long thin blades of which stood up like arrows. I felt an irresistible
+desire to sleep, an experience which happens to all divers. My eyes soon
+closed behind the thick glasses and I fell into a heavy slumber. Captain
+Nemo and his companion, stretched in the clear crystal, set me the
+example.</p>
+
+<p>How long I remained buried in this drowsiness I cannot judge; but when I
+woke, the sun seemed sinking toward the horizon. Captain Nemo had
+already risen, and I was beginning to stretch my limbs when an
+unexpected sight brought me briskly to my feet.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_349" id="Page_349">[349]</a></span>A few steps off, a monster sea-spider, about forty inches high, was
+watching me with squinting eyes, ready to spring on me. Though my
+diver&#8217;s dress was thick enough to defend me from the bite of this
+animal, I could not help shuddering with horror. Conseil and the sailor
+of the <i>Nautilus</i> awoke at this moment. Captain Nemo pointed out the
+hideous creature, which a blow from the butt end of a gun knocked over;
+I saw the claws of the monster writhe in horrible convulsions. This
+incident reminded me that other animals more to be feared might haunt
+these obscure depths, against whose attacks my diving-clothes would not
+protect me.</p>
+
+<p>Indeed, I thought that this halt would mark the end of our walk; but I
+was mistaken, for instead of returning to the <i>Nautilus</i>, we continued
+our bold excursion. The ground was still on the incline; its declivity
+seemed to be getting greater and to be leading us to lower depths. It
+must have been about three o&#8217;clock when we reached a narrow valley
+between high walls; thanks to the perfection of our apparatus, we were
+far below the depth to which divers ever penetrate.</p>
+
+<p>At our great depth the darkness thickened; ten paces away not an object
+was visible. I was groping my way when I suddenly saw a brilliant white
+light flash out ahead; Captain Nemo had turned on his electric torch.
+The rest of us soon followed his example, and the sea, lit by our four
+lanterns, was illuminated for a circle of forty yards.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_350" id="Page_350">[350]</a></span>Captain Nemo still plunged onward into the dark reaches of the forest,
+whose trees were getting scarcer at every step. At last, after about
+four hours, this marvelous excursion came to an end. A wall of superb
+rocks rose before us, a heap of gigantic blocks, an enormous granite
+shore. It was the prop of the island of Crespo. It was the earth!</p>
+
+<p>The return now began. Captain Nemo resumed his place at the head of his
+little band and directed the course without hesitation. I thought we
+were not following the road we had come, on our return to the
+<i>Nautilus</i>. The new way was very steep and consequently very painful; we
+approached the surface of the sea rapidly, but this ascent was not so
+sudden as to cause a too rapid relief from the pressure of the water,
+which would have been dangerous. Very soon light reappeared and grew,
+and as the sun was low on the horizon, the refraction edged all objects
+with a <a name="spectral_text" id="spectral_text"></a><a href="#spectral" class="fnanchor">v</a>spectral ring. At ten yards deep, we walked amid a shoal of
+little fishes, more numerous than the birds of the air; but no
+<a name="aquatic_text" id="aquatic_text"></a><a href="#aquatic" class="fnanchor">v</a>aquatic game worthy of a shot had as yet met our gaze. Suddenly I saw
+the captain put his gun to his shoulder and follow a moving object into
+the shrubs. He fired; I heard a slight hissing and the creature fell
+stunned at some distance from us.</p>
+
+<p>It was a magnificent sea-otter, five feet long and very valuable. Its
+skin, chestnut-brown above and silvery underneath, would have made one
+of those<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_351" id="Page_351">[351]</a></span> beautiful furs so sought after in the Russian and Chinese
+markets. I admired the curious animal, with its rounded head ornamented
+with short ears, its round eyes, and white whiskers like those of a cat,
+and its webbed feet and nails and tufted tail. This precious beast,
+hunted and tracked by fishermen, has now become very rare and has sought
+refuge in the northern parts of the Pacific.</p>
+
+<p>Captain Nemo&#8217;s companion threw the sea-otter over his shoulder, and we
+continued our journey. For an hour a plain of sand lay stretched before
+us, which sometimes rose to within two yards of the surface of the
+water. I then saw our image clearly reflected, drawn inversely, and
+above us appeared an identical group reflecting our movements: in a
+word, the image was like us in every point, except that the figures
+walked with their heads downward and their feet in the air.</p>
+
+<p>For two hours we followed these sandy plains, then fields of <a name="algae_text" id="algae_text"></a><a href="#algae" class="fnanchor">v</a>algae
+very disagreeable to cross. Candidly, I felt that I could do no more
+when I saw a glimmer of light, which for a half-mile broke the darkness
+of the waters. It was the lantern of the <i>Nautilus</i>. Before twenty
+minutes were over we should be on board, and I should be able to breathe
+with ease, for it seemed that my reservoir supplied air very deficient
+in oxygen. But I did not reckon on an accidental meeting which delayed
+our arrival for some time.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_352" id="Page_352">[352]</a></span>I had remained some steps behind, when presently I saw Captain Nemo come
+hurriedly toward me. With his strong hand he bent me to the ground,
+while his companion did the same to Conseil. At first I knew not what to
+think of this sudden attack, but I was soon reassured by seeing the
+captain lie down beside me and remain immovable.</p>
+
+<p>I was stretched on the ground, just under shelter of a bush of algae,
+when, raising my head, I saw some enormous mass, casting phosphorescent
+gleams, pass blusteringly by. My blood froze in my veins as I recognized
+two formidable sharks. They were man-eaters, terrible creatures with
+enormous tails and a dull glassy stare&mdash;monstrous brutes which could
+crush a whole man in their iron jaws! I noticed their silver undersides
+and their huge mouths bristling with teeth, from a very unscientific
+point of view and more as a possible victim than as a naturalist.</p>
+
+<p>Happily the <a name="voracious_text" id="voracious_text"></a><a href="#voracious" class="fnanchor">v</a>voracious creatures do not see well. They passed without
+noticing us, brushing us with their brownish fins, and we escaped by a
+miracle from a danger certainly greater than that of meeting a tiger
+full-face in a forest. Half an hour later, guided by the electric light,
+we reached the <i>Nautilus</i>. The outside door had been left open, and
+Captain Nemo closed it as soon as we entered the first cell. He then
+pressed a knob. I heard the pumps working in the midst of the vessel. I
+felt the water sinking from around me,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_353" id="Page_353">[353]</a></span> and in a few minutes the cell
+was entirely empty. The inside door then opened, and we entered the
+vestry.</p>
+
+<p>Our diving-dress was taken off, not without some trouble; and fairly
+worn out from want of food and sleep, I returned to my room in great
+wonder at this surprising excursion at the bottom of the sea.</p>
+
+<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Jules Verne.</span></p>
+
+
+<p class="heading">HELPS TO STUDY</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>What was the hunt to which the adventurers were invited? Describe
+the preparations for it. What kind of gun did the hunters carry?
+Describe the descent to the bottom of the sea and the walk. What
+impressed you most? Would you care to take a nap at the bottom of
+the sea? What were the main incidents in the return trip? Find out
+all you can about divers and about life on the floor of the ocean.</p></div>
+
+
+<p class="heading">SUPPLEMENTARY READING</p>
+
+<ul class="supread">
+  <li>The Mysterious Island&mdash;Jules Verne.</li>
+  <li>Thirty Strange Stories&mdash;H. G. Wells.</li>
+  <li>The Great Stone of Sardis&mdash;Frank R. Stockton.</li>
+</ul>
+
+
+
+
+<div class="poem topspace"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Roll on, thou deep and dark blue ocean&mdash;roll!<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Ten thousand fleets sweep over thee in vain;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Man marks the earth with ruin&mdash;his control<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Stops with the shore; upon the watery plain<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The wrecks are all thy deed, nor doth remain<br /></span>
+<span class="i6">A shadow of man&#8217;s ravage.<br /></span>
+<span class="i14 smcap">Lord Byron.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_354" id="Page_354">[354]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2 class="chapterhead"><a name="UNDER_SEAS" id="UNDER_SEAS"></a>UNDER SEAS</h2>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>This story is a realistic description of a submarine cruise in the
+recent war. The <i>Kate</i> was a Russian underwater boat operating
+against the German fleet in the Baltic Sea. Her experiences in this
+terrible mode of fighting were the same as those of hundreds of
+submarines belonging to the various warring powers. It may be
+observed from the description how marvelous has been the advance of
+science in the last generation. What Jules Verne imagined in his
+book, <i>Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea</i>, the <i>Kate</i>
+accomplished. This story of actual war is not less wonderful than
+the vision of the romancer.</p></div>
+
+<p>Men were placed at the water-pumps, the oxygen containers, air-purifiers
+and <a name="distilling_text" id="distilling_text"></a><a href="#distilling" class="fnanchor">v</a>distilling machinery, and the <a name="hatchway_text" id="hatchway_text"></a><a href="#hatchway" class="fnanchor">v</a>hatchways were thoroughly
+examined; the gunners took their posts at the torpedo tubes. The order
+had been given to move about as little as possible, to keep in the
+berths when not on duty, and not to talk and laugh. Then the watchman
+left the <a name="conningtower_text" id="conningtower_text"></a><a href="#conningtower" class="fnanchor">v</a>conning tower, and the main hatchway was <a name="hermetically_text" id="hermetically_text"></a><a href="#hermetically" class="fnanchor">v</a>hermetically
+closed.</p>
+
+<p>Captain Andrey gave the order to submerge and went over to the
+navigating compartment. Water rushed into the <a name="ballast_text" id="ballast_text"></a><a href="#ballast" class="fnanchor">v</a>ballast tanks, the boat
+grew heavy, and its rolling and pitching ceased: the <i>Kate</i> sank and ran
+ahead under water, steering by means of the <a name="periscope_text" id="periscope_text"></a><a href="#periscope" class="fnanchor">v</a>periscope. Andrey pushed
+a button and a cone of pale blue rays poured from the tube. The
+<a name="screen_text" id="screen_text"></a><a href="#screen" class="fnanchor">v</a>screen of the periscope grew alive with tiny waves, passing clouds,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_355" id="Page_355">[355]</a></span>
+and a tail of smoke on the skyline. With his chin resting on his arm,
+Andrey scanned the image of the sea which lay before him. Presently the
+smoke vanished, and on the right hand appeared the hazy outline of land.</p>
+
+<p>At nightfall, the boat, taking advantage of the darkness, rose to the
+surface of the sea and sailed without lights. Andrey stood on the bridge
+throughout the night. The water was placid, the stars were screened by a
+light mist, and far away to the south the pale blue gleam of an enemy
+searchlight moved through the clouds.</p>
+
+<p>The boat was now approaching a mine field. At dawn, when the
+greenish-orange light began slowly to pervade the fleecy clouds, the
+<i>Kate</i> sank to a great depth at a definitely fixed point in the sea.
+Steering solely by compass and map, she commenced to pick her way under
+the mines. Yakovlev was in charge of the steering apparatus, while
+Prince Bylopolsky calculated the <a name="side_text" id="side_text"></a><a href="#side" class="fnanchor">v</a>side drift and reported to the chief
+engineer in charge of the motors. Andrey, leaning over the map, gave
+orders to the man at the wheel.</p>
+
+<p>There was no sensation of movement, and it seemed as if the <i>Kate</i> stood
+still amidst the eery darkness. The men for the most part were stretched
+on their backs, seeking to consume as little oxygen as possible. In
+spite of this precaution, however, the air was thick, and the sailors
+felt a tingling sensation in the ears.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_356" id="Page_356">[356]</a></span>Suddenly the boat&#8217;s keel struck against something hard, and a grating
+sound broke the stillness.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Stop! Stop!&#8221; called out Andrey, dashing forth from the navigating
+cabin.</p>
+
+<p>The pinions cracked and the motors ceased to pulsate. Immediately the
+air became hot, as in a Turkish bath. Andrey entered the water-tight
+conning tower, which was flooded with diluted, greenish light from the
+ports provided for the purpose of giving a view of the surrounding
+waters. He peered through the glass pane. Vague, blurred forms and
+shadows gradually became visible in the twilight of the deep. One of the
+shadows wavered and glided along the window, and the round, tragic eyes
+of a fish glanced at Andrey. The fish disappeared in the depths below
+the boat. Evidently the <i>Kate</i> had not run aground, nor were there any
+submerged reefs in that quarter. Andrey gave an order to raise the boat
+several feet. Then numerous shadows leaped aside and scattered, and the
+captain plainly saw a jumbled heap of ropes and ladders. It was obvious
+that the <i>Kate</i> had blundered into the remains of a sunken ship.</p>
+
+<p>The halt was unfortunate&mdash;indeed, might prove fatal. The uniform motion
+of the boat had been disturbed, the <a name="orientation_text" id="orientation_text"></a><a href="#orientation" class="fnanchor">v</a>orientation lost; the inevitable
+small error made at the point of submerging must have increased in the
+course beneath the waves. The <i>Kate</i> had lost her way, and something
+must be done. Andrey<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_357" id="Page_357">[357]</a></span> drummed nervously on the window-pane as he
+thought. It was impossible to stay under water any longer, and yet to
+rise to the surface meant to be seen and attacked by enemy warships.
+Only in this way, however, was it possible to determine the boat&#8217;s
+position.</p>
+
+<p>Andrey, giving an order for the boat to rise slowly, returned to his
+observation point. The water gradually grew clearer. Suddenly a dark
+ball moved down to meet the craft. &#8220;A mine!&#8221; flashed across Andrey&#8217;s
+mind, and, overcoming the torpor which had begun to oppress his brain,
+he ordered the submarine to be swerved from her course. The ball moved
+away, but another appeared on the right. There was another change of
+direction. And now everywhere in the midst of the greenish twilight
+cast-iron shells lay in wait. The <i>Kate</i> was in the toils of a mine net!</p>
+
+<p>Sea water, when viewed from a great height, is so transparent that large
+fishes can even be seen in it. Owing to this fact, the <i>Kate</i> was
+discovered by two enemy <a name="hydroplane_text" id="hydroplane_text"></a><a href="#hydroplane" class="fnanchor">v</a>hydroplanes as she rose among the mines
+toward the surface of the bay. The aircraft were seen, however, and the
+boat dived again to a great depth.</p>
+
+<p>The <i>Kate</i> now blindly groped her way forward. The motors worked at
+their top speed, and the body of the boat trembled. Hundreds of demons
+called horsepowers fiercely turned the various wheels, pinions, and
+shafts. The air was hot and stuffy; the men at<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_358" id="Page_358">[358]</a></span> the engine, stripped to
+the waist, worked feverishly. Speed was necessary, for only oxygen
+enough to sustain the crew for one hour remained in the lead cylinders.</p>
+
+<p>Yakovlev still sat at the compass, his elbows on his knees and his hands
+pressing his head. The men lounged in the cabins and corridors, their
+faces livid with suffocation. Prince Bylopolsky remained leaning over
+his <a name="logarithmic_text" id="logarithmic_text"></a><a href="#logarithmic" class="fnanchor">v</a>logarithmic tables, which had now become useless. From time to
+time he wiped his face, as if removing a net of invisible cobwebs.
+Finally he rose to his feet, took a few steps, and fainted dead away.</p>
+
+<p>Giving the order to proceed at full speed, Andrey hoped to pass the mine
+zone, even though some of his men succumbed for lack of air. Pale and
+excited, his hair in disorder, and his coat unbuttoned, he was
+everywhere at once, and his voice sustained the failing strength of the
+half-suffocated crew. Seeing the prince stretched unconscious on a
+berth, Andrey poured a few drops of brandy in his mouth and kissed his
+wet, childlike forehead. In making too rapid a movement, lurid flames
+danced before his eyes, and he bent back, striking his head against a
+sharp angle of an engine. He felt no pain from the blow.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Bad!&#8221; thought Andrey, and crawled over to the emergency oxygen
+container. He opened the faucet and inhaled the fragrant stream of gas.
+His head began to swim and a sweet fire ran through his veins.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_359" id="Page_359">[359]</a></span> With an
+effort he rose to his feet. The outlines of the objects around him were
+strangely distinct, and the faces of the men imploringly turned to
+him&mdash;some of them bearded and high-cheekboned, others tender and
+childlike&mdash;seemed to him touchingly human....</p>
+
+<p>In the corridor Andrey came upon a man standing against the wall and
+gulping the air like a fish. Seeing the commander, he made an effort to
+cheer up and mumbled, &#8220;Beg pardon, sir; I&#8217;m a bit unwell.&#8221; The captain
+leaned over and looked into his eyes, which a film of death was already
+beginning to veil. Andrey, turning to the telephone tube, gave a command
+to rise. The <i>Kate</i> shook all over and dived upward. The ascent lasted
+four minutes and a half, at the end of which time the boat stood still
+and light fell on the screen of the periscope. The sailors crawled up to
+the main hatchway and unscrewed it. Cold salt air rushed into the boat,
+swelling the chests of the sufferers and turning their heads; the
+sensation of free breathing was delicious after the suffocation they had
+so long endured.</p>
+
+<p>Andrey, leaping on the bridge, found the evening sun suspended above
+vast masses of warm clouds and the sea quiet and peaceful. He began to
+take observations with the <a name="sextant_text" id="sextant_text"></a><a href="#sextant" class="fnanchor">v</a>sextant, which shook in his trembling
+hand. Presently a loud buzzing was heard in the sky, followed by the
+measured crackling of a machine gun; from the hull of the boat came a
+sharp rat-a-tat, as if<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_360" id="Page_360">[360]</a></span> some one was throwing dry peas on it. A
+hydroplane was circling above the <i>Kate</i>.</p>
+
+<p>Andrey bit his lip and kept on working; a squad of his men loaded their
+rifles. The hydroplane swooped down almost to the surface of the sea,
+then soared with a shrill &#8220;F-r-r-r&#8221; and flew right over the boat. A
+clean-shaven pilot sat motionless, his hands on the wheel; below him an
+observer gazed downward, waiting. Suddenly the latter lifted a bomb and
+threw it into a tube. The missile flashed in the air and plunged into
+the sea at the very side of the boat. One of the crew fired his rifle,
+and the observer threw up his leather-covered arms with outspread
+fingers. Slowly circling under the fire of the submarine crew, the
+aircraft rose toward the clouds and sailed off.</p>
+
+<p>Over the sky-ridge another aeroplane appeared, looking like a long thin
+line. Meantime the <i>Kate</i> picked her way with graceful ease across the
+orange-colored waters as if cutting through molten glass. Andrey,
+buttoning his coat, said with a grimace, &#8220;Well, Yakovlev, the mines are
+behind us, but what are we going to do now?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;This region is full of reefs and sandbanks,&#8221; replied Yakovlev.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;That&#8217;s just the trouble. I wouldn&#8217;t risk sailing under the water. Wait
+a moment.&#8221; He raised his hand.</p>
+
+<p>A violent whizzing sound came from the west;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_361" id="Page_361">[361]</a></span> Andrey ordered greater
+speed. A <a name="grenade_text" id="grenade_text"></a><a href="#grenade" class="fnanchor">v</a>grenade hissed on the right, and a jet of water spurted up
+from the quiet surface. The <i>Kate</i> tacked sharply toward the purpling
+horizon in the west, and behind, in her shadowy wake, another bomb burst
+and blossomed out into a small cloud. The boat then turned east again,
+but now in front of her, on both sides, everywhere, shells burst and
+sputtered fire. The scouting hydroplane dashed over the submarine like a
+bat; two pale faces looked down and disappeared. Then right above the
+stern of the <i>Kate</i> a grenade exploded and one of the sailors dropped
+his rifle, clutched his face, toppled over the railing, and disappeared
+beneath the water.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;All hands below!&#8221; cried Andrey; and, watching where the shells fell
+thickest, he began to give his orders. The <i>Kate</i> circled like a
+run-down hare, while all along the darkening skyline the smoking stacks
+of mine-layers and destroyers were visible as the enemy&#8217;s ruthless ring
+rapidly tightened about the submarine.</p>
+
+<p>Having had her wireless mast shot off by a shell, the <i>Kate</i> now dashed
+toward the rocky shore, running awash. Six sparks shot up in the dark
+and six steel-clad demons hissed above the boat. The long shadow of a
+ship glided along the shore. The <i>Kate</i> shook, and a sharp-nosed torpedo
+detached itself from her hull and glided away under the water to meet
+the <a name="silhouette_text" id="silhouette_text"></a><a href="#silhouette" class="fnanchor">v</a>silhouette of the vessel. A moment passed, and a fluffy,
+mountainous mass of fire and water rose from the spot<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_362" id="Page_362">[362]</a></span> where the stacks
+of a mine-layer had projected shortly before. The mountain sank and the
+silhouette disappeared. The <i>Kate</i> entered a baylet among the rocks,
+submerged, and lay on the sandy sea-bed.</p>
+
+<p>Two weeks the submarine remained in the inlet, completely cut off from
+the rest of the world. By day she hid in the deep, and only under the
+cover of night did she rise to the surface to get a supply of air. The
+greatest precautions were necessary, for there was little likelihood
+that the enemy believed the submarine to be destroyed.</p>
+
+<p>At the end of that time some action was inevitable, as the boat&#8217;s
+supplies had given out; for three days the crew had fed on fish which
+one of the men had caught at great risk. Audrey decided to leave the bay
+and make a supreme effort to run the enemy&#8217;s cordon.</p>
+
+<p>About daybreak, as the <i>Kate</i> was nearing the surface of the sea, the
+crew became aware of a tremendous muffled cannonade; and when the boat
+emerged into a white fog, the whole coast shook and echoed with the roar
+and crash of a sea battle. Broadsides and terrific explosions alternated
+with the crackling of guns. It was as though a multitude of sea-devils
+coughed and blew and roared at each other.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Quick, sir,&#8221; shouted Yakovlev, holding on to the railing; &#8220;we can break
+through now!&#8221; His teeth rattled.</p>
+
+<p>The preparations for the dash had been completed.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_363" id="Page_363">[363]</a></span> A strong gale swept
+away the fog and drove its torn masses over the sea, laying bare the
+rocky shore. The <i>Kate</i> dashed out of the bay into the open. The firing
+was now heard behind and on the right; the road to the port was open at
+last. The submarine rushed along, ripping in twain the frothing waves.</p>
+
+<p>In this moment of exaltation, to return safely to base, simply to do
+one&#8217;s duty, seemed too little to these fearless men. The feeling that
+possessed them was not enthusiasm but a greediness, a yearning for
+destruction.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;We cannot go away like this,&#8221; Yakovlev shouted in Audrey&#8217;s ear; &#8220;turn
+back or I will shoot myself!&#8221; The man was completely beside himself; his
+pale face twisted convulsively.</p>
+
+<p>Just then the sun arose, turning the rolling sea into a dull orange.
+Near at hand invisible ships thundered against each other. Suddenly a
+gray mountain-like shape emerged from the fog, enveloped in flame and
+smoke. Above its turrets, stacks, and masts fluttered a flag bearing a
+black eagle.</p>
+
+<p>Mad with the thought that the opportunity had come at last, Andrey
+rushed down the hatchway, knocking over Yakovlev on the way, and loaded
+the torpedo tube. The <i>Kate</i> submerged a little, and sailing awash,
+headed straight for the enemy vessel.</p>
+
+<p>The shadow of the hostile ship glided along the periscope screen, every
+now and then wrapping itself<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_364" id="Page_364">[364]</a></span> into a cloud pierced with fiery needles of
+shots. The <i>Kate</i> fired a torpedo but missed her aim. Leaning over the
+screen and biting his lips to bleeding, Andrey examined the tiny image
+of the vessel, one of the mightiest of battleships. The distance between
+the <i>Kate</i> and the enemy vessel continued to decrease; the image of the
+ship already occupied half of the periscope screen.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Another torpedo!&#8221; shouted Andrey.</p>
+
+<p>At that very instant a blow was struck the boat and the periscope screen
+grew dark. Andrey ran out from the navigating compartment and shouted:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;The periscope is shot away! Full speed forward!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>The engineer seized the handle of a lever and asked, &#8220;Which way?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Forward! forward!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Andrey went into the conning tower; straight in front of him foamy
+eddies whirled furiously. The dark hull of a ship appeared, obscuring
+the light.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Stop!&#8221; shouted Andrey. &#8220;Fire another one! Full speed backward!&#8221; He
+closed his eyes.</p>
+
+<p>For a moment it seemed to him that the end had come. He was hurled by
+the explosion of the torpedo into the corridor and dashed against the
+wall. The outcries of the men were drowned by the muffled thud of the
+inrushing water. The light went out; the <i>Kate</i> began to rotate and
+sink.</p>
+
+<p>The boat did not stay long in the deep; freed from<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_365" id="Page_365">[365]</a></span> the weight of two
+torpedoes, she slowly began to rise, stopped before reaching the
+surface, and commenced to sink again as the water continued to leak into
+her hull.</p>
+
+<p>A sailor found Andrey in a narrow passage unconscious, though breathing
+regularly. The man dressed the captain&#8217;s wounds, but could not bring him
+to his senses. Another sailor tried to revive Yakovlev, but soon saw
+that that officer was dead. All the available hands toiled at the pumps,
+while the engineer and his two assistants worked frantically at the
+engine.</p>
+
+<p>The <i>Kate</i> was near the surface, but as the periscope and the indicator
+had been destroyed, it was impossible to tell precisely where she was.
+On the other hand, to unscrew the hatch and look out would subject the
+boat to the risk of being flooded. Finally, the engineer reported that
+it was necessary to replace the cylinder, but that this was difficult to
+do because the supply of candles was giving out. Kuritzyn, a sailor who
+had assumed command, ordered the men at the pumps to pump until they
+dropped dead, if necessary, but to raise the boat at least one yard. The
+men obeyed in grim silence. Presently the last candle went out. &#8220;It&#8217;s
+all over, boys,&#8221; said some one, and the pumps stopped. The only sound
+that now broke the silence was the monotonous splash of water leaking
+down on the periscope screen.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Follow me,&#8221; said Kuritzyn hoarsely to two of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_366" id="Page_366">[366]</a></span> men. &#8220;Let us unscrew
+the hatches. What&#8217;s the use of fooling any longer?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Feeling their way in the darkness, several men followed the leader into
+the corridor and up the spiral staircase in the main hatchway. When they
+reached the top, they grasped the bolts of the lid.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Here&#8217;s our finish,&#8221; said one of the men.</p>
+
+<p>Just then the sound of footsteps on the outside of the boat reached
+their ears. Some one was walking on the <i>Kate&#8217;s</i> hull!</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Down to the ballast tanks!&#8221; Kuritzyn ordered. &#8220;When I fire, blow them
+out. We are ordered not to surrender the boat.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>With his revolver between his teeth, he pressed the bolt. The lid
+yielded; light and air rushed into the opening.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Hey, who is there?&#8221; Kuritzyn shouted.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Russians, Russians,&#8221; replied a voice.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Thank God!&#8221; said Kuritzyn in a tone of intense gratitude.</p>
+
+<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Count Alexis Tolstoi.</span></p>
+
+
+<p class="heading">HELPS TO STUDY</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>Tell of the preparations made for the submerging of the <i>Kate</i>.
+Describe the scene within the vessel. What accident halted the
+boat? Describe the events that followed. Where did the <i>Kate</i> find
+anchorage? Describe her exit from the bay. What flag was it that
+bore a black eagle? What was the fate of the ship bearing that
+flag?</p></div>
+
+
+<p class="heading">SUPPLEMENTARY READING</p>
+
+<ul class="supread">
+  <li>Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea&mdash;Jules Verne.</li>
+  <li>The Pilot&mdash;J. Fenimore Cooper.</li>
+</ul>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_367" id="Page_367">[367]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2 class="chapterhead"><a name="A_VOYAGE_TO_THE_MOON" id="A_VOYAGE_TO_THE_MOON"></a>A VOYAGE TO THE MOON</h2>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>The moon, being the nearest to the earth of all the heavenly
+bodies, has always occupied the imagination of men. Many fanciful
+accounts have been written of voyages to the moon, of which the
+following story by Edgar Allan Poe is among the best. So wonderful
+has been the advance of science that it is conceivable that at some
+distant time in the future the inhabitants of this world may
+possibly be able to visit the beautiful body which lights the night
+for us.</p></div>
+
+
+<p class="sectionhead">I</p>
+
+<p>After a long and arduous devotion to the study of physics and astronomy,
+I, Hans Pfaal of Rotterdam, at length determined to construct a balloon
+of my own along original lines and to try a flight in it. Accordingly I
+had made an enormous bag out of cambric muslin, varnished with
+caoutchouc for protection against the weather. I procured all the
+instruments needed for a prolonged ascent and finally prepared for the
+inflation of the balloon. Herein lay my secret, my invention, the thing
+in which my balloon differed from all the balloons that had gone before.
+Out of a peculiar <a name="metallic_text" id="metallic_text"></a><a href="#metallic" class="fnanchor">v</a>metallic substance and a very common acid I was
+able to manufacture a gas of a density about 37.4 less than that of
+hydrogen, and thus by far the lightest substance ever known. It would
+serve to carry the balloon to heights greater than had been attained
+before, for hydrogen is the gas usually used.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_368" id="Page_368">[368]</a></span>The hour for my experiment in ballooning finally arrived. I had chosen
+the night as the best time for the ascension, because I should thereby
+avoid annoyances caused by the curiosity of the ignorant and the idle.</p>
+
+<p>It was the first of April. The night was dark; there was not a star to
+be seen; and a drizzling rain, falling at intervals, made me very
+uncomfortable. But my chief anxiety was concerning the balloon, which,
+in spite of the varnish with which it was defended, began to grow rather
+heavy with the moisture. I therefore set my assistants to working, and
+in about four hours and a half I found the balloon sufficiently
+inflated. I attached the car and put all my implements in it&mdash;a
+telescope, a barometer, a thermometer, an <a name="electrometer_text" id="electrometer_text"></a><a href="#electrometer" class="fnanchor">v</a>electrometer, a compass, a
+magnetic needle, a seconds watch, a bell, and other things. I had
+further procured a globe of glass, exhausted of air and carefully closed
+with a stopper, not forgetting a special apparatus for condensing air, a
+copious supply of water, and a large quantity of provisions, such as
+<a name="pemmican_text" id="pemmican_text"></a><a href="#pemmican" class="fnanchor">v</a>pemmican, in which much <a name="nutriment_text" id="nutriment_text"></a><a href="#nutriment" class="fnanchor">v</a>nutriment is contained in comparatively
+little bulk. I also secured a cat in the car.</p>
+
+<p>It was now nearly daybreak, and I thought it high time to take my
+departure. I immediately cut the single cord which held me to the earth,
+and was pleased to find that I shot upward with <a name="inconceivable_text" id="inconceivable_text"></a><a href="#inconceivable" class="fnanchor">v</a>inconceivable
+rapidity, carrying with all ease one hundred and seventy-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_369" id="Page_369">[369]</a></span>five pounds of
+leaden ballast and able to have carried as much more.</p>
+
+<p>Scarcely, however, had I attained the height of fifty yards, when
+roaring and rumbling up after me in the most <a name="tumultuous_text" id="tumultuous_text"></a><a href="#tumultuous" class="fnanchor">v</a>tumultuous and terrible
+manner, came so dense a hurricane of fire and gravel and burning wood
+and blazing metal that my very heart sunk within me and I fell down in
+the car, trembling with terror. Some of my chemical materials had
+exploded immediately beneath me almost at the moment of my leaving
+earth. The balloon at first collapsed, then furiously expanded, then
+whirled round and round with sickening <a name="velocity_text" id="velocity_text"></a><a href="#velocity" class="fnanchor">v</a>velocity, and finally, reeling
+and staggering like a drunken man, hurled me over the rim of the car;
+and in the moment of my fall I lost consciousness.</p>
+
+<p>I had no knowledge of what had saved me. When I partially recovered the
+sense of existence, I found the day breaking, the balloon at a
+<a name="prodigious_text" id="prodigious_text"></a><a href="#prodigious" class="fnanchor">v</a>prodigious height over a wilderness of ocean, and not a trace of land
+to be discovered far and wide within the limits of the vast horizon. My
+sensations, however, upon thus recovering, were by no means so
+<a name="replete_text" id="replete_text"></a><a href="#replete" class="fnanchor">v</a>replete with agony as might have been anticipated. Indeed, there was
+much of madness in the calm survey which I began to take of my
+situation. I drew up to my eyes each of my hands, one after the other,
+and wondered what occurrence could have given rise to the swelling of
+the veins and the horrible blackness of the finger nails. I afterward<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_370" id="Page_370">[370]</a></span>
+carefully examined my head, shaking it repeatedly and feeling it with
+minute attention, until I succeeded in satisfying myself that it was
+not, as I had more than half suspected, larger than the balloon. It now
+occurred to me that I suffered great uneasiness in the joint of my left
+ankle, and a dim consciousness of my situation began to glimmer through
+my mind. I began to understand that my foot had caught in a rope and
+that I was hanging downward outside the car. But strange to say! I was
+neither astonished nor horror-stricken. If I felt any emotion at all, it
+was a sort of chuckling satisfaction at the cleverness I was about to
+display in getting myself out of this <a name="dilemma_text" id="dilemma_text"></a><a href="#dilemma" class="fnanchor">v</a>dilemma.</p>
+
+<p>With great caution and deliberation, I put my hands behind my back and
+unfastened the large iron buckle which belonged to the waistband of my
+pantaloons. This buckle had three teeth, which, being somewhat rusty,
+turned with great difficulty on their axis. I brought them, however,
+after some trouble, at right angles to the body of the buckle and was
+glad to find them remain firm in that position. Holding with my teeth
+the instrument thus obtained, I proceeded to untie the knot of my
+cravat; it was at length accomplished. To one end of the cravat I then
+made fast the buckle, and the other end I tied, for greater security,
+tightly around my wrist. Drawing now my body upward, with a prodigious
+exertion of muscular force, I succeeded, at the very first trial, in
+throwing<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_371" id="Page_371">[371]</a></span> the buckle over the car, and entangling it, as I had
+anticipated, in the circular rim of the wicker-work.</p>
+
+<p>My body was now inclined toward the side of the car at an angle of about
+forty-five degrees; but it must not be understood that I was therefore
+only forty-five degrees below the <a name="perpendicular_text" id="perpendicular_text"></a><a href="#perpendicular" class="fnanchor">v</a>perpendicular. So far from it, I
+still lay nearly level with the plane of the horizon, for the change of
+position which I had acquired had forced the bottom of the car
+considerably outward from my position, which was accordingly one of the
+most extreme peril. It should be remembered, however, that when I fell
+from the car, if I had fallen with my face turned toward the balloon,
+instead of turned outwardly from it as it actually was&mdash;or if, in the
+second place, the cord by which I was suspended had chanced to hang over
+the upper edge instead of through a crevice near the bottom of the
+car&mdash;in either of these cases, I should have been unable to accomplish
+even as much as I had now accomplished. I had therefore every reason to
+be grateful, although, in point of fact, I was still too stupid to be
+anything at all, and hung for perhaps a quarter of an hour in that
+extraordinary manner, without making the slightest farther exertion, and
+in a singularly tranquil state of idiotic enjoyment.</p>
+
+<p>This feeling, however, did not fail to die rapidly away, and thereunto
+succeeded horror and dismay, and a sense of utter helplessness and ruin.
+In fact, the blood so long accumulating in the vessels of my head<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_372" id="Page_372">[372]</a></span> and
+throat, and which had hitherto buoyed up my spirits with delirium, had
+now begun to retire within its proper channels, and the distinctness
+which was thus added to my perception of the danger merely served to
+deprive me of the self-possession and courage to encounter it. But this
+weakness was, luckily for me, of no very great duration. In good time
+came to my rescue the spirit of despair, and with frantic cries and
+struggles, I jerked my body upward, till, at length, clutching with a
+vice-like grip the long-desired rim, I writhed my person over it and
+fell headlong and shuddering within the car.</p>
+
+<p>When I had recovered from the weakness caused by being so long in that
+position and the horror from which I had suffered, I found that all my
+implements were in place and that neither ballast nor provisions had
+been lost.</p>
+
+<p>It is now high time that I should explain the object of my voyage. I had
+been harassed for long by poverty and creditors. In this state of mind,
+wishing to live and yet wearied with life, my deep studies in astronomy
+opened a resource to my imagination. I determined to depart, yet
+live&mdash;to leave the world, yet continue to exist&mdash;in short, to be plain,
+I resolved, let come what would, to force a passage, if possible, to the
+moon.</p>
+
+<p>This was not so mad as it seems. The moon&#8217;s actual distance from the
+earth was the first thing to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_373" id="Page_373">[373]</a></span> be attended to. The mean or average
+interval between the centers of the two planets is only about 237,000
+miles. But at certain times the moon and earth are much nearer than at
+others, and if I could contrive to meet the moon at the moment when it
+was nearest earth, the above-mentioned distance would be materially
+lessened. But even taking the average distance and deducting the
+<a name="radius_text" id="radius_text"></a><a href="#radius" class="fnanchor">v</a>radius of the earth and the moon, the actual interval to be traversed
+under average circumstances would be 231,920 miles. Now this, I
+reflected, was no very extraordinary distance. Traveling on the land has
+been repeatedly accomplished at the rate of sixty miles an hour; and
+indeed a much greater speed may be anticipated. But even at this
+velocity it would take me no more than 161 days to reach the surface of
+the moon. There were, however, many particulars inducing me to believe
+that my average rate of traveling might possibly very much exceed that
+of sixty miles an hour.</p>
+
+<p>The next point to be regarded was one of far greater importance. We know
+that at 18,000 feet above the surface of the earth we have passed
+one-half the material, or, at all events, one-half the <a name="ponderable_text" id="ponderable_text"></a><a href="#ponderable" class="fnanchor">v</a>ponderable
+body of air upon the globe. It is also calculated that at a height of
+eighty miles the <a name="rarefaction_text" id="rarefaction_text"></a><a href="#rarefaction" class="fnanchor">v</a>rarefaction of air is so great that animal life can
+be sustained in no manner. But I did not fail to perceive that these
+calculations are founded on our experimental knowledge of the air<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_374" id="Page_374">[374]</a></span> in
+the immediate vicinity of the earth, and that it is taken for granted
+that animal life is incapable of <a name="modification_text" id="modification_text"></a><a href="#modification" class="fnanchor">v</a>modification. I thought that no
+matter how high we may ascend we cannot arrive at a limit beyond which
+no atmosphere is to be found. It must exist, I argued, although it may
+exist in a state of <a name="infinite_text" id="infinite_text"></a><a href="#infinite" class="fnanchor">v</a>infinite rarefaction.</p>
+
+<p>Having adopted this view of the subject, I had little farther
+hesitation. Granting that on my passage I should meet with atmosphere
+essentially the same as at the surface of the earth, I thought that, by
+means of my very ingenious apparatus for that purpose, I should readily
+be able to condense it in sufficient quantity for breathing. This would
+remove the chief obstacle in a journey to the moon.</p>
+
+<p>I now turned to view the prospect beneath me. At twenty minutes past six
+o&#8217;clock, the barometer showed an elevation of 26,000 feet, or five miles
+to a fraction. The outlook seemed unbounded. I beheld as much as a
+sixteen-hundredth part of the whole surface of the globe. The sea
+appeared as unruffled as a mirror, although, by means of the telescope,
+I could perceive it to be in a state of violent agitation. I now began
+to experience, at intervals, severe pain in the head, especially about
+the ears, due to the rarefaction of the air. The cat seemed to suffer no
+inconvenience whatever.</p>
+
+<p>I was rising rapidly, and by seven o&#8217;clock the barometer indicated an
+altitude of no less than nine<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_375" id="Page_375">[375]</a></span> miles and a half. I began to find great
+difficulty in drawing my breath. My head, too, was excessively painful;
+and, having felt for some time a moisture about my cheeks, I at length
+discovered it to be blood, which was oozing quite fast from the drums of
+my ears. These symptoms were more than I had expected and occasioned me
+some alarm. At this juncture, very imprudently and without
+consideration, I threw out from the car three five-pound pieces of
+ballast. The increased rate of ascent thus obtained carried me too
+rapidly into a highly rarefied layer of atmosphere, and the result
+nearly proved fatal to my expedition and myself. I was suddenly seized
+with a spasm, which lasted for more than five minutes, and even when
+this in a measure ceased, I could catch my breath only at long
+intervals, and in a gasping manner&mdash;bleeding all the while copiously at
+the nose and ears and even slightly at the eyes.</p>
+
+<p>The cat mewed piteously, and, with her tongue hanging out of her mouth,
+staggered to and fro in the car as if under the influence of poison. I
+now too late discovered the great rashness of which I had been guilty in
+discharging my ballast, and my agitation was excessive. I expected
+nothing less than death, and death in a few minutes. I lay down in the
+bottom of the car and endeavored to collect my faculties. In this I so
+far succeeded as to determine upon the experiment of losing blood.
+Having no lancet, I was obliged<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_376" id="Page_376">[376]</a></span> to open a vein in my arm with the blade
+of a penknife. The blood had hardly commenced flowing when I experienced
+a sensible relief, and by the time I had lost about half a basin-full
+most of the worst symptoms were gone. The difficulty of breathing,
+however, was diminished in a very slight degree, and I found that it
+would be soon positively necessary to make use of my condenser.</p>
+
+<p>By eight o&#8217;clock I had actually attained an elevation of seventeen miles
+above the surface of the earth. Thus it seemed to me evident that my
+rate of ascent was not only on the increase, but that the progress would
+have been apparent to a slight extent even had I not discharged the
+ballast which I did. The pains in my head and ears returned at intervals
+and with violence, and I still continued to bleed occasionally at the
+nose; but upon the whole I suffered much less than might have been
+expected. I now unpacked the condensing apparatus and got it ready for
+immediate use.</p>
+
+<p>The view of the earth at this period of my ascension was beautiful
+indeed. To the westward, the northward, and the southward, as far as I
+could see, lay a boundless sheet of apparently unruffled ocean, which
+every moment gained a deeper and deeper tint of blue. At a vast distance
+to the eastward, although perfectly discernible, extended the islands of
+Great Britain, the entire Atlantic coasts of France and Spain,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_377" id="Page_377">[377]</a></span> with a
+small portion of the northern part of the continent of Africa. Of
+individual edifices not a trace could be found, and the proudest cities
+of mankind had utterly faded away from the surface of the earth.</p>
+
+<p>At a quarter-past eight, being able no longer to draw breath without the
+most intolerable pain, I proceeded forthwith to adjust around the car
+the apparatus belonging to the condenser. I had prepared a very strong,
+perfectly air-tight gum-elastic bag. In this bag, which was of
+sufficient size, the entire car was in a manner placed. That is to say,
+the bag was drawn over the whole bottom of the car, up its sides and so
+on, up to the upper rim where the net-work is attached. Having pulled up
+the bag and made a complete inclosure on all sides, I was shut in an
+air-tight chamber.</p>
+
+<p>In the sides of this covering had been inserted three circular panes of
+thick but clear glass, through which I could see without difficulty
+around me in every horizontal direction. In that portion of the cloth
+forming the bottom was a fourth window corresponding with a small
+aperture in the floor of the car itself. This enabled me to see straight
+down, but I had been unable to fix a similar window above me and so I
+could expect to see no objects directly overhead.</p>
+
+<p>The condensing apparatus was connected with the outer air by a tube to
+admit air at one end and by<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_378" id="Page_378">[378]</a></span> a valve at the bottom of the car to eject
+foul air. By the time I had completed these arrangements and filled the
+chamber with condensed air by means of the apparatus, it wanted only ten
+minutes of nine o&#8217;clock. During the whole period of my being thus
+employed, I endured the most terrible distress from difficulty of
+respiration, and bitterly did I repent the foolhardiness of which I had
+been guilty in putting off to the last moment a matter of so much
+importance. But having at length accomplished it, I soon began to reap
+the benefit of my invention. Once again I breathed with perfect freedom
+and ease&mdash;and indeed why should I not? I was also agreeably surprised to
+find myself, in a great measure, relieved from the violent pains which
+had hitherto tormented me. A slight headache, accompanied by a sensation
+of fulness about the wrists, the ankles, and the throat, was nearly all
+of which I had now to complain.</p>
+
+<p>At twenty minutes before nine o&#8217;clock, the mercury attained its limit, or
+ran down, in the barometer. The instrument then indicated an altitude of
+twenty-five miles, and I consequently surveyed at that time an extent of
+the earth&#8217;s area amounting to no less than one three-hundred-and-twentieth
+part of the entire surface.</p>
+
+<p>At half-past nine, I tried the experiment of throwing out a handful of
+feathers through the valve. They did not float as I had expected, but
+dropped down<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_379" id="Page_379">[379]</a></span> like a bullet and with the greatest velocity, being out of
+sight in a very few seconds. It occurred to me that the atmosphere was
+now far too rare to sustain even feathers; that they actually fell, as
+they appeared to do, with great speed, and that I had been surprised by
+the united velocities of their descent and my own rise.</p>
+
+<p>At six o&#8217;clock P. M., I perceived a great portion of the earth&#8217;s visible
+area to the eastward involved in thick shadow, which continued to
+advance with great rapidity, until at five minutes before seven the
+whole surface in sight was enveloped in the darkness of night. It was
+not, however, until long after this time that the rays of the setting
+sun ceased to illumine the balloon, and this fact, although, of course,
+expected, did not fail to give me great pleasure. In the morning I
+should behold the rising <a name="luminary_text" id="luminary_text"></a><a href="#luminary" class="fnanchor">v</a>luminary many hours before the citizens of
+Rotterdam, in spite of their situation so much farther to the eastward,
+and thus, day after day, in proportion to the height ascended, I should
+enjoy the light of the sun for a longer and longer period. I now
+resolved to keep a journal of my passage, reckoning the days by
+twenty-four hours instead of by day and night.</p>
+
+<p>At ten o&#8217;clock, feeling sleepy, I determined to lie down for the rest of
+the night; but here a difficulty presented itself, which, obvious as it
+may appear, had escaped my attention up to the very moment of which<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_380" id="Page_380">[380]</a></span> I
+am now speaking. If I went to sleep, as I proposed, how could the air in
+the chamber be renewed in the meanwhile? To breath it more than an hour
+at the farthest would be impossible; or, even if this term could be
+extended to an hour and a quarter, the most ruinous consequences might
+ensue. This dilemma gave me no little anxiety; and it will hardly be
+believed that, after the dangers I had undergone, I should look upon
+this business in so serious a light as to give up all hope of
+accomplishing my ultimate design, and finally make up my mind to the
+necessity of a descent.</p>
+
+<p>But this hesitation was only momentary. I reflected that man is the
+slave of custom and that many things are deemed essential which are only
+the results of habit. It was certain that I could not do without sleep;
+but I might easily bring myself to feel no inconvenience from being
+awakened at intervals of an hour during the whole period of my repose.
+It would require but five minutes to renew the air, and the only
+difficulty was to contrive a method of arousing myself at the proper
+moment for so doing.</p>
+
+<p>This question caused me no little trouble to solve. I at length hit upon
+the following plan. My supply of water had been put on board in kegs of
+five gallons each and ranged securely around the interior of the car. I
+unfastened one of these and, taking two ropes, tied them tightly across
+the rim of the wicker-work from one side to the other, placing them
+about a foot<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_381" id="Page_381">[381]</a></span> apart and parallel, so as to form a kind of shelf, upon
+which I placed the keg and steadied it. About eight inches below these
+ropes I fastened another shelf made of thin plank, on which shelf, and
+beneath one of the rims of the keg, a small pitcher was placed. I bored
+a hole in the end of the keg over the pitcher and fitted in a plug of
+soft wood, which I pushed in or pulled out, until, after a few
+experiments, it arrived at that exact degree of tightness at which the
+water, oozing from the hole and falling into the pitcher below, would
+fill the latter to the brim in the period of sixty minutes. Having
+arranged all this, the rest of the plan was simple. My bed was so
+contrived upon the floor of the car as to bring my head, in lying down,
+immediately below the mouth of the pitcher. It was evident that, at the
+expiration of an hour, the pitcher, getting full, would be forced to run
+over and to run over at the mouth, which was somewhat lower than the
+rim. It was also evident that the water, falling from a height, could
+not do otherwise than fall on my face and awaken me even from the
+soundest slumber in the world.</p>
+
+<p>It was fully eleven by the time I had completed these arrangements, and
+I at once betook myself to bed with full confidence in my invention. Nor
+in this matter was I disappointed. Punctually every sixty minutes I was
+aroused by my trusty clock, when, having emptied the pitcher into the
+bung-hole of the keg<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_382" id="Page_382">[382]</a></span> and filled the chamber with condensed air, I
+retired again to bed. These regular interruptions to my slumber caused
+me less discomfort than I had anticipated; and when I finally arose for
+the day, it was seven o&#8217;clock and the sun was high above the horizon.</p>
+
+<p>I found the balloon at an immense height indeed, and the earth&#8217;s
+roundness had now become strikingly manifest. Below me in the ocean lay
+a cluster of black specks, which undoubtedly were islands. Overhead, the
+sky was of a jetty black, and the stars were brilliantly visible; indeed
+they had been so constantly since the first day of ascent. Far away to
+the northward I saw a thin, white and exceedingly brilliant line, or
+streak, on the edge of the horizon, and I had no hesitation in supposing
+it to be the southern disc of the ices of the Polar sea. My curiosity
+was greatly excited, for I had hopes of passing on much farther to the
+north, and might possibly, at some period, find myself directly above
+the Pole itself. I now lamented that my great elevation would, in this
+case, prevent me from taking as accurate a survey as I could wish.</p>
+
+<p>My condensing apparatus continued in good order, and the balloon still
+ascended without any perceptible change. The cold was intense, and
+obliged me to wrap up closely in an overcoat. When darkness came over
+the earth, I went to bed, although it was for many hours afterward broad
+daylight all around me. The water-clock was punctual in its duty, and I
+slept until<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_383" id="Page_383">[383]</a></span> next morning soundly, with the exception of the periodical
+interruptions.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">April 4th.</span> I arose in good health and spirits, and was astonished at the
+singular change which had taken place in the appearance of the sea. It
+had lost, in a great measure, the deep tint of blue it had hitherto
+worn, being now of a grayish-white and of a luster dazzling to the eye.
+The curve of the ocean had become so evident that the entire mass of
+water seemed to be tumbling headlong over the abyss of the horizon, and
+I found myself listening on tiptoe for the echoes of the mighty
+cataract. The islands were no longer visible; whether they had passed
+down the horizon to the southeast, or whether my increasing elevation
+had left them out of sight, it is impossible to say. I was inclined,
+however, to the latter opinion. The rim of ice to the northward was
+growing more and more apparent. The cold was by no means so intense.</p>
+
+<p><a name="corr23" id="corr23"></a><span class="smcap">April 5th.</span> I beheld the singular sight of the sun rising while nearly
+the whole visible surface of the earth continued to be involved in
+darkness. In time, however, the light spread itself over all, and I
+again saw the line of ice to the northward. It was now very distinct and
+appeared of a much darker hue than the waters of the ocean. I was
+evidently approaching it, and with great rapidity. I fancied I could
+again distinguish a strip of land to the eastward, and one also to the
+westward, but could not be certain.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_384" id="Page_384">[384]</a></span><span class="smcap">April 6th.</span> I was surprised at finding the rim of ice at a very moderate
+distance, and an immense field of the same material stretching away off
+to the horizon in the north. It was evident that if the balloon held its
+present course, it would soon arrive above the Frozen Ocean, and I had
+now little doubt of ultimately seeing the Pole. During the whole of the
+day I continued to near the ice. Toward night the limits of my horizon
+very suddenly and materially increased, owing undoubtedly to the earth&#8217;s
+form, which is round but flattened near the poles. When darkness at
+length overtook me, I went to bed in great anxiety, fearing to pass over
+the object of so much curiosity when I should have no opportunity of
+observing it.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">April 7th.</span> I arose early, and, to my great joy, at length beheld what
+there could be no hesitation in supposing the northern Pole itself. It
+was there, beyond a doubt, and immediately beneath my feet; but alas! I
+had now ascended to so vast a distance that nothing could with accuracy
+be made out. Indeed, I estimated that at four o&#8217;clock in the morning of
+April the seventh the balloon had reached a height of not less than
+7,254 miles above the surface of the sea. At all events I undoubtedly
+beheld the whole of the earth&#8217;s diameter; the entire northern hemisphere
+lay beneath me like a chart, and the great circle of the equator itself
+formed the boundary line of my horizon.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">April 8th.</span> I found a sensible diminution in the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_385" id="Page_385">[385]</a></span> earth&#8217;s size, besides a
+material alteration in its general color and appearance. The whole area
+partook in different degrees of a tint of pale yellow, and in some
+portions had acquired a brilliancy even painful to the eye. My view was
+somewhat impeded by clouds near the earth, but nevertheless I could
+easily perceive that the balloon now hovered above the great lakes in
+North America and was holding a course due south which would soon bring
+me to the tropics. This circumstance did not fail to give me the most
+heartfelt satisfaction, and I hailed it as a happy omen of ultimate
+success. Indeed, the direction I had hitherto taken had filled me with
+uneasiness, for it was evident that had I continued it much longer,
+there would have been no possibility of my arriving at the moon at all,
+which revolves around the earth in the plane of the equator.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">April 9th.</span> To-day the earth&#8217;s diameter was greatly diminished, and the
+color of the surface assumed hourly a deeper tint of yellow. The balloon
+kept steadily on her course to the southward, and arrived at nine P. M.
+over the Mexican Gulf.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">April 12th.</span> A singular alteration took place in regard to the direction
+of the balloon, and, although fully anticipated, afforded me the very
+greatest delight. Having reached, in its former course, about the
+twentieth parallel of southern latitude, it turned off suddenly at an
+acute angle to the eastward, and thus proceeded throughout the day,
+keeping nearly, if not<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_386" id="Page_386">[386]</a></span> altogether, in the exact plane of the moon&#8217;s
+path around the earth.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">April 13th</span>. Great decrease in the earth&#8217;s apparent size. The moon could
+not be seen at all, being nearly above me. I still continued in the
+plane of the moon&#8217;s path, but made little progress eastward.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">April 14th</span>. Extremely rapid decrease in the size of the earth. To-day I
+became strongly impressed with the idea that the balloon was holding the
+direct course which would bring it immediately to the moon where it
+comes nearest the earth. The moon was directly overhead, and
+consequently hidden from my view. Great and long continued labor was
+necessary for the condensation of the atmosphere.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">April 16th</span>. To-day, looking upward as well as I could, through each of
+the side windows alternately, I beheld, to my great delight, a very
+small portion of the moon&#8217;s disk protruding, as it were, on all sides
+beyond the <a name="corr24" id="corr24"></a>huge bulk of the balloon. My agitation was extreme, for I had
+now little doubt of soon reaching the end of my perilous voyage. Indeed,
+the labor required by the condenser had increased to such a degree that
+I had scarcely any respite from exertion. Sleep was a matter nearly out
+of question. I became quite ill, and my frame trembled with exhaustion.
+It was impossible that human nature could endure this state of intense
+suffering much longer.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">April 17th</span>. This morning proved an epoch in my<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_387" id="Page_387">[387]</a></span> voyage. It will be
+remembered that on the thirteenth the earth had diminished; on the
+fourteenth, it had still further dwindled; on the fifteenth, a still
+more rapid decrease was observable; and on retiring for the night of the
+sixteenth, the earth had shrunk to small size. What, therefore, must
+have been my amazement, on awakening from a brief and disturbed slumber
+on the morning of this day, the seventeenth, at finding the surface
+beneath me so suddenly and wonderfully increased in volume as to seem
+but a comparatively short distance beneath me! I was thunderstruck! No
+words can give any adequate idea of the extreme, the absolute horror and
+astonishment, with which I was seized, possessed and altogether
+overwhelmed. My knees tottered beneath me&mdash;my teeth chattered&mdash;my hair
+started up on end. The balloon then had actually burst! These were the
+first ideas which hurried through my mind. The balloon had burst! I was
+falling&mdash;falling with the most impetuous, the most wonderful velocity!
+To judge from the immense distance already so quickly passed over, it
+could not be more than ten minutes at the farthest before I should meet
+the surface of the earth and be hurled into annihilation!</p>
+
+<p>But at length reflection came to my relief. I paused, I considered, and
+I began to doubt. The matter was impossible. I could not, in any reason,
+have so rapidly come down. Besides, although I was evidently approaching
+the surface below me, it was with a speed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_388" id="Page_388">[388]</a></span> by no means commensurate with
+the velocity I had at first conceived. This consideration served to calm
+my mind, and I finally succeeded in looking at the matter in its proper
+point of view. In fact, amazement must have fairly deprived me of my
+senses when I could not see the vast difference in appearance between
+the surface below me and the surface of my mother earth. The latter was
+indeed over my head and completely hidden by the balloon, while the
+moon&mdash;the moon itself in all its glory&mdash;lay beneath me and at my feet!</p>
+
+<p>I had indeed arrived at the point where the attraction of the moon had
+proved stronger than the attraction of the earth, and so the moon now
+appeared to be below me and I was descending upon it. It lay beneath me
+like a chart, and I studied it with the deepest attention. The entire
+absence of ocean or sea, and indeed of any lake or river, or body of
+water whatsoever, struck me at the first glance as the most
+extraordinary feature in its appearance.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">April 18th</span>. To-day I found an enormous increase in the moon&#8217;s apparent
+bulk&mdash;and the evidently increased velocity of my descent began to fill
+me with alarm. I had relied on finding some atmosphere at the moon and
+on the resistance of this atmosphere to <a name="gravitation_text" id="gravitation_text"></a><a href="#gravitation" class="fnanchor">v</a>gravitation as affording me a
+chance to land in safety. Should I prove to have been mistaken about the
+atmosphere, I had nothing better to expect than to be dashed into atoms
+against the rugged surface of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_389" id="Page_389">[389]</a></span> earth&#8217;s <a name="satellite_text2" id="satellite_text2"></a><a href="#satellite" class="fnanchor">v</a>satellite. And indeed I
+had now every reason to be terrified. My distance from the moon was
+comparatively trivial, while the labor required by the condenser was
+diminished not at all, and I could discover no indication whatever of a
+decreasing rarity of the air.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">April 19th</span>. This morning, to my great joy, about nine o&#8217;clock, the
+surface of the moon being frightfully near and my fears excited to the
+utmost, the pump of my condenser at length gave evident tokens of an
+alteration in the atmosphere. By ten, I had reason to believe its
+density considerably increased. By eleven, very little labor was
+necessary at the apparatus; and at twelve o&#8217;clock, with some hesitation,
+I ventured to open the car a little and suffered no inconvenience. I
+finally threw aside the gum-elastic chamber and unrigged it from around
+the car. As might have been expected, spasms and violent headache were
+the immediate consequences of an experiment so rash. But this was
+forgotten in consideration of other things. My approach was still rapid
+in the extreme; and it soon became certain that although I had probably
+not been deceived in the expectation of finding a fairly dense
+atmosphere, still I had been wrong in supposing that atmosphere dense
+enough to support the great weight contained in the car of the balloon.
+I was now close upon the planet and coming down with the most terrible
+rapidity. I lost not a moment, accordingly,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_390" id="Page_390">[390]</a></span> in throwing overboard first
+my ballast, then my water-kegs, then my condensing apparatus and
+gum-elastic chamber, and finally every article within the car.</p>
+
+<p>But it was all to no purpose. I still fell with horrible speed, and was
+now not more than half a mile from the surface. As a last resource,
+therefore, having got rid of my coat, hat, and boots, I cut loose from
+the balloon the car itself, which was of no inconsiderable weight, and
+thus clinging with both hands to the net-work, I had barely time to
+observe that the whole country, as far as the eye could reach, was
+thickly sown with small habitations, ere I tumbled headlong into the
+very heart of a fantastic city and into the middle of a vast crowd of
+ugly little people. I turned from them, and gazing upward at the earth
+so lately left, and left perhaps forever, beheld it like a huge, dull
+copper shield, fixed immovably in the heavens overhead and tipped on one
+of its edges with a crescent border of the most brilliant gold.</p>
+
+<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Edgar Allan Poe</span>.</p>
+
+
+<p class="heading">HELPS TO STUDY</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>Describe the balloon Hans constructed. How did he extricate himself
+from each difficulty he encountered? What characteristic did this
+show? Note the changes in the appearance of the earth as he made
+his journey. On what day did he see the North Pole? In what region
+was he when he saw the moon? What did he find when he reached that
+body?</p></div>
+
+<p class="heading">SUPPLEMENTARY READING</p>
+
+<ul class="supread">
+  <li>From the Earth to the Moon&mdash;Jules Verne.</li>
+  <li>The War of the Worlds&mdash;H. G. Wells.</li>
+</ul>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_391" id="Page_391">[391]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2 class="chapterhead"><a name="THE_GREAT_STONE_OF_SARDISA" id="THE_GREAT_STONE_OF_SARDISA"></a>THE GREAT STONE OF SARDIS<a name="FNanchor_391-1_4" id="FNanchor_391-1_4"></a><a href="#Footnote_391-1_4" class="fnanchor"><span style="font-size: smaller;">391-*</span></a></h2>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>This fanciful tale is taken from Frank R. Stockton&#8217;s <i>The Great
+Stone of Sardis</i>. In this book the hero, Roland Clewe, is pictured
+as a scientist who had made many startling discoveries and
+inventions at his works in Sardis about the year 1946. One of his
+inventions was an automatic shell. This was an enormous projectile,
+the peculiarity of which was that its motive power was contained
+within itself, very much as a rocket contains the explosives which
+send it upward. The extraordinary piece of mechanism was of
+<a name="cylindrical_text" id="cylindrical_text"></a><a href="#cylindrical" class="fnanchor">v</a>cylindrical form, eighteen feet in length and fourteen feet in
+diameter. The forward end was <a name="conical_text" id="conical_text"></a><a href="#conical" class="fnanchor">v</a>conical and not solid, being
+formed of a number of flat steel rings, decreasing in size as they
+approached the point of the cone. When not in operation these rings
+did not touch one another, but they could be forced together by
+pressure on the point of the cone. One day this shell fell from the
+supports on which it lay, the conical end down, and ploughed its
+way with terrific force into the earth&mdash;how far no one could tell.
+Clewe determined to descend the hole in search of the shell by
+means of an electric elevator. Margaret Raleigh, to whom he was
+engaged, had gone to the seashore, and during her absence, Clewe
+planned to make his daring venture.</p></div>
+
+<p>On the day that Margaret left Sardis, Roland began his preparations for
+descending the shaft. He had so thoroughly considered the machinery and
+appliances necessary for the undertaking and had worked out all his
+plans in such detail, in his mind and upon paper, that he knew exactly
+what he wanted to do. His orders for the great length of chain needed
+exhausted the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_392" id="Page_392">[392]</a></span> stock of several factories, and the engines he obtained
+were even more powerful than he had intended them to be; but these he
+could procure immediately, and for smaller ones he would have been
+obliged to wait.</p>
+
+<p>The circular car which was intended to move up and down the shaft, and
+the peculiar machinery connected with it, together with the hoisting
+apparatus, were all made in his works. His skilled artisans labored
+steadily day and night.</p>
+
+<p>It was ten days before he was ready to make his descent. Margaret was
+still at the seashore. They had written to each other frequently, but
+neither had made mention of the great shaft. Even when he was ready to
+go down, Clewe said nothing to any one of an immediate intention of
+descending. There was a massive door which covered the mouth of the pit;
+this he ordered locked and went away.</p>
+
+<p>The next morning he walked into the building a little earlier than was
+his custom, called for the engineers, and for Bryce, who was to take
+charge of everything connected with the descent, and announced that he
+was going down that day.</p>
+
+<p>Bryce and the men who were to assist him looked very serious at this.
+Indeed, if their employer had been any other man than Roland Clewe, it
+is possible they might have remonstrated with him; but they knew him,
+and they said and did nothing more than what was their duty.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_393" id="Page_393">[393]</a></span>The door of the shaft was removed, the car which had hung high above it
+was lowered to the mouth of the opening, and Roland stepped within it
+and seated himself. Above him and around him were placed <a name="geological_text" id="geological_text"></a><a href="#geological" class="fnanchor">v</a>geological
+tools and instruments of many kinds, a lantern, food, and
+drink&mdash;everything, in fact, which he could possibly be presumed to need
+upon this extraordinary journey. A telephone was at his side by which he
+could communicate at any time with the surface of the earth. There were
+electric bells; there was everything to make his expedition safe and
+profitable. Finally he gave the word to start the engines; there were no
+ceremonies, and nothing was said out of the common.</p>
+
+<p>When the conical top of the car had descended below the surface, a steel
+grating, with holes for the passage of the chains, was let down over the
+mouth of the shaft, and the downward journey began. In the floor of the
+car were grated openings, through which Clewe could look downward; but,
+although the shaft below him was brilliantly illuminated by electric
+lights placed beneath the car, it failed to frighten him or make him
+dizzy to look down, for the <a name="aperture_text2" id="aperture_text2"></a><a href="#aperture" class="fnanchor">v</a>aperture did not appear to be very far
+below him. The upper part of the car was partially open, and bright
+lights shone upon the sides of the shaft.</p>
+
+<p>As he slowly descended, Clewe could see the various <a name="strata_text" id="strata_text"></a><a href="#strata" class="fnanchor">v</a>strata appearing
+and disappearing in the order in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_394" id="Page_394">[394]</a></span> which he knew them. Not far below the
+surface he passed cavities which he believed had held water; but there
+was no water in them now. He had expected these pockets, and had feared
+that upon their edges might be loosened patches of rock or soil, but
+everything seemed tightly packed and hard. If anything had been
+loosened, it had gone down already.</p>
+
+<p>Down, down he went until he came to the eternal rocks, where the inside
+of the shaft was polished as if it had been made of glass. The air
+became warmer and warmer, but Clewe knew that the heat would soon
+decrease. The character of the rocks changed, and he studied them as he
+went down, continually making notes.</p>
+
+<p>After a time the polished rocky sides of the shaft grew to be of a
+solemn sameness. Clewe ceased to take notes; he lighted a cigar and
+smoked. He tried to imagine what he would come to when he reached the
+bottom; it would be some sort of a cave, he thought, in which his shell
+had made an opening. He began to imagine what sort of a cave it would
+be, and how high the roof was from the floor. Clewe then suddenly
+wondered whether his gardener had remembered what he had told him about
+the flower-beds in front of the house; he wished certain changes made
+which Margaret had suggested. He tried to keep his mind on the
+flower-beds, but it drifted away to the cave below. He thought of the
+danger of coming into some under<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_395" id="Page_395">[395]</a></span>ground body of water, where he would be
+drowned; but he knew that was a silly idea. If the shell had gone
+through <a name="subterranean_text" id="subterranean_text"></a><a href="#subterranean" class="fnanchor">v</a>subterranean reservoirs, the water of these would have run
+out, and before it reached the bottom of the shaft would have dissipated
+into mist.</p>
+
+<p>Down, down he went. He looked at his watch; he had been in that car only
+an hour and a half. Was that possible? He had supposed he was almost at
+the bottom. Suddenly his mind reverted to the people above and the
+telephone. Why had not some of them spoken to him? It was shameful! He
+instantly called Bryce, and his heart leaped with joy when he heard the
+familiar voice in his ear. Now he talked steadily on for more than an
+hour. He had his gardener summoned, and told the man all that he wanted
+done in the flower-beds. He gave many directions in regard to the
+various operations at the works. There were two or three inventions in
+which he took particular interest, and of these he talked at great
+length with Bryce. Suddenly, in the midst of some talk about hollow
+steel rods, he told Bryce to let the engines run faster; there was no
+reason why the car should go so slowly.</p>
+
+<p>The windlasses moved with a little more rapidity, and Clewe now turned
+and looked at an indicator which was placed on the side of the car, a
+little over his head. This instrument showed the depth to which he had
+descended, but he had not looked at it before,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_396" id="Page_396">[396]</a></span> for if anything would
+make him nervous, it would be the continual consideration of the depth
+to which he had descended.</p>
+
+<p>The indicator showed that he had gone down fourteen and one-eighth
+miles. Clewe turned and sat stiffly in his seat. He glanced down and saw
+beneath him only an illuminated hole, fading away at the bottom. Then he
+turned to speak to Bryce, but to his surprise, he could think of nothing
+to say. After that he lighted another cigar and sat quietly.</p>
+
+<p>Some minutes passed&mdash;he did not know how many&mdash;and he looked down
+through the gratings in the floor of the car. The electric light
+streamed downward through a deep <a name="crevice_text" id="crevice_text"></a><a href="#crevice" class="fnanchor">v</a>crevice, which did not now fade away
+into nothingness, but ended in something dark and glittering. Then, as
+he came nearer and nearer to this glittering thing, Clewe saw that it
+was his automatic shell, lying on its side; only a part of it was
+visible through the opening of the shaft which he was descending. In an
+instant, as it seemed to him, the car emerged from the shaft, and he
+seemed to be hanging in the air&mdash;at least there was nothing he could see
+except that great shell, lying some forty feet below him. But it was
+impossible that the shell should be lying on the air! He rang to stop
+the car.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Anything the matter?&#8221; cried Bryce.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Nothing at all,&#8221; Clewe replied. &#8220;It&#8217;s all right; I am near the
+<a name="corr25" id="corr25"></a>bottom.&#8220;</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_397" id="Page_397">[397]</a></span>In a state of the highest nervous excitement, Clewe gazed about him. He
+was no longer in a shaft; but where was he? Look around on what side he
+would, he saw nothing but the light going out from his lamps, light
+which seemed to extend indefinitely all about him. There appeared to be
+no limit to his vision in any direction. Then he leaned over the side of
+his car and looked downward. There lay the great shell directly under
+him, although under it and around it, extending as far beneath it as it
+extended in every other direction, shone the light from his own lamp.
+Nevertheless, that great shell, weighing many tons, lay as if it rested
+upon the solid ground!</p>
+
+<p>After a few moments, Clewe shut his eyes; they pained him. Something
+seemed to be coming into them like a fine frost in a winter wind. Then
+he called to Bryce to let the car descend very slowly. It went down,
+down, gradually approaching the great shell. When the bottom of the car
+was within two feet of it, Clewe rang to stop. He looked down at the
+complicated machine he had worked upon so long, with something like a
+feeling of affection. This he knew; it was his own. Gazing upon its
+familiar form, he felt that he had a companion in this region of
+unreality.</p>
+
+<p>Pushing back the sliding door of the car, Clewe sat upon the bottom and
+cautiously put out his feet and legs, lowering them until they touched
+the shell. It was firm and solid. Although he knew it must be<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_398" id="Page_398">[398]</a></span> so, the
+immovability of the great mass of iron gave him a sudden shock of
+mysterious fear. How could it be immovable when there was nothing under
+it&mdash;when it rested on air?</p>
+
+<p>But he must get out of that car, he must explore, he must find out.
+There certainly could be no danger so long as he clung to the shell.</p>
+
+<p>He cautiously got out of the car and let himself down upon the shell. It
+was not a pleasant surface to stand on, being uneven, with great spiral
+ribs, and Clewe sat down upon it, clinging to it with his hands.
+Presently he leaned over to one side and looked beneath him. The shadows
+of that shell went down, down, down into space, until it made him sick
+to look at them. He drew back quickly, clutched the shell with his arms,
+and shut his eyes. He felt as if he were about to drop with it into a
+measureless depth of atmosphere.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 280px; margin-top: 2em; margin-bottom: 2em;">
+<a href="images/image11-full.png"><img src="images/image11.jpg" width="280" height="400" alt="He Put Out One Foot" title="He Put Out One Foot" /></a>
+<span class="caption"><b>He Put Out One Foot</b></span>
+</div>
+
+<p>But he soon raised himself. He had not come down there to be frightened,
+to let his nerves run away with him. He had come to find out things.
+What was it that this shell rested upon? Seizing two of the ribs with a
+strong clutch, he let himself hang over the sides of the shell until his
+feet were level with its lower side. They touched something hard. He
+pressed them downward; it was very hard. He raised himself and stood
+upon the substance which supported the shell. It was as solid as any
+rock. He looked down and saw<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_399" id="Page_399">[399]</a><br /><a name="Page_400" id="Page_400">[400]</a></span> his shadow stretching far beneath him. It
+seemed as if he were standing upon <a name="petrified_text" id="petrified_text"></a><a href="#petrified" class="fnanchor">v</a>petrified air. He put out one foot
+and moved a little, still holding on to the shell. He walked, as if upon
+solid air, to the foremost end of the long <a name="projectile_text" id="projectile_text"></a><a href="#projectile" class="fnanchor">v</a>projectile. It relieved
+him to turn his thoughts from what was around him to this familiar
+object. He found its conical end shattered.</p>
+
+<p>After a little he slowly made his way back to the other end of the
+shell, and now his eyes became somewhat accustomed to the great radiance
+about him. He thought he could perceive here and there faint signs of
+long, nearly horizontal lines&mdash;lines of different shades of light. Above
+him, as if it hung in the air, was the round, dark hole through which he
+had descended.</p>
+
+<p>He rose, took his hands from the shell, and made a few steps. He trod
+upon a horizontal surface, but in putting one foot forward, he felt a
+slight incline. It seemed to him, that he was about to slip downward!
+Instantly he retreated to the shell and clutched it in a sudden frenzy
+of fear.</p>
+
+<p>Standing thus, with his eyes still wandering, he heard the bell of the
+telephone ring. Without hesitation he mounted the shell and got into the
+car. Bryce was calling him.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Come up,&#8221; he said. &#8220;You have been down there long enough. No matter
+what you have found, it is time for you to come up.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_401" id="Page_401">[401]</a></span>&#8220;All right,&#8221; said Roland. &#8220;You can haul me up, but go very slowly at
+first.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>The car rose. When it reached the orifice in the top of the cave of
+light, Clewe heard the conical steel top grate slightly as it touched
+the edge, for the car was still swinging a little from the motion given
+to it by his entrance; but it soon hung perfectly vertical and went
+silently up the shaft.</p>
+
+<p>Seated in the car, which was steadily ascending the great shaft, Roland
+Clewe took no notice of anything about him. He did not look at the
+brilliantly lighted interior of the shaft; he paid no attention to his
+instruments; he did not consult his watch, or glance at the dial which
+indicated the distance he had traveled. Several times the telephone bell
+rang, and Bryce inquired how he was getting along; but these questions
+he answered as briefly as possible, and sat looking down at his knees
+and seeing nothing.</p>
+
+<p>When he was half-way up, he suddenly became conscious that he was very
+hungry. He hurriedly ate some sandwiches and drank some water, and again
+gave himself up entirely to mental labor. When, at last, the noise of
+machinery above him and the sound of voices aroused him from his
+abstraction, and the car emerged upon the surface of the earth, Clewe
+hastily slid back the door and stepped out. At that instant he felt
+himself encircled by a pair of arms. Bryce was near by, and there were
+other men by the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_402" id="Page_402">[402]</a></span> engines, but the owner of those arms thought nothing
+of this.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Margaret!&#8221; cried Clewe, &#8220;how came you here?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I have been here all the time,&#8221; she exclaimed; &#8220;or, at least, nearly
+all the time.&#8221; And as she spoke she drew back and looked at him, her
+eyes full of happy tears. &#8220;Mr. Bryce telegraphed to me the instant he
+knew you were going down, and I was here before you had descended
+half-way.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;What!&#8221; he cried. &#8220;And all those messages came from you?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Nearly all,&#8221; she answered. &#8220;But tell me, Roland&mdash;tell me; have you been
+successful?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I am successful,&#8221; he answered. &#8220;I have discovered <a name="corr26" id="corr26"></a>everything!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Bryce came forward.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I will speak to you all very soon,&#8221; said Clewe. &#8220;I can&#8217;t tell you
+anything now. Margaret, let us go. I wish to talk to you, but not until
+I have been to my office. I will meet you at your house in a very few
+minutes.&#8221; And with that he left the building and fairly ran to his
+office.</p>
+
+<p>A quarter of an hour later Roland entered Margaret&#8217;s library, where she
+sat awaiting him. He carefully closed the doors and windows. They sat
+side by side upon the sofa.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Now, Roland,&#8221; she said, &#8220;I cannot wait one second longer. What is it
+that you have discovered?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_403" id="Page_403">[403]</a></span>&#8220;When I arrived at the bottom of the shaft,&#8221; he began, &#8220;I found myself
+in a cleft, I know not how large, made in a vast mass of transparent
+substance, hard as the hardest rock and as transparent as air in the
+light of my electric lamps. My shell rested securely upon this
+substance. I walked upon it. It seemed as if I could see miles below me.
+In my opinion, Margaret, that substance was once the head of a comet.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;What is the substance?&#8221; she asked, hastily.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;It is a mass of solid diamond!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Margaret screamed. She could not say one word.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Yes,&#8221; said he, &#8220;I believe the whole central portion of the earth is one
+great diamond. When it was moving about in its orbit as a comet, the
+light of the sun streamed through this diamond and spread an enormous
+tail out into space; after a time this <a name="nucleus_text" id="nucleus_text"></a><a href="#nucleus" class="fnanchor">v</a>nucleus began to burn.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Burn!&#8221; exclaimed Margaret.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Yes, the diamond is almost pure <a name="carbon_text" id="carbon_text"></a><a href="#carbon" class="fnanchor">v</a>carbon; why should it not burn? It
+burned and burned and burned. Ashes formed upon it and encircled it; it
+still burned, and when it was entirely covered with ashes it ceased to
+be transparent and ceased to be a comet; it became a planet, and
+revolved in a different orbit. It still burned within its covering of
+ashes, and these gradually changed to rock, to metal, to everything that
+forms the crust of the earth.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>She gazed upon him, entranced.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_404" id="Page_404">[404]</a></span>&#8220;Some parts of this great central mass of carbon burn more fiercely than
+other parts. Some parts do not burn at all. In volcanic regions the
+fires rage; where my great shell went down it no longer burns. Now you
+have my theory. It is crude and rough, for I have tried to give it to
+you in as few words as possible.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Oh, Roland,&#8221; she cried, &#8220;it is absurd! Diamond! Why, people will think
+you are crazy. You must not say such a thing as that to anybody. It is
+simply impossible that the greater part of this earth should be an
+enormous diamond.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Margaret,&#8221; he answered, &#8220;nothing is impossible. The central portion of
+this earth is composed of something; it might just as well be diamond as
+anything else. In fact, if you consider the matter, it is more likely to
+be, because diamond is a very original substance. As I have said, it is
+almost pure carbon. I do not intend to repeat a word of what I have told
+you to any one&mdash;at least until the matter has been well considered&mdash;but
+I am not afraid of being thought crazy. Margaret, will you look at
+these?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>He took from his pocket some shining substances resembling glass. Some
+of them were flat, some round; the largest was as big as a lemon; others
+were smaller fragments of various sizes.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;These are pieces of the great diamond which were broken when the shell
+struck the bottom of the cave<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_405" id="Page_405">[405]</a></span> in which I found it. I picked them up as
+I felt my way around this shell, when walking upon what seemed to me
+solid air. I thrust them into my pocket, and I would not come to you,
+Margaret, with this story, until I had visited my office to find out
+what these fragments are. I tested them; their substance is diamond!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Half-dazed, she took the largest piece in her hand.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Roland,&#8221; she whispered, &#8220;if this is really a diamond, there is nothing
+like it known to man!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Nothing, indeed,&#8221; said he.</p>
+
+<p>She sat staring at the great piece of glowing mineral which lay in her
+hand. Its surface was irregular; it had many faces; the subdued light
+from the window gave it the appearance of animated water. He felt it
+necessary to speak.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Even these little pieces,&#8221; he said, &#8220;are most valuable jewels.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Roland,&#8221; she suddenly cried, excitedly, &#8220;these are riches beyond
+imagination! What is common wealth to what you have discovered? Every
+living being on earth could&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Ah, Margaret,&#8221; he interrupted, &#8220;do not let your thoughts run that way.
+If my discovery should be put to the use of which you are thinking, it
+would bring poverty to the world, not wealth, and every diamond on earth
+would be worthless.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>She trembled. &#8220;And these&mdash;are they to be valued as common pebbles?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_406" id="Page_406">[406]</a></span>&#8220;Oh no,&#8221; said he; &#8220;these broken fragments I have found are to us riches
+far beyond our wildest imagination.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Roland,&#8221; she cried, &#8220;are you going down into that shaft for more of
+them?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Never, never, never again,&#8221; he answered. &#8220;What we have here is enough
+for us, and if I were offered all the good that there is in this world,
+which money cannot buy, I would never go down into that cleft again.
+There was one moment, as I stood in that cave, when an awful terror shot
+into my soul that I shall never be able to forget. In the light of my
+electric lamps, sent through a vast transparent mass, I could see
+nothing, but I could feel. I put out my foot, and I found it was upon a
+sloping surface. In another instant I might have slid&mdash;where? I cannot
+bear to think of it!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Frank E. Stockton</span>.</p>
+
+<p class="heading">HELPS TO STUDY</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>What happened to Clewe&#8217;s automatic shell? What did he decide to do?
+Tell of the preparations he made for his descent. What occurred
+when he reached the end of the shaft? Of what was Clewe thinking so
+intently while making his ascent? Why did he go at once to his
+office? What conclusion did he reach as to the central part of the
+earth? What did he have to prove the correctness of his theory? Why
+was he unwilling ever to make the descent again? This story was
+written about the end of the nineteenth century: what great
+scientific discoveries have been made since then?</p></div>
+
+
+<p class="heading">SUPPLEMENTARY READING</p>
+
+<ul class="supread">
+  <li>A Journey to the Center of the Earth&mdash;Jules Verne.</li>
+  <li>The Adventures of Captain Horn&mdash;Frank R. Stockton.</li>
+</ul>
+
+
+<div class="footnotes">
+<p><a name="Footnote_391-1_4" id="Footnote_391-1_4"></a><a href="#FNanchor_391-1_4"><span class="label">391-*</span></a> Copyright by Harper &amp; Brothers.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_407" id="Page_407">[407]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2 class="chapterhead"><a name="A_STOP_AT_SUZANNES" id="A_STOP_AT_SUZANNES"></a>A STOP AT SUZANNE&#8217;S</h2>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>The author of this sketch, a young American aviator, a resident of
+Richmond, Virginia, was killed in battle in August, 1918.</p></div>
+
+<p>Suzanne is a very pretty girl, I was told, but the charm of &#8220;Suzanne&#8217;s&#8221;
+wasn&#8217;t with her alone, for, always, one spoke of the deliciously-tasting
+meal, how nice the old madame is, and how fine a chap is her <i>mari</i>, the
+father of Suzanne. Then of the garden in the back&mdash;and before you had
+finished listening you didn&#8217;t know which was the most important thing
+about &#8220;Suzanne&#8217;s.&#8221; All you knew was that it was the place to go when on
+an aeroplane voyage.</p>
+
+<p>At the pilotage office I found five others ahead of me; all of us were
+bound in the same direction. We were given <a name="barograph_text" id="barograph_text"></a><a href="#barograph" class="fnanchor">v</a>barographs, altimeters and
+maps and full directions as to forced landings and what to do when lost.
+We hung around the voyage hangar until about eight in the morning, but
+there was a low mist and cloudy sky, so we could not start out until
+afternoon; and I didn&#8217;t have luncheon at &#8220;Suzanne&#8217;s.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>After noon several of the others started out, but I wanted to plan my
+supper stop for the second point, so I waited until about four o&#8217;clock
+before starting.</p>
+
+<p>Almost before I knew it a village, which on the map was twelve
+kilometers away, was slipping by beneath me and then off to one side was
+a forest, green and cool-looking and very regular around the edges.
+Pretty<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_408" id="Page_408">[408]</a></span> soon I came to a deep blue streak bordered by trees, and was so
+interested in it&mdash;it wound around under a railroad track, came up and
+brushed by lots of back gates and, finally, fell in a wide splash of
+silver over a little fall by a mill&mdash;that I forgot all about flying and
+suddenly woke up to the fact that one wing was about as low as it could
+get and that the nose of the machine was doing its best to follow the
+wing.</p>
+
+<p>Long before I came to the stopping point, I could see the little white
+hangar. The field is not large, but it is strange, so you come down
+rather anxiously, for if you can&#8217;t make that field the first time, you
+never will be able to fly, they tell you before leaving. I glided down
+easily enough, for, after all, it is just that&mdash;either you can or you
+can&#8217;t&mdash;and made a good-enough landing. The sergeant signed my paper, and
+a few minutes later away I went for &#8220;Suzanne&#8217;s.&#8221; The next stop is near a
+little village&mdash;Suzanne&#8217;s village&mdash;so when I came to the field and
+landed I was sure to be too tired to go up again immediately. Instead,
+off I went to town after making things right with the man in charge.
+That wasn&#8217;t a bit difficult, either, for all I did was to wink as hard
+as I could, and he understood perfectly.</p>
+
+<p>I knew where &#8220;Suzanne&#8217;s&#8221; was, so I made directly for it. It was a little
+early, but you should never miss the <a name="apertif_text" id="apertif_text"></a><a href="#apertif" class="fnanchor">v</a><i>apertif</i>. With that first,
+success is assured; without it, it is like getting out of bed on the
+wrong foot.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_409" id="Page_409">[409]</a></span>Up I marched to the unimposing door and walked in to the main room&mdash;a
+big room, with long, wooden tables and benches and a zinc bar at one
+end, where all kinds of bottles rested. It isn&#8217;t called &#8220;Suzanne&#8217;s,&#8221; of
+course; it only has that name among us.</p>
+
+<p>As I closed the door behind me and looked about, a <i>bonne</i> was serving
+several men at a corner table, and behind the bar a big, red-faced,
+stout man was pouring stuff into bottles. He looked at me a moment and
+then with a tremendous &#8220;<i>Tiens!</i>&#8220; he came out from behind the tables and
+advanced toward me.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;<i>Bon jour</i>,&#8221; he <a name="corr27" id="corr27"></a>said; &#8220;do you come from far?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Oh, no,&#8221; I answered, &#8220;only from &mdash;&mdash;.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;<i>Tiens!</i>&#8220; he repeated; then, &#8220;Ah, you are from the school.&#8221; <i>L&#8217;ecole</i>,
+he called it.</p>
+
+<p>From <i>l&#8217;ecole</i>, I admitted, and, taking me by the arm, he led me to a
+door at the rear. Through this he propelled me, and then in his huge
+voice he called &#8220;<i>Suzanne, un <a name="pilote_text" id="pilote_text"></a><a href="#pilote" class="fnanchor">v</a>pilote!</i>&#8220; and I was introduced.</p>
+
+<p>As he shut the door, I could just see the corner table with the three
+old men staring open-mouthed, the wine before them forgotten, the bread
+and cheese in their hands untasted; then, down the stairs came light
+steps and a rustle of skirts, and Suzanne was before me with smiling
+face and outstretched hand.</p>
+
+<p>Her instant welcome, the genuine smile! Almost immediately, I understood
+the fame of this little station, so far from everything but the air
+route.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_410" id="Page_410">[410]</a></span>Her charm is indescribable. She is pretty, she is well dressed, but it
+isn&#8217;t that. It is a sincerity of manner, complete hospitality; at once
+you are accepted as a bosom friend of the family&mdash;that is the charm of
+Suzanne&#8217;s.</p>
+
+<p>After a few questions as to where I came from, how long I had been
+there, and where I was going, Suzanne led me upstairs to be presented to
+<a name="Mabellemere_text" id="Mabellemere_text"></a><a href="#Mabellemere" class="fnanchor">v</a>&#8220;<i>Ma belle mere</i>,&#8221; a white-haired old lady sitting in a big,
+straight-backed chair. Then, after more courtesies had been extended to
+me, Suzanne preceded me down to the garden and left me alone while she
+went in to see that the supper was exceptionally good.</p>
+
+<p>A soft footstep on the gravel walk sounded behind me, and I turned to
+see one of the most beautiful women I ever beheld. She was tall and
+slender, and as she came gracefully across the lawn she swung a little
+work bag from one arm. All in black she was, with a lace shawl over her
+bare head. Like every one in that most charming and hospitable house,
+there was no formality or show about her. She came, smiling, and sat on
+the bench beside me, drawing open her work bag. I could not help
+noticing, particularly, her beautiful eyes, for they told the story, a
+story too common here, except that her eyes had changed now to an
+expression of resigned peace. Then she told me about Suzanne.</p>
+
+<p>Long before, ages and ages ago it seemed, but<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_411" id="Page_411">[411]</a></span> really only four years, a
+huge, ungainly bird fell crashing to earth and from the wreck a man was
+taken, unconscious. He was carried to &#8220;Suzanne&#8217;s,&#8221; and she nursed him
+and cared for him until he was well again. &#8220;Suzanne was very happy
+then,&#8221; madame told me. And no wonder, for the daring aviator and Suzanne
+were in love. She nursed him back to health, but when he went away he
+left his heart forever with her.</p>
+
+<p>They were engaged, and every little while he would fly over from his
+station to see Suzanne. Those were in the early days and aviation&mdash;well,
+even at that, it hasn&#8217;t changed so much.</p>
+
+<p>One day a letter came for Suzanne, and with a catch at her throbbing
+heart she read that her <i>fianc&eacute;</i> had been killed. <a name="Mort_text" id="Mort_text"></a><a href="#Mort" class="fnanchor">v</a>&#8220;<i>Mort pour la
+patrie</i>,&#8221; it said, and Suzanne was never the same afterward.</p>
+
+<p>For many months the poor girl grieved, but, finally, she began to
+realize that what had happened to her had happened to thousands of other
+girls, too, and, gradually, she took up the attitude that you find
+throughout this glorious country. Only her eyes now tell the sad story.</p>
+
+<p>One evening two men walked into the caf&eacute; and from their talk Suzanne
+knew they were from <i>l&#8217;ecole</i>. She sat down and listened to them. They
+talked about the war, about aviation, about deeds of heroism, and
+Suzanne drank in every word, for they were talking the language of her
+dead lover. The two aviators<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_412" id="Page_412">[412]</a></span> stayed to dinner, but the big room was not
+good enough. They must come back to the family dinner&mdash;to the intimacy
+of the back room.</p>
+
+<p>They stayed all night and left early next morning, but before they left
+they wrote their names in a big book. To-day, Suzanne has the book,
+filled full of names, many now famous, many names that are only a
+memory&mdash;that is how it started.</p>
+
+<p>When the two pilots went back to <i>l&#8217;ecole</i>, they spoke in glowing terms
+of &#8220;Suzanne&#8217;s,&#8221; of the soft beds, of the delicious dinner, and, I think,
+mostly of Suzanne.</p>
+
+<p>Visitors came after that to eat at &#8220;Suzanne&#8217;s,&#8221; and to see her famous
+book. They came regularly and, finally, &#8220;Suzanne&#8217;s&#8221; became an
+institution.</p>
+
+<p>Always, a <i>pilote</i> was taken into the back room; he ate with the family,
+he told them all the news from <i>l&#8217;ecole</i>, and, in exchange, he heard
+stories about the early days, stories that will never be printed, but
+which embody examples of the heroism and intelligence that have done
+their part to develop aviation.</p>
+
+<p>Soon, we went in to dinner, and such a dinner! Truly, nothing is too
+good for an aviator at &#8220;Suzanne&#8217;s,&#8221; and they give of their best to these
+wandering strangers. They do not ask your name, they call every one
+<i>Monsieur</i>, but before you leave you sign the book and they all crowd
+around to look, without saying anything. Your name means nothing yet,
+but a year from now, perhaps, who can tell? In the first pages are<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_413" id="Page_413">[413]</a></span>
+names that have been bywords for years and some that are famous the
+world over.</p>
+
+<p>After dinner, Suzanne slipped away, presently to reappear with a special
+bottle and glasses. I felt sure this was part of the entertainment
+afforded all their winged visitors, for they went about it in a
+practised manner; each was familiar with his or her part, but to me it
+was all delightfully new.</p>
+
+<p>Our glasses were filled, and Suzanne raised hers up first. Without a
+word, she looked around the circle. Her eyes met them all, then rested
+with madame. She had not said a word; it was &#8220;papa&#8221; who proposed my
+health, and as the bottoms went up, Suzanne and madame both had a
+struggle to repress a tear. They were drinking my health, but their
+thoughts were far away, and in my heart I was wishing that happiness
+might again come to them. Suzanne certainly deserves it.</p>
+
+<p>When I returned to school, they asked, &#8220;Did you stop at &#8216;Suzanne&#8217;s&#8217;?&#8221;
+And now to the others, just ready to make the voyage, I always say, &#8220;Be
+sure to stop at &#8216;Suzanne&#8217;s&#8217;.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Greayer Clover</span>.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_414" id="Page_414">[414]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2 class="chapterhead"><a name="THE_MAKING_OF_A_MAN" id="THE_MAKING_OF_A_MAN"></a>THE MAKING OF A MAN</h2>
+
+
+<p class="sectionhead">I</p>
+
+<p>Marmaduke, otherwise Doggie, Trevor owned a pleasant home set on fifteen
+acres of ground. He had an income of three thousand pounds a year. Old
+Peddle, the butler, and his wife, the housekeeper, saved him from
+domestic cares. He led a well-regulated life. His meals, his toilet, his
+music, his wall-papers, his drawing and embroidery, his sweet peas, his
+chrysanthemums, his postage stamps, and his social engagements filled
+the hours not claimed by slumber.</p>
+
+<p>In the town of Durdlebury, Doggie Trevor began to feel appreciated. He
+could play the piano, the harp, the viola, the flute, and the
+clarionette, and sing a mild tenor. Besides music, Doggie had other
+accomplishments. He could choose the exact shade of silk for a
+drawing-room sofa cushion, and he had an excellent gift for the
+selection of wedding-presents. All in all, Marmaduke Trevor was a young
+gentleman of exquisite taste.</p>
+
+<p>After breakfast on a certain July morning, Doggie, attired in a green
+shot-silk dressing-gown, entered his own particular room and sat down to
+think. In its way it was a very beautiful room&mdash;high, spacious,
+well-proportioned, facing southeast. The wall-paper, which Doggie had
+designed himself, was ivory white, with trimmings of peacock blue.
+<a name="vellum_text" id="vellum_text"></a><a href="#vellum" class="fnanchor">v</a>Vellum-bound books filled<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_415" id="Page_415">[415]</a></span> the cases; delicate water-colors adorned
+the walls. On his writing-table lay an ivory set: inkstand, pen-tray,
+blotter, and calendar. Bits of old embroidery, harmonizing with the
+peacock shades, were spread here and there. A spinet inlaid with ivory
+formed the center for the arrangement of other musical instruments&mdash;a
+viol, mandolins, and flutes. One tall, closed cabinet was devoted to
+Doggie&#8217;s collection of wall-papers. Another held a collection of little
+dogs in china and porcelain&mdash;thousands of them; he got them from dealers
+from all over the world.</p>
+
+<p>An unwonted frown creased Doggie&#8217;s brow, for several problems disturbed
+him. The morning sun disclosed, beyond doubt, discolorations, stains,
+and streaks on the wall-paper. It would have to be renewed.</p>
+
+<p>Then, his thoughts ran on to his cousin, Oliver Manningtree, who had
+just returned from the South Sea. It was Oliver, the strong and
+masculine, who had given him the name of Doggie years before, to his
+infinite disgust. And now every one in Durdlebury seemed to have gone
+crazy over the fellow. Doggie&#8217;s uncle and aunt had hung on his lips
+while Oliver had boasted unblushingly of his adventures. Even the fair
+cousin Peggy, with whom Doggie was mildly in love, had listened
+open-eyed and open-mouthed to Oliver&#8217;s tales of shipwreck in distant
+seas.</p>
+
+<p>Doggie had reached this point in his reflections<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_416" id="Page_416">[416]</a></span> when, to his horror,
+he heard a familiar voice outside the door.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;All right,&#8221; it said. &#8220;Don&#8217;t worry, Peddle. I&#8217;ll show myself in.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>The door burst open, and Oliver, pipe in mouth and hat on one side, came
+into the room.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Hello, Doggie!&#8221; he cried boisterously. &#8220;Thought I&#8217;d look you up. Hope
+I&#8217;m not disturbing you.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Not at all,&#8221; said Doggie. &#8220;Do sit down.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>But Oliver walked about and looked at things.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I like your water colors,&#8221; he said. &#8220;Did you collect them yourself!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Yes.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I congratulate you on your taste. This is a beauty.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>The appreciation brought Doggie at once to his side. He took Oliver
+delightedly around the pictures, expounding their merits and their
+little histories. Doggie was just beginning to like the big fellow,
+when, stopping before the collection of china dogs, the latter spoiled
+everything.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;My dear Doggie,&#8221; he said, &#8220;is that your family?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s the finest collection of the kind in the world,&#8221; replied Doggie
+stiffly, &#8220;and is worth several thousand pounds.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Oliver heaved himself into a chair&mdash;that was Doggie&#8217;s impression of his
+method of sitting down.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Forgive me, Doggie,&#8221; he said, &#8220;but you&#8217;re so<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_417" id="Page_417">[417]</a></span> funny. Pictures and music
+I can understand. But what on earth is the point of these little dogs?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Doggie was hurt. &#8220;It would be useless to try to explain,&#8221; he said, with
+dignity. &#8220;And my name is Marmaduke.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Oliver took off his hat and sent it skimming to the couch.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Look here, old chap,&#8221; he said, &#8220;I seem to have put my foot in it. I
+didn&#8217;t mean to, really. I&#8217;ll call you Marmaduke, if you like, instead of
+Doggie&mdash;though it&#8217;s a beast of a name. I&#8217;m a rough sort of chap. I&#8217;ve
+had ten years&#8217; pretty tough training. I&#8217;ve slept on boards; I&#8217;ve slept
+in the open without a cent to hire a board. I&#8217;ve gone cold and I&#8217;ve gone
+hungry, and men have knocked me about, and I&#8217;ve lost most of my
+politeness. In the wilds if a man once gets the name, say, of Duck-Eyed
+Joe, it sticks to him, and he accepts it, and answers to it, and signs
+it.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;But I&#8217;m not in the wilds,&#8221; objected Marmaduke, &#8220;and haven&#8217;t the
+slightest intention of ever leading the unnatural and frightful life you
+describe. So what you say doesn&#8217;t apply to me.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Oliver, laughing, clapped him on the shoulder.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You don&#8217;t give a fellow a chance,&#8221; he said. &#8220;Look here, tell me, as man
+to man, what are you going to do with your life? Here you are, young,
+strong, educated, intelligent&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I&#8217;m not strong,&#8221; said Doggie.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_418" id="Page_418">[418]</a></span>&#8220;A month&#8217;s exercise would make you as strong as a mule,&#8221; returned
+Oliver. &#8220;Here you are&mdash;what are you going to do with yourself?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I don&#8217;t admit that you have any right to question me,&#8221; said Doggie.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Peggy and I had a talk,&#8221; declared Oliver. &#8220;I said I&#8217;d take you out with
+me to the Islands and give you a taste for fresh air and salt water and
+exercise. I&#8217;ll teach you how to sail a schooner and how to go about
+barefoot and swab decks.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Doggie smiled pityingly, but said politely, &#8220;Your offer is kind, Oliver,
+but I don&#8217;t think that sort of life would suit me.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Being a man of intelligence, he realized that Oliver&#8217;s offer arose from
+a genuine desire to do him service. But if a friendly bull out of the
+fulness of its affection invited you to accompany it to the meadow and
+eat grass, what could you do but courteously decline the invitation?</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I&#8217;m really most obliged to you, Oliver,&#8221; said Doggie, finally. &#8220;But our
+ideas are entirely different. You&#8217;re primitive, you know. You seem to
+find your happiness in defying the elements, whereas I find mine in
+adopting the resources of civilization to defeat them.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Which means,&#8221; said Oliver, rudely, &#8220;that you&#8217;re afraid to roughen your
+hands and spoil your complexion.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_419" id="Page_419">[419]</a></span>&#8220;If you like to put it that way.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You&#8217;re an <a name="effeminate_text" id="effeminate_text"></a><a href="#effeminate" class="fnanchor">v</a>effeminate little creature!&#8221; cried Oliver, losing his
+temper. &#8220;And I&#8217;m through with you. Go sit up and beg for biscuits.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Stop!&#8221; shouted Doggie, white with sudden anger, which shook him from
+head to foot. He marched to the door, his green silk dressing-gown
+flapping about him, and threw it wide open.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;This is my house,&#8221; he said. &#8220;I&#8217;m sorry to have to ask you to get out of
+it.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>And when the door was shut on Oliver, he threw himself, shaken, on the
+couch, hating Oliver and all his works more than ever. Go about barefoot
+and swab decks! It was madness. Besides being dangerous to health, it
+would be excruciating discomfort. And to be insulted for not grasping at
+such martyrdom! It was intolerable; and Doggie remained justly indignant
+the whole day long.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sectionhead">II</p>
+
+<p>Then the war came. Doggie Trevor was both patriotic and polite. Having a
+fragment of the British army in his house, he did his best to make it
+comfortable. By January he had no doubt that the empire was in peril,
+that it was every man&#8217;s duty to do his bit. He welcomed the newcomers
+with open arms, having unconsciously abandoned his attitude of
+superiority over mere brawn. It was every patriotic Eng<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_420" id="Page_420">[420]</a></span>lishman&#8217;s duty
+to encourage brawn. He threw himself heart and soul into the
+entertainment of officers and men. They thought Doggie a capital fellow.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;My dear chap,&#8221; one would protest, &#8220;you&#8217;re spoiling us. I don&#8217;t say we
+don&#8217;t like it and aren&#8217;t grateful. We are. But we&#8217;re supposed to rough
+it&mdash;to lead the simple life. You&#8217;re treating us too well.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Impossible!&#8221; Doggie would reply. &#8220;Don&#8217;t I know what we owe you fellows?
+In what other way can a helpless, delicate being like myself show his
+gratitude and in some sort of way serve his country?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>When the sympathetic guest would ask what was the nature of his malady,
+Doggie would tap his chest vaguely and reply:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Constitutional. I&#8217;ve never been able to do things like other fellows.
+The least thing bowls me out.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Hard lines&mdash;especially just now!&#8221; the soldier would murmur.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Yes, isn&#8217;t it?&#8221; Doggie would answer.</p>
+
+<p>Doggie never questioned his physical incapacity. His mother had brought
+him up to look on himself as a singularly frail creature, and the idea
+was as real to him as the war. He went about pitying himself and seeking
+pity.</p>
+
+<p>The months passed. The soldiers moved away from Durdlebury, and Doggie
+was left alone in his house. He felt solitary and restless. News came
+from Oliver that he had accepted an infantry com<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_421" id="Page_421">[421]</a></span>mission and was in
+France. &#8220;A month of this sort of thing,&#8221; he wrote, &#8220;would make our dear
+old Doggie sit up.&#8221; Doggie sighed. If only he had been blessed with
+Oliver&#8217;s constitution!</p>
+
+<p>One morning Briggins, his chauffeur, announced that he could stick it
+out no longer and was going to enlist. Then Doggie remembered a talk he
+had had with one of the young officers, who had expressed astonishment
+at his not being able to drive a car.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I shouldn&#8217;t have the nerve,&#8221; he had replied. &#8220;My nerves are all
+wrong&mdash;and I shouldn&#8217;t have the strength to change tires and things.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>But now Doggie was confronted by the necessity of driving his own car,
+for chauffeurs were no longer to be had. To his amazement, he found that
+he did not die of nervous collapse when a dog crossed the road in front
+of the automobile, and that the fitting of detachable wheels did not
+require the strength of a Hercules. The first time he took Peggy out
+driving, he swelled with pride.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I&#8217;m so glad you can do something!&#8221; she said, after a silence.</p>
+
+<p>Although the girl was as kind as ever, Doggie had noticed of late a
+curious reserve in her manner. Conversation did not flow easily. She had
+fits of abstraction, from which, when rallied, she roused herself with
+an effort. Finally, one day, Peggy asked him blankly why he did not
+enlist.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_422" id="Page_422">[422]</a></span>Doggie was horrified. &#8220;I&#8217;m not fit,&#8221; he said, &#8220;I&#8217;ve no constitution. I&#8217;m
+an impossibility.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You thought you had nerves until you learned to drive the car,&#8221; she
+answered. &#8220;Then you discovered that you hadn&#8217;t. You fancy you&#8217;ve a weak
+heart. Perhaps if you walked thirty miles a day, you would discover that
+you hadn&#8217;t that, either. And so with the rest of it.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>He swung round toward her. &#8220;Do you think I&#8217;m shamming so as to get out
+of serving in the army?&#8221; he demanded.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Not consciously. Unconsciously, I think you are. What does your doctor
+say?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Doggie was taken aback. He had no doctor, having no need for one. He
+made confession of the surprising fact. Peggy smiled.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;That proves it,&#8221; she said. &#8220;I don&#8217;t believe you have anything wrong
+with you. This is plain talking. It&#8217;s horrid, I know, but it&#8217;s best to
+get through with it once and for all.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Some men would have taken deep offense, but Doggie, conscientious if
+ineffective, was gnawed for the first time by a suspicion that Peggy
+might possibly be right. He desired to act honorably.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I&#8217;ll do,&#8221; he said, &#8220;whatever you think proper.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Good!&#8221; said Peggy. &#8220;Get Doctor Murdoch to overhaul you thoroughly with
+a view to the army. If he passes you, take a commission.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_423" id="Page_423">[423]</a></span>She put out her hand. Doggie took it firmly.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Very well,&#8221; he said. &#8220;I agree.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You&#8217;re flabby,&#8221; announced Doctor Murdoch, the next morning, to an
+anxious Doggie, after some minutes of thumping and listening, &#8220;but
+that&#8217;s merely a matter of unused muscles. Physical training will set it
+right in no time. Otherwise, my dear Trevor, you&#8217;re in splendid health.
+There&#8217;s not a flaw in your whole constitution.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Doggie crept out of bed, put on a violet dressing-gown, and wandered to
+his breakfast like a man in a nightmare. But he could not eat. He
+swallowed a cup of coffee and took refuge in his own room. He was
+frightened&mdash;horribly frightened, caught in a net from which there was no
+escape. He had given his word to join the army if he should be passed by
+Murdoch. He had been more than passed! Now he would have to join; he
+would have to fight. He would have to live in a muddy trench, sleep in
+mud, eat in mud, plow through mud. Doggie was shaken to his soul, but he
+had given his word and he had no thought of going back on it.</p>
+
+<p>The fateful little letter bestowing a commission on Doggie arrived two
+weeks later; he was a second lieutenant in a battalion of the new army.
+A few days afterward he set off for the training-camp.</p>
+
+<p>He wrote to Peggy regularly. The work was very hard, he said, and the
+hours were long. Sometimes<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_424" id="Page_424">[424]</a></span> he confessed himself too tired to write more
+than a few lines. It was a very strange life&mdash;one he never dreamed could
+have existed. There was the riding-school. Why hadn&#8217;t he learned to ride
+as a boy? Peggy was filled with admiration for his courage. She realized
+that he was suffering acutely in his new and rough environment, but he
+made no complaint.</p>
+
+<p>Then there came a time when Doggie&#8217;s letters grew rarer and shorter. At
+last they ceased altogether. One evening an unstamped envelope addressed
+to Peggy was put in the letter-box. The envelope contained a copy of the
+<i>Gazette</i>, and a sentence was underlined and adorned with exclamation
+marks:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Royal Fusileers. Second Lieutenant J. M. Trevor resigned his
+commission.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p style="margin-top: 2em;">It had been a terrible blow to Doggie. The colonel had dealt as gently
+as he could in the final interview with him. He put his hand in a
+fatherly way on Doggie&#8217;s shoulder and bade him not take the thing too
+much to heart. He&mdash;Doggie&mdash;had done his best, but the simple fact was
+that he was not cut out for an officer. These were merciless times, and
+in matters of life and death there could be no weak links in the chain.
+In Doggie&#8217;s case there was no personal discredit. He had always
+conducted himself like a gentleman, but he lacked the qualities
+necessary for the command of men. He must send in his resignation.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_425" id="Page_425">[425]</a></span>Doggie, after leaving the camp, took a room in a hotel and sat there
+most of the day, the mere pulp of a man. His one desire now was to
+escape from the eyes of his fellow-men. He felt that he bore the marks
+of his disgrace, obvious at a glance. He had been turned out of the army
+as a hopeless incompetent; he was worse than a slacker, for the slacker
+might have latent qualities he was without.</p>
+
+<p>Presently the sight of his late brother-officers added the gnaw of envy
+to his heart-ache. On the third day of his exile he moved into lodgings
+in Woburn Place. Here at least he could be quiet, untroubled by
+heart-rending sights and sounds. He spent most of his time in dull
+reading and dispirited walking.</p>
+
+<p>His failure preyed on his mind. He walked for miles every day, though
+without enjoyment. He wandered one evening in the dusk to Waterloo
+Bridge and gazed out over the parapet. The river stretched below, dark
+and peaceful. As he looked down on the rippling water, he presently
+became aware of a presence by his side. Turning his head, he found a
+soldier, an ordinary private, also leaning over the parapet.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I thought I wasn&#8217;t mistaken in Mr. Marmaduke Trevor,&#8221; said the soldier.</p>
+
+<p>Doggie started away, on the point of flight, dreading the possible
+insolence of one of the men of his late regiment. But the voice of the
+speaker rang in his ears with a strange familiarity, and the great<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_426" id="Page_426">[426]</a></span>
+fleshy nose, the high cheekbones, and the little gray eyes in the
+weather-beaten face suggested vaguely some one of the long ago. His
+dawning recognition amused the soldier.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Yes, laddie, it&#8217;s your old Phineas. Phineas McPhail, M. A.&mdash;now private
+P. McPhail.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>It was no other than Doggie&#8217;s tutor of his childhood days.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Very glad to see you,&#8221; Doggie murmured.</p>
+
+<p>Phineas, gaunt and bony, took his arm. Doggie&#8217;s instinctive craving for
+companionship made Phineas suddenly welcome.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Let us have a talk,&#8221; he said. &#8220;Come to my rooms. There will be some
+dinner.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Will I come? Will I have dinner? Laddie, I will.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>In the Strand they hailed a taxi-cab and drove to Doggie&#8217;s place.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You mention your rooms,&#8221; said Phineas. &#8220;Are you residing permanently in
+London?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Yes,&#8221; said Doggie, sadly. &#8220;I never expect to leave it.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>A few minutes later they reached Woburn Place. Doggie showed Phineas
+into the sitting-room. The table was set for Doggie&#8217;s dinner. Phineas
+looked around him in surprise. The tasteless furniture, the dreadful
+pictures on the walls, the coarse glass and the well-used plate on the
+table, the crumpled napkin<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_427" id="Page_427">[427]</a></span> in a ring&mdash;all came as a shock to Phineas,
+who had expected to find Marmaduke&#8217;s rooms a reproduction of the
+fastidious prettiness of the peacock and ivory room in Durdlebury.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Laddie,&#8221; he said, gravely, &#8220;you must excuse me if I take a liberty, but
+I cannot fit you into this environment. It cannot be that you have come
+down in the world?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;To bed-rock,&#8221; replied Doggie.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Man, I&#8217;m sorry,&#8221; said Phineas. &#8220;I know what coming down feels like. If
+I had money&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Doggie broke in with a laugh. &#8220;Pray don&#8217;t distress yourself, Phineas.
+It&#8217;s not a question of money at all. The last thing in the world I&#8217;ve
+had to think of has been money.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;What is the trouble?&#8221; Phineas demanded.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;That&#8217;s a long story,&#8221; answered Doggie. &#8220;In the meantime I had better
+give some orders about dinner.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>The dinner came in presently, not particularly well served. They sat
+down to it.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;By the way,&#8221; remarked Doggie, &#8220;you haven&#8217;t told me why you became a
+soldier.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Chance,&#8221; replied Phineas. &#8220;I have been going down in the world for some
+time, and no one seemed to want me except my country. She clamored for
+me at every corner. A recruiting sergeant in Trafalgar Square at last
+persuaded me to take the leap. That&#8217;s how I became Private Phineas
+McPhail of the Tenth<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_428" id="Page_428">[428]</a></span> Wessex Rangers, at the compensation of one
+shilling and two pence per day.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Do you like it?&#8221; asked Doggie.</p>
+
+<p>Phineas rubbed the side of his nose thoughtfully.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;In itself it is a vile life,&#8221; he made answer. &#8220;The hours are absurd,
+the work is distasteful, and the mode of living repulsive. But it
+contents me. The secret of happiness lies in adapting one&#8217;s self to
+conditions. I adapt myself wherever I happen to be. And now, may I,
+without impertinent curiosity, again ask what you meant when you said
+you had come down to bed-rock?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>All of Doggie&#8217;s rage and shame flared up at the question.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I&#8217;ve been thrown out of the army!&#8221; he cried. &#8220;I&#8217;m here in
+hiding&mdash;hiding from my family and the decent folk I&#8217;m ashamed to meet!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Tell me all about it, laddie,&#8221; urged Phineas, gently.</p>
+
+<p>Then Doggie broke down, and with a gush of unminded tears found
+expression for his stony despair. His story took a long time in the
+telling, and Phineas interjected a sympathetic &#8220;Ay, ay,&#8221; from time to
+time.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;And now,&#8221; cried Doggie, his young face distorted and reddened, his
+sleek hair ruffled, and his hands appealingly outstretched, &#8220;what am I
+going to do?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You&#8217;ve got to go back home,&#8221; said Phineas.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_429" id="Page_429">[429]</a></span> &#8220;You&#8217;ve got to whip up all
+the moral courage in you and go back to Durdlebury.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I won&#8217;t,&#8221; said Doggie, &#8220;I can&#8217;t. I&#8217;d sooner die than go back there
+disgraced. I&#8217;d sooner enlist as a private soldier.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Enlist?&#8221; repeated Phineas, and he drew himself up straight and gaunt.
+&#8220;Well, why not?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Enlist?&#8221; echoed Doggie, in a dull tone. &#8220;As a Tommy?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;As a Tommy,&#8221; replied Phineas.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Enlist!&#8221; murmured Doggie. He thought of the alternatives&mdash;flight, which
+was craven; home, which he could not bear. Doggie rose from his chair
+with a new light in his eyes. He had come to the supreme moment of his
+life; he had made his great resolution. Yes, he would enlist as a
+private soldier in the British army.</p>
+
+
+<p class="sectionhead">III</p>
+
+<p>A year later Doggie Trevor returned to Durdlebury. He had been laid up
+in hospital with a wounded leg, the result of fighting the German
+snipers in front of the first line trenches, and he was now on his way
+back to France. Durdlebury had not changed in the interval; it was
+Marmaduke Trevor that had changed. He measured about ten inches more
+around the chest than the year before, and his hands were red and
+calloused from hard work. He was as straight as an Indian now, and in
+his rough khaki uniform of a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_430" id="Page_430">[430]</a></span> British private he looked every bit a
+man&mdash;yes, and more than that, a veteran soldier. For Doggie had passed
+through battle after battle, gas attacks, mine explosions, and months of
+dreary duty in water-filled trenches, where only brave and tough men
+could endure. He had been tried in the furnace and he had come out pure
+gold.</p>
+
+<p>Doggie entered the familiar Deanery, and was met by Peggy with a glad
+smile of welcome. His uncle, the Dean, appeared in the hall, florid,
+whitehaired, benevolent, and extended both hands to the homecoming
+warrior.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;My dear boy,&#8221; he said, &#8220;how glad I am to see you! Welcome back! And
+how&#8217;s the wound?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Opening the drawing-room door, he pushed Doggie inside. A tall, lean
+figure in uniform, which had remained in the background by the
+fireplace, advanced with outstretched hand.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Hello, old chap!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Doggie took the hand in an honest grip.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Hello, Oliver!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;How goes it?&#8221; asked Oliver.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Splendid,&#8221; said Doggie. &#8220;Are you all right?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Tip-top,&#8221; answered Oliver. He clapped his cousin on the shoulder. &#8220;My
+hat! you do look fit.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>He turned to the Dean. &#8220;Uncle Edward, isn&#8217;t he a hundred times the man
+he was?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>In a little while tea came. It appeared to Doggie,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_431" id="Page_431">[431]</a></span> handing round the
+three-tiered cake-stand, that he had returned to some forgotten
+existence. The delicate china cup in his hand seemed too frail for the
+material usages of life, and he feared lest he break it, for Doggie was
+accustomed to the rough dishes of the private.</p>
+
+<p>The talk lay chiefly between Oliver and himself and ran on the war. Both
+men had been at Ypres and at Arras, where the British and German
+trenches lay only five yards apart.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I ought to be over there now,&#8221; said Oliver, &#8220;but I just escaped
+shell-shock and I was sent home for two weeks.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;My crowd is at the Somme,&#8221; said Doggie.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You&#8217;re well out of it, old chap,&#8221; laughed Oliver.</p>
+
+<p>For the first time in his life Doggie began really to like Oliver.
+Oliver stood in his eyes in a new light, that of the typical officer,
+trusted and beloved by his men, and Doggie&#8217;s heart went out to him.</p>
+
+<p>After some further talk, the men separated to dress for dinner.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You&#8217;ve got the green room, Marmaduke,&#8221; said Peggy. &#8220;The one with the
+Chippendale furniture you used to covet so much.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I haven&#8217;t got much to change into,&#8221; laughed Doggie, looking down at his
+uniform.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You&#8217;ll find Peddle up there waiting for you.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>When Doggie entered the green room, he found Peddle, who welcomed him
+with tears of joy and a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_432" id="Page_432">[432]</a></span> display of all the luxuries of the toilet and
+adornment which Doggie had left behind at home. There were pots of
+<a name="pomade_text" id="pomade_text"></a><a href="#pomade" class="fnanchor">v</a>pomade and face cream, and nail polish; bottles of hair-wash and
+tooth-wash; half a dozen gleaming razors; the array of brushes and combs
+and <a name="manicure_text" id="manicure_text"></a><a href="#manicure" class="fnanchor">v</a>manicure set in <a name="tortoise_text" id="tortoise_text"></a><a href="#tortoise" class="fnanchor">v</a>tortoise-shell with his crest in silver;
+bottles of scent; the purple silk dressing-gown; a soft-fronted shirt
+fitted with ruby and diamond sleeve-links; the dinner jacket and suit
+laid out on the glass-topped table, with tie and handkerchief; the silk
+socks, the glossy pumps.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;My, Peddle!&#8221; cried Doggie, scratching his closely-cropped head. &#8220;What&#8217;s
+all this?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Peddle, gray, bent, uncomprehending, regarded him blankly.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;All what, sir?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I only want to wash my hands,&#8221; said Doggie.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;But aren&#8217;t you going to dress for dinner, sir?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;A private soldier&#8217;s not allowed to wear <a name="mufti_text" id="mufti_text"></a><a href="#mufti" class="fnanchor">v</a>mufti,&#8221; returned Doggie.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Who&#8217;s to find out?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;There&#8217;s Mr. Oliver; he&#8217;s a major.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Ah, Mr. Marmaduke, he wouldn&#8217;t mind. Miss Peggy gave me my orders, sir,
+and I think you can leave things to her.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;All right, Peddle,&#8221; laughed Doggie. &#8220;If it&#8217;s Miss Peggy&#8217;s decree, I&#8217;ll
+change my clothes. I have all I want.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_433" id="Page_433">[433]</a></span>&#8220;Are you sure you can manage, sir?&#8221; Peddle asked anxiously, for the time
+was when Doggie could not stick his legs into his trousers unless Peddle
+helped him.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Quite,&#8221; said Doggie.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;It seems rather roughing it, here at the Deanery, Mr. Marmaduke, after
+what you&#8217;ve been accustomed to at the Hall,&#8221; said Peddle.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;That&#8217;s so,&#8221; replied Doggie. &#8220;And it&#8217;s martyrdom compared to what it is
+in the trenches. There we always have a major-general to lace our boots
+and a field-marshall to hand us coffee.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Peddle looked blank, being utterly unable to comprehend the nature of a
+joke.</p>
+
+<p>A little later, when Doggie went downstairs to dinner, he found Peggy
+alone in the drawing-room.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Now you look more like a Christian gentleman,&#8221; she said. &#8220;Confess: it&#8217;s
+much more comfortable than your wretched private&#8217;s uniform.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I&#8217;m not quite so sure,&#8221; he replied, somewhat ruefully, indicating his
+dinner jacket, which was tightly constricted beneath the arms. &#8220;Already
+I&#8217;ve had to slit my waistcoat down the back. Poor old Peddle will have a
+fit when he sees it. I&#8217;ve grown a bit since these elegant rags were made
+for me.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Oliver came in&mdash;in khaki. Doggie jumped up and pointed to him.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Look here, Peggy,&#8221; he said; &#8220;I&#8217;ll be sent to the guard-room.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_434" id="Page_434">[434]</a></span>Oliver laughed. &#8220;I did change my uniform,&#8221; he said. &#8220;I don&#8217;t know where
+my dinner clothes are.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;That&#8217;s the best thing about being a major,&#8221; spoke up Doggie. &#8220;They have
+heaps of suits. Poor Tommy has but one suit to his name.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Then the Dean and his wife entered, and they went in to dinner. It was
+for Doggie the most pleasant of meals. He had the superbly healthy man&#8217;s
+whole-hearted appreciation for unaccustomed good food. There were other
+and finer pleasures&mdash;the table with its exquisite <a name="napery_text" id="napery_text"></a><a href="#napery" class="fnanchor">v</a>napery and china
+and glass and silver and flowers. There was the delightful atmosphere of
+peace and gentle living. And there was Oliver&mdash;a new Oliver.</p>
+
+<p>Most of all, Doggie appreciated Oliver&#8217;s comrade-like attitude. It was a
+recognition of him as a soldier. He had &#8220;made good&#8221; in the eyes of one
+of the finest soldiers in the British army, and what else mattered? To
+Doggie the supreme joy of that pleasurable evening was the knowledge
+that he had done well in the eyes of Oliver. The latter wore on his
+tunic the white, mauve, and white ribbon of the Military Cross. Honor
+where honor was due. But he&mdash;Doggie&mdash;had been wounded, and Oliver
+frankly put them both on the same plane of achievement, thus wiping away
+with generous hand all the hated memories of the past.</p>
+
+<p>When the ladies left the room the Dean went with them, and the cousins
+were left alone.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_435" id="Page_435">[435]</a></span>&#8220;And now,&#8221; said Oliver, &#8220;don&#8217;t you think you&#8217;re a bit of a fool,
+Doggie?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I know it,&#8221; Doggie returned cheerfully. &#8220;The army has drummed that into
+me at any rate.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I mean in staying in the ranks,&#8221; Oliver went on. &#8220;Why don&#8217;t you apply
+for the Cadet Corps and get a commission again?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Doggie&#8217;s brow grew dark. &#8220;I will tell you,&#8221; he replied. &#8220;The only real
+happiness I&#8217;ve had in my life has been as a Tommy. I&#8217;m not talking
+foolishness. The only real friends I&#8217;ve ever made in my life are
+Tommies. I&#8217;ve a real life as a Tommy, and I&#8217;m satisfied. When I came to
+my senses after being thrown out for incompetence and I enlisted, I made
+a vow that I would stick it out as a Tommy without anybody&#8217;s sympathy,
+least of all that of the people here. And as a Tommy I am a real soldier
+and do my part.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Oliver smiled. &#8220;I&#8217;m glad you told me, old man. I appreciate it very
+much. I&#8217;ve been through the ranks myself and know what it is&mdash;the bad
+and the good. Many a man has found his soul that way&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Heavens!&#8221; cried Doggie, starting to his feet. &#8220;Do you say that, too?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>The cousins clasped hands. That was Oliver&#8217;s final recognition of Doggie
+as a soldier and a man. Doggie had found his soul.</p>
+
+<p class="right"><span class="smcap">W. J. Locke</span>.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_436" id="Page_436">[436]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2 class="chapterhead"><a name="IN_FLANDERS_FIELD" id="IN_FLANDERS_FIELD"></a>IN FLANDERS FIELD</h2>
+
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">In Flanders fields, the poppies blow<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Between the crosses, row on row,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That mark our places. In the sky<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The larks, still bravely singing, fly,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Scarce heard amid the guns below.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">We are the dead. Short days ago<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Loved and were loved, and now we lie<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">In Flanders fields.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Take up our quarrel with the foe!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To you, from failing hands, we throw<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The torch. Be yours to lift it high!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">If ye break faith with us who die,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">We shall not sleep, though poppies blow<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">In Flanders fields.<br /></span>
+<span class="i10 smcap">John McCrae.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+
+<h2 class="chapterhead"><a name="IN_FLANDERS_FIELD2" id="IN_FLANDERS_FIELD2"></a>IN FLANDERS FIELD</h2>
+
+<p class="titlepage">(AN ANSWER)</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">In Flanders fields, the cannon boom<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And fitful flashes light the gloom,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">While up above, like eagles, fly<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The fierce destroyers of the sky;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With stains the earth wherein you lie<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Is redder than the poppy bloom,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">In Flanders fields.<br /></span>
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_437" id="Page_437">[437]</a></span></div></div>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Sleep on, ye brave. The shrieking shell,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The quaking trench, the startled yell,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The fury of the battle hell<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Shall wake you not, for all is well.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Sleep peacefully, for all is well.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Your flaming torch aloft we bear,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With burning heart an oath we swear<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To keep the faith, to fight it through,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To crush the foe or sleep with you<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">In Flanders fields.<br /></span>
+<span class="i8 smcap">C. B. Galbraith.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+
+<h2 class="chapterhead"><a name="A_BALLAD_OF_HEROES" id="A_BALLAD_OF_HEROES"></a>A BALLAD OF HEROES</h2>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Because you passed, and now are not,&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Because in some remoter day<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Your sacred dust from doubtful spot<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Was blown of ancient airs away,&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Because you perished,&mdash;must men say<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Your deeds were naught, and so profane<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Your lives with that cold burden? Nay,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The deeds you wrought are not in vain!<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Though, it may be above the plot<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">That hid your once imperial clay,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">No greener than o&#8217;er men forgot<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The unregarded grasses sway,&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Though there no sweeter is the lay<br /></span>
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_438" id="Page_438">[438]</a></span><span class="i0">From careless bird,&mdash;though you remain<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Without distinction of decay,&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The deeds you wrought are not in vain!<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">No. For while yet in tower or cot<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Your story stirs the pulse&#8217;s play;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And men forget the sordid lot&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The sordid care, of cities gray;&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">While yet, beset in homelier fray,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">They learn from you the lesson plain<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">That life may go, so Honor stay,&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The deeds you wrought are not in vain!<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i6 smcap">Envoy<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Heroes of old! I humbly lay<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The laurel on your graves again;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Whatever men have done, men may,&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">The deeds you wrought are not in vain!<br /></span>
+<span class="i10 smcap">Austin Dobson.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_439" id="Page_439">[439]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2 class="chapterhead"><a name="DICTIONARY" id="DICTIONARY"></a>DICTIONARY</h2>
+
+<ul class="vocab">
+  <li><a href="#abyss_text"><span class="back">back</span></a>  <a name="abyss" id="abyss"></a><b>a byss´</b>: a deep gulf.</li>
+  <li><a href="#acme_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="acme" id="acme"></a><b>ac´ me</b>: height.</li>
+  <li><a href="#acrobatics_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="acrobatics" id="acrobatics"></a><b>ac ro bat´ ics</b>: gymnastics; athletic exercises.</li>
+  <li><a href="#adage_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="adage" id="adage"></a><b>ad´ age</b>: saying; proverb.</li>
+  <li><a href="#aerial_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="aerial" id="aerial"></a><b>a eri al</b>: airy.</li>
+  <li><a href="#alacrity_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="alacrity" id="alacrity"></a><b>a lac´ ri ty</b>: eagerness; spryness.</li>
+  <li><a href="#alderman_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="alderman" id="alderman"></a><b>al´ der man</b>: here, a Saxon nobleman.</li>
+  <li><a href="#algae_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="algae" id="algae"></a><b>al´ g&aelig;</b>: seaweeds.</li>
+  <li><a href="#alternative_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="alternative" id="alternative"></a><b>al ter´ na tive</b>: a second choice.</li>
+  <li><a href="#Amatikita_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="Amatikita" id="Amatikita"></a><b>A´ ma ti ki´ ta</b>: an Esquimau.</li>
+  <li><a href="#amicably_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="amicably" id="amicably"></a><b>am´ i ca bly ad just´ ed</b>: arranged peacefully.</li>
+  <li><a href="#amphitheater_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="amphitheater" id="amphitheater"></a><b>am´ phi the a ter</b>: a circular building with tiers of seats arranged
+around an open space.</li>
+  <li><a href="#anchorite_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="anchorite" id="anchorite"></a><b>an´ chor ite</b>: a hermit.</li>
+  <li><a href="#annals_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="annals" id="annals"></a><b>an´ nals</b>: records.</li>
+  <li><a href="#aped_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="aped" id="aped"></a><b>aped</b>: imitated.</li>
+  <li><a href="#apertif_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="apertif" id="apertif"></a><b>ap er tif´</b> (teef): an appetizer.</li>
+  <li><a href="#aperture_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a href="#aperture_text2"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="aperture" id="aperture"></a><b>ap´ er ture</b>: opening.</li>
+  <li><a href="#Appalachian_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="Appalachian" id="Appalachian"></a><b>Ap´ pa lach´ ian</b>: a chain of mountains in the eastern United States.</li>
+  <li><a href="#apprehensions_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="apprehensions" id="apprehensions"></a><b>ap pre hen´ sions</b>: fears.</li>
+  <li><a href="#aquatic_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="aquatic" id="aquatic"></a><b>a quat´ ic</b>: of the water.</li>
+  <li><a href="#arcade_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="arcade" id="arcade"></a><b>ar cade´</b>: an arched gallery.</li>
+  <li><a href="#articulate_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="articulate" id="articulate"></a><b>ar tic´ u late</b>: in regular words.</li>
+  <li><a href="#atmosphere_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="atmosphere" id="atmosphere"></a><b>at´ mos phere</b>: air pressure at sea level used as a unit.</li>
+  <li><a href="#aurora_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a href="#aurora_text2"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="aurora" id="aurora"></a><b>au ro´ ra</b>: the Northern Lights, the red glow in the sky in the Far North.</li>
+  <li><a href="#austerity_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="austerity" id="austerity"></a><b>aus ter´ i ty</b>: soberness; sternness.</li>
+  <li><a href="#avaricious_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="avaricious" id="avaricious"></a><b>av a ri´ cious</b> (rish us): greedy of gain.</li>
+</ul>
+
+<ul class="vocab">
+  <li><a href="#Ballindrochater_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="Ballindrochater" id="Ballindrochater"></a><b>Bal lin droch´ a ter</b>: a Scotch village.</li>
+  <li><a href="#banditti_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="banditti" id="banditti"></a><b>ban dit´ ti</b>: outlaws; bandits.</li>
+  <li><a href="#barbican_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="barbican" id="barbican"></a><b>bar´ bi can</b>: a tower over a gate or bridge.</li>
+  <li><a href="#barograph_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="barograph" id="barograph"></a><b>bar´ o graph</b>: an instrument for recording changes in the atmosphere.</li>
+  <li><a href="#barometer_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="barometer" id="barometer"></a><b>ba rom´ e ter</b>: an instrument that determines the weight of the air, and
+thereby foretells changes in the weather.</li>
+  <li><a href="#barouche_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="barouche" id="barouche"></a><b>ba rouche´</b>: a low, open carriage.</li>
+  <li><a href="#bauble_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="bauble" id="bauble"></a><b>bau´ ble</b>: a wand carried by jesters.</li>
+  <li><a href="#Beauseant_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="Beauseant" id="Beauseant"></a><b>Beau seant</b> (bo sa on´): &#8220;Well-seeming,&#8221; an ancient French war cry.</li>
+  <li><a href="#benignant_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="benignant" id="benignant"></a><b>be nig´ nant</b>: kind; helpful.</li>
+  <li><a href="#biggin_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="biggin" id="biggin"></a><b>big´ gin</b>: a child&#8217;s cap.</li>
+  <li><a href="#Bois_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="Bois" id="Bois"></a><b>Bois-Guil bert</b> (bwa guel bare´): a knight of the Order of the Temple.</li>
+  <li><a href="#bonus_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="bonus" id="bonus"></a><b>bo´ nus</b>: an extra payment not included in wages.</li>
+  <li><a href="#brake_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="brake" id="brake"></a><b>brake</b>: a thicket.</li>
+  <li><a href="#breviary_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="breviary" id="breviary"></a><b>bre´ vi a ry</b>: a book containing a church service.</li>
+  <li><a href="#brown_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="brown-bill" id="brown-bill"></a><b>brown-bill</b>: a weapon consisting of a long staff with a hook-shaped blade
+at the top.</li>
+  <li><a href="#buffoonery_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="buffoonery" id="buffoonery"></a><b>buf foon´ er y</b>: jesting; clownishness.</li>
+  <li><a href="#bunsen_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="bunsen" id="bunsen"></a><b>bun´ sen pile</b>: an electric cell containing zinc covered with sulphuric
+acid at one end, and carbon surrounded by nitric acid at the other.</li>
+  <li><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_440" id="Page_440">[440]</a></span>
+  <a href="#buoyed_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="buoyed" id="buoyed"></a><b>buoyed</b> (booed): kept up; supported.</li>
+  <li><a href="#burlesque_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="burlesque" id="burlesque"></a><b>bur lesque´</b> (lesk): humorous; not serious.</li>
+  <li><a href="#byzant_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="byzant" id="byzant"></a><b>byz´ ant</b>: a large gold coin.</li>
+</ul>
+
+<ul class="vocab">
+  <li><a href="#calumniator_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="calumniator" id="calumniator"></a><b>ca lum´ ni a tor</b>: a slanderer.</li>
+  <li><a href="#carbon_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="carbon" id="carbon"></a><b>car´ bon</b>: one of the chemical elements; charcoal is its best known form.</li>
+  <li><a href="#cardinal_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="cardinal" id="cardinal"></a><b>car´ di nal</b>: a priest of high rank who wears a small red cap.</li>
+  <li><a href="#carrion_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="carrion" id="carrion"></a><b>car´ ri on</b>: decaying flesh.</li>
+  <li><a href="#cartel_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="cartel" id="cartel"></a><b>car´ tel</b>: a defiance; a challenge.</li>
+  <li><a href="#casque_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="casque" id="casque"></a><b>casque</b> (cask): helmet.</li>
+  <li><a href="#cassock_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="cassock" id="cassock"></a><b>cas´ sock</b>: a close-fitting garment resembling a modern coat.</li>
+  <li><a href="#catherinewheel_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="catherinewheel" id="catherinewheel"></a><b>catherine wheel</b>: a firework that turns around when lighted, throwing off
+a circle of sparks.</li>
+  <li><a href="#celerity_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="celerity" id="celerity"></a><b>ce ler´ i ty</b>: quickness; promptness.</li>
+  <li><a href="#cellar_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="cellar" id="cellar"></a><b>cel´ lar</b>: here, a wine-cellar.</li>
+  <li><a href="#cheval_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="cheval" id="cheval"></a><b>che val-glass</b> (she´ val): a large mirror swinging in a frame.</li>
+  <li><a href="#Chilhowee_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="Chilhowee" id="Chilhowee"></a><b>Chil how´ ee</b>: a high mountain in east Tennessee.</li>
+  <li><a href="#chivalrous_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="chivalrous" id="chivalrous"></a><b>chiv´ al rous</b>: knightly; warlike.</li>
+  <li><a href="#churls_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="churls" id="churls"></a><b>churls</b>: low, rude persons.</li>
+  <li><a href="#circuit_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="circuit" id="circuit"></a><b>circuit-rider</b>: a preacher who ministers to a number of churches.</li>
+  <li><a href="#clothyard_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="clothyard" id="clothyard"></a><b>cloth-yard</b>: a yard in length.</li>
+  <li><a href="#colloquy_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="colloquy" id="colloquy"></a><b>col´ lo quy</b>: a discussion.</li>
+  <li><a href="#compunction_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="compunction" id="compunction"></a><b>com punc´ tion</b>: remorse; repentance.</li>
+  <li><a href="#conical_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="conical" id="conical"></a><b>cone</b>: a body tapering to a point.</li>
+  <li><a href="#conningtower_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="conningtower" id="conningtower"></a><b>con´ ning tower</b>: a raised part of a vessel giving an outlook on the sea.</li>
+  <li><a href="#constrained_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="constrained" id="constrained"></a><b>con strained´</b>: restricted; unfree.</li>
+  <li><a href="#convalescence_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="convalescence" id="convalescence"></a><b>con´ va les´ cence</b>: period of recovery.</li>
+  <li><a href="#convergent_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="convergent" id="convergent"></a><b>con ver´ gent</b>: coming nearly together.</li>
+  <li><a href="#cope_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="cope" id="cope"></a><b>cope</b>: a long robe.</li>
+  <li><a href="#copiously_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="copiously" id="copiously"></a><b>co´ pi ous ly</b>: plentifully.</li>
+  <li><a href="#cordage_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="cordage" id="cordage"></a><b>cord´ age</b>: the ropes on a ship.</li>
+  <li><a href="#Cordovan_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="Cordovan" id="Cordovan"></a><b>Cor´ do van</b>: made in Cordova, a Spanish city.</li>
+  <li><a href="#cor_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="cor" id="cor"></a><b>cor me´ um e rue ta´ vit</b>: &#8220;the heart of me burst forth.&#8221;</li>
+  <li><a href="#corroborated_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="corroborated" id="corroborated"></a><b>cor rob´ o ra ted</b>: confirmed; agreed with.</li>
+  <li><a href="#corrosive_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="corrosive" id="corrosive"></a><b>cor ro´ sive sub´ li mate</b>: a substance containing mercury and useful for
+cleaning wounds.</li>
+  <li><a href="#counterpoise_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="counterpoise" id="counterpoise"></a><b>coun´ ter-poise</b>: a weight used to pull up the drawbridge.</li>
+  <li><a href="#cowl_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="cowl" id="cowl"></a><b>cowl</b>: a monk&#8217;s hood.</li>
+  <li><a href="#coxcomb_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="coxcomb" id="coxcomb"></a><b>cox´ comb</b>: a piece of red cloth worn by jesters on their caps.</li>
+  <li><a href="#crestfallen_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="crestfallen" id="crestfallen"></a><b>crest fall´ en</b>: humiliated; humbled.</li>
+  <li><a href="#crevice_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="crevice" id="crevice"></a><b>crev´ ice</b>: hole; opening.</li>
+  <li><a href="#crisis_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="crisis" id="crisis"></a><b>cri´ sis</b>: critical period.</li>
+  <li><a href="#croup_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="croup" id="croup"></a><b>croup</b>: the space behind the saddle.</li>
+  <li><a href="#curtailing_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="curtailing" id="curtailing"></a><b>cur tail´ ing</b>: cutting down.</li>
+  <li><a href="#cutlery_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="cutlery" id="cutlery"></a><b>cut´ lery</b>: knives and forks.</li>
+  <li><a href="#cylinder_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="cylinder" id="cylinder"></a><b>cyl´ in der</b>: a part of machinery, like a piston, longer than broad and
+with a round surface.</li>
+  <li><a href="#cylindrical_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="cylindrical" id="cylindrical"></a><b>cy lin´ dri cal</b>: shaped like a cylinder, that is, long but with a round
+surface, as a lead pencil.</li>
+</ul>
+
+<ul class="vocab">
+  <li><a href="#decency_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="decency" id="decency"></a><b>decency</b>: here, a good appearance.</li>
+  <li><a href="#deceptive_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="deceptive" id="deceptive"></a><b>de cep´ tive</b>: misleading.</li>
+  <li><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_441" id="Page_441">[441]</a></span>
+  <a href="#depredation_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="depredation" id="depredation"></a><b>dep re da´ tion</b>: theft; despoiling.</li>
+  <li><a href="#deprofundis_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="deprofundis" id="deprofundis"></a><b>De pro fun´ dis cla ma´ vi</b>: &#8220;I cried from the depths,&#8221; a Latin psalm.</li>
+  <li><a href="#diffidence_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="diffidence" id="diffidence"></a><b>dif´ fi dence</b>: shyness.</li>
+  <li><a href="#dilatoriness_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="dilatoriness" id="dilatoriness"></a><b>dil´ a to´ ri ness</b>: slowness; delay.</li>
+  <li><a href="#dilatory_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="dilatory" id="dilatory"></a><b>dil´ a to ry</b>: slow.</li>
+  <li><a href="#dilemma_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="dilemma" id="dilemma"></a><b>di lem´ ma</b>: difficulty.</li>
+  <li><a href="#discerned_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="discerned" id="discerned"></a><b>dis cerned´</b>: saw; understood.</li>
+  <li><a href="#disconsolately_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="disconsolately" id="disconsolately"></a><b>dis con´ so late ly</b>: unhappily.</li>
+  <li><a href="#distilling_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="distilling" id="distilling"></a><b>dis til´ ling</b>: for condensing sweet water from sea water.</li>
+  <li><a href="#dlink_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="dlink" id="dlink"></a><b>dlink</b>: drink, in broken English.</li>
+  <li><a href="#doit_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="doit" id="doit"></a><b>doit</b>: a coin of small value.</li>
+  <li><a href="#domestic_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="domestic" id="domestic"></a><b>do mes´ tic</b>: of the home.</li>
+  <li><a href="#Dominie_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="Dominie" id="Dominie"></a><b>Dom´ i nie</b>: a name sometimes given clergymen or schoolmasters.</li>
+  <li><a href="#doublet_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="doublet" id="doublet"></a><b>doub´ let</b>: a garment covering the body from neck to waist.</li>
+  <li><a href="#doughty_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="doughty" id="doughty"></a><b>dough ty</b> (dou´ ty): valiant; useful.</li>
+  <li><a href="#drag_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="drag" id="drag"></a><b>drag</b>: the scent of a fox.</li>
+  <li><a href="#dross_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="dross" id="dross"></a><b>dross</b>: money spoken of contemptuously, as something of no account.</li>
+  <li><a href="#Dryad_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="Dryad" id="Dryad"></a><b>Dry´ ad</b>: a wood nymph.</li>
+  <li><a href="#duenna_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="duenna" id="duenna"></a><b>du en´ na</b>: chaperon.</li>
+  <li><a href="#dun_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="dun" id="dun"></a><b>dun</b>: brownish.</li>
+  <li><a href="#Dundee_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="Dundee" id="Dundee"></a><b>Dun dee´</b>: a Scotch seaport.</li>
+</ul>
+
+<ul class="vocab">
+  <li><a href="#eclipse_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="eclipse" id="eclipse"></a><b>e clipse´</b>: darkening; obscuring.</li>
+  <li><a href="#effeminate_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="effeminate" id="effeminate"></a><b>ef fem´ i nate</b>: womanish.</li>
+  <li><a href="#electrometer_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="electrometer" id="electrometer"></a><b>e lec trom´ e ter</b>: an instrument which indicates the presence of
+electricity.</li>
+  <li><a href="#emanation_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="emanation" id="emanation"></a><b>em a na´ tion</b>: a flowing forth.</li>
+  <li><a href="#embellish_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="embellish" id="embellish"></a><b>em bel´ lish</b>: ornament; touch up.</li>
+  <li><a href="#emulate_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="emulate" id="emulate"></a><b>em´ u late</b>: rival.</li>
+  <li><a href="#equine_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="equine" id="equine"></a><b>e´ quine</b>: pertaining to a horse.</li>
+  <li><a href="#Eshcol_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="Eshcol" id="Eshcol"></a><b>Esh´ col</b>: a scene in the Bible.</li>
+  <li><a href="#exhalation_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="exhalation" id="exhalation"></a><b>ex ha la´ tion</b>: fumes; vapor.</li>
+  <li><a href="#exhilarated_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="exhilarated" id="exhilarated"></a><b>ex hil´ a ra ted</b>: lifted up; greatly pleased.</li>
+  <li><a href="#exigence_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="exigence" id="exigence"></a><b>ex´ i gence</b>: emergency.</li>
+  <li><a href="#exorbitant_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="exorbitant" id="exorbitant"></a><b>ex or´ bi tant</b>: unreasonable; excessive.</li>
+  <li><a href="#expostulated_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="expostulated" id="expostulated"></a><b>ex pos´ tu la ted</b>: protested.</li>
+</ul>
+
+<ul class="vocab">
+  <li><a href="#fathom_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="fathom" id="fathom"></a><b>fath´ om</b>: a measure six feet in length.</li>
+  <li><a href="#ferrule_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="ferrule" id="ferrule"></a><b>fer´ rule</b>: the piece at the end of a parasol or umbrella.</li>
+  <li><a href="#feudal_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="feudal" id="feudal"></a><b>feu´ dal</b>: relating to a lord of the Middle Ages.</li>
+  <li><a href="#fidelity_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="fidelity" id="fidelity"></a><b>fi del´ i ty</b>: faithfulness.</li>
+  <li><a href="#filial_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="filial" id="filial"></a><b>fil´ ial</b> (yal): due from a child to a parent.</li>
+  <li><a href="#first_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="first" id="first"></a><b>first mag´ ni tude</b>: largest size; most importance.</li>
+  <li><a href="#floe_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="floe" id="floe"></a><b>floe</b>: the ocean frozen into an ice-field.</li>
+  <li><a href="#fortalice_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="fortalice" id="fortalice"></a><b>fort´ a lice</b>: a small fortress.</li>
+  <li><a href="#franklin_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="franklin" id="franklin"></a><b>frank´ lin</b>: a Saxon gentleman.</li>
+  <li><a href="#Front_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="Front" id="Front"></a><b>Front-de-Boeuf</b> (front de beuf´): a Norman baron.</li>
+</ul>
+
+<ul class="vocab">
+  <li><a href="#gabbro_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="gabbro" id="gabbro"></a><b>gab´ bro</b>: a kind of limestone rock.</li>
+  <li><a href="#galliard_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="galliard" id="galliard"></a><b>gal´ liard</b> (yard): a gallant, valiant man.</li>
+  <li><a href="#gear_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="gear" id="gear"></a><b>gear</b>: affair; concern.</li>
+  <li><a href="#genii_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="genii" id="genii"></a><b>ge´ ni i</b> (e): spirits.</li>
+  <li><a href="#genre_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="genre" id="genre"></a><b>gen re</b> (zhan´ r): dealing with everyday life.</li>
+  <li><a href="#genteelly_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="genteelly" id="genteelly"></a><b>gen teel´ ly</b>: like gentlefolk; properly.</li>
+  <li><a href="#geological_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="geological" id="geological"></a><b>ge´ o log´ i cal</b>: relating to the substance of the earth.</li>
+  <li><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_442" id="Page_442">[442]</a></span>
+  <a href="#glaive_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="glaive" id="glaive"></a><b>glaive</b>: a weapon resembling an ax.</li>
+  <li><a href="#gramercy_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="gramercy" id="gramercy"></a><b>gra mer´ cy</b>: thanks.</li>
+  <li><a href="#gratuitous_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="gratuitous" id="gratuitous"></a><b>gra tu´ i tous</b>: useless; unnecessary.</li>
+  <li><a href="#gravitation_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="gravitation" id="gravitation"></a><b>grav´ i ta´ tion</b>: the attraction of great bodies, such as the earth, for
+other bodies.</li>
+  <li><a href="#grenade_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="grenade" id="grenade"></a><b>gren ade´</b>: a small bomb.</li>
+  <li><a href="#grotesque_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a href="#grotesque_text2"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="grotesque" id="grotesque"></a><b>gro tesque´</b> (tesk): absurd; unsightly.</li>
+  <li><a href="#gyves_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="gyves" id="gyves"></a><b>gyves</b> (jives): fetters; irons.</li>
+</ul>
+
+<ul class="vocab">
+  <li><a href="#hatchway_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="hatchway" id="hatchway"></a><b>hatch´ way</b>: an opening in a deck.</li>
+  <li><a href="#Henricus_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="Henricus" id="Henricus"></a><b>Hen´ ri cus</b>: a settlement on the James river some distance above Jamestown.</li>
+  <li><a href="#hermetically_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="hermetically" id="hermetically"></a><b>her met´ i cal ly</b>: tightly; impenetrably.</li>
+  <li><a href="#hilariously_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="hilariously" id="hilariously"></a><b>hi la´ ri ously</b>: uproariously.</li>
+  <li><a href="#horizontal_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="horizontal" id="horizontal"></a><b>hor´ i zon´ tal</b>: on a level with the ground.</li>
+  <li><a href="#hummock_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="hummock" id="hummock"></a><b>hum´ mock</b>: a knoll, or hillock.</li>
+  <li><a href="#hydroplane_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="hydroplane" id="hydroplane"></a><b>hy´ dro plane</b>: an aeroplane which also moves on the water.</li>
+</ul>
+
+<ul class="vocab">
+  <li><a href="#illustrious_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="illustrious" id="illustrious"></a><b>il lus´ tri ous</b>: distinguished; noted.</li>
+  <li><a href="#imported_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="imported" id="imported"></a><b>im port´ ed</b>: brought in from without.</li>
+  <li><a href="#impervious_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="impervious" id="impervious"></a><b>im per´ vi ous</b>: impenetrable; not to be pierced.</li>
+  <li><a href="#inconceivable_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="inconceivable" id="inconceivable"></a><b>in´ con ceiv´ a ble</b>: beyond the understanding.</li>
+  <li><a href="#ineffable_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="ineffable" id="ineffable"></a><b>in ef´ fa ble</b>: very great; beyond measure.</li>
+  <li><a href="#ineffectual_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="ineffectual" id="ineffectual"></a><b>in´ ef fec´ tu al</b>: unavailing; without effect.</li>
+  <li><a href="#inexplicably_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="inexplicably" id="inexplicably"></a><b>in ex´ pli ca bly</b>: not to be explained.</li>
+  <li><a href="#infallibly_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="infallibly" id="infallibly"></a><b>in fal´ li bly</b>: unerringly.</li>
+  <li><a href="#infinite_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="infinite" id="infinite"></a><b>in´ fin ite</b> (it): immeasurable.</li>
+  <li><a href="#initiative_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="initiative" id="initiative"></a><b>in i ti a tive</b> (in ish´ i a tive): an act which begins something.</li>
+  <li><a href="#Innuit_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="Innuit" id="Innuit"></a><b>In´ nu it</b>: an American Esquimau.</li>
+  <li><a href="#intermittent_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="intermittent" id="intermittent"></a><b>in ter mit´ tent</b>: unsteady; not regular.</li>
+  <li><a href="#invincible_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="invincible" id="invincible"></a><b>in vin´ ci ble</b>: not to be conquered.</li>
+  <li><a href="#inviolate_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="inviolate" id="inviolate"></a><b>in vi´ o late</b>: unbroken; undefiled.</li>
+</ul>
+
+<ul class="vocab">
+  <li><a href="#javelin_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="javelin" id="javelin"></a><b>jave´ lin</b> (jav): a short spear used for throwing.</li>
+  <li><a href="#jocularity_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="jocularity" id="jocularity"></a><b>joc´ u lar´ i ty</b>: mirth.</li>
+  <li><a href="#jocund_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="jocund" id="jocund"></a><b>joc´ und</b>: merry; sportive.</li>
+  <li><a href="#Jove_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="Jove" id="Jove"></a><b>Jove</b>: the king of the gods; here, the chief person of the household.</li>
+  <li><a href="#junto_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="junto" id="junto"></a><b>jun´ to</b>: a group of men; a council.</li>
+</ul>
+
+<ul class="vocab">
+  <li><a href="#kaleidoscope_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a href="#kaleidoscope_text2"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="kaleidoscope" id="kaleidoscope"></a><b>ka lei´ do scope</b>: an instrument in which small pieces of colored glass
+slide about and form pleasing shapes.</li>
+  <li><a href="#Kiwassa_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="Kiwassa" id="Kiwassa"></a><b>Ki was´ sa</b>: a name for the Great Spirit, or God.</li>
+  <li><a href="#Knights_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="Knights" id="Knights"></a><b>Knights Templar</b>: an order of knights serving in Palestine and taking
+their name from a palace in Jerusalem called Solomon&#8217;s Temple.</li>
+</ul>
+
+<ul class="vocab">
+  <li><a href="#lagoons_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="lagoons" id="lagoons"></a><b>la goons</b>: lakes connecting with the sea.</li>
+  <li><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_443" id="Page_443">[443]</a></span>
+  <a href="#lamort_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="lamort" id="lamort"></a><b>La Mort</b> (mor): &#8220;Death,&#8221; sounded on a horn when the game is killed.</li>
+  <li><a href="#latent_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a href="#latent_text2"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="latent" id="latent"></a><b>la´ tent</b>: hidden; not revealed; also, in preparation.</li>
+  <li><a href="#legbail_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="legbail" id="legbail"></a><b>leg-bail</b>: escape by flight.</li>
+  <li><a href="#Leyden_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="Leyden" id="Leyden"></a><b>Ley´ den jar</b>: a glass bottle used to accumulate electricity.</li>
+  <li><a href="#logarithmic_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="logarithmic" id="logarithmic"></a><b>log´ a rith´ mic tables</b>: mathematical tables used to calculate a ship&#8217;s
+position.</li>
+  <li><a href="#Long_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="Long" id="Long"></a><b>Long House</b>: a name for the Iroquois Indians, derived from their long
+communal houses.</li>
+  <li><a href="#longitude_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="longitude" id="longitude"></a><b>lon´ gi tude</b>: distance on the earth&#8217;s surface from east to west.</li>
+  <li><a href="#luminary_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="luminary" id="luminary"></a><b>lu´ mi na ry</b>: a body that gives light.</li>
+</ul>
+
+<ul class="vocab">
+  <li><a href="#Mabellemere_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="Mabellemere" id="Mabellemere"></a><b>Ma belle mere</b> (mare): &#8220;My pretty mother.&#8221;</li>
+  <li><a href="#Magians_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="Magians" id="Magians"></a><b>Ma´ gi ans</b>: wise men of ancient Persia.</li>
+  <li><a href="#malady_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="malady" id="malady"></a><b>mal´ a dy</b>: disease.</li>
+  <li><a href="#Malvoisin_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="Malvoisin" id="Malvoisin"></a><b>Mal voi sin</b> (mal vwa zan´): a Norman baron.</li>
+  <li><a href="#manicure_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="manicure" id="manicure"></a><b>man´ i cure set</b>: instruments used on the finger nails.</li>
+  <li><a href="#mantelet_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="mantelet" id="mantelet"></a><b>man´ tel et</b>: a movable shelter of wood.</li>
+  <li><a href="#marauders_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="marauders" id="marauders"></a><b>ma rau´ ders</b>: robbers.</li>
+  <li><a href="#mari_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="mari" id="mari"></a><b>mar´ i</b>: husband.</li>
+  <li><a href="#masque_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="masque" id="masque"></a><b>masque</b> (mask): a kind of theatrical performance.</li>
+  <li><a href="#masquerading_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="masquerading" id="masquerading"></a><b>mas´ que rad´ ing</b>: going in disguise.</li>
+  <li><a href="#maternal_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="maternal" id="maternal"></a><b>ma ter´ nal</b>: motherly.</li>
+  <li><a href="#matins_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="matins" id="matins"></a><b>mat´ ins</b>: a morning service of the ancient church.</li>
+  <li><a href="#mercenary_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="mercenary" id="mercenary"></a><b>mer´ ce na ry</b>: a hired soldier; a hireling.</li>
+  <li><a href="#mercury_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="mercury" id="mercury"></a><b>mer´ cu ry</b>: quicksilver, used in the thermometer.</li>
+  <li><a href="#metallic_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="metallic" id="metallic"></a><b>me tal´ lic</b>: composed of metal.</li>
+  <li><a href="#Michaelmas_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="Michaelmas" id="Michaelmas"></a><b>Michael mas eve</b> (mick´ el mas): September 28.</li>
+  <li><a href="#Midas_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="Midas" id="Midas"></a><b>Mi´ das</b>: a king in Greek myth whose touch turned everything to gold.</li>
+  <li><a href="#modification_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="modification" id="modification"></a><b>mod´ i fi ca´ tion</b>: change.</li>
+  <li><a href="#Monacans_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="Monacans" id="Monacans"></a><b>Mon´ a cans</b>: an Indian tribe originally living west of Richmond, Virginia.</li>
+  <li><a href="#monosyllable_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="monosyllable" id="monosyllable"></a><b>mon´ o syl´ la ble</b>: a single syllable.</li>
+  <li><a href="#Mort_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="Mort" id="Mort"></a><b>Mort pour la patrie</b>: &#8220;Dead for country.&#8221;</li>
+  <li><a href="#Mountjoy_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="Mountjoy" id="Mountjoy"></a><b>Mount joy St. Dennis</b> (den ny´): the war cry of ancient France.</li>
+  <li><a href="#mufti_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="mufti" id="mufti"></a><b>muf´ ti</b> (ty): ordinary clothes.</li>
+</ul>
+
+<ul class="vocab">
+  <li><a href="#nabob_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="nabob" id="nabob"></a><b>na bob</b>: a millionaire: a wealthy man from India.</li>
+  <li><a href="#napery_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="napery" id="napery"></a><b>na´ per y</b>: table linen.</li>
+  <li><a href="#Nazarene_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="Nazarene" id="Nazarene"></a><b>Naz´ a rene</b>: a name sometimes applied to Christians, from Jesus of
+Nazareth.</li>
+  <li><a href="#negotiating_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="negotiating" id="negotiating"></a><b>ne go´ ti a ting</b>: bargaining.</li>
+  <li><a href="#niche_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="niche" id="niche"></a><b>niche</b> (nitch): an opening in a wall.</li>
+  <li><a href="#nomen_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="nomen" id="nomen"></a><b>no´ men il´ lis le´ gi o</b>: &#8220;the name of them is legion.&#8221;</li>
+  <li><a href="#normal_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="normal" id="normal"></a><b>nor´ mal</b>: accustomed; usual.</li>
+  <li><a href="#nucleus_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="nucleus" id="nucleus"></a><b>nu´ cle us</b>: a central mass.</li>
+  <li><a href="#nutriment_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="nutriment" id="nutriment"></a><b>nu´ tri ment</b>: nourishment.</li>
+</ul>
+
+<ul class="vocab">
+  <li><a href="#obdurate_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="obdurate" id="obdurate"></a><b>ob´ du rate</b>: not to be moved.</li>
+  <li><a href="#obeisance_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="obeisance" id="obeisance"></a><b>o bei sance</b> (o ba´ sans): a bending of the body; a bow.</li>
+  <li><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_444" id="Page_444">[444]</a></span>
+  <a href="#oblique_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="oblique" id="oblique"></a><b>ob lique´</b> (leek): a slanting direction.</li>
+  <li><a href="#old_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="old" id="old"></a><b>old fields</b>: fields no longer cultivated.</li>
+  <li><a href="#opaline_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="opaline" id="opaline"></a><b>o´ pa line</b>: the color of opals; grayish-white.</li>
+  <li><a href="#Opechancanough_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="Opechancanough" id="Opechancanough"></a><b>O´ pe chan´ ca nough</b> (no): the leading Indian chief in Virginia in the
+early period.</li>
+  <li><a href="#option_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="option" id="option"></a><b>op´ tion</b>: choice.</li>
+  <li><a href="#opulence_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="opulence" id="opulence"></a><b>op´ u lence</b>: wealth.</li>
+  <li><a href="#order_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="order" id="order"></a><b>order</b>: a society of monks, with an organization and convents.</li>
+  <li><a href="#orientation_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="orientation" id="orientation"></a><b>o´ ri en ta tion</b>: adjustment.</li>
+  <li><a href="#ostensible_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="ostensible" id="ostensible"></a><b>os ten´ si ble</b>: apparent; professed.</li>
+</ul>
+
+<ul class="vocab">
+  <li><a href="#paduasoy_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="paduasoy" id="paduasoy"></a><b>pad´ u a soy´</b>: a rich, heavy silk.</li>
+  <li><a href="#Pamunkeys_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="Pamunkeys" id="Pamunkeys"></a><b>Pa mun´ keys</b>: an Indian tribe originally living along the Pamunkey and
+York rivers in Virginia.</li>
+  <li><a href="#pandemonium_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="pandemonium" id="pandemonium"></a><b>pan´ de mo´ ni um</b>: the place of devils; also, and usually, a riotous scene.</li>
+  <li><a href="#pannier_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="pannier" id="pannier"></a><b>pan´ nier</b> (yer): a wicker basket.</li>
+  <li><a href="#parley_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="parley" id="parley"></a><b>par´ ley</b>: talk; discussion.</li>
+  <li><a href="#Paspaheghs_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="Paspaheghs" id="Paspaheghs"></a><b>Pas´ pa heghs</b> (hays): an Indian tribe of Virginia.</li>
+  <li><a href="#patched_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="patched" id="patched"></a><b>patched</b>: adorned with small patches of black cloth.</li>
+  <li><a href="#pathos_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="pathos" id="pathos"></a><b>pa´ thos</b>: sadness.</li>
+  <li><a href="#pavisse_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="pavisse" id="pavisse"></a><b>pa visse´</b>: a large shield.</li>
+  <li><a href="#Paxvobiscum_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="Paxvobiscum" id="Paxvobiscum"></a><b>Pax´ vo bis´ cum</b>: &#8220;Peace be with you!&#8221;</li>
+  <li><a href="#pemmican_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="pemmican" id="pemmican"></a><b>pem´ mi can</b>: powdered meat pressed into cakes.</li>
+  <li><a href="#periscope_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="periscope" id="periscope"></a><b>per´ i scope</b>: an instrument projecting above a submarine which gives a
+view of the sea surface.</li>
+  <li><a href="#perpendicular_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="perpendicular" id="perpendicular"></a><b>per´ pen dic´ u lar</b>: straight up and down.</li>
+  <li><a href="#perpendicularity_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="perpendicularity" id="perpendicularity"></a><b>per´ pen dic´ u lar´ i ty</b>: straightness up and down.</li>
+  <li><a href="#petrified_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="petrified" id="petrified"></a><b>pet´ ri fied</b>: turned to stone.</li>
+  <li><a href="#philosophical_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="philosophical" id="philosophical"></a><b>phil´ o soph´ i cal</b>: wise; learned.</li>
+  <li><a href="#pillion_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="pillion" id="pillion"></a><b>pil´ lion</b> (yun): a cushion used by women in riding horseback.</li>
+  <li><a href="#pilote_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="pilote" id="pilote"></a><b>pi lote</b> (pe loat´): an aeroplane pilot.</li>
+  <li><a href="#pinnacle_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="pinnacle" id="pinnacle"></a><b>pin´ na cle</b>: summit.</li>
+  <li><a href="#pipe_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="pipe" id="pipe"></a><b>pipe</b>: a musical instrument resembling a flute.</li>
+  <li><a href="#plaintively_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="plaintively" id="plaintively"></a><b>plain´ tive ly</b>: complainingly.</li>
+  <li><a href="#planisphere_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="planisphere" id="planisphere"></a><b>plan´ i sphere</b>: the representation of the earth on a plane; a map of the
+world.</li>
+  <li><a href="#Pleiades_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="Pleiades" id="Pleiades"></a><b>Ple ia des</b> (ple´ ya dees): a group of six stars in the constellation
+Taurus.</li>
+  <li><a href="#pollute_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="pollute" id="pollute"></a><b>pol lute´</b>: to stain; to befoul.</li>
+  <li><a href="#pomade_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="pomade" id="pomade"></a><b>po made´</b>: a perfumed ointment.</li>
+  <li><a href="#pomatum_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="pomatum" id="pomatum"></a><b>po ma´ tum</b>: a perfumed ointment.</li>
+  <li><a href="#ponderable_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="ponderable" id="ponderable"></a><b>pon´ der a ble</b>: weighable; having heaviness.</li>
+  <li><a href="#ponderous_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="ponderous" id="ponderous"></a><b>pon´ der ous</b>: heavy; <a name="corr28" id="corr28"></a>unwieldy.</li>
+  <li><a href="#poniard_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="poniard" id="poniard"></a><b>pon´ iard</b> (yard): a dagger.</li>
+  <li><a href="#portents_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="portents" id="portents"></a><b>por´ tents</b>: signs; omens.</li>
+  <li><a href="#Powhatan_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="Powhatan" id="Powhatan"></a><b>Pow´ ha tan</b>: the James river; also the name of Opechancanough&#8217;s
+predecessor.</li>
+  <li><a href="#precarious_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="precarious" id="precarious"></a><b>pre ca´ ri ous</b>: uncertain; dangerous.</li>
+  <li><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_445" id="Page_445">[445]</a></span>
+  <a href="#preconception_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="preconception" id="preconception"></a><b>pre´ con cep´ tion</b>: a foreshadowing; an idea of something to come.</li>
+  <li><a href="#primeval_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="primeval" id="primeval"></a><b>pri me´ val</b>: original.</li>
+  <li><a href="#primitive_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="primitive" id="primitive"></a><b>prim´ i tive</b>: original; coming down from afar.</li>
+  <li><a href="#Procyon_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="Procyon" id="Procyon"></a><b>Pro´ cy on</b> (si): a first-magnitude star.</li>
+  <li><a href="#prodigious_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="prodigious" id="prodigious"></a><b>pro di gious</b> (pro dij´ us): immense.</li>
+  <li><a href="#projectile_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="projectile" id="projectile"></a><b>pro ject´ ile</b>: something projected with force, or fired.</li>
+  <li><a href="#purveyed_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="purveyed" id="purveyed"></a><b>pur veyed´</b>: brought.</li>
+</ul>
+
+<ul class="vocab">
+  <li><a href="#quarter_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="quarter" id="quarter"></a><b>quarter-staff</b>: a short pole, used as a walking-staff and a weapon.</li>
+</ul>
+
+<ul class="vocab">
+  <li><a href="#radius_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="radius" id="radius"></a><b>ra´ di us</b>: the distance from the center of a body to its surface.</li>
+  <li><a href="#raillery_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="raillery" id="raillery"></a><b>rail´ ler y</b>: jesting.</li>
+  <li><a href="#ransom_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="ransom" id="ransom"></a><b>ran´ som</b>: a sum paid for the release of a prisoner.</li>
+  <li><a href="#rarefaction_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="rarefaction" id="rarefaction"></a><b>rar´ e fac´ tion</b>: the making thin; less dense.</li>
+  <li><a href="#ratio_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="ratio" id="ratio"></a><b>ra´ ti o</b>: rate; measure.</li>
+  <li><a href="#reciprocated_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="reciprocated" id="reciprocated"></a><b>re cip´ ro ca ted</b>: returned.</li>
+  <li><a href="#recumbent_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="recumbent" id="recumbent"></a><b>re cum´ bent</b>: lying down.</li>
+  <li><a href="#refectory_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="refectory" id="refectory"></a><b>re fec´ to ry</b>: a dining-room in a convent.</li>
+  <li><a href="#refraction_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="refraction" id="refraction"></a><b>re frac´ tion</b>: the bending from a straight line which occurs when a ray
+of light passes out of the air into water.</li>
+  <li><a href="#regulator_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="regulator" id="regulator"></a><b>reg´ u la tor</b>: a contrivance for controlling motion.</li>
+  <li><a href="#remunerated_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="remunerated" id="remunerated"></a><b>re mu´ ner a ted</b>: rewarded; presented with.</li>
+  <li><a href="#renowned_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="renowned" id="renowned"></a><b>re nowned´</b>: famous.</li>
+  <li><a href="#replete_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="replete" id="replete"></a><b>re plete´</b>: filled.</li>
+  <li><a href="#reprobation_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="reprobation" id="reprobation"></a><b>rep´ ro ba´ tion</b>: condemnation; disapproval.</li>
+  <li><a href="#respirator_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="respirator" id="respirator"></a><b>res´ pi ra´ tor</b>: a device covering the mouth and nose and preventing the
+breathing of outside air.</li>
+  <li><a href="#retinue_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="retinue" id="retinue"></a><b>ret´ i nue</b>: a train of attendants.</li>
+  <li><a href="#reverberated_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="reverberated" id="reverberated"></a><b>re ver´ ber a ted</b>: reflected; echoed.</li>
+  <li><a href="#rime_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="rime" id="rime"></a><b>rime</b>: hoarfrost.</li>
+  <li><a href="#Rolfe_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="Rolfe" id="Rolfe"></a><b>Rolfe, John</b>: the first Englishman to plant tobacco in Virginia; the
+husband of Pocahontas.</li>
+  <li><a href="#rood_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="rood" id="rood"></a><b>rood</b>: cross.</li>
+  <li><a href="#rosary_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="rosary" id="rosary"></a><b>ro´ sa ry</b>: a string of beads used in counting prayers.</li>
+  <li><a href="#rubicund_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="rubicund" id="rubicund"></a><b>ru´ bi cund</b>: ruddy; red.</li>
+  <li><a href="#rucksack_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="rucksack" id="rucksack"></a><b>rucksack</b>: a napsack worn by Arctic travelers.</li>
+  <li><a href="#rueful_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="rueful" id="rueful"></a><b>rue´ ful</b>: sad; distressed.</li>
+  <li><a href="#ruffle_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="ruffle" id="ruffle"></a><b>ruffle</b>: a contest.</li>
+</ul>
+
+<ul class="vocab">
+  <li><a href="#sarcastically_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="sarcastically" id="sarcastically"></a><b>sar cas´ ti cal ly</b>: ironically; humorously.</li>
+  <li><a href="#satellite_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a href="#satellite_text2"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="satellite" id="satellite"></a><b>sat´ el lite</b>: an attendant; also, a body revolving around another, as
+the moon.</li>
+  <li><a href="#scar_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="scar" id="scar"></a><b>scar</b>: a cliff.</li>
+  <li><a href="#scientist_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="scientist" id="scientist"></a><b>sci´ en tist</b>: one learned in the natural sciences, as chemistry,
+physics, etc.</li>
+  <li><a href="#screen_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="screen" id="screen"></a><b>screen</b>: a surface on which the reflection from the periscope is thrown.</li>
+  <li><a href="#semblance_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="semblance" id="semblance"></a><b>sem´ blance</b>: likeness.</li>
+  <li><a href="#serf_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="serf" id="serf"></a><b>serf</b>: a kind of slave; an unfree laborer.</li>
+  <li><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_446" id="Page_446">[446]</a></span>
+  <a href="#sextant_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="sextant" id="sextant"></a><b>sex´ tant</b>: an instrument used to determine a ship&#8217;s position by
+observing the sun and other objects.</li>
+  <li><a href="#Shah_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="Shah" id="Shah"></a><b>Shah</b>: ruler; king.</li>
+  <li><a href="#shrift_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="shrift" id="shrift"></a><b>shrift</b>: confession made to a priest.</li>
+  <li><a href="#Shrovetide_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="Shrovetide" id="Shrovetide"></a><b>Shrovetide</b>: the days just before the beginning of Lent.</li>
+  <li><a href="#sibyl_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="sibyl" id="sibyl"></a><b>sib´ yl</b>: prophetess.</li>
+  <li><a href="#side_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="side" id="side"></a><b>side drift</b>: the drift of a vessel to one side or the other of a course.</li>
+  <li><a href="#silhouette_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="silhouette" id="silhouette"></a><b>sil hou ette</b> (sil oo et´): the black shadow of an object.</li>
+  <li><a href="#singularity_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="singularity" id="singularity"></a><b>sin´ gu lar´ i ty</b>: strangeness.</li>
+  <li><a href="#smock_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="smock" id="smock"></a><b>smock race</b>: a race in which the contestants are hampered by garments.</li>
+  <li><a href="#sliver_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="sliver" id="sliver"></a><b>sliv´ er</b>: a long splinter.</li>
+  <li><a href="#solace_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="solace" id="solace"></a><b>sol´ ace</b>: comfort.</li>
+  <li><a href="#sophisticated_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="sophisticated" id="sophisticated"></a><b>so phis´ ti ca ted</b>: experienced; worldly-wise.</li>
+  <li><a href="#spectral_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="spectral" id="spectral"></a><b>spec´ tral</b>: of graded colors.</li>
+  <li><a href="#spinet_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="spinet" id="spinet"></a><b>spin´ et</b>: a musical instrument like a piano.</li>
+  <li><a href="#spoor_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="spoor" id="spoor"></a><a name="corr29" id="corr29"></a><b>spoor</b>: trail; foot-marks.</li>
+  <li><a href="#sprinter_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="sprinter" id="sprinter"></a><b>sprint´ er</b>: a runner; a foot-racer.</li>
+  <li><a href="#spume_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="spume" id="spume"></a><b>spume</b>: froth; foam.</li>
+  <li><a href="#staccato_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="staccato" id="staccato"></a><b>stac ca´ to</b>: disconnected; jerky.</li>
+  <li><a href="#statesman_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="statesman" id="statesman"></a><b>states´ man</b>: one concerned in the governing of a country.</li>
+  <li><a href="#stentorian_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="stentorian" id="stentorian"></a><b>sten to´ ri an</b>: loud; thundering.</li>
+  <li><a href="#stodgily_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="stodgily" id="stodgily"></a><b>stodg´ i ly</b>: with distended eyes.</li>
+  <li><a href="#stoically_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="stoically" id="stoically"></a><b>sto´ ic al ly</b>: patiently; without complaint.</li>
+  <li><a href="#stoke_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="stoke" id="stoke"></a><b>stoke-hold</b>: the room containing a ship&#8217;s boilers.</li>
+  <li><a href="#strata_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="strata" id="strata"></a><b>stra´ ta</b>: the layers of rock composing the crust of the earth.</li>
+  <li><a href="#strategy_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="strategy" id="strategy"></a><b>strat´ e gy</b>: the use of artifice; clever planning.</li>
+  <li><a href="#Stuyvesant_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="Stuyvesant" id="Stuyvesant"></a><b>Stuy´ ves ant</b>: a Dutch colonial governor of New York.</li>
+  <li><a href="#sublimity_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="sublimity" id="sublimity"></a><b>sub lim´ i ty</b>: grandeur; magnificence.</li>
+  <li><a href="#subterranean_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="subterranean" id="subterranean"></a><b>sub´ ter ra´ ne an</b>: beneath the earth; in a cavity.</li>
+  <li><a href="#sumpter_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="sumpter" id="sumpter"></a><b>sump´ ter mule</b>: a beast of burden.</li>
+  <li><a href="#sumptuary_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="sumptuary" id="sumptuary"></a><b>sump´ tu a ry</b>: relating to expense.</li>
+  <li><a href="#sumptuous_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a href="#sumptuous_text2"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="sumptuous" id="sumptuous"></a><b>sump´ tu ous</b>: plentiful; extravagant.</li>
+  <li><a href="#superfluity_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="superfluity" id="superfluity"></a><b>su´ per flu´ i ty</b>: more than is needed.</li>
+  <li><a href="#superfluous_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a href="#superfluous_text2"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="superfluous" id="superfluous"></a><b>su per´ flu ous</b>: not needed.</li>
+  <li><a href="#surplice_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="surplice" id="surplice"></a><b>sur´ plice</b>: a white outer garment worn by priests.</li>
+  <li><a href="#Susquehannock_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="Susquehannock" id="Susquehannock"></a><b>Sus´ que han´ nocks</b>: an Indian tribe originally inhabiting Maryland and
+Pennsylvania.</li>
+  <li><a href="#sword_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="sword" id="sword"></a><b>sword of Damascus</b>: a sword made from steel wrought in Damascus, Syria.</li>
+  <li><a href="#sylvan_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="sylvan" id="sylvan"></a><b>syl´ van</b>: of the woods.</li>
+  <li><a href="#symphony_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="symphony" id="symphony"></a><b>sym´ pho ny</b>: harmony; music.</li>
+</ul>
+
+<ul class="vocab">
+  <li><a href="#tabor_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="tabor" id="tabor"></a><b>ta´ bor</b>: a small drum.</li>
+  <li><a href="#taciturn_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="taciturn" id="taciturn"></a><b>tac´ i turn</b> (tas): silent.</li>
+  <li><a href="#tambour_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="tambour" id="tambour"></a><b>tam´ bour frame</b>: frame for embroidery.</li>
+  <li><a href="#tapestry_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="tapestry" id="tapestry"></a><b>tap´ es try</b>: a curtain for a wall ornamented with worked pictures.</li>
+  <li><a href="#target_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="target" id="target"></a><b>tar´ get</b>: a small shield.</li>
+  <li><a href="#termagant_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="termagant" id="termagant"></a><b>ter´ ma gant</b>: quarrelsome; scolding.</li>
+  <li><a href="#terrafirma_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="terrafirma" id="terrafirma"></a><b>ter´ ra fir´ ma</b>: the firm earth.</li>
+  <li><a href="#thane_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="thane" id="thane"></a><b>thane</b>: a Saxon land-owner.</li>
+  <li><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_447" id="Page_447">[447]</a></span>
+  <a href="#thatch_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="thatch" id="thatch"></a><b>thatch</b>: straw or reeds.</li>
+  <li><a href="#Titan_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="Titan" id="Titan"></a><b>Ti´ tan</b>: a giant of Greek myth.</li>
+  <li><a href="#tithe_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="tithe" id="tithe"></a><b>tithe</b>: a tenth.</li>
+  <li><a href="#tortoise_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="tortoise" id="tortoise"></a><b>tor´ toise-shell</b>: the shell of a turtle.</li>
+  <li><a href="#traction_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="traction" id="traction"></a><b>traction engine</b>: a locomotive that draws vehicles along roads.</li>
+  <li><a href="#treasurer_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="treasurer" id="treasurer"></a><b>treasurer</b>: George Sandys.</li>
+  <li><a href="#tribunal_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="tribunal" id="tribunal"></a><b>tri bu´ nal</b>: a court of justice.</li>
+  <li><a href="#trump_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="trump" id="trump"></a><b>trump</b>: the card that takes other cards in a game.</li>
+  <li><a href="#truss_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="truss" id="truss"></a><b>truss</b>: tie.</li>
+  <li><a href="#tumultuous_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="tumultuous" id="tumultuous"></a><b>tu mul´ tu ous</b>: riotous; very noisy.</li>
+</ul>
+
+<ul class="vocab">
+  <li><a href="#ultramarine_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="ultramarine" id="ultramarine"></a><b>ul´ tra ma rine´</b>: deep blue.</li>
+  <li><a href="#uncle_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="uncle" id="uncle"></a><b>uncle</b>: a familiar form of address used by jesters.</li>
+  <li><a href="#unique_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="unique" id="unique"></a><b>u nique´</b> (neek): singular; unusual.</li>
+  <li><a href="#usury_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="usury" id="usury"></a><b>u´ su ry</b>: unlawful, or excessive interest.</li>
+</ul>
+
+<ul class="vocab">
+  <li><a href="#vassals_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="vassals" id="vassals"></a><b>vas´ sals</b>: subjects; dependents.</li>
+  <li><a href="#vehement_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="vehement" id="vehement"></a><b>ve´ he ment</b>: passionate; forceful.</li>
+  <li><a href="#velocity_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="velocity" id="velocity"></a><b>ve loc´ i ty</b>: speed.</li>
+  <li><a href="#vellum_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="vellum" id="vellum"></a><b>vel´ lum</b>: leather.</li>
+  <li><a href="#veneration_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="veneration" id="veneration"></a><b>ven´ er a´ tion</b>: respect; reverence.</li>
+  <li><a href="#verdure_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="verdure" id="verdure"></a><b>ver´ dure</b>: vegetation; green growth.</li>
+  <li><a href="#veritable_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="veritable" id="veritable"></a><b>ver´ i ta ble</b>: true; unmistakable.</li>
+  <li><a href="#vicar_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="vicar" id="vicar"></a><b>vic´ ar</b>: a clergyman in charge of a parish.</li>
+  <li><a href="#viscount_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="viscount" id="viscount"></a><b>vis´ count</b> (vi): a nobleman.</li>
+  <li><a href="#vizard_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="vizard" id="vizard"></a><b>viz´ ard</b>: a mask.</li>
+  <li><a href="#vizor_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="vizor" id="vizor"></a><b>viz´ or</b>: here, a mask.</li>
+  <li><a href="#voracious_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="voracious" id="voracious"></a><b>vo ra´ cious</b> (shus): greedy; very hungry.</li>
+</ul>
+
+<ul class="vocab">
+  <li><a href="#watling_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="watling" id="watling"></a><b>Wat´ ling Street</b>: a Roman road running from Dover to Chester.</li>
+  <li><a href="#werowance_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="werowance" id="werowance"></a><b>wer´ o wance</b>: a chief of the Virginia Indians.</li>
+  <li><a href="#West_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="West" id="West"></a><b>West, Francis</b>: afterward governor of Virginia.</li>
+  <li><a href="#whist_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="whist" id="whist"></a><b>whist</b>: still.</li>
+</ul>
+
+<ul class="vocab">
+  <li><a href="#yeoman_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="yeoman" id="yeoman"></a><b>yeo´ man</b> (yo): a free laborer; often a small land-owner.</li>
+</ul>
+
+<ul class="vocab">
+  <li><a href="#zenith_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="zenith" id="zenith"></a><b>ze´ nith</b>: highest point; summit.</li>
+  <li><a href="#zoophytes_text"><span class="back">back</span></a> <a name="zoophytes" id="zoophytes"></a><b>zo´ o phytes</b>: small sea animals growing together, as coral.</li>
+</ul>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+
+<div style="background-color: #EEE; padding: 0.5em 1em 0.5em 1em;">
+<p class="titlepage"><a name="trans_note" id="trans_note"></a><b>Transcriber&rsquo;s&nbsp;Note</b></p>
+
+<p class="noindent">The following typographical errors have been corrected.</p>
+
+<table style="margin-left: 0%;" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="typos">
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#corr1">56</a></td>
+  <td>Mountain&#8221; changed to Mountain.&#8221;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#corr2">97</a></td>
+  <td>all unwarned! changed to all unwarned!&#8221;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#corr3">119</a></td>
+  <td>changed he shall&#8221; to he shall,&#8221;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#corr4">125</a></td>
+  <td>good-bye changed to good-by</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#corr5">130</a></td>
+  <td>ruffllings changed to rufflings</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#corr6">151</a></td>
+  <td>re&euml;entering changed to re&euml;ntering</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#corr7">163</a></td>
+  <td>processsion changed to procession</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#corr8">177</a></td>
+  <td>calculatued changed to calculated</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#corr9">223</a></td>
+  <td>langauge changed to language</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#corr10">230</a></td>
+  <td>but to seaward changed to but two seaward</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#corr11">236</a></td>
+  <td>Majorie changed to Marjorie</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#corr12">263</a></td>
+  <td>attemped changed to attempted</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#corr13">267</a></td>
+  <td>altogther changed to altogether</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#corr14">272</a></td>
+  <td>miller,&#8221; changed to miller?&#8221;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#corr15">277</a></td>
+  <td>accomodated changed to accommodated</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#corr16">278</a></td>
+  <td>rescue?&#8217; changed to rescue?&#8221;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#corr17">286</a></td>
+  <td>Norman, and let changed to Norman, &#8220;and let</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#corr18">305</a></td>
+  <td>father, said changed to father,&#8221; said</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#corr19">310</a></td>
+  <td>&#8220;Fiends!&#8217; changed &#8220;Fiends!&#8221;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#corr20">317</a></td>
+  <td>&#8220;&#8216;Nothing changed to &#8220;Nothing</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#corr21">326</a></td>
+  <td>of proof.&#8221; changed to of proof.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#corr22">328</a></td>
+  <td>stop them.&#8221; changed to stop them.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#corr23">383</a></td>
+  <td>April. 5th. changed to April 5th.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#corr24">386</a></td>
+  <td>hugh changed to huge</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#corr25">396</a></td>
+  <td>the bottom. changed to the bottom.&#8221;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#corr26">402</a></td>
+  <td>everything! changed to everything!&#8221;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#corr27">409</a></td>
+  <td>said; do you changed to said; &#8220;do you</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#corr28">444</a></td>
+  <td>unwieldly changed to unwieldy</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#corr29">446</a></td>
+  <td>spoor; changed to spoor:</td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p class="noindent">Other errors</p>
+
+<table style="margin-left: 0%;" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="other errors">
+<tr>
+  <td><a href="#infantile_text">116</a></td>
+  <td><a name="infantile" id="infantile"></a>infantile not included in vocabulary section</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td><a href="#peer_text">117</a></td>
+  <td><a name="peer" id="peer"></a>peer not included in the vocabulary section</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td><a href="#mien_text">118</a></td>
+  <td><a name="mien" id="mien"></a>mien not included in the vocabulary section</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td><a href="#contingent_text">282</a></td>
+  <td><a name="contingent" id="contingent"></a>contingent is not defined in the vocabulary section</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td><a href="#ballast_text">354</a></td>
+  <td><a name="ballast" id="ballast"></a>ballast is not defined in the vocabulary section</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td><a href="#corroborated">440</a></td>
+  <td><a name="corroborated_text" id="corroborated_text"></a>corroborated not marked in the text</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td><a href="#mari">443</a></td>
+  <td><a name="mari_text" id="mari_text"></a>mari not marked in the text</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td><a href="#pinnacle">444</a></td>
+  <td><a name="pinnacle_text" id="pinnacle_text"></a>pinnacle not marked in the text</td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p class="noindent">The following words had inconsistent hyphenation:</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">foot-marks / footmarks<br />
+north-east / northeast<br />
+seal-skin / sealskin<br />
+snow-flakes / snowflakes<br />
+water-proof / waterproof<br />
+white-haired / whitehaired<br />
+</p>
+</div>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Literary World Seventh Reader, 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: The Literary World Seventh Reader
+
+Author: Various
+
+Editor: John Calvin Metcalf
+          Sarah Withers
+          Hetty S. Browne
+
+Release Date: November 5, 2006 [EBook #19721]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LITERARY WORLD SEVENTH READER ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Julia Miller, and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+Transcriber's Note:
+
+Typographical errors have been corrected. A list of the corrected errors
+is found at the end of the text along with a list of inconsistently
+hyphenated words.
+
+
+
+
+                       THE LITERARY WORLD
+
+                         SEVENTH READER
+
+
+                               BY
+
+
+                      JOHN CALVIN METCALF
+  PROFESSOR OF ENGLISH LITERATURE IN THE UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA
+
+                         SARAH WITHERS
+         PRINCIPAL ELEMENTARY GRADES AND CRITIC TEACHER
+             WINTHROP NORMAL AND INDUSTRIAL COLLEGE
+                        ROCK HILL. S.C.
+
+                              AND
+
+                        HETTY S. BROWNE
+           EXTENSION WORKER IN RURAL SCHOOL PRACTICE
+             WINTHROP NORMAL AND INDUSTRIAL COLLEGE
+
+
+                         [Illustration]
+
+
+                   JOHNSON PUBLISHING COMPANY
+                       RICHMOND, VIRGINIA
+
+
+
+
+  COPYRIGHT, 1919
+  B. F. JOHNSON PUBLISHING COMPANY
+
+  _All Rights Reserved_
+
+  L.H.J.
+
+
+
+
+ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
+
+
+For permission to use copyrighted material the authors and publishers
+express their indebtedness to the Macmillan Company for "A Deal in
+Bears" from _McTodd_, by W. Cutcliffe Hyne, and for "Sea Fever," by John
+Masefield; to Duffield & Company and Mr. H. G. Wells for "In Labrador"
+from _Marriage_; to the John Lane Company for "The Making of a Man" from
+_The Rough Road_, by W. J. Locke; to Dodd, Mead & Company and Mr. Arthur
+Dobson for "A Ballad of Heroes," and to Dodd, Mead & Company for "Under
+Seas," by Count Alexis Tolstoi; to G. P. Putnam's Sons for "Old Ephraim"
+from _The Hunting Trips of a Ranchman_, by Theodore Roosevelt; to
+Houghton Mifflin Company for "A Greyport Legend," by Bret Harte,
+"Midwinter," by John Townsend Trowbridge, "The First Snowfall," by James
+Russell Lowell, "Among the Cliffs" from _The Young Mountaineers_, by
+Charles Egbert Craddock (Mary N. Murfree), and for "The Friendship of
+Nantaquas" from _To Have and to Hold_, by Mary Johnston; to Harper &
+Brothers for "The Great Stone of Sardis" from _The Great Stone of
+Sardis_, by Frank R. Stockton, and to Harper & Brothers and Mr. Booth
+Tarkington for "Ariel's Triumph" from _The Conquest of Canaan_.
+
+
+
+
+TABLE OF CONTENTS
+
+
+LEGENDS OF OUR LAND
+
+  RIP VAN WINKLE                       _Washington Irving_            9
+  THE GREAT STONE FACE                 _Nathaniel Hawthorne_         33
+  THE COURTSHIP OF MILES STANDISH      _Henry W. Longfellow_         59
+  THE FRIENDSHIP OF NANTAQUAS          _Mary Johnston_               79
+
+
+HOME SCENES
+
+  HARRY ESMOND'S BOYHOOD               _Wm. Makepeace Thackeray_    112
+  THE FAMILY HOLDS ITS HEAD UP         _Oliver Goldsmith_           126
+  THE LITTLE BOY IN THE BALCONY        _Henry W. Grady_             138
+  ARIEL'S TRIUMPH                      _Booth Tarkington_           141
+
+
+NATURE AND ANIMALS
+
+  THE CLOUD                            _Percy Bysshe Shelley_       160
+  NEW ENGLAND WEATHER                  _Mark Twain_                 162
+  THE FIRST SNOWFALL                   _James Russell Lowell_       166
+  OLD EPHRAIM                          _Theodore Roosevelt_         168
+  MIDWINTER                            _John Townsend Trowbridge_   175
+  A GEORGIA FOX HUNT                   _Joel Chandler Harris_       177
+  RAIN AND WIND                        _Madison Julius Cawein_      192
+  THE SOUTHERN SKY                     _Matthew Fontaine Maury_     193
+  DAFFODILS                            _William Wordsworth_         195
+  DAWN                                 _Edward Everett_             196
+  SPRING                               _Henry Timrod_               198
+
+
+MOVING ADVENTURE
+
+  AMONG THE CLIFFS                     _Charles Egbert Craddock_    201
+  A DEAL IN BEARS                      _W. Cutcliffe Hyne_          217
+  LOCHINVAR                            _Sir Walter Scott_           232
+  IN LABRADOR                          _H. G. Wells_                235
+  THE BUGLE SONG                       _Alfred Tennyson_            258
+  THE SIEGE OF THE CASTLE              _Sir Walter Scott_           259
+
+
+MODERN WONDER TALES
+
+  SEA FEVER                            _John Masefield_             334
+  A GREYPORT LEGEND                    _Bret Harte_                 335
+  A HUNT BENEATH THE OCEAN             _Jules Verne_                337
+  UNDER SEAS                           _Count Alexis Tolstoi_       354
+  A VOYAGE TO THE MOON                 _Edgar Allan Poe_            367
+  THE GREAT STONE OF SARDIS            _Frank R. Stockton_          391
+
+
+SKETCHES OF THE GREAT WAR
+
+  A STOP AT SUZANNE'S                  _Greayer Clover_             407
+  THE MAKING OF A MAN                  _W. J. Locke_                414
+  IN FLANDERS FIELDS                   _John McCrae_                436
+  IN FLANDERS FIELDS (AN ANSWER)       _C. B. Galbraith_            436
+  A BALLAD OF HEROES                   _Austin Dobson_              437
+
+
+DICTIONARY                                                          439
+
+
+[Illustration: [See page 19]
+
+He Was Tempted to Repeat the Draught]
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+RIP VAN WINKLE
+
+I
+
+
+Whoever has made a voyage up the Hudson must remember the Catskill
+Mountains. They are a branch of the great [v]Appalachian[9-*] family,
+and are seen away to the west of the river, swelling up to a noble
+height, and lording it over the surrounding country. Every change of
+season, every change of weather, indeed, every hour of the day, produces
+some change in the magical hues and shapes of these mountains, and they
+are regarded by all the goodwives, far and near, as perfect
+[v]barometers.
+
+At the foot of these fairy mountains the traveler may have seen the
+light smoke curling up from a village, whose shingle roofs gleam among
+the trees, just where the blue tints of the upland melt away into the
+fresh green of the nearer landscape. It is a little village of great
+age, having been founded by some of the Dutch colonists in the early
+times of the province, just about the beginning of the government of the
+good Peter [v]Stuyvesant (may he rest in peace!), and there were some of
+the houses of the original settlers standing within a few years, built
+of small yellow bricks brought from Holland, having latticed windows and
+gable fronts, surmounted with weathercocks.
+
+In that same village, and in one of these very houses, there lived, many
+years since, while the country was yet a province of Great Britain, a
+simple, good-natured fellow, of the name of Rip Van Winkle. He was a
+descendant of the Van Winkles who figured so gallantly in the
+[v]chivalrous days of Peter Stuyvesant, and accompanied him to the siege
+of Fort Christina. He inherited, however, but little of the martial
+character of his ancestors. I have observed that he was a simple,
+good-natured man; he was, moreover, a kind neighbor and an obedient,
+henpecked husband.
+
+Certain it is that he was a great favorite among all the goodwives of
+the village, who took his part in all family squabbles; and never
+failed, whenever they talked those matters over in their evening
+gossipings, to lay all the blame on Dame Van Winkle. The children of the
+village, too, would shout with joy whenever he approached. He assisted
+at their sports, made their playthings, taught them to fly kites and
+shoot marbles, and told them long stories of ghosts, witches, and
+Indians. Whenever he went dodging about the village, he was surrounded
+by a troop of them, hanging on his skirts, clambering on his back, and
+playing a thousand tricks on him; and not a dog would bark at him
+throughout the neighborhood.
+
+The great error in Rip's composition was a strong dislike of all kinds
+of profitable labor. It could not be from the want of perseverance; for
+he would sit on a wet rock, with a rod as long and heavy as a lance, and
+fish all day without a murmur, even though he should not be encouraged
+by a single nibble. He would carry a fowling piece on his shoulder for
+hours together, trudging through woods and swamps, and up hill and down
+dale, to shoot a few squirrels or wild pigeons. He would never refuse to
+assist a neighbor even in the roughest toil, and was a foremost man at
+all country frolics for husking Indian corn, or building stone fences;
+the women of the village, too, used to employ him to run their errands,
+and to do such little odd jobs as their less obliging husbands would not
+do for them. In a word, Rip was ready to attend to anybody's business
+but his own; but as to doing family duty, and keeping his farm in order,
+he found it impossible.
+
+His children, too, were as ragged and wild as if they belonged to
+nobody. His son Rip promised to inherit the habits, with the old
+clothes, of his father. He was generally seen trooping like a colt at
+his mother's heels, equipped in a pair of his father's cast-off
+breeches, which he had much ado to hold up with one hand, as a fine lady
+does her train in bad weather.
+
+Rip Van Winkle, however, was one of those happy mortals, of foolish,
+well-oiled dispositions, who take the world easy, eat white bread or
+brown, whichever can be got with least thought or trouble, and would
+rather starve on a penny than work for a pound. If left to himself, he
+would have whistled life away in perfect contentment; but his wife kept
+continually dinning in his ear about his idleness, his carelessness, and
+the ruin he was bringing on his family. Morning, noon, and night, her
+tongue was incessantly going, and everything he said or did was sure to
+produce a torrent of household eloquence. Rip had but one way of
+replying to all lectures of the kind, and that, by frequent use, had
+grown into a habit. He shrugged his shoulders, shook his head, cast up
+his eyes, but said nothing. This, however, always provoked a fresh
+volley from his wife; so that he was fain to draw off his forces, and
+take to the outside of the house--the only side which, in truth, belongs
+to a henpecked husband.
+
+Rip's sole [v]domestic adherent was his dog Wolf, who was as much
+henpecked as his master; for Dame Van Winkle regarded them as companions
+in idleness, and even looked upon Wolf with an evil eye, as the cause of
+his master's going so often astray. True it is, in all points of spirit
+befitting an honorable dog, he was as courageous an animal as ever
+scoured the woods; but what courage can withstand the ever-enduring and
+all-besetting terrors of a woman's tongue? The moment Wolf entered the
+house his crest fell, his tail drooped to the ground or curled between
+his legs, he sneaked about with a gallows air, casting many a sidelong
+glance at Dame Van Winkle, and at the least flourish of a broomstick or
+ladle he would fly to the door with yelping precipitation.
+
+Times grew worse and worse with Rip Van Winkle as years of matrimony
+rolled on. A tart temper never mellows with age, and a sharp tongue is
+the only edged tool that grows keener with constant use. For a long
+while he used to console himself, when driven from home, by frequenting
+a kind of perpetual club of sages, philosophers, and other idle
+personages of the village, which held its sessions on a bench before a
+small inn, designated by a [v]rubicund portrait of His Majesty George
+III. Here they used to sit in the shade of a long, lazy summer's day,
+talking listlessly over village gossip, or telling endless sleepy
+stories about nothing. But it would have been worth any statesman's
+money to have heard the profound discussions which sometimes took place,
+when by chance an old newspaper fell into their hands from some passing
+traveler. How solemnly they would listen to the contents, as drawled out
+by Derrick Van Bummel, the schoolmaster,--a dapper, learned little man,
+who was not to be daunted by the most gigantic word in the dictionary!
+and how sagely they would deliberate upon public events some months
+after they had taken place!
+
+The opinions of this [v]junto were completely controlled by Nicholas
+Vedder, a patriarch of the village, and landlord of the inn, at the door
+of which he took his seat from morning till night, just moving
+sufficiently to avoid the sun, and keep in the shade of a large tree; so
+that the neighbors could tell the hour by his movements as accurately as
+by a sun-dial. It is true, he was rarely heard to speak, but smoked his
+pipe incessantly. His adherents, however (for every great man has his
+adherents), perfectly understood him, and knew how to gather his
+opinions. When anything that was read or related displeased him, he was
+observed to smoke his pipe vehemently, and to send forth short,
+frequent, and angry puffs; but, when pleased, he would inhale the smoke
+slowly and tranquilly, and emit it in light and placid clouds, and
+sometimes, taking the pipe from his mouth, and letting the fragrant
+vapor curl about his nose, would nod his head in approbation.
+
+From even this stronghold the unlucky Rip was at length routed by his
+[v]termagant wife, who would suddenly break in upon the tranquility of
+the assemblage, and call the members all to naught; nor was that august
+personage, Nicholas Vedder himself, sacred from the daring tongue of
+this terrible virago, who charged him with encouraging her husband in
+habits of idleness.
+
+Poor Rip was at last reduced almost to despair; and his only
+[v]alternative, to escape from the labor of the farm and clamor of his
+wife, was to take gun in hand and stroll away into the woods. Here he
+would sometimes seat himself at the foot of a tree, and share the
+contents of his wallet with Wolf, with whom he sympathized as a
+fellow-sufferer in persecution. "Poor Wolf," he would say, "thy mistress
+leads thee a dog's life of it; but never mind, my lad, whilst I live
+thou shalt never want a friend to stand by thee." Wolf would wag his
+tail, look wistfully in his master's face; and if dogs can feel pity, I
+verily believe he [v]reciprocated the sentiment with all his heart.
+
+In a long ramble of the kind on a fine autumnal day, Rip had
+unconsciously scrambled to one of the highest parts of the Catskill
+Mountains. He was after his favorite sport of squirrel-shooting, and the
+still solitudes had echoed and reechoed with the reports of his gun.
+Panting and fatigued, he threw himself, late in the afternoon, on a
+green knoll, covered with mountain herbage, that crowned the brow of a
+precipice. From an opening between the trees he could overlook all the
+lower country for many a mile of rich woodland. He saw at a distance the
+lordly Hudson, far, far below him, moving on its silent but majestic
+course, with the reflection of a purple cloud, or the sail of a lagging
+bark, here and there sleeping on its glassy bosom, and at last losing
+itself in the blue highlands.
+
+On the other side he looked down into a deep mountain glen, wild and
+lonely, the bottom filled with fragments from the overhanging cliffs,
+and scarcely lighted by the reflected rays of the setting sun. For some
+time Rip lay musing on this scene; evening was gradually advancing; the
+mountains began to throw their long blue shadows over the valleys; he
+saw that it would be dark long before he could reach the village, and he
+heaved a heavy sigh when he thought of encountering the terrors of Dame
+Van Winkle.
+
+As he was about to descend, he heard a voice from a distance, hallooing,
+"Rip Van Winkle! Rip Van Winkle!" He looked round, but could see nothing
+but a crow winging its solitary flight across the mountain. He thought
+his fancy must have deceived him, and turned again to descend, when he
+heard the same cry ring through the still evening air: "Rip Van Winkle!
+Rip Van Winkle!"--at the same time Wolf bristled up his back, and giving
+a low growl, skulked to his master's side, looking fearfully down into
+the glen. Rip now felt a vague apprehension stealing over him; he looked
+anxiously in the same direction, and perceived a strange figure slowly
+toiling up the rocks, and bending under the weight of something he
+carried on his back. He was surprised to see any human being in this
+lonely and unfrequented place; but supposing it to be some one of the
+neighborhood in need of his assistance, he hastened down to yield it.
+
+On nearer approach he was still more surprised at the [v]singularity of
+the stranger's appearance. He was a short, square-built old fellow, with
+thick bushy hair, and a grizzled beard. His dress was of the antique
+Dutch fashion,--a cloth jerkin strapped round the waist, and several
+pair of breeches, the outer one of ample volume, decorated with rows of
+buttons down the sides. He bore on his shoulder a stout keg that seemed
+full of liquor, and made signs for Rip to approach and assist him with
+the load. Though rather shy and distrustful of this new acquaintance,
+Rip complied with his usual [v]alacrity, and relieving one another, they
+clambered up a narrow gully, apparently the dry bed of a mountain
+torrent.
+
+As they ascended, Rip every now and then heard long, rolling peals, like
+distant thunder, that seemed to issue out of a deep ravine, or rather
+cleft, between lofty rocks, toward which their rugged path conducted. He
+paused for an instant, but supposing it to be the muttering of one of
+those transient thundershowers which often take place in mountain
+heights, he proceeded. Passing through the ravine, they came to a
+hollow, like a small [v]amphitheater, surrounded by perpendicular
+precipices, over the brinks of which trees shot their branches, so that
+you only caught glimpses of the azure sky and the bright evening cloud.
+During the whole time Rip and his companion had labored on in silence;
+for though the former marveled greatly, what could be the object of
+carrying a keg of liquor up this wild mountain, yet there was something
+strange and incomprehensible about the unknown that inspired awe and
+checked familiarity.
+
+On entering the amphitheater new objects of wonder presented themselves.
+On a level spot in the center was a company of odd-looking personages
+playing at ninepins. They were dressed in a quaint, outlandish fashion;
+some wore short doublets, others jerkins, with long knives in their
+belts, and most of them had enormous breeches, of similar style with
+that of the guide's. Their visages, too, were peculiar: one had a large
+head, broad face, and small, piggish eyes; the face of another seemed to
+consist entirely of nose, and was surmounted by a white sugar-loaf hat,
+set off with a little red cock's tail. They all had beards, of various
+shapes and colors. There was one who seemed to be the commander. He was
+a stout old gentleman, with a weather-beaten countenance; he wore a
+laced doublet, broad belt and hanger, high-crowned hat and feather, red
+stockings, and high-heeled shoes, with roses in them. The whole group
+reminded Rip of the figures in an old Flemish painting, in the parlor of
+[v]Dominie Van Shaick, the village parson, which had been brought over
+from Holland at the time of the settlement.
+
+What seemed particularly odd to Rip was that, though these folks were
+evidently amusing themselves, yet they maintained the gravest faces, the
+most mysterious silence, and were, withal, the most melancholy party of
+pleasure he had ever witnessed. Nothing interrupted the stillness of the
+scene but the noise of the balls, which, whenever they were rolled,
+echoed along the mountains like rumbling peals of thunder.
+
+As Rip and his companion approached them, they suddenly desisted from
+their play, and stared at him with such fixed, statue-like gaze, and
+such strange, uncouth countenances, that his heart turned within him,
+and his knees smote together. His companion now emptied the contents of
+the keg into large flagons, and made signs to him to wait upon the
+company. He obeyed with fear and trembling; they quaffed the liquor in
+profound silence, and then returned to their game.
+
+By degrees Rip's awe and apprehension subsided. He even ventured, when
+no eye was fixed upon him, to taste the beverage, which he found had
+much of the flavor of excellent Hollands. He was naturally a thirsty
+soul, and was soon tempted to repeat the draught. One taste provoked
+another; and he repeated his visits to the flagon so often that at
+length his senses were overpowered, his eyes swam in his head, his head
+gradually declined, and he fell into a deep sleep.
+
+
+II
+
+On waking he found himself on the green knoll whence he had first seen
+the old man of the glen. He rubbed his eyes--it was a bright, sunny
+morning. The birds were hopping and twittering among the bushes, and
+the eagle was wheeling aloft, and breasting the pure mountain breeze.
+"Surely," thought Rip, "I have not slept here all night." He recalled
+the occurrences before he fell asleep. The strange man with a keg of
+liquor--the mountain ravine--the wild retreat among the rocks--the
+woe-begone party at ninepins--the flagon--"Oh! that flagon! that wicked
+flagon!" thought Rip; "what excuse shall I make to Dame Van Winkle?"
+
+He looked round for his gun, but in place of the clean, well-oiled
+fowling piece, he found an old firelock lying by him, the barrel
+incrusted with rust, the lock falling off, and the stock worm-eaten. He
+now suspected that the grave revelers of the mountain had put a trick
+upon him and, having dosed him with liquor, had robbed him of his gun.
+Wolf, too, had disappeared, but he might have strayed away after a
+squirrel or partridge. He whistled after him, and shouted his name, but
+all in vain; the echoes repeated his whistle and shout, but no dog was
+to be seen.
+
+He determined to revisit the scene of the last evening's gambol, and if
+he met with any of the party, to demand his dog and gun. As he rose to
+walk, he found himself stiff in the joints, and wanting in his usual
+activity. "These mountain beds do not agree with me," thought Rip, "and
+if this frolic should lay me up with a fit of the rheumatism, I shall
+have a blessed time with Dame Van Winkle." With some difficulty he got
+down into the glen; he found the gully up which he and his companion had
+ascended the preceding evening; but to his astonishment a mountain
+stream was now foaming down it, leaping from rock to rock, and filling
+the glen with babbling murmurs. He, however, made shift to scramble up
+its sides, working his toilsome way through thickets of birch,
+sassafras, and witch-hazel, and sometimes tripped up or entangled by the
+wild grapevines that twisted their coils from tree to tree, and spread a
+kind of network in his path.
+
+At length he reached to where the ravine had opened through the cliffs
+to the amphitheater; but no traces of such opening remained. The rocks
+presented a high, impenetrable wall, over which the torrent came
+tumbling in a sheet of feathery foam, and fell into a broad, deep basin,
+black from the shadows of the surrounding forest. Here, then, poor Rip
+was brought to a stand. He again called and whistled after his dog; he
+was only answered by the cawing of a flock of idle crows sporting high
+in air about a dry tree that overhung a sunny precipice; and who, secure
+in their elevation, seemed to look down and scoff at the poor man's
+perplexities. What was to be done?--the morning was passing away, and
+Rip felt famished for want of his breakfast. He grieved to give up his
+dog and gun; he dreaded to meet his wife; but it would not do to starve
+among the mountains. He shook his head, shouldered the rusty firelock,
+and, with a heart full of trouble and anxiety, turned his steps
+homeward.
+
+As he approached the village he met a number of people, but none whom he
+knew, which somewhat surprised him, for he had thought himself
+acquainted with every one in the country round. Their dress, too, was of
+a different fashion from that to which he was accustomed. They all
+stared at him with equal marks of surprise, and whenever they cast their
+eyes upon him, invariably stroked their chins. The constant recurrence
+of this gesture induced Rip, involuntarily, to do the same, when, to his
+astonishment, he found his beard had grown a foot long!
+
+He had now entered the skirts of the village. A troop of strange
+children ran at his heels, hooting after him, and pointing at his gray
+beard. The dogs, too, not one of which he recognized for an old
+acquaintance, barked at him as he passed. The very village was altered;
+it was larger and more populous. There were rows of houses which he had
+never seen before, and those which had been his familiar haunts had
+disappeared. Strange names were over the doors--strange faces at the
+windows--everything was strange. His mind now misgave him; he began to
+doubt whether both he and the world around him were not bewitched.
+Surely this was his native village, which he had left but the day
+before. There stood the Catskill Mountains--there ran the silver Hudson
+at a distance--there was every hill and dale precisely as it had always
+been. Rip was sorely perplexed. "That flagon last night," thought he,
+"has addled my poor head sadly!"
+
+It was with some difficulty that he found the way to his own house,
+which he approached with silent awe, expecting every moment to hear the
+shrill voice of Dame Van Winkle. He found the house gone to decay--the
+roof fallen in, the windows shattered, and the doors off the hinges. A
+half-starved dog that looked like Wolf was skulking about it. Rip called
+him by name, but the cur snarled, showed his teeth, and passed on. This
+was an unkind cut indeed. "My very dog," sighed Rip, "has forgotten me!"
+
+He entered the house, which, to tell the truth, Dame Van Winkle had
+always kept in neat order. It was empty, forlorn, and apparently
+abandoned. He called loudly for his wife and children--the lonely
+chambers rang for a moment with his voice, and then all again was
+silence.
+
+
+III
+
+He now hurried forth, and hastened to his old resort, the village
+inn--but it, too, was gone. A large, rickety wooden building stood in
+its place, with great gaping windows, some of them broken and mended
+with old hats and petticoats, and over the door was painted, "The Union
+Hotel, by Jonathan Doolittle." Instead of the great tree that used to
+shelter the quiet little Dutch inn of yore, there now was reared a
+tall, naked pole, with something on the top that looked like a red
+nightcap, and from it was fluttering a flag, on which was a singular
+assemblage of stars and stripes; all this was strange and
+incomprehensible. He recognized on the sign, however, the ruby face of
+King George, under which he had smoked so many a peaceful pipe; but even
+this was singularly changed. The red coat was changed for one of blue
+and buff, a sword was held in the hand instead of a scepter, the head
+was decorated with a cocked hat, and underneath was painted in large
+characters, GENERAL WASHINGTON.
+
+There was, as usual, a crowd of folk about the door, but none that Rip
+recollected. The very character of the people seemed changed. There was
+a busy, bustling tone about it, instead of the accustomed drowsy
+tranquility. He looked in vain for the sage Nicholas Vedder, with his
+broad face, double chin, and long pipe, uttering clouds of tobacco smoke
+instead of idle speeches; or Van Bummel, the schoolmaster, doling forth
+the contents of an ancient newspaper. In place of these, a lean fellow,
+with his pockets full of handbills, was haranguing vehemently about
+rights of citizens--elections--members of congress--Bunker's
+Hill--heroes of seventy-six--and other words, which were a perfect
+jargon to the bewildered Van Winkle.
+
+The appearance of Rip, with his long, grizzled beard, his rusty fowling
+piece, his uncouth dress, and an army of women and children at his
+heels, soon attracted the attention of the tavern politicians. They
+crowded round him, eyeing him from head to foot with great curiosity.
+The orator bustled up to him, and, drawing him partly aside, inquired
+"On which side he voted?" Rip stared in vacant stupidity. Another short
+but busy little fellow pulled him by the arm, and, rising on tiptoe,
+inquired in his ear, "Whether he was Federal or Democrat?" Rip was
+equally at a loss to comprehend the question; when a knowing,
+self-important old gentleman, in a sharp cocked hat, made his way
+through the crowd, putting them to the right and left with his elbows as
+he passed, and planting himself before Van Winkle, with one arm akimbo,
+the other resting on his cane, his keen eyes and sharp hat penetrating,
+as it were, into his very soul, demanded, in an austere tone, "What
+brought him to the election with a gun on his shoulder, and a mob at his
+heels; and whether he meant to breed a riot in the village?"--"Alas!
+gentlemen," cried Rip, somewhat dismayed, "I am a poor, quiet man, a
+native of the place, and a loyal subject of the king, God bless him!"
+
+Here a general shout burst from the bystanders--"A tory! a tory! a spy!
+a refugee! hustle him! away with him!" It was with great difficulty that
+the self-important man in the cocked hat restored order; and having
+assumed a tenfold [v]austerity of brow, demanded again of the unknown
+culprit, what he came there for, and whom he was seeking! The poor man
+humbly assured him that he meant no harm, but merely came there in
+search of some of his neighbors.
+
+"Well--who are they? Name them."
+
+Rip bethought himself a moment, and inquired, "Where's Nicholas Vedder?"
+
+There was a silence for a little while, when an old man replied, in a
+thin, piping voice, "Nicholas Vedder! why, he is dead and gone these
+eighteen years! There was a wooden tombstone in the churchyard that used
+to tell all about him, but that's rotten and gone, too."
+
+"Where's Brom Dutcher?"
+
+"Oh, he went off to the army in the beginning of the war; some say he
+was killed at the storming of Stony Point; others say he was drowned in
+a squall at the foot of Anthony's Nose. I don't know; he never came back
+again."
+
+"Where's Van Brummel, the schoolmaster?"
+
+"He went off to the wars, too, was a great militia general, and is now
+in congress."
+
+Rip's heart died away at hearing of these sad changes in his home and
+friends and finding himself thus alone in the world. Every answer
+puzzled him, too, by treating of such enormous lapses of time, and of
+matters which he could not understand: war--congress--Stony Point. He
+had no courage to ask after any more friends, but cried out in despair,
+"Does nobody here know Rip Van Winkle?"
+
+"Oh, Rip Van Winkle!" exclaimed two or three, "oh, to be sure! that's
+Rip Van Winkle yonder, leaning against the tree."
+
+Rip looked, and beheld a precise counterpart of himself, as he went up
+the mountain--apparently as lazy and certainly as ragged. The poor
+fellow was now completely confounded. He doubted his own identity, and
+whether he was himself or another man. In the midst of his bewilderment,
+the man in the cocked hat demanded who he was, and what was his name.
+
+"God knows," exclaimed he, at his wits' end; "I'm not myself--I'm
+somebody else--that's me yonder--no--that's somebody else got into my
+shoes--I was myself last night, but I fell asleep on the mountain, and
+they've changed my gun, and everything's changed, and I'm changed, and I
+can't tell what's my name, or who I am!"
+
+The bystanders began now to look at each other, nod, wink significantly,
+and tap their fingers against their foreheads. There was a whisper,
+also, about securing the gun, and keeping the old fellow from doing
+mischief, at the very suggestion of which the self-important man in the
+cocked hat retired with some precipitation. At this critical moment a
+fresh, comely woman pressed through the throng to get a peep at the
+gray-bearded man. She had a chubby child in her arms, which, frightened
+at his looks, began to cry. "Hush, Rip," cried she, "hush, you little
+fool; the old man won't hurt you." The name of the child, the air of the
+mother, the tone of her voice, all awakened a train of recollections in
+his mind. "What is your name, my good woman?" asked he.
+
+"Judith Gardenier."
+
+"And your father's name?"
+
+"Ah, poor man, Rip Van Winkle was his name, but it's twenty years since
+he went away from home with his gun, and never has been heard of
+since--his dog came home without him; but whether he shot himself, or
+was carried away by the Indians, nobody can tell. I was then but a
+little girl."
+
+Rip had but one question more to ask; but he put it with a faltering
+voice:
+
+"Where's your mother?"
+
+"Oh, she, too, had died but a short time since; she broke a blood-vessel
+in a fit of passion at a New England peddler."
+
+There was a drop of comfort, at least, in this intelligence. The honest
+man could contain himself no longer. He caught his daughter and her
+child in his arms. "I am your father!" cried he--"Young Rip Van Winkle
+once--Old Rip Van Winkle now! Does nobody know poor Rip Van Winkle?"
+
+All stood amazed until an old woman, tottering out from among the crowd,
+put her hand to her brow, and peering under it in his face for a moment,
+exclaimed, "Sure enough! it is Rip Van Winkle--it is himself! Welcome
+home again, old neighbor. Why, where have you been these twenty long
+years?"
+
+Rip's story was soon told, for the whole twenty years had been to him
+but as one night. The neighbors stared when they heard it; some were
+seen to wink at each other, and put their tongues in their cheeks: and
+the self-important man in the cocked hat, who when the alarm was over
+had returned to the field, screwed down the corners of his mouth, and
+shook his head--upon which there was a general shaking of the head
+throughout the assemblage.
+
+It was determined, however, to take the opinion of old Peter Vanderdonk,
+who was seen slowly advancing up the road. He was a descendant of the
+historian of that name, who wrote one of the earliest accounts of the
+province. Peter was the most ancient inhabitant of the village, and well
+versed in all the wonderful events and traditions of the neighborhood.
+He recollected Rip at once, and corroborated his story in the most
+satisfactory manner. He assured the company that it was a fact, handed
+down from his ancestor the historian, that the Catskill Mountains had
+always been haunted by strange beings. It was affirmed that the great
+Hendrick Hudson, the first discoverer of the river and country, kept a
+kind of vigil there every twenty years, with his crew of the
+_Half-moon_; being permitted in this way to revisit the scenes of his
+enterprise, and keep a guardian eye upon the river and the great city
+called by his name. His father had once seen them in their old Dutch
+dresses playing at ninepins in a hollow of the mountain; and he himself
+had heard, one summer afternoon, the sound of their balls, like distant
+peals of thunder.
+
+To make a long story short, the company broke up and returned to the
+more important concerns of the election. Rip's daughter took him home to
+live with her; she had a snug, well-furnished house, and a stout, cheery
+farmer for a husband, whom Rip recollected for one of the urchins that
+used to climb upon his back. As to Rip's son and heir, who was the ditto
+of himself, seen leaning against the tree, he was employed to work on
+the farm; but showed an hereditary disposition to attend to anything
+else but his business.
+
+WASHINGTON IRVING.
+
+
+=HELPS TO STUDY=
+
+"Rip Van Winkle" is the most beautiful of American legendary stories.
+Washington Irving, the author, taking the old idea of long sleep, as
+found in "The Sleeping Beauty" and other fairy tales, gave it an
+American setting and interwove in it the legend of Henry Hudson, the
+discoverer of the Hudson river, who was supposed to return to the scene
+of his achievement every twenty years, together with the shades of his
+crew.
+
+     I. Where is the scene of this story laid? In which paragraph do you
+     learn when the incident related in the story took place? Why does
+     Irving speak of the mountains as "fairy mountains"? In which
+     paragraph do you meet the principal characters? Give the opinion
+     you form of Rip and his wife. Read sentences that show Rip's good
+     qualities--those that show his faults. What unusual thing happened
+     to Rip on his walk? How was the dog affected? Give a full account
+     of what happened afterward. Tell what impressed you most in this
+     scene. Read aloud the lines that best describe the scenery.
+
+     II. Describe Rip's waking. What was his worst fear? How did he
+     explain to himself the change in his gun and the disappearance of
+     Wolf? How did he account for the stiffness of his joints? What was
+     still his chief fear? Describe the changes which had taken place in
+     the mountains. With what feeling did he turn homeward? Why? How did
+     he discover the alteration in his own appearance? How did the
+     children and dogs treat him? Why was this particularly hard for Rip
+     to understand? What other changes did he find? What remained
+     unaltered? How did Rip still account for the peculiar happenings?
+     Describe Rip's feelings as he turned to his own house, and its
+     desolation.
+
+     III. What change had been made in the sign over the inn? Why? What
+     important thing was taking place in the village? Why did the speech
+     of the "lean fellow" seem "perfect jargon" to Rip? Why did he not
+     understand the questions asked him? What happened when Rip made his
+     innocent reply to the self-important gentleman? How did he at last
+     learn of the lapse of time? What added to his bewilderment? How was
+     the mystery explained? Note the question Rip reserved for the last
+     and the effect the answer had upon him. How did Peter Vanderdonk
+     explain the strange happening? What is the happy ending? Do you
+     like Rip? Why?
+
+
+SUPPLEMENTARY READING
+
+     Urashima--Graded Classics III.
+     Vice Versa--F. Anstey.
+     Peter Pan--James Barrie.
+     The Legend of Sleepy Hollow--Washington Irving.
+     A Christmas Carol--Charles Dickens.
+     Enoch Arden--Alfred Tennyson.
+
+
+FOOTNOTE:
+
+[9-*] For words marked [v], see Dictionary.
+
+
+[Illustration: Photograph by Aldrich
+
+The Great Stone Face]
+
+
+
+
+THE GREAT STONE FACE
+
+
+I
+
+One afternoon when the sun was going down, a mother and her little boy
+sat at the door of their cottage, talking about the Great Stone Face.
+They had but to lift their eyes, and there it was plainly to be seen,
+though miles away, with the sunshine brightening all its features.
+
+And what was the Great Stone Face? The Great Stone Face was a work of
+Nature in her mood of majestic playfulness, formed on the perpendicular
+side of a mountain by some immense rocks, which had been thrown together
+in such a position as, when viewed at a proper distance, precisely to
+resemble the features of the human countenance. It seemed as if an
+enormous giant, or a [v]Titan, had sculptured his own likeness on the
+precipice. There was the broad arch of the forehead, a hundred feet in
+height; the nose, with its long bridge; and the vast lips, which, if
+they could have spoken, would have rolled their thunder accents from one
+end of the valley to the other.
+
+It was a happy lot for children to grow up to manhood or womanhood with
+the Great Stone Face before their eyes, for all the features were noble,
+and the expression was at once grand and sweet, as if it were the glow
+of a vast, warm heart that embraced all mankind in its affections, and
+had room for more.
+
+As we began with saying, a mother and her little boy sat at their
+cottage door, gazing at the Great Stone Face, and talking about it. The
+child's name was Ernest. "Mother," said he, while the Titanic visage
+smiled on him, "I wish that it could speak, for it looks so very kindly
+that its voice must be pleasant. If I were to see a man with such a
+face, I should love him dearly."
+
+"If an old prophecy should come to pass," answered his mother, "we may
+see a man, some time or other, with exactly such a face as that."
+
+"What prophecy do you mean, dear mother?" eagerly inquired Ernest. "Pray
+tell me all about it!"
+
+So his mother told him a story that her own mother had told to her, when
+she herself was younger than little Ernest; a story, not of things that
+were past, but of what was yet to come; a story, nevertheless, so very
+old that even the Indians, who formerly inhabited this valley, had heard
+it from their forefathers, to whom, they believed, it had been murmured
+by the mountain streams, and whispered by the wind among the tree tops.
+The story said that at some future day a child should be born hereabouts
+who was destined to become the greatest and noblest man of his time, and
+whose countenance, in manhood, should bear an exact resemblance to the
+Great Stone Face.
+
+"O mother, dear mother!" cried Ernest, clapping his hands above his
+head, "I do hope that I shall live to see him!" His mother was an
+affectionate and thoughtful woman, and felt that it was wisest not to
+discourage the hopes of her little boy. She only said to him, "Perhaps
+you may," little thinking that the prophecy would one day come true.
+
+And Ernest never forgot the story that his mother told him. It was
+always in his mind whenever he looked upon the Great Stone Face. He
+spent his childhood in the log cottage where he was born, and was
+dutiful to his mother, and helpful to her in many things, assisting her
+much with his little hands, and more with his loving heart. In this
+manner, from a happy yet thoughtful child, he grew to be a mild, quiet,
+modest boy, sun-browned with labor in the fields, but with more
+intelligence in his face than is seen in many lads who have been taught
+at famous schools. Yet Ernest had had no teacher, save only that the
+Great Stone Face became one to him. When the toil of the day was over,
+he would gaze at it for hours, until he began to imagine that those vast
+features recognized him, and gave him a smile of kindness and
+encouragement in response to his own look of [v]veneration. We must not
+take upon us to affirm that this was a mistake, although the Face may
+have looked no more kindly at Ernest than at all the world besides. For
+the secret was that the boy's tender simplicity [v]discerned what other
+people could not see; and thus the love, which was meant for all, became
+his alone.
+
+
+II
+
+About this time, there went a rumor throughout the valley that the great
+man, foretold from ages long ago, who was to bear a resemblance to the
+Great Stone Face, had appeared at last. It seems that, many years
+before, a young man had left the valley and settled at a distant
+seaport, where, after getting together a little money, he had set up as
+a shopkeeper. His name--but I could never learn whether it was his real
+one, or a nickname that had grown out of his habits and success in
+life--was Gathergold.
+
+It might be said of him, as of [v]Midas in the fable, that whatever he
+touched with his finger immediately glistened, and grew yellow, and was
+changed at once into coin. And when Mr. Gathergold had become so rich
+that it would have taken him a hundred years only to count his wealth,
+he bethought himself of his native valley, and resolved to go back
+thither, and end his days where he was born. With this purpose in view,
+he sent a skillful architect to build him such a palace as should be fit
+for a man of his vast wealth to live in.
+
+As I have said above, it had already been rumored in the valley that Mr.
+Gathergold had turned out to be the person so long and vainly looked
+for, and that his visage was the perfect and undeniable likeness of the
+Great Stone Face. People were the more ready to believe that this must
+needs be the fact when they beheld the splendid edifice that rose, as if
+by enchantment, on the site of his father's old weather-beaten
+farmhouse. The exterior was of marble, so dazzling white that it seemed
+as though the whole structure might melt away in the sunshine, like
+those humbler ones which Mr. Gathergold, in his young playdays, had been
+accustomed to build of snow. It had a richly ornamented portico,
+supported by tall pillars, beneath which was a lofty door, studded with
+silver knobs, and made of a kind of variegated wood that had been
+brought from beyond the sea. The windows, from the floor to the ceiling
+of each stately apartment, were each composed of but one enormous pane
+of glass. Hardly anybody had been permitted to see the interior of this
+palace; but it was reported to be far more gorgeous than the outside,
+insomuch that whatever was iron or brass in other houses was silver or
+gold in this; and Mr. Gathergold's bedchamber, especially, made such a
+glittering appearance that no ordinary man would have been able to close
+his eyes there. But, on the other hand, Mr. Gathergold was now so
+accustomed to wealth that perhaps he could not have closed his eyes
+unless where the gleam of it was certain to find its way beneath his
+eyelids.
+
+In due time, the mansion was finished; next came the upholsterers, with
+magnificent furniture; then a whole troop of black and white servants,
+the harbingers of Mr. Gathergold, who, in his own majestic person, was
+expected to arrive at sunset. Our friend Ernest, meanwhile, had been
+deeply stirred by the idea that the great man, the noble man, the man of
+prophecy, after so many ages of delay, was at length to appear in his
+native valley. He knew, boy as he was, that there were a thousand ways
+in which Mr. Gathergold, with his vast wealth, might transform himself
+into an angel of beneficence, and assume a control over human affairs as
+wide and [v]benignant as the smile of the Great Stone Face. Full of
+faith and hope, Ernest doubted not that what the people said was true,
+and that now he was to behold the living likeness of those wondrous
+features on the mountain side. While the boy was still gazing up the
+valley, and fancying, as he always did, that the Great Stone Face
+returned his gaze and looked kindly at him, the rumbling of wheels was
+heard, approaching swiftly along the winding road.
+
+"Here he comes!" cried a group of people who were assembled to witness
+the arrival. "Here comes the great Mr. Gathergold!"
+
+A carriage, drawn by four horses, dashed round the turn of the road.
+Within it, thrust partly out of the window, appeared the face of a
+little old man, with a skin as yellow as gold. He had a low forehead,
+small, sharp eyes, puckered about with innumerable wrinkles, and very
+thin lips, which he made still thinner by pressing them forcibly
+together.
+
+"The very image of the Great Stone Face!" shouted the people. "Sure
+enough, the old prophecy is true."
+
+And, what greatly perplexed Ernest, they seemed actually to believe that
+here was the likeness which they spoke of. By the roadside there chanced
+to be an old beggar woman and two little beggar children, stragglers
+from some far-off region, who, as the carriage rolled onward, held out
+their hands and lifted up their doleful voices, most piteously
+beseeching charity. A yellow claw--the very same that had clawed
+together so much wealth--poked itself out of the coach window, and
+dropped some copper coins upon the ground; so that, though the great
+man's name seems to have been Gathergold, he might just as suitably have
+been nicknamed Scattercopper. Still, nevertheless, with an earnest
+shout, and evidently with as much good faith as ever, the people
+bellowed:
+
+"He is the very image of the Great Stone Face!"
+
+But Ernest turned sadly from the wrinkled shrewdness of that visage and
+gazed up the valley, where, amid a gathering mist, gilded by the last
+sunbeams, he could still distinguish those glorious features which had
+impressed themselves into his soul. Their aspect cheered him. What did
+the benign lips seem to say?
+
+"He will come! Fear not, Ernest; the man will come!"
+
+The years went on, and Ernest ceased to be a boy. He had grown to be a
+young man now. He attracted little notice from the other inhabitants of
+the valley, for they saw nothing remarkable in his way of life, save
+that, when the labor of the day was over, he still loved to go apart and
+gaze and meditate upon the Great Stone Face. According to their idea of
+the matter, however, it was a pardonable folly, for Ernest was
+industrious, kind, and neighborly, and neglected no duty for the sake of
+this idle habit. They knew not that the Great Stone Face had become a
+teacher to him, and that the sentiment which was expressed in it would
+enlarge the young man's heart, and fill it with wider and deeper
+sympathies than other hearts. They knew not that thence would come a
+better wisdom than could be learned from books, and a better life than
+could be molded on the example of other human lives. Neither did Ernest
+know that the thoughts and affections which came to him so naturally, in
+the fields and at the fireside, were of a higher tone than those which
+all men shared with him. A simple soul,--simple as when his mother first
+taught him the old prophecy,--he beheld the marvelous features beaming
+down the valley, and still wondered that their human counterpart was so
+long in making his appearance.
+
+By this time poor Mr. Gathergold was dead and buried; and the oddest
+part of the matter was that his wealth, which was the body and spirit of
+his existence, had disappeared before his death, leaving nothing of him
+but a living skeleton, covered over with a wrinkled, yellow skin. Since
+the melting away of his gold, it had been very generally allowed that
+there was no such striking resemblance, after all, betwixt the ignoble
+features of the ruined merchant and that majestic face upon the mountain
+side. So the people ceased to honor him during his lifetime, and quietly
+forgot him after his decease. Once in a while, it is true, his memory
+was brought up in connection with the magnificent palace which he had
+built, and which had long ago been turned into a hotel for the
+accommodation of strangers, multitudes of whom came, every summer, to
+visit that famous natural curiosity, the Great Stone Face. The man of
+prophecy was yet to come.
+
+
+III
+
+It so happened that a native-born son of the valley, many years before,
+had enlisted as a soldier, and, after a great deal of hard fighting, had
+now become an illustrious commander. Whatever he may be called in
+history, he was known in camps and on the battlefield under the nickname
+of Old Blood-and-Thunder. This war-worn veteran, being now weary of a
+military life, and of the roll of the drum and the clangor of the
+trumpet that had so long been ringing in his ears, had lately signified
+a purpose of returning to his native valley, hoping to find repose where
+he remembered to have left it. The inhabitants, his old neighbors and
+their grown-up children, were resolved to welcome the [v]renowned
+warrior with a salute of cannon and a public dinner; and all the more
+enthusiastically because it was believed that at last the likeness of
+the Great Stone Face had actually appeared. A friend of Old
+Blood-and-Thunder, traveling through the valley, was said to have been
+struck with the resemblance. Moreover, the schoolmates and early
+acquaintances of the general were ready to testify, on oath, that, to
+the best of their recollection, the general had been exceedingly like
+the majestic image, even when a boy, only that the idea had never
+occurred to them at that period. Great, therefore, was the excitement
+throughout the valley; and many people, who had never once thought of
+glancing at the Great Stone Face for years before, now spent their time
+in gazing at it, for the sake of knowing exactly how General
+Blood-and-Thunder looked.
+
+On the day of the great festival, Ernest, and all the other people of
+the valley, left their work and proceeded to the spot where the banquet
+was prepared. As he approached, the loud voice of the Rev. Dr.
+Battleblast was heard, beseeching a blessing on the good things set
+before them, and on the distinguished friend of peace in whose honor
+they were assembled. The tables were arranged in a cleared space of the
+woods, shut in by the surrounding trees, except where a vista opened
+eastward, and afforded a distant view of the Great Stone Face. Over the
+general's chair, which was a relic from the home of Washington, there
+was an arch of green boughs and laurel surmounted by his country's
+banner, beneath which he had won his victories. Our friend Ernest
+raised himself on his tiptoes, in hopes to get a glimpse of the
+celebrated guest; but there was a mighty crowd about the tables anxious
+to hear the toasts and speeches, and to catch any word that might fall
+from the general in reply; and a volunteer company, doing duty as a
+guard, pricked with their bayonets at any particularly quiet person
+among the throng. So Ernest, being of a modest character, was thrust
+quite into the background, where he could see no more of Old
+Blood-and-Thunder's face than if it had been still blazing on the
+battlefield. To console himself he turned toward the Great Stone Face,
+which, like a faithful and long-remembered friend, looked back and
+smiled upon him through the forest. Meantime, however, he could overhear
+the remarks of various individuals who were comparing the features of
+the hero with the face on the distant mountain side.
+
+"'Tis the same face, to a hair!" cried one man, cutting a caper for joy.
+
+"Wonderfully like, that's a fact!" responded another.
+
+"Like! Why, I call it Old Blood-and-Thunder himself, in a monstrous
+looking-glass!" cried a third. "And why not? He's the greatest man of
+this or any other age, beyond a doubt."
+
+"The general! The general!" was now the cry. "Hush! Silence! Old
+Blood-and-Thunder's going to make a speech."
+
+Even so; for, the cloth being removed, the general's health had been
+drunk amid shouts of applause, and he now stood upon his feet to thank
+the company. Ernest saw him. There he was, over the shoulders of the
+crowd, from the two glittering epaulets and embroidered collar upward,
+beneath the arch of green boughs with intertwined laurel, and the banner
+drooping as if to shade his brow! And there, too, visible in the same
+glance, appeared the Great Stone Face! And was there, indeed, such a
+resemblance as the crowd had testified? Alas, Ernest could not recognize
+it! He beheld a war-worn and weather-beaten countenance, full of energy,
+and expressive of an iron will; but the gentle wisdom, the deep, broad,
+tender sympathies were altogether wanting in Old Blood-and-Thunder's
+visage.
+
+"This is not the man of prophecy," sighed Ernest to himself, as he made
+his way out of the throng. "And must the world wait longer yet?"
+
+The mists had gathered about the distant mountain side, and there were
+seen the grand and awful features of the Great Stone Face, awful but
+benignant, as if a mighty angel were sitting among the hills and
+enrobing himself in a cloud vesture of gold and purple. As he looked,
+Ernest could hardly believe but that a smile beamed over the whole
+visage, with a radiance still brightening, although without motion of
+the lips. It was probably the effect of the western sunshine, melting
+the thin vapors that had swept between him and the object that he had
+gazed at. But--as it always did--the aspect of his marvelous friend made
+Ernest as hopeful as if he had never hoped in vain.
+
+"Fear not, Ernest," said his heart, even as if the Great Face were
+whispering him--"fear not, Ernest."
+
+
+IV
+
+More years sped swiftly and tranquilly away. Ernest still dwelt in his
+native valley, and was now a man of middle age. By slow degrees he had
+become known among the people. Now, as heretofore, he labored for his
+bread, and was the same simple-hearted man that he had always been. But
+he had thought and felt so much, he had given so many of the best hours
+of his life to unworldly hopes for some great good to mankind, that it
+seemed as though he had been talking with the angels, and had imbibed a
+portion of their wisdom unawares. It was visible in the calm beneficence
+of his daily life, the quiet stream of which had made a wide, green
+margin all along its course. Not a day passed by that the world was not
+the better because this man, humble as he was, had lived. He never
+stepped aside from his own path, yet would always reach a blessing to
+his neighbor. Almost involuntarily, too, he had become a preacher. The
+pure and high simplicity of his thought, which took shape in the good
+deeds that dropped silently from his hand, flowered also forth in
+speech. He uttered truths that molded the lives of those who heard him.
+His hearers, it may be, never suspected that Ernest, their own neighbor
+and familiar friend, was more than an ordinary man; least of all did
+Ernest himself suspect it; but thoughts came out of his mouth that no
+other human lips had spoken.
+
+When the people's minds had had a little time to cool, they were ready
+enough to acknowledge their mistake in imagining a similarity between
+General Blood-and-Thunder and the benign visage on the mountain side.
+But now, again, there were reports and many paragraphs in the
+newspapers, affirming that the likeness of the Great Stone Face had
+appeared upon the broad shoulders of a certain eminent [v]statesman. He,
+like Mr. Gathergold and Old Blood-and-Thunder, was a native of the
+valley, but had left it in his early days, and taken up the trades of
+law and politics. Instead of the rich man's wealth and the warrior's
+sword he had but a tongue, and it was mightier than both together. So
+wonderfully eloquent was he that, whatever he might choose to say, his
+hearers had no choice but to believe him; wrong looked like right, and
+right like wrong. His voice, indeed, was a magic instrument: sometimes
+it rumbled like the thunder; sometimes it warbled like the sweetest
+music. In good truth, he was a wondrous man; and when his tongue had
+acquired him all other imaginable success,--when it had been heard in
+halls of state and in the courts of princes,--after it had made him
+known all over the world, even as a voice crying from shore to
+shore,--it finally persuaded his countrymen to select him for the
+presidency. Before this time,--indeed, as soon as he began to grow
+celebrated,--his admirers had found out the resemblance between him and
+the Great Stone Face; and so much were they struck by it that throughout
+the country this distinguished gentleman was known by the name of Old
+Stony Phiz.
+
+While his friends were doing their best to make him President, Old Stony
+Phiz, as he was called, set out on a visit to the valley where he was
+born. Of course he had no other object than to shake hands with his
+fellow-citizens, and neither thought nor cared about any effect which
+his progress through the country might have upon the election.
+Magnificent preparations were made to receive the [v]illustrious
+statesmen; a cavalcade of horsemen set forth to meet him at the boundary
+line of the State, and all the people left their business and gathered
+along the wayside to see him pass. Among these was Ernest. Though more
+than once disappointed, as we have seen, he had such a hopeful and
+confiding nature that he was always ready to believe in whatever seemed
+beautiful and good. He kept his heart continually open, and thus was
+sure to catch the blessing from on high, when it should come. So now
+again, as buoyantly as ever, he went forth to behold the likeness of the
+Great Stone Face.
+
+The cavalcade came prancing along the road, with a great clattering of
+hoofs and a mighty cloud of dust, which rose up so dense and high that
+the visage of the mountain side was completely hidden from Ernest's
+eyes. All the great men of the neighborhood were there on horseback:
+militia officers, in uniform; the member of congress; the sheriff of the
+county; the editors of newspapers; and many a farmer, too, had mounted
+his patient steed, with his Sunday coat upon his back. It really was a
+very brilliant spectacle, especially as there were numerous banners
+flaunting over the cavalcade, on some of which were gorgeous portraits
+of the illustrious statesman and the Great Stone Face, smiling
+familiarly at one another, like two brothers. If the pictures were to be
+trusted, the resemblance, it must be confessed, was marvelous. We must
+not forget to mention that there was a band of music, which made the
+echoes of the mountains ring with the loud triumph of its strains, so
+that airy and soul-thrilling melodies broke out among all the heights
+and hollows, as if every nook of his native valley had found a voice to
+welcome the distinguished guest. But the grandest effect was when the
+far-off mountain precipice flung back the music; for then the Great
+Stone Face itself seemed to be swelling the triumphant chorus, in
+acknowledgment that, at length, the man of prophecy was come.
+
+All this while the people were throwing up their hats and shouting with
+such enthusiasm that the heart of Ernest kindled up, and he likewise
+threw up his hat and shouted as loudly as the loudest, "Huzza for the
+great man! Huzza for Old Stony Phiz!" But as yet he had not seen him.
+
+"Here he is now!" cried those who stood near Ernest. "There! There! Look
+at Old Stony Phiz and then at the Old Man of the Mountain, and see if
+they are not as like as two twin brothers!"
+
+In the midst of all this gallant array came an open [v]barouche, drawn
+by four white horses; and in the barouche, with his massive head
+uncovered, sat the illustrious statesman, Old Stony Phiz himself.
+
+"Confess it," said one of Ernest's neighbors to him, "the Great Stone
+Face has met its match at last!"
+
+Now, it must be owned that, at his first glimpse of the countenance
+which was bowing and smiling from the barouche, Ernest did fancy that
+there was a resemblance between it and the old familiar face upon the
+mountain side. The brow, with its massive depth and loftiness, and all
+the other features, indeed, were bold and strong. But the grand
+expression of a divine sympathy that illuminated the mountain visage
+might here be sought in vain.
+
+Still Ernest's neighbor was thrusting his elbow into his side, and
+pressing him for an answer.
+
+"Confess! Confess! Is not he the very picture of your Old Man of the
+Mountain?"
+
+"No!" said Ernest, bluntly; "I see little or no likeness."
+
+"Then so much the worse for the Great Stone Face!" answered his
+neighbor. And again he set up a shout for Old Stony Phiz.
+
+But Ernest turned away, melancholy, and almost despondent; for this was
+the saddest of his disappointments, to behold a man who might have
+fulfilled the prophecy, and had not willed to do so. Meantime, the
+cavalcade, the banners, the music, and the barouches swept past him,
+with the shouting crowd in the rear, leaving the dust to settle down,
+and the Great Stone Face to be revealed again, with the grandeur that it
+had worn for untold centuries.
+
+"Lo, here I am, Ernest!" the benign lips seemed to say. "I have waited
+longer than thou, and am not yet weary. Fear not; the man will come."
+
+
+V
+
+The years hurried onward, treading in their haste on one another's
+heels. And now they began to bring white hairs and scatter them over the
+head of Ernest; they made wrinkles across his forehead and furrows in
+his cheeks. He was an aged man. But not in vain had he grown old; more
+than the white hairs on his head were the wise thoughts in his mind. And
+Ernest had ceased to be obscure. Unsought for, undesired, had come the
+fame which so many seek, and made him known in the great world, beyond
+the limits of the valley in which he had dwelt so quietly. College
+professors, and even the active men of cities, came from far to see and
+converse with Ernest; for the report had gone abroad that this simple
+farmer had ideas unlike those of other men, and a tranquil majesty as if
+he had been talking with the angels as his daily friends. Ernest
+received these visitors with the gentle sincerity that had marked him
+from boyhood, and spoke freely with them of whatever came uppermost, or
+lay deepest in his heart or their own. While they talked together his
+face would kindle and shine upon them, as with a mild evening light.
+When his guests took leave and went their way, and passing up the
+valley, paused to look at the Great Stone Face, they imagined that they
+had seen its likeness in a human countenance, but could not remember
+where.
+
+While Ernest had been growing up and growing old, a bountiful Providence
+had granted a new poet to this earth. He, likewise, was a native of the
+valley, but had spent the greater part of his life at a distance from
+that romantic region, pouring out his sweet music amid the bustle and
+din of cities. Often, however, did the mountains which had been familiar
+to him in his childhood lift their snowy peaks into the clear atmosphere
+of his poetry. Neither was the Great Stone Face forgotten, for he had
+celebrated it in a poem which was grand enough to have been uttered by
+its lips.
+
+The songs of this poet found their way to Ernest. He read them after his
+customary toil, seated on the bench before his cottage door, where for
+such a length of time he had filled his repose with thought, by gazing
+at the Great Stone Face. And now, as he read stanzas that caused the
+soul to thrill within him, he lifted his eyes to the vast countenance
+beaming on him so benignantly.
+
+"O majestic friend," he said, addressing the Great Stone Face, "is not
+this man worthy to resemble thee?"
+
+The Face seemed to smile, but answered not a word.
+
+Now it happened that the poet, though he dwelt so far away, had not only
+heard of Ernest, but had meditated much upon his character, until he
+deemed nothing so desirable as to meet this man whose untaught wisdom
+walked hand in hand with the noble simplicity of his life. One summer
+morning, therefore, he took passage by the railroad, and, in the decline
+of the afternoon, alighted from the cars at no great distance from
+Ernest's cottage. The great hotel, which had formerly been the palace of
+Mr. Gathergold, was close at hand, but the poet, with his carpetbag on
+his arm, inquired at once where Ernest dwelt, and was resolved to be
+accepted as his guest.
+
+Approaching the door, he there found the good old man, holding a volume
+in his hand, which he read, and then, with a finger between the leaves,
+looked lovingly at the Great Stone Face.
+
+"Good evening," said the poet. "Can you give a traveler a night's
+lodging?"
+
+"Willingly," answered Ernest. And then he added, smiling, "Methinks I
+never saw the Great Stone Face look so hospitably at a stranger."
+
+The poet sat down on the bench beside him, and he and Ernest talked
+together. Often had the poet conversed with the wittiest and the wisest,
+but never before with a man like Ernest, whose thoughts and feelings
+gushed up with such a natural freedom, and who made great truths so
+familiar by his simple utterance of them. Angels, as had been so often
+said, seemed to have wrought with him at his labor in the fields; angels
+seemed to have sat with him by the fireside. So thought the poet. And
+Ernest, on the other hand, was moved by the living images which the poet
+flung out of his mind, and which peopled all the air about the cottage
+door with shapes of beauty.
+
+As Ernest listened to the poet, he imagined that the Great Stone Face
+was bending forward to listen, too. He gazed earnestly into the poet's
+glowing eyes.
+
+"Who are you, my strangely gifted guest!" he said.
+
+The poet laid his finger on the volume that Ernest had been reading.
+
+"You have read these poems," said he. "You know me, then,--for I wrote
+them."
+
+Again, and still more earnestly than before, Ernest examined the poet's
+features; then turned toward the Great Stone Face; then back to his
+guest. But his countenance fell; he shook his head, and mournfully
+sighed.
+
+"Wherefore are you sad?" inquired the poet.
+
+"Because," replied Ernest, "all through life I have awaited the
+fulfillment of a prophecy; and when I read these poems, I hoped that it
+might be fulfilled in you."
+
+"You hoped," answered the poet, faintly smiling, "to find in me the
+likeness of the Great Stone Face. And you are disappointed, as formerly
+with Mr. Gathergold, and Old Blood-and-Thunder, and Old Stony Phiz. Yes,
+Ernest, it is my doom. You must add my name to the illustrious three,
+and record another failure of your hopes. For--in shame and sadness do I
+speak it, Ernest--I am not worthy."
+
+"And why?" asked Ernest. He pointed to the volume. "Are not those
+thoughts divine?"
+
+"You can hear in them the far-off echo of a heavenly song," replied the
+poet. "But my life, dear Ernest, has not corresponded with my thought. I
+have had grand dreams, but they have been only dreams, because I have
+lived--and that, too, by my own choice--among poor and mean realities.
+Sometimes even--shall I dare to say it?--I lack faith in the grandeur,
+the beauty, and the goodness which my own works are said to have made
+more evident in nature and in human life. Why, then, pure seeker of the
+good and true, shouldst thou hope to find me in yonder image of the
+divine?"
+
+The poet spoke sadly, and his eyes were dim with tears. So, likewise,
+were those of Ernest.
+
+At the hour of sunset, as had long been his frequent custom, Ernest was
+to speak to an assemblage of the neighboring inhabitants in the open
+air. He and the poet, arm in arm, still talking together as they went
+along, proceeded to the spot. It was a small nook among the hills, with
+a gray precipice behind, the stern front of which was relieved by the
+pleasant foliage of many creeping plants, that made a [v]tapestry for
+the naked rock by hanging their festoons from all its rugged angles. At
+a small elevation above the ground, set in a rich framework of verdure,
+there appeared a [v]niche, spacious enough to admit a human figure. Into
+this natural pulpit Ernest ascended and threw a look of familiar
+kindness around upon his audience. They stood, or sat, or reclined upon
+the grass, as seemed good to each, with the departing sunshine falling
+over them. In another direction was seen the Great Stone Face, with the
+same cheer, combined with the same solemnity, in its benignant aspect.
+
+Ernest began to speak, giving to the people of what was in his heart and
+mind. His words had power, because they accorded with his thoughts; and
+his thoughts had reality and depth, because they harmonized with the
+life which he had always lived. The poet, as he listened, felt that the
+being and character of Ernest were a nobler strain of poetry than he
+had ever written. His eyes glistening with tears, he gazed
+reverentially at the venerable man, and said within himself that never
+was there an aspect so worthy of a prophet and a sage as that mild,
+sweet, thoughtful countenance with the glory of white hair diffused
+about it. At a distance, but distinctly to be seen, high up in the
+golden light of the setting sun, appeared the Great Stone Face, with
+hoary mists around it, like the white hairs around the brow of Ernest.
+
+At that moment, in sympathy with a thought which he was about to utter,
+the face of Ernest assumed a grandeur of expression, so full of
+benevolence, that the poet, by an irresistible impulse, threw his arms
+aloft, and shouted:
+
+"Behold! Behold! Ernest is himself the likeness of the Great Stone
+Face!"
+
+Then all the people looked and saw that what the deep-sighted poet said
+was true. The prophecy was fulfilled. The man had appeared at last.
+
+NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE.
+
+
+=HELPS TO STUDY=
+
+The Great Stone Face is a rock formation in the Franconia Notch of the
+White Mountains of New Hampshire, known as "The Old Man of the
+Mountain."
+
+     I. What picture do you get from Part I? Tell in your own words what
+     the mother told Ernest about the Great Stone Face. Who had carved
+     the face? How? Find something that is one hundred feet high, and
+     picture to yourself the immensity of the whole face, judging by the
+     forehead alone. Describe Ernest's childhood and his education.
+
+     II. What reason had the people for thinking that the great man had
+     come in the person of Mr. Gathergold? Explain the reference to
+     Midas. What was there in Mr. Gathergold's appearance and action to
+     disappoint Ernest? What comforted him? Why were the people willing
+     to believe that Mr. Gathergold was the image of the Great Stone
+     Face? What caused them to decide that he was not? What was there to
+     indicate that Ernest would become a great and good man?
+
+     III. What new character is now introduced? Wherein was Old
+     Blood-and-Thunder lacking in resemblance to the Great Stone Face?
+     Compare him with Mr. Gathergold and decide which was the greater
+     character? How was Ernest comforted in his second disappointment?
+
+     IV. What kind of man had Ernest become? What figure comes into the
+     story now? Find a sentence that gives a clew to the character of
+     Stony Phiz. Compare him with the characters previously introduced.
+     Why was Ernest more disappointed than before? Where did he again
+     look for comfort?
+
+     V. What changes did the hurrying years bring Ernest? What sentence
+     indicates who the man of prophecy might be? Who is now introduced
+     in the story? Give the opinion that Ernest and the poet had of each
+     other. Find the sentence which explains why the poet failed. Who
+     was the first to recognize in Ernest the likeness to the Great
+     Stone Face? Why did Hawthorne have a poet to make the discovery? In
+     what way was Ernest great? How had he become so? What trait of
+     Ernest's character is shown in the last sentence?
+
+     The story is divided into five parts. Make an outline telling what
+     is the topic of each part.
+
+
+SUPPLEMENTARY READING
+
+     The Sketch Book--Washington Irving.
+     Old Curiosity Shop--Charles Dickens.
+     Pendennis--William Makepeace Thackeray.
+     The Snow-Image--Nathaniel Hawthorne.
+     The Legend Beautiful--Henry W. Longfellow.
+     William Wilson--Edgar Allan Poe.
+
+[Illustration: Priscilla and John Alden]
+
+
+
+
+THE COURTSHIP OF MILES STANDISH
+
+
+    I
+
+    In the Old Colony days, in Plymouth the land of the Pilgrims,
+    To and fro in a room of his simple and primitive dwelling,
+    Clad in [v]doublet and hose, and boots of [v]Cordovan leather,
+    Strode, with a martial air, Miles Standish the Puritan Captain.
+    Buried in thought he seemed, with hands behind him, and pausing
+    Ever and anon to behold the glittering weapons of warfare,
+    Hanging in shining array along the walls of the chamber,--
+    Cutlass and corslet of steel, and his trusty [v]sword of Damascus.
+    Short of stature he was, but strongly built and athletic,
+    Broad in the shoulders, deep-chested, with muscles and sinews of iron;
+    Brown as a nut was his face, but his russet beard was already
+    Flaked with patches of snow, as hedges sometimes in November.
+    Near him was seated John Alden, his friend, and household companion,
+    Writing with diligent speed at a table of pine by the window;
+    Fair-haired, azure-eyed, with delicate Saxon complexion.
+    Youngest of all was he of the men who came in the May Flower.
+      (Standish takes up a book and reads a moment.)
+    Suddenly breaking the silence, the diligent scribe interrupting,
+    Spake, in the pride of his heart, Miles Standish the Captain of
+        Plymouth.
+    "Look at these arms," he said, "the warlike weapons that hang here
+    Burnished and bright and clean, as if for parade or inspection!
+    This is the sword of Damascus I fought with in Flanders; this
+        breastplate,
+    Well, I remember the day! once saved my life in a skirmish;
+    Here in front you can see the very dint of the bullet.
+    Had it not been of sheer steel, the forgotten bones of Miles Standish
+    Would at this moment be mold, in the grave in the Flemish morasses."
+    Thereupon answered John Alden, but looked not up from his writing:
+    "Truly the breath of the Lord hath slackened the speed of the bullet;
+    He in his mercy preserved you to be our shield and our weapon!"
+    Still the Captain continued, unheeding the words of the stripling:
+    "See how bright they are burnished, as if in an arsenal hanging;
+    That is because I have done it myself, and not left it to others.
+    Serve yourself, would you be well served, is an excellent [v]adage;
+    So I take care of my arms, as you of your pens and your inkhorn.
+    Then, too, there are my soldiers, my great, invincible army,
+    Twelve men, all equipped, having each his rest and his matchlock,
+    Eighteen shillings a month, together with diet and pillage,
+    And, like Caesar, I know the name of each of my soldiers!"
+    All was silent again; the Captain continued his reading.
+    Nothing was heard in the room but the hurrying pen of the stripling
+    Writing epistles important to go next day by the May Flower,
+    Ready to sail on the morrow, or next day at latest, God willing,
+    Homeward bound with the tidings of all that terrible winter,
+    Letters written by Alden and full of the name of Priscilla,
+    Full of the name and the fame of the Puritan maiden Priscilla.
+    Every sentence began or closed with the name of Priscilla,
+    Till the treacherous pen, to which he confided the secret
+    Strove to betray it by singing and shouting the name of Priscilla!
+    Finally closing his book, with a bang of its [v]ponderous cover,
+    Sudden and loud as the sound of a soldier grounding his musket,
+    Thus to the young man spake Miles Standish the Captain of Plymouth:
+    "When you have finished your work, I have something important to tell
+        you.
+    Be not however in haste; I can wait; I shall not be impatient!"
+    Straightway Alden replied, as he folded the last of his letters,
+    Pushing his papers aside, and giving respectful attention:
+    "Speak; for whenever you speak, I am always ready to listen,
+    Always ready to hear whatever pertains to Miles Standish."
+    Thereupon answered the Captain, embarrassed, and culling his phrases:
+    "'Tis not good for a man to be alone, say the Scriptures.
+    This I have said before, and again and again I repeat it;
+    Every hour in the day, I think it, and feel it, and say it.
+    Since Rose Standish died, my life has been weary and dreary;
+    Sick at heart have I been, beyond the healing of friendship.
+    Oft in my lonely hours have I thought of the maiden Priscilla,
+    Patient, courageous, and strong, and said to myself, that if ever
+    There were angels on earth, as there are angels in heaven,
+    Two have I seen and known; and the angel whose name is Priscilla
+    Holds in my desolate life the place which the other abandoned.
+    Long have I cherished the thought, but never have dared to reveal it,
+    Being a coward in this, though valiant enough for the most part.
+    Go to the damsel Priscilla, the loveliest maiden of Plymouth;
+    Say that a blunt old captain, a man not of words but of actions,
+    Offers his hand and his heart, the hand and heart of a soldier.
+    Not in these words, you know, but this in short is my meaning;
+    I am a maker of war, and not a maker of phrases."
+
+    When he had spoken, John Alden, the fair-haired, [v]taciturn stripling,
+    All aghast at his words, surprised, embarrassed, bewildered,
+    Trying to mask his dismay by treating the subject with lightness,
+    Trying to smile, and yet feeling his heart stand still in his bosom,
+    Thus made answer and spake, or rather stammered than answered:
+    "Such a message as that, I am sure I should mangle and mar it;
+    If you would have it well done--I am only repeating your maxim--
+    You must do it yourself, you must not leave it to others!"
+    But with the air of a man whom nothing can turn from his purpose,
+    Gravely shaking his head, made answer the Captain of Plymouth:
+    "Truly the maxim is good, and I do not mean to gainsay it;
+    But we must use it discreetly, and not waste powder for nothing.
+    Now, as I said before, I was never a maker of phrases.
+    I can march up to a fortress and summon the place to surrender,
+    But march up to a woman with such a proposal, I dare not.
+    I'm not afraid of bullets, nor shot from the mouth of a cannon,
+    But of a thundering No! point-blank from the mouth of a woman,
+    That I confess I am afraid of, nor am I ashamed to confess it!
+    Surely you cannot refuse what I ask in the name of our friendship!"
+
+    Then made answer John Alden: "The name of friendship is sacred;
+    What you demand in that name, I have not the power to deny you!"
+    So the strong will prevailed, subduing and molding the gentler,
+    Friendship prevailed over love, and Alden went on his errand.
+
+
+    II
+
+    So the strong will prevailed, and Alden went on his errand,
+    Out of the street of the village, and into the paths of the forest,
+    Into the tranquil woods, where bluebirds and robins were building
+    Towns in the populous trees, with hanging gardens of [v]verdure,
+    Peaceful, [v]aerial cities of joy and affection and freedom.
+    All around him was calm, but within him commotion and conflict,
+    Love contending with friendship, and self with each generous impulse.
+
+    So through the Plymouth woods John Alden went on his errand;
+    Saw the new-built house, and people at work in a meadow;
+    Heard, as he drew near the door, the musical voice of Priscilla
+    Singing the hundredth Psalm, the grand old Puritan anthem,
+    Full of the breath of the Lord, consoling and comforting many.
+    Then, as he opened the door, he beheld the form of the maiden
+    Seated beside her wheel, and the carded wool like a snow-drift
+    Piled at her knee, her white hands feeding the ravenous spindle,
+    While with her foot on the treadle she guided the wheel in its motion.
+
+    So he entered the house; and the hum of the wheel and the singing
+    Suddenly ceased; for Priscilla, aroused by his step on the threshold,
+    Rose as he entered, and gave him her hand, in signal of welcome,
+    Saying, "I knew it was you, when I heard your step in the passage;
+    For I was thinking of you, as I sat there singing and spinning."
+    Awkward and dumb with delight, that a thought of him had been mingled
+    Thus in the sacred psalm, that came from the heart of the maiden,
+    Silent before her he stood.
+    "I have been thinking all day," said gently the Puritan maiden,
+    "Dreaming all night, and thinking all day, of the hedgerows of
+        England,--
+    They are in blossom now, and the country is all like a garden;
+    Thinking of lanes and fields, and the song of the lark and the linnet,
+    Seeing the village street, and familiar faces of neighbors
+    Going about as of old, and stopping to gossip together.
+    Kind are the people I live with, and dear to me my religion;
+    Still my heart is so sad that I wish myself back in Old England.
+    You will say it is wrong, but I cannot help it; I almost
+    Wish myself back in Old England, I feel so lonely and wretched."
+
+    Thereupon answered the youth: "Indeed I do not condemn you;
+    Stouter hearts than a woman's have quailed in this terrible winter.
+    Yours is tender and trusting, and needs a stronger to lean on;
+    So I have come to you now, with an offer and proffer of marriage
+    Made by a good man and true, Miles Standish the Captain of Plymouth!"
+    Thus he delivered his message, the dexterous writer of letters,--
+    Did not [v]embellish the theme, nor array it in beautiful phrases,
+    But came straight to the point and blurted it out like a schoolboy;
+    Even the Captain himself could hardly have said it more bluntly.
+    Mute with amazement and sorrow, Priscilla the Puritan maiden
+    Looked into Alden's face, her eyes dilated with wonder,
+    Feeling his words like a blow, that stunned and rendered her
+        speechless;
+    Till at length she exclaimed, interrupting the ominous silence:
+    "If the great Captain of Plymouth is so very eager to wed me,
+    Why does he not come himself and take trouble to woo me?
+    If I am not worth the wooing, I surely am not worth the winning!"
+    Then John Alden began explaining and smoothing the matter,
+    Making it worse as he went, by saying the Captain was busy,--
+    Had no time for such things;--such things! the words grating harshly,
+    Fell on the ear of Priscilla; and swift as a flash she made answer:
+    "Has he not time for such things, as you call it, before he is married,
+    Would he be likely to find it, or make it, after the wedding?"
+    Still John Alden went on, unheeding the words of Priscilla,
+    Urging the suit of his friend, explaining, persuading, expanding.
+    But as he warmed and glowed, in his simple and eloquent language,
+    Quite forgetful of self, and full of the praise of his rival,
+    Archly the maiden smiled, and with eyes overrunning with laughter,
+    Said, in a tremulous voice, "Why don't you speak for yourself, John?"
+
+With conflicting feelings of love for Priscilla and duty to his friend,
+Miles Standish, John Alden does not "speak for himself," but returns to
+Plymouth to tell Standish the result of the interview.
+
+    Then John Alden spake, and related the wondrous adventure,
+    From beginning to end, minutely, just as it happened;
+    How he had seen Priscilla, and how he had sped in his courtship,
+    Only smoothing a little and softening down her refusal.
+    But when he came at length to the words Priscilla had spoken,
+    Words so tender and cruel: "Why don't you speak for yourself, John?"
+    Up leaped the Captain of Plymouth, and stamped on the floor, till his
+        armor
+    Clanged on the wall, where it hung, with a sound of sinister omen.
+    All his pent-up wrath burst forth in a sudden explosion,
+    E'en as a hand grenade, that scatters destruction around it.
+    Wildly he shouted and loud: "John Alden! you have betrayed me!
+    Me, Miles Standish, your friend! have supplanted, defrauded, betrayed
+        me!
+    You, who lived under my roof, whom I cherished and loved as a brother;
+    Henceforth let there be nothing between us save war, and implacable
+        hatred!"
+
+    So spake the Captain of Plymouth, and strode about in the chamber,
+    Chafing and choking with rage; like cords were the veins on his
+        temples.
+    But in the midst of his anger a man appeared at the doorway,
+    Bringing in uttermost haste a message of urgent importance,
+    Rumors of danger and war and hostile incursions of Indians!
+    Straightway the Captain paused, and, without further question or
+        parley,
+    Took from the nail on the wall his sword with its scabbard of iron,
+    Buckled the belt round his waist, and, frowning fiercely, departed.
+    Alden was left alone. He heard the clank of the scabbard
+    Growing fainter and fainter, and dying away in the distance.
+    Then he arose from his seat, and looked forth into the darkness,
+    Felt the cool air blow on his cheek, that was hot with the insult,
+    Lifted his eyes to the heavens and, folding his hands as in childhood,
+    Prayed in the silence of night to the Father who seeth in secret.
+
+
+    III.
+
+A report comes to the settlement that Miles Standish has been killed in
+a fight with the Indians. John Alden, feeling that Standish's death has
+freed him from the need of keeping his own love for Priscilla silent,
+woos and wins her. At last the wedding-day arrives.
+
+    This was the wedding-morn of Priscilla the Puritan maiden.
+    Friends were assembled together; the Elder and Magistrate also
+    Graced the scene with their presence, and stood like the Law and the
+        Gospel,
+    One with the sanction of earth and one with the blessing of heaven.
+    Simple and brief was the wedding, as that of Ruth and of Boaz.
+    Softly the youth and the maiden repeated the words of betrothal,
+    Taking each other for husband and wife in the Magistrate's presence,
+    After the Puritan way, and the laudable custom of Holland.
+    Fervently then, and devoutly, the excellent Elder of Plymouth
+    Prayed for the hearth and the home, that were founded that day in
+        affection,
+    Speaking of life and death, and imploring Divine benedictions.
+    Lo! when the service was ended, a form appeared on the threshold,
+    Clad in armor of steel, a somber and sorrowful figure!
+    Why does the bridegroom start and stare at the strange apparition?
+    Why does the bride turn pale, and hide her face on his shoulder?
+    Is it a phantom of air,--a bodiless, spectral illusion?
+    Is it a ghost from the grave, that has come to forbid the betrothal?
+    Long had it stood there unseen, a guest uninvited, unwelcomed;
+    Over its clouded eyes there had passed at times an expression
+    Softening the gloom and revealing the warm heart hidden beneath them.
+    Once it had lifted its hand, and moved its lips, but was silent,
+    As if an iron will had mastered the fleeting intention;
+    But when were ended the troth and the prayer and the last benediction,
+    Into the room it strode, and the people beheld with amazement
+    Bodily there in his armor Miles Standish, the Captain of Plymouth!
+
+    Grasping the bridegroom's hand, he said with emotion, "Forgive me!
+    I have been angry and hurt,--too long have I cherished the feeling;
+    I have been cruel and hard, but now, thank God! it is ended.
+    Mine is the same hot blood that leaped in the veins of Hugh Standish,
+    Sensitive, swift to resent, but as swift in atoning for error.
+    Never so much as now was Miles Standish the friend of John Alden."
+    Thereupon answered the bridegroom: "Let all be forgotten between us,--
+    All save the dear old friendship, and that shall grow older and
+        dearer!"
+    Then the Captain advanced, and, bowing, saluted Priscilla,
+    Wishing her joy of her wedding, and loudly lauding her husband.
+    Then he said with a smile: "I should have remembered the adage,--
+    If you would be well served, you must serve yourself; and, moreover,
+    No man can gather cherries in Kent at the season of Christmas!"
+
+    Great was the people's amazement, and greater yet their rejoicing,
+    Thus to behold once more the sunburnt face of their Captain,
+    Whom they had mourned as dead; and they gathered and crowded about him,
+    Eager to see him and hear him, forgetful of bride and of bridegroom,
+    Questioning, answering, laughing, and each interrupting the other,
+    Till the good Captain declared, being quite overpowered and bewildered,
+    He had rather by far break into an Indian encampment,
+    Than come again to a wedding to which he had not been invited.
+    Meanwhile the bridegroom went forth and stood with the bride at the
+        doorway,
+    Breathing the perfumed air of that warm and beautiful morning.
+    Touched with autumnal tints, but lonely and sad in the sunshine,
+    Lay extended before them the land of toil and privation;
+    But to their eyes transfigured, it seemed as the Garden of Eden,
+    Filled with the presence of God, whose voice was the sound of the
+        ocean.
+    Soon was their vision disturbed by the noise and stir of departure,
+    Friends coming forth from the house, and impatient of longer delaying.
+    Then from a stall near at hand, amid exclamations of wonder,
+    Alden the thoughtful, the careful, so happy, so proud of Priscilla,
+    Brought out his snow-white bull, obeying the hand of its master,
+    Led by a cord that was tied to an iron ring in its nostrils,
+    Covered with crimson cloth, and a cushion placed for a saddle.
+    She should not walk, he said, through the dust and heat of the noonday;
+    Nay, she should ride like a queen, not plod along like a peasant.
+    Somewhat alarmed at first, but reassured by the others,
+    Placing her hand on the cushion, her foot in the hand of her husband,
+    Gayly, with joyous laugh, Priscilla mounted her palfrey.
+    Onward the bridal procession now moved to the new habitation,
+    Happy husband and wife, and friends conversing together.
+    Down through the golden leaves the sun was pouring his splendors,
+    Gleaming on purple grapes, that, from branches above them suspended,
+    Mingled their odorous breath with the balm of the pine and the
+        fir-tree,
+    Wild and sweet as the clusters that grew in the valley of [v]Eshcol.
+    Like a picture it seemed of the primitive, pastoral ages,
+    Fresh with the youth of the world, and recalling Rebecca and Isaac,
+    Old and yet ever new, and simple and beautiful always,
+    Love immortal and young in the endless succession of lovers,
+    So through the Plymouth woods passed onward the bridal procession.
+
+HENRY W. LONGFELLOW.
+
+
+=HELPS TO STUDY=
+
+Miles Standish was one of the early settlers of Plymouth colony. He came
+over soon after the landing of the _Mayflower_ and was made captain of
+the colony because of his military experience. The feeble settlement was
+in danger from the Indians, and Standish's services were of great
+importance. He was one of the leaders of Plymouth for a number of years.
+Longfellow shaped the legend of his courtship into one of the most
+beautiful poems of American literature, vividly describing the hardships
+and perils of the early life of New England.
+
+     I. Where is the scene of the story laid? At what time did it begin?
+     What is the first impression you get of Miles Standish? of John
+     Alden? Read the lines that bring out the soldierly qualities of the
+     one and the studious nature of the other. What lines show that
+     Standish had fought on foreign soil? Read the lines that show John
+     Alden's interest in Priscilla. What request did Standish make of
+     Alden? How was it received? Why did Alden accept the task?
+
+     II. What time of the year was it? How do you know? Contrast Alden's
+     feelings with the scene around him. What were Priscilla's feelings
+     toward Alden? Quote lines that show this. How did he fulfill his
+     task? With what question did Priscilla finally meet his eloquent
+     appeal in behalf of his friend? How did Standish receive Alden's
+     report? What interruption occurred?
+
+     III. What report brought about the marriage of John Alden and
+     Priscilla? Read the lines that describe the beauty of their
+     wedding-day. What time of year was it? How do you know? What custom
+     was followed in the marriage ceremony? Look in the Bible for a
+     description of the marriage of Ruth and Boaz. Find other biblical
+     references in the poem. Who appeared at the end of the ceremony?
+     How was he received? Contrast his mood now with the mood when he
+     left to fight the Indians. What adage did he use to show the
+     difference between his age and Priscilla's? Describe the final
+     scene of the wedding--the procession to the new home. Tell what you
+     know of early life in Massachusetts.
+
+
+SUPPLEMENTARY READING
+
+     Gareth and Lynette--Alfred Tennyson.
+     The Courtin'--James Russell Lowell.
+     Evangeline--Henry W. Longfellow.
+
+
+
+
+THE FRIENDSHIP OF NANTAQUAS
+
+
+     This story is taken from Mary Johnston's novel, _To Have and to
+     Hold_, which describes the early settlement of Virginia. The most
+     important event of this period was the Indian massacre of 1622. For
+     some years the whites and Indians had lived in peace, and it was
+     believed that there would be no further trouble from the savages.
+     However, Opechancanough, the head chief of the Powhatan
+     confederacy, formed a plot against the white men and suddenly
+     attacked them with great fury. Hundreds of the English settlers
+     were slain. The author of the novel, taking the bare outline of the
+     massacre as given in the early histories, has woven around it the
+     graphic story of Captain Ralph Percy and his saving of the colony.
+     Percy, unlike Miles Standish, is not a historical character.
+
+
+I.
+
+A man who hath been a soldier and adventurer into far and strange
+countries must needs have faced Death many times and in many guises. I
+had learned to know that grim countenance, and to have no great fear of
+it. The surprise of our sudden capture by the Indians had now worn away,
+and I no longer struggled to loose my bonds, Indian-tied and not to be
+loosened.
+
+Another slow hour and I bethought me of Diccon, my servant and companion
+in captivity, and spoke to him, asking him how he did. He answered from
+the other side of the lodge that was our prison, but the words were
+scarcely out of his mouth before our guard broke in upon us, commanding
+silence.
+
+It was now moonlight without the lodge and very quiet. The night was far
+gone; already we could smell the morning, and it would come apace.
+Knowing the swiftness of that approach and what the early light would
+bring, I strove for a courage which should be the steadfastness of the
+Christian and not the vainglorious pride of the heathen.
+
+Suddenly, in the first gray dawn, as at a trumpet's call, the village
+awoke. From the long communal houses poured forth men, women, and
+children; fires sprang up, dispersing the mist, and a commotion arose
+through the length and breadth of the place. The women made haste with
+their cooking and bore maize cakes and broiled fish to the warriors, who
+sat on the ground in front of the royal lodge. Diccon and I were loosed,
+brought without, and allotted our share of the food. We ate sitting side
+by side with our captors, and Diccon, with a great cut across his head,
+even made merry.
+
+In the usual order of things in an Indian village, the meal over,
+tobacco should have followed. But now not a pipe was lit, and the women
+made haste to take away the platters and to get all things in readiness
+for what was to follow. The [v]werowance of the [v]Paspaheghs rose to
+his feet, cast aside his mantle, and began to speak. He was a man in the
+prime of life, of a great figure, strong as a [v]Susquehannock, and a
+savage cruel and crafty beyond measure. Over his breast, stained with
+strange figures, hung a chain of small bones, and the scalp locks of his
+enemies fringed his moccasins. No player could be more skillful in
+gesture and expression, no poet more nice in the choice of words, no
+general more quick to raise a wild enthusiasm in the soldiers to whom he
+called. All Indians are eloquent, but this savage was a leader among
+them.
+
+He spoke now to some effect. Commencing with a day in the moon of
+blossoms when for the first time winged canoes brought white men into
+the [v]Powhatan, he came down through year after year to the present
+hour, ceased, and stood in silence, regarding his triumph. It was
+complete. In its wild excitement the village was ready then and there to
+make an end of us, who had sprung to our feet and stood with our backs
+against a great bay tree, facing the maddened throng. Much the best
+would it be for us if the tomahawks left the hands that were drawn back
+to throw, if the knives that were flourished in our faces should be
+buried to the haft in our hearts; and so we courted death, striving with
+word and look to infuriate our executioners to the point of forgetting
+their former purpose in the passion for instant vengeance. It was not to
+be. The werowance spoke again, pointing to the hills which were dimly
+seen through the mist. A moment, and the hands clenched upon the weapons
+fell; another, and we were upon the march.
+
+As one man, the village swept through the forest toward the rising
+ground that was but a few bowshots away. The young men bounded ahead to
+make the preparation; but the approved warriors and the old men went
+more sedately, and with them walked Diccon and I, as steady of step as
+they. The women and children for the most part brought up the rear,
+though a few impatient hags ran past us. One of these women bore a great
+burning torch, the flame and smoke streaming over her shoulder as she
+ran. Others carried pieces of bark heaped with the [v]slivers of pine of
+which every wigwam has store.
+
+The sun was yet to rise when we reached a hollow amongst the low red
+hills. The place was a natural amphitheater, well fitted for a
+spectacle. Those Indians who could not crowd into the narrow level
+spread themselves over the rising ground and looked down with fierce
+laughter upon the driving of the stakes which the young men had brought.
+The women and children scattered into the woods beyond the cleft between
+the hills and returned bearing great armfuls of dry branches. Taunting
+laughter, cries of savage triumph, the shaking of rattles, and the
+furious beating of two great drums combined to make a clamor deafening
+me to stupor. Above the horizon was the angry reddening of the heavens
+and the white mist curling up like smoke.
+
+I sat down beside Diccon on the log. I did not speak to him, nor he to
+me; there seemed no need of speech. In the [v]pandemonium to which the
+world had narrowed, the one familiar, matter-of-course thing was that he
+and I were to die together.
+
+The stakes were in the ground and painted red, the wood was properly
+fixed. The Indian woman who held the torch that was to light the pile
+ran past us, whirling the wood around her head to make it blaze more
+fiercely. As she went by she lowered the brand and slowly dragged it
+across my wrists. The beating of the drums suddenly ceased, and the loud
+voices died away.
+
+Seeing that they were coming for us, Diccon and I rose to await them.
+When they were nearly upon us, I turned to him and held out my hand.
+
+He made no motion to take it. Instead, he stood with fixed eyes looking
+past me and slightly upward. A sudden pallor had overspread the bronze
+of his face.
+
+"There's a verse somewhere," he said in a quiet voice,--"it's in the
+Bible, I think--I heard it once long ago: 'I will look unto the hills
+from whence cometh my help.' Look, sir!"
+
+I turned and followed with my eyes the pointing of his finger. In front
+of us the bank rose steeply, bare to the summit,--no trees, only the red
+earth, with here and there a low growth of leafless bushes. Behind it
+was the eastern sky. Upon the crest, against the sunrise, stood the
+figure of a man--an Indian. From one shoulder hung an otterskin, and a
+great bow was in his hand. His limbs were bare, and as he stood
+motionless, bathed in the rosy light, he looked like some bronze god,
+perfect from the beaded moccasins to the calm, uneager face below the
+feathered head-dress. He had but just risen above the brow of the hill;
+the Indians in the hollow saw him not.
+
+While Diccon and I stared, our tormentors were upon us. They came a
+dozen or more at once, and we had no weapons. Two hung on my arms, while
+a third laid hold of my doublet to rend it from me. An arrow whistled
+over our heads and stuck into a tree behind us. The hands that clutched
+me dropped, and with a yell the busy throng turned their faces in the
+direction whence had come the arrow.
+
+The Indian who had sent that dart before him was descending the bank. An
+instant's breathless hush while they stared at the solitary figure; then
+the dark forms bent forward for the rush straightened, and there arose a
+cry of recognition. "The son of Powhatan! The son of Powhatan!"
+
+He came down the hillside to the level of the hollow, the authority of
+his look and gesture making way for him through the crowd that surged
+this way and that, and walked up to us where we stood, hemmed round but
+no longer in the clutch of our enemies.
+
+"You were never more welcome, Nantaquas," I said to him, heartily.
+
+Taking my hand in his, the chief turned to his frowning countrymen. "Men
+of the [v]Pamunkeys!" he cried, "this is Nantaquas' friend, and so the
+friend of all the tribes that called Powhatan 'father.' The fire is not
+for him nor for his servant; keep it for the [v]Monacans and for the
+dogs of the [v]Long House! The calumet is for the friend of Nantaquas,
+and the dance of the maidens, the noblest buck and the best of the
+fish-weirs."
+
+There was a surging forward of the Indians and a fierce murmur of
+dissent. The werowance, standing out from the throng, lifted his voice.
+"There was a time," he cried, "when Nantaquas was the panther crouched
+upon the bough above the leader of the herd; now Nantaquas is a tame
+panther and rolls at the white men's feet! There was a time when the
+word of the son of Powhatan weighed more than the lives of many dogs
+such as these, but I know not why we should put out the fire at his
+command! He is war chief no longer, for [v]Opechancanough will have no
+tame panther to lead the tribes. Opechancanough is our head, and he
+kindleth a fire indeed. We will give to this man what fuel we choose,
+and to-night Nantaquas may look for his bones!"
+
+He ended, and a great clamor arose. The Paspaheghs would have cast
+themselves upon us again but for a sudden action of the young chief, who
+had stood motionless, with raised hand and unmoved face, during the
+werowance's bitter speech. Now he flung up his hand, and in it was a
+bracelet of gold, carved and twisted like a coiled snake and set with a
+green stone. I had never seen the toy before, but evidently others had.
+The excited voices fell, and the Indians, Pamunkeys and Paspaheghs
+alike, stood as though turned to stone.
+
+Nantaquas smiled coldly. "This day hath Opechancanough made me war chief
+again. We have smoked the peace pipe together--my father's brother and
+I--in the starlight, sitting before his lodge, with the wide marshes and
+the river dark at our feet. Singing birds in the forest have been many;
+evil tales have they told; Opechancanough has stopped his ears against
+their false singing. My friends are his friends, my brother is his
+brother, my word is his word: witness the armlet that hath no like.
+Opechancanough is at hand; he comes through the forest with his two
+hundred warriors. Will you, when you lie at his feet, have him ask you,
+'Where is the friend of my friend, of my war chief?'"
+
+There came a long, deep breath from the Indians, then a silence in which
+they fell back, slowly and sullenly--whipped hounds but with the will to
+break that leash of fear.
+
+"Hark!" said Nantaquas, smiling. "I hear Opechancanough and his warriors
+coming over the leaves."
+
+The noise of many footsteps was indeed audible, coming toward the hollow
+from the woods beyond. With a burst of cries, the priests and the
+conjurer whirled away to bear the welcome of Okee to the royal
+worshipper, and at their heels went the chief men of the Pamunkeys. The
+werowance of the Paspaheghs was one that sailed with the wind; he
+listened to the deepening sound and glanced at the son of Powhatan where
+he stood, calm and confident, then smoothed his own countenance and made
+a most pacific speech, in which all the blame of the late proceedings
+was laid upon the singing birds. When he had done speaking, the young
+men tore the stakes from the earth and threw them into a thicket, while
+the women plucked apart the newly kindled fire and flung the brands into
+a little nearby stream, where they went out in a cloud of hissing steam.
+
+I turned to the Indian who had wrought this miracle. "Art sure it is not
+a dream, Nantaquas? I think that Opechancanough would not lift a finger
+to save me from all the deaths the tribes could invent."
+
+"Opechancanough is very wise," he answered quietly. "He says that now
+the English will believe in his love indeed when they see that he holds
+dear even one who might be called his enemy, who hath spoken against him
+at the Englishmen's council fire. He says that for five suns Captain
+Percy shall feast with him, and then shall go back free to Jamestown. He
+thinks that then Captain Percy will not speak against him any more,
+calling his love to the white men only words with no good deeds
+behind."
+
+He spoke simply, out of the nobility of his nature, believing his own
+speech. I that was older, and had more knowledge of men and the masks
+they wear, was but half deceived. My belief in the hatred of the dark
+emperor was not shaken, and I looked yet to find the drop of poison
+within this honey flower. How poisoned was that bloom, God knows I could
+not guess!
+
+By this time we three were alone in the hollow, for all the savages, men
+and women, had gone forth to meet the Indian whose word was law from the
+falls of the far west to the Chesapeake. The sun now rode above the low
+hills, pouring its gold into the hollow and brightening all the world
+besides. A chant raised by the Indians grew nearer, and the rustling of
+the leaves beneath many feet more loud and deep; then all noise ceased
+and Opechancanough entered the hollow alone. An eagle feather was thrust
+through his scalp lock; over his naked breast, which was neither painted
+nor pricked into strange figures, hung a triple row of pearls; his
+mantle was woven of bluebird feathers, as soft and sleek as satin. The
+face of this barbarian was as dark, cold, and impassive as death. Behind
+that changeless mask, as in a safe retreat, the subtle devil that was
+the man might plot destruction and plan the laying of dreadful mines.
+
+I stepped forward and met him on the spot where the fire had been. For a
+minute neither spoke. It was true that I had striven against him many a
+time, and I knew that he knew it. It was also true that without his aid
+Nantaquas could not have rescued us from that dire peril. And it was
+again the truth that an Indian neither forgives nor forgets. He was my
+saviour, and I knew that mercy had been shown for some dark reason which
+I could not divine. Yet I owed him thanks and gave them as shortly and
+simply as I could.
+
+He heard me out with neither liking nor disliking nor any other emotion
+written upon his face; but when I had finished, as though he had
+suddenly bethought himself, he smiled and held out his hand, white-man
+fashion.
+
+"Singing birds have lied to Captain Percy," he said. "Opechancanough
+thinks that Captain Percy will never listen to them again. The chief of
+the Powhatans is a lover of the white men, of the English, and of other
+white men. He would call the Englishmen his brothers and be taught of
+them how to rule and to whom to pray"--
+
+"Let Opechancanough go with me to Jamestown," I replied. "He hath the
+wisdom of the woods; let him come and gain that of the town."
+
+The emperor smiled again. "I will come to Jamestown soon, but not to-day
+or to-morrow or the next day. And Captain Percy must smoke the peace
+pipe in my lodge above the Pamunkey and watch my young men and maidens
+dance, and eat with me five days. Then he may go back to Jamestown with
+presents for the great white father there and with a message from me
+that I am coming soon to learn of the white man."
+
+For five days I tarried in the great chief's lodge in his own village
+above the marshes of the Pamunkey. I will allow that the dark emperor to
+whom we were so much beholden gave us courteous keeping. The best of the
+hunt was ours, the noblest fish, the most delicate roots. We were alive
+and sound of limb, well treated and with the promise of release; we
+might have waited, seeing that wait we must, in some measure of content.
+We did not so. There was a horror in the air. From the marshes that were
+growing green, from the sluggish river, from the rotting leaves and cold
+black earth and naked forest, it rose like an [v]exhalation. We knew not
+what it was, but we breathed it in, and it went to the marrow of our
+bones.
+
+The savage emperor we rarely saw, though we were bestowed so near to him
+that his sentinels served for ours. Like some god, he kept within his
+lodge, the hanging mats between him and the world without. At other
+times, issuing from that retirement, he would stride away into the
+forest. Picked men went with him, and they were gone for hours; but when
+they returned they bore no trophies, brute or human. What they did we
+could not guess. If escape had been possible, we would not have awaited
+the doubtful fulfillment of the promise made us. But the vigilance of
+the Indians never slept; they watched us like hawks, night and day.
+
+In the early morning of the fifth day, when we came from our wigwam, it
+was to find Nantaquas sitting by the fire, magnificent in the paint and
+trappings of the ambassador, motionless as a piece of bronze and
+apparently quite unmindful of the admiring glances of the women who
+knelt about the fire preparing our breakfast. When he saw us he rose and
+came to meet us, and I embraced him, I was so glad to see him.
+
+"The Rappahannocks feasted me long," he said. "I was afraid that Captain
+Percy would be gone to Jamestown before I was back on the Pamunkey."
+
+"Shall I ever see Jamestown again, Nantaquas?" I demanded. "I have my
+doubts."
+
+He looked me full in the eyes, and there was no doubting the candor of
+his own. "You go with the next sunrise," he answered. "Opechancanough
+has given me his word."
+
+"I am glad to hear it," I said. "Why have we been kept at all? Why did
+he not free us five days agone?"
+
+He shook his head. "I do not know. Opechancanough has many thoughts
+which he shares with no man. But now he will send you with presents for
+the governor, and with messages of his love for the white men. There
+will be a great feast to-day, and to-night the young men and maidens
+will dance before you. Then in the morning you will go."
+
+When we had sat by the fire for an hour, the old men and the warriors
+came to visit us, and the smoking began. The women laid mats in a great
+half circle, and each savage took his seat with perfect breeding: that
+is, in absolute silence and with a face like a stone. The peace paint
+was upon them all--red, or red and white--and they sat and looked at the
+ground until I had made the speech of welcome. Soon the air was dense
+with fragrant smoke; in the thick blue haze the sweep of painted figures
+had the seeming of some fantastic dream. An old man arose and made a
+long and touching speech, with much reference to calumets and buried
+hatchets. Then they waited for my contribution of honeyed words. The
+Pamunkeys, living at a distance from the settlements, had but little
+English, and the learning of the Paspaheghs was not much greater. I
+repeated to them the better part of a canto of Master Spenser's _Faery
+Queen_, after which I told them the moving story of the Moor of Venice.
+It answered the purpose to admiration.
+
+The day wore on, with relay after relay of food, which we must taste at
+least, with endless smoking of pipes and speeches which must be listened
+to and answered. When evening came and our entertainers drew off to
+prepare for the dance, they left us as wearied as by a long day's march.
+
+Suddenly, as we sat staring at the fire, we were beset by a band of
+maidens, coming out of the woods, painted, with antlers upon their heads
+and pine branches in their hands. They danced about us, now advancing
+until the green needles met above our heads, now retreating until there
+was a space of turf between us. They moved with grace, keeping time to a
+plaintive song, now raised by the whole choir, now fallen to a single
+voice.
+
+The Indian girls danced more and more swiftly, and their song changed,
+becoming gay and shrill and sweet. Higher and higher rang the notes,
+faster and faster moved the dark feet; then quite suddenly song and
+motion ceased together. From the darkness now came a burst of savage
+cries only less appalling than the war whoop itself. In a moment the men
+of the village had rushed from the shadow of the trees into the broad,
+firelit space before us. They circled around us, then around the fire;
+now each man danced and stamped and muttered to himself. For the most
+part they were painted red, but some were white from head to
+heel--statues come to life--while others had first oiled their bodies,
+then plastered them over with small, bright-colored feathers.
+
+Diccon and I watched that uncouth spectacle, that Virginian [v]masque,
+as we had watched many another one, with disgust and weariness. It would
+last, we knew, for the better part of the night. For a time we must stay
+and testify our pleasure, but after a while we might retire, and leave
+the women and children the sole spectators. They never wearied of gazing
+at the rhythmic movement.
+
+I observed that among the ranks of the women one girl watched not the
+dancers but us. Now and then she glanced impatiently at the wheeling
+figures, but her eyes always returned to us. At length I became aware
+that she must have some message to deliver or warning to give. Once when
+I made a slight motion as if to go to her, she shook her head and laid
+her finger on her lips.
+
+Presently I rose and, making my way to the werowance of the village,
+where he sat with his eyes fixed on the spectacle, told him that I was
+wearied and would go to my hut, to rest for the few hours that yet
+remained of the night. He listened dreamily, but made no offer to escort
+me. After a moment he acquiesced in my departure, and Diccon and I
+quietly left the press of savages and began to cross the firelit turf
+between them and our lodge. When we had reached its entrance, we paused
+and looked back to the throng we had left. Every back seemed turned to
+us, every eye intent upon the leaping figures. Swiftly and silently we
+walked across the bit of even ground to the friendly trees and found
+ourselves in a thin strip of shadow. Beneath the trees, waiting for us,
+was the Indian maid. She would not speak or tarry, but flitted before us
+as dusk and noiseless as a moth, and we followed her into the darkness
+beyond the firelight. Here a wigwam rose in our path; the girl, holding
+aside the mats that covered the entrance, motioned to us to enter. A
+fire was burning within the lodge and it showed us Nantaquas standing
+with folded arms.
+
+"Nantaquas!" I exclaimed, and would have touched him but that with a
+slight motion of his hand he kept me back.
+
+"Well!" I asked at last. "What is the matter, my friend?"
+
+For a full minute he made no answer, and when he did speak his voice
+matched his strained and troubled features.
+
+"My _friend_," he said, "I am going to show myself a friend indeed to
+the English, to the strangers who were not content with their own
+hunting-grounds beyond the great salt water. When I have done this, I do
+not know that Captain Percy will call me 'friend'."
+
+"You were wont to speak plainly, Nantaquas," I answered him. "I am not
+fond of riddles."
+
+Again he waited, as though he found speech difficult. I stared at him in
+amazement, he was so changed in so short a time.
+
+He spoke at last: "When the dance is over and the fires are low and the
+sunrise is at hand, Opechancanough will come to you to bid you farewell.
+He will give you the pearls he wears about his neck for a present to the
+governor and a bracelet for yourself. Also he will give you three men
+for a guard through the forest. He has messages of love to send the
+white men, and he would send them by you who were his enemy and his
+captive. So all the white men shall believe in his love."
+
+"Well!" I said drily as he paused. "I will bear the messages. What
+next?"
+
+"Your guards will take you slowly through the forest, stopping to eat
+and sleep. For them there is no need to run like the stag with the
+hunter behind it."
+
+"Then we should make for Jamestown as for life," I said, "not sleeping
+or eating or making pause?"
+
+"Yes," he replied, "if you would not die, you and all your people."
+
+In the silence of the hut the fire crackled, and the branches of the
+trees outside, bent by the wind, made a grating sound against the bark
+roof.
+
+"How die?" I asked at last. "Speak out!"
+
+"Die by the arrow and the tomahawk," he answered,--"yea, and by the guns
+you have given the red men. To-morrow's sun, and the next, and the
+next--three suns--and the tribes will fall upon the English. At the same
+hour, when the men are in the fields and the women and children are in
+the houses, they will strike--all the tribes, as one man; and from where
+the Powhatan falls over the rocks to the salt water beyond Accomac,
+there will not be one white man left alive."
+
+He ceased to speak, and for a minute the fire made the only sound in the
+hut. Then I asked, "All die? There are three thousand Englishmen in
+Virginia."
+
+"They are scattered and unwarned. The fighting men of the villages of
+the Powhatan and the Pamunkey and the great bay are many, and they have
+sharpened their hatchets and filled their quivers with arrows."
+
+"Scattered!" I cried. "Strewn broadcast up and down the river--here a
+lonely house, there a cluster of two or three--the men in the fields or
+at the wharves, the women and children busy within doors, all unwarned!"
+
+I leaned against the side of the hut, for my heart beat like a
+frightened woman's. "Three days!" I exclaimed. "If we go with all our
+speed, we shall be in time. When did you learn this thing?"
+
+"While you watched the dance," the Indian answered, "Opechancanough and
+I sat within his lodge in the darkness. His heart was moved, and he
+talked to me of his own youth in a strange country, south of the sunset.
+Also he spoke to me of Powhatan, my father--of how wise he was and how
+great a chief before the English came, and how he hated them. And
+then--then I heard what I have told you!"
+
+"How long has this been planned?"
+
+"For many moons. I have been a child, fooled and turned aside from the
+trail; not wise enough to see it beneath the flowers, through the smoke
+of the peace pipes."
+
+"Why does Opechancanough send us back to the settlements?" I demanded.
+
+"It is his fancy. Every hunter and trader and learner of our tongues,
+living in the villages or straying in the woods, has been sent back to
+Jamestown or his home with presents and fair words. You will lull the
+English in Jamestown into a faith in the smiling sky just before the
+storm bursts on them in fullest fury."
+
+There was a pause.
+
+"Nantaquas," I said, "you are not the first child of Powhatan who has
+loved and shielded the white men."
+
+"Pocahontas was a woman, a child," he answered. "Out of pity she saved
+your lives, not knowing that it was to the hurt of her people. Then you
+were few and weak and could not take your revenge. Now, if you die not,
+you will drink deep of vengeance--so deep that your lips may never leave
+the cup. More ships will come, and more; you will grow ever stronger.
+There may come a moon when the deep forests and the shining rivers will
+know us, to whom [v]Kiwassa gave them, no more."
+
+"You will be with your people in the war?" I asked.
+
+"I am an Indian," was his simple reply.
+
+"Come against us if you will," I returned. "Nobly warned, fair upon our
+guard, we will meet you as knightly foe should be met."
+
+Very slowly he raised his arm from his side and held out his hand. His
+eyes met mine in somber inquiry, half eager, half proudly doubtful. I
+went to him at once and took his hand in mine. No word was spoken.
+Presently he withdrew his hand from my clasp, and, putting his finger to
+his lips, whistled low to the Indian girl. She drew aside the mats, and
+we passed out, Diccon and I, leaving him standing as we had found him,
+upright against the post, in the red firelight.
+
+Should we ever go through the woods, pass through that gathering storm,
+reach Jamestown, warn them there of the death that was rushing upon
+them? Should we ever leave that hated village? Would the morning ever
+come? It was an alarm that was sounding, and there were only two to
+hear; miles away beneath the mute stars English men and women lay
+asleep, with the hour thundering at their gates, and there was none to
+cry, "Awake!" I could have cried out in that agony of waiting, with the
+leagues on leagues to be traveled and the time so short! I saw, in my
+mind's eye, the dark warriors gathering, tribe on tribe, war party on
+war party, thick crowding shadows of death, slipping through the silent
+forest ... and in the clearings the women and children!
+
+It came to an end, as all things earthly will. When the ruffled pools
+amid the marshes were rosy red beneath the sunrise, the women brought us
+food, and the warriors and old men gathered about us. I offered them
+bread and meat and told them that they must come to Jamestown to taste
+the white man's cookery.
+
+Scarcely was the meal over when Opechancanough issued from his lodge,
+and, coming slowly up to us, took his seat upon the white mat that was
+spread for him. Through his scalp lock was stuck an eagle's feather;
+across his face, from temple to chin, was a bar of red paint; the eyes
+above were very bright and watchful.
+
+One of his young men brought a great pipe, carved and painted, stem and
+bowl; it was filled with tobacco, lit, and borne to the emperor. He put
+it to his lips and smoked in silence, while the sun climbed higher and
+higher and the golden minutes that were more precious than heart's blood
+went by swiftly.
+
+At last, his part in the solemn mockery played, he held out the pipe to
+me.
+
+"The sky will fall, and the rivers will run dry, and the birds cease to
+sing," he said, "before the smoke of this peace-pipe fades from the
+land."
+
+I took the symbol of peace and smoked it as silently and soberly as he
+had done before me, then laid it leisurely aside and held out my hand.
+
+"Come to Jamestown," I said, "to smoke of the Englishman's pipe and
+receive rich presents--a red robe like your brother Powhatan, and a cup
+from which you shall drink, you and all your people."
+
+But the cup I meant was that of punishment.
+
+The savage laid his dark fingers in mine for an instant, withdrew them,
+and, rising to his feet, motioned to three Indians who stood out from
+the throng of warriors.
+
+"These are Captain Percy's guides and friends," he announced. "The sun
+is high; it is time that he was gone. Here are presents for him and my
+brother the governor." As he spoke, he took from his neck the rope of
+pearls and from his arm a copper bracelet, and laid both upon my palm.
+
+"Thank you, Opechancanough," I said briefly. "When we meet again I will
+not greet you with empty thanks."
+
+We bade farewell to the noisy throng and went down to the river, where
+we found a canoe and rowers, crossed the stream, and entered the forest,
+which stretched black and forbidding before us--the blacker that we now
+knew the dreadful secret it guarded.
+
+
+II
+
+     After leaving the Indian village, Captain Percy and Diccon found
+     that their guides purposely delayed the march, so that they would
+     not reach Jamestown until just before the beginning of the attack,
+     when it would be too late for them to warn the English, if they
+     suspected anything. Percy and Diccon, in this dilemma, surprised
+     the Indian guides and killed them, then hurried on with all
+     possible speed toward Jamestown. As they hastened through the
+     forest, Diccon was shot by an Indian and mortally wounded; Captain
+     Percy remained with him until his death, and again took up the
+     journey, now alone and greatly fearing that he would arrive too
+     late.
+
+The dusk had quite fallen when I reached the neck of land. Arriving at
+the palisade that protected Jamestown, I beat upon the gate and called
+to the warden to open. He did so with starting eyes. Giving him a few
+words and cautioning him to raise no alarm in the town, I hurried by him
+into the street and down it toward the house that was set aside for the
+governor of Virginia, Sir Francis Wyatt.
+
+The governor's door was open, and in the hall servingmen were moving to
+and fro. When I came in upon them, they cried out as if it had been a
+ghost, and one fellow let a silver dish fall to the floor with a
+clatter. They shook with fright and stood back as I passed them without
+a word and went on to the governor's great room. The door was ajar, and
+I pushed it open and stood for a minute on the threshold. They were all
+there--the principal men of the colony, the governor, the [v]treasurer,
+[v]West, [v]John Rolfe.
+
+At sight of me the governor sprang to his feet; through the treasurer's
+lips came a long, sighing breath; West's dark face was ashen. I came
+forward to the table, and leaned my weight upon it; for all the waves of
+the sea were roaring in my ears and the lights were going up and down.
+
+"Are you man or spirit!" cried Rolfe through white lips. "Are you Ralph
+Percy?"
+
+"Yes," I said, "I am Percy."
+
+With an effort I drew myself erect, and standing so, told my tidings,
+quietly and with circumstance, so as to leave no room for doubt as to
+their verity, or as to the sanity of him who brought them. They listened
+with shaking limbs and gasping breath; for it was the fall and wiping
+out of a people of which I brought warning.
+
+When all was told I thought to ask a question myself; but before my
+tongue could frame it, the roaring of the sea became so loud that I
+could hear naught else, and the lights all ran together into a wheel of
+fire. Then in a moment all sounds ceased and to the lights succeeded the
+blackness of outer darkness.
+
+When I awoke from the sleep into which I must have passed from that
+swoon, it was to find myself lying in a room flooded with sunshine. For
+a moment I lay still, wondering where I was and how I came there. A drum
+beat, a dog barked, and a man's quick voice gave a command. The sounds
+stung me into remembrance.
+
+There were many people in the street. Women hurried by to the fort with
+white, scared faces, their arms filled with household gear; children ran
+beside them; men went to and fro, the most grimly silent, but a few
+talking loudly.
+
+I could not see the palisade across the neck, but I knew that it was
+there that the fight--if fight there were--would be made. Should the
+Indians take the palisade, there would yet be the houses of the town,
+and, last of all, the fort in which to make a stand. I believed not that
+they would take it, for Indian warfare ran more to ambuscade and
+surprise than to assault in the open field.
+
+The drum beat again, and a messenger from the palisade came down the
+street at a run.
+
+"They're in the woods over against us, thicker than ants!" he cried to
+West, who was coming along the way. "A boat has just drifted ashore,
+with two men in it, dead and scalped!"
+
+I looked again at the neck of land and the forest beyond, and now, as if
+by magic, from the forest and up and down the river as far as the eye
+could reach, rose here and there thin columns of smoke. Suddenly, as I
+stared, three or four white smoke puffs, like giant flowers, started out
+of the shadowy woods across the neck. Following the crack of the
+muskets--fired out of pure bravado by the Indians--came the yelling of
+the savages. The sound was prolonged and deep, as though issuing from
+many throats.
+
+The street, when I went out into it, was very quiet. All windows and
+doors were closed and barred. The yelling from the forest had ceased for
+the moment, but I knew well that it would soon begin with doubled noise.
+I hurried along the street to the palisade, where all the men of
+Jamestown were gathered, armed and helmeted and breast-plated, waiting
+for the foe in grim silence.
+
+Through a loophole in the gate of the palisade I looked and saw the
+sandy neck joining the town to the mainland, and the deep and dark woods
+beyond, the fairy mantle giving invisibility to the foe. I drew back
+from my loophole and held out my hand to a woman for a loaded musket. A
+quick murmur like the drawing of a breath came from our line. The
+governor, standing near me, cast an anxious glance along the stretch of
+wooden stakes that were neither so high nor so thick as they should have
+been.
+
+"I am new to this warfare, Captain Percy," he said. "Do they think to
+use those logs they carry as battering rams?"
+
+"As scaling ladders, your honor," I replied. "It is possible that we may
+have some sword play after all."
+
+"We'll take your advice the next time we build a palisade, Ralph Percy,"
+muttered West on my other side. Mounting the breastwork that we had
+thrown up to shelter the women who were to load the muskets, he coolly
+looked over the pales at the oncoming savages.
+
+"Wait until they pass the blasted pine, men!" he cried. "Then give them
+a hail of lead that will beat them back to the Pamunkey."
+
+An arrow whistled by his ear; a second struck him on the shoulder but
+pierced not his coat of mail. He came down from his dangerous post with
+a laugh.
+
+"If the leader could be picked off"--I said. "It's a long shot, but
+there's no harm in trying."
+
+As I spoke I raised my gun to my shoulder, but West leaned across Rolfe,
+who stood between us, and plucked me by the sleeve.
+
+"You've not looked at him closely," he said. "Look again."
+
+I did as he told me, and lowered my musket. It was not for me to send
+that Indian leader to his account. Rolfe's lips tightened and a sudden
+pallor overspread his face. "Nantaquas?" he muttered in my ear, and I
+nodded yes.
+
+The volley that we fired full into the ranks of our foe was deadly, and
+we looked to see them turn and flee, as they had fled so often before at
+a hot volley. But this time they were led by one who had been trained in
+English steadfastness. Broken for the moment by our fire, they rallied
+and came on yelling, bearing logs, thick branches of trees, oars tied
+together--anything by whose help they could hope to surmount the
+palisade. We fired again, but they had planted their ladders. Before we
+could snatch the loaded muskets from the women a dozen painted figures
+appeared above the sharpened stakes. A moment, and they and a score
+behind them had leaped down upon us.
+
+It was no time now to skulk behind a palisade. At all hazards, that tide
+from the forest must be stemmed. Those that were among us we might kill,
+but more were swarming after them, and from the neck came the exultant
+yelling of madly hurrying reinforcements.
+
+We flung open the gates. I drove my sword through the heart of an Indian
+who would have opposed me, and, calling for my men to follow, sprang
+forward. Perhaps thirty came at my call; together we made for the
+opening. A party of the savages in our midst interposed. We set upon
+them with sword and musket butt, and though they fought like very devils
+drove them before us through the gateway. Behind us were wild clamor,
+the shrieking of women, the stern shouts of the English, the whooping of
+the savages; before us a rush that must be met and turned.
+
+It was done. A moment's fierce fighting, then the Indians wavered,
+broke, and fled. Like sheep we drove them before us, across the neck, to
+the edge of the forest, into which they plunged. Into that ambush we
+cared not to follow, but fell back to the palisade and the town,
+believing, and with reason, that the lesson had been taught. The strip
+of sand was strewn with the dead and the dying, but they belonged not to
+us. Our dead numbered but three, and we bore their bodies with us.
+
+Within the palisade we found the English in sufficiently good case. Of
+the score or more Indians cut off by us from their mates and penned
+within that death trap, half at least were already dead, run through
+with sword and pike, shot down with the muskets that there was now time
+to load. The remainder, hemmed about, pressed against the wall, were
+fast meeting with a like fate. They stood no chance against us; we cared
+not to make prisoners of them; it was a slaughter, but they had taken
+the [v]initiative. They fought with the courage of despair, striving to
+spring in upon us, and striking when they could with hatchet and knife.
+They were brave men that we slew that day.
+
+At last there was left but the leader--unharmed, unwounded, though time
+and again he had striven to close with some one of us, to strike and to
+die striking with his fellows. Behind him was the wall; of the half
+circle which he faced, well-nigh all were old soldiers and servants of
+the colony. We were swordsmen all. When in his desperation he would have
+thrown himself upon us, we contented ourselves with keeping him at
+sword's length, and at last West sent the knife in the dark hand
+whirling over the palisade. Some one had shouted to the musketeers to
+spare him.
+
+When he saw that he stood alone, he stepped back against the wall, drew
+himself up to his full height, and folded his arms. Perhaps he thought
+that we would shoot him down then and there; perhaps he saw himself a
+captive amongst us, a show for the idle and for the strangers that the
+ships brought in.
+
+The din had ceased, and we the living, the victors, stood and looked at
+the vanquished dead at our feet, and at the dead beyond the gates, and
+at the neck upon which was no living foe, and at the blue sky bending
+over all. Our hearts told us, and truly, that the lesson had been
+taught, and that no more forever need we at Jamestown fear an Indian
+attack. And then we looked at him whose life we had spared.
+
+He opposed our gaze with his folded arms and his head held high and his
+back against the wall. Slowly, as one man and with no spoken word, we
+fell back, the half circle straightening into a line, and leaving a
+clear pathway to the open gates. The wind had ceased to blow, and a
+sunny stillness lay upon the sand and the rough-hewn wooden stakes and a
+little patch of tender grass. The church bell began to ring.
+
+The Indian out of whose path to life and freedom we had stepped glanced
+from the line of lowered steel to the open gates and the forest beyond,
+and understood. For a full minute he waited, not moving a muscle, still
+and stately as some noble masterpiece in bronze. Then he stepped from
+the shadow of the wall and moved past us, with his eyes fixed on the
+forest; there was no change in the superb calm of his face. He went by
+the huddled dead and the long line of the living that spoke no word, and
+out of the gates and across the neck, walking slowly, that we might yet
+shoot him down if we saw fit to repent ourselves. He reached the shadow
+of the trees: a moment, and the forest had back her own.
+
+We sheathed our swords and listened to the governor's few earnest words
+of thankfulness and recognition; and then we set to work to search for
+ways to reach and aid those who might be yet alive in the plantations
+above and below us.
+
+Presently there came a great noise from the watchers on the river-bank,
+and a cry that boats were coming down the stream. It was so, and there
+were in them white men, nearly all of whom had wounds to show, and
+cowering women and children--all that were left of the people for miles
+along the James.
+
+Then began that strange procession that lasted throughout the afternoon
+and night and into the next day, when a sloop dropped down from
+[v]Henricus with the news that the English were in force there to stand
+their ground, although their loss had been heavy. Hour after hour they
+came as fast as sail and oar could bring them, the panic-stricken folk,
+whose homes were burned, whose kindred were slain, who had themselves
+escaped as by a miracle. Each boatload had the same tale to tell of
+treachery, surprise, and fiendish butchery.
+
+Before the dawning we had heard from all save the remoter settlements.
+The blow had been struck and the hurt was deep. But it was not beyond
+remedy, thank God! We took stern measures for our protection, and the
+wound to the colony was soon healed; vengeance was meted out to those
+who had set upon us in the dark and had failed to reach the heart. The
+colony of Virginia had passed through its greatest trial and had
+survived--for what greater ends, under Providence, I knew not.
+
+MARY JOHNSTON.
+
+
+=HELPS TO STUDY=
+
+     I. Describe the situation in which Percy and Diccon found
+     themselves. What preparations did the Indians make for the death of
+     the two men? How were they interrupted? Tell what happened after
+     the appearance of Nantaquas? How were the five days spent? How did
+     Nantaquas come to the rescue of the white men a second time? What
+     did Opechancanough do to try to deepen the impression of
+     friendship?
+
+     II. What happened on the way to Jamestown? Describe the scene when
+     Percy entered the governor's house. Give an account of the fight at
+     the palisade. Why was Nantaquas spared? What was the result of the
+     Indian attack? Give your opinion of Nantaquas. Of what Indian in
+     _The Last of the Mohicans_ does he remind you? Of whom does
+     Opechancanough remind you?
+
+     Find out all you can of life in Virginia at the time this story was
+     written. Compare the life there with the life in Plymouth colony.
+
+
+SUPPLEMENTARY READING
+
+     Prisoners of Hope--Mary Johnston.
+     My Lady Pokahontas--John Esten Cooke.
+     The Wept of Wish-ton-wish--J. Fenimore Cooper.
+     Hiawatha--Henry W. Longfellow.
+     Old Virginia and Her Neighbors--John Fiske.
+
+
+
+
+HARRY ESMOND'S BOYHOOD
+
+
+     _Henry Esmond_, by William Makepeace Thackeray, is considered one
+     of the greatest, if not the greatest, of historical novels. It
+     describes life in England during the first years of the eighteenth
+     century, dealing chiefly with people of wealth and high position.
+     "Harry Esmond's Boyhood" narrates the early career of the hero, who
+     was a poor orphan and an inmate of the family of his kinsman, the
+     Viscount of Castlewood.
+
+Harry Esmond had lived to be past fourteen years old; had never
+possessed but two friends, and had a fond and affectionate heart that
+would fain attach itself to somebody, and did not seem at rest until it
+had found a friend who would take charge of it.
+
+At last he found such a friend in his new mistress, the lady of
+Castlewood. The instinct which led Harry Esmond to admire and love the
+gracious person, the fair apparition whose beauty and kindness had so
+moved him when he first beheld her, became soon a devoted affection and
+passion of gratitude, which entirely filled his young heart that as yet
+had had very little kindness for which to be thankful.
+
+There seemed, as the boy thought, in every look or gesture of this fair
+creature, an angelical softness and bright pity--in motion or repose she
+seemed gracious alike; the tone of her voice, though she uttered words
+ever so trivial, gave him a pleasure that amounted almost to anguish. It
+cannot be called love, that a lad of fourteen years of age felt for an
+exalted lady, his mistress, but it was worship. To catch her glance; to
+divine her errand, and run on it before she had spoken it; to watch,
+follow, adore her, became the business of his life. Meanwhile, as is the
+way often, his idol had idols of her own, and never thought of or
+suspected the admiration of her little adorer.
+
+My Lady had on her side three idols: first and foremost, [v]Jove and
+supreme ruler, was her lord, Harry's patron, the good [v]Viscount of
+Castlewood. All wishes of his were laws with her. If he had a headache,
+she was ill. If he frowned, she trembled. If he joked, she smiled and
+was charmed. If he went a-hunting, she was always at the window to see
+him ride away. She made dishes for his dinner; spiced his wine for him;
+hushed the house when he slept in his chair, and watched for a look when
+he woke. Her eyes were never tired of looking at his face and wondering
+at its perfection. Her little son was his son, and had his father's look
+and curly brown hair. Her daughter Beatrix was his daughter, and had his
+eyes--were there ever such beautiful eyes in the world? All the house
+was arranged so as to bring him ease and give him pleasure.
+
+Harry Esmond was happy in this pleasant home. The happiest period of all
+his life was this; and the young mother, with her daughter and son, and
+the orphan lad whom she protected, read and worked and played, and were
+children together. If the lady looked forward--as what fond woman does
+not?--toward the future, she had no plans from which Harry Esmond was
+left out; and a thousand and a thousand times, in his passionate and
+impetuous way, he vowed that no power should separate him from his
+mistress; and only asked for some chance to happen by which he might
+show his [v]fidelity to her.
+
+The second fight which Harry Esmond had was at fourteen years of age,
+with Bryan Hawkshaw, Sir John Hawkshaw's son, who, advancing the opinion
+that Lady Castlewood henpecked my Lord, put Harry in so great a fury
+that Harry fell on him and with such rage that the other boy, who was
+two years older and far bigger than he, had by far the worst of the
+assault. It was interrupted by Doctor Tusher, the clergyman, who was
+just walking out of the dinner-room.
+
+Bryan Hawkshaw got up bleeding at the nose, having indeed been
+surprised, as many a stronger man might have been, by the fury of the
+attack on him.
+
+"You little beggar," he said, "I'll murder you for this."
+
+And indeed he was big enough.
+
+"Beggar or not," said Harry, grinding his teeth, "I have a couple of
+swords, and if you like to meet me, as man to man, on the terrace
+to-night--"
+
+And here, the doctor coming up, the [v]colloquy of the young champions
+ended. Very likely, big as he was, Hawkshaw did not care to continue a
+fight with such a ferocious opponent as this had been.
+
+One day, some time later, Doctor Tusher ran into Castlewood House, with
+a face of consternation, saying that smallpox had made its appearance at
+the blacksmith's house in the village, which was also an alehouse, and
+that one of the maids there was down with it.
+
+Now, there was a pretty girl at this inn, called Nancy Sievewright, a
+bouncing, fresh-looking lass, whose face was as red as the hollyhocks
+over the pales of the garden behind the inn. Somehow it often happened
+that Harry Esmond fell in with Nance Sievewright's bonny face. When
+Doctor Tusher brought the news that the smallpox was at the
+blacksmith's, Harry Esmond's first thought was of alarm for poor Nancy,
+and then of shame and disquiet for the Castlewood family, lest he might
+have brought this infection; for the truth is that Mr. Harry had been
+sitting in a back room for an hour that day, where Nancy Sievewright was
+with a little brother who complained of headache, and was lying crying
+in a chair by the corner of the fire or in Nancy's lap.
+
+Little Beatrix screamed at the news; and my Lord cried out, "God bless
+me!" He was a brave man, and not afraid of death in any shape but this.
+"We will take the children and ride away to Walcote," he said.
+
+To love children and be gentle with them was an instinct rather than
+merit in Harry Esmond; so much so that he thought almost with a feeling
+of shame of his liking for them and of the softness into which it
+betrayed him. On this day the poor fellow had not only had his young
+friend, the milkmaid's brother, on his knee, but had been drawing
+pictures and telling stories to the little Frank Castlewood, who was
+never tired of Harry's tales and of his pictures of soldiers and horses.
+As luck would have it, Beatrix had not on that evening taken her usual
+place, which generally she was glad enough to have, on Harry's knee. For
+Beatrix, from the earliest time, was jealous of every caress which was
+given her little brother Frank. She would fling away even from the
+[v]maternal arms, if she saw Frank had been there before her; insomuch
+that Lady Esmond was obliged not to show her love for her son in
+presence of the little girl, and embrace one or the other alone. Beatrix
+would turn pale and red with rage if she caught signs of intelligence or
+affection between Frank and his mother; would sit apart and not speak
+for a whole night if she thought the boy had a better fruit or a larger
+cake than hers; would fling away a ribbon if he had one, and would utter
+[v]infantile sarcasms about the favor shown her brother.
+
+So it chanced upon this very day, when poor Harry Esmond had had the
+blacksmith's son and the [v]peer's son, alike upon his knee, little
+Beatrix, who would come to him willingly enough with her book and
+writing, had refused him, seeing the place occupied by her brother.
+Luckily for her, she had sat at the farther end of the room, away from
+him, playing with a spaniel dog which she had, and talking to Harry
+Esmond over her shoulder, as she pretended to caress the dog, saying
+that Fido would love her, and she would love Fido and nothing but Fido
+all her life.
+
+When, then, the news was brought that the little boy at the blacksmith's
+was ill with the smallpox, poor Harry Esmond felt a shock of alarm, not
+so much for himself as for his mistress's son, whom he might have
+brought into peril. Beatrix, who had pouted sufficiently, her little
+brother being now gone to bed, was for taking her place on Esmond's
+knee. But as she advanced toward him, he started back and placed the
+great chair on which he was sitting between him and her--saying in the
+French language to Lady Castlewood, "Madam, the child must not approach
+me. I must tell you that I was at the blacksmith's to-day and had his
+little boy on my lap."
+
+"Where you took my son afterward," Lady Castlewood said, very angry and
+turning red. "I thank you, sir, for giving him such company. Beatrix,"
+she said in English, "I forbid you to touch Harry Esmond. Come away,
+child; come to your room. And you, sir, had you not better go back to
+the alehouse?"
+
+Her eyes, ordinarily so kind, darted flashes of anger as she spoke; and
+she tossed up her head (which hung down commonly) with the [v]mien of a
+princess.
+
+"Heyday!" said my Lord, who was standing by the fireplace, "Rachel, what
+are you in a passion about? Though it does you good to get in a
+passion--you look very handsome!"
+
+"It is, my Lord, because Mr. Harry Esmond, having nothing to do with his
+time here, and not having a taste for our company, has been to the
+blacksmith's alehouse, where he has some friends."
+
+My Lord burst out with a laugh.
+
+"Take Mistress Beatrix to bed," my Lady cried at this moment to her
+woman, who came in with her Ladyship's tea. "Put her into my room--no,
+into yours," she added quickly. "Go, my child: go, I say; not a word."
+And Beatrix, quite surprised at so sudden a tone of authority from one
+who was seldom accustomed to raise her voice, went out of the room with
+a scared face and waited even to burst out crying until she got
+upstairs.
+
+For once, her mother took little heed of her. "My Lord," she said, "this
+young man--your relative--told me just now in French--he was ashamed to
+speak in his own language--that he had been at the blacksmith's all day,
+where he has had that little wretch who is now ill of the smallpox on
+his knee. And he comes home reeking from that place--yes, reeking from
+it--and takes my boy into his lap without shame, and sits down by me. He
+may have killed Frank for what I know--killed our child! Why was he
+brought in to disgrace our house? Why is he here? Let him go--let him
+go, I say, and [v]pollute the place no more!"
+
+She had never before uttered a syllable of unkindness to Harry Esmond,
+and her cruel words smote the poor boy so that he stood for some moments
+bewildered with grief and rage at the injustice of such a stab from such
+a hand. He turned quite white from red, which he had been before.
+
+"If my coming nigh your boy pollutes him," he said, "it was not so
+always. Good-night, my Lord. Heaven bless you and yours for your
+goodness to me. I have tired her Ladyship's kindness out, and I will
+go."
+
+"He wants to go to the alehouse--let him go!" cried my Lady.
+
+"I'll be hanged if he shall," said my Lord. "I didn't think you could be
+so cruel, Rachel!"
+
+Her reply was to burst into a flood of tears, and to quit the room with
+a rapid glance at Harry Esmond, as my Lord put his broad hand on Harry's
+shoulder.
+
+In a little while my Lady came back, looking very pale, with a
+handkerchief in her hand. Instantly advancing to Harry Esmond, she took
+his hand. "I beg your pardon, Harry," she said. "I spoke very
+unkindly."
+
+My Lord broke out: "There may be no harm done. Leave the boy alone." She
+looked a little red, and pressed the lad's hand as she dropped it.
+
+"There is no use, my Lord," she said. "Frank was on his knee as he was
+making pictures and was running constantly from Harry to me. The evil is
+done, if any."
+
+"Not with me," cried my Lord. "I've been smoking." And he lighted his
+pipe again with a coal. "As the disease is in the village--plague take
+it!--I would have you leave it. We'll go to-morrow to Walcote."
+
+"I have no fear," said my Lady. "I may have had it as an infant."
+
+"I won't run the risk," said my Lord. "I'm as bold as any man, but I'll
+not bear that."
+
+"Take Beatrix with you and go," said my Lady. "For us the mischief is
+done."
+
+My Lord, calling away Doctor Tusher, bade him come in the oak parlor and
+have a pipe.
+
+When the lady and the boy were alone, there was a silence of some
+moments, during which he stood looking at the fire whilst her Ladyship
+busied herself with the [v]tambour frame and needles.
+
+"I am sorry," she said, after a pause, in a hard, dry voice--"I repeat I
+am sorry that I said what I said. It was not at all my wish that you
+should leave us, I am sure, unless you found pleasure elsewhere. But you
+must see that, at your age, and with your tastes, it is impossible that
+you can continue to stay upon the intimate footing in which you have
+been in this family. You have wished to go to college, and I think 'tis
+quite as well that you should be sent thither. I did not press the
+matter, thinking you a child, as you are indeed in years--quite a child.
+But now I shall beg my Lord to despatch you as quick as possible; and
+will go on with Frank's learning as well as I can. And--and I wish you a
+good night, Harry."
+
+With this she dropped a stately curtsy, and, taking her candle, went
+away through the tapestry door, which led to her apartments. Esmond
+stood by the fireplace, blankly staring after her. Indeed, he scarce
+seemed to see until she was gone, and then her image was impressed upon
+him and remained forever fixed upon his memory. He saw her retreating,
+the taper lighting up her marble face, her scarlet lip quivering, and
+her shining golden hair. He went to his own room and to bed, but could
+not get to sleep until daylight, and woke with a violent headache.
+
+He had brought the contagion with him from the alehouse, sure enough,
+and was presently laid up with the smallpox, which spared the hall no
+more than it did the cottage.
+
+When Harry Esmond had passed through the [v]crisis of the [v]malady and
+returned to health again, he found that little Frank Esmond had also
+suffered and rallied from the disease, and that his mother was down
+with it. Nor could young Esmond agree in Doctor Tusher's [v]vehement
+protestations to my Lady, when he visited her during her
+[v]convalescence, that the malady had not in the least impaired her
+charms; whereas, in spite of these fine speeches, Harry thought that her
+Ladyship's beauty was very much injured by the smallpox. The delicacy of
+her rosy complexion was gone; her eyes had lost their brilliancy, her
+hair fell, and she looked older. When Tusher in his courtly way vowed
+and protested that my Lady's face was none the worse, the lad broke out
+and said, "It is worse, and my mistress is not near so handsome as she
+was." On this poor Lady Castlewood gave a [v]rueful smile and a look
+into a little mirror she had, which showed her, I suppose, that what the
+stupid boy said was only too true, for she turned away from the glass
+and her eyes filled with tears.
+
+The sight of these always created a sort of rage of pity in Esmond's
+heart, and seeing them on the face of the lady whom he loved best, the
+young blunderer sank down on his knees and besought her to pardon him,
+saying that he was a fool and an idiot. Doctor Tusher told him that he
+was a bear, and a bear he would remain, at which speech poor Harry was
+so dumb-stricken that he did not even growl.
+
+"He is my bear, and I will not have him baited, doctor," said my Lady,
+putting her hand kindly on the boy's head, as he was still kneeling at
+her feet. "How your hair has come off! And mine, too!" she added with
+another sigh.
+
+"It is not for myself that I care," my Lady said to Harry, when the
+parson had taken his leave; "but am I very much changed! Alas! I fear
+'tis too true."
+
+"Madam, you have the dearest, and kindest, and sweetest face in the
+world, I think," the lad said; and indeed he thought so.
+
+For Harry Esmond his benefactress' sweet face had lost none of its
+charms. It had always the kindest of looks and smiles for him--and
+beauty of every sort. She would call him "Mr. Tutor," and she herself,
+as well as the two children, went to school to him. Of the pupils the
+two young people were but lazy scholars, and my Lord's son only learned
+what he liked, which was but little. Mistress Beatrix chattered French
+prettily, and sang sweetly, but this from her mother's teaching, not
+Harry Esmond's. But if the children were careless, 'twas a wonder how
+eagerly the mother learned from her young tutor--and taught him, too.
+She saw the [v]latent beauties and hidden graces in books; and the
+happiest hours of young Esmond's life were those passed in the company
+of this kind mistress and her children.
+
+These happy days were to end soon, however; and it was by Lady
+Castlewood's own decree that they were brought to a conclusion. It
+happened about Christmas-tide, Harry Esmond being now past sixteen
+years of age. A messenger came from Winchester one day, bearer of the
+news that my Lady's aunt was dead and had left her fortune of L2,000
+among her six nieces. Many a time afterward Harry Esmond recalled the
+flushed face and eager look wherewith, after this intelligence, his kind
+lady regarded him. When my Lord heard of the news, he did not make any
+long face. "The money will come very handy to furnish the music-room and
+the [v]cellar," he said, "which is getting low, and buy your Ladyship a
+coach and a couple of horses. Beatrix, you shall have a [v]spinet; and
+Frank, you shall have a little horse from Hexton fair; and Harry, you
+shall have five pounds to buy some books." So spoke my Lord, who was
+generous with his own, and indeed with other folks' money. "I wish your
+aunt would die once a year, Rachel; we could spend your money, and all
+your sisters', too."
+
+"I have but one aunt--and--and I have another use for the money," said
+my Lady, turning red.
+
+"Another use, my dear; and what do you know about money?" cried my Lord.
+
+"I intend it for Harry Esmond to go to college. Cousin Harry," said my
+Lady, "you mustn't stay any longer in this dull place, but make a name
+for yourself."
+
+"Is Harry going away? You don't mean to say you will go away?" cried out
+Beatrix and Frank at one breath.
+
+"But he will come back, and this will always be his home," replied my
+Lady, with blue eyes looking a celestial kindness; "and his scholars
+will always love him, won't they?"
+
+"Rachel, you're a good woman," said my Lord. "I wish you joy, my
+kinsman," he continued, giving Harry Esmond a hearty slap on the
+shoulder, "I won't balk your luck. Go to Cambridge, boy."
+
+When Harry Esmond went away for Cambridge, little Frank ran alongside
+his horse as far as the bridge, and there Harry stopped for a moment and
+looked back at the house where the best part of his life had been
+passed. And Harry remembered, all his life after, how he saw his
+mistress at the window looking out on him, the little Beatrix's chestnut
+curls resting at her mother's side. Both waved a farewell to him, and
+little Frank sobbed to leave him.
+
+The village people had good-bye to say to him, too. All knew that Master
+Harry was going to college, and most of them had a kind word and a look
+of farewell. And with these things in mind, he rode out into the world.
+
+WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY.
+
+
+=HELPS TO STUDY=
+
+     Tell what you find out about the household in which Harry Esmond
+     lived. What impression do you get of each person? What trouble did
+     Harry bring upon the family? What change occurred in his life and
+     now?
+
+
+SUPPLEMENTARY READING
+
+     The Virginians--William Makepeace Thackeray.
+     The Sir Roger de Coverley Papers--Steele and Addison.
+
+
+
+
+THE FAMILY HOLDS ITS HEAD UP
+
+
+     The story is an extract from Oliver Goldsmith's famous novel, _The
+     Vicar of Wakefield_. In this book Goldsmith describes the fortunes
+     of the family of Doctor Primrose, a Church of England clergyman of
+     the middle of the eighteenth century. The novel is considered a
+     most faithful picture of English country life in that period.
+
+The home I had come to as [v]vicar was in a little neighborhood
+consisting of farmers who tilled their own grounds and were equal
+strangers to [v]opulence and poverty. As they had almost all the
+conveniences of life within themselves, they seldom visited towns or
+cities in search of [v]superfluity. Remote from the polite, they still
+retained the [v]primeval simplicity of manners; and, frugal by habit,
+they scarce knew that temperance was a virtue. They wrought with
+cheerfulness on days of labor, but observed festivals as intervals of
+idleness and pleasure. They kept up the Christmas carol, sent love-knots
+on Valentine morning, ate pancakes on [v]Shrovetide, showed their wit on
+the first of April, and religiously cracked nuts on [v]Michaelmas-eve.
+Being apprised of our approach, the whole neighborhood came out to meet
+their minister, dressed in their finest clothes and preceded by a
+[v]pipe and [v]tabor: a feast, also, was provided for our reception, at
+which we sat cheerfully down, and what the conversation wanted in wit
+was made up in laughter.
+
+Our little habitation was situated at the foot of a sloping hill,
+sheltered with a beautiful underwood behind, and a prattling river
+before; on one side a meadow, on the other a green. My farm consisted of
+about twenty acres of excellent land. Nothing could exceed the neatness
+of my little enclosures, the elms and hedgerows appearing with
+inexpressible beauty. My house consisted of but one story, and was
+covered with [v]thatch, which gave it an air of great snugness; the
+walls on the inside were nicely whitewashed, and my daughters undertook
+to adorn them with pictures of their own designing. Though the same room
+served us for parlor and kitchen, that only made it the warmer. Besides,
+as it was kept with the utmost neatness,--the dishes, plates and coppers
+being well scoured and all disposed in bright rows on the shelves--the
+eye was agreeably relieved and did not want richer furniture. There were
+three other apartments: one for my wife and me; another for our two
+daughters within our own; and the third, with two beds, for the rest of
+the children.
+
+The little republic to which I gave laws was regulated in the following
+manner: by sunrise we all assembled in our common apartment, the fire
+being previously kindled by the servant. After we had saluted each other
+with proper ceremony--for I always thought fit to keep up some
+mechanical forms of good breeding, without which freedom ever destroys
+friendship--we all bent in gratitude to that Being who gave us another
+day. This duty performed, my son and I went to pursue our usual industry
+abroad, while my wife and daughters employed themselves in providing
+breakfast, which was always ready at a certain time. I allowed half an
+hour for this meal, and an hour for dinner, which time was taken up in
+innocent mirth between my wife and daughters, and in [v]philosophical
+arguments between my son and me.
+
+As we rose with the sun, so we never pursued our labors after it was
+gone down, but returned home to the expecting family, where smiling
+looks, a neat hearth, and a pleasant fire were prepared for our
+reception. Nor were we without guests; sometimes Farmer Flamborough, our
+talkative neighbor, and often a blind piper, would pay us a visit and
+taste our gooseberry wine, for the making of which we had lost neither
+the recipe nor the reputation. These harmless people had several ways of
+being good company; while one played, the other would sing some soothing
+ballad--"Johnny Armstrong's Last Good-Night," or "The Cruelty of Barbara
+Allen." The night was concluded in the manner we began the morning, my
+youngest boys being appointed to read the lessons of the day; and he
+that read loudest, distinctest and best was to have an halfpenny on
+Sunday to put into the poor-box. This encouraged in them a wholesome
+rivalry to do good.
+
+When Sunday came, it was, indeed, a day of finery, which all my
+[v]sumptuary edicts could not restrain. How well soever I fancied my
+lectures against pride had conquered the vanity of my daughters, yet I
+still found them secretly attached to all their former finery; they
+still loved laces, ribbons, and bugles, and my wife herself retained a
+passion for her crimson [v]paduasoy, because I formerly happened to say
+it became her.
+
+The first Sunday, in particular, their behavior served to mortify me. I
+had desired my girls the preceding night to be dressed early the next
+day, for I always loved to be at church a good while before the rest of
+the congregation. They punctually obeyed my directions; but when we were
+to assemble in the morning at breakfast, down came my wife and
+daughters, dressed out in all their former splendor--their hair
+plastered up with [v]pomatum, their faces [v]patched to taste, their
+trains bundled up in a heap behind and rustling at every motion. I could
+not help smiling at their vanity, particularly that of my wife, from
+whom I expected more discretion. In this [v]exigence, therefore, my only
+resource was to order my son, with an important air, to call our coach.
+The girls were amazed at the command, but I repeated it, with more
+solemnity than before.
+
+"Surely, you jest!" cried my wife. "We can walk perfectly well; we want
+no coach to carry us now."
+
+"You mistake, child," returned I; "we do want a coach, for if we walk
+to church in this trim, the very children in the parish will hoot after
+us."
+
+"Indeed!" replied my wife. "I always imagined that my Charles was fond
+of seeing his children neat and handsome about him."
+
+"You may be as neat as you please," interrupted I, "and I shall love you
+the better for it; but all this is not neatness, but frippery. These
+rufflings and pinkings and patchings will only make us hated by all the
+wives of our neighbors. No, my children," continued I, more gravely,
+"those gowns must be altered into something of a plainer cut, for finery
+is very unbecoming in us who want the means of [v]decency."
+
+This remonstrance had the proper effect. They went with great composure,
+that very instant, to change their dress; and the next day I had the
+satisfaction of finding my daughters, at their own request, employed in
+cutting up their trains into Sunday waist-coats for Dick and Bill, the
+two little ones; and, what was still more satisfactory, the gowns seemed
+improved by this [v]curtailing.
+
+But the reformation lasted but for a short while. My wife and daughters
+were visited by the wives of some of the richer neighbors and by a
+squire who lived near by, on whom they set more store than on the plain
+farmers' wives who were nearer us in worldly station. I now began to
+find that all my long and painful lectures upon temperance, simplicity,
+and contentment were entirely disregarded. Some distinctions lately
+paid us by our betters awakened that pride which I had laid asleep, but
+not removed. Our windows again, as formerly, were filled with washes for
+the neck and face. The sun was dreaded as an enemy to the skin without
+doors and the fire as a spoiler of the complexion within. My wife
+observed that rising too early would hurt her daughters' eyes, that
+working after dinner would redden their noses, and she convinced me that
+the hands never looked so white as when they did nothing.
+
+Instead, therefore, of finishing George's shirts, we now had the girls
+new-modeling their old gauzes. The poor Miss Flamboroughs, their former
+gay companions, were cast off as mean acquaintance, and the whole
+conversation ran upon high life and high-lived company, with pictures,
+taste, and Shakespeare.
+
+But we could have borne all this, had not a fortune-telling gypsy come
+to raise us into perfect [v]sublimity. The tawny [v]sibyl no sooner
+appeared than my girls came running to me for a shilling apiece to cross
+her hand with silver. To say the truth, I was tired of being always
+wise, and could not help gratifying their request, because I loved to
+see them happy. I gave each of them a shilling; after they had been
+closeted up with the fortune-teller for some time, I knew by their
+looks, upon their returning, that they had been promised something
+great.
+
+"Well, my girls, how have you sped? Tell me, Livy, has the
+fortune-teller given thee a penny-worth?"
+
+"She positively declared that I am to be married to a squire in less
+than a twelvemonth."
+
+"Well, now, Sophy, my child," said I, "and what sort of husband are you
+to have?"
+
+"I am to have a lord soon after my sister has married the squire," she
+replied.
+
+"How," cried I, "is that all you are to have for your two shillings?
+Only a lord and a squire for two shillings! You fools, I could have
+promised you a prince and a [v]nabob for half the money."
+
+This curiosity of theirs, however, was attended with very serious
+effects. We now began to think ourselves designed by the stars to
+something exalted, and already anticipated our future grandeur.
+
+In this agreeable time my wife had the most lucky dreams in the world,
+which she took care to tell us every morning, with great solemnity and
+exactness. It was one night a coffin and cross-bones, the sign of an
+approaching wedding; at another time she imagined her daughters' pockets
+filled with farthings, a certain sign they would shortly be stuffed with
+gold. The girls themselves had their omens. They saw rings in the
+candle, purses bounced from the fire, and love-knots lurked in the
+bottom of every teacup.
+
+Toward the end of the week we received a card from two town ladies, in
+which, with their compliments, they hoped to see our family at church
+the Sunday following. All Saturday morning I could perceive, in
+consequence of this, my wife and daughters in close conference together,
+and now and then glancing at me with looks that betrayed a [v]latent
+plot. To be sincere, I had strong suspicions that some absurd proposal
+was preparing for appearing with splendor the next day. In the evening
+they began their operations in a very regular manner, and my wife
+undertook to conduct the siege. After tea, when I seemed in fine
+spirits, she began thus:
+
+"I fancy, Charles, my dear, we shall have a great deal of good company
+at our church to-morrow."
+
+"Perhaps we may, my dear," returned I, "though you need be under no
+uneasiness about that; you shall have a sermon, whether there be or
+not."
+
+"That is what I expect," returned she; "but I think, my dear, we ought
+to appear there as decently as possible, for who knows what may happen?"
+
+"Your precautions," replied I, "are highly commendable. A decent
+behavior and appearance in church is what charms me. We should be devout
+and humble, cheerful and serene."
+
+"Yes," cried she, "I know that; but I mean we should go there in as
+proper a manner as possible; not like the scrubs about us."
+
+"You are quite right, my dear," returned I, "and I was going to make the
+same proposal. The proper manner of going is to go as early as
+possible, to have time for meditation before the sermon begins."
+
+"Phoo! Charles," interrupted she, "all that is very true, but not what I
+would be at. I mean, we should go there [v]genteelly. You know the
+church is two miles off, and I protest I don't like to see my daughters
+trudging up to their pew all blowzed and red with walking, and looking
+for all the world as if they had been winners at a [v]smock race. Now,
+my dear, my proposal is this: there are our two plough-horses, the colt
+that has been in our family these nine years and his companion,
+Blackberry, that has scarce done an earthly thing for this month past.
+They are both grown fat and lazy. Why should they not do something as
+well as we? And let me tell you, when Moses has trimmed them a little,
+they will cut a very tolerable figure."
+
+To this proposal I objected that walking would be twenty times more
+genteel than such a paltry conveyance, as Blackberry was wall-eyed, and
+the colt wanted a tail; that they had never been broken to the rein, but
+had an hundred vicious tricks, and that we had but one saddle and
+[v]pillion in the whole house. All these objections, however, were
+overruled, so that I was obliged to comply.
+
+The next morning I perceived them not a little busy in collecting such
+materials as might be necessary for the expedition; but as I found it
+would be a business of time, I walked on to the church before, and they
+promised speedily to follow. I waited near an hour in the reading desk
+for their arrival; but not finding them come as I expected, I was
+obliged to begin, and went through the service, not without some
+uneasiness at finding them absent.
+
+This was increased when all was finished, and no appearance of the
+family. I therefore walked back by the horseway, which was five miles
+round, though the footway was but two; and when I had got about half-way
+home, I perceived the procession marching slowly forward toward the
+church--my son, my wife, and the two little ones exalted on one horse,
+and my two daughters upon the other. It was then very near dinner-time.
+
+I demanded the cause of their delay, but I soon found, by their looks,
+that they had met with a thousand misfortunes on the road. The horses
+had, at first, refused to move from the door, till a neighbor was kind
+enough to beat them forward for about two hundred yards with his cudgel.
+Next, the straps of my wife's pillion broke down, and they were obliged
+to stop to repair them before they could proceed. After that, one of the
+horses took it into his head to stand still, and neither blows nor
+entreaties could prevail with him to proceed. They were just recovering
+from this dismal situation when I found them; but, perceiving everything
+safe, I own their mortification did not much displease me, as it gave
+me many opportunities of future triumph, and would teach my daughters
+more humility.
+
+OLIVER GOLDSMITH.
+
+
+=HELPS TO STUDY=
+
+     Describe the neighborhood and the home to which the vicar took his
+     family; also their manner of living. Relate the two attempts the
+     ladies made to appear at church in great style. What happened to
+     raise the hopes of better days for the daughters? How were these
+     hopes encouraged? What superstitions did the wife and daughters
+     believe? Give your opinion of the vicar and of each member of the
+     family.
+
+
+SUPPLEMENTARY READING
+
+     The School for Scandal--Richard Brinsley Sheridan.
+     She Stoops to Conquer--Oliver Goldsmith.
+     Life of Oliver Goldsmith--Washington Irving.
+     David Copperfield--Charles Dickens.
+     Barnaby Rudge--Charles Dickens.
+
+
+
+
+    Some have too much, yet still do crave;
+        I little have, and seek no more.
+    They are but poor, though much they have,
+        And I am rich with little store:
+    They poor, I rich; they beg, I give;
+    They lack, I leave; they pine, I live.
+
+    SIR EDWARD DYER.
+
+
+
+
+THE LITTLE BOY IN THE BALCONY
+
+
+My special amusement in New York is riding on the elevated railway. It
+is curious to note how little one can see on the crowded sidewalks of
+this city. It is simply a rush of the same people--hurrying this way or
+that on the same errands, doing the same shopping or eating at the same
+restaurants. It is a [v]kaleidoscope with infinite combinations but the
+same effects. You see it to-day, and it is the same as yesterday.
+Occasionally in the multitude you hit upon a [v]_genre_ specimen, or an
+odd detail, such as a prim little dog that sits upright all day and
+holds in its mouth a cup for pennies for its blind master, or an old
+bookseller, with a grand head and the deliberate motions of a scholar,
+moldering in a stall--but the general effect is one of sameness and soon
+tires and bewilders.
+
+Once on the elevated road, however, a new world is opened, full of the
+most interesting objects. The cars sweep by the upper stories of the
+houses, and, running never too swiftly to allow observation, disclose
+the secrets of a thousand homes, and bring to view people and things
+never dreamed of by the giddy, restless crowd that sends its impatient
+murmur from the streets below. In a course of several months' pretty
+steady riding from Twenty-third Street, which is the station for the
+Fifth Avenue Hotel, to Rector, which overlooks Wall Street, I have made
+many acquaintances along the route, and on reaching the city my first
+curiosity is in their behalf.
+
+One of these is a boy about six years of age--akin in his fragile body
+and his serious mien--a youngster that is very precious to me. I first
+saw this boy on a little balcony about three feet by four, projecting
+from the window of a poverty-stricken fourth floor. He was leaning over
+the railing, his white, thoughtful head just clearing the top, holding a
+short, round stick in his hand. The little fellow made a pathetic
+picture, all alone there above the street, so friendless and desolate,
+and his pale face came between me and my business many a time that day.
+On going uptown that evening just as night was falling, I saw him still
+at his place, white and patient and silent.
+
+Every day afterward I saw him there, always with the short stick in his
+hand. Occasionally he would walk around the balcony, rattling the stick
+in a solemn manner against the railing, or poke it across from one
+corner to another and sit on it. This was the only playing I ever saw
+him do, and the stick was the only plaything he had. But he was never
+without it. His little hand always held it, and I pictured him every
+morning when he awoke from his joyless sleep, picking up his poor toy
+and going out to his balcony, as other boys go to play. Or perhaps he
+slept with it, as little ones do with dolls and whip-tops.
+
+I could see that the room beyond the window was bare. I never saw any
+one in it. The heat must have been terrible, for it could have had no
+ventilation. Once I missed the boy from the balcony, but saw his white
+head moving about slowly in the dusk of the room. Gradually the little
+fellow became a burden to me. I found myself continually thinking of
+him, and troubled with that remorse that thoughtless people feel even
+for suffering for which they are not in the slightest degree
+responsible. Not that I ever saw any suffering on his face. It was
+patient, thoughtful, serious, but with never a sign of petulance. What
+thoughts filled that young head--what contemplation took the place of
+what should have been the [v]ineffable upspringing of childish
+emotion--what complaint or questioning were living behind that white
+face--no one could guess. In an older person the face would have
+betokened a resignation that found peace in the hope of things
+hereafter. In this child, without hope or aspiration, it was sad beyond
+expression.
+
+One day as I passed I nodded at him. He made no sign in return. I
+repeated the nod on another trip, waving my hand at him--but without
+avail. At length, in response to an unusually winning exhortation, his
+pale lips trembled into a smile, but a smile that was soberness itself.
+Wherever I went that day that smile went with me. Wherever I saw
+children playing in the parks, or trotting along with their hands
+nestled in strong fingers that guided and protected, I thought of that
+tiny watcher in the balcony--joyless, hopeless, friendless--a desolate
+mite, hanging between the blue sky and the gladsome streets, lifting his
+wistful face now to the peaceful heights of the one, and now looking
+with grave wonder on the ceaseless tumult of the other. At length--but
+why go any further? Why is it necessary to tell that the boy had no
+father, that his mother was bedridden from his birth, and that his
+sister pasted labels in a drug-house, and he was thus left to himself.
+
+It is sufficient to say that I went to Coney Island yesterday, and
+watched the bathers and the children--listened to the crisp, lingering
+music of the waves--ate a robust lunch on the pier--wandered in and out
+among the booths, tents, and hub-bub--and that through all these
+pleasures I had a companion that enjoyed them with a gravity that I can
+never hope to [v]emulate, but with a soulfulness that was touching. As I
+came back in the boat, the breezes singing through the [v]cordage, music
+floating from the fore-deck, and the sun lighting with its dying rays
+the shipping that covered the river, there was sitting in front of me a
+very pale but very happy bit of a boy, open-eyed with wonder, but sober
+and self-contained, clasping tightly in his little fingers a short,
+battered stick. And finally, whenever I pass by a certain overhanging
+balcony now, I am sure of a smile from an intimate and esteemed friend
+who lives there.
+
+HENRY W. GRADY.
+
+
+
+
+ARIEL'S TRIUMPH[141-*]
+
+
+     This story is taken from Booth Tarkington's novel, _The Conquest of
+     Canaan_, which gives an admirable description of modern life in an
+     American town. Joe Louden, the hero, and Ariel Tabor, the heroine,
+     were both friendless and, in a way, forlorn. How both of them
+     triumphed over obstacles and won success and happiness is the theme
+     of a book which is notable for keen observation of character and
+     for a quiet and delightful humor.
+
+
+I
+
+Ariel had worked all the afternoon over her mother's wedding-gown, and
+two hours were required by her toilet for the dance. She curled her hair
+frizzily, burning it here and there, with a slate-pencil heated over a
+lamp-chimney, and she placed above one ear three or four large
+artificial roses, taken from an old hat of her mother's, which she had
+found in a trunk in the store-room. Possessing no slippers, she
+carefully blacked and polished her shoes, which had been clumsily
+resoled, and fastened into the strings of each small rosettes of red
+ribbon; after which she practised swinging the train of her skirt until
+she was proud of her manipulation of it.
+
+She had no powder, but found in her grandfather's room a lump of
+magnesia, which he was in the habit of taking for heartburn, and passed
+it over and over her brown face and hands. Then a lingering gaze into
+her small mirror gave her joy at last; she yearned so hard to see
+herself charming that she did see herself so. Admiration came, and she
+told herself that she was more attractive to look at than she had ever
+been in her life, and that, perhaps, at last she might begin to be
+sought for like other girls. The little glass showed a sort of
+prettiness in her thin, unmatured young face; tripping dance-tunes ran
+through her head, her feet keeping the time--ah, she did so hope to
+dance often that night! Perhaps--perhaps she might be asked for every
+number. And so, wrapping an old water-proof cloak about her, she took
+her grandfather's arm and sallied forth, with high hopes in her beating
+heart.
+
+It was in the dressing-room that the change began to come. Alone, at
+home in her own ugly little room, she had thought herself almost
+beautiful; but here in the brightly lighted chamber crowded with the
+other girls it was different. There was a big [v]cheval-glass at one end
+of the room, and she faced it, when her turn came--for the mirror was
+popular--with a sinking spirit. There was the contrast, like a picture
+painted and framed. The other girls all wore their hair after the
+fashion introduced to Canaan by Mamie Pike the week before, on her
+return from a visit to Chicago. None of them had "crimped" and none had
+bedecked their tresses with artificial flowers. Her alterations of the
+wedding-dress had not been successful; the skirt was too short in front
+and higher on one side than on the other, showing too plainly the
+heavy-soled shoes, which had lost most of their polish in the walk
+through the snow. The ribbon rosettes were fully revealed, and as she
+glanced at their reflection, she heard the words, "Look at that train
+and those rosettes!" whispered behind her, and saw in the mirror two
+pretty young women turn away with their handkerchiefs over their mouths
+and retreat hurriedly to an alcove. All the feet in the room except
+Ariel's were in dainty kid or satin slippers of the color of the dresses
+from which they glimmered out, and only Ariel wore a train.
+
+She went away from the mirror and pretended to be busy with a hanging
+thread in her sleeve.
+
+She was singularly an alien in the chattering room, although she had
+been born and had lived all her life in the town. Perhaps her position
+among the young ladies may be best defined by the remark, generally
+current among them that evening, to the effect that it was "very sweet
+of Mamie to invite her." Ariel was not like the others; she was not of
+them, and never had been. Indeed, she did not know them very well. Some
+of them nodded to her and gave her a word of greeting pleasantly; all of
+them whispered about her with wonder and suppressed amusement, but none
+talked to her. They were not unkindly, but they were young and eager and
+excited over their own interests,--which were then in the "gentlemen's
+dressing-room."
+
+Each of the other girls had been escorted by a youth of the place, and,
+one by one, joining these escorts in the hall outside the door, they
+descended the stairs, until only Ariel was left. She came down alone
+after the first dance had begun, and greeted her young hostess's mother
+timidly. Mrs. Pike--a small, frightened-looking woman with a ruby
+necklace--answered her absently, and hurried away to see that the
+[v]imported waiters did not steal anything.
+
+Ariel sat in one of the chairs against the wall and watched the dancers
+with a smile of eager and benevolent interest. In Canaan no parents, no
+guardians or aunts were haled forth o' nights to [v]duenna the
+junketings of youth; Mrs. Pike did not reappear, and Ariel sat
+conspicuously alone; there was nothing else for her to do, but it was
+not an easy matter.
+
+When the first dance reached an end, Mamie Pike came to her for a moment
+with a cheery welcome, and was immediately surrounded by a circle of
+young men and women, flushed with dancing, shouting as was their wont,
+laughing [v]inexplicably over words and phrases and unintelligible
+[v]monosyllables, as if they all belonged to a secret society and these
+cries were symbols of things exquisitely humorous, which only they
+understood. Ariel laughed with them more heartily than any other, so
+that she might seem to be of them and as merry as they were; but almost
+immediately she found herself outside of the circle, and presently they
+all whirled away into another dance, and she was left alone again.
+
+So she sat, no one coming near her, through several dances, trying to
+maintain the smile of delighted interest upon her face, though she felt
+the muscles of her face beginning to ache with their fixedness, her eyes
+growing hot and glazed. All the other girls were provided with partners
+for every dance, with several young men left over, these latter lounging
+[v]hilariously together in the doorways. Ariel was careful not to glance
+toward them, but she could not help hating them. Once or twice between
+the dances she saw Miss Pike speak appealingly to one of the
+[v]superfluous, glancing, at the same time, in her own direction, and
+Ariel could see, too, that the appeal proved unsuccessful, until at last
+Mamie approached her, leading Norbert Flitcroft, partly by the hand,
+partly by will power. Norbert was an excessively fat boy, and at the
+present moment looked as patient as the blind. But he asked Ariel if she
+was "engaged for the next dance," and, Mamie, having flitted away, stood
+[v]disconsolately beside her, waiting for the music to begin. Ariel was
+grateful for him.
+
+"I think you must be very good-natured, Mr. Flitcroft," she said, with
+an air of [v]raillery.
+
+"No, I'm not," he replied, [v]plaintively. "Everybody thinks I am,
+because I'm fat, and they expect me to do things they never dream of
+asking anybody else to do. I'd like to see 'em even _ask_ 'Gene Bantry
+to go and do some of the things they get me to do! A person isn't
+good-natured just because he's fat," he concluded, morbidly, "but he
+might as well be!"
+
+"Oh, I meant good-natured," she returned, with a sprightly laugh,
+"because you're willing to waltz with me."
+
+"Oh, well," he returned, sighing, "that's all right."
+
+The orchestra flourished into "La Paloma"; he put his arm mournfully
+about her, and taking her right hand with his left, carried her arm out
+to a rigid right angle, beginning to pump and balance for time. They
+made three false starts and then got away. Ariel danced badly; she
+hopped and lost the step, but they persevered, bumping against other
+couples continually. Circling breathlessly into the next room, they
+passed close to a long mirror, in which Ariel saw herself, although in a
+flash, more bitterly contrasted to the others than in the cheval-glass
+of the dressing-room. The clump of roses was flopping about her neck,
+her crimped hair looked frowzy, and there was something terribly wrong
+about her dress. Suddenly she felt her train to be [v]grotesque, as a
+thing following her in a nightmare.
+
+A moment later she caught her partner making a [v]burlesque face of
+suffering over her shoulder, and, turning her head quickly, saw for
+whose benefit he had constructed it. Eugene Bantry, flying expertly by
+with Mamie, was bestowing upon Mr. Flitcroft a commiserative wink. The
+next instant she tripped in her train and fell to the floor at Eugene's
+feet, carrying her partner with her.
+
+There was a shout of laughter. The young hostess stopped Eugene, who
+would have gone on, and he had no choice but to stoop to Ariel's
+assistance.
+
+"It seems to be a habit of mine," she said, laughing loudly.
+
+She did not appear to see the hand he offered, but got on her feet
+without help and walked quickly away with Norbert, who proceeded to live
+up to the character he had given himself.
+
+"Perhaps we had better not try it again," she laughed.
+
+"Well, I should think not," he returned with the frankest gloom. With
+the air of conducting her home, he took her to the chair against the
+wall whence he had brought her. There his responsibility for her seemed
+to cease. "Will you excuse me?" he asked, and there was no doubt he felt
+that he had been given more than his share that evening, even though he
+was fat.
+
+"Yes, indeed." Her laughter was continuous. "I should think you _would_
+be glad to get rid of me after that. Ha, ha, ha! Poor Mr. Flitcroft, you
+know you are!"
+
+It was the deadly truth, and the fat one, saying, "Well, if you'll
+excuse me now," hurried away with a step which grew lighter as the
+distance from her increased. Arrived at the haven of a far doorway, he
+mopped his brow and shook his head grimly in response to frequent
+rallyings.
+
+Ariel sat through more dances, interminable dances and intermissions, in
+that same chair, in which it began to seem she was to live out the rest
+of her life. Now and then, if she thought people were looking at her as
+they passed, she broke into a laugh and nodded slightly, as if still
+amused over her mishap.
+
+After a long time she rose, and laughing cheerfully to Mr. Flitcroft,
+who was standing in the doorway and replied with a wan smile, stepped
+out quickly into the hall, where she almost ran into her great-uncle,
+Jonas Tabor. He was going toward the big front doors with Judge Pike,
+having just come out of the latter's library, down the hall.
+
+Jonas was breathing heavily and was shockingly pale, though his eyes
+were very bright. He turned his back upon his grandniece sharply and
+went out of the door. Ariel reentered the room whence she had come. She
+laughed again to her fat friend as she passed him, went to the window
+and looked out. The porch seemed deserted and was faintly illuminated by
+a few Japanese lanterns. She sprang out, dropped upon the divan, and
+burying her face in her hands, cried heart-brokenly.
+
+Presently she felt something alive touch her foot, and, her breath
+catching with alarm, she started to rise. A thin hand, issuing from a
+shabby sleeve, had stolen out between two of the green tubs and was
+pressing upon one of her shoes.
+
+"Sh!" warned a voice. "Don't make a noise!"
+
+The warning was not needed; she had recognized the hand and sleeve
+instantly. It was her playmate and lifelong friend, Joe Louden.
+
+"What were you going on about?" he asked angrily.
+
+"Nothing," she answered. "I wasn't. You must go away; you know the Judge
+doesn't like you."
+
+"What were you crying about?" interrupted the uninvited guest.
+
+"Nothing, I tell you!" she repeated, the tears not ceasing to gather in
+her eyes. "I wasn't."
+
+"I want to know what it was," he insisted. "Didn't the fools ask you to
+dance! Ah! You needn't tell me. That's it. I've been here, watching, for
+the last three dances and you weren't in sight till you came to the
+window. Well, what do you care about that for!"
+
+"I don't," she answered. "I don't!" Then suddenly, without being able to
+prevent it, she sobbed.
+
+"No," he said, gently, "I see you don't. And you let yourself be a fool
+because there are a lot of fools in there."
+
+She gave way, all at once, to a gust of sorrow and bitterness; she bent
+far over and caught his hand and laid it against her wet cheek. "Oh,
+Joe," she whispered, brokenly, "I think we have such hard lives, you and
+I! It doesn't seem right--while we're so young! Why can't we be like the
+others? Why can't we have some of the fun?"
+
+He withdrew his hand, with the embarrassment and shame he would have
+felt had she been a boy.
+
+"Get out!" he said, feebly.
+
+She did not seem to notice, but, still stooping, rested her elbows on
+her knees and her face in her hands. "I try so hard to have some fun, to
+be like the rest--and it's always a mistake, always, always, always!"
+She rocked herself slightly from side to side. "I'm a fool, it's the
+truth, or I wouldn't have come to-night. I want to be attractive--I want
+to be in things. I want to laugh as they do--"
+
+"To laugh, just to laugh, and not because there's something funny?"
+
+"Yes, I do, I do! And to know how to dress and to wear my hair--there
+must be some place where you can learn those things. I've never had any
+one to show me! It's only lately I've cared, but I'm seventeen, Joe--"
+She faltered, came to a stop, and her whole body was shaken with sobs.
+"I hate myself so for crying--for everything!"
+
+Just then a colored waiter, smiling graciously, came out upon the porch,
+bearing a tray of salad, hot oysters, and coffee. At his approach, Joe
+had fallen prone on the floor in the shadow. Ariel shook her head to the
+proffer of refreshments.
+
+"I don't want any," she murmured.
+
+The waiter turned away in pity and was reentering the window when a
+passionate whisper fell upon his ear as well as upon Ariel's.
+
+_"Take it!"_
+
+"Ma'am?" said the waiter.
+
+"I've changed my mind," she replied quickly. The waiter, his elation
+restored, gave of his viands with the [v]superfluous bounty loved by his
+race when distributing the product of the wealthy.
+
+When he had gone, "Give me everything that's hot," said Joe. "You can
+keep the salad."
+
+"I couldn't eat it or anything else," she answered, thrusting the plate
+between the palms.
+
+For a time there was silence. From within the house came the continuous
+babble of voices and laughter, the clink of [v]cutlery on china. The
+young people spent a long time over their supper. By and by the waiter
+returned to the veranda, deposited a plate of colored ices upon Ariel's
+knees with a noble gesture, and departed.
+
+"No ice for me," said Joe.
+
+"Won't you please go now?" she entreated.
+
+"It wouldn't be good manners," he joked. "They might think I only came
+for the supper."
+
+"Give me the dish and coffee-cup," she whispered, impatiently. "Suppose
+the waiter came and had to look for them? Quick!"
+
+A bottle-shaped figure appeared in the window, and she had no time to
+take the plate and cup which were being pushed through the palm-leaves.
+She whispered a word of warning, and the dishes were hurriedly withdrawn
+as Norbert Flitcroft, wearing a solemn expression of injury, came out
+upon the veranda.
+
+"They want you. Some one's come for you."
+
+"Oh, is grandfather waiting?" She rose.
+
+"It isn't your grandfather that has come for you," answered the fat one,
+slowly. "It is Eskew Arp. Something's happened."
+
+She looked at him for a moment, beginning to tremble violently, her eyes
+growing wide with fright.
+
+"Is my grandfather--is he sick?"
+
+"You'd better go and see. Old Eskew's waiting in the hall. He'll tell
+you."
+
+She was by him and through the window instantly. Mr. Arp was waiting in
+the hall, talking in a low voice to Mrs. Pike.
+
+"Your grandfather's all right," he told the frightened girl quickly. "He
+sent me for you. Just hurry and get your things."
+
+She was with him again in a moment, and seizing the old man's arm,
+hurried him down the steps and toward the street almost at a run.
+
+"You're not telling me the truth," she said. "You're not telling me the
+truth!"
+
+"Nothing has happened to Roger Tabor," panted Mr. Arp. "We're going this
+way, not that." They had come to the gate, and as she turned to the
+right he pulled her sharply to the left.
+
+"Where are we going?" she demanded.
+
+"To your Uncle Jonas's."
+
+"Why?" she cried, in supreme astonishment. "What do you want to take me
+there for? Don't you know that he doesn't like me--that he has stopped
+speaking to me?"
+
+"Yes," said the old man, grimly; "he has stopped speaking to everybody."
+
+These startling words told Ariel that her uncle was dead. They did not
+tell her what she was soon to learn--that he had died rich, and that,
+failing other heirs, she and her grandfather had inherited his fortune.
+
+
+II
+
+It was Sunday in Canaan--Sunday some years later. Joe Louden was sitting
+in the shade of Main Street bridge, smoking a cigar. He was alone; he
+was always alone, for he had been away a long time, and had made few
+friends since his return.
+
+A breeze wandered up the river and touched the leaves and grass to life.
+The young corn, deep green in the bottom-land, moved with a [v]staccato
+flurry; the stirring air brought a smell of blossoms; the distance took
+on faint lavender hazes which blended the outlines of the fields, lying
+like square coverlets on the long slope of rising ground beyond the
+bottom-land, and empurpled the blue woodland shadows of the groves.
+
+For the first time it struck Joe that it was a beautiful day. He opened
+his eyes and looked about him whimsically. Then he shook his head again.
+A lady had just emerged from the bridge and was coming toward him.
+
+It would be hard to get at Joe's first impressions of her. We can find
+conveyance for only the broadest and heaviest. At first sight of her,
+there was preeminently the shock of seeing anything so exquisite in his
+accustomed world. For she was exquisite; she was that, and much more,
+from the ivory [v]ferrule of the parasol she carried, to the light and
+slender foot-print she left in the dust of the road. Joe knew at once
+that nothing like her had ever before been seen in Canaan.
+
+He had little knowledge of the millinery arts, and he needed none to see
+the harmony of the things she wore. Her dress and hat and gloves and
+parasol showed a pale lavender overtint like that which he had seen
+overspreading the western slope. Under the summer hat her very dark hair
+swept back over the temples with something near trimness in the extent
+to which it was withheld from being fluffy. It may be that this approach
+to trimness, after all, was the true key to the mystery of the lady who
+appeared to Joe.
+
+She was to pass him--so he thought--and as she drew nearer, his breath
+came faster. And then he realized that something wonderful was happening
+to him.
+
+She had stopped directly in front of him; stopped and stood looking at
+him with her clear eyes. He did not lift his own to her; a great and
+unaccountable shyness beset him. He had risen and removed his hat,
+trying not to clear his throat--his everyday sense urging upon him that
+she was a stranger in Canaan who had lost her way.
+
+"Can I--can I--" he stammered, blushing, meaning to finish with "direct
+you," or "show you the way."
+
+Then he looked at her again and saw what seemed to him the strangest
+sight of life. The lady's eyes had filled with tears--filled and
+overfilled.
+
+"I'll sit here on the log with you," she said. "You don't need to dust
+it!" she went on, tremulously. And even then he did not know who she
+was.
+
+There was a silence, for if the dazzled young man could have spoken at
+all, he could have found nothing to say; and, perhaps, the lady would
+not trust her own voice just then. His eyes had fallen again; he was
+too dazed, and, in truth, too panic-stricken now, to look at her. She
+was seated beside him and had handed him her parasol in a little way
+which seemed to imply that, of course, he had reached for it, so that it
+was to be seen how used she was to have all such things done for her. He
+saw that he was expected to furl the dainty thing; he pressed the catch
+and let down the top timidly, as if fearing to break or tear it; and, as
+it closed, held near his face, he caught a very faint, sweet, spicy
+[v]emanation from it like wild roses and cinnamon.
+
+"Do you know me?" asked the lady at last.
+
+For answer he could only stare at her, dumfounded; he lifted an unsteady
+hand toward her appealingly. Her manner underwent an April change. She
+drew back lightly; he was favored with the most delicious low laugh he
+had ever heard.
+
+"I'm glad you're the same, Joe!" she said. "I'm glad you're the same,
+and I'm glad I've changed, though that isn't why you have forgotten me."
+
+He arose uncertainly and took three or four backward steps from her. She
+sat before him, radiant with laughter, the loveliest creature he had
+ever seen; but between him and this charming vision there swept, through
+the warm, scented June air, the dim picture of a veranda all in darkness
+and the faint music of violins.
+
+_"Ariel Tabor!"_
+
+"Isn't it about time you were recognizing me?" she said.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Sensations were rare in staid, dull, commonplace Canaan, but this fine
+Sunday morning the town was treated to one of the most memorable
+sensations in its history. The town, all except Joe Louden, had known
+for weeks that Ariel Tabor was coming home from abroad, but it had not
+seen her. And when she walked along the street with Joe, past the Sunday
+church-returning crowds, it is not quite truth to say that all except
+the children came to a dead halt, but it is not very far from it. The
+air was thick with subdued exclamations and whisperings.
+
+Joe had not known her. The women recognized her, [v]infallibly, at first
+sight; even those who had quite forgotten her. And the women told their
+men. Hence the un-Sunday-like demeanor of the procession, for few towns
+held it more unseemly to stand and stare at passers-by, especially on
+the Sabbath. But Ariel Tabor had returned.
+
+A low but increasing murmur followed the two as they proceeded. It ran
+up the street ahead of them; people turned to look back and paused, so
+that Ariel and Joe had to walk round one or two groups. They had, also,
+to walk round Norbert Flitcroft, which was very like walking round a
+group. Mr. Flitcroft was one of the few (he was waddling home alone)
+who did not identify Miss Tabor, and her effect upon him was
+extraordinary. His mouth opened and he gazed [v]stodgily, his widening
+eyes like sun-dogs coming out of a fog. Mr. Flitcroft experienced a few
+moments of trance; came out of it stricken through and through; felt
+nervously of his tie; resolutely fell in behind, and followed, at a
+distance of some forty paces, determined to learn what household this
+heavenly visitor honored, and thrilling with the intention to please
+that same household with his own presence as soon and as often as
+possible.
+
+Ariel flushed a little when she perceived the extent of their
+conspicuousness; but it was not the blush that Joe remembered had
+reddened the tanned skin of old; for her brownness had gone long ago,
+though it had not left her merely pink and white. There was a delicate
+rosiness rising from her cheeks to her temples, as the earliest dawn
+rises.
+
+Joe kept trying to realize that this lady of wonder was Ariel Tabor, but
+he could not; he could not connect the shabby Ariel, whom he had treated
+as one boy treats another, with this young woman of the world. Although
+he had only a dim perception of the staring and whispering which greeted
+and followed them, Ariel, of course, was thoroughly aware of it, though
+the only sign she gave was the slight blush, which very soon
+disappeared.
+
+Ariel paused before the impressive front of Judge Pike's large mansion.
+Joe's face expressed surprise.
+
+"Don't you know?" she said. "I'm staying here. Judge Pike has charge of
+all my property. Come to see me this afternoon."
+
+With a last charming smile, Ariel turned and left the dazed young man on
+the sidewalk.
+
+That walk was but the beginning of her triumph. Judge Pike's of a summer
+afternoon was the swirling social center of Canaan, but on that
+particular Sunday afternoon every unattached male in the town who
+possessed the privilege of calling at the big house appeared. They
+filled the chairs in the wide old-fashioned hall where Ariel received
+them, and overpoured on the broad steps of the old-fashioned spiral
+staircase, where Mr. Flitcroft, on account of his size, occupied two
+steps and a portion of a third. And Ariel was the center of it all!
+BOOTH TARKINGTON.
+
+
+=HELPS TO STUDY=
+
+     I. Describe Ariel's pitiful attempts at beautifying herself when
+     dressing for the dance. When did she realize her failure? How were
+     her anticipations of the dance realized? What kind of girl was
+     Mamie Pike? Give reasons for your answer. At what point were you
+     most sorry for Ariel? With what startling news did the evening end?
+
+     II. Give an account of the meeting between the old playmates.
+     Describe the scenes as they walked along the street. What do you
+     think was the greatest part of Ariel's "triumph?" Was she spoiled
+     by her wealth? How do you know?
+
+
+SUPPLEMENTARY READING
+
+     Little Women--Louisa M. Alcott.
+     Pride and Prejudice--Jane Austen.
+
+
+FOOTNOTE:
+
+[141-*] Copyright by Harper & Brothers.
+
+
+
+
+THE CLOUD
+
+
+    I bring fresh showers for the thirsting flowers,
+        From the seas and the streams;
+    I bear light shade for the leaves when laid
+        In their noonday dreams.
+    From my wings are shaken the dews that waken
+        The sweet buds every one,
+    When rocked to rest on their mother's breast,
+        As she dances about the sun.
+    I wield the flail of the lashing hail,
+        And whiten the green plains under;
+    And then again I dissolve it in rain;
+        And laugh as I pass in thunder.
+
+    I sift the snow on the mountains below,
+        And their great pines groan aghast;
+    And all the night 'tis my pillow white,
+        While I sleep in the arms of the blast.
+    Sublime on the towers of my skyey bowers
+        Lightning, my pilot, sits;
+    In a cavern under is fettered the thunder;
+        It struggles and howls at fits.
+    Over earth and ocean, with gentle motion,
+        This pilot is guiding me,
+    Lured by the love of the [v]genii that move
+        In the depths of the purple sea;
+    Over the rills and the crags and the hills,
+        Over the lakes and the plains,
+    Wherever he dream, under mountain or stream.
+        The spirit he loves remains;
+    And I all the while bask in heaven's blue smile,
+        Whilst he is dissolving in rains.
+
+    I am the daughter of the earth and water,
+        And the nursling of the sky;
+    I pass through the pores of the ocean and shores;
+        I change, but I cannot die.
+    For after the rain, when, with never a stain,
+        The pavilion of heaven is bare,
+    And the winds and sunbeams, with their convex gleams,
+        Build up the blue dome of air,--
+    I silently laugh at my own cenotaph,
+        And out of the caverns of rain,
+        I rise and unbuild it again.
+
+    PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY.
+
+
+=HELPS TO STUDY=
+
+     Make a list of the things the cloud does. Read aloud the lines in
+     which the poet tells of each of these. Why is lightning spoken of
+     as the pilot of the cloud? Where does it sit? Where is the thunder?
+     How is the cloud "the daughter of the earth and water"? How "a
+     nursling of the sky"? Explain "I change, but I cannot die." A
+     cenotaph is a memorial built to one who is buried elsewhere. Why
+     should the clear sky be the cloud's cenotaph? How does the
+     reappearing of the cloud unbuild it?
+
+
+
+
+NEW ENGLAND WEATHER
+
+
+There is a [v]sumptuous variety about the New England weather that
+compels the stranger's admiration--and regret. The weather is always
+doing something there; always attending strictly to business; always
+getting up new designs and trying them on the people to see how they
+will go. But it gets through more business in spring than in any other
+season. In the spring I have counted one hundred and thirty-six
+different kinds of weather within four and twenty hours. It was I who
+made the fame and fortune of the man who had that marvelous collection
+of weather on exhibition at the Centennial, which so astounded the
+foreigners. He was going to travel around the world and get specimens
+from all climes. I said, "Don't do it; just come to New England on a
+favorable spring day." I told him what we could do in the way of style,
+variety, and quantity. Well, he came, and he made his collection in four
+days. As to variety, he confessed that he got hundreds of kinds of
+weather that he had never heard of before. And as to quantity, after he
+had picked out and discarded all that was blemished in any way, he not
+only had weather enough, but weather to spare, weather to hire out,
+weather to sell, weather to deposit, weather to invest, and weather to
+give to the poor.
+
+Old Probabilities has a mighty reputation for accurate prophecy and
+thoroughly deserves it. You take up the paper and observe how crisply
+and confidently he checks off what to-day's weather is going to be on
+the Pacific, down South, in the Middle States, in the Wisconsin region.
+See him sail along in the joy and pride of his power till he gets to New
+England, and then see his tail drop. _He_ doesn't know what the weather
+is going to be in New England. Well, he mulls over it, and by and by he
+gets out something like this: "Probable northeast to southwest winds,
+varying to the southward and westward and eastward and points between;
+high and low barometer, swapping around from place to place; probable
+areas of rain, snow, hail, and drought, succeeded or preceded by
+earthquakes with thunder and lightning." Then he jots down this
+postscript from his wandering mind, to cover accidents: "But it is
+possible that the program may be wholly changed in the meantime." Yes,
+one of the brightest gems in the New England weather is the dazzling
+uncertainty of it. There is certain to be plenty of weather, but you
+never can tell which end of the procession is going to move first.
+
+But, after all, there are at least two or three things about that
+weather (or, if you please, the effects produced by it) which we
+residents would not like to part with. If we hadn't our bewitching
+autumn foliage, we should still have to credit the weather with one
+feature which compensates for all its bullying vagaries--the ice storm.
+Every bough and twig is strung with ice beads, frozen dewdrops, and the
+whole tree sparkles cold and white like the [v]Shah of Persia's diamond
+plume. Then the wind waves the branches, and the sun comes out and turns
+all those myriads of beads and drops to prisms that glow and burn and
+flash with all manner of colored fires; which change and change again,
+with inconceivable rapidity, from blue to red, from red to green, and
+green to gold. The tree becomes a spraying fountain, a very explosion of
+dazzling jewels, and it stands there the [v]acme, the climax, the
+supremest possibility in art or nature, of bewildering, intoxicating,
+intolerable magnificence. One cannot make the words too strong. Month
+after month I lay up hate and grudge against the New England weather;
+but when the ice storm comes at last I say: "There, I forgive you now;
+you are the most enchanting weather in the world."
+
+MARK TWAIN.
+
+
+
+=HELPS TO STUDY=
+
+     Mark Twain's humor was noted for exaggeration. Find examples of
+     exaggeration in this selection. Old Probabilities was the name
+     signed by a weather prophet of the period. How was he affected by
+     New England weather? At what point did Twain drop his fun and begin
+     a beautiful tribute to a New England landscape? How does the
+     tribute close?
+
+
+SUPPLEMENTARY READING
+
+     Three Men in a Boat--Jerome K. Jerome.
+     The House Boat on the Styx--John Kendrick Bangs.
+
+[Illustration: Silence Deep and White]
+
+
+
+
+THE FIRST SNOWFALL
+
+
+    The snow had begun in the gloaming,
+      And busily all the night
+    Had been heaping fields and highway
+      With a silence deep and white.
+
+    Every pine and fir and hemlock
+      Wore ermine too dear for an earl,
+    And the poorest twig on the elm tree
+      Was ridged inch deep with pearl.
+
+    From sheds new roofed with Carrara
+      Came chanticleer's muffled crow,
+    The stiff rails were softened to swan's-down
+      And still fluttered down the snow.
+
+    I stood and watched by the window
+      That noiseless work of the sky,
+    And the sudden flurries of snowbirds,
+      Like brown leaves whirling by.
+
+    I thought of a mound in sweet Auburn
+      Where a little headstone stood;
+    How the flakes were folding it gently,
+      As did robins the babes in the wood.
+
+    Up spoke our own little Mabel,
+      Saying, "Father, who makes it snow?"
+    And I told of the good All-Father
+      Who cares for us here below.
+
+    Again I looked at the snowfall,
+      And thought of the leaden sky
+    That arched o'er our first great sorrow,
+      When that mound was heaped so high.
+
+    I remembered the gradual patience
+      That fell from that cloud like snow,
+    Flake by flake, healing and hiding
+      The scar on our deep-plunged woe.
+
+    And again to the child I whispered,
+      "The snow that husheth all,
+    Darling, the merciful Father
+      Alone can make it fall."
+
+    Then, with eyes that saw not, I kissed her;
+      And she, kissing back, could not know
+    That _my_ kiss was given to her sister,
+      Folded close under deepening snow.
+
+    JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL.
+
+
+=HELPS TO STUDY=
+
+     When did the snow begin? How do you know? What time is it now? Is
+     snow still falling? Read the lines that show this. Of what sorrow
+     does the snow remind the poet? Read the lines which show that peace
+     had come to the parents. Make a list of the comparisons (or
+     similes) used by the poet. Read the lines which show that the storm
+     was a quiet one. Which lines do you like best?
+
+
+
+
+OLD EPHRAIM
+
+
+For some days after our arrival on the Bighorn range we did not come
+across any grizzly. There were plenty of black-tail deer in the woods,
+and we encountered a number of bands of cow and calf elk, or of young
+bulls; but after several days' hunting, we were still without any game
+worth taking home, and we had seen no sign of grizzly, which was the
+game we were especially anxious to kill, for neither Merrifield nor I
+had ever seen a bear alive.
+
+Sometimes we hunted in company; sometimes each of us went out alone. One
+day we had separated; I reached camp early in the afternoon, and waited
+a couple of hours before Merrifield put in an appearance.
+
+At last I heard a shout, and he came in sight galloping at speed down an
+open glade, and waving his hat, evidently having had good luck; and when
+he reined in his small, wiry cow-pony, we saw that he had packed behind
+his saddle the fine, glossy pelt of a black bear. Better still, he
+announced that he had been off about ten miles to a perfect tangle of
+ravines and valleys where bear sign was very thick; and not of black
+bear either, but of grizzly. The black bear (the only one we got on the
+mountains) he had run across by accident.
+
+Merrifield's tale made me decide to shift camp at once, and go over to
+the spot where the bear-tracks were plentiful. Next morning we were off,
+and by noon pitched camp by a clear brook, in a valley with steep,
+wooded sides.
+
+That afternoon we again went out, and I shot a fine bull elk. I came
+home alone toward nightfall, walking through a reach of burnt forest,
+where there was nothing but charred tree-trunks and black mold. When
+nearly through it I came across the huge, half-human footprints of a
+great grizzly, which must have passed by within a few minutes. It gave
+me rather an eery feeling in the silent, lonely woods, to see for the
+first time the unmistakable proofs that I was in the home of the mighty
+lord of the wilderness.
+
+That evening we almost had a visit from one of the animals we were
+after. Several times we had heard at night the musical calling of the
+bull elk--a sound to which no writer has as yet done justice. This
+particular night, when we were in bed and the fire was smoldering, we
+were roused by a ruder noise--a kind of grunting or roaring whine,
+answered by the frightened snorts of the ponies. It was a bear which had
+evidently not seen the fire, as it came from behind the bank, and had
+probably been attracted by the smell of the horses. After it made out
+what we were, it stayed round a short while, again uttered its peculiar
+roaring grunt, and went off; we had seized our rifles and had run out
+into the woods, but in the darkness could see nothing; indeed it was
+rather lucky we did not stumble across the bear, as he could have made
+short work of us when we were at such a disadvantage.
+
+Next day we went off on a long tramp through the woods and along the
+sides of the canyons. There were plenty of berry bushes growing in
+clusters; and all around these there were fresh tracks of bear. But the
+grizzly is also a flesh-eater, and has a great liking for [v]carrion. On
+visiting the place where Merrifield had killed the black bear, we found
+that the grizzlies had been there before us, and had utterly devoured
+the carcass, with cannibal relish. Hardly a scrap was left, and we
+turned our steps toward where lay the bull elk I had killed. It was
+quite late in the afternoon when we reached the place.
+
+A grizzly had evidently been at the carcass during the preceding night,
+for his great footprints were in the ground all around it, and the
+carcass itself was gnawed and torn, and partially covered with earth and
+leaves--the grizzly has a curious habit of burying all of his prey that
+he does not at the moment need.
+
+The forest was composed mainly of what are called ridge-pole pines,
+which grow close together, and do not branch out until the stems are
+thirty or forty feet from the ground. Beneath these trees we walked over
+a carpet of pine needles, upon which our moccasined feet made no sound.
+The woods seemed vast and lonely, and their silence was broken now and
+then by the strange noises always to be heard in the great pine
+forests.
+
+We climbed up along the trunk of a dead tree that had toppled over until
+its upper branches struck in the limb crotch of another, which thus
+supported it at an angle half-way in its fall. When above the ground far
+enough to prevent the bear's smelling us, we sat still to wait for his
+approach; until, in the gathering gloom, we could no longer see the
+sights of our rifles. It was useless to wait longer; and we clambered
+down and stole out to the edge of the woods. The forest here covered one
+side of a steep, almost canyon-like ravine, whose other side was bare
+except for rock and sage-brush. Once out from under the trees there was
+still plenty of light, although the sun had set, and we crossed over
+some fifty yards to the opposite hillside, and crouched down under a
+bush to see if perchance some animal might not also leave the cover.
+
+Again we waited quietly in the growing dusk until the pine trees in our
+front blended into one dark, frowning mass. At last, as we were rising
+to leave, we heard the sound of the breaking of a dead stick, from the
+spot where we knew the carcass lay. "Old Ephraim" had come back to the
+carcass. A minute afterward, listening with strained ears, we heard him
+brush by some dry twigs. It was entirely too dark to go in after him;
+but we made up our minds that on the morrow he should be ours.
+
+Early next morning we were over at the elk carcass, and, as we expected,
+found that the bear had eaten his fill of it during the night. His
+tracks showed him to be an immense fellow, and were so fresh that we
+doubted if he had left long before we arrived; and we made up our minds
+to follow him up and try to find his lair. The bears that lived on these
+mountains had evidently been little disturbed; indeed, the Indians and
+most of the white hunters are rather chary of meddling with "Old
+Ephraim," as the mountain men style the grizzly. The bears thus seemed
+to have very little fear of harm, and we thought it likely that the bed
+of the one who had fed on the elk would not be far away.
+
+My companion was a skillful tracker, and we took up the trail at once.
+For some distance it led over the soft, yielding carpet of moss and pine
+needles, and the footprints were quite easily made out, although we
+could follow them but slowly; for we had, of course, to keep a sharp
+look-out ahead and around us as we walked noiselessly on in the somber
+half-light always prevailing under the great pine trees.
+
+After going a few hundred yards the tracks turned off on a well-beaten
+path made by the elk; the woods were in many places cut up by these game
+trails, which had often become as distinct as ordinary footpaths. The
+beast's footprints were perfectly plain in the dust, and he had lumbered
+along up the path until near the middle of the hillside, where the
+ground broke away and there were hollows and boulders. Here there had
+been a windfall, and the dead trees lay among the living, piled across
+one another in all directions; while between and around them sprouted up
+a thick growth of young spruces and other evergreens. The trail turned
+off into the tangled thicket, within which it was almost certain we
+should find our quarry. We could still follow the tracks, by the slight
+scrapes of the claws on the bark, or by the bent and broken twigs; and
+we advanced with noiseless caution.
+
+When in the middle of the thicket we crossed what was almost a
+breastwork of fallen logs, and Merrifield, who was leading, passed by
+the upright stem of a great pine. As soon as he was by it, he sank
+suddenly on one knee, turning half round, his face fairly aflame with
+excitement; and as I strode past him, with my rifle at the ready, there,
+not ten steps off, was the great bear, slowly rising from his bed among
+the young spruces. He had heard us, but apparently hardly knew exactly
+where or what we were, for he reared up on his haunches sideways to us.
+
+Then he saw us and dropped down again on all-fours, the shaggy hair on
+his neck and shoulders seeming to bristle as he turned toward us. As he
+sank down on his fore feet, I had raised the rifle; his head was bent
+slightly down, and when I saw the top of the white bead fairly between
+his small, glittering, evil eyes, I pulled trigger. Half-rising up, the
+huge beast fell over on his side in the death throes, the ball having
+gone into his brain, striking as fairly between the eyes as if the
+distance had been measured.
+
+The whole thing was over in twenty seconds from the time I caught sight
+of the game; indeed, it was over so quickly that the grizzly did not
+have time to show fight. He was a monstrous fellow, much larger than any
+I have seen since. As near as we could estimate, he must have weighed
+above twelve hundred pounds.
+
+THEODORE ROOSEVELT.
+
+
+=HELPS TO STUDY=
+
+     Theodore Roosevelt, President of the United States from 1901 to
+     1909, was one of the greatest hunters of the present generation. As
+     he was in weak health as a young man, he went West and lived for
+     some time the life of a ranchman and hunter, killing much wild
+     game. In later years he went on a great hunting trip to Africa, and
+     finally explored the wilds of the Amazon river, in South America,
+     in search of game and adventure. "Old Ephraim" narrates one of his
+     earlier hunting experiences, and is taken from the book, _The
+     Hunting Trips of a Ranchman_.
+
+     Give an account of the capture of the grizzly bear. Why did not
+     Merrifield fire? Compare the weight of the bear with that of the
+     average cow or horse. Tell of any bear hunt of which you know.
+
+
+SUPPLEMENTARY READING
+
+     Watchers of the Trail--Charles C. D. Roberts.
+     Monarch, the Bear--Ernest Thompson Seton.
+     Wild Animals I Have Known--Ernest Thompson Seton.
+     African Game Trails--Theodore Roosevelt.
+
+
+
+
+MIDWINTER
+
+
+    The speckled sky is dim with snow,
+    The light flakes falter and fall slow;
+    Athwart the hill-top, rapt and pale,
+    Silently drops a silvery veil;
+    And all the valley is shut in
+    By flickering curtains gray and thin.
+
+    But cheerily the chickadee
+    Singeth to me on fence and tree;
+    The snow sails round him as he sings,
+    White as the down of angels' wings.
+
+    I watch the slow flakes as they fall
+    On bank and briar and broken wall;
+    Over the orchard, waste and brown,
+    All noiselessly they settle down,
+    Tipping the apple-boughs, and each
+    Light quivering twig of plum and peach.
+
+    On turf and curb and bower-roof
+    The snow-storm spreads its ivory woof;
+    It paves with pearl the garden-walk;
+    And lovingly round tattered stalk
+    And shivering stem its magic weaves
+    A mantle fair as lily-leaves.
+
+    All day it snows: the sheeted post
+    Gleams in the dimness like a ghost;
+    All day the blasted oak has stood
+    A muffled wizard of the wood;
+    Garland and airy cap adorn
+    The sumach and the wayside thorn,
+    And clustering spangles lodge and shine
+    In the dark tresses of the pine.
+
+    The ragged bramble, dwarfed and old,
+    Shrinks like a beggar in the cold;
+    In [v]surplice white the cedar stands,
+    And blesses him with priestly hands.
+
+    Still cheerily the chickadee
+    Singeth to me on fence and tree:
+    But in my inmost ear is heard
+    The music of a holier bird;
+    And heavenly thoughts as soft and white
+    As snow-flakes on my soul alight,
+    Clothing with love my lonely heart,
+    Healing with peace each bruised part,
+    Till all my being seems to be
+    Transfigured by their purity.
+
+    JOHN TOWNSEND TROWBRIDGE.
+
+
+=HELPS TO STUDY=
+
+     When did this storm begin? Read lines which show this. Give reasons
+     for your answer. What comparisons are used by the poet in
+     describing the snowfall? Which comparison do you like best? What
+     healing thought does the storm bring to the poet? Compare it with
+     the same thought in _The First Snowfall_.
+
+
+
+
+A GEORGIA FOX HUNT[177-*]
+
+
+I
+
+In the season of 1863, the Rockville Hunting Club, which had been newly
+organized, was at the height of its success. It was composed of men too
+old to go in the army, and of young men who were not old enough, or who,
+from one cause and another, were exempted from military service.
+Ostensibly, its object was to encourage the noble sport of fox-hunting
+and to bind by closer ties the congenial souls whose love for horse and
+hound and horn bordered on enthusiasm. This, I say, was its
+[v]ostensible object, for it seems to me, looking back upon that
+terrible time, that the main purpose of the association was to devise
+new methods of forgetting the sickening [v]portents of disaster that
+were even then thick in the air. Any suggestion or plan calculated to
+relieve the mind from the weight of the horror of those desperate days
+was eagerly seized upon and utilized. With the old men and the fledgling
+boys in the neighborhood of Rockville, the desire to escape momentarily
+the realities of the present took the shape of fox-hunting and other
+congenial amusements. With the women--ah well! Heaven only knows how
+they sat dumb and silent over their great anguish and grief, cheering
+the helpless and comforting and succoring the sick and wounded. It was
+a mystery to me then, and it is a mystery to me now.
+
+About the first of November the writer hereof received a long-expected
+letter from Tom Tunison, the secretary of the club, who was on a visit
+to Monticello. It was brief and breezy.
+
+"Young man," he wrote, "they are coming. They are going to give us a
+[v]ruffle. Their dogs are good, but they lack form and finish as well as
+discipline--plenty of bottom but no confidence. I haven't hesitated to
+put up our horn as the prize. Get the boys together and tell them about
+it, and see that our own eleven are in fighting trim. You won't believe
+it, but Sue, Herndon, Kate, and Walthall are coming with the party; and
+the fair de Compton, who set all the Monticello boys wild last year when
+she got back from Macon, vows and declares she is coming, too. Remember
+the 15th. Be prepared."
+
+I took in the situation at a glance. Tom, in his reckless style, had
+bantered a party of Jasper county men as to the superiority of their
+dogs, and had even offered to give them an opportunity to gain the
+silver-mounted horn won by the Rockville club in Hancock county the year
+before. The Jasper county men, who were really breeding some excellent
+dogs, accepted the challenge, and Tom had invited them to share the
+hospitality of the plantation home called "Bachelors' Hall."
+
+If the truth must be confessed, I was not at all grieved at the
+announcement in Tom's letter, apart from the agreeable change in the
+social atmosphere that would result from the presence of ladies in
+"Bachelors' Hall." I was eagerly anxious to test the mettle of a
+favorite hound--Flora--whose care and training had cost me a great deal
+of time and trouble. Although it was her first season in the field, she
+had already become the pet and pride of the Rockville club, the members
+of which were not slow to sound her praises. Flora was an experiment.
+She was the result of a cross between the Henry hound (called in Georgia
+the "Birdsong dog," in honor of the most successful breeder) and a
+Maryland hound. She was a grand-daughter of the famous Hodo and in
+everything except her color (she was white with yellow ears) was the
+exact reproduction of that magnificent fox-hound. I was anxious to see
+her put to the test.
+
+It was with no small degree of satisfaction, therefore, that I informed
+Aunt Patience, the cook, of Tom's programme. Aunt Patience was a
+privileged character, whose comments upon people and things were free
+and frequent; when she heard that a party of hunters, accompanied by
+ladies, proposed to make the hall their temporary headquarters, her
+remarks were ludicrously indignant.
+
+"Well, ef dat Marse Tom ain't de beatinest white man dat I ever sot eyes
+on--'way off yander givin' way his vittles fo' he buy um at de sto'!
+How I know what Marse Tom want, an' tel I know, whar I gwineter git um?
+He better be home yer lookin' atter deze lazy niggers, stidder
+high-flyin' wid dem Jasper county folks. Ef dez enny vittles on dis
+plan'ash'n, hits more'n I knows un. En he'll go runnin' roun' wid dem
+harum-skarum gals twell I boun' he don't fetch dat pipe an' dat 'backer
+what he said he would. Can't fool me 'bout de gals what grows up deze
+days. Dey duz like dey wanter stan' up an' cuss dersef' case dey wuzent
+borned men."
+
+"Why, Aunt Patience, your Marse Tom says Miss de Compton is as pretty as
+a pink and as fine as a fiddle."
+
+"Law, chile! you needn't talk 'bout de gals to dis ole 'omen. I done
+know um fo' you wuz borned. W'en you see Miss Compton you see all de
+balance un um. Deze is new times. Marse Tom's mammy useter spin her
+fifteen cents o' wool a day--w'en you see Miss Compton wid a hank er
+yarn in 'er han', you jes' sen' me word."
+
+Whereupon, Aunt Patience gave her head handkerchief a vigorous wrench,
+and went her way--the good old soul--even then considering how she
+should best set about preparing a genuine surprise for her young master
+in the shape of daily feasts for a dozen guests. I will not stop here to
+detail the character of this preparation or to dwell upon its success.
+It is enough to say that Tom Tunison praised Aunt Patience to the
+skies; and, as if this were not sufficient to make her happy, he
+produced a big clay pipe, three plugs of real "manufac terbacker," which
+was hard to get in those times, a red shawl, and twelve yards of calico.
+
+The fortnight that followed the arrival of Tom's guests was one long to
+be remembered, not only in the [v]annals of the Rockville Hunting Club
+but in the annals of Rockville itself. The fair de Compton literally
+turned the heads of old men and young boys, and even succeeded in
+conquering the critics of her own sex. She was marvelously beautiful,
+and her beauty was of a kind to haunt one in one's dreams. It was easy
+to perceive that she had made a conquest of Tom, and I know that every
+suggestion he made and every project he planned had for its sole end and
+aim the enjoyment of Miss Carrie de Compton.
+
+It was several days before the minor details of the contest, which was
+at once the excuse for and the object of the visit of Tom's guests,
+could be arranged, but finally everything was "[v]amicably adjusted,"
+and the day appointed. The night before the hunt, the club and the
+Jasper county visitors assembled in Tom Tunison's parlor for a final
+discussion of the event.
+
+"In order," said Tom, "to give our friends and guests an opportunity
+fully to test the speed and bottom of their kennels, it has been decided
+to pay our respects to 'Old Sandy'."
+
+"And pray, Mr. Tunison, who is 'Old Sandy'?" queried Miss de Compton.
+
+"He is a fox, Miss de Compton, and a tough one. He is a trained fox. He
+has been hunted so often by the inferior packs in his neighborhood that
+he is well-nigh [v]invincible. He is so well known that he has not been
+hunted, except by accident, for two seasons. He is not as suspicious as
+he was two years ago, but we must be careful if we want to get within
+hearing distance of him to-morrow morning."
+
+"Do any of the ladies go with us?" asked Jack Herndon.
+
+"I go, for one," responded Miss de Compton, and in a few minutes all the
+ladies had decided to go along, even if they found it inconvenient to
+participate actively in the hunt.
+
+"Then," said Tom, rising, "we must say good night. Uncle Plato will
+sound 'Boots and Saddle' at four o'clock to-morrow morning."
+
+"Four o'clock!" exclaimed the ladies in dismay.
+
+"At four precisely," answered Tom, and the ladies with pretty little
+gestures of mock despair swept upstairs while Tom brought out cigars for
+the boys.
+
+My friend little knew how delighted I was that "Old Sandy" was to be put
+through his paces. He little knew how carefully I had studied the
+peculiarities of this famous fox--how often when training Flora I had
+taken her out and followed "Old Sandy" through all his ranges, how I
+had "felt of" both his speed and bottom and knew all his weak points.
+
+
+II
+
+Morning came, and with it Uncle Plato's bugle call. Aunt Patience was
+ready with a smoking hot breakfast, and everybody was in fine spirits.
+As the eager, happy crowd filed down the broad avenue that led to the
+hall, the fair de Compton, who had been delayed in mounting, rode by my
+side.
+
+"You choose your escort well," I ventured to say.
+
+"I have a weakness for children," she replied; "particularly for
+children who know what they are about. Plato has told me that if I
+desired to see all of the hunt without much trouble, to follow you. I am
+selfish, you perceive."
+
+We rode over the red hills and under the russet trees until we came to
+"Old Sandy's" favorite haunt. Here a council of war was held, and it was
+decided that Tom and a portion of the hunters should skirt the fields,
+while another portion led by Miss de Compton and myself should enter and
+bid the fox good morning. Uncle Plato, who had been given the cue,
+followed me with the dogs, and in a few moments we were very near the
+particular spot where I hoped to find the venerable deceiver of dogs and
+men. The hounds were already sallying hither and thither, anxious and
+evidently expectant.
+
+Five minutes went by without a whimper from the pack. There was not a
+sound save the eager rustling of the dogs through the sedge and
+undergrowth. The ground was familiar to Flora, and I watched her with
+pride as with powerful strides she circled around. Suddenly she paused
+and flung her head in the air, making a beautiful picture where she
+stood poised, as if listening. My heart gave a great thump. It was a
+trick of hers, and I knew that "Old Sandy" had been around within the
+past twenty-four hours! With a rush, a bound, and an eager cry, my
+favorite came toward us, and the next moment "Old Sandy," who had been
+lying almost at our horses' feet, was up and away with Flora right at
+his heels. A wild hope seized me that my favorite would run into the shy
+veteran before he could get out of the field. But no! One of the Jasper
+county hunters, rendered momentarily insane by excitement, endeavored to
+ride the fox down with his horse, and in another moment Sir Reynard was
+over the fence and into the woodland beyond, followed by the hounds.
+They made a splendid but [v]ineffectual burst of speed, for when "Old
+Sandy" found himself upon the blackjack hills he was foot-loose. The
+morning, however, was fine--just damp enough to leave the scent of the
+fox hanging breast high in the air, whether he shaped his course over
+lowlands or highlands.
+
+[Illustration: The Beginning of the Fox Hunt]
+
+In the midst of all the confusion that had ensued, Miss de Compton
+remained cool, serene, and apparently indifferent, but I observed a
+glow upon her face and a sparkle in her eyes, as Tom Tunison, riding his
+gallant gray and heading the hunters, easily and gracefully took a
+couple of fences when the hounds veered to the left.
+
+"Our Jasper county friend has saved 'Old Sandy,' Miss de Compton," I
+said, "but he has given us an opportunity of witnessing some very fine
+sport. The fox is so badly frightened that he may endeavor in the
+beginning to outfoot the dogs, but in the end he will return to his
+range, and then I hope to show you what a cunning old customer he is. If
+Flora doesn't fail us at the critical moment, you will have the honor of
+wearing his brush on your saddle."
+
+"Youth is always confident," replied Miss de Compton.
+
+"In this instance, however, I have the advantage of knowing both hound
+and fox. Flora has a few weaknesses, but I think she understands what is
+expected of her to-day."
+
+Thus bantering and chaffing each other, we turned our horses' heads in a
+direction [v]oblique to that taken by the other hunters, who, with the
+exception of Tom Tunison and Jack Herndon, now well up with the dogs,
+were struggling along as best they could. For a half mile or more we
+cantered down a lane, then turned into a stubble field, and made for a
+hill crowned and skirted by a growth of blackjack, through which an
+occasional pine had broken, as it seemed, in a vain but noble effort to
+touch the sky. Once upon the summit of the hills, we had a majestic view
+upon all sides. The fresh morning breezes blew crisp and cool and
+bracing, but were not uncomfortable after the exercise we had taken; and
+as the clouds that had muffled up the east dispersed themselves or were
+dissolved, the generous sun spread layer upon layer of golden light upon
+hill and valley and forest and stream.
+
+Away to the left we could hear the hounds, and the music of their
+voices, toyed with by the playful wind, rolled itself into melodious
+little echoes that broke pleasantly upon the ear, now loud, now faint,
+now far and now near. The first burst of speed, which had been terrific,
+had settled down into a steady run, but I knew by the sound that the
+pace was still tremendous, and I imagined I could hear the silvery
+tongue of Flora as she led the eager pack. The cries of the hounds,
+however, grew fainter and fainter, until presently they were lost in the
+distance.
+
+"He is making a straight shoot for the Turner [v]old fields, two miles
+away," I remarked, by way of explanation.
+
+"And pray, why are we here?" Miss de Compton asked.
+
+"To be in at the death. (The fair de Compton smiled [v]sarcastically.)
+In the Turner old fields the fox will make his grand double, gain upon
+the dogs, head for yonder hill, and come down the ravine upon our
+right. At the fence here, within plain view, he will attempt a trick
+that has heretofore always been successful, and which has given him a
+reputation as a trained fox. I depend upon the intelligence of Flora to
+see through 'Old Sandy's' [v]strategy, but if she hesitates a moment, we
+must set her right."
+
+I spoke with the confidence of one having experience, and Miss de
+Compton smiled and was content. We had little time for further
+conversation, for in a few minutes I observed a dark shadow emerge from
+the undergrowth on the opposite hill and slip quickly across the open
+space of fallow land. It crossed the ravine that intersected the valley,
+stole quietly through the stubble to the fence, and there paused a
+moment, as if hesitating. In a low voice I called Miss de Compton's
+attention to the figure, but she refused to believe that it was the same
+fox we had aroused thirty minutes before. Howbeit, it was the
+[v]veritable "Old Sandy" himself. I should have known him among a
+thousand foxes. He was not in as fine feather as when, at the start, he
+had swung his brush across Flora's nose--the pace had told on him--but
+he still moved with an air of confidence.
+
+Then and there Miss de Compton beheld a display of fox tactics shrewd
+enough to excite the admiration of the most indifferent--a display of
+cunning that seemed to be something higher than instinct.
+
+"Old Sandy" paused only a moment. With a bound he gained the top of
+the fence, stopped to pull something from one of his fore
+feet--probably a cockle bur--and then carefully balancing himself,
+proceeded to walk the fence. By this time, the music of the dogs was
+again heard in the distance, but "Old Sandy" took his time.
+One--two--three--seven--ten--twenty panels of the fence were cleared.
+Pausing, he again subjected his fore feet to examination, and licked
+them carefully. Then he proceeded on his journey along the fence until
+he was at least one hundred yards from where he left the ground. Here
+he paused for the first time, gathered himself together, leaped
+through the air, and rushed away. As he did so, the full note of the
+pack burst upon our ears as the hounds reached the brow of the hill
+from the lowlands on the other side.
+
+"Upon my word!" exclaimed Miss de Compton; "that fox ought to go free. I
+shall beg Mr. Tunison--"
+
+But before she finished her sentence the dogs came into view, and I
+could hardly restrain a shout of triumph as I saw Flora running easily
+and unerringly far to the front. Behind her, led by Captain--and so
+close together that, as Uncle Plato afterward remarked, "You mout kivver
+de whole caboodle wid a hoss-blanket"--were the remainder of the Tunison
+kennel, while the Jasper county hounds were strung out behind in wild
+but heroic confusion. I felt strongly tempted to give the view-halloo,
+and push "Old Sandy" to the wall at once, but I knew that the fair de
+Compton would regard the exploit with severe [v]reprobation forever
+after. Across the ravine and to the fence the dogs came, their voices,
+as they got nearer, crashing through the silence like a chorus of
+demons.
+
+Now was the critical moment. If Flora should fail me--!
+
+Several of the older dogs topped the rails, and scattered through the
+undergrowth. Flora came over with them, made a small circle, with her
+sensitive nose to the damp earth, and then went rushing down the fence.
+Past the point where "Old Sandy" took his flying leap she ran, turned
+suddenly to the left, and came swooping back in a wide circle. I had
+barely time to warn Miss de Compton that she must prepare to do a little
+rapid riding, when my favorite, with a fierce cry of delight that
+thrilled me through and through, picked up the blazing [v]drag, and away
+we went with a scream and a shout. I felt in my very bones that "Old
+Sandy" was doomed. I had never seen Flora so prompt and eager; I had
+never observed the scent to be better. Everything was auspicious.
+
+We went like the wind. Miss de Compton rode well, and the long stretches
+of stubble land through which the chase led were unbroken by ditch or
+fence. The pace of the hounds was simply terrific, and I knew that no
+fox on earth could long stand up before the white demon that led the
+hunt with such splendor.
+
+Five--ten--fifteen minutes we rushed at the heels of the rearmost dogs,
+until, suddenly, we found ourselves in the midst of the pack. The scent
+was lost! Flora ran about in wide circles, followed by the greater
+portion of the dogs. To the left, to the right they went. At that
+moment, chancing to look back, I caught a glimpse of "Old Sandy," broken
+down and bedraggled, making his way toward a clump of briars. He had
+played his last [v]trump and lost. Pushed by the dogs, he had dropped in
+his tracks and literally allowed them to run over him. I rode at him
+with a shout; there was a short, sharp race, and in a few moments [v]_La
+Mort_ was sounded over the famous fox on the horn that the Jasper county
+boys did not win.
+
+JOEL CHANDLER HARRIS.
+
+
+=HELPS TO STUDY=
+
+     This gives a good picture of a fox hunt in the South in the long
+     ago. Tell what you like best about it. Who is telling the story?
+     Was he young or old? How do you know? What opinion do you form of
+     the "fair de Compton"? See if you can get an old man, perhaps a
+     negro, to tell you of a fox hunt he has seen.
+
+SUPPLEMENTARY READING
+
+     In Ole Virginia--Thomas Nelson Page.
+     Old Creole Days--George W. Cable.
+     Swallow Barn--John P. Kennedy.
+     The Prophet of the Great Smoky Mountains--Charles Egbert Craddock.
+
+
+FOOTNOTE:
+
+[177-*] From the _Atlanta Constitution_.
+
+
+
+
+RAIN AND WIND
+
+
+    I hear the hoofs of horses
+      Galloping over the hill,
+    Galloping on and galloping on,
+      When all the night is shrill
+    With wind and rain that beats the pane--
+      And my soul with awe is still.
+
+    For every dripping window
+      Their headlong rush makes bound,
+    Galloping up and galloping by,
+      Then back again and around,
+    Till the gusty roofs ring with their hoofs,
+      And the draughty cellars sound.
+
+    And then I hear black horsemen
+      Hallooing in the night;
+    Hallooing and hallooing,
+      They ride o'er vale and height,
+    And the branches snap and the shutters clap
+      With the fury of their flight.
+
+    All night I hear their gallop,
+      And their wild halloo's alarm;
+    The tree-tops sound and vanes go round
+      In forest and on farm;
+    But never a hair of a thing is there--
+      Only the wind and the storm.
+
+    MADISON JULIUS CAWEIN.
+
+
+
+
+THE SOUTHERN SKY
+
+
+Presently the stars begin to peep out, timidly at first, as if to see
+whether the elements here below had ceased their strife, and if the
+scene on earth be such as they, from bright spheres aloft, may shed
+their sweet influences upon. Sirius, or that blazing world Argus, may be
+the first watcher to send down a feeble ray; then follow another and
+another, all smiling meekly; but presently, in the short twilight of the
+latitude, the bright leaders of the starry host blaze forth in all their
+glory, and the sky is decked and spangled with superb brilliants.
+
+In the twinkling of an eye, and faster than the admiring gazer can tell,
+the stars seem to leap out from their hiding-places. By invisible hands,
+and in quick succession, the constellations are hung out; first of all,
+and with dazzling glory, in the azure depths of space appears the great
+Southern Cross. That shining symbol lends a holy grandeur to the scene,
+making it still more impressive.
+
+Alone in the night-watch, after the sea-breeze has sunk to rest, I have
+stood on deck under those beautiful skies, gazing, admiring, rapt. I
+have seen there, above the horizon at once and shining with a splendor
+unknown to other latitudes, every star of the [v]first magnitude--save
+only six--that is contained in the catalogue of the one hundred
+principal fixed stars.
+
+There lies the city on the seashore, wrapped in sleep. The sky looks
+solid, like a vault of steel set with diamonds. The stillness below is
+in harmony with the silence above, and one almost fears to speak, lest
+the harsh sound of the human voice, reverberating through those vaulted
+"chambers of the south," should wake up echo and drown the music that
+fills the soul.
+
+Orion is there, just about to march down into the sea; but Canopus and
+Sirius, with Castor and his twin brother, and [v]Procyon, Argus, and
+Regulus--these are high up in their course; they look down with great
+splendor, smiling peacefully as they precede the Southern Cross on its
+western way. And yonder, farther still, away to the south, float the
+Magellanic clouds, and the "Coal Sacks"--those mysterious, dark spots in
+the sky, which seem as though it had been rent, and these were holes in
+the "azure robe of night," looking out into the starless, empty, black
+abyss beyond. One who has never watched the southern sky in the
+stillness of the night, after the sea-breeze with its turmoil is done,
+can have no idea of its grandeur, beauty, and loveliness.
+
+MATTHEW FONTAINE MAURY.
+
+
+=HELPS TO STUDY=
+
+     Do you know any of the stars or the constellations mentioned? Some
+     of them are seen in our latitude, but the southern sky Maury
+     describes is south of the equator. The "Southern Cross" is seen
+     only below the equator. The "Magellan Clouds" are not far from the
+     South Pole.
+
+
+
+
+DAFFODILS
+
+
+    I wandered lonely as a cloud
+      That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
+    When all at once I saw a crowd,
+      A host of golden daffodils,--
+    Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
+    Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.
+
+    Continuous as the stars that shine
+      And twinkle on the milky way,
+    They stretched in never-ending line
+      Along the margin of the bay.
+    Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
+    Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.
+
+    The waves beside them danced, but they
+      Outdid the sparkling waves in glee,--
+    A poet could not but be gay
+      In such a [v]jocund company.
+    I gazed, and gazed, but little thought
+    What wealth the show to me had brought.
+
+    For oft, when on my couch I lie,
+      In vacant or in pensive mood,
+    They flash upon that inward eye
+      Which is the bliss of solitude;
+    And then my heart with pleasure fills,
+    And dances with the daffodils.
+
+    WILLIAM WORDSWORTH.
+
+
+
+
+DAWN
+
+
+I had occasion, a few weeks since, to take the early train from
+Providence to Boston; and for this purpose I rose at two o'clock in the
+morning. Everything around was wrapped in darkness and hushed in
+silence. It was a mild, serene, midsummer night,--the sky was without a
+cloud,--the winds were [v]whist. The moon, then in the last quarter, had
+just risen, and the stars shone with a luster but little affected by her
+presence.
+
+Jupiter, two hours high, was the herald of the day; the [v]Pleiades,
+just above the horizon, shed their sweet influence in the east; Lyra
+sparkled near the [v]zenith; Andromeda veiled her newly discovered
+glories from the naked eye in the south; the steady Pointers, far
+beneath the pole, looked meekly up from the depths of the north to their
+sovereign.
+
+Such was the glorious spectacle as I entered the train. As we proceeded,
+the timid approach of twilight became more perceptible; the intense blue
+of the sky began to soften; the smaller stars, like little children,
+went first to rest; the sister-beams of the Pleiades soon melted
+together; but the bright constellations of the west and north remained
+unchanged. Steadily the wondrous transfiguration went on. Hands of
+angels, hidden from mortal eyes, shifted the scenery of the heavens; the
+glories of night dissolved into the glories of the dawn.
+
+The blue sky now turned more softly gray; the great watch-stars shut up
+their holy eyes; the east began to kindle. Faint streaks of purple soon
+blushed along the sky; the whole celestial concave was filled with the
+inflowing tides of the morning light, which came pouring down from above
+in one great ocean of radiance; till at length, as we reached the Blue
+Hills, a flash of purple fire blazed out from above the horizon, and
+turned the dewy teardrops of flower and leaf into rubies and diamonds.
+In a few seconds, the everlasting gates of the morning were thrown wide
+open, and the lord of day, arrayed in glories too severe for the gaze of
+man, began his state.
+
+I do not wonder at the superstition of the ancient [v]Magians, who, in
+the morning of the world, went up to the hilltops of Central Asia, and,
+ignorant of the true God, adored the most glorious work of His hand. But
+I am filled with amazement, when I am told that, in this enlightened age
+and in the heart of the Christian world, there are persons who can
+witness this daily manifestation of the power and wisdom of the Creator,
+and yet say in their hearts, "There is no God."
+
+EDWARD EVERETT.
+
+
+=HELPS TO STUDY=
+
+     What experience did Everett describe? What impresses the mood of
+     the early morning? In what latitude did Everett live? What stars
+     and constellations did he mention? Trace the steps by which he
+     pictured the sunrise. Why did he not wonder at the belief of the
+     "ancient Magians"? What thought does cause amazement?
+
+
+
+
+SPRING
+
+
+    Spring, with that nameless [v]pathos in the air
+    Which dwells with all things fair--
+    Spring, with her golden suns and silver rain,
+    Is with us once again.
+
+    Out in the lonely woods, the jasmine burns
+    Its fragrant lamps, and turns
+    Into a royal court, with green festoons,
+    The banks of dark [v]lagoons.
+
+    In the deep heart of every forest tree,
+    The blood is all aglee;
+    And there's a look about the leafless bowers,
+    As if they dreamed of flowers.
+
+    Yet still, on every side we trace the hand
+    Of Winter in the land,
+    Save where the maple reddens on the lawn,
+    Flushed by the season's dawn;
+
+    Or where, like those strange [v]semblances we find
+    That age to childhood bind,
+    The elm puts on, as if in Nature's scorn,
+    The brown of Autumn corn.
+
+    [Illustration: The Woods in Spring]
+
+    As yet the turf is dark, although you know
+    That, not a span below,
+    A thousand germs are groping through the gloom,
+    And soon will burst their tomb.
+
+    In gardens, you may note, amid the dearth,
+    The crocus breaking earth;
+    And near the snowdrop's tender white and green,
+    The violet in its screen.
+
+    But many gleams and showers need must pass
+    Along the budding grass,
+    And weeks go by, before the enamored South
+    Shall kiss the rose's mouth.
+
+    Still there's a sense of blossoms yet unborn,
+    In the sweet airs of morn;
+    One almost looks to see the very street
+    Grow purple at his feet.
+
+    At times, a fragrant breeze comes floating by,
+    And brings, you know not why,
+    A feeling as when eager crowds await
+    Before a palace gate
+
+    Some wondrous pageant; and you scarce would start,
+    If from a beech's heart,
+    A blue-eyed [v]Dryad, stepping forth, should say,
+    "Behold me! I am May!"
+
+    HENRY TIMROD.
+
+
+
+
+AMONG THE CLIFFS
+
+
+It was a critical moment. There was a stir other than that of the wind
+among the pine needles and dry leaves that carpeted the ground.
+
+The wary wild turkeys lifted their long necks with that peculiar cry of
+half-doubting surprise so familiar to a sportsman, then all was still
+for an instant. The world was steeped in the noontide sunlight, the
+mountain air tasted of the fresh [v]sylvan fragrance that pervaded the
+forest, the foliage blamed with the red and gold of autumn, the distant
+[v]Chilhowee heights were delicately blue.
+
+That instant's doubt sealed the doom of one of the flock. As the turkeys
+stood in momentary suspense, the sunlight gilding their bronze feathers
+to a brighter sheen, there was a movement in the dense undergrowth. The
+flock took suddenly to wing,--a flash from among the leaves, the sharp
+crack of a rifle, and one of the birds fell heavily over the bluff and
+down toward the valley.
+
+The young mountaineer's exclamation of triumph died in his throat. He
+came running to the verge of the crag, and looked down ruefully into the
+depths where his game had disappeared.
+
+"Waal, sir," he broke forth pathetically, "this beats my time! If my
+luck ain't enough ter make a horse laugh!"
+
+He did not laugh, however; perhaps his luck was calculated to stir only
+[v]equine risibility. The cliff was almost perpendicular; at the depth
+of twenty feet a narrow ledge projected, but thence there was a sheer
+descent, down, down, down, to the tops of the tall trees in the valley
+far below.
+
+As Ethan Tynes looked wistfully over the precipice, he started with a
+sudden surprise. There on the narrow ledge lay the dead turkey.
+
+The sight sharpened Ethan's regrets. He had made a good shot, and he
+hated to relinquish his game. While he gazed in dismayed meditation, an
+idea began to kindle in his brain. Why could he not let himself down to
+the ledge by those long, strong vines that hung over the edge of the
+cliff?
+
+It was risky, Ethan knew, terribly risky. But then,--if only the vines
+were strong!
+
+He tried them again and again with all his might, selected several of
+the largest, grasped them hard and fast, and then slipped lightly off
+the crag.
+
+He waited motionless for a moment. His movements had dislodged clods of
+earth and fragments of rock from the verge of the cliff, and until these
+had ceased to rattle about his head and shoulders he did not begin his
+downward journey.
+
+Now and then as he went he heard the snapping of twigs, and again a
+branch would break, but the vines which supported him were tough and
+strong to the last. Almost before he knew it, he stood upon the ledge,
+and with a great sigh of relief he let the vines swing loose.
+
+"Waal, that warn't sech a mighty job at last. But law, if it hed been
+Peter Birt 'stid of me, that thar wild tur-r-key would hev laid on this
+hyar ledge plumb till the Jedgmint Day!"
+
+He walked deftly along the ledge, picked up the bird, and tied it to one
+of the vines with a string which he took from his pocket, intending to
+draw it up when he should be once more on the top of the crag. These
+preparations complete, he began to think of going back.
+
+He caught the vines on which he had made the descent, but before he had
+fairly left the ledge, he felt that they were giving way.
+
+He paused, let himself slip back to a secure foothold, and tried their
+strength by pulling with all his force.
+
+Presently down came the whole mass in his hands. The friction against
+the sharp edges of the rock over which they had been stretched with a
+strong tension had worn them through. His first emotion was one of
+intense thankfulness that they had fallen while he was on the ledge
+instead of midway in his [v]precarious ascent.
+
+"Ef they hed kem down whilst I war a-goin' up, I'd hev been flung down
+ter the bottom o' the valley, 'kase this ledge air too narrer ter hev
+cotched me."
+
+He glanced down at the somber depths beneath. "Thar wouldn't hev been
+enough left of me ter pick up on a shovel!" he exclaimed, with a tardy
+realization of his foolish recklessness.
+
+The next moment a mortal terror seized him. What was to be his fate? To
+regain the top of the cliff by his own exertions was an impossibility.
+
+He cast his despairing eyes up the ascent, as sheer and as smooth as a
+wall, without a crevice which might afford a foothold, or a shrub to
+which he might cling. His strong head was whirling as he again glanced
+downward to the unmeasured [v]abyss beneath. He softly let himself sink
+into a sitting posture, his heels dangling over the frightful depths,
+and addressed himself resolutely to the consideration of the terrible
+danger in which he was placed.
+
+Taken at its best, how long was it to last? Could he look to any human
+being for deliverance? He reflected with growing dismay that the place
+was far from any dwelling, and from the road that wound along the ridge.
+There was no errand that could bring a man to this most unfrequented
+portion of the deep woods, unless an accident should hither direct some
+hunter's step. It was quite possible, nay, probable, that years might
+elapse before the forest solitude would again be broken by human
+presence.
+
+His brothers would search for him when he should be missed from
+home,--but such boundless stretches of forest! They might search for
+weeks and never come near this spot. He would die here, he would
+starve,--no, he would grow drowsy when exhausted and fall--fall--fall!
+
+He was beginning to feel that morbid fascination that sometimes seizes
+upon those who stand on great heights,--an overwhelming impulse to
+plunge downward. His only salvation was to look up. He would look up to
+the sky.
+
+And what were these words he was beginning to remember faintly? Had not
+the [v]circuit-rider said in his last sermon that not even a sparrow
+falls to the ground unmarked of God? There was a definite strength in
+this suggestion. He felt less lonely as he stared resolutely at the big
+blue sky. There came into his heart a sense of encouragement, of hope.
+He would keep up as long and as bravely as he could, and if the worst
+should come,--was he indeed so solitary? He would hold in remembrance
+the sparrow's fall of Scripture.
+
+He had so nerved himself to meet his fate that he thought it was a fancy
+when he heard a distant step. But it did not die away, it grew more and
+more distinct,--a shambling step that curiously stopped at intervals and
+kicked the fallen leaves.
+
+He sought to call out, but he seemed to have lost his voice. Not a sound
+issued from his thickened tongue and his dry throat. The step came
+nearer. It would presently pass. With a mighty effort Ethan sent forth
+a wild, hoarse cry.
+
+The rocks [v]reverberated it, the wind carried it far, and certainly
+there was an echo of its despair and terror in a shrill scream set up on
+the verge of the crag. Then Ethan heard the shambling step scampering
+off very fast indeed.
+
+The truth flashed upon him. It was some child, passing on an
+unimaginable errand through the deep woods, frightened by his sudden
+cry.
+
+"Stop, bubby!" he shouted; "stop a minute! It's Ethan Tynes that's
+callin' of ye. Stop a minute, bubby!"
+
+The step paused at a safe distance, and the shrill pipe of a little boy
+demanded, "Whar is ye, Ethan Tynes?"
+
+"I'm down hyar on the ledge o' the bluff. Who air ye ennyhow?"
+
+"George Birt," promptly replied the little boy. "What air ye doin' down
+thar? I thought it was Satan a-callin' of me. I never seen nobody."
+
+"I kem down hyar on vines arter a tur-r-key I shot. The vines bruk, an'
+I hev got no way ter git up agin. I want ye ter go ter yer mother's
+house, an' tell yer brother Pete ter bring a rope hyar fur me ter climb
+up by."
+
+Ethan expected to hear the shambling step going away with a [v]celerity
+in keeping with the importance of the errand. On the contrary, the step
+was approaching the crag.
+
+A moment of suspense, and there appeared among the jagged ends of the
+broken vines a small red head, a deeply freckled face, and a pair of
+sharp, eager blue eyes. George Birt had carefully laid himself down on
+his stomach, only protruding his head beyond the verge of the crag, that
+he might not fling away his life in his curiosity.
+
+"Did ye git it?" he asked, with bated breath.
+
+"Git what?" demanded poor Ethan, surprised and impatient.
+
+"The tur-r-key--what ye hev done been talkin' 'bout," said George Birt.
+
+Ethan had lost all interest in the turkey.
+
+"Yes, yes; but run along, bub. I mought fall off'n this hyar place,--I'm
+gittin' stiff sittin' still so long,--or the wind mought blow me off.
+The wind is blowing toler'ble brisk."
+
+"Gobbler or hen?" asked George Birt eagerly.
+
+"It air a hen," said Ethan. "But look-a-hyar, George, I'm a-waitin' on
+ye an' if I'd fall off'n this hyar place, I'd be ez dead ez a door-nail
+in a minute."
+
+"Waal, I'm goin' now," said George Birt, with gratifying alacrity. He
+raised himself from his [v]recumbent position, and Ethan heard him
+shambling off, kicking every now and then at the fallen leaves as he
+went.
+
+Presently, however, he turned and walked back nearly to the brink of the
+cliff. Then he prostrated himself once more at full length,--for the
+mountain children are very careful of precipices,--snaked along
+dexterously to the verge of the crag, and protruding his red head
+cautiously, began to [v]parley once more, trading on Ethan's
+necessities.
+
+"Ef I go on this errand fur ye," he said, looking very sharp indeed,
+"will ye gimme one o' the whings of that thar wild tur-r-key?"
+
+He coveted the wing-feathers, not the joint of the fowl. The "whing" of
+the domestic turkey is used by the mountain women as a fan, and is
+considered an elegance as well as a comfort. George Birt [v]aped the
+customs of his elders, regardless of sex,--a characteristic of very
+small boys.
+
+"Oh, go 'long, bubby!" exclaimed poor Ethan, in dismay at the
+[v]dilatoriness and indifference of his [v]unique deliverer. "I'll give
+ye both o' the whings." He would have offered the turkey willingly, if
+"bubby" had seemed to crave it.
+
+"Waal, I'm goin' now." George Birt rose from the ground and started off
+briskly, [v]exhilarated by the promise of both the "whings."
+
+Ethan was angry indeed when he heard the boy once more shambling back.
+Of course one should regard a deliverer with gratitude, especially a
+deliverer from mortal peril; but it may be doubted if Ethan's gratitude
+would have been great enough to insure that small red head against a
+vigorous rap, if it had been within rapping distance, when it was once
+more cautiously protruded over the verge of the cliff.
+
+"I kem back hyar ter tell ye," the [v]doughty deliverer began, with an
+air of great importance, and magnifying his office with an extreme
+relish, "that I can't go an' tell Pete 'bout'n the rope till I hev done
+kem back from the mill. I hev got old Sorrel hitched out hyar a piece,
+with a bag o' corn on his back, what I hev ter git ground at the mill.
+My mother air a-settin' at home now a-waitin' fur that thar corn-meal
+ter bake dodgers with. An' I hev got a dime ter pay at the mill; it war
+lent ter my dad las' week. An' I'm afeard ter walk about much with this
+hyar dime; I mought lose it, ye know. An' I can't go home 'thout the
+meal; I'll ketch it ef I do. But I'll tell Pete arter I git back from
+the mill."
+
+"The mill!" echoed Ethan, aghast. "What air ye doin' on this side o' the
+mounting, ef ye air a-goin' ter the mill? This ain't the way ter the
+mill."
+
+"I kem over hyar," said the little boy, still with much importance of
+manner, notwithstanding a slight suggestion of embarrassment on his
+freckled face, "ter see 'bout'n a trap that I hev sot fur squir'ls. I'll
+see 'bout my trap, an' then I hev ter go ter the mill, 'kase my mother
+air a-settin' in our house now a-waitin' fur meal ter bake corn-dodgers.
+Then I'll tell Pete whar ye air, an' what ye said 'bout'n the rope. Ye
+must jes' wait fur me hyar."
+
+Poor Ethan could do nothing else.
+
+As the echo of the boy's shambling step died in the distance, a
+redoubled sense of loneliness fell upon Ethan Tynes. But he endeavored
+to [v]solace himself with the reflection that the important mission to
+the squirrel-trap and the errand to the mill could not last forever, and
+before a great while Peter Birt and his rope would be upon the crag.
+
+This idea [v]buoyed him up as the hours crept slowly by. Now and then he
+lifted his head and listened with painful intentness. He felt stiff in
+every muscle, and yet he had a dread of making an effort to change his
+[v]constrained position. He might lose control of his rigid limbs, and
+fall into those dread depths beneath.
+
+His patience at last began to give way; his heart was sinking. The
+messenger had been even more [v]dilatory than he was prepared to expect.
+Why did not Pete come? Was it possible that George had forgotten to tell
+of his danger. The sun was going down, leaving a great glory of gold and
+crimson clouds and an [v]opaline haze upon the purple mountains. The
+last rays fell on the bronze feathers of the turkey still lying tied to
+the broken vines on the ledge.
+
+And now there were only frowning masses of dark clouds in the west; and
+there were frowning masses of clouds overhead. The shadow of the coming
+night had fallen on the autumnal foliage in the deep valley; in the
+place of the opaline haze was only a gray mist.
+
+And presently there came, sweeping along between the parallel mountain
+ranges, a somber raincloud. The lad could hear the heavy drops splashing
+on the tree-tops in the valley, long, long before he felt them on his
+head.
+
+The roll of thunder sounded among the crags. Then the rain came down
+tumultuously, not in columns but in livid sheets. The lightnings rent
+the sky, showing, as it seemed to him, glimpses of the glorious
+brightness within,--too bright for human eyes.
+
+He clung desperately to his precarious perch. Now and then a fierce rush
+of wind almost tore him from it. Strange fancies beset him. The air was
+full of that wild [v]symphony of nature, the wind and the rain, the
+pealing thunder, and the thunderous echo among the cliffs, and yet he
+thought he could hear his own name ringing again and again through all
+the tumult, sometimes in Pete's voice, sometimes in George's shrill
+tones.
+
+Ethan became vaguely aware, after a time, that the rain had ceased, and
+the moon was beginning to shine through rifts in the clouds. The wind
+continued unabated, but, curiously enough, he could not hear it now. He
+could hear nothing; he could think of nothing. His consciousness was
+beginning to fail.
+
+George Birt had indeed forgotten him,--forgotten even the promised
+"whings." Not that he had discovered anything so extraordinary in his
+trap, for it was empty, but when he reached the mill, he found that the
+miller had killed a bear and captured a cub, and the orphan, chained to
+a post, had deeply absorbed George Birt's attention.
+
+To [v]sophisticated people, the boy might have seemed as [v]grotesque as
+the cub. George wore an unbleached cotton shirt. The waistband of his
+baggy jeans trousers encircled his body just beneath his armpits,
+reaching to his shoulder-blades behind, and nearly to his collar-bone in
+front. His red head was only partly covered by a fragment of an old
+white wool hat; and he looked at the cub with a curiosity as intense as
+that with which the cub looked at him. Each was taking first lessons in
+natural history.
+
+As long as there was daylight enough left to see that cub, did George
+Birt stand and stare at the little beast. Then he clattered home on old
+Sorrel in the closing darkness, looking like a very small pin on the top
+of a large pincushion.
+
+At home, he found the elders unreasonable,--as elders usually are
+considered. Supper had been waiting an hour or so for the lack of meal
+for dodgers. He "caught it" considerably, but not sufficiently to impair
+his appetite for the dodgers. After all this, he was ready enough for
+bed when a small boy's bedtime came. But as he was nodding before the
+fire, he heard a word that roused him to a new excitement and
+stimulated his memory.
+
+"These hyar chips air so wet they won't burn," said his mother. "I'll
+take my tur-r-key whing an' fan the fire."
+
+"Law!" he exclaimed. "Thar, now! Ethan Tynes never gimme that thar wild
+tur-r-key's whings like he promised."
+
+"Whar did ye happen ter see Ethan?" asked Pete, interested in his
+friend.
+
+"Seen him in the woods, an' he promised me the tur-r-key whings."
+
+"What fur?" inquired Pete, a little surprised by this uncalled-for
+generosity.
+
+"Waal,"--there was an expression of embarrassment on the important
+freckled face, and the small red head nodded forward in an explanatory
+manner,--"he fell off'n the bluffs arter the tur-r-key whings--I mean,
+he went down to the ledge arter the tur-r-key, and the vines bruk an' he
+couldn't git up no more. An' he tole me that ef I'd tell ye ter fotch
+him a rope ter pull up by, he would gimme the whings. That happened
+a--leetle--while--arter dinner-time."
+
+"Who got him a rope ter pull up by?" demanded Pete.
+
+There was again on the important face that indescribable shade of
+embarrassment. "Waal,"--the youngster balanced this word judicially,--"I
+forgot 'bout'n the tur-key whings till this minute. I reckon he's thar
+yit."
+
+"Mebbe this hyar wind an' rain hev beat him off'n the ledge!" exclaimed
+Pete, appalled and rising hastily. "I tell ye now," he added, turning to
+his mother, "the best use ye kin make o' that boy is ter put him on the
+fire fur a back-log."
+
+Pete made his preparations in great haste. He took the rope from the
+well, asked the [v]crestfallen and browbeaten junior a question or two
+relative to the place, mounted old Sorrel without a saddle, and in a few
+minutes was galloping at headlong speed through the night.
+
+The rain was over by the time he had reached the sulphur spring to which
+George had directed him, but the wind was still high, and the broken
+clouds were driving fast across the face of the moon.
+
+By the time he had hitched his horse to a tree and set out on foot to
+find the cliff, the moonbeams, though brilliant, were so [v]intermittent
+that his progress was fitful and necessarily cautious. When the disk
+shone out full and clear, he made his way rapidly enough, but when the
+clouds intervened, he stood still and waited.
+
+"I ain't goin' ter fall off'n the bluff 'thout knowin' it," he said to
+himself, in one of these [v]eclipses, "ef I hev ter stand hyar all
+night."
+
+The moonlight was brilliant and steady when he reached the verge of the
+crag. He identified the spot by the mass of broken vines, and more
+positively by Ethan's rifle lying upon the ground just at his feet. He
+called, but received no response.
+
+"Hev Ethan fell off, sure enough?" he asked himself, in great dismay and
+alarm. Then he shouted again and again. At last there came an answer, as
+though the speaker had just awaked.
+
+"Pretty nigh beat out, I'm a-thinkin'!" commented Pete. He tied one end
+of the cord around the trunk of a tree, knotted it at intervals, and
+flung it over the bluff.
+
+At first Ethan was almost afraid to stir. He slowly put forth his hand
+and grasped the rope. Then, his heart beating tumultuously, he rose to
+his feet.
+
+He stood still for an instant to steady himself and get his breath.
+Nerving himself for a strong effort, he began the ascent, hand over
+hand, up and up and up, till once more he stood upon the crest of the
+crag.
+
+And, now that all danger was over, Pete was disposed to scold. "I'm
+a-thinkin'," said Pete severely, "ez thar ain't a critter on this hyar
+mounting, from a b'ar ter a copperhead, that could hev got in sech a
+fix, 'ceptin' ye, Ethan Tynes."
+
+And Ethan was silent.
+
+"What's this hyar thing at the end o' the rope?" asked Pete, as he began
+to draw the cord up, and felt a weight still suspended.
+
+"It air the tur-r-key," said Ethan meekly, "I tied her ter the e-end o'
+the rope afore I kem up."
+
+"Waal, sir!" exclaimed Pete, in indignant surprise.
+
+And George, for duty performed, was [v]remunerated with the two
+"whings," although it still remains a question in the mind of Ethan
+whether or not he deserved them.
+
+CHARLES EGBERT CRADDOCK.
+
+
+=HELPS TO STUDY=
+
+     Tell what happened to Ethan Tynes one day when he was hunting. How
+     was he rescued? What qualities did Ethan show in his hour of trial?
+     Give your opinion of George Birt; of Pete. Find out all you can
+     about life in the mountains of East Tennessee.
+
+
+SUPPLEMENTARY READING
+
+     The Prophet of the Great Smoky Mountains--Charles Egbert Craddock.
+     The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come--John Fox, Jr.
+     June--John Fox, Jr.
+
+
+
+
+    The poetry of earth is ceasing never:
+        On a lone winter evening, when the frost
+      Has wrought a silence, from the stove there shrills
+    The cricket's song, in the warmth increasing ever,
+        And seems to one in drowsiness half lost,
+      The grasshopper's among some grassy hills.
+
+    JOHN KEATS.
+
+
+
+
+A DEAL IN BEARS
+
+
+When a whaling ship is beset in the ice of Davis Straits, there is
+little work for her second engineer, once the engines have been nicely
+tallowed down. Now, I am no man that can sit in his berth and laze. If
+I've no work to do, I get a-thinking about my home at [v]Ballindrochater
+and the ministry, which my father intended I should have adorned, and
+what a fool I've made of myself, and this is depressing. I was not
+over-popular already on the _Gleaner_ on account of some prophecies I
+had made in anger, which had unfortunately come true. The crew, and the
+captain, too, had come to fear my prophetic powers.
+
+At last I bethought me of sporting on the ice. There was head-money
+offered for all bears, foxes, seals, musk-oxen, and such like that were
+shot and gathered. So I went to the skipper, and he gave me a Henry
+rifle, well rusted, and eight cartridges.
+
+"Show me you can use those, McTodd," says he, "and I'll give you more."
+
+I made a big mistake with that rusty old gun. I may be a sportsman, but
+before that I'm an engineer, and it seemed to me that Heaven sent metal
+into this world to be kept bright and clean. So I took the rifle all to
+pieces and made the parts as smooth and sweet as you'd see in a
+gun-maker's shop, barring rust-pits, and gave them a nice daubing of oil
+against the Arctic weather. Then I put on some thick clothes I had
+made, and all the other clothes I could get loaned me, and climbed out
+over the rail on to the [v]floe.
+
+The _Gleaner_ lay in a bay some two miles from the shore, and let me
+tell you, if you do not know it, that Arctic ice is no skating-rink.
+There are great hills, and knolls, and bergs, and valleys spread all
+over, and even where it's about level, the underfoot is as hard going as
+a newly-metalled road before the steam-roller has passed over it.
+
+The air was clear enough when I left the bark, and though the [v]mercury
+was out of use and coiled up snugly in the bulb, it wasn't as cold as
+you might think, for just then there was no wind. It's a breeze up in
+the Arctic that makes you feel the chill. There was no sun, of course;
+there never is sun up there in that dreary winter: but the stars were
+burning blue and clear, and every now and then a big [v]catherine wheel
+of [v]aurora would show off, for all the world like a firework
+exhibition.
+
+My! but it was lonely, though, once you had left the ship behind! There
+was just the scrunching of your feet on the frost [v]rime, and not
+another sound in the world. Even the ice was frozen too hard to squeak.
+And overhead in that purple-black Heaven you never knew Who was looking
+down at you. Out there in that cold, bare, black, icy silence, I had
+occasion to remember that Neil Angus McTodd had been a sinner in his
+time, and it made me shiver when I glanced up toward those blue, cold
+stars and the deep purple darkness that lay between and behind them.
+
+It may be that I was thinking less of my hunting than was advisable, for
+of a sudden I woke up to the sound of heavy feet padding over the crisp
+frost rime. I turned me round sharply enough, but as far as the dim
+light carried there was nothing alive to be seen through the gloom. As
+soon as I stopped, the footsteps stopped, too, and I don't mind
+admitting that my scalp tickled.
+
+However, when I'd hauled up the hammer of the Henry, and it dropped into
+position with a good, wholesome _cluck_, my nervousness very soon
+filtered out. There's a comfort about a heavy-bore rifle like a
+Henry--which is the kind always used by whalers and sealers--that you
+can't get from those fancy little guns. And then, as it seemed that the
+animal, whatever it might be, wasn't going to move till I did, I
+shuffled my high sealskin boots on the crisp snow to make believe that I
+was tramping again.
+
+The creature started after me promptly. It was hard to tell the
+direction, because every sound in that icy silence was echoed by a
+thousand bergs and hummocks of ice; but presently from behind a small
+splintered ridge of the floe there strolled out what seemed to me the
+largest bear in the Arctic regions. You must know that the night air
+there has a [v]deceptive light--it enlarges things--and the beast
+appeared to me as standing some five feet six inches high at the
+shoulder, and measuring some twenty feet from nose to tail.
+
+There was myself and there was the bear in the dark middle of that awful
+loneliness, with no one to interfere; and as there was only one of us to
+get home, I preferred it should not be he. So I took a brace on myself,
+and stood with the Henry ready to fire.
+
+There was nothing you might call [v]diffidence about that bear. He
+slouched along up to me at a steady walk, with the hair and skin on him
+swinging about as though it was too large for his carcass and he was
+wearing a misfit. He seemed to look upon me as dinner, and no hurry
+needful. There was a sort of calm certainty about him that made me
+angry.
+
+I was not what you might call a marksman in those days, and so I set a
+bit of [v]hummock about ten yards off as a limit where I could not very
+conveniently miss, and waited until the bear should come opposite that.
+Well, he came to it right enough in his own time. There was, as I have
+said before, no diffidence about the creature. And then I raised the
+Henry and fired her off.
+
+_Cluck_ went the hammer on the nipple, but there was no bang.
+
+My! it was a misfire, and there was the bear coming down on me as steady
+and unconcerned as a [v]traction engine! I clawed out that cartridge
+and crammed in another. The bitter cold of the metal skinned my fingers
+like escaping steam. Then I cocked the gun again, shouldered it, and
+pulled trigger again.
+
+Once more she wouldn't go off!
+
+The bear was now nearly on top of me and was beginning to rear on its
+hind legs. Somehow the rifle came into my hand muzzle-end, and I hit the
+great brute across the eyes with the butt hard enough to have felled an
+ox.
+
+I might as well have struck it with a cane. _Whack_ came a big
+yellow-white paw, the Henry went flying, and my wrists tingled with the
+jar; and there was I left looking, I've no doubt you'll think, very
+humorous.
+
+The bear might have finished me then if it had chosen. But it must needs
+turn aside to go snuffling at the rifle and lick the oil off the locks.
+I turned and footed it.
+
+Now, at the best of times, I am no [v]sprinter, and in the great
+mountain of clothes one wears up there in the cold Arctic night, no man
+can make much speed. Besides, the way was that uneven it was a case of
+hands and scramble more often than plain running over the sharp, spiky
+level.
+
+The bear, once he had finished his snuffle and lick at the Henry, came
+on at a dreadful pace, making nothing of those obstacles that balked
+me,--he had been born up there, you know. He laid himself out--I could
+see over my shoulder--like one of those American trotting horses, caring
+nothing for the ups and downs and ankle-breaking ice. In about two
+shakes he was snorting at my heels again, till I could almost feel his
+hot breath. The bundle of clothes hampered me. I stripped off my outer
+over-all and let it drop behind me.
+
+The bear stopped and snuffed that, but I didn't stay to watch him. I got
+a good fifty [v]fathoms ahead of him whilst he was thus occupied. But
+presently, when he'd got all his satisfaction out of that, on he comes
+again, and I had to give him my coat. I hadn't a chance of equaling him
+in pace, but the trick with the clothing never tired him. Fifty fathoms
+was the least gain I made over a single piece, and as I got lower down
+toward my skin he stayed over the clothes longer.
+
+But still the _Gleaner_ was a long way off, over very tumbled ice, and
+there I was careering on in a costume which was barely enough for
+decency, and certainly insufficient for the climate.
+
+However, it was little enough the bear cared for such refinements as
+those. I stripped off my last garment as I ran, and gained nigh on two
+hundred yards whilst he investigated it; and there were the bark's upper
+spars showing above the hummocks half a mile away, with me in nothing
+but my long seal-skin boots!
+
+But there was no help for it. Up came the hot breath behind me, and I
+leaned up against a hummock and stripped off a boot. I hailed the
+_Gleaner_ with what breath I had left, but no one gave heed. Away went
+the other boot, and there I was running, mother-naked, over the jagged
+floe, leaving blood on every footmark.
+
+Right up to the vessel did the outrageous beast chase me, and then when
+I got on board and called for guns, it slunk away into the shadows of a
+berg and was seen no more. My feet were cut to the bone; I was
+frost-nipped in twenty places, and you may imagine I had had a poor
+enough time of it. But the thought of that canvas over-all which I had
+thrown away first kept me cheerful. It was indeed a very humorous
+circumstance. Ye see it was a borrowed one.
+
+I got down below to a berth, and the steward, who was rated as a doctor,
+tended me. But Captain Black put sourness on the whole affair. He came
+down to my bunk and said, "Where's that Henry?"
+
+"Lying quiet on the ice," said I.
+
+"Do you mean to say you left that rifle behind? My rifle!"
+
+"I did that same. The thing wasn't strong enough to fire a cartridge. I
+tried two."
+
+And then Black used violent and unjustifiable language. I was in no
+condition to give him a fair exchange. Besides, I made an unfortunate
+admission. I owned up to taking the rifle apart and cleaning her. I
+owned up, too, that I'd been free with the oil.
+
+Black stuck out his face at me, and his fringe of beard fairly bristled.
+
+"And you call yourself an engineer! You talk about having gone through
+the shops! Put your filthy engine-room oil on my Henry's locks, would
+you? Why, you idiot, have you yet to learn that oil freezes up here as
+hard as cheese, and you've made up the lock space of that poor rifle
+into one solid chunk?"
+
+"I never thought of that."
+
+"To look at your face, you've yet to start thinking at all."
+
+So we had it out, and as I was now aroused, I gave him some words on the
+inefficient way he ran his ship. At last I threatened to prophesy again,
+and this cooled him off. I offered to go hunting bears for him and he
+became quite polite.
+
+"I'll make you an offer touching those bears," he said. "For every skin
+you bring here aboard, I'll give you seven shillings [v]bonus above your
+share as a member of the ship's company. I'll give you another rifle,
+two rifles if you like, and a fine bag of cartridges. But, you beggar, I
+make one condition. You take yourself off and away from the ship to do
+your hunting. You may make yourself a snow house to stay in, and live on
+the meat you kill."
+
+"You wish to murder me?"
+
+"I wish to be rid of you, and that's the truth. Man, I believe you're
+Jonah resurrected. We've had no luck since first you put your foot on my
+deck planks. And, what's more, the crew is of my way of thinking. So,
+refuse my offer, and I'll put you in irons and keep you there till I can
+fling you ashore at [v]Dundee."
+
+Now there is no doubt Black meant what he said, and so I did not waste
+dignity by arguing with him. I had no taste for the irons, and as for
+being turned out on the ice--well, I had a plan ahead. But I didn't
+intend to leave Black more comfortable than I could help.
+
+So I shut my eyes and said that the ship would have very bad luck that
+winter, that there would be much sickness aboard. (This was an easy
+guess.) I said, considering this fact, I was glad to leave such an
+unwholesome ship.
+
+The crew were just aching to get rid of me. This prophesying sort of
+grows on a man; once you've started it, you've got to go on with it at
+all costs, and I could no more resist just letting my few remarks slip
+round amongst the men than I can resist eating when I'm hungry.
+
+The nerves of the _Gleaner_ people were in strings from the cold and the
+blackness of the Arctic night, and it put the horrors on the lot of
+them. The one thing they wanted was to see the last of me. They gave me
+almost anything I fancied, but my means of transport were small. There
+was a bit of a sledge, which I packed with some food, two Henry rifles
+and a few tools, five hundred cartridges, and the clothes I stood in. No
+more could be taken.
+
+Then I went on deck into the bitter cold and over the side, and stood on
+the ice, ready to start on my journey. The crew lined the rail to see me
+off, and I can tell you their faces were very different. The older ones
+were savage and cared little how soon Jonah might die. The younger ones
+were crying to see a fellow driven away into that icy loneliness, far
+from shelter.
+
+But for myself I didn't care. I had method in all this performance. Soon
+after we were beset in the ice, a family of Esquimaux had come on the
+_Gleaner_ to pay a polite call and get what they could out of us. They
+were that dirty you could have chipped them with a scaling hammer, but
+they were very friendly. One buck who stepped down into the engine
+room--[v]Amatikita, he said his name was--had some English, and came to
+the point as straight as anything.
+
+"Give me a [v]dlink, Cappie," says he.
+
+"This is a dry ship," says I.
+
+"Plenty dlink in that box," says he, handling an oil-can.
+
+"Oh, if that's what you want, take it," I told him, and he clapped the
+nozzle between his lips, and sucked down a gill of [v]cylinder
+lubricating oil as though it had been water.
+
+"You seem to like it," I said; "have some more."
+
+But that was his fill. He thanked me and asked me to visit his village
+when I could get away from the ship. And just then some of his friends
+were caught pilfering, and the whole crew of them were bundled away.
+
+Now I had noted that most of these Esquimaux had bits of bearskins
+amongst their other furs, and it was that I had in mind when I fell out
+with Captain Black. Amatikita had pointed out the direction in which his
+village lay, and it was to that I intended making my way with as little
+delay as possible. But I kept this to myself, and let no word of it slip
+out on the _Gleaner_. Indeed, when I was over the bark's rails, I headed
+off due north across the ice. I climbed and stumbled on in this
+direction till I was well out of their sight and hearing amongst the
+hummocks, and then I turned at right angles for the shore.
+
+The cold up yonder in that Arctic night takes away your breath; it seems
+to take the manhood out of you. You stumble along gasping. By a chance I
+came on an Esquimaux sealing, and he beat and thumped me into
+wakefulness. Then he packed me on to his dog-sleigh, and took my own bit
+of a sled behind, and set his fourteen-foot whip cracking, and off we
+set.
+
+Well, you have to be pretty far gone if you can stay asleep with an
+[v]Innuit's dog-sledge jolting and jumping beneath you, and I was well
+awakened, especially as the Esquimaux sat on top of me. And so in time
+we brought up at the huts, and a good job, too. I'd been tramping in the
+wrong direction, so it turned out, and, besides, if I had come to the
+village, I might well have walked over the top of it, as it was drifted
+up level with snow. There was a bit of a rabbit-hole giving entrance to
+each hut, with some three fathoms of tunnel underground, and skin
+curtains to keep out the draught, but once inside you might think
+yourself in a [v]stoke-hold again. There was the same smell of oil, and
+almost the same warmth. I tell you, it was fine after that slicing cold
+outside.
+
+It was Amatikita's house I was brought to, and he was very hospitable.
+They took off my outer clothes and put them on the rack above the
+soapstone lamp to dry, and waited on me most kindly. Indeed, they
+recognized me as a superior at once, and kept on doing it. They put
+tender young seal-meat in the dish above the lamp, and when it was
+cooked I ate my part of the stew, and then got up and took the best
+place on the raised sleeping-bench at the farther side of the hut. I cut
+a fill for my pipe, lit up and passed the plug, and presently we were
+all smoking, happy as you please.
+
+Amatikita spoke up like a man. "Very pleased to see you, Cappie. What
+you come for? What you want?"
+
+"You're a man of business," I said. "You waste no time. I like that.
+What I want is bearskins. The jackets of big, white, baggy-trousered
+polar bears, you know; and I brought along a couple of tip-top rifles
+for you to get them with. Now, I make you a fair offer. Get me all the
+bears in the North Polar regions, and you shall have my Henrys and all
+the cartridges that are left over. And as for the meat, you shall have
+that as your own share of the game."
+
+"You want shoot those bears yourself?"
+
+"Not if I can help it. I'm an engineer, and a good one at that. But as a
+sportsman I've had but little experience, and don't seem drawn toward
+learning. It is too draughty up here, just at present, for my taste.
+I'll stay and keep house, and maybe do a bit of repairing and inventing
+among the furniture. I've brought along a hand-vice and a bag of tools
+with me, and if you can supply drift-wood and some scrap-iron, I'll make
+this turf-house of yours a real cottage."
+
+The deal was made. I worked away with my tools, and whenever those
+powdering winter gales eased for a little, Amatikita and his friends
+would go off with the howling dog-sledges and the Henrys, and it was
+rare that they'd come back without one bear, and often they'd bring two
+or even three. These white bears sleep through the black winter months
+in hollows in the cliffs, and the Esquimaux know their lairs, though
+it's rare enough they dare tackle them. Small blame, too, you'd say, if
+you saw the flimsy bone-tipped lances and harpoons, which are all they
+are armed with.
+
+With a good, smashing, heavy-bore Henry rifle it is a different thing.
+The Esquimaux were no cowards. They would walk up within a yard of a
+bear, when the dogs had ringed it, and blow half its head away with a
+single shot. And then they would draw the carcass up to the huts with
+the dog trains, and the women would skin and dress the meat, and
+Amatikita and the others would gorge themselves.
+
+At last the long winter wore away. Amatikita dived in through the
+entrance of the hut one day and told me that the ice-floe was beginning
+to break. The news affected me like the blow of a whip. I went out into
+the open and found the sun up. The men were overhauling their skin
+canoes. The snow was wet underfoot and seafowl were swooping around. The
+floe was still sound where it joined the shore, but two seaward lanes of
+blue water showed between the ice, and in one of them a whale was
+spouting pale gray mist.
+
+It was high time for me to be off. So the bearskins were fastened by
+thongs to the sledges and word was shouted to the dog leader of each
+team. The dogs started, and presently away went the teams full tilt, the
+sledges leaping and crashing in their wake, with the drivers and a
+certain Scotch engineer who was unused to such [v]acrobatics clinging
+on top of the packs. My! but yon was a wild ride over the rotten,
+cracking, sodden floe, under the fresh, bright sunshine of that Arctic
+spring morn!
+
+Presently round the flank of a small ice-berg we came in view of the
+_Gleaner_. She was still beset in the ice; but the hands were hard at
+work beating the ice from the rigging and cutting a gutter around her in
+the floe, so that she might float when the time came. They knocked off
+work when we drove up.
+
+"Good-day, Captain Black," I said. "I've been troubling myself over
+bearskins, and I'll ask you for seven shillings head money on
+twenty-nine."
+
+"You've shot twenty-nine bears? You're lying to me."
+
+"The skins are there, and you can count them for yourself."
+
+His color changed when the Esquimaux passed the skins over the side. And
+I clambered aboard the ship along with them.
+
+W. CUTCLIFFE HYNE.
+
+
+=HELPS TO STUDY=
+
+     Tell this story briefly, using your own words. What mistake did
+     McTodd make in preparing for the hunt? What amused you most? How
+     did McTodd show his shrewdness, even if he was not a good hunter?
+     What do you learn about the Arctic region?
+
+
+SUPPLEMENTARY READING
+
+     The Frozen Pirate--W. Clark Russell.
+     The Casting Away of Mrs. Leeks and Mrs. Aleshine--Frank R. Stockton.
+
+
+
+
+LOCHINVAR
+
+
+    Oh, young Lochinvar is come out of the west:--
+    Through all the wide Border his steed was the best,
+    And save his good broadsword he weapons had none;
+    He rode all unarmed, and he rode all alone.
+    So faithful in love, and so dauntless in war,
+    There never was knight like the young Lochinvar.
+
+    He stayed not for [v]brake, and he stopped not for stone,
+    He swam the Esk river where ford there was none;
+    But ere he alighted at Netherby gate
+    The bride had consented, the gallant came late:
+    For a laggard in love, and a dastard in war
+    Was to wed the fair Ellen of brave Lochinvar.
+
+    So boldly he entered the Netherby Hall,
+    Among bride's-men and kinsmen and brothers and all:
+    Then spoke the bride's father, his hand on his sword
+    (For the poor craven bridegroom said never a word),
+    "Oh, come ye in peace here, or come ye in war,
+    Or to dance at our bridal, young Lord Lochinvar?"
+
+    "I long wooed your daughter, my suit you denied;--
+    Love swells like the Solway, but ebbs like its tide--
+    And now am I come with this lost love of mine,
+    To lead but one measure, drink one cup of wine.
+    There are maidens in Scotland more lovely by far,
+    That would gladly be bride to the young Lochinvar."
+
+    The bride kissed the goblet; the knight took it up,
+    He quaffed of the wine, and he threw down the cup.
+    She looked down to blush, and she looked up to sigh,
+    With a smile on her lips and a tear in her eye.
+    He took her soft hand, ere her mother could bar,--
+    "Now tread we a measure!" said young Lochinvar.
+
+    So stately his form, and so lovely her face,
+    That never a hall such a [v]galliard did grace;
+    While her mother did fret, and her father did fume,
+    And the bridegroom stood dangling his bonnet and plume,
+    And the bride-maidens whispered, "'Twere better by far
+    To have matched our fair cousin with young Lochinvar."
+
+    One touch to her hand, and one word in her ear,
+    When they reached the hall door, and the charger stood near;
+    So light to the [v]croup the fair lady he swung,
+    So light to the saddle before her he sprung!
+    "She is won! we are gone, over bank, bush, and [v]scar;
+    They'll have fleet steeds that follow," quoth young Lochinvar.
+
+    There was mounting 'mong Graemes of the Netherby clan;
+    Fosters, Fenwicks, and Musgraves, they rode and they ran;
+    There was racing and chasing on Cannobie lea,
+    But the lost bride of Netherby ne'er did they see.
+    So daring in love, and so dauntless in war;
+    Have ye e'er heard of gallant like young Lochinvar?
+
+    SIR WALTER SCOTT.
+
+
+=HELPS TO STUDY=
+
+     Read the poem through and tell the story briefly. Where is the
+     scene laid? _Border_ here means the part of Scotland bordering on
+     England. Who is the hero? Give your opinion of him. Find the
+     expressions used by the poet to inspire admiration for Lochinvar.
+     Give your opinion of the bridegroom. Quote lines that express the
+     poet's opinion of him. What word is used instead of _thicket_ in
+     the second stanza? a _loiterer_? a _coward_? Why do you suppose the
+     bride had consented? Why did her father put his hand on his sword?
+     What reason did Lochinvar give for coming to the feast? Why did he
+     act as if he did not care? Was the bride willing to marry "the
+     laggard in love"? How do you know? Describe the scene as the two
+     danced. What do you suppose was the "one word in her ear"?
+
+     Read aloud the lines describing Lochinvar's ride to Netherby Hall.
+     Read those describing the ride from the hall. Notice the galloping
+     movement of the verse.
+
+
+
+
+IN LABRADOR
+
+
+I
+
+Trafford and Marjorie were in Labrador to spend the winter. It was a
+queer idea for a noted [v]scientist and rich and successful business man
+to cut himself loose from the world of London and go out into the Arctic
+storm and darkness of one of the bleakest quarters of the globe. But
+Trafford had fallen into a discontent with living, a weariness of the
+round of work and pleasure, and it was in the hope of winning back his
+lost zest and happiness that he had made up his mind to try the cure of
+the wilderness. Marjorie had insisted, like a good wife, on leaving
+children and home and comfort and accompanying him into the frozen
+wilds.
+
+The voyage across the sea and the march inland into Labrador were
+uneventful. Trafford chose his winter-quarters on the side of a low
+razor-hacked, rocky mountain ridge, about fifty feet above a little
+river. Not a dozen miles away from them, they reckoned, was the Height
+of Land, the low watershed between the waters that go to the Atlantic
+and those that go to Hudson's Bay. North and north-east of them the
+country rose to a line of low crests, with here and there a yellowing
+patch of last year's snow, and across the valley were slopes covered in
+places by woods of stunted pine. It had an empty spaciousness of
+effect; the one continually living thing seemed to be the river,
+hurrying headlong, noisily, perpetually, in an eternal flight from this
+high desolation.
+
+For nearly four weeks indeed they were occupied very closely in fixing
+their cabin and making their other preparations, and crept into their
+bunks at night as tired as wholesome animals who drop to sleep. At any
+time the weather might break; already there had been two overcast days
+and a frowning conference of clouds in the north. When at last storms
+began, they knew there would be nothing for it but to keep in the hut
+until the world froze up.
+
+The weather broke at last. One might say it smashed itself over their
+heads. There came an afternoon darkness swift and sudden, a wild gale,
+and an icy sleet that gave place in the night to snow, so that Trafford
+looked out next morning to see a maddening chaos of small white flakes,
+incredibly swift, against something that was neither darkness nor light.
+Even with the door but partly ajar, a cruelty of cold put its claw
+within, set everything that was movable swaying and clattering, and made
+Marjorie hasten shuddering to heap fresh logs upon the fire. Once or
+twice Trafford went out to inspect tent and roof and store-shed; several
+times, wrapped to the nose, he battled his way for fresh wood, and for
+the rest of the blizzard they kept to the hut. It was slumberously
+stuffy, but comfortingly full of flavors of tobacco and food. There
+were two days of intermission and a day of gusts and icy sleet again,
+turning with one extraordinary clap of thunder to a wild downpour of
+dancing lumps of ice, and then a night when it seemed all Labrador,
+earth and sky together, was in hysterical protest against inconceivable
+wrongs.
+
+And then the break was over; the annual freezing-up accomplished; winter
+had established itself; the snowfall moderated and ceased, and an
+ice-bound world shone white and sunlit under a cloudless sky.
+
+One morning Trafford found the footmarks of some catlike creature in the
+snow near the bushes where he was accustomed to get firewood; they led
+away very plainly up the hill, and after breakfast he took his knife and
+rifle and snowshoes and went after the lynx--for that he decided the
+animal must be. There was no urgent reason why he should want to kill a
+lynx, unless perhaps that killing it made the store-shed a trifle safer;
+but it was the first trail of any living thing for many days; it
+promised excitement; some [v]primitive instinct perhaps urged him.
+
+The morning was a little overcast, and very cold between the gleams of
+wintry sunshine. "Good-by, dear wife!" he said, and then as she
+remembered afterward came back a dozen yards to kiss her. "I'll not be
+long," he said. "The beast's prowling, and if it doesn't get wind of me,
+I ought to find it in an hour." He hesitated for a moment. "I'll not be
+long," he repeated, and she had an instant's wonder whether he hid from
+her the same dread of loneliness that she concealed. Up among the
+tumbled rocks he turned, and she was still watching him. "Good-by!" he
+cried and waved, and the willow thickets closed about him.
+
+She forced herself to the petty duties of the day, made up the fire from
+the pile he had left for her, set water to boil, put the hut in order,
+brought out sheets and blankets to air, and set herself to wash up. She
+wished she had been able to go with him. The sky cleared presently, and
+the low December sun lit all the world about her, but it left her spirit
+desolate.
+
+She did not expect him to return until midday, and she sat herself down
+on a log before the fire to darn a pair of socks as well as she could.
+For a time this unusual occupation held her attention and then her hands
+became slow and at last inactive, and she fell into reverie. Thoughts
+came quick and fast of her children in England so far away.
+
+What was that? She flashed to her feet.
+
+It seemed to her she had heard the sound of a shot, and a quick, brief
+wake of echoes. She looked across the icy waste of the river, and then
+up the tangled slopes of the mountain. Her heart was beating fast. It
+must have been up there, and no doubt Trafford had killed his beast.
+Some shadow of doubt she would not admit crossed that obvious
+suggestion. The wilderness was making her as nervously responsive as a
+creature of the wild.
+
+There came a second shot; this time there was no doubt of it. Then the
+desolate silence closed about her again.
+
+Marjorie stood for a long time, staring at the shrubby slopes that rose
+to the barren rock wilderness of the purple mountain crest. She sighed
+deeply at last, and set herself to make up the fire and prepare for the
+midday meal. Once, far away across the river, she heard the howl of a
+wolf.
+
+Time seemed to pass very slowly that day. Marjorie found herself going
+repeatedly to the space between the day tent and the sleeping hut from
+which she could see the stunted wood that had swallowed her husband up,
+and after what seemed a long hour her watch told her it was still only
+half-past twelve. And the fourth or fifth time that she went to look out
+she was set a-tremble again by the sound of a third shot. And then at
+regular intervals out of that distant brown-purple jumble of thickets
+against the snow came two more shots. "Something has happened," she
+said, "something has happened," and stood rigid. Then she became active,
+seized the rifle that was always at hand when she was alone, fired into
+the sky, and stood listening.
+
+Prompt came an answering shot.
+
+"He wants me," said Marjorie. "Something--perhaps he has killed
+something too big to bring!"
+
+She was for starting at once, and then remembered this was not the way
+of the wilderness.
+
+She thought and moved very rapidly. Her mind catalogued possible
+requirements,--rifle, hunting knife, the oilskin bag with matches, and
+some chunks of dry paper, the [v]rucksack. Besides, he would be hungry.
+She took a saucepan and a huge chunk of cheese and biscuit. Then a
+brandy flask is sometimes handy--one never knows,--though nothing was
+wrong, of course. Needles and stout thread, and some cord. Snowshoes. A
+waterproof cloak could be easily carried. Her light hatchet for wood.
+She cast about to see if there was anything else. She had almost
+forgotten cartridges--and a revolver. Nothing more. She kicked a stray
+brand or so into the fire, put on some more wood, damped the fire with
+an armful of snow to make it last longer, and set out toward the willows
+into which he had vanished.
+
+There was a rustling and snapping of branches as she pushed her way
+through the bushes, a little stir that died insensibly into quiet again;
+and then the camping place became very still.
+
+Trafford's trail led Marjorie through the thicket of dwarf willows and
+down to the gully of the rivulet which they had called Marjorie Trickle;
+it had long since become a trough of snow-covered, rotten ice. The trail
+crossed this and, turning sharply uphill, went on until it was clear of
+shrubs and trees, and, in the windy open of the upper slopes, it crossed
+a ridge and came over the lip of a large desolate valley with slopes of
+ice and icy snow. Here Marjorie spent some time in following his loops
+back on the homeward trail before she saw what was manifestly the final
+trail running far away out across the snow, with the [v]spoor of the
+lynx, a lightly-dotted line, to the right of it. She followed this
+suggestion of the trail, put on her snowshoes, and shuffled her way
+across this valley, which opened as she proceeded. She hoped that over
+the ridge she would find Trafford, and scanned the sky for the faintest
+discoloration of a fire, but there was none. That seemed odd to her, but
+the wind was in her face, and perhaps it beat the smoke down. Then as
+her eyes scanned the hummocky ridge ahead, she saw something, something
+very intent and still, that brought her heart into her mouth. It was a
+big gray wolf, standing with back haunched and head down, watching and
+scenting something beyond.
+
+Marjorie had an instinctive fear of wild animals, and it still seemed
+dreadful to her that they should go at large, uncaged. She suddenly
+wanted Trafford violently, wanted him by her side. Also, she thought of
+leaving the trail, going back to the bushes. But presently her nerve
+returned. In the wastes one did not fear wild beasts, one had no fear of
+them. But why not fire a shot to let him know she was near?
+
+The beast flashed round with an animal's instantaneous change of pose,
+and looked at her. For a couple of seconds, perhaps, woman and brute
+regarded one another across a quarter of a mile of snowy desolation.
+
+Suppose it came toward her!
+
+She would fire--and she would fire at it. Marjorie made a guess at the
+range and aimed very carefully. She saw the snow fly two yards ahead of
+the grisly shape, and then in an instant the beast had vanished over the
+crest.
+
+She reloaded, and stood for a moment waiting for Trafford's answer. No
+answer came. "Queer!" she whispered, "queer!"--and suddenly such a
+horror of anticipation assailed her that she started running and
+floundering through the snow to escape it. Twice she called his name,
+and once she just stopped herself from firing a shot.
+
+Over the ridge she would find him. Surely she would find him over the
+ridge!
+
+She now trampled among rocks, and there was a beaten place where
+Trafford must have waited and crouched. Then on and down a slope of
+tumbled boulders. There came a patch where he had either thrown himself
+down or fallen; it seemed to her he must have been running.
+
+Suddenly, a hundred feet or so away, she saw a patch of violently
+disturbed snow--snow stained a dreadful color, a snow of scarlet
+crystals! Three strides and Trafford was in sight.
+
+She had a swift conviction that he was dead. He was lying in a crumpled
+attitude on a patch of snow between [v]convergent rocks, and the lynx, a
+mass of blood-smeared, silvery fur, was in some way mixed up with him.
+She saw as she came nearer that the snow was disturbed round about them,
+and discolored [v]copiously, yellow, and in places bright red, with
+congealed and frozen blood. She felt no fear now and no emotion; all her
+mind was engaged with the clear, bleak perception of the fact before
+her. She did not care to call to him again. His head was hidden by the
+lynx's body, as if he was burrowing underneath the creature; his legs
+were twisted about each other in a queer, unnatural attitude.
+
+Then, as she dropped off a boulder, and came nearer, Trafford moved. A
+hand came out and gripped the rifle beside him; he suddenly lifted a
+dreadful face, horribly scarred and torn, and crimson with frozen blood;
+he pushed the gray beast aside, rose on an elbow, wiped his sleeve
+across his eyes, stared at her, grunted, and flopped forward. He had
+fainted.
+
+Marjorie was now as clear-minded and as self-possessed as a woman in a
+shop. In another moment she was kneeling by his side. She saw, by the
+position of his knife and the huge rip in the beast's body, that he had
+stabbed the lynx to death as it clawed his head; he must have shot and
+wounded it and then fallen upon it. His knitted cap was torn to ribbons,
+and hung upon his neck. Also his leg was manifestly injured--how, she
+could not tell. It was evident that he must freeze if he lay here, and
+it seemed to her that perhaps he had pulled the dead brute over him to
+protect his torn skin from the extremity of cold. The lynx was already
+rigid, its clumsy paws asprawl,--and the torn skin and clot upon
+Trafford's face were stiff as she put her hands about his head to raise
+him. She turned him over on his back--how heavy he seemed?--and forced
+brandy between his teeth. Then, after a moment's hesitation, she poured
+a little brandy on his wounds.
+
+She glanced at his leg, which was surely broken, and back at his face.
+Then she gave him more brandy, and his eyelids flickered. He moved his
+hand weakly. "The blood," he said, "kept getting in my eyes."
+
+She gave him brandy once again, wiped his face, and glanced at his leg.
+Something ought to be done to that, Marjorie thought. But things must be
+done in order.
+
+The woman stared up at the darkling sky with its gray promise of snow,
+and down the slopes of the mountain. Clearly they must stay the night
+here. They were too high for wood among these rocks, but three or four
+hundred yards below there were a number of dwarfed fir trees. She had
+brought an ax, so that a fire was possible. Should she go back to camp
+and get the tent?
+
+Trafford was trying to speak again. "I got--"
+
+"Yes?"
+
+"Got my leg in that crack."
+
+Was he able to advise her? She looked at him, and then perceived that
+she must bind up his head and face. She knelt behind him and raised his
+head on her knee. She had a thick silk neck muffler, and this she
+supplemented by a band she cut and tore from her inner vest. She bound
+this, still warm from her body, about him, and wrapped her dark cloak
+round his shoulders. The next thing was a fire. Five yards away,
+perhaps, a great mass of purple [v]gabbro hung over a patch of nearly
+snowless moss. A hummock to the westward offered shelter from the bitter
+wind, the icy draught, that was soughing down the valley. Always in
+Labrador, if you can, you camp against a rock surface; it shelters you
+from the wind, guards your back.
+
+"Dear!" she said.
+
+"Awful hole," said Trafford.
+
+"What?" she cried sharply.
+
+"Put you in an awful hole," he said. "Eh?"
+
+"Listen," she said, and shook his shoulder. "Look! I want to get you up
+against that rock."
+
+"Won't make much difference," replied Trafford, and opened his eyes.
+"Where?" he asked.
+
+"There."
+
+He remained quite quiet for a second perhaps. "Listen to me," he said.
+"Go back to camp."
+
+"Yes," she said.
+
+"Go back to camp. Make a pack of all the strongest
+food--strenthin'--strengthrin' food--you know?" He seemed unable to
+express himself.
+
+"Yes," she said.
+
+"Down the river. Down--down. Till you meet help."
+
+"Leave you?"
+
+He nodded his head and winced.
+
+"You're always plucky," he said. "Look facts in the face. Children.
+Thought it over while you were coming." A tear oozed from his eye.
+"Don't be a fool, Madge. Kiss me good-by. Don't be a fool. I'm done.
+Children."
+
+She stared at him and her spirit was a luminous mist of tears. "You old
+_coward_," she said in his ear, and kissed the little patch of rough and
+bloody cheek beneath his eye. Then she knelt up beside him. "_I'm_ boss
+now, old man," she said. "I want to get you to that place there under
+the rock. If I drag, can you help?"
+
+He answered obstinately: "You'd better go."
+
+"I'll make you comfortable first," she returned.
+
+He made an enormous effort, and then, with her quick help and with his
+back to her knee, had raised himself on his elbows.
+
+"And afterward?" he asked.
+
+"Build a fire."
+
+"Wood?"
+
+"Down there."
+
+"Two bits of wood tied on my leg--splints. Then I can drag myself. See?
+Like a blessed old walrus."
+
+He smiled and she kissed his bandaged face again.
+
+"Else it hurts," he apologized, "more than I can stand."
+
+She stood up again, put his rifle and knife to his hand, for fear of
+that lurking wolf, abandoning her own rifle with an effort, and went
+striding and leaping from rock to rock toward the trees below. She made
+the chips fly, and was presently towing three venerable pine dwarfs,
+bumping over rock and crevice, back to Trafford. She flung them down,
+stood for a moment bright and breathless, then set herself to hack off
+the splints he needed from the biggest stem. "Now," she said, coming to
+him.
+
+"A fool," he remarked, "would have made the splints down there.
+You're--_good_, Marjorie."
+
+She lugged his leg out straight, put it into the natural and least
+painful pose, padded it with moss and her torn handkerchief, and bound
+it up. As she did so a handful of snowflakes came whirling about them.
+She was now braced up to every possibility. "It never rains," she said
+grimly, "but it pours," and went on with her bone-setting. He was badly
+weakened by pain and shock, and once he spoke to her sharply. "Sorry,"
+he said a moment later.
+
+She rolled him over on his chest, and left him to struggle to the
+shelter of the rock while she went for more wood.
+
+The sky alarmed her. The mountains up the valley were already hidden by
+driven rags of slaty snowstorms. This time she found a longer but easier
+path for dragging her boughs and trees; she determined she would not
+start the fire until nightfall, nor waste any time in preparing food
+until then. There were dead boughs for kindling--more than enough. It
+was snowing quite fast by the time she got up to him with her second
+load, and a premature twilight already obscured and exaggerated the
+rocks and mounds about her. She gave some of her cheese to Trafford, and
+gnawed some herself on her way down to the wood again. She regretted
+that she had brought neither candles nor lantern, because then she might
+have kept on until the cold night stopped her, and she reproached
+herself bitterly because she had brought no tea. She could forgive
+herself the lantern, for she had never expected to be out after dark,
+but the tea was inexcusable. She muttered self-reproaches while she
+worked like two men among the trees, panting puffs of mist that froze
+upon her lips and iced the knitted wool that covered her chin. "Why
+don't they teach a girl to handle an ax?" she cried.
+
+
+II
+
+When at last the wolfish cold of the Labrador night had come, it found
+Trafford and Marjorie seated almost warmly on a bed of pine boughs
+between the sheltering dark rock behind and a big but well-husbanded
+fire in front, drinking a queer-tasting but not unsavory soup of
+lynx-flesh, which she had fortified with the remainder of the brandy.
+Then they tried roast lynx and ate a little, and finished with some
+scraps of cheese and deep draughts of hot water.
+
+The snowstorm poured incessantly out of the darkness to become flakes of
+burning fire in the light of the flames, flakes that vanished magically,
+but it only reached them and wetted them in occasional gusts. What did
+it matter for the moment if the dim snowheaps rose and rose about them?
+A glorious fatigue, an immense self-satisfaction, possessed Marjorie;
+she felt that they had both done well.
+
+"I am not afraid of to-morrow now," she said at last.
+
+Trafford was smoking his pipe and did not speak for a moment. "Nor I,"
+he said at last. "Very likely we'll get through with it." He added after
+a pause: "I thought I was done for. A man--loses heart--after a loss of
+blood."
+
+"The leg's better?"
+
+"Hot as fire." His humor hadn't left him. "It's a treat," he said. "The
+hottest thing in Labrador."
+
+Later Marjorie slept, but on a spring as it were, lest the fire should
+fall. She replenished it with boughs, tucked in the half-burnt logs, and
+went to sleep again. Then it seemed to her that some invisible hand was
+pouring a thin spirit on the flames that made them leap and crackle and
+spread north and south until they filled the heavens with a gorgeous
+glow. The snowstorm was overpast, leaving the sky clear and all the
+westward heaven alight with the trailing, crackling, leaping curtains of
+the [v]aurora, brighter than she had ever seen them before. Quite
+clearly visible beyond the smolder of the fire, a wintry waste of rock
+and snow, boulder beyond boulder, passed into a [v]dun obscurity. The
+mountain to the right of them lay long and white and stiff, a shrouded
+death. All earth was dead and waste, and the sky alive and coldly
+marvelous, signalling and astir. She watched the changing, shifting
+colors, and they made her think of the gathering banners of inhuman
+hosts, the stir and marshaling of icy giants for ends stupendous and
+indifferent to all the trivial impertinence of man's existence! Marjorie
+felt a passionate desire to pray.
+
+The bleak, slow dawn found Marjorie intently busy. She had made up the
+fire, boiled water and washed and dressed Trafford's wounds, and made
+another soup of lynx. But Trafford had weakened in the night; the soup
+nauseated him; he refused it and tried to smoke and was sick, and then
+sat back rather despairfully after a second attempt to persuade her to
+leave him there to die. This failure of his spirit distressed her and a
+little astonished her, but it only made her more resolute to go through
+with her work. She had awakened cold, stiff and weary, but her fatigue
+vanished with movement; she toiled for an hour replenishing her pile of
+fuel, made up the fire, put his gun ready to his hand, kissed him,
+abused him lovingly for the trouble he gave her until his poor torn face
+lit in response, and then parting on a note of cheerful confidence, set
+out to return to the hut. She found the way not altogether easy to make
+out; wind and snow had left scarcely a trace of their tracks, and her
+mind was full of the stores she must bring and the possibility of moving
+Trafford nearer to the hut. She was startled to see by the fresh, deep
+spoor along the ridge how near the wolf had dared approach them in the
+darkness.
+
+Ever and again Marjorie had to halt and look back to get her direction
+right. As it was, she came through the willow scrub nearly half a mile
+above the hut, and had to follow the steep bank of the frozen river.
+Once she nearly slipped upon an icy slope of rock.
+
+One possibility she did not dare to think of during that time--a
+blizzard now would cut her off absolutely from any return to Trafford.
+Short of that, she believed she could get through.
+
+Her quick mind was full of all she had to do. At first she had thought
+chiefly of Trafford's immediate necessities, of food and some sort of
+shelter. She had got a list of things in her head--meat extract,
+bandages, [v]corrosive sublimate by way of antiseptic, brandy, a tin of
+beef, some bread, and so forth; she went over it several times to be
+sure of it, and then for a time she puzzled about a tent. She thought
+she could manage a bale of blankets on her back, and that she could rig
+a sleeping tent for herself and Trafford out of them and some bent
+sticks. The big tent would be too much to strike and shift. And then her
+mind went on to a bolder enterprise, which was to get him home. The
+nearer she could bring him to the log hut, the nearer they would be to
+supplies.
+
+She cast about for some sort of sledge. The snow was too soft and broken
+for runners, especially among the trees, but if she could get a flat of
+smooth wood, she thought she might be able to drag him. She decided to
+try the side of her bunk, which she could easily get off. She would
+have, of course, to run it edgewise through the thickets and across the
+ravine, but after that she would have almost clear going up to the steep
+place of broken rocks within two hundred yards of him. The idea of a
+sledge grew upon her, and she planned to nail a rope along the edge and
+make a kind of harness for herself.
+
+Marjorie found the camping-place piled high with drifted snow, which had
+invaded tent and hut, and that some beast, a wolverine she guessed, had
+been into the hut, devoured every candle-end and the uppers of
+Trafford's well-greased second boots, and had then gone to the corner of
+the store-shed and clambered up to the stores. She took no account of
+its [v]depredations there, but set herself to make a sledge and get her
+supplies together. There was a gleam of sunshine, though she did not
+like the look of the sky and she was horribly afraid of what might be
+happening to Trafford. She carried her stuff through the wood and across
+the ravine, and returned for her improvised sledge. She was still
+struggling with that among the trees when it began to snow again.
+
+It was hard then not to be frantic in her efforts. As it was, she packed
+her stuff so loosely on the planking that she had to repack it, and she
+started without putting on her snowshoes, and floundered fifty yards
+before she discovered that omission. The snow was now falling fast,
+darkling the sky and hiding everything but objects close at hand, and
+she had to use all of her wits to determine her direction: she knew she
+must go down a long slope and then up to the ridge, and it came to her
+as a happy inspiration that if she bore to the left she might strike
+some recognizable vestige of her morning's trail. She had read of people
+walking in circles when they have no light or guidance, and that
+troubled her until she bethought herself of the little compass on her
+watch chain. By that she kept her direction. She wished very much she
+had timed herself across the waste, so that she could tell when she
+approached the ridge.
+
+Soon her back and shoulders were aching violently, and the rope across
+her chest was tugging like some evil-tempered thing. But she did not
+dare to rest. The snow was now falling thick and fast; the flakes traced
+white spirals and made her head spin, so that she was constantly falling
+away to the southwestward and then correcting herself by the compass.
+She tried to think how this zig-zagging might affect her course, but the
+snow whirls confused her mind and a growing anxiety would not let her
+pause to think.
+
+Marjorie felt blinded; it seemed to be snowing inside her eyes so that
+she wanted to rub them. Soon the ground must rise to the ridge, she told
+herself; it must surely rise. Then the sledge came bumping at her heels
+and she perceived that she was going down hill. She consulted the
+compass and found she was facing south. She turned sharply to the right
+again. The snowfall became a noiseless, pitiless torture to sight and
+mind.
+
+The sledge behind her struggled to hold her back, and the snow balled
+under her snowshoes. She wanted to stop and rest, take thought, sit for
+a moment. She struggled with herself and kept on. She tried walking with
+shut eyes, and tripped and came near sprawling. "Oh God!" she cried, "Oh
+God!" too stupefied for more [v]articulate prayers. She was leaden with
+fatigue.
+
+Would the rise of the ground to the ribs of rock never come?
+
+A figure, black and erect, stood in front of her suddenly, and beyond
+appeared a group of black, straight antagonists. She staggered on toward
+them, gripping her rifle with some muddled idea of defense, and in
+another moment she was brushing against the branches of a stunted fir,
+which shed thick lumps of snow upon her feet. What trees were these? Had
+she ever passed any trees? No! There were no trees on her way to
+Trafford.
+
+At that Marjorie began whimpering like a tormented child. But even as
+she wept, she turned her sledge about to follow the edge of the wood.
+She was too much downhill, she thought, and must bear up again.
+
+She left the trees behind, made an angle uphill to the right, and was
+presently among trees again. Again she left them and again came back to
+them. She screamed with anger and twitched her sledge along. She wiped
+at the snowstorm with her arm as though to wipe it away; she wanted to
+stamp on the universe.
+
+And she ached, she ached.
+
+Suddenly something caught her eye ahead, something that gleamed; it was
+exactly like a long, bare, rather pinkish bone standing erect on the
+ground. Just because it was strange and queer she ran forward to it. As
+she came nearer, she perceived that it was a streak of barked trunk; a
+branch had been torn off a pine tree and the bark stripped down to the
+root. And then came another, poking its pinkish wounds above the snow.
+And there were chips! This filled her with wonder. Some one had been
+cutting wood! There must be Indians or trappers near, she thought, and
+of a sudden realized that the wood-cutter could be none other than
+herself.
+
+She turned to the right and saw the rocks rising steeply, close at hand.
+"Oh Ragg!" she cried, and fired her rifle in the air.
+
+Ten seconds, twenty seconds, and then so loud and near it amazed her,
+came his answering shot.
+
+In another moment Marjorie had discovered the trail she had made
+overnight and that morning by dragging firewood. It was now a shallow,
+soft white trench. Instantly her despair and fatigue had gone from her.
+Should she take a load of wood with her? she asked herself, in addition
+to the weight behind her, and immediately had a better idea. She would
+unload and pile her stuff here, and bring him down on the sledge closer
+to the wood. The woman looked about and saw two rocks that diverged,
+with a space between. She flashed schemes. She would trample the snow
+hard and flat, put her sledge on it, pile boughs and make a canopy of
+blanket overhead and behind. Finally there would be a fine, roaring
+fire in front.
+
+She tossed her provisions down and ran up the broad windings of her
+pine-tree trail to Trafford, with the sledge bumping behind her.
+Marjorie ran as lightly as though she had done nothing that day.
+
+She found Trafford markedly recovered, weak and quiet, with snow
+drifting over his feet, his rifle across his knees, and his pipe alight.
+"Back already"--
+
+He hesitated. "No grub?"
+
+The wife knelt over him, gave his rough, unshaven cheek a swift kiss,
+and rapidly explained her plan.
+
+Marjorie carried it out with all of the will-power that was hers. In
+three days' time, in spite of the snow, in spite of every other
+obstacle, they were back in the hut, and Trafford was comfortably
+settled in bed. The icy vastness of Labrador still lay around them to
+infinite distances on every side, but the two might laugh at storm and
+darkness now in their cosy hut, with plenty of fuel and food and light.
+
+H. G. WELLS.
+
+
+=HELPS TO STUDY=
+
+     I. Describe the location of Trafford's camp; also the coming of
+     winter. Give in your own words an account of the adventure that
+     befell the two.
+
+     II. Name some characteristics Marjorie showed in the critical
+     situation. What did she do that impressed you most? What would you
+     have done in similar circumstances?
+
+
+SUPPLEMENTARY READING
+
+     Youth--Joseph Conrad.
+     Prairie Folks--Hamlin Garland.
+     Northern Lights--Sir Gilbert Parker.
+
+
+
+
+THE BUGLE SONG
+
+      The splendor falls on castle walls
+        The snowy summits old in story;
+      The long light shakes across the lakes,
+        And the wild cataract leaps in glory.
+    Blow, bugle, blow, set the wild echoes flying,
+    Blow, bugle; answer, echoes, dying, dying, dying.
+
+      O hark, O hear! how thin and clear,
+        And thinner, clearer, farther going!
+      O, sweet and far from cliff and scar
+        The horns of Elfland faintly blowing!
+    Blow, let us hear the purple glens replying:
+    Blow, bugle; answer, echoes, dying, dying, dying.
+
+      O love, they die in yon rich sky,
+        They faint on hill or field or river;
+      Our echoes roll from soul to soul,
+        And grow for ever and for ever.
+    Blow, bugle, blow, set the wild echoes flying.
+    And answer, echoes, answer, dying, dying, dying.
+
+    ALFRED TENNYSON.
+
+
+
+
+THE SIEGE OF THE CASTLE
+
+
+     This story is an extract from Sir Walter Scott's novel, _Ivanhoe_,
+     which describes life in England during the Middle Ages, something
+     more than a century after the Norman Conquest. The hatred between
+     the conquering Normans and the conquered Saxons still continued,
+     and is graphically pictured by Scott. _Ivanhoe_ centers about the
+     household of one Cedric the Saxon, who was a great upholder of the
+     traditions of his unfortunate people. Wilfred of Ivanhoe, Cedric's
+     son, entered the service of the Norman king of England, Richard I,
+     and accompanied him to the Holy Land on the Third Crusade. His
+     father disowned the young knight for what he considered disloyalty
+     to his Saxon blood. Ivanhoe, returning to England, participated in
+     a great tournament at Ashby, in which he won fame under the
+     disguise of the "Disinherited Knight." Among the other knights who
+     took part in the tournament were the Normans, Maurice de Bracy,
+     Reginald Front-de-Boeuf, and Brian de Bois-Guilbert, a Knight
+     Templar. Two sides fought in the tournament, one representing the
+     English, the other representing the foreign element in the land. An
+     unknown knight, clad in black armor, brought victory to the English
+     side, but left the field without disclosing his identity. An
+     archery contest held at the tournament was won by a wonderful
+     bowman who gave his name as Locksley. Ivanhoe, who fought with
+     great valor, was badly wounded. Cedric had been accompanied to
+     Ashby by his beautiful ward, the Lady Rowena, whose wealth and
+     loveliness excited the cupidity of the lawless Norman knights. "The
+     Siege of the Castle" opens with Cedric's discovery of his son's
+     identity, and recounts the stirring incidents that follow the
+     tournament. It gives a wonderful picture of warfare as it was
+     hundreds of years ago, before the age of gunpowder.
+
+
+I
+
+When Cedric the Saxon saw his son drop down senseless in the great
+tournament at Ashby, his first impulse was to order him into the care of
+his own attendants, but the words choked in his throat. He could not
+bring himself to acknowledge, in the presence of such an assembly, the
+son whom he had renounced and disinherited for his allegiance to the
+Norman king of England, Richard of the Lion Heart. However, he ordered
+one of the officers of his household, his cupbearer, to convey Ivanhoe
+to Ashby as soon as the crowd had dispersed. But the man was anticipated
+in this good office. The crowd dispersed, indeed, but the wounded knight
+was nowhere to be seen.
+
+It seemed as if the fairies had conveyed Ivanhoe from the spot; and
+Cedric's officer might have adopted some such theory to account for his
+disappearance, had he not suddenly cast his eyes on a person attired
+like a squire, in whom he recognized the features of his fellow-servant
+Gurth, who had run away from his master. Anxious about Ivanhoe's fate,
+Gurth was searching for him everywhere and, in so doing, he neglected
+the concealment on which his own safety depended. The cupbearer deemed
+it his duty to secure Gurth as a fugitive of whose fate his master was
+to judge. Renewing his inquiries concerning the fate of Ivanhoe, all
+that the cupbearer could learn was that the knight had been raised by
+certain well-attired grooms, under the direction of a veiled woman, and
+placed in a litter, which had immediately transported him out of the
+press. The officer, on receiving this intelligence, resolved to return
+to his master, carrying along with him Gurth, the swineherd, as a
+deserter from Cedric's service.
+
+The Saxon had been under intense [v]apprehensions concerning his son;
+but no sooner was he informed that Ivanhoe was in careful hands than
+paternal anxiety gave way anew to the feeling of injured pride and
+resentment at what he termed Wilfred's [v]filial disobedience.
+
+"Let him wander his way," said Cedric; "let those leech his wounds for
+whose sake he encountered them. He is fitter to do the juggling tricks
+of the Norman chivalry than to maintain the fame and honor of his
+English ancestry with the [v]glaive and [v]brown-bill, the good old
+weapons of the country."
+
+The old Saxon now prepared for his return to Rotherwood, with his ward,
+the Lady Rowena, and his following. It was during the bustle preceding
+his departure that Cedric, for the first time, cast his eyes upon the
+deserter Gurth. He was in no very placid humor and wanted but a pretext
+for wreaking his anger upon some one.
+
+"The [v]gyves!" he cried. "Dogs and villains, why leave ye this knave
+unfettered?"
+
+Without daring to remonstrate, the companions of Gurth bound him with a
+halter, as the readiest cord which occurred. He submitted to the
+operation without any protest, except that he darted a reproachful look
+at his master.
+
+"To horse, and forward!" ordered Cedric.
+
+"It is indeed full time," said the Saxon prince Athelstane, who
+accompanied Cedric, "for if we ride not faster, the preparations for our
+supper will be altogether spoiled."
+
+The travelers, however, used such speed as to reach the convent of Saint
+Withold's before the apprehended evil took place. The abbot, himself of
+ancient Saxon descent, received the noble Saxons with the profuse
+hospitality of their nation, wherein they indulged to a late hour. They
+took leave of their reverend host the next morning after they had shared
+with him a [v]sumptuous breakfast, which Athelstane particularly
+appreciated.
+
+The superstitious Saxons, as they left the convent, were inspired with a
+feeling of coming evil by the behavior of a large, lean black dog,
+which, sitting upright, howled most piteously when the foremost riders
+left the gate, and presently afterward, barking wildly and jumping to
+and fro, seemed bent on attaching itself to the party.
+
+"In my mind," said Athelstane, "we had better turn back and abide with
+the abbot until the afternoon. It is unlucky to travel where your path
+is crossed by a monk, a hare, or a howling dog, until you have eaten
+your next meal."
+
+"Away!" said Cedric impatiently; "the day is already too short for our
+journey. For the dog, I know it to be the cur of the runaway slave
+Gurth, a useless fugitive like its master."
+
+So saying and rising at the same time in his stirrups, impatient at the
+interruption of his journey, he launched his [v]javelin at poor Fangs,
+who, having lost his master, was now rejoicing at his reappearance. The
+javelin inflicted a wound upon the animal's shoulder and narrowly missed
+pinning him to the earth; Fangs fled howling from the presence of the
+enraged [v]thane. Gurth's heart swelled within him, for he felt this
+attempted slaughter of his faithful beast in a degree much deeper than
+the harsh treatment he had himself received. Having in vain raised his
+hand to his eyes, he said to Wamba, the jester, who, seeing his master's
+ill humor, had prudently retreated to the rear, "I pray thee, do me the
+kindness to wipe my eyes with the skirt of thy mantle; the dust offends
+me, and these bonds will not let me help myself one way or another."
+
+Wamba did him the service he required, and they rode side by side for
+some time, during which Gurth maintained a moody silence. At length he
+could repress his feelings no longer.
+
+"Friend Wamba," said he, "of all those who are fools enough to serve
+Cedric, thou alone hast sufficient dexterity to make thy folly
+acceptable to him. Go to him, therefore, and tell him that neither for
+love nor fear will Gurth serve him longer. He may strike the head from
+me--he may scourge me--he may load me with irons--but henceforth he
+shall never compel me either to love or obey him. Go to him and tell him
+that Gurth renounces his service."
+
+"Assuredly," replied Wamba, "fool as I am, I will not do your fool's
+errand. Cedric hath another javelin stuck into his girdle, and thou
+knowest he doth not always miss his mark."
+
+"I care not," returned Gurth, "how soon he makes a mark of me. Yesterday
+he left Wilfred, my young master, in his blood. To-day he has striven to
+kill the only other living creature that ever showed me kindness. By
+Saint Edward, Saint Dunstan, Saint Withold, and every other saint, I
+will never forgive him!"
+
+At noon, upon the motion of Athelstane, the travelers paused in a
+woodland shade by a fountain to repose their horses and partake of some
+provisions with which the hospitable abbot had loaded a [v]sumpter mule.
+Their repast was a pretty long one; and the interruption made it
+impossible for them to hope to reach Rotherwood without traveling all
+night, a conviction which induced them to proceed on their way at a more
+hasty pace than they had hitherto used.
+
+The travelers had now reached the verge of the wooded country and were
+about to plunge into its recesses, held dangerous at that time from the
+number of outlaws whom oppression and poverty had driven to despair and
+who occupied the forests in such large bands as could easily bid
+defiance to the feeble police of the period. From these rovers, however,
+Cedric and Athelstane accounted themselves secure, as they had in
+attendance ten servants, besides Wamba and Gurth, whose aid could not be
+counted upon, the one being a jester and the other a captive. It may be
+added that in traveling thus late through the forest, Cedric and
+Athelstane relied on their descent and character as well as their
+courage. The outlaws were chiefly peasants and [v]yeomen of Saxon
+descent, and were generally supposed to respect the persons and property
+of their countrymen.
+
+Before long, as the travelers journeyed on their way, they were alarmed
+by repeated cries for assistance; and when they rode up to the place
+whence the cries came, they were surprised to find a horse-litter placed
+on the ground. Beside it sat a very beautiful young woman richly dressed
+in the Jewish fashion, while an old man, whose yellow cap proclaimed him
+to belong to the same nation, walked up and down with gestures of the
+deepest despair and wrung his hands.
+
+When he began to come to himself out of his agony of terror, the old
+man, named Isaac of York, explained that he had hired a bodyguard of
+six men at Ashby, together with mules for carrying the litter of a sick
+friend. This party had undertaken to escort him to Doncaster. They had
+come thus far in safety; but having received information from a
+wood-cutter that a strong band of outlaws was lying in wait in the woods
+before them, Isaac's [v]mercenaries had not only taken to flight, but
+had carried off the horses which bore the litter and left the Jew and
+his daughter without the means either of defense or of retreat. Isaac
+ended by imploring the Saxons to let him travel with them. Cedric and
+Athelstane were somewhat in doubt as to what to do, but the matter was
+settled by Rowena's intervention.
+
+"The man is old and feeble," she said to Cedric, "the maiden young and
+beautiful, their friend sick and in peril of his life. We cannot leave
+them in this extremity. Let the men unload two of the sumpter-mules and
+put the baggage behind two of the [v]serfs. The mules may transport the
+litter, and we have led-horses for the old man and his daughter."
+
+Cedric readily assented to what was proposed, and the change of baggage
+was hastily achieved; for the single word "outlaws" rendered every one
+sufficiently alert, and the approach of twilight made the sound yet more
+impressive. Amid the bustle, Gurth was taken from horseback, in the
+course of which removal he prevailed upon the jester to slack the cord
+with which his arms were bound. It was so negligently refastened,
+perhaps intentionally, on the part of Wamba, that Gurth found no
+difficulty in freeing his arms altogether, and then, gliding into the
+thicket, he made his escape from the party.
+
+His departure was hardly noticed in the apprehension of the moment. The
+path upon which the party traveled was now so narrow as not to admit,
+with any sort of convenience, above two riders abreast, and began to
+descend into a dingle, traversed by a brook, the banks of which were
+broken, swampy, and overgrown with dwarf willows. Cedric and Athelstane,
+who were at the head of their [v]retinue, saw the risk of being attacked
+in this pass, but neither knew anything else to do than hasten through
+the defile as fast as possible. Advancing, therefore, without much
+order, they had just crossed the brook with a part of their followers,
+when they were assailed, in front, flank, and rear at once, by a band of
+armed men. The shout of a "White dragon! Saint George for merry
+England!" the war cry of the Saxons, was heard on every side, and on
+every side enemies appeared with a rapidity of advance and attack which
+seemed to multiply their numbers.
+
+Both the Saxon chiefs were made prisoners at the same moment. Cedric,
+the instant an enemy appeared, launched at him his javelin, which,
+taking better effect than that which he had hurled at Fangs, nailed the
+man against an oak-tree that happened to be close behind him. Thus far
+successful, Cedric spurred his horse against a second, drawing his sword
+and striking with such inconsiderate fury that his weapon encountered a
+thick branch which hung over him, and he was disarmed by the violence of
+his own blow. He was instantly made prisoner and pulled from his horse
+by two or three of the [v]banditti who crowded around him. Athelstane
+shared his captivity, his bridle having been seized and he himself
+forcibly dismounted long before he could draw his sword.
+
+The attendants, embarrassed with baggage and surprised and terrified at
+the fate of their master, fell an easy prey to the assailants; while the
+Lady Rowena and the Jew and his daughter experienced the same
+misfortune.
+
+Of all the train none escaped but Wamba, who showed upon the occasion
+much more courage than those who pretended to greater sense. He
+possessed himself of a sword belonging to one of the domestics, who was
+just drawing it, laid it about him like a lion, drove back several who
+approached him, and made a brave though ineffectual effort to succor his
+master. Finding himself overpowered, the jester threw himself from his
+horse, plunged into a thicket, and, favored by the general confusion,
+escaped from the scene of action.
+
+Suddenly a voice very near him called out in a low and cautious tone,
+"Wamba!" and, at the same time, a dog which he recognized as Fangs
+jumped up and fawned upon him. "Gurth!" answered Wamba with the same
+caution, and the swineherd immediately stood before him.
+
+"What is the matter?" he asked. "What mean these cries and that clashing
+of swords?"
+
+"Only a trick of the times," answered Wamba. "They are all prisoners."
+
+"Who are prisoners?"
+
+"My lord, and my lady, and Athelstane, and the others."
+
+"In the name of God," demanded Gurth, "how came they prisoners? and to
+whom?"
+
+"They are prisoners to green [v]cassocks and black [v]vizors," answered
+Wamba. "They all lie tumbled about on the green, like the crab-apples
+that you shake down to your swine. And I would laugh at it," added the
+honest jester, "if I could for weeping."
+
+He shed tears of unfeigned sorrow.
+
+Gurth's countenance kindled. "Wamba," he said, "thou hast a weapon and
+thy heart was ever stronger than thy brain. We are only two, but a
+sudden attack from men of resolution might do much. Follow me!"
+
+"Whither, and for what purpose?" asked the jester.
+
+"To rescue Cedric."
+
+"But you renounced his service just now."
+
+"That," said Gurth, "was while he was fortunate. Follow me."
+
+As the jester was about to obey, a third person suddenly made his
+appearance and commanded them both to halt. From his dress and arms
+Wamba would have conjectured him to be one of the outlaws who had just
+assailed his master; but, besides that he wore no mask, the glittering
+baldric across his shoulders, with the rich bugle horn which it
+supported, as well as the calm and commanding expression of his voice
+and manner, made the jester recognize the archer who had won the prize
+at the tournament and who was known as Locksley.
+
+"What is the meaning of all this?" the man demanded. "Who are they that
+rifle and ransom and make prisoners in these forests?"
+
+"You may look at their cassocks close by," replied Wamba, "and see
+whether they be thy children's coats or no, for they are as like thine
+own as one green pea-pod is like another."
+
+"I will learn that presently," returned Locksley: "and I charge ye, on
+peril of your lives, not to stir from this place where ye stand until I
+have returned. Obey me, and it shall be the better for you and your
+masters. Yet stay; I must render myself as like these men as possible."
+
+So saying, he drew a [v]vizard from his pouch, and, repeating his
+charges to them to stand fast, went to reconnoitre.
+
+"Shall we stay, Gurth?" asked Wamba; "or shall we give him [v]leg-bail?
+In my foolish mind, he had all the equipage of a thief too much in
+readiness to be himself a true man."
+
+"Let him be the devil," said Gurth, "an he will. We can be no worse for
+waiting his return. If he belongs to that party, he must already have
+given them the alarm, and it will avail us nothing either to fight or
+fly."
+
+The yeoman returned in the course of a few minutes.
+
+"Friend Gurth," he said, "I have mingled among yon men and have learned
+to whom they belong, and whither they are bound. There is, I think, no
+chance that they will proceed to any actual violence against their
+prisoners. For three men to attack them at this moment were little else
+than madness; for they are good men of war and have, as such, placed
+sentinels to give the alarm when any one approaches. But I trust soon to
+gather such a force as may act in defiance of all their precautions. You
+are both servants, and, as I think, faithful servants of Cedric the
+Saxon, the friend of the rights of Englishmen. He shall not want English
+hands to help him in this extremity. Come then with me, until I gather
+more aid."
+
+So saying, he walked through the wood at a great pace, followed by the
+jester and the swineherd. The three men proceeded with occasional
+converse but, for the most part, in silence for about three hours.
+Finally they arrived at a small opening in the forest, in the center of
+which grew an oak-tree of enormous magnitude, throwing its twisted
+branches in every direction. Beneath this tree four or five yeomen lay
+stretched on the ground, while another, as sentinel, walked to and fro
+in the moonlight.
+
+Upon hearing the sound of feet approaching, the watch instantly gave the
+alarm, and the sleepers as suddenly started up and bent their bows. Six
+arrows placed on the string were pointed toward the quarter from which
+the travelers approached, when their guide, being recognized, was
+welcomed with every token of respect and attachment.
+
+"Where is the miller?" was Locksley's first question.
+
+"On the road toward Rotherham."
+
+"With how many?" demanded the leader, for such he seemed to be.
+
+"With six men, and good hope of booty, if it please Saint Nicholas."
+
+"Devoutly spoken," said Locksley. "And where is Allan-a-Dale?"
+
+"Walked up toward the [v]Watling Street, to watch for the Prior of
+Jorvaulx."
+
+"That is well thought on also," replied the captain. "And where is the
+friar?"
+
+"In his cell."
+
+"Thither will I go," said Locksley. "Disperse and seek your companions.
+Collect what force you can, for there's game afoot that must be hunted
+hard and will turn to bay. Meet me here at daybreak. And stay," he
+added; "I have forgotten what is most necessary of the whole. Two of you
+take the road quickly toward Torquilstone, the castle of
+[v]Front-de-Boeuf. A set of gallants, who have been [v]masquerading in
+such guise as our own, are carrying a band of prisoners thither. Watch
+them closely, for, even if they reach the castle before we collect our
+force, our honor is concerned to punish them, and we will find means to
+do so. Keep a good watch on them, therefore, and despatch one of your
+comrades to bring the news of the yeomen thereabouts."
+
+The men promised obedience and departed on their several errands.
+Meanwhile, their leader and his two companions, who now looked upon him
+with great respect as well as some fear, pursued their way to the chapel
+where dwelt the friar mentioned by Locksley. Presently they reached a
+little moonlit glade, in front of which stood an ancient and ruinous
+chapel and beside it a rude hermitage of stone half-covered with ivy
+vines.
+
+The sounds which proceeded at that moment from the latter place were
+anything but churchly. In fact, the hermit and another voice were
+performing at the full extent of very powerful lungs an old
+drinking-song, of which this was the burden:
+
+    Come, trowl the brown bowl to me,
+      Bully boy, bully boy;
+    Come trowl the brown bowl to me:
+      Ho! jolly Jenkin, I spy a knave drinking;
+    Come trowl the brown bowl to me.
+
+"Now, that is not ill sung," said Wamba, who had thrown in a few of his
+own flourishes to help out the chorus. "But who, in the saint's name,
+ever expected to have heard such a jolly chant come from a hermit's cell
+at midnight?"
+
+"Marry, that should I," said Gurth, "for the jolly Clerk of Copmanhurst
+is a known man and kills half the deer that are stolen in this walk. Men
+say that the deer-keeper has complained of him and that he will be
+stripped of his [v]cowl and [v]cope altogether if he keep not better
+order."
+
+While they were thus speaking, Locksley's loud and repeated knocks had
+at length disturbed the [v]anchorite and his guest, who was a knight of
+singularly powerful build and open, handsome face, and in black armor.
+
+"By my beads," said the hermit, "here come other guests. I would not for
+my cowl that they found us in this goodly exercise. All men have
+enemies, sir knight; and there be those malignant enough to construe the
+hospitable refreshment I have been offering to you, a weary traveler,
+into drinking and gluttony, vices alike alien to my profession and my
+disposition."
+
+"Base [v]calumniators!" replied the knight. "I would I had the
+chastising of them. Nevertheless, holy clerk, it is true that all have
+their enemies; and there be those in this very land whom I would rather
+speak to through the bars of my helmet than bare-faced."
+
+"Get thine iron pot on thy head, then, sir knight," said the hermit,
+"while I remove these pewter flagons."
+
+He struck up a thundering [v]_De profundis clamavi_, under cover of
+which he removed the apparatus of their banquet, while the knight,
+laughing heartily and arming himself all the while, assisted his host
+with his voice from time to time as his mirth permitted.
+
+"What devil's [v]matins are you after at this hour?" demanded a voice
+from outside.
+
+"Heaven forgive you, sir traveler!" said the hermit, whose own noise
+prevented him from recognizing accents which were tolerably familiar to
+him. "Wend on your way, in the name of God and Saint Dunstan, and
+disturb not the devotions of me and my holy brother."
+
+"Mad priest," answered the voice from without; "open to Locksley!"
+
+"All's safe--all's right," said the hermit to his companion.
+
+"But who is he?" asked the Black Knight. "It imports me much to know."
+
+"Who is he?" answered the hermit. "I tell thee he is a friend."
+
+"But what friend?" persisted the knight; "for he may be a friend to thee
+and none of mine."
+
+"What friend?" replied the hermit; "that now is one of the questions
+that is more easily asked than answered."
+
+"Well, open the door," ordered the knight, "before he beat it from its
+hinges."
+
+The hermit speedily unbolted his portal and admitted Locksley, with his
+two companions.
+
+"Why, hermit," was the yeoman's first question as soon as he beheld the
+knight, "what boon companion hast thou here?"
+
+"A brother of our order," replied the friar, shaking his head; "we have
+been at our devotions all night."
+
+"He is a monk of the church militant," answered Locksley; "and there be
+more of them abroad. I tell thee, friar, thou must lay down the
+[v]rosary and take up the [v]quarter-staff; we shall need every one of
+our merry men, whether clerk or layman. But," he added, taking a step
+aside, "art thou mad--to give admittance to a knight thou dost not know?
+Hast thou forgotten our agreement?"
+
+"Good yeoman," said the knight, coming forward, "be not wroth with my
+merry host. He did but afford me the hospitality which I would have
+compelled from him if he had refused it."
+
+"Thou compel!" cried the friar. "Wait but till I have changed this gray
+gown for a green cassock, and if I make not a quarter-staff ring twelve
+upon thy pate, I am neither true clerk nor good woodsman."
+
+While he spoke thus he stript off his gown and appeared in a close
+buckram doublet and lower garment, over which he speedily did on a
+cassock of green and hose of the same color.
+
+"I pray thee [v]truss my points," he said to Wamba, "and thou shalt have
+a cup of sack for thy labor."
+
+"[v]Gramercy for thy sack," returned Wamba; "but thinkest thou that it
+is lawful for me to aid you to transmew thyself from a holy hermit into
+a sinful forester?"
+
+So saying, he accommodated the friar with his assistance in tying the
+endless number of points, as the laces which attached the hose to the
+doublet were then termed.
+
+While they were thus employed, Locksley led the knight a little apart
+and addressed him thus: "Deny it not, sir knight, you are he who played
+so glorious a part at the tournament at Ashby."
+
+"And what follows, if you guess truly, good yeoman?"
+
+"For my purpose," said the yeoman, "thou shouldst be as well a good
+Englishman as a good knight; for that which I have to speak of concerns,
+indeed, the duty of every honest man, but is more especially that of a
+true-born native of England."
+
+"You can speak to no one," replied the knight, "to whom England, and
+the life of every Englishman, can be dearer than to me."
+
+"I would willingly believe so," said the woodsman; "and never had this
+country such need to be supported by those who love her. A band of
+villains, in the disguise of better men than themselves, have become
+masters of the persons of a noble Englishman named Cedric the Saxon,
+together with his ward and his friend, Athelstane of Coningsburgh, and
+have transported them to a castle in this forest called Torquilstone. I
+ask of thee, as a good knight and a good Englishman, wilt thou aid in
+their rescue?"
+
+"I am bound by my vow to do so," replied the knight; "but I would
+willingly know who you are who request my assistance in their behalf?"
+
+"I am," said the forester, "a nameless man; but I am a friend of my
+country and my country's friends. Believe, however, that my word, when
+pledged, is as [v]inviolate as if I wore golden spurs."
+
+"I willingly believe it," returned the knight. "I have been accustomed
+to study men's countenances, and I can read in thine honesty and
+resolution. I will, therefore, ask thee no farther questions but aid
+thee in setting at freedom these oppressed captives, which done, I trust
+we shall part better acquainted and well satisfied with each other."
+
+When the friar was at length ready, Locksley turned to his companions.
+
+"Come on, my masters," he said; "tarry not to talk. I say, come on: we
+must collect all our forces, and few enough shall we have if we are to
+storm the castle of Reginald Front-de-Boeuf."
+
+
+II
+
+While these measures were taking in behalf of Cedric and his companions,
+the armed men by whom the latter had been seized hurried their captives
+along toward the place of security, where they intended to imprison
+them. But darkness came on fast, and the paths of the wood seemed but
+imperfectly known to the [v]marauders. They were compelled to make
+several long halts and once or twice to return on their road to resume
+the direction which they wished to pursue. It was, therefore, not until
+the light of the summer morn had dawned upon them that they could travel
+in full assurance that they held the right path.
+
+In vain Cedric [v]expostulated with his guards, who refused to break
+their silence for his wrath or his protests. They continued to hurry him
+along, traveling at a very rapid rate, until, at the end of an avenue of
+huge trees, arose Torquilstone, the hoary and ancient castle of Reginald
+Front-de-Boeuf. It was a fortress of no great size, consisting of a
+donjon, or large and high square tower, surrounded by buildings of
+inferior height. Around the exterior wall was a deep moat, supplied with
+water from a neighboring rivulet. Front-de-Boeuf, whose character
+placed him often at feud with his neighbors, had made considerable
+additions to the strength of his castle by building towers upon the
+outward wall, so as to flank it at every angle. The access, as usual in
+castles of the period, lay through an arched [v]barbican or outwork,
+which was defended by a small turret.
+
+Cedric no sooner saw the turrets of Front-de-Boeuf's castle raise their
+gray and moss-grown battlements, glimmering in the morning sun, above
+the woods by which they were surrounded than he instantly augured more
+truly concerning the cause of his misfortune.
+
+"I did injustice," he said, "to the thieves and outlaws of these woods,
+when I supposed such banditti to belong to their bands. I might as
+justly have confounded the foxes of these brakes with the ravening
+wolves of France!"
+
+Arrived before the castle, the prisoners were compelled by their guards
+to alight and were hastened across the drawbridge into the castle. They
+were immediately conducted to an apartment where a hasty repast was
+offered them, of which none but Athelstane felt any inclination to
+partake. Neither did he have much time to do justice to the good cheer
+placed before him, for the guards gave him and Cedric to understand that
+they were to be imprisoned in a chamber apart from Rowena. Resistance
+was vain; and they were compelled to follow to a large room, which,
+rising on clumsy Saxon pillars, resembled the [v]refectories and
+chapter-houses which may still be seen in the most ancient parts of our
+most ancient monasteries.
+
+The Lady Rowena was next separated from her train and conducted with
+courtesy, indeed, but still without consulting her inclination, to a
+distant apartment. The same alarming distinction was conferred on the
+young Jewess, Rebecca, in spite of the entreaties of her father, who
+offered money in the extremity of his distress that she might be
+permitted to abide with him.
+
+"Base unbeliever," answered one of his guards, "when thou hast seen thy
+lair, thou wilt not wish thy daughter to partake it."
+
+Without further discussion, the old Jew was dragged off in a different
+direction from the other prisoners. The domestics, after being searched
+and disarmed, were confined in another part of the castle.
+
+The three leaders of the banditti and the men who had planned and
+carried out the outrage, Norman knights,--Front-de-Boeuf, the brutal
+owner of the castle; Maurice de Bracy, a free-lance, who sought to wed
+the Lady Rowena by force and so had arranged the attack, and Brian de
+[v]Bois-Guilbert, a distinguished member of the famous order of
+[v]Knights Templar,--had a short discussion together and then
+separated. Front-de-Boeuf immediately sought the apartment where Isaac
+of York tremblingly awaited his fate.
+
+The Jew had been hastily thrown into a dungeon-vault of the castle, the
+floor of which was deep beneath the level of the earth, and very damp,
+being lower than the moat itself. The only light was received through
+one or two loop-holes far above the reach of the captive's hand. These
+[v]apertures admitted, even at midday, only a dim and uncertain light,
+which was changed for utter darkness long before the rest of the castle
+had lost the blessing of day. Chains and shackles, which had been the
+portion of former captives, hung rusted and empty on the walls of the
+prison, and in the rings of one of these sets of fetters there remained
+two moldering bones which seemed those of the human leg.
+
+At one end of this ghastly apartment was a large fire-grate, over the
+top of which were stretched some transverse iron bars, half devoured
+with rust.
+
+The whole appearance of the dungeon might have appalled a stouter heart
+than that of Isaac, who, nevertheless, was more composed under the
+imminent pressure of danger than he had seemed to be while affected by
+terrors of which the cause was as yet remote and [v]contingent. It was
+not the first time that Isaac had been placed in circumstances so
+dangerous. He had, therefore, experience to guide him, as well as a hope
+that he might again be delivered from the peril.
+
+The Jew remained without altering his position for nearly three hours,
+at the end of which time steps were heard on the dungeon stair. The
+bolts screamed as they were withdrawn, the hinges creaked as the wicket
+opened, and Reginald Front-de-Boeuf, followed by two Saracen slaves of
+the Templar, entered the prison.
+
+Front-de-Boeuf, a tall and strong man, whose life had been spent in
+public war or in private feuds and broils and who had hesitated at no
+means of extending his [v]feudal power, had features corresponding to
+his character, and which strongly expressed the fiercer and more evil
+passions of the mind. The scars with which his visage was seamed would,
+on features of a different cast, have excited the sympathy due to the
+marks of honorable valor; but in the peculiar case of Front-de-Boeuf
+they only added to the ferocity of his countenance and to the dread
+which his presence inspired. The formidable baron was clad in a leathern
+doublet, fitted close to his body, which was frayed and soiled with the
+stains of his armor. He had no weapon, except a [v]poniard at his belt,
+which served to counter-balance the weight of the bunch of rusty keys
+that hung at his right side.
+
+The black slaves who attended Front-de-Boeuf were attired in jerkins and
+trousers of coarse linen, their sleeves being tucked up above the elbow,
+like those of butchers when about to exercise their functions in the
+slaughter-house. Each had in his hand a small [v]pannier; and when they
+entered the dungeon, they paused at the door until Front-de-Boeuf
+himself carefully locked and double-locked it. Having taken this
+precaution, he advanced slowly up the apartment toward the Jew, upon
+whom he kept his eye fixed as if he wished to paralyze him with his
+glance, as some animals are said to fascinate their prey.
+
+The Jew sat with his mouth agape and his eyes fixed on the savage baron
+with such earnestness of terror that his frame seemed literally to
+shrink together and diminish in size while encountering the fierce
+Norman's fixed and baleful gaze. The unhappy Isaac was deprived not only
+of the power of rising to make the [v]obeisance which his fear had
+dictated, but he could not even doff his cap or utter any word of
+supplication, so strongly was he agitated by the conviction that
+tortures and death were impending over him.
+
+On the other hand, the stately form of the Norman appeared to dilate in
+magnitude, like that of the eagle, which ruffles up its plumage when
+about to pounce on its defenseless prey. He paused within three steps of
+the corner in which the unfortunate Hebrew had now, as it were, coiled
+himself up into the smallest possible space, and made a sign for one of
+the slaves to approach. The black [v]satellite came forward accordingly,
+and producing from his basket a large pair of scales and several
+weights, he laid them at the feet of Front-de-Boeuf and retired to the
+respectful distance at which his companion had already taken his
+station.
+
+The motions of these men were slow and solemn, as if there impended over
+their souls some [v]preconception of horror and cruelty. Front-de-Boeuf
+himself opened the scene by addressing his ill-fated captive.
+
+"Most accursed dog," he said, awakening with his deep and sullen voice
+the echoes of the dungeon vault, "seest thou these scales?"
+
+The unhappy Jew returned a feeble affirmative.
+
+"In these very scales shalt thou weigh me out," said the relentless
+baron, "a thousand silver pounds, after the just measure and weight of
+the Tower of London."
+
+"Holy Abraham!" returned the Jew, finding voice through the very
+extremity of his danger; "heard man ever such a demand? Who ever heard,
+even in a minstrel's tale, of such a sum as a thousand pounds of silver?
+What human eyes were ever blessed with the sight of so great a mass of
+treasure? Not within the walls of York, ransack my house and that of all
+my tribe, wilt thou find the [v]tithe of that huge sum of silver that
+thou speakest of."
+
+"I am reasonable," answered Front-de-Boeuf, "and if silver be scant, I
+refuse not gold. At the rate of a mark of gold for each six pounds of
+silver, thou shalt free thy unbelieving carcass from such punishment as
+thy heart has never even conceived in thy wildest imaginings."
+
+"Have mercy on me, noble knight!" pleaded Isaac. "I am old, and poor,
+and helpless. It were unworthy to triumph over me. It is a poor deed to
+crush a worm."
+
+"Old thou mayst be," replied the knight, "and feeble thou mayst be; but
+rich it is known thou art."
+
+"I swear to you, noble knight," said Isaac, "by all which I believe and
+all which we believe in common--"
+
+"Perjure not thyself," interrupted the Norman, "and let not thy
+obstinacy seal thy doom, until thou hast seen and well considered the
+fate that awaits thee. This prison is no place for trifling. Prisoners
+ten thousand times more distinguished than thou have died within these
+walls, and their fate has never been known. But for thee is reserved a
+long and lingering death, to which theirs was luxury."
+
+He again made a signal for the slaves to approach and spoke to them
+apart in their own language; for he had been a crusader in Palestine,
+where, perhaps, he had learned his lesson of cruelty. The Saracens
+produced from their baskets a quantity of charcoal, a pair of bellows,
+and a flask of oil. While the one struck a light with a flint and steel,
+the other disposed the charcoal in the large rusty grate which we have
+already mentioned and exercised the bellows until the fuel came to a red
+glow.
+
+"Seest thou, Isaac," said Front-de-Boeuf, "the range of iron bars above
+that glowing charcoal? On that warm couch thou shalt lie, stripped of
+thy clothes as if thou wert to rest on a bed of down. One of these
+slaves shall maintain the fire beneath thee, while the other shall
+anoint thy wretched limbs with oil, lest the roast should burn. Now
+choose betwixt such a scorching bed and the payment of a thousand pounds
+of silver; for, by the head of my father, thou hast no other [v]option."
+
+"It is impossible," exclaimed the miserable Isaac; "it is impossible
+that your purpose can be real! The good God of nature never made a heart
+capable of exercising such cruelty!"
+
+"Trust not to that, Isaac," said Front-de-Boeuf; "it were a fatal error.
+Dost thou think that I who have seen a town sacked, in which thousands
+perished by sword, by flood, and by fire, will blench from my purpose
+for the outcries of a single wretch? Be wise, old man; discharge thyself
+of a portion of thy superfluous wealth; repay to the hands of a
+Christian a part of what thou hast acquired by [v]usury. Thy cunning may
+soon swell out once more thy shriveled purse, but neither leech nor
+medicine can restore thy scorched hide and flesh wert thou once
+stretched on these bars. Tell down thy [v]ransom, I say, and rejoice
+that at such a rate thou canst redeem thyself from a dungeon, the
+secrets of which few have returned to tell. I waste no more words with
+thee. Choose between thy [v]dross and thy flesh and blood, and as thou
+choosest so shall it be."
+
+"So may Abraham and all the fathers of our people assist me!" said
+Isaac; "I cannot make the choice because I have not the means of
+satisfying your [v]exorbitant demand!"
+
+"Seize him and strip him, slaves," said the knight.
+
+The assistants, taking their directions more from the baron's eye and
+hand than his tongue, once more stepped forward, laid hands on the
+unfortunate Isaac, plucked him up from the ground, and holding him
+between them, waited the hard-hearted baron's further signal. The
+unhappy man eyed their countenances and that of Front-de-Boeuf in the
+hope of discovering some symptoms of softening; but that of the baron
+showed the same cold, half-sullen, half-sarcastic smile, which had been
+the prelude to his cruelty; and the savage eyes of the Saracens, rolling
+gloomily under their dark brows, evinced rather the secret pleasure
+which they expected from the approaching scene than any reluctance to be
+its agents. The Jew then looked at the glowing furnace, over which he
+was presently to be stretched, and, seeing no chance of his tormentor's
+relenting, his resolution gave way.
+
+"I will pay," he said, "the thousand pounds of silver--that is, I will
+pay it with the help of my brethren, for I must beg as a mendicant at
+the door of our synagogue ere I make up so unheard-of a sum. When and
+where must it be delivered?" he inquired with a sigh.
+
+"Here," replied Front-de-Boeuf. "Weighed it must be--weighed and told
+down on this very dungeon floor. Thinkest thou I will part with thee
+until thy ransom is secure?"
+
+"Then let my daughter Rebecca go forth to York," said Isaac, "with your
+safe conduct, noble knight, and so soon as man and horse can return, the
+treasure--" Here he groaned deeply, but added, after the pause of a few
+seconds,--"the treasure shall be told down on this floor."
+
+"Thy daughter!" said Front-de-Boeuf, as if surprised. "By Heavens,
+Isaac, I would I had known of this! I gave yonder black-browed girl to
+Sir Brian de Bois-Guilbert, to be his prisoner. She is not in my power."
+
+The yell which Isaac raised at this unfeeling communication made the
+very vault to ring, and astounded the two Saracens so much that they let
+go their hold of the victim. He availed himself of his freedom to throw
+himself on the pavement and clasp the knees of Front-de-Boeuf.
+
+"Take all that you have asked," said he--"take ten times more--reduce me
+to ruin and to beggary, if thou wilt--nay, pierce me with thy poniard,
+broil me on that furnace, but spare my daughter! Will you deprive me of
+my sole remaining comfort in life?"
+
+"I would," said the Norman, somewhat relenting, "that I had known of
+this before. I thought you loved nothing but your money-bags."
+
+"Think not so vilely of me," returned Isaac, eager to improve the moment
+of apparent sympathy. "I love mine own, even as the hunted fox, the
+tortured wildcat loves its young."
+
+"Be it so," said Front-de-Boeuf; "but it aids us not now. I cannot help
+what has happened or what is to follow. My word is passed to my comrade
+in arms that he shall have the maiden as his share of the spoil, and I
+would not break it for ten Jews and Jewesses to boot. Take thought
+instead to pay me the ransom thou hast promised, or woe betide thee!"
+
+"Robber and villain!" cried the Jew, "I will pay thee nothing--not one
+silver penny will I pay thee unless my daughter is delivered to me in
+safety!"
+
+"Art thou in thy senses, Israelite?" asked the Norman sternly. "Hast thy
+flesh and blood a charm against heated iron and scalding oil?"
+
+"I care not!" replied the Jew, rendered desperate by paternal affection;
+"my daughter is my flesh and blood, dearer to me a thousand times than
+those limbs thy cruelty threatens. No silver will I give thee unless I
+were to pour it molten down thy [v]avaricious throat--no, not a silver
+penny will I give thee, [v]Nazarene, were it to save thee from the deep
+damnation thy whole life has merited. Take my life, if thou wilt, and
+say that the Jew, amidst his tortures, knew how to disappoint the
+Christian."
+
+"We shall see that," said Front-de-Boeuf; "for by the blessed [v]rood
+thou shalt feel the extremities of fire and steel! Strip him, slaves,
+and chain him down upon the bars."
+
+In spite of the feeble struggles of the old man, the Saracens had
+already torn from him his upper garment and were proceeding totally to
+disrobe him, when the sound of a bugle, twice winded without the castle,
+penetrated even to the recesses of the dungeon. Immediately after voices
+were heard calling for Sir Reginald Front-de-Boeuf. Unwilling to be
+found engaged in his hellish occupation, the savage baron gave the
+slaves a signal to restore Isaac's garment; and, quitting the dungeon
+with his attendants, he left the Jew to thank God for his own
+deliverance or to lament over his daughter's captivity, as his personal
+or parental feelings might prove the stronger.
+
+
+III
+
+When the bugle sounded, De Bracy was engaged in pressing his suit with
+the Saxon heiress Rowena, whom he had carried off under the impression
+that she would speedily surrender to his rough wooing. But he found her
+[v]obdurate as well as tearful and in no humor to listen to his
+professions of devotion. It was, therefore, with some relief that the
+free-lance heard the summons at the barbican. Going into the hall of
+the castle, De Bracy was presently joined by Bois-Guilbert.
+
+"Where is Front-de-Boeuf!" the latter asked.
+
+"He is [v]negotiating with the Jew, I suppose," replied De Bracy,
+coolly; "probably the howls of Isaac have drowned the blast of the
+bugle. But we will make the [v]vassals call him."
+
+They were soon after joined by Front-de-Boeuf, who had only tarried to
+give some necessary directions.
+
+"Let us see the cause of this cursed clamor," he said. "Here is a letter
+which has just been brought in, and, if I mistake not, it is in Saxon."
+
+He looked at it, turning it round and round as if he had some hopes of
+coming at the meaning by inverting the position of the paper, and then
+handed it to De Bracy.
+
+"It may be magic spells for aught I know," said De Bracy, who possessed
+his full proportion of the ignorance which characterized the chivalry of
+the period.
+
+"Give it to me," said the Templar. "We have that of the priestly
+character that we have some knowledge to enlighten our valor."
+
+"Let us profit by your most reverend knowledge, then," returned De
+Bracy. "What says the scroll?"
+
+"It is a formal letter of defiance," answered Bois-Guilbert; "but, by
+our Lady of Bethlehem, if it be not a foolish jest, it is the most
+extraordinary [v]cartel that ever went across the drawbridge of a
+baronial castle."
+
+"Jest!" exclaimed Front-de-Boeuf. "I would gladly know who dares jest
+with me in such a matter! Read it, Sir Brian."
+
+The Templar accordingly read as follows:
+
+"I, Wamba, the son of Witless, jester to a noble and free-born man,
+Cedric of Rotherwood, called the Saxon: and I, Gurth, the son of
+Beowulph, the swineherd--"
+
+"Thou art mad!" cried Front-de-Boeuf, interrupting the reader.
+
+"By Saint Luke, it is so set down," answered the Templar. Then, resuming
+his task, he went on: "I, Gurth, the son of Beowulph, swineherd unto the
+said Cedric, with the assistance of our allies and confederates, who
+make common cause with us in this our feud, namely, the good knight,
+called for the present the Black Knight, and the stout yeoman, Robert
+Locksley, called Cleve-the-wand: Do you, Reginald Front-de-Boeuf, and
+your allies and accomplices whomsoever, to wit, that whereas you have,
+without cause given or feud declared, wrongfully and by mastery, seized
+upon the person of our lord and master, the said Cedric; also upon the
+person of a noble and free-born damsel, the Lady Rowena; also upon the
+person of a noble and free-born man, Athelstane of Coningsburgh; also
+upon the persons of certain free-born men, their vassals; also upon
+certain serfs, their born bondsmen; also upon a certain Jew, named
+Isaac of York, together with his daughter, and certain horses and mules:
+therefore, we require and demand that the said persons be within an hour
+after the delivery hereof delivered to us, untouched and unharmed in
+body and goods. Failing of which, we do pronounce to you that we hold ye
+as robbers and traitors and will wager our bodies against ye in battle
+and do our utmost to your destruction. Signed by us upon the eve of
+Saint Withold's day, under the great oak in the Hart-hill Walk, the
+above being written by a holy man, clerk to God and Saint Dunstan in the
+chapel of Copmanhurst."
+
+The knights heard this uncommon document read from end to end and then
+gazed upon each other in silent amazement, as being utterly at a loss to
+know what it could portend. De Bracy was the first to break silence by
+an uncontrollable fit of laughter, wherein he was joined, though with
+more moderation, by the Templar. Front-de-Boeuf, on the contrary, seemed
+impatient of their ill-timed [v]jocularity.
+
+"I give you plain warning," he said, "fair sirs, that you had better
+consult how to bear yourselves under these circumstances than to give
+way to such misplaced merriment."
+
+"Front-de-Boeuf has not recovered his temper since his overthrow in the
+tournament," said De Bracy to the Templar. "He is cowed at the very idea
+of a cartel, though it be from a fool and a swineherd."
+
+"I would thou couldst stand the whole brunt of this adventure thyself,
+De Bracy," answered Front-de-Boeuf. "These fellows dared not to have
+acted with such inconceivable impudence had they not been supported by
+some strong bands. There are enough outlaws in this forest to resent my
+protecting the deer. I did but tie one fellow, who was taken red-handed
+and in the fact, to the horns of a wild stag, which gored him to death
+in five minutes, and I had as many arrows shot at me as were launched in
+the tournament. Here, fellow," he added to one of his attendants, "hast
+thou sent out to see by what force this precious challenge is to be
+supported?"
+
+"There are at least two hundred men assembled in the woods," answered a
+squire who was in attendance.
+
+"Here is a proper matter!" said Front-de-Boeuf. "This comes of lending
+you the use of my castle. You cannot manage your undertaking quietly,
+but you must bring this nest of hornets about my ears!"
+
+"Of hornets?" echoed De Bracy. "Of stingless drones rather--a band of
+lazy knaves who take to the wood and destroy the venison rather than
+labor for their maintenance."
+
+"Stingless!" replied Front-de-Boeuf. "Fork-headed shafts of a cloth-yard
+in length, and these shot within the breadth of a French crown, are
+sting enough."
+
+"For shame, sir knight!" said the Templar. "Let us summon our people
+and sally forth upon them. One knight--ay, one man-at-arms--were enough
+for twenty such peasants."
+
+"Enough, and too much," agreed De Bracy. "I should be ashamed to couch
+lance against them."
+
+"True," answered Front-de-Boeuf, drily, "were they black Turks or Moors,
+Sir Templar, or the craven peasants of France, most valiant De Bracy;
+but these are English yeomen, over whom we shall have no advantage save
+what we may derive from our arms and horses, which will avail us little
+in the glades of the forest. Sally, saidst thou? We have scarce men
+enough to defend the castle. The best of mine are at York; so is your
+band, De Bracy; and we have scarce twenty, besides the handful that were
+engaged in this mad business."
+
+"Thou dost not fear," said the Templar, "that they can assemble in force
+sufficient to attempt the castle?"
+
+"Not so, Sir Brian," answered Front-de-Boeuf. "These outlaws have indeed
+a daring captain; but without machines, scaling ladders, and experienced
+leaders my castle may defy them."
+
+"Send to thy neighbors," suggested the Templar. "Let them assemble their
+people and come to the rescue of three knights, besieged by a jester and
+swineherd in the baronial castle of Reginald Front-de-Boeuf!"
+
+"You jest, sir knight," answered the baron; "but to whom shall I send?
+My allies are at York, where I should have also been but for this
+infernal enterprise."
+
+"Then send to York and recall our people," said De Bracy. "If these
+[v]churls abide the shaking of my standard, I will give them credit for
+the boldest outlaws that ever bent bow in greenwood."
+
+"And who shall bear such a message?" said Front-de-Boeuf. "The knaves
+will beset every path and rip the errand out of the man's bosom. I have
+it," he added, after pausing for a moment. "Sir Templar, thou canst
+write as well as read, and if we can but find writing materials, thou
+shalt return an answer to this bold challenge."
+
+Paper and pen were presently brought, and Bois-Guilbert sat down and
+wrote, in the French language, an epistle of the following tenor:
+
+"Sir Reginald Front-de-Boeuf, with his noble and knightly allies and
+confederates, receives no defiances at the hands of slaves, bondsmen, or
+fugitives. If the person calling himself the Black Knight hath indeed a
+claim to the honors of chivalry, he ought to know that he stands
+degraded by his present association and has no right to ask reckoning at
+the hands of good men of noble blood. Touching the prisoners we have
+made, we do in Christian charity require you to send a man of religion
+to receive their confession and reconcile them with God; since it is our
+fixed intention to execute them this morning before noon, so that their
+heads, being placed on the battlements, shall show to all men how
+lightly we esteem those who have bestirred themselves in their rescue.
+Wherefore, as above, we require you to send a priest to reconcile them
+with God, in doing which you shall render them the last earthly
+service."
+
+This letter, being folded, was delivered to the squire, and by him to
+the messenger who waited without, as the answer to that which he had
+brought.
+
+
+IV
+
+About one hour afterward a man arrayed in the cowl and frock of a
+hermit, and having his knotted cord twisted around his middle, stood
+before the portal of the castle of Front-de-Boeuf. The warder demanded
+of him his name and errand.
+
+"[v]_Pax vobiscum_," answered the priest, "I am a poor brother of the
+[v]Order of St. Francis who come hither to do my office to certain
+unhappy prisoners now secured within this castle."
+
+"Thou art a bold friar," said the warder, "to come hither, where, saving
+our own drunken confessor, a rooster of thy feather hath not crowed
+these twenty years."
+
+With these words, he carried to the hall of the castle his unwonted
+intelligence that a friar stood before the gate and desired admission.
+With no small wonder he received his master's command to admit the holy
+man immediately; and, having previously manned the entrance to guard
+against surprise, he obeyed, without farther scruple, the order given
+him.
+
+"Who and whence art thou, priest?" demanded Front-de-Boeuf.
+
+"_Pax vobiscum_," reiterated the priest, with trembling voice. "I am a
+poor servant of Saint Francis, who, traveling through this wilderness,
+have fallen among thieves, which thieves have sent me unto this castle
+in order to do my ghostly office on two persons condemned by your
+honorable justice."
+
+"Ay, right," answered Front-de-Boeuf; "and canst thou tell me, the
+number of those banditti?"
+
+"Gallant sir," said the priest, "[v]_nomen illis legio_, their name is
+legion."
+
+"Tell me in plain terms what numbers there are, or, priest, thy cloak
+and cord will ill protect thee from my wrath."
+
+"Alas!" said the friar, "[v]_cor meum eructavit_, that is to say, I was
+like to burst with fear! But I conceive they may be--what of yeomen,
+what of commons--at least five hundred men."
+
+"What!" said the Templar, who came into the hall that moment, "muster
+the wasps so thick here? It is time to stifle such a mischievous brood."
+Then taking Front-de-Boeuf aside, "Knowest thou the priest?"
+
+"He is a stranger from a distant convent," replied Front-de-Boeuf; "I
+know him not."
+
+"Then trust him not with our purpose in words," urged the Templar. "Let
+him carry a written order to De Bracy's company of Free Companions, to
+repair instantly to their master's aid. In the meantime, and that the
+shaveling may suspect nothing, permit him to go freely about his task of
+preparing the Saxon hogs for the slaughter-house."
+
+"It shall be so," said Front-de-Boeuf. And he forthwith appointed a
+domestic to conduct the friar to the apartment where Cedric and
+Athelstane were confined.
+
+The natural impatience of Cedric had been rather enhanced than
+diminished by his confinement. He walked from one end of the hall to the
+other, with the attitude of a man who advances to charge an enemy or
+storm the breach of a beleaguered place, sometimes ejaculating to
+himself and sometimes addressing Athelstane. The latter stoutly and
+[v]stoically awaited the issue of the adventure, digesting in the
+meantime, with great composure, the liberal meal which he had made at
+noon and not greatly troubling himself about the duration of the
+captivity.
+
+"_Pax vobiscum_!" pronounced the priest, entering the apartment. "The
+blessing of Saint Dunstan, Saint Dennis, Saint Duthoc, and all other
+saints whatsoever, be upon ye and about ye."
+
+"Enter freely," said Cedric to the friar; "with what intent art thou
+come hither?"
+
+"To bid you prepare yourselves for death," was the reply.
+
+"It is impossible!" said Cedric, starting. "Fearless and wicked as they
+are, they dare not attempt such open and [v]gratuitous cruelty!"
+
+"Alas!" returned the priest, "to restrain them by their sense of
+humanity is the same as to stop a runaway horse with a bridle of silk
+thread. Bethink thee, therefore, Cedric, and you also, Athelstane, what
+crimes you have committed in the flesh, for this very day will ye be
+called to answer at a higher [v]tribunal."
+
+"Hearest thou this, Athelstane?" said Cedric. "We must rouse up our
+hearts to this last action, since better it is we should die like men
+than live like slaves."
+
+"I am ready," answered Athelstane, "to stand the worst of their malice,
+and shall walk to my death with as much composure as ever I did to my
+dinner."
+
+"Let us, then, unto our holy [v]gear, father," said Cedric.
+
+"Wait yet a moment, good [v]uncle," said the priest in a voice very
+different from his solemn tones of a moment before; "better look before
+you leap in the dark."
+
+"By my faith!" cried Cedric; "I should know that voice."
+
+"It is that of your trusty slave and jester," answered the priest,
+throwing back his cowl and revealing the face of Wamba. "Take a fool's
+advice, and you will not be here long."
+
+"How meanest thou, knave?" demanded the Saxon.
+
+"Even thus," replied Wamba; "take thou this frock and cord and march
+quietly out of the castle, leaving me your cloak and girdle to take the
+long leap in thy stead."
+
+"Leave thee in my stead!" exclaimed Cedric, astonished at the proposal;
+"why, they would hang thee, my poor knave."
+
+"E'en let them do as they are permitted," answered Wamba. "I trust--no
+disparagement to your birth--that the son of Witless may hang in a chain
+with as much gravity as the chain hung upon his ancestor the
+[v]alderman."
+
+"Well, Wamba," said Cedric, "for one thing will I grant thy request. And
+that is, if thou wilt make the exchange of garments with Lord Athelstane
+instead of me."
+
+"No," answered Wamba; "there were little reason in that. Good right
+there is that the son of Witless should suffer to save the son of
+Hereward; but little wisdom there were in his dying for the benefit of
+one whose fathers were strangers to his."
+
+"Villain," cried Cedric, "the fathers of Athelstane were monarchs of
+England!"
+
+"They might be whomsoever they pleased," replied Wamba; "but my neck
+stands too straight on my shoulders to have it twisted for their sake.
+Wherefore, good my master, either take my proffer yourself, or suffer me
+to leave this dungeon as free as I entered."
+
+"Let the old tree wither," persisted Cedric, "so the stately hope of the
+forest be preserved. Save the noble Athelstane, my trusty Wamba! It is
+the duty of each who has Saxon blood in his veins. Thou and I will abide
+together the utmost rage of our oppressors, while he, free and safe,
+shall arouse the awakened spirits of our countrymen to avenge us."
+
+"Not so, father Cedric," said Athelstane, grasping his hand--for, when
+roused to think or act, his deeds and sentiments were not unbecoming his
+high race--"not so. I would rather remain in this hall a week without
+food save the prisoner's stinted loaf, or drink save the prisoner's
+measure of water, than embrace the opportunity to escape which the
+slave's untaught kindness has [v]purveyed for his master. Go, noble
+Cedric. Your presence without may encourage friends to our rescue; your
+remaining here would ruin us all."
+
+"And is there any prospect, then, of rescue from without?" asked Cedric,
+looking at the jester.
+
+"Prospect indeed!" echoed Wamba. "Let me tell you that when you fill my
+cloak you are wrapped in a general's cassock. Five hundred men are there
+without, and I was this morning one of their chief leaders. My fool's
+cap was a [v]casque, and my [v]bauble a truncheon. Well, we shall see
+what good they will make by exchanging a fool for a wise man. Truly, I
+fear they will lose in valor what they may gain in discretion. And so
+farewell, master, and be kind to poor Gurth and his dog Fangs; and let
+my [v]coxcomb hang in the hall at Rotherwood in memory that I flung away
+my life for my master--like a faithful fool!"
+
+The last word came out with a sort of double expression, betwixt jest
+and earnest. The tears stood in Cedric's eyes.
+
+"Thy memory shall be preserved," he said, "while fidelity and affection
+have honor upon earth. But that I trust I shall find the means of saving
+Rowena and thee, Athelstane, and thee also, my poor Wamba, thou shouldst
+not overbear me in this matter."
+
+The exchange of dress was now accomplished, when a sudden doubt struck
+Cedric.
+
+"I know no language but my own and a few words of their mincing Norman.
+How shall I bear myself like a reverend brother?"
+
+"The spell lies in two words," replied Wamba: "_Pax vobiscum_ will
+answer all queries. If you go or come, eat or drink, bless or ban, _Pax
+vobiscum_ carries you through it all. It is as useful to a friar as a
+broomstick to a witch or a wand to a conjurer. Speak it but thus, in a
+deep, grave tone,--_Pax vobiscum_!--it is irresistible. Watch and ward,
+knight and squire, foot and horse, it acts as a charm upon them all. I
+think, if they bring me out to be hanged to-morrow, as is much to be
+doubted they may, I will try its weight."
+
+"If such prove the case," said his master, "my religious orders are soon
+taken. _Pax vobiscum_! I trust I shall remember the password. Noble
+Athelstane, farewell; and farewell, my poor boy, whose heart might make
+amends for a weaker head. I will save you, or return and die with you.
+Farewell."
+
+"Farewell, noble Cedric," said Athelstane; "remember it is the true part
+of a friar to accept refreshment, if you are offered any."
+
+Thus exhorted, Cedric sallied forth upon his expedition and presently
+found himself in the presence of Front-de-Boeuf. The Saxon, with some
+difficulty, compelled himself to make obeisance to the haughty baron,
+who returned his courtesy with a slight inclination of the head.
+
+"Thy penitents, father," said the latter, "have made a long [v]shrift.
+It is the better for them, since it is the last they shall ever make.
+Hast thou prepared them for death?"
+
+"I found them," said Cedric, in such French as he could command,
+"expecting the worst, from the moment they knew into whose power they
+had fallen."
+
+"How now, sir friar," replied Front-de-Boeuf, "thy speech, me thinks,
+smacks of the rude Saxon tongue?"
+
+"I was bred in the convent of Saint Withold of Burton," answered Cedric.
+
+"Ay," said the baron; "it had been better for thee to have been a
+Norman, and better for my purpose, too; but need has no choice of
+messengers. That Saint Withold's of Burton is a howlet's nest worth the
+harrying. The day will soon come that the frock shall protect the Saxon
+as little as the mail-coat."
+
+"God's will be done!" returned Cedric, in a voice tremulous with
+passion, which Front-de-Boeuf imputed to fear.
+
+"I see," he said, "thou dreamest already that our men-at-arms are in thy
+refectory and thy ale-vaults. But do me one cast of thy holy office and
+thou shalt sleep as safe in thy cell as a snail within his shell of
+proof."
+
+"Speak your commands," replied Cedric, with suppressed emotion.
+
+"Follow me through this passage, then, that I may dismiss thee by the
+postern."
+
+As he strode on his way before the supposed friar, Front-de-Boeuf thus
+schooled him in the part which he desired he should act.
+
+"Thou seest, sir friar, yon herd of Saxon swine who have dared to
+environ this castle of Torquilstone. Tell them whatever thou hast a mind
+of the weakness of this [v]fortalice, or aught else that can detain
+them before it for twenty-four hours. Meantime bear this scroll--but
+soft--canst thou read, sir priest?"
+
+"Not a jot I," answered Cedric, "save on my [v]breviary; and then I know
+the characters because I have the holy service by heart, praised be
+Saint Withold!"
+
+"The fitter messenger for my purpose. Carry thou this scroll to the
+castle of Philip de [v]Malvoisin; say it cometh from me and is written
+by the Templar, Brian de Bois-Guilbert, and that I pray him to send it
+to York with all speed man and horse can make. Meanwhile, tell him to
+doubt nothing he shall find us whole and sound behind our battlement.
+Shame on it, that we should be compelled to hide thus by a pack of
+runagates who are wont to fly even at the flash of our pennons and the
+tramp of our horses! I say to thee, priest, contrive some cast of thine
+art to keep the knaves where they are until our friends bring up their
+lances."
+
+With these words, Front-de-Boeuf led the way to a postern where, passing
+the moat on a single plank, they reached a small barbican, or exterior
+defense, which communicated with the open field by a well-fortified
+sally-port.
+
+"Begone, then; and if thou wilt do mine errand, and return hither when
+it is done, thou shalt see Saxon flesh cheap as ever was hog's in the
+shambles of Sheffield. And, hark thee! thou seemest to be a jolly
+confessor--come hither after the onslaught and thou shalt have as much
+good wine as would drench thy whole convent."
+
+"Assuredly we shall meet again," answered Cedric.
+
+"Something in the hand the whilst," continued the Norman; and, as they
+parted at the postern door, he thrust in Cedric's reluctant hand a gold
+[v]byzant, adding, "Remember, I will flay off both cowl and skin if thou
+failest in thy purpose."
+
+The supposed priest passed out of the door without further words.
+
+Front-de-Boeuf turned back within the castle.
+
+"Ho! Giles jailer," he called, "let them bring Cedric of Rotherwood
+before me, and the other churl, his companion--him I mean of
+Coningsburgh--Athelstane there, or what call they him? Their very names
+are an encumbrance to a Norman knight's mouth, and have, as it were, a
+flavor of bacon. Give me a stoop of wine, as jolly Prince John would
+say, that I may wash away the relish. Place it in the armory, and
+thither lead the prisoners."
+
+His commands were obeyed; and upon entering that Gothic apartment, hung
+with many spoils won by his own valor and that of his father, he found a
+flagon of wine on a massive oaken table, and the two Saxon captives
+under the guard of four of his dependants. Front-de-Boeuf took a long
+draught of wine and then addressed his prisoners, for the imperfect
+light prevented his perceiving that the more important of them had
+escaped.
+
+"Gallants of England," said Front-de-Boeuf, "how relish ye your
+entertainment at Torquilstone? Faith and Saint Dennis, an ye pay not a
+rich ransom, I will hang ye up by the feet from the iron bars of these
+windows till the kites and hooded crows have made skeletons of you!
+Speak out, ye Saxon dogs, what bid ye for your worthless lives? What say
+you, you of Rotherwood?"
+
+"Not a [v]doit I," answered poor Wamba, "and for hanging up by the feet,
+my brain has been topsy-turvy ever since the [v]biggin was bound first
+around my head; so turning me upside down may peradventure restore it
+again."
+
+"Hah!" cried Front-de-Boeuf, "what have we here?"
+
+And with the back of his hand he struck Cedric's cap from the head of
+the jester, and throwing open his collar, discovered the fatal badge of
+servitude, the silver collar round his neck.
+
+"Giles--Clement--dogs and varlets!" called the furious Norman, "what
+villain have you brought me here?"
+
+"I think I can tell you," said De Bracy, who just entered the apartment.
+"This is Cedric's clown."
+
+"Go," ordered Front-de-Boeuf; "fetch me the right Cedric hither, and I
+pardon your error for once--the rather that you but mistook a fool for
+a Saxon [v]franklin."
+
+"Ay, but," said Wamba, "your chivalrous excellency will find there are
+more fools than franklins among us."
+
+"What means this knave?" said Front-de-Boeuf, looking toward his
+followers, who, lingering and loath, faltered forth their belief that if
+this were not Cedric who was there in presence, they knew not what was
+become of him.
+
+"Heavens!" exclaimed De Bracy. "He must have escaped in the monk's
+garments!"
+
+"Fiends!" echoed Front-de-Boeuf. "It was then the boar of Rotherwood
+whom I ushered to the postern and dismissed with my own hands! And
+thou," he said to Wamba, "whose folly could over-reach the wisdom of
+idiots yet more gross than thyself. I will give thee holy orders, I will
+shave thy crown for thee! Here, let them tear the scalp from his head
+and pitch him headlong from the battlements. Thy trade is to jest: canst
+thou jest now?"
+
+"You deal with me better than your word, noble knight," whimpered forth
+poor Wamba, whose habits of [v]buffoonery were not to be overcome even
+by the immediate prospect of death; "if you give me the red cap you
+propose, out of a simple monk you will make a [v]cardinal."
+
+"The poor wretch," said De Bracy, "is resolved to die in his vocation."
+The next moment would have been Wamba's last but for an unexpected
+interruption. A hoarse shout, raised by many voices, bore to the inmates
+of the hall the tidings that the besiegers were advancing to the attack.
+There was a moment's silence in the hall, which was broken by De Bracy.
+"To the battlements," he said; "let us see what these knaves do
+without."
+
+So saying, he opened a latticed window which led to a sort of projecting
+balcony, and immediately called to those in the apartment, "Saint
+Dennis, it is time to stir! They bring forward [v]mantelets and
+[v]pavisses, and the archers muster on the skirts of the wood like a
+dark cloud before a hail-storm."
+
+Front-de-Boeuf also looked out upon the field and immediately snatched
+his bugle. After winding a long and loud blast, he commanded his men to
+their posts on the walls.
+
+"De Bracy, look to the eastern side, where the walls are lowest. Noble
+Bois-Guilbert, thy trade hath well taught thee how to attack and defend,
+so look thou to the western side. I myself will take post at the
+barbican. Our numbers are few, but activity and courage may supply that
+defect, since we have only to do with rascal clowns."
+
+The Templar had in the meantime been looking out on the proceedings of
+the besiegers with deeper attention than Front-de-Boeuf or his giddy
+companion.
+
+"By the faith of mine order," he said, "these men approach with more
+touch of discipline than could have been judged, however they come by
+it. See ye how dexterously they avail themselves of every cover which a
+tree or bush affords and avoid exposing themselves to the shot of our
+cross-bows? I spy neither banner nor pennon, and yet I will gage my
+golden chain that they are led by some noble knight or gentleman
+skillful in the practice of wars."
+
+"I espy him," said De Bracy; "I see the waving of a knight's crest and
+the gleam of his armor. See yon tall man in the black mail who is busied
+marshaling the farther troop of the rascally yeomen. By Saint Dennis, I
+hold him to be the knight who did so well in the tournament at Ashby."
+
+The demonstrations of the enemy's approach cut off all farther
+discourse. The Templar and De Bracy repaired to their posts and, at the
+head of the few followers they were able to muster, awaited with calm
+determination the threatened assault, while Front-de-Boeuf went to see
+that all was secure in the besieged fortress.
+
+
+V
+
+In the meantime, the wounded Wilfred of Ivanhoe had been gradually
+recovering his strength. Taken into her litter by Rebecca when his own
+father hesitated to succor him, the young knight had lain in a stupor
+through all the experiences of the journey and the capture of Cedric's
+party by the Normans. De Bracy, who, bad as he was, was not without some
+[v]compunction, on finding the occupant of the litter to be Ivanhoe, had
+placed the invalid under the charge of two of his squires, who were
+directed to state to any inquirers that he was a wounded comrade. This
+explanation was now accordingly returned by these men to Front-de-Boeuf,
+when, in going the round of the castle, he questioned them why they did
+not make for the battlements upon the alarm of the attack.
+
+"A wounded comrade!" he exclaimed in great wrath and astonishment. "No
+wonder that churls and yeomen wax so presumptuous as even to lay leaguer
+before castles, and that clowns and swineherds send defiances to nobles,
+since men-at-arms have turned sick men's nurses. To the battlements, ye
+loitering villains!" he cried, raising his [v]stentorian voice till the
+arches rang again; "to the battlements, or I will splinter your bones
+with this truncheon."
+
+The men, who, like most of their description, were fond of enterprise
+and detested inaction, went joyfully to the scene of danger, and the
+care of Ivanhoe fell to Rebecca, who occupied a neighboring apartment
+and who was not kept in close confinement.
+
+The beautiful young Jewess rejoined the knight, whom she had so signally
+befriended, at the moment of the beginning of the attack on the castle.
+Ivanhoe, already much better and chafing at his enforced inaction,
+resembled the war-horse who scenteth the battle afar.
+
+"If I could but drag myself to yonder window," he said, "that I might
+see how this brave game is like to go--if I could strike but a single
+blow for our deliverance! It is in vain; I am alike nerveless and
+weaponless!"
+
+"Fret not thyself, noble knight," answered Rebecca, "the sounds have
+ceased of a sudden. It may be they join not battle."
+
+"Thou knowest naught of it," returned Wilfred, impatiently; "this dead
+pause only shows that the men are at their posts on the walls and expect
+an instant attack. What we have heard was but the distant muttering of
+the storm, which will burst anon in all its fury. Could I but reach
+yonder window!"
+
+"Thou wilt injure thyself by the attempt, noble knight," replied the
+attendant. Then she added, "I myself will stand at the lattice and
+describe to you as I can what passes without."
+
+"You must not; you shall not!" exclaimed Ivanhoe. "Each lattice will
+soon be a mark for the archers; some random shaft may strike you. At
+least cover thy body with yonder ancient buckler and show as little of
+thyself as may be."
+
+Availing herself of the protection of the large, ancient shield, which
+she placed against the lower part of the window, Rebecca, with
+tolerable security, could witness part of what was passing without the
+castle and report to Ivanhoe the preparations being made for the
+storming. From where she stood she had a full view of the outwork likely
+to be the first object of the assault. It was a fortification of no
+great height or strength, intended to protect the postern-gate through
+which Cedric had been recently dismissed by Front-de-Boeuf. The castle
+moat divided this species of barbican from the rest of the fortress, so
+that, in case of its being taken, it was easy to cut off the
+communication with the main building by withdrawing the temporary
+bridge. In the outwork was a sally-port corresponding to the postern of
+the castle, and the whole was surrounded by a strong palisade. From the
+mustering of the assailants in a direction nearly opposite the outwork,
+it seemed plain that this point had been selected for attack.
+
+Rebecca communicated this to Ivanhoe, and added, "The skirts of the wood
+seem lined with archers, although only a few are advanced from its dark
+shadow."
+
+"Under what banner?" asked Ivanhoe.
+
+"Under no ensign of war which I can observe," answered Rebecca.
+
+"A singular novelty," muttered the knight, "to advance to storm such a
+castle without pennon or banner displayed! Seest thou who they are that
+act as leaders? Or, are all of them but stout yeomen?"
+
+"A knight clad in sable armor is the most conspicuous," she replied; "he
+alone is armed from head to foot, and he seems to assume the direction
+of all around him."
+
+"Seem there no other leaders?" demanded the anxious inquirer.
+
+"None of mark and distinction that I can behold from this station," said
+Rebecca. "They appear even now preparing to attack. God of Zion protect
+us! What a dreadful sight! Those who advance first bear huge shields and
+defenses made of plank; the others follow, bending their bows as they
+come on. They raise their bows! God of Moses, forgive the creatures thou
+hast made!"
+
+Her description was suddenly interrupted by the signal for assault,
+which was the blast of a shrill bugle, at once answered by a flourish of
+the Norman trumpets from the battlements. The shouts of both parties
+augmented the fearful din, the assailants crying, "Saint George for
+merry England!" and the Normans answering them with cries of
+"[v]_Beauseant! Beauseant!_"
+
+It was not, however, by clamor that the contest was to be decided, and
+the desperate efforts of the assailants were met by an equally vigorous
+defense on the part of the besieged. The archers, trained by their
+woodland pastimes to the most effective use of the longbow, shot so
+rapidly and accurately that no point at which a defender could show the
+least part of his person escaped their [v]cloth-yard shafts. By this
+heavy discharge, which continued as thick and sharp as hail, two or
+three of the garrison were slain and several others wounded. But,
+confident in their armor of proof and in the cover which their situation
+afforded, the followers of Front-de-Boeuf, and his allies, showed an
+obstinacy in defense proportioned to the fury of the attack, replying
+with the discharge of their large cross-bows to the close and continued
+shower of arrows. As the assailants were necessarily but indifferently
+protected, they received more damage than they did.
+
+"And I must lie here like a bedridden monk," exclaimed Ivanhoe, "while
+the game that gives me freedom or death is played out by the hands of
+others! Look from the window once again, kind maiden, but beware that
+you are not marked by the archers beneath--look out once more and tell
+me if they yet advance to the storm."
+
+With patient courage, Rebecca again took post at the lattice.
+
+"What dost thou see?" demanded the wounded knight.
+
+"Nothing but the cloud of arrows flying so thick as to dazzle mine eyes
+and hide the bowmen who shoot them."
+
+"That cannot endure," remarked Ivanhoe. "If they press not on to carry
+the castle by pure force of arms, the archery may avail but little
+against stone walls and bulwarks. Look for the sable knight and see how
+he bears himself, for as the leader is, so will his followers be."
+
+"I see him not," said Rebecca.
+
+"Foul craven!" exclaimed Ivanhoe; "does he blench from the helm when the
+wind blows highest?"
+
+"He blenches not! he blenches not!" cried Rebecca. "I see him now; he
+heads a body of men close under the outer barrier of the barbican. They
+pull down the piles and palisades; they hew down the barriers with axes.
+His high black plume floats over the throng, like a raven over the field
+of the slain. They have made a breach in the barriers--they rush
+in--they are thrust back! Front-de-Boeuf heads the defenders; I see his
+gigantic form above the press. They throng again to the breach, and the
+pass is disputed hand to hand, and man to man. Have mercy, God!"
+
+She turned her head from the lattice, as if unable longer to endure a
+sight so terrible.
+
+"Look forth again, Rebecca," urged Ivanhoe, mistaking the cause of her
+retiring; "the archery must in some degree have ceased, since they are
+now fighting hand to hand. Look again; there is less danger."
+
+Rebecca again looked forth and almost immediately exclaimed: "Holy
+prophets of the law! Front-de-Boeuf and the Black Knight fight hand to
+hand in the breach, amid the roar of their followers, who watch the
+progress of the strife." She then uttered a loud shriek, "He is down! he
+is down!"
+
+"Who is down?" cried Ivanhoe; "tell me which has fallen?"
+
+"The Black Knight," answered Rebecca, faintly; then shouted with joyful
+eagerness, "But no--the name of the Lord of Hosts be blessed!--he is on
+foot again and fights as if there were twenty men's strength in his
+single arm. His sword is broken--he snatches an ax from a yeoman--he
+presses Front-de-Boeuf with blow on blow. The giant stoops and totters
+like an oak under the steel of a woodsman--he falls--he falls!"
+
+"Front-de-Boeuf?" exclaimed Ivanhoe.
+
+"Front-de-Boeuf!" answered the Jewess. "His men rush to the rescue,
+headed by the haughty Templar--their united force compels the champion
+to pause--they drag Front-de-Boeuf within the walls."
+
+"The assailants have won the barriers, have they not?" Ivanhoe eagerly
+queried.
+
+"They have! they have!" answered Rebecca; "and they press the besieged
+hard on the outer wall. Some plant ladders, some swarm like bees and
+endeavor to ascend upon the shoulders of each other. Down go stones,
+beams, and trunks of trees on their heads, and as fast as they bear the
+wounded to the rear, fresh men supply their places. Great God! hast thou
+given men thine own image, that it should be thus cruelly defaced by the
+hands of their brethren!"
+
+"Think not of that," said Ivanhoe. "This is no time for such thoughts.
+Who yield--who push their way?"
+
+"The ladders are thrown down," replied Rebecca, shuddering; "the
+soldiers lie groveling under them like crushed reptiles; the besieged
+have the better."
+
+"Saint George strike for us!" exclaimed the knight; "do the false yeomen
+give way?"
+
+"No," exclaimed Rebecca, "they bear themselves right yeomanly--the Black
+Knight approaches the postern with his huge ax--the thundering blows he
+deals you may hear above all the din of the battle. Stones and beams are
+hailed down on the bold champion--he regards them no more than if they
+were thistle-down or feathers!"
+
+"By Saint John of Acre," cried Ivanhoe, raising himself joyfully on his
+couch, "methought there was but one man in England that might do such a
+deed!"
+
+"The postern-gate shakes," continued Rebecca; "it crashes--it is
+splintered by his blows--they rush in--the outwork is won! Oh, God! they
+hurl the defenders from the battlements--they throw them into the
+moat--men, if ye indeed be men, spare them that can resist no longer!"
+
+"The bridge--the bridge which communicates with the castle--have they
+won that pass?"
+
+"No," replied Rebecca. "The Templar has destroyed the plank on which
+they crossed--few of the defenders escaped with him into the castle--the
+shrieks and cries you hear tell the fate of the others! Alas! I see it
+is more difficult to look on victory than on battle."
+
+"What do they now, maiden?" asked Ivanhoe. "Look forth yet again; this
+is no time to faint at bloodshed."
+
+"It is over for the time," answered Rebecca. "Our friends strengthen
+themselves within the outwork which they have mastered; it affords them
+so good a shelter from the foeman's shot that the garrison only bestow a
+few bolts on it from interval to interval, as if to disquiet rather than
+to injure them."
+
+"Our friends," said Wilfred, "will surely not abandon an enterprise so
+gloriously begun and so happily attained. Oh, no! I will put my faith in
+the good knight whose ax hath rent heart-of-oak and bars of iron."
+
+
+VI
+
+During the interval of quiet which followed the first success of the
+besiegers, the Black Knight was employed in causing to be constructed a
+sort of floating bridge, or long raft, by means of which he hoped to
+cross the moat in despite of the resistance of the enemy. This was a
+work of some time.
+
+When the raft was completed, the Black Knight addressed the besiegers:
+"It avails not waiting here longer, my friends; the sun is descending in
+the west, and I may not tarry for another day. Besides, it will be a
+marvel if the horsemen do not come upon us from York, unless we speedily
+accomplish our purpose. Wherefore, one of you go to Locksley and bid him
+commence a discharge of arrows on the opposite side of the castle, and
+move forward as if about to assault it; while you, true Englishmen,
+stand by me and be ready to thrust the raft end-long over the moat
+whenever the postern on our side is thrown open. Follow me boldly
+across, and aid me to burst yon sally-port in the main wall of the
+castle. As many of you as like not this service, or are but ill-armed,
+do you man the top of the outwork, draw your bowstrings to your ears and
+quell with your shot whoever shall appear upon the rampant. Noble
+Cedric, wilt thou take the direction of those that remain?"
+
+"Not so," answered the Saxon. "Lead I cannot, but my posterity curse me
+in my grave if I follow not with the foremost wherever thou shalt point
+the way!"
+
+"Yet, bethink thee, noble Saxon," said the knight, "thou hast neither
+hauberk nor corslet, nor aught but that light helmet, [v]target, and
+sword."
+
+"The better," replied Cedric; "I shall be the lighter to climb these
+walls. And--forgive the boast, sir knight--thou shalt this day see the
+naked breast of a Saxon as boldly presented to the battle as ever you
+beheld the steel corslet of a Norman warrior."
+
+"In the name of God, then," said the knight, "fling open the door and
+launch the floating bridge!"
+
+The portal which led from the inner wall of the barbican, now held by
+the besiegers, to the moat and corresponded with a sally-port in the
+main wall of the castle was suddenly opened. The temporary bridge was
+immediately thrust forward and extended its length between the castle
+and outwork, forming a slippery and precarious passage for two men
+abreast to cross the moat. Well aware of the importance of taking the
+foe by surprise, the Black Knight, closely followed by Cedric, threw
+himself upon the bridge and reached the opposite shore. Here he began to
+thunder with his ax on the gate of the castle, protected in part from
+the shot and stones cast by the defenders by the ruins of the former
+drawbridge, which the Templar had demolished in his retreat from the
+barbican, leaving the [v]counterpoise still attached to the upper part
+of the portal. The followers of the knight had no such shelter; two were
+instantly shot with cross-bow bolts, and two more fell into the moat.
+The others retreated back into the barbican.
+
+[Illustration: [See page 323]
+
+He Began to Thunder on the Gate]
+
+The situation of Cedric and the Black Knight was now truly dangerous and
+would have been still more so but for the constancy of the archers in
+the barbican, who ceased not to shower their arrows on the battlements,
+distracting the attention of those by whom they were manned and thus
+affording a respite to their two chiefs from the storm of missiles,
+which must otherwise have overwhelmed them. But their situation was
+eminently perilous, and was becoming more so with every moment.
+
+"Shame on ye all!" cried De Bracy to the soldiers around him; "do ye
+call yourselves cross-bowmen and let these two dogs keep their station
+under the walls of the castle? Heave over the coping stones from the
+battlement, an better may not be. Get pick-ax and levers and down with
+that huge pinnacle!" pointing to a heavy piece of stone-carved work that
+projected from the parapet.
+
+At this moment Locksley whipped up the courage of his men.
+
+"Saint George for England!" he cried. "To the charge, bold yeomen! Why
+leave ye the good knight and noble Cedric to storm the pass alone? Make
+in, yeomen! The castle is taken. Think of honor; think of spoil. One
+effort and the place is ours."
+
+With that he bent his good bow and sent a shaft right through the breast
+of one of the men-at-arms, who, under De Bracy's direction, was
+loosening a fragment from one of the battlements to precipitate on the
+heads of Cedric and the Black Knight. A second soldier caught from the
+hands of the dying man the iron crow, with which he had heaved up and
+loosened the stone pinnacle, when, receiving an arrow through his
+headpiece, he dropped from the battlement into the moat a dead man. The
+men-at-arms were daunted, for no armor seemed proof against the shot of
+this tremendous archer.
+
+"Do you give ground, base knaves?" cried De Bracy. "[v]_Mountjoy Saint
+Dennis_! Give me the lever."
+
+Snatching it up, he again assailed the loosened pinnacle, which was of
+weight enough, if thrown down, not only to have destroyed the remnant of
+the drawbridge, which sheltered the two foremost assailants, but also to
+have sunk the rude float of planks over which they had crossed. All saw
+the danger, and the boldest, even the stout friar himself, avoided
+setting a foot on the raft. Thrice did Locksley bend his shaft against
+De Bracy, and thrice did his arrow bound back from the knight's armor of
+proof.
+
+"Curse on thy Spanish steel-coat!" said Locksley; "had English smith
+forged it, these arrows had gone through it as if it had been silk." He
+then began to call out: "Comrades! friends! noble Cedric! bear back and
+let the ruin fall."
+
+His warning voice was unheard, for the din which the Black Knight
+himself occasioned by his strokes upon the postern would have drowned
+twenty war-trumpets. The faithful Gurth indeed sprang forward on the
+planked bridge to warn Cedric of his impending fate, or to share it with
+him. But his warning would have come too late; the massive pinnacle
+already tottered, and De Bracy, who still heaved at his task, would have
+accomplished it, had not the voice of the Templar sounded close in his
+ear.
+
+"All is lost, De Bracy; the castle burns."
+
+"Thou art mad to say so," replied the knight.
+
+"It is all in a light flame on the western side," returned
+Bois-Guilbert. "I have striven in vain to extinguish it."
+
+"What is to be done?" cried De Bracy. "I vow to Saint Nicholas of
+Limoges a candlestick of pure gold--"
+
+"Spare thy vow," said the Templar, "and mark me. Lead thy men down, as
+if to a sally; throw the postern-gate open. There are but two men who
+occupy the float; fling them into the moat and push across to the
+barbican. I will charge from the main gate and attack the barbican on
+the outside. If we can regain that post, we shall defend ourselves until
+we are relieved or, at least, until they grant us fair quarter."
+
+"It is well thought upon," replied De Bracy; "I will play my part."
+
+De Bracy hastily drew his men together and rushed down to the
+postern-gate, which he caused instantly to be thrown open. Scarce was
+this done ere the portentous strength of the Black Knight forced his
+way inward in despite of De Bracy and his followers. Two of the foremost
+instantly fell, and the rest gave way, notwithstanding all their
+leader's efforts to stop them.
+
+"Dogs!" cried De Bracy; "will ye let two men win our only pass for
+safety?"
+
+"He is the devil!" replied a veteran man-at-arms, bearing back from the
+blows of their sable antagonist.
+
+"And if he be the devil," said De Bracy, "would you fly from him into
+the mouth of hell? The castle burns behind us, villains! Let despair
+give you courage, or let me forward. I will cope with this champion
+myself."
+
+And well and chivalrously did De Bracy that day maintain the fame he had
+acquired in the civil wars of that dreadful period. The vaulted passages
+in which the two redoubted champions were now fighting hand to hand rang
+with the furious blows they dealt each other, De Bracy with his sword,
+the Black Knight with his ponderous ax. At length the Norman received a
+blow, which, though its force was partly parried by his shield,
+descended yet with such violence on his crest that he measured his
+length on the paved floor.
+
+"Yield thee, De Bracy," said the Black Knight, stooping over him and
+holding against the bars of his helmet the fatal poniard with which
+knights despatched their enemies; "yield thee, Maurice de Bracy, rescue
+or no rescue, or thou art but a dead man. Speak!"
+
+The gallant Norman, seeing the hopelessness of further resistance,
+yielded, and was allowed to rise.
+
+"Let me tell thee what it imports thee to know," he said. "Wilfred of
+Ivanhoe is wounded and a prisoner, and will perish in the burning castle
+without present help."
+
+"Wilfred of Ivanhoe!" exclaimed the Black Knight. "The life of every man
+in the castle shall answer if a hair of his head be singed. Show me his
+chamber!"
+
+"Ascend yonder stair," directed De Bracy. "It leads to his apartment."
+
+The turret was now in bright flames, which flashed out furiously from
+window and shot-hole. But, in other parts, the great thickness of the
+walls and the vaulted roofs of the apartments resisted the progress of
+the fire, and there the rage of man still triumphed; for the besiegers
+pursued the defenders of the castle from chamber to chamber. Most of the
+garrison resisted to the uttermost; few of them asked quarter--none
+received it. The air was filled with groans and the clashing of arms.
+
+Through this scene of confusion the Black Knight rushed in quest of
+Ivanhoe, whom he found in Rebecca's charge. The knight, picking up the
+wounded man as if he were a child, bore him quickly to safety. In the
+meantime, Cedric had gone in search of Rowena, followed by the faithful
+Gurth. The noble Saxon was so fortunate as to reach his ward's
+apartment just as she had abandoned all hope of safety and sat in
+expectation of instant death. He committed her to the charge of Gurth,
+to be carried without the castle. The loyal Cedric then hastened in
+quest of his friend Athelstane, determined at every risk to himself to
+save the prince. But ere Cedric penetrated as far as the old hall in
+which he himself had been a prisoner, the inventive genius of Wamba had
+procured liberation for himself and his companion.
+
+When the noise of the conflict announced that it was at the hottest, the
+jester began to shout with the utmost power of his lungs, "Saint George
+and the Dragon! Bonny Saint George for merry England! The castle is
+won!" These sounds he rendered yet more fearful by banging against each
+other two or three pieces of rusty armor which lay scattered around the
+hall.
+
+The guards at once ran to tell the Templar that foemen had entered the
+old hall. Meantime the prisoners found no difficulty in making their
+escape into the court of the castle, which was now the last scene of the
+contest. Here sat the fierce Templar, mounted on horseback and
+surrounded by several of the garrison, who had united their strength in
+order to secure the last chance of safety and retreat which remained to
+them. The principal, and now the single remaining drawbridge, had been
+lowered by his orders, but the passage was beset; for the archers, who
+had hitherto only annoyed the castle on that side by their missiles, no
+sooner saw the flames breaking out and the bridge lowered than they
+thronged to the entrance. On the other hand, a party of the besiegers
+who had entered by the postern on the opposite side were now issuing
+into the court-yard and attacking with fury the remnant of the defenders
+in the rear.
+
+Animated, however, by despair and the example of their gallant leader,
+the remaining soldiers of the castle fought with the utmost valor; and,
+being well armed, they succeeded in driving back the assailants.
+
+Crying aloud, "Those who would save themselves, follow me!"
+Bois-Guilbert pushed across the drawbridge, dispersing the archers who
+would have stopped them. He was followed by the Saracen slaves and some
+five or six men-at-arms, who had mounted their horses. The Templar's
+retreat was rendered perilous by the number of arrows shot at him and
+his party; but this did not prevent him from galloping round to the
+barbican, where he expected to find De Bracy.
+
+"De Bracy!" he shouted, "art thou there?"
+
+"I am here," answered De Bracy, "but a prisoner."
+
+"Can I rescue thee?" cried Bois-Guilbert.
+
+"No," said the other. "I have rendered myself."
+
+Upon hearing this, the Templar galloped off with his followers, leaving
+the besiegers in complete possession of the castle.
+
+Fortunately, by this time all the prisoners had been rescued and stood
+together without the castle, while the yeomen ran through the apartments
+seeking to save from the devouring flames such valuables as might be
+found. They were soon driven out by the fiery element. The towering
+flames surmounted every obstruction and rose to the evening skies one
+huge and burning beacon, seen far and wide through the adjacent country.
+Tower after tower crashed down, with blazing roof and rafter.
+
+The victors, assembling in large bands, gazed with wonder not unmixed
+with fear upon the flames, in which their own ranks and arms glanced
+dusky red. The voice of Locksley was at length heard, "Shout, yeomen!
+the den of tyrants is no more! Let each bring his spoil to the tree in
+Hart-hill Walk, for there we will make just partition among ourselves,
+together with our worthy allies in this great deed of vengeance."
+
+SIR WALTER SCOTT.
+
+
+=HELPS TO STUDY=
+
+     I. Tell what you find out about Cedric and his son, Ivanhoe, or the
+     "Disinherited Knight." What impression do you get of Cedric's
+     character? of Athelstane's? What was the first adventure the
+     travelers had? Who was "the sick friend" the Jews were assisting?
+     What further adventure befell the travelers? How did Gurth show his
+     true character? Who came to the aid of Gurth and Wamba? What did
+     Wamba mean by "whether they be thy children's coats or no"? What
+     impression do you get of the stranger? Describe the scene in the
+     hermit's abode. What impression do you get of him? Of the Black
+     Knight?
+
+     II. Who had made Cedric's party prisoners? Why? Tell what Cedric
+     said when he discovered who his captors were. What disposition was
+     made of the prisoners? Describe the scene in Isaac's cell. How was
+     Front-de-Boeuf interrupted?
+
+     III. What challenge did the knights receive? How did they answer
+     it?
+
+     IV. Who came in the character of a priest? What plan did he carry
+     out? How? How did Cedric act his part? Describe the scene when the
+     escape was discovered. How was Front-de-Boeuf prevented from doing
+     Wamba harm?
+
+     V. How did Ivanhoe fall to the care of Rebecca? Where did Rebecca
+     take her station? Describe the scenes she saw. What knight led the
+     assault? How did Rebecca describe him? Can you guess who the Black
+     Knight was? Whom did Ivanhoe think of when he said, "Methought
+     there was but one man in England that might do such a deed"?
+
+     VI. What plan did the Black Knight make? How was it executed? Which
+     of the assailants proved themselves especial heroes? What was De
+     Bracy's plan? How was its accomplishment prevented? What plan for
+     escape did the Templar have? How did it end? Tell how Ivanhoe,
+     Rowena, Athelstane and Wamba were liberated. Tell what became of
+     the knights. Who do you think Locksley was?
+
+     All of the party were rescued except Rebecca, who was carried off
+     by Bois-Guilbert and accused of witchcraft. You will have to read
+     the novel, _Ivanhoe_, to learn of the further adventures of her,
+     Rowena, the Black Knight, and Ivanhoe.
+
+
+SUPPLEMENTARY READING
+
+     The Talisman--Sir Walter Scott.
+     The White Company--A. Conan Doyle.
+     When Knighthood Was in Flower--Charles Major.
+     The Last of the Barons--Edward Bulwer-Lytton.
+     Don Quixote--Miguel de Cervantes.
+     The Idylls of the King--Alfred Tennyson.
+     Scottish Chiefs--Jane Porter.
+
+
+
+
+SEA FEVER
+
+
+    I must go down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky,
+    And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by;
+    And the wheel's kick and the wind's song and the white sail's shaking,
+    And a gray mist on the sea's face, and a gray dawn breaking.
+
+    I must go down to the seas again, for the call of the running tide
+    Is a wild call and a clear call that may not be denied;
+    And all I ask is a windy day with the white clouds flying,
+    And the flung spray and the blown [v]spume, and the sea-gulls crying.
+
+    I must go down to the seas again, to the vagrant gypsy life,
+    To the gull's way and the whale's way where the wind's like a whetted
+        knife;
+    And all I ask is a merry yarn from a laughing fellow-rover,
+    And quiet sleep and a sweet dream when the long trick's over.
+
+    JOHN MASEFIELD.
+
+
+
+
+A GREYPORT LEGEND
+
+
+    They ran through the streets of the seaport town;
+      They peered from the decks of the ships that lay:
+    The cold sea-fog that comes whitening down
+      Was never as cold or white as they.
+        "Ho, Starbuck, and Pinckney, and Tenterden,
+        Run for your shallops, gather your men,
+      Scatter your boats on the lower bay!"
+
+    Good cause for fear! In the thick midday
+      The hulk that lay by the rotting pier,
+    Filled with the children in happy play,
+      Parted its moorings and drifted clear;
+        Drifted clear beyond reach or call,--
+        Thirteen children they were in all,--
+    All adrift in the lower bay!
+
+    Said a hard-faced skipper, "God help us all!
+      She will not float till the turning tide!"
+    Said his wife, "My darling will hear _my_ call,
+      Whether in sea or heaven she abide!"
+        And she lifted a quavering voice and high,
+        Wild and strange as a sea-bird's cry,
+      Till they shuddered and wondered at her side.
+
+    The fog drove down on each laboring crew,
+      Veiled each from each and the sky and shore;
+    There was not a sound but the breath they drew,
+      And the lap of water and creak of oar.
+        And they felt the breath of the downs fresh blown
+        O'er leagues of clover and cold gray stone,
+      But not from the lips that had gone before.
+
+    They came no more. But they tell the tale
+      That, when fogs are thick on the harbor reef,
+    The mackerel-fishers shorten sail;
+      For the signal they know will bring relief,
+        For the voices of children, still at play
+        In a phantom-hulk that drifts alway
+      Through channels whose waters never fail.
+
+    It is but a foolish shipman's tale,
+      A theme for a poet's idle page;
+    But still, when the mists of doubt prevail,
+      And we lie becalmed by the shores of age,
+        We hear from the misty troubled shore
+        The voice of the children gone before,
+      Drawing the soul to its anchorage!
+
+    BRET HARTE.
+
+
+=HELPS TO STUDY=
+
+     Read the poem and tell the story found in it. Why was every one so
+     "cold and white"? What was the great danger? What happened to
+     prevent the sailors' getting to the hulk? What is the tale that is
+     told? What is the thought the poet leaves with us in the last
+     stanza?
+
+
+
+
+A HUNT BENEATH THE OCEAN
+
+
+     This story is taken from _Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea_,
+     the book that foreshadowed the modern submarine. Monsieur Aronnax,
+     a scientist, with two companions, Ned Land and Conseil, was rescued
+     at sea by a strange craft, the _Nautilus_, owned and commanded by
+     one Captain Nemo, who hated mankind and never went ashore on
+     inhabited land. Monsieur Aronnax remained on the submarine for
+     months in a kind of captivity and met with many wonderful
+     adventures. It should be noted that modern inventions have already
+     outstripped many of the author's imaginings.
+
+On returning to my room with Ned and Conseil, I found upon my table a
+note addressed to me. I opened it impatiently. It was written in a bold
+clear hand, and ran as follows:
+
+"November 16, 1867.
+
+To Professor Aronnax, on board the _Nautilus_:
+
+Captain Nemo invites Professor Aronnax to a hunting party, which will
+take place to-morrow morning in the forest of the island of Crespo. He
+hopes that nothing will prevent the professor from being present, and he
+will with pleasure see him joined by his companions."
+
+"A hunt!" exclaimed Ned.
+
+"And in the forests of the island of Crespo!" added Conseil.
+
+"Oh, then the gentleman is going on [v]_terra firma_?" asked Ned Land.
+
+"That seems to be clearly indicated," said I, reading the letter once
+more.
+
+"Well, we must accept," said Ned. "Once more on dry land, we shall know
+what to do. Indeed, I shall not be sorry to eat a piece of fresh
+venison."
+
+I contented myself with replying, "Let us see where the island of Crespo
+is."
+
+I consulted the [v]planisphere and in 32 deg. 40' north latitude, and 157 deg.
+50' west [v]longitude, I found a small island recognized in 1801 by
+Captain Crespo, and marked in the ancient Spanish maps as Rocca de la
+Platta, or Silver Rock.
+
+I showed this little rock lost in the midst of the North Pacific to my
+companions.
+
+"If Captain Nemo does sometimes go on dry ground," said I, "he at least
+chooses desert islands."
+
+Ned Land shrugged his shoulders without speaking, and Conseil and he
+left me. After supper, which was served by the steward, mute and
+impassive, I went to bed, not without some anxiety.
+
+The next morning, the 7th of November, I felt on awakening that the
+_Nautilus_ was perfectly still. I dressed quickly and entered the
+saloon. Captain Nemo was there, waiting for me. He rose, bowed, and
+asked me if it was convenient for me to accompany him. I simply replied
+that my companions and myself were ready to follow him.
+
+We entered the room where breakfast was served.
+
+"M. Aronnax," said the captain, "pray share my breakfast without
+ceremony; we will chat as we eat. Though I promised you a walk in the
+forest, I did not undertake to find hotels there; so breakfast as a man
+should who will most likely not have his dinner till very late."
+
+I did honor to the repast. It was composed of several kinds of fish, and
+different sorts of seaweed. Our drink consisted of pure water, to which
+the captain added some drops of a fermented liquor extracted from a
+seaweed. Captain Nemo ate at first without saying a word. Then he began:
+
+"Professor, when I proposed to you to hunt in my submarine forest of
+Crespo, you evidently thought me mad. Sir, you should never judge
+lightly of any man."
+
+"But, captain, believe me--"
+
+"Be kind enough to listen, and you will then see whether you have any
+cause to accuse me of folly and contradiction."
+
+"I listen."
+
+"You know as well as I do, professor, that man can live under water,
+providing he carries with him a sufficient supply of breathable air. In
+submarine works, the workman, clad in an [v]impervious dress, with his
+head in a metal helmet, receives air from above by means of
+forcing-pumps and [v]regulators."
+
+"That is a diving apparatus," said I.
+
+"Just so. But under these conditions the man is not at liberty; he is
+attached to the pump which sends him air through a rubber tube, and if
+we were obliged to be thus held to the _Nautilus_, we could not go far."
+
+"And the means of getting free?" I asked.
+
+"It is to use the Rouquayrol apparatus, invented by two of your own
+countrymen, which I have brought to perfection for my own use and which
+will allow you to risk yourself without any organ of the body suffering.
+It consists of a reservoir of thick iron plates, in which I store the
+air under a pressure of fifty [v]atmospheres. This reservoir is fixed on
+the back by means of braces, like a soldier's knapsack. Its upper part
+forms a box in which the air is kept by means of a bellows, and
+therefore cannot escape unless at its [v]normal tension. In the
+Rouquayrol apparatus such as we use, two rubber pipes leave this box and
+join a sort of tent which holds the nose and mouth; one is to introduce
+fresh air, the other to let out foul, and the tongues close one or the
+other pipe according to the wants of the [v]respirator. But I, in
+encountering great pressures at the bottom of the sea, was obliged to
+shut my head like that of a diver in a ball of copper; and it is into
+this ball of copper that the two pipes, the inspirator and the
+expirator, open. Do you see?"
+
+"Perfectly, Captain Nemo. But the air that you carry with you must soon
+be used; when it contains only fifteen per cent of oxygen it is no
+longer fit to breathe."
+
+"Right! But I told you, M. Aronnax, that the pumps of the _Nautilus_
+allow me to store the air under considerable pressure; and the reservoir
+of the apparatus can furnish breathable air for nine or ten hours."
+
+"I have no further objections to make," I answered. "I will only ask one
+thing, captain--how can you light your road at the bottom of the sea?"
+
+"With the Ruhmkorff apparatus, M. Aronnax. One is carried on the back,
+the other is fastened to the waist. It is composed of a [v]bunsen pile,
+which I do not work with bichromate of potash but with sodium. A wire is
+introduced which collects the electricity produced, and directs it
+toward a lantern. In this lantern is a spiral glass which contains a
+small quantity of carbonic acid gas. When the apparatus is at work, this
+gas becomes luminous, giving out a white and continuous light. Thus
+provided, I can breathe and I can see."
+
+"Captain Nemo, to all my objections you make such crushing answers that
+I dare no longer doubt. But if I am forced to admit the Rouquayrol and
+Ruhmkorff apparatus, I must be allowed some reservations with regard to
+the gun I am to carry."
+
+"But it is not a gun for powder," he said.
+
+"Then it is an air-gun?" I asked.
+
+"Doubtless. How would you have me manufacture gunpowder on board,
+without saltpeter, sulphur, or charcoal?"
+
+"Besides," I added, "to fire under water in a medium eight hundred and
+fifty times denser than the air, we must conquer a very considerable
+resistance."
+
+"That would be no difficulty. There exist guns which can fire under
+these conditions. But I repeat, having no powder, I use air under great
+pressure, which the pumps of the _Nautilus_ furnish abundantly."
+
+"But this air must be rapidly used?"
+
+"Well, have I not my Rouquayrol reservoir, which can furnish it at need?
+A tap is all that is required. Besides, M. Aronnax, you must see
+yourself that during our submarine hunt we can spend but little air."
+
+"But it seems to me that in this twilight, and in the midst of this
+fluid, which is very dense compared with the atmosphere, shots could not
+go far or easily prove fatal."
+
+"On the contrary," replied Nemo, "with this gun every blow is mortal;
+however lightly the animal is touched, it falls dead as if struck by a
+thunderbolt."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Because the balls sent by this gun are not ordinary balls, but little
+cases of glass, of which I have a large supply. These glass cases are
+covered with a shell of steel and weighted with a pellet of lead; they
+are real [v]Leyden jars, into which electricity is forced to a very high
+tension. With the slightest shock they are discharged, and the animal,
+however strong it may be, falls dead."
+
+Captain Nemo then led me aft; and in passing before Ned and Conseil's
+cabin, I called my two companions, who followed immediately. Conseil was
+delighted at the idea of exploring the sea, but Ned declined to go when
+he learned that the hunt was to be a submarine one. We came to a kind of
+cell near the machinery-room, in which we were to put on our
+walking-dress. It was, in fact, the arsenal and wardrobe of the
+_Nautilus_. A dozen diving-suits hung from the partition, awaiting our
+use.
+
+At the captain's call two of the ship's crew came to help us dress in
+these heavy and impervious clothes, made of rubber without seam and
+constructed expressly to resist considerable pressure. One might have
+taken this diving apparatus for a suit of armor, both supple and
+resisting. It formed trousers and waistcoat; the trousers were finished
+off with thick boots, weighted with heavy leaden soles. The texture of
+the waistcoat was held together by bands of copper, which crossed the
+chest, protecting it from the great pressure of the water and leaving
+the lungs free to act. The sleeves ended in gloves, which in no way
+restrained the movement of the hands. There was a vast difference
+noticeable between this dress and the old-fashioned diving-suit.
+
+Captain Nemo and one of his companions, Conseil and myself, were soon
+enveloped in the dresses; there remained nothing more to be done but
+inclose our heads in the metal boxes. Captain Nemo thrust his head into
+the helmet, Conseil and I did the same. The upper part of our dress
+terminated in a copper collar, upon which was screwed the metal helmet.
+Three holes, protected by thick glass, allowed us to see in all
+directions by simply turning our heads in the interior of the
+head-dress. As soon as it was in position, the Rouquayrol apparatus on
+our backs began to act; and, for my part, I could breathe with ease.
+
+With the Ruhmkorff lamp hanging from my belt, and the gun in my hand, I
+was ready to set out. But to speak the truth, imprisoned in these heavy
+garments and glued to the deck by the leaden soles, it was impossible
+for me to take a step. This state of things, however, was provided for.
+I felt myself being pushed into a little room next the wardrobe-room. My
+companions followed, towed along in the same way. I heard a water-tight
+door, furnished with stopper-plates, close upon us, and we were wrapped
+in profound darkness.
+
+After some minutes, a loud hissing was heard; I felt the cold mount from
+my feet to my chest. Evidently from some part of the vessel they had, by
+means of a tap, given entrance to the water, which was invading us and
+with which the room was soon filled. A second door cut in the side of
+the _Nautilus_ then opened. We saw a faint light. In another instant our
+feet trod the bottom of the sea.
+
+How can I retrace the impression left upon me by that walk under the
+waters? Words are impotent to relate such wonders. Captain Nemo walked
+in front, his companion followed some steps behind. Conseil and I
+remained near each other, as if an exchange of words had been possible
+through our metallic cases. I no longer felt the weight of my clothing,
+or of my shoes, of my reservoir of air, or my thick helmet, in the midst
+of which my head rattled like an almond in its shell.
+
+The light which lit the soil thirty feet below the surface of the ocean
+astonished me by its power. The solar rays shone through the watery mass
+easily and dissipated all color, and I clearly distinguished objects at
+a distance of a hundred and fifty yards. Beyond that the tints darkened
+into fine gradations of [v]ultramarine and faded into vague obscurity.
+We were walking on fine, even sand, not wrinkled as on a flat shore,
+which retains the impression of the billows. This dazzling carpet,
+really a reflector, repelled the rays of the sun with wonderful
+intensity, which accounted for the vibration which penetrated every atom
+of liquid. Shall I be believed when I say that, at a depth of thirty
+feet, I could see as well as if I was in broad daylight?
+
+For a quarter of an hour I trod on this sand; the hull of the
+_Nautilus_, resembling a long shoal, disappeared by degrees; but its
+lantern would help to guide us back when darkness should overtake us in
+the waters. Soon forms of objects outlined in the distance became
+discernible. I recognized magnificent rocks, hung with a tapestry of
+[v]zoophytes of the most beautiful kind.
+
+It was then about ten o'clock in the morning, and the rays of the sun
+struck the surface of the waves at rather an oblique angle; at the touch
+of the light, decomposed by [v]refraction as through a prism, flowers,
+rocks, plants, and shells were shaded at the edges by the seven solar
+colors. It was a marvelous feast for the eyes, this complication of
+colored tints, a perfect [v]kaleidoscope of green, yellow, orange,
+violet, indigo, and blue!
+
+All these wonders I saw in the space of a quarter of a mile, scarcely
+stopping and following Captain Nemo, who beckoned me on by signs. Soon
+the nature of the soil changed; to the sandy plain succeeded an extent
+of slimy mud; we then traveled over a plain of seaweed of wild and
+luxuriant vegetation. This sward was of close texture and soft to the
+feet, rivaling the softest carpet woven by the hand of man. While
+verdure was spread at our feet, it did not abandon our heads. A light
+network of marine plants grew on the surface of the water.
+
+We had been gone from the _Nautilus_ an hour and a half. It was near
+noon; I knew this by the [v]perpendicularity of the sun's rays, which
+were no longer refracted. The magical colors disappeared by degrees and
+the shades of emerald and sapphire were effaced. We walked with a
+regular step, which rang upon the ground with astonishing intensity;
+indeed the slightest noise was transmitted with a quickness and
+vividness to which the ear is unaccustomed on earth, water being a
+better conductor of sound than air in the [v]ratio of four to one. At
+this period the earth sloped downward; the light took a uniform tint. We
+were at a depth of a hundred and five yards.
+
+At this depth I could still see the rays of the sun, though feebly; to
+their intense brilliancy had succeeded a reddish twilight, but we could
+find our way well enough. It was not necessary to resort to the
+Ruhmkorff apparatus as yet. At this moment Captain Nemo stopped and
+waited till I joined him, pointing then to an obscure mass which loomed
+in the shadow at a short distance.
+
+"It is the forest of the island of Crespo," thought I, and I was not
+mistaken.
+
+This under-sea forest was composed of large tree-plants; and the moment
+we penetrated under its vast [v]arcades I was struck by the singular
+position of their branches: not an herb which carpeted the ground, not a
+branch which clothed the trees was either broken or bent, nor did they
+extend in a [v]horizontal direction; all stretched up toward the surface
+of the sea. Not a filament, not a ribbon, however thin, but kept as
+straight as a rod of iron. They were motionless, yet when bent to one
+side by the hand they directly resumed their former position. Truly it
+was a region of perpendicularity.
+
+I soon accustomed myself to this fantastic position, as well as to the
+comparative darkness which surrounded us. The sights were very
+wonderful. Under numerous shrubs as large as trees on land were massed
+bushes of living flowers--animals rather than plants--of various colors
+and glowing softly in the obscurity of the ocean depth. Fish flies flew
+from branch to branch like a swarm of humming-birds, while swarms of
+marine creatures rose at our feet like a flight of snipes.
+
+In about an hour Captain Nemo gave the signal to halt. I, for my part,
+was not sorry, and we stretched ourselves under an arbor of plants, the
+long thin blades of which stood up like arrows. I felt an irresistible
+desire to sleep, an experience which happens to all divers. My eyes soon
+closed behind the thick glasses and I fell into a heavy slumber. Captain
+Nemo and his companion, stretched in the clear crystal, set me the
+example.
+
+How long I remained buried in this drowsiness I cannot judge; but when I
+woke, the sun seemed sinking toward the horizon. Captain Nemo had
+already risen, and I was beginning to stretch my limbs when an
+unexpected sight brought me briskly to my feet.
+
+A few steps off, a monster sea-spider, about forty inches high, was
+watching me with squinting eyes, ready to spring on me. Though my
+diver's dress was thick enough to defend me from the bite of this
+animal, I could not help shuddering with horror. Conseil and the sailor
+of the _Nautilus_ awoke at this moment. Captain Nemo pointed out the
+hideous creature, which a blow from the butt end of a gun knocked over;
+I saw the claws of the monster writhe in horrible convulsions. This
+incident reminded me that other animals more to be feared might haunt
+these obscure depths, against whose attacks my diving-clothes would not
+protect me.
+
+Indeed, I thought that this halt would mark the end of our walk; but I
+was mistaken, for instead of returning to the _Nautilus_, we continued
+our bold excursion. The ground was still on the incline; its declivity
+seemed to be getting greater and to be leading us to lower depths. It
+must have been about three o'clock when we reached a narrow valley
+between high walls; thanks to the perfection of our apparatus, we were
+far below the depth to which divers ever penetrate.
+
+At our great depth the darkness thickened; ten paces away not an object
+was visible. I was groping my way when I suddenly saw a brilliant white
+light flash out ahead; Captain Nemo had turned on his electric torch.
+The rest of us soon followed his example, and the sea, lit by our four
+lanterns, was illuminated for a circle of forty yards.
+
+Captain Nemo still plunged onward into the dark reaches of the forest,
+whose trees were getting scarcer at every step. At last, after about
+four hours, this marvelous excursion came to an end. A wall of superb
+rocks rose before us, a heap of gigantic blocks, an enormous granite
+shore. It was the prop of the island of Crespo. It was the earth!
+
+The return now began. Captain Nemo resumed his place at the head of his
+little band and directed the course without hesitation. I thought we
+were not following the road we had come, on our return to the
+_Nautilus_. The new way was very steep and consequently very painful; we
+approached the surface of the sea rapidly, but this ascent was not so
+sudden as to cause a too rapid relief from the pressure of the water,
+which would have been dangerous. Very soon light reappeared and grew,
+and as the sun was low on the horizon, the refraction edged all objects
+with a [v]spectral ring. At ten yards deep, we walked amid a shoal of
+little fishes, more numerous than the birds of the air; but no
+[v]aquatic game worthy of a shot had as yet met our gaze. Suddenly I saw
+the captain put his gun to his shoulder and follow a moving object into
+the shrubs. He fired; I heard a slight hissing and the creature fell
+stunned at some distance from us.
+
+It was a magnificent sea-otter, five feet long and very valuable. Its
+skin, chestnut-brown above and silvery underneath, would have made one
+of those beautiful furs so sought after in the Russian and Chinese
+markets. I admired the curious animal, with its rounded head ornamented
+with short ears, its round eyes, and white whiskers like those of a cat,
+and its webbed feet and nails and tufted tail. This precious beast,
+hunted and tracked by fishermen, has now become very rare and has sought
+refuge in the northern parts of the Pacific.
+
+Captain Nemo's companion threw the sea-otter over his shoulder, and we
+continued our journey. For an hour a plain of sand lay stretched before
+us, which sometimes rose to within two yards of the surface of the
+water. I then saw our image clearly reflected, drawn inversely, and
+above us appeared an identical group reflecting our movements: in a
+word, the image was like us in every point, except that the figures
+walked with their heads downward and their feet in the air.
+
+For two hours we followed these sandy plains, then fields of [v]algae
+very disagreeable to cross. Candidly, I felt that I could do no more
+when I saw a glimmer of light, which for a half-mile broke the darkness
+of the waters. It was the lantern of the _Nautilus_. Before twenty
+minutes were over we should be on board, and I should be able to breathe
+with ease, for it seemed that my reservoir supplied air very deficient
+in oxygen. But I did not reckon on an accidental meeting which delayed
+our arrival for some time.
+
+I had remained some steps behind, when presently I saw Captain Nemo come
+hurriedly toward me. With his strong hand he bent me to the ground,
+while his companion did the same to Conseil. At first I knew not what to
+think of this sudden attack, but I was soon reassured by seeing the
+captain lie down beside me and remain immovable.
+
+I was stretched on the ground, just under shelter of a bush of algae,
+when, raising my head, I saw some enormous mass, casting phosphorescent
+gleams, pass blusteringly by. My blood froze in my veins as I recognized
+two formidable sharks. They were man-eaters, terrible creatures with
+enormous tails and a dull glassy stare--monstrous brutes which could
+crush a whole man in their iron jaws! I noticed their silver undersides
+and their huge mouths bristling with teeth, from a very unscientific
+point of view and more as a possible victim than as a naturalist.
+
+Happily the [v]voracious creatures do not see well. They passed without
+noticing us, brushing us with their brownish fins, and we escaped by a
+miracle from a danger certainly greater than that of meeting a tiger
+full-face in a forest. Half an hour later, guided by the electric light,
+we reached the _Nautilus_. The outside door had been left open, and
+Captain Nemo closed it as soon as we entered the first cell. He then
+pressed a knob. I heard the pumps working in the midst of the vessel. I
+felt the water sinking from around me, and in a few minutes the cell
+was entirely empty. The inside door then opened, and we entered the
+vestry.
+
+Our diving-dress was taken off, not without some trouble; and fairly
+worn out from want of food and sleep, I returned to my room in great
+wonder at this surprising excursion at the bottom of the sea.
+
+JULES VERNE.
+
+
+=HELPS TO STUDY=
+
+     What was the hunt to which the adventurers were invited? Describe
+     the preparations for it. What kind of gun did the hunters carry?
+     Describe the descent to the bottom of the sea and the walk. What
+     impressed you most? Would you care to take a nap at the bottom of
+     the sea? What were the main incidents in the return trip? Find out
+     all you can about divers and about life on the floor of the ocean.
+
+
+SUPPLEMENTARY READING
+
+     The Mysterious Island--Jules Verne.
+     Thirty Strange Stories--H. G. Wells.
+     The Great Stone of Sardis--Frank R. Stockton.
+
+
+
+
+    Roll on, thou deep and dark blue ocean--roll!
+      Ten thousand fleets sweep over thee in vain;
+    Man marks the earth with ruin--his control
+      Stops with the shore; upon the watery plain
+      The wrecks are all thy deed, nor doth remain
+          A shadow of man's ravage.
+
+    LORD BYRON.
+
+
+
+
+UNDER SEAS
+
+
+     This story is a realistic description of a submarine cruise in the
+     recent war. The _Kate_ was a Russian underwater boat operating
+     against the German fleet in the Baltic Sea. Her experiences in this
+     terrible mode of fighting were the same as those of hundreds of
+     submarines belonging to the various warring powers. It may be
+     observed from the description how marvelous has been the advance of
+     science in the last generation. What Jules Verne imagined in his
+     book, _Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea_, the _Kate_
+     accomplished. This story of actual war is not less wonderful than
+     the vision of the romancer.
+
+Men were placed at the water-pumps, the oxygen containers, air-purifiers
+and [v]distilling machinery, and the [v]hatchways were thoroughly
+examined; the gunners took their posts at the torpedo tubes. The order
+had been given to move about as little as possible, to keep in the
+berths when not on duty, and not to talk and laugh. Then the watchman
+left the [v]conning tower, and the main hatchway was [v]hermetically
+closed.
+
+Captain Andrey gave the order to submerge and went over to the
+navigating compartment. Water rushed into the [v]ballast tanks, the boat
+grew heavy, and its rolling and pitching ceased: the _Kate_ sank and ran
+ahead under water, steering by means of the [v]periscope. Andrey pushed
+a button and a cone of pale blue rays poured from the tube. The
+[v]screen of the periscope grew alive with tiny waves, passing clouds,
+and a tail of smoke on the skyline. With his chin resting on his arm,
+Andrey scanned the image of the sea which lay before him. Presently the
+smoke vanished, and on the right hand appeared the hazy outline of land.
+
+At nightfall, the boat, taking advantage of the darkness, rose to the
+surface of the sea and sailed without lights. Andrey stood on the bridge
+throughout the night. The water was placid, the stars were screened by a
+light mist, and far away to the south the pale blue gleam of an enemy
+searchlight moved through the clouds.
+
+The boat was now approaching a mine field. At dawn, when the
+greenish-orange light began slowly to pervade the fleecy clouds, the
+_Kate_ sank to a great depth at a definitely fixed point in the sea.
+Steering solely by compass and map, she commenced to pick her way under
+the mines. Yakovlev was in charge of the steering apparatus, while
+Prince Bylopolsky calculated the [v]side drift and reported to the chief
+engineer in charge of the motors. Andrey, leaning over the map, gave
+orders to the man at the wheel.
+
+There was no sensation of movement, and it seemed as if the _Kate_ stood
+still amidst the eery darkness. The men for the most part were stretched
+on their backs, seeking to consume as little oxygen as possible. In
+spite of this precaution, however, the air was thick, and the sailors
+felt a tingling sensation in the ears.
+
+Suddenly the boat's keel struck against something hard, and a grating
+sound broke the stillness.
+
+"Stop! Stop!" called out Andrey, dashing forth from the navigating
+cabin.
+
+The pinions cracked and the motors ceased to pulsate. Immediately the
+air became hot, as in a Turkish bath. Andrey entered the water-tight
+conning tower, which was flooded with diluted, greenish light from the
+ports provided for the purpose of giving a view of the surrounding
+waters. He peered through the glass pane. Vague, blurred forms and
+shadows gradually became visible in the twilight of the deep. One of the
+shadows wavered and glided along the window, and the round, tragic eyes
+of a fish glanced at Andrey. The fish disappeared in the depths below
+the boat. Evidently the _Kate_ had not run aground, nor were there any
+submerged reefs in that quarter. Andrey gave an order to raise the boat
+several feet. Then numerous shadows leaped aside and scattered, and the
+captain plainly saw a jumbled heap of ropes and ladders. It was obvious
+that the _Kate_ had blundered into the remains of a sunken ship.
+
+The halt was unfortunate--indeed, might prove fatal. The uniform motion
+of the boat had been disturbed, the [v]orientation lost; the inevitable
+small error made at the point of submerging must have increased in the
+course beneath the waves. The _Kate_ had lost her way, and something
+must be done. Andrey drummed nervously on the window-pane as he
+thought. It was impossible to stay under water any longer, and yet to
+rise to the surface meant to be seen and attacked by enemy warships.
+Only in this way, however, was it possible to determine the boat's
+position.
+
+Andrey, giving an order for the boat to rise slowly, returned to his
+observation point. The water gradually grew clearer. Suddenly a dark
+ball moved down to meet the craft. "A mine!" flashed across Andrey's
+mind, and, overcoming the torpor which had begun to oppress his brain,
+he ordered the submarine to be swerved from her course. The ball moved
+away, but another appeared on the right. There was another change of
+direction. And now everywhere in the midst of the greenish twilight
+cast-iron shells lay in wait. The _Kate_ was in the toils of a mine net!
+
+Sea water, when viewed from a great height, is so transparent that large
+fishes can even be seen in it. Owing to this fact, the _Kate_ was
+discovered by two enemy [v]hydroplanes as she rose among the mines
+toward the surface of the bay. The aircraft were seen, however, and the
+boat dived again to a great depth.
+
+The _Kate_ now blindly groped her way forward. The motors worked at
+their top speed, and the body of the boat trembled. Hundreds of demons
+called horsepowers fiercely turned the various wheels, pinions, and
+shafts. The air was hot and stuffy; the men at the engine, stripped to
+the waist, worked feverishly. Speed was necessary, for only oxygen
+enough to sustain the crew for one hour remained in the lead cylinders.
+
+Yakovlev still sat at the compass, his elbows on his knees and his hands
+pressing his head. The men lounged in the cabins and corridors, their
+faces livid with suffocation. Prince Bylopolsky remained leaning over
+his [v]logarithmic tables, which had now become useless. From time to
+time he wiped his face, as if removing a net of invisible cobwebs.
+Finally he rose to his feet, took a few steps, and fainted dead away.
+
+Giving the order to proceed at full speed, Andrey hoped to pass the mine
+zone, even though some of his men succumbed for lack of air. Pale and
+excited, his hair in disorder, and his coat unbuttoned, he was
+everywhere at once, and his voice sustained the failing strength of the
+half-suffocated crew. Seeing the prince stretched unconscious on a
+berth, Andrey poured a few drops of brandy in his mouth and kissed his
+wet, childlike forehead. In making too rapid a movement, lurid flames
+danced before his eyes, and he bent back, striking his head against a
+sharp angle of an engine. He felt no pain from the blow.
+
+"Bad!" thought Andrey, and crawled over to the emergency oxygen
+container. He opened the faucet and inhaled the fragrant stream of gas.
+His head began to swim and a sweet fire ran through his veins. With an
+effort he rose to his feet. The outlines of the objects around him were
+strangely distinct, and the faces of the men imploringly turned to
+him--some of them bearded and high-cheekboned, others tender and
+childlike--seemed to him touchingly human....
+
+In the corridor Andrey came upon a man standing against the wall and
+gulping the air like a fish. Seeing the commander, he made an effort to
+cheer up and mumbled, "Beg pardon, sir; I'm a bit unwell." The captain
+leaned over and looked into his eyes, which a film of death was already
+beginning to veil. Andrey, turning to the telephone tube, gave a command
+to rise. The _Kate_ shook all over and dived upward. The ascent lasted
+four minutes and a half, at the end of which time the boat stood still
+and light fell on the screen of the periscope. The sailors crawled up to
+the main hatchway and unscrewed it. Cold salt air rushed into the boat,
+swelling the chests of the sufferers and turning their heads; the
+sensation of free breathing was delicious after the suffocation they had
+so long endured.
+
+Andrey, leaping on the bridge, found the evening sun suspended above
+vast masses of warm clouds and the sea quiet and peaceful. He began to
+take observations with the [v]sextant, which shook in his trembling
+hand. Presently a loud buzzing was heard in the sky, followed by the
+measured crackling of a machine gun; from the hull of the boat came a
+sharp rat-a-tat, as if some one was throwing dry peas on it. A
+hydroplane was circling above the _Kate_.
+
+Andrey bit his lip and kept on working; a squad of his men loaded their
+rifles. The hydroplane swooped down almost to the surface of the sea,
+then soared with a shrill "F-r-r-r" and flew right over the boat. A
+clean-shaven pilot sat motionless, his hands on the wheel; below him an
+observer gazed downward, waiting. Suddenly the latter lifted a bomb and
+threw it into a tube. The missile flashed in the air and plunged into
+the sea at the very side of the boat. One of the crew fired his rifle,
+and the observer threw up his leather-covered arms with outspread
+fingers. Slowly circling under the fire of the submarine crew, the
+aircraft rose toward the clouds and sailed off.
+
+Over the sky-ridge another aeroplane appeared, looking like a long thin
+line. Meantime the _Kate_ picked her way with graceful ease across the
+orange-colored waters as if cutting through molten glass. Andrey,
+buttoning his coat, said with a grimace, "Well, Yakovlev, the mines are
+behind us, but what are we going to do now?"
+
+"This region is full of reefs and sandbanks," replied Yakovlev.
+
+"That's just the trouble. I wouldn't risk sailing under the water. Wait
+a moment." He raised his hand.
+
+A violent whizzing sound came from the west; Andrey ordered greater
+speed. A [v]grenade hissed on the right, and a jet of water spurted up
+from the quiet surface. The _Kate_ tacked sharply toward the purpling
+horizon in the west, and behind, in her shadowy wake, another bomb burst
+and blossomed out into a small cloud. The boat then turned east again,
+but now in front of her, on both sides, everywhere, shells burst and
+sputtered fire. The scouting hydroplane dashed over the submarine like a
+bat; two pale faces looked down and disappeared. Then right above the
+stern of the _Kate_ a grenade exploded and one of the sailors dropped
+his rifle, clutched his face, toppled over the railing, and disappeared
+beneath the water.
+
+"All hands below!" cried Andrey; and, watching where the shells fell
+thickest, he began to give his orders. The _Kate_ circled like a
+run-down hare, while all along the darkening skyline the smoking stacks
+of mine-layers and destroyers were visible as the enemy's ruthless ring
+rapidly tightened about the submarine.
+
+Having had her wireless mast shot off by a shell, the _Kate_ now dashed
+toward the rocky shore, running awash. Six sparks shot up in the dark
+and six steel-clad demons hissed above the boat. The long shadow of a
+ship glided along the shore. The _Kate_ shook, and a sharp-nosed torpedo
+detached itself from her hull and glided away under the water to meet
+the [v]silhouette of the vessel. A moment passed, and a fluffy,
+mountainous mass of fire and water rose from the spot where the stacks
+of a mine-layer had projected shortly before. The mountain sank and the
+silhouette disappeared. The _Kate_ entered a baylet among the rocks,
+submerged, and lay on the sandy sea-bed.
+
+Two weeks the submarine remained in the inlet, completely cut off from
+the rest of the world. By day she hid in the deep, and only under the
+cover of night did she rise to the surface to get a supply of air. The
+greatest precautions were necessary, for there was little likelihood
+that the enemy believed the submarine to be destroyed.
+
+At the end of that time some action was inevitable, as the boat's
+supplies had given out; for three days the crew had fed on fish which
+one of the men had caught at great risk. Audrey decided to leave the bay
+and make a supreme effort to run the enemy's cordon.
+
+About daybreak, as the _Kate_ was nearing the surface of the sea, the
+crew became aware of a tremendous muffled cannonade; and when the boat
+emerged into a white fog, the whole coast shook and echoed with the roar
+and crash of a sea battle. Broadsides and terrific explosions alternated
+with the crackling of guns. It was as though a multitude of sea-devils
+coughed and blew and roared at each other.
+
+"Quick, sir," shouted Yakovlev, holding on to the railing; "we can break
+through now!" His teeth rattled.
+
+The preparations for the dash had been completed. A strong gale swept
+away the fog and drove its torn masses over the sea, laying bare the
+rocky shore. The _Kate_ dashed out of the bay into the open. The firing
+was now heard behind and on the right; the road to the port was open at
+last. The submarine rushed along, ripping in twain the frothing waves.
+
+In this moment of exaltation, to return safely to base, simply to do
+one's duty, seemed too little to these fearless men. The feeling that
+possessed them was not enthusiasm but a greediness, a yearning for
+destruction.
+
+"We cannot go away like this," Yakovlev shouted in Audrey's ear; "turn
+back or I will shoot myself!" The man was completely beside himself; his
+pale face twisted convulsively.
+
+Just then the sun arose, turning the rolling sea into a dull orange.
+Near at hand invisible ships thundered against each other. Suddenly a
+gray mountain-like shape emerged from the fog, enveloped in flame and
+smoke. Above its turrets, stacks, and masts fluttered a flag bearing a
+black eagle.
+
+Mad with the thought that the opportunity had come at last, Andrey
+rushed down the hatchway, knocking over Yakovlev on the way, and loaded
+the torpedo tube. The _Kate_ submerged a little, and sailing awash,
+headed straight for the enemy vessel.
+
+The shadow of the hostile ship glided along the periscope screen, every
+now and then wrapping itself into a cloud pierced with fiery needles of
+shots. The _Kate_ fired a torpedo but missed her aim. Leaning over the
+screen and biting his lips to bleeding, Andrey examined the tiny image
+of the vessel, one of the mightiest of battleships. The distance between
+the _Kate_ and the enemy vessel continued to decrease; the image of the
+ship already occupied half of the periscope screen.
+
+"Another torpedo!" shouted Andrey.
+
+At that very instant a blow was struck the boat and the periscope screen
+grew dark. Andrey ran out from the navigating compartment and shouted:
+
+"The periscope is shot away! Full speed forward!"
+
+The engineer seized the handle of a lever and asked, "Which way?"
+
+"Forward! forward!"
+
+Andrey went into the conning tower; straight in front of him foamy
+eddies whirled furiously. The dark hull of a ship appeared, obscuring
+the light.
+
+"Stop!" shouted Andrey. "Fire another one! Full speed backward!" He
+closed his eyes.
+
+For a moment it seemed to him that the end had come. He was hurled by
+the explosion of the torpedo into the corridor and dashed against the
+wall. The outcries of the men were drowned by the muffled thud of the
+inrushing water. The light went out; the _Kate_ began to rotate and
+sink.
+
+The boat did not stay long in the deep; freed from the weight of two
+torpedoes, she slowly began to rise, stopped before reaching the
+surface, and commenced to sink again as the water continued to leak into
+her hull.
+
+A sailor found Andrey in a narrow passage unconscious, though breathing
+regularly. The man dressed the captain's wounds, but could not bring him
+to his senses. Another sailor tried to revive Yakovlev, but soon saw
+that that officer was dead. All the available hands toiled at the pumps,
+while the engineer and his two assistants worked frantically at the
+engine.
+
+The _Kate_ was near the surface, but as the periscope and the indicator
+had been destroyed, it was impossible to tell precisely where she was.
+On the other hand, to unscrew the hatch and look out would subject the
+boat to the risk of being flooded. Finally, the engineer reported that
+it was necessary to replace the cylinder, but that this was difficult to
+do because the supply of candles was giving out. Kuritzyn, a sailor who
+had assumed command, ordered the men at the pumps to pump until they
+dropped dead, if necessary, but to raise the boat at least one yard. The
+men obeyed in grim silence. Presently the last candle went out. "It's
+all over, boys," said some one, and the pumps stopped. The only sound
+that now broke the silence was the monotonous splash of water leaking
+down on the periscope screen.
+
+"Follow me," said Kuritzyn hoarsely to two of the men. "Let us unscrew
+the hatches. What's the use of fooling any longer?"
+
+Feeling their way in the darkness, several men followed the leader into
+the corridor and up the spiral staircase in the main hatchway. When they
+reached the top, they grasped the bolts of the lid.
+
+"Here's our finish," said one of the men.
+
+Just then the sound of footsteps on the outside of the boat reached
+their ears. Some one was walking on the _Kate's_ hull!
+
+"Down to the ballast tanks!" Kuritzyn ordered. "When I fire, blow them
+out. We are ordered not to surrender the boat."
+
+With his revolver between his teeth, he pressed the bolt. The lid
+yielded; light and air rushed into the opening.
+
+"Hey, who is there?" Kuritzyn shouted.
+
+"Russians, Russians," replied a voice.
+
+"Thank God!" said Kuritzyn in a tone of intense gratitude.
+
+COUNT ALEXIS TOLSTOI.
+
+
+=HELPS TO STUDY=
+
+     Tell of the preparations made for the submerging of the _Kate_.
+     Describe the scene within the vessel. What accident halted the
+     boat? Describe the events that followed. Where did the _Kate_ find
+     anchorage? Describe her exit from the bay. What flag was it that
+     bore a black eagle? What was the fate of the ship bearing that
+     flag?
+
+
+SUPPLEMENTARY READING
+
+     Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea--Jules Verne.
+     The Pilot--J. Fenimore Cooper.
+
+
+
+
+A VOYAGE TO THE MOON
+
+
+     The moon, being the nearest to the earth of all the heavenly
+     bodies, has always occupied the imagination of men. Many fanciful
+     accounts have been written of voyages to the moon, of which the
+     following story by Edgar Allan Poe is among the best. So wonderful
+     has been the advance of science that it is conceivable that at some
+     distant time in the future the inhabitants of this world may
+     possibly be able to visit the beautiful body which lights the night
+     for us.
+
+
+I
+
+After a long and arduous devotion to the study of physics and astronomy,
+I, Hans Pfaal of Rotterdam, at length determined to construct a balloon
+of my own along original lines and to try a flight in it. Accordingly I
+had made an enormous bag out of cambric muslin, varnished with
+caoutchouc for protection against the weather. I procured all the
+instruments needed for a prolonged ascent and finally prepared for the
+inflation of the balloon. Herein lay my secret, my invention, the thing
+in which my balloon differed from all the balloons that had gone before.
+Out of a peculiar [v]metallic substance and a very common acid I was
+able to manufacture a gas of a density about 37.4 less than that of
+hydrogen, and thus by far the lightest substance ever known. It would
+serve to carry the balloon to heights greater than had been attained
+before, for hydrogen is the gas usually used.
+
+The hour for my experiment in ballooning finally arrived. I had chosen
+the night as the best time for the ascension, because I should thereby
+avoid annoyances caused by the curiosity of the ignorant and the idle.
+
+It was the first of April. The night was dark; there was not a star to
+be seen; and a drizzling rain, falling at intervals, made me very
+uncomfortable. But my chief anxiety was concerning the balloon, which,
+in spite of the varnish with which it was defended, began to grow rather
+heavy with the moisture. I therefore set my assistants to working, and
+in about four hours and a half I found the balloon sufficiently
+inflated. I attached the car and put all my implements in it--a
+telescope, a barometer, a thermometer, an [v]electrometer, a compass, a
+magnetic needle, a seconds watch, a bell, and other things. I had
+further procured a globe of glass, exhausted of air and carefully closed
+with a stopper, not forgetting a special apparatus for condensing air, a
+copious supply of water, and a large quantity of provisions, such as
+[v]pemmican, in which much [v]nutriment is contained in comparatively
+little bulk. I also secured a cat in the car.
+
+It was now nearly daybreak, and I thought it high time to take my
+departure. I immediately cut the single cord which held me to the earth,
+and was pleased to find that I shot upward with [v]inconceivable
+rapidity, carrying with all ease one hundred and seventy-five pounds of
+leaden ballast and able to have carried as much more.
+
+Scarcely, however, had I attained the height of fifty yards, when
+roaring and rumbling up after me in the most [v]tumultuous and terrible
+manner, came so dense a hurricane of fire and gravel and burning wood
+and blazing metal that my very heart sunk within me and I fell down in
+the car, trembling with terror. Some of my chemical materials had
+exploded immediately beneath me almost at the moment of my leaving
+earth. The balloon at first collapsed, then furiously expanded, then
+whirled round and round with sickening [v]velocity, and finally, reeling
+and staggering like a drunken man, hurled me over the rim of the car;
+and in the moment of my fall I lost consciousness.
+
+I had no knowledge of what had saved me. When I partially recovered the
+sense of existence, I found the day breaking, the balloon at a
+[v]prodigious height over a wilderness of ocean, and not a trace of land
+to be discovered far and wide within the limits of the vast horizon. My
+sensations, however, upon thus recovering, were by no means so
+[v]replete with agony as might have been anticipated. Indeed, there was
+much of madness in the calm survey which I began to take of my
+situation. I drew up to my eyes each of my hands, one after the other,
+and wondered what occurrence could have given rise to the swelling of
+the veins and the horrible blackness of the finger nails. I afterward
+carefully examined my head, shaking it repeatedly and feeling it with
+minute attention, until I succeeded in satisfying myself that it was
+not, as I had more than half suspected, larger than the balloon. It now
+occurred to me that I suffered great uneasiness in the joint of my left
+ankle, and a dim consciousness of my situation began to glimmer through
+my mind. I began to understand that my foot had caught in a rope and
+that I was hanging downward outside the car. But strange to say! I was
+neither astonished nor horror-stricken. If I felt any emotion at all, it
+was a sort of chuckling satisfaction at the cleverness I was about to
+display in getting myself out of this [v]dilemma.
+
+With great caution and deliberation, I put my hands behind my back and
+unfastened the large iron buckle which belonged to the waistband of my
+pantaloons. This buckle had three teeth, which, being somewhat rusty,
+turned with great difficulty on their axis. I brought them, however,
+after some trouble, at right angles to the body of the buckle and was
+glad to find them remain firm in that position. Holding with my teeth
+the instrument thus obtained, I proceeded to untie the knot of my
+cravat; it was at length accomplished. To one end of the cravat I then
+made fast the buckle, and the other end I tied, for greater security,
+tightly around my wrist. Drawing now my body upward, with a prodigious
+exertion of muscular force, I succeeded, at the very first trial, in
+throwing the buckle over the car, and entangling it, as I had
+anticipated, in the circular rim of the wicker-work.
+
+My body was now inclined toward the side of the car at an angle of about
+forty-five degrees; but it must not be understood that I was therefore
+only forty-five degrees below the [v]perpendicular. So far from it, I
+still lay nearly level with the plane of the horizon, for the change of
+position which I had acquired had forced the bottom of the car
+considerably outward from my position, which was accordingly one of the
+most extreme peril. It should be remembered, however, that when I fell
+from the car, if I had fallen with my face turned toward the balloon,
+instead of turned outwardly from it as it actually was--or if, in the
+second place, the cord by which I was suspended had chanced to hang over
+the upper edge instead of through a crevice near the bottom of the
+car--in either of these cases, I should have been unable to accomplish
+even as much as I had now accomplished. I had therefore every reason to
+be grateful, although, in point of fact, I was still too stupid to be
+anything at all, and hung for perhaps a quarter of an hour in that
+extraordinary manner, without making the slightest farther exertion, and
+in a singularly tranquil state of idiotic enjoyment.
+
+This feeling, however, did not fail to die rapidly away, and thereunto
+succeeded horror and dismay, and a sense of utter helplessness and ruin.
+In fact, the blood so long accumulating in the vessels of my head and
+throat, and which had hitherto buoyed up my spirits with delirium, had
+now begun to retire within its proper channels, and the distinctness
+which was thus added to my perception of the danger merely served to
+deprive me of the self-possession and courage to encounter it. But this
+weakness was, luckily for me, of no very great duration. In good time
+came to my rescue the spirit of despair, and with frantic cries and
+struggles, I jerked my body upward, till, at length, clutching with a
+vice-like grip the long-desired rim, I writhed my person over it and
+fell headlong and shuddering within the car.
+
+When I had recovered from the weakness caused by being so long in that
+position and the horror from which I had suffered, I found that all my
+implements were in place and that neither ballast nor provisions had
+been lost.
+
+It is now high time that I should explain the object of my voyage. I had
+been harassed for long by poverty and creditors. In this state of mind,
+wishing to live and yet wearied with life, my deep studies in astronomy
+opened a resource to my imagination. I determined to depart, yet
+live--to leave the world, yet continue to exist--in short, to be plain,
+I resolved, let come what would, to force a passage, if possible, to the
+moon.
+
+This was not so mad as it seems. The moon's actual distance from the
+earth was the first thing to be attended to. The mean or average
+interval between the centers of the two planets is only about 237,000
+miles. But at certain times the moon and earth are much nearer than at
+others, and if I could contrive to meet the moon at the moment when it
+was nearest earth, the above-mentioned distance would be materially
+lessened. But even taking the average distance and deducting the
+[v]radius of the earth and the moon, the actual interval to be traversed
+under average circumstances would be 231,920 miles. Now this, I
+reflected, was no very extraordinary distance. Traveling on the land has
+been repeatedly accomplished at the rate of sixty miles an hour; and
+indeed a much greater speed may be anticipated. But even at this
+velocity it would take me no more than 161 days to reach the surface of
+the moon. There were, however, many particulars inducing me to believe
+that my average rate of traveling might possibly very much exceed that
+of sixty miles an hour.
+
+The next point to be regarded was one of far greater importance. We know
+that at 18,000 feet above the surface of the earth we have passed
+one-half the material, or, at all events, one-half the [v]ponderable
+body of air upon the globe. It is also calculated that at a height of
+eighty miles the [v]rarefaction of air is so great that animal life can
+be sustained in no manner. But I did not fail to perceive that these
+calculations are founded on our experimental knowledge of the air in
+the immediate vicinity of the earth, and that it is taken for granted
+that animal life is incapable of [v]modification. I thought that no
+matter how high we may ascend we cannot arrive at a limit beyond which
+no atmosphere is to be found. It must exist, I argued, although it may
+exist in a state of [v]infinite rarefaction.
+
+Having adopted this view of the subject, I had little farther
+hesitation. Granting that on my passage I should meet with atmosphere
+essentially the same as at the surface of the earth, I thought that, by
+means of my very ingenious apparatus for that purpose, I should readily
+be able to condense it in sufficient quantity for breathing. This would
+remove the chief obstacle in a journey to the moon.
+
+I now turned to view the prospect beneath me. At twenty minutes past six
+o'clock, the barometer showed an elevation of 26,000 feet, or five miles
+to a fraction. The outlook seemed unbounded. I beheld as much as a
+sixteen-hundredth part of the whole surface of the globe. The sea
+appeared as unruffled as a mirror, although, by means of the telescope,
+I could perceive it to be in a state of violent agitation. I now began
+to experience, at intervals, severe pain in the head, especially about
+the ears, due to the rarefaction of the air. The cat seemed to suffer no
+inconvenience whatever.
+
+I was rising rapidly, and by seven o'clock the barometer indicated an
+altitude of no less than nine miles and a half. I began to find great
+difficulty in drawing my breath. My head, too, was excessively painful;
+and, having felt for some time a moisture about my cheeks, I at length
+discovered it to be blood, which was oozing quite fast from the drums of
+my ears. These symptoms were more than I had expected and occasioned me
+some alarm. At this juncture, very imprudently and without
+consideration, I threw out from the car three five-pound pieces of
+ballast. The increased rate of ascent thus obtained carried me too
+rapidly into a highly rarefied layer of atmosphere, and the result
+nearly proved fatal to my expedition and myself. I was suddenly seized
+with a spasm, which lasted for more than five minutes, and even when
+this in a measure ceased, I could catch my breath only at long
+intervals, and in a gasping manner--bleeding all the while copiously at
+the nose and ears and even slightly at the eyes.
+
+The cat mewed piteously, and, with her tongue hanging out of her mouth,
+staggered to and fro in the car as if under the influence of poison. I
+now too late discovered the great rashness of which I had been guilty in
+discharging my ballast, and my agitation was excessive. I expected
+nothing less than death, and death in a few minutes. I lay down in the
+bottom of the car and endeavored to collect my faculties. In this I so
+far succeeded as to determine upon the experiment of losing blood.
+Having no lancet, I was obliged to open a vein in my arm with the blade
+of a penknife. The blood had hardly commenced flowing when I experienced
+a sensible relief, and by the time I had lost about half a basin-full
+most of the worst symptoms were gone. The difficulty of breathing,
+however, was diminished in a very slight degree, and I found that it
+would be soon positively necessary to make use of my condenser.
+
+By eight o'clock I had actually attained an elevation of seventeen miles
+above the surface of the earth. Thus it seemed to me evident that my
+rate of ascent was not only on the increase, but that the progress would
+have been apparent to a slight extent even had I not discharged the
+ballast which I did. The pains in my head and ears returned at intervals
+and with violence, and I still continued to bleed occasionally at the
+nose; but upon the whole I suffered much less than might have been
+expected. I now unpacked the condensing apparatus and got it ready for
+immediate use.
+
+The view of the earth at this period of my ascension was beautiful
+indeed. To the westward, the northward, and the southward, as far as I
+could see, lay a boundless sheet of apparently unruffled ocean, which
+every moment gained a deeper and deeper tint of blue. At a vast distance
+to the eastward, although perfectly discernible, extended the islands of
+Great Britain, the entire Atlantic coasts of France and Spain, with a
+small portion of the northern part of the continent of Africa. Of
+individual edifices not a trace could be found, and the proudest cities
+of mankind had utterly faded away from the surface of the earth.
+
+At a quarter-past eight, being able no longer to draw breath without the
+most intolerable pain, I proceeded forthwith to adjust around the car
+the apparatus belonging to the condenser. I had prepared a very strong,
+perfectly air-tight gum-elastic bag. In this bag, which was of
+sufficient size, the entire car was in a manner placed. That is to say,
+the bag was drawn over the whole bottom of the car, up its sides and so
+on, up to the upper rim where the net-work is attached. Having pulled up
+the bag and made a complete inclosure on all sides, I was shut in an
+air-tight chamber.
+
+In the sides of this covering had been inserted three circular panes of
+thick but clear glass, through which I could see without difficulty
+around me in every horizontal direction. In that portion of the cloth
+forming the bottom was a fourth window corresponding with a small
+aperture in the floor of the car itself. This enabled me to see straight
+down, but I had been unable to fix a similar window above me and so I
+could expect to see no objects directly overhead.
+
+The condensing apparatus was connected with the outer air by a tube to
+admit air at one end and by a valve at the bottom of the car to eject
+foul air. By the time I had completed these arrangements and filled the
+chamber with condensed air by means of the apparatus, it wanted only ten
+minutes of nine o'clock. During the whole period of my being thus
+employed, I endured the most terrible distress from difficulty of
+respiration, and bitterly did I repent the foolhardiness of which I had
+been guilty in putting off to the last moment a matter of so much
+importance. But having at length accomplished it, I soon began to reap
+the benefit of my invention. Once again I breathed with perfect freedom
+and ease--and indeed why should I not? I was also agreeably surprised to
+find myself, in a great measure, relieved from the violent pains which
+had hitherto tormented me. A slight headache, accompanied by a sensation
+of fulness about the wrists, the ankles, and the throat, was nearly all
+of which I had now to complain.
+
+At twenty minutes before nine o'clock, the mercury attained its limit, or
+ran down, in the barometer. The instrument then indicated an altitude of
+twenty-five miles, and I consequently surveyed at that time an extent of
+the earth's area amounting to no less than one three-hundred-and-twentieth
+part of the entire surface.
+
+At half-past nine, I tried the experiment of throwing out a handful of
+feathers through the valve. They did not float as I had expected, but
+dropped down like a bullet and with the greatest velocity, being out of
+sight in a very few seconds. It occurred to me that the atmosphere was
+now far too rare to sustain even feathers; that they actually fell, as
+they appeared to do, with great speed, and that I had been surprised by
+the united velocities of their descent and my own rise.
+
+At six o'clock P. M., I perceived a great portion of the earth's visible
+area to the eastward involved in thick shadow, which continued to
+advance with great rapidity, until at five minutes before seven the
+whole surface in sight was enveloped in the darkness of night. It was
+not, however, until long after this time that the rays of the setting
+sun ceased to illumine the balloon, and this fact, although, of course,
+expected, did not fail to give me great pleasure. In the morning I
+should behold the rising [v]luminary many hours before the citizens of
+Rotterdam, in spite of their situation so much farther to the eastward,
+and thus, day after day, in proportion to the height ascended, I should
+enjoy the light of the sun for a longer and longer period. I now
+resolved to keep a journal of my passage, reckoning the days by
+twenty-four hours instead of by day and night.
+
+At ten o'clock, feeling sleepy, I determined to lie down for the rest of
+the night; but here a difficulty presented itself, which, obvious as it
+may appear, had escaped my attention up to the very moment of which I
+am now speaking. If I went to sleep, as I proposed, how could the air in
+the chamber be renewed in the meanwhile? To breath it more than an hour
+at the farthest would be impossible; or, even if this term could be
+extended to an hour and a quarter, the most ruinous consequences might
+ensue. This dilemma gave me no little anxiety; and it will hardly be
+believed that, after the dangers I had undergone, I should look upon
+this business in so serious a light as to give up all hope of
+accomplishing my ultimate design, and finally make up my mind to the
+necessity of a descent.
+
+But this hesitation was only momentary. I reflected that man is the
+slave of custom and that many things are deemed essential which are only
+the results of habit. It was certain that I could not do without sleep;
+but I might easily bring myself to feel no inconvenience from being
+awakened at intervals of an hour during the whole period of my repose.
+It would require but five minutes to renew the air, and the only
+difficulty was to contrive a method of arousing myself at the proper
+moment for so doing.
+
+This question caused me no little trouble to solve. I at length hit upon
+the following plan. My supply of water had been put on board in kegs of
+five gallons each and ranged securely around the interior of the car. I
+unfastened one of these and, taking two ropes, tied them tightly across
+the rim of the wicker-work from one side to the other, placing them
+about a foot apart and parallel, so as to form a kind of shelf, upon
+which I placed the keg and steadied it. About eight inches below these
+ropes I fastened another shelf made of thin plank, on which shelf, and
+beneath one of the rims of the keg, a small pitcher was placed. I bored
+a hole in the end of the keg over the pitcher and fitted in a plug of
+soft wood, which I pushed in or pulled out, until, after a few
+experiments, it arrived at that exact degree of tightness at which the
+water, oozing from the hole and falling into the pitcher below, would
+fill the latter to the brim in the period of sixty minutes. Having
+arranged all this, the rest of the plan was simple. My bed was so
+contrived upon the floor of the car as to bring my head, in lying down,
+immediately below the mouth of the pitcher. It was evident that, at the
+expiration of an hour, the pitcher, getting full, would be forced to run
+over and to run over at the mouth, which was somewhat lower than the
+rim. It was also evident that the water, falling from a height, could
+not do otherwise than fall on my face and awaken me even from the
+soundest slumber in the world.
+
+It was fully eleven by the time I had completed these arrangements, and
+I at once betook myself to bed with full confidence in my invention. Nor
+in this matter was I disappointed. Punctually every sixty minutes I was
+aroused by my trusty clock, when, having emptied the pitcher into the
+bung-hole of the keg and filled the chamber with condensed air, I
+retired again to bed. These regular interruptions to my slumber caused
+me less discomfort than I had anticipated; and when I finally arose for
+the day, it was seven o'clock and the sun was high above the horizon.
+
+I found the balloon at an immense height indeed, and the earth's
+roundness had now become strikingly manifest. Below me in the ocean lay
+a cluster of black specks, which undoubtedly were islands. Overhead, the
+sky was of a jetty black, and the stars were brilliantly visible; indeed
+they had been so constantly since the first day of ascent. Far away to
+the northward I saw a thin, white and exceedingly brilliant line, or
+streak, on the edge of the horizon, and I had no hesitation in supposing
+it to be the southern disc of the ices of the Polar sea. My curiosity
+was greatly excited, for I had hopes of passing on much farther to the
+north, and might possibly, at some period, find myself directly above
+the Pole itself. I now lamented that my great elevation would, in this
+case, prevent me from taking as accurate a survey as I could wish.
+
+My condensing apparatus continued in good order, and the balloon still
+ascended without any perceptible change. The cold was intense, and
+obliged me to wrap up closely in an overcoat. When darkness came over
+the earth, I went to bed, although it was for many hours afterward broad
+daylight all around me. The water-clock was punctual in its duty, and I
+slept until next morning soundly, with the exception of the periodical
+interruptions.
+
+APRIL 4TH. I arose in good health and spirits, and was astonished at the
+singular change which had taken place in the appearance of the sea. It
+had lost, in a great measure, the deep tint of blue it had hitherto
+worn, being now of a grayish-white and of a luster dazzling to the eye.
+The curve of the ocean had become so evident that the entire mass of
+water seemed to be tumbling headlong over the abyss of the horizon, and
+I found myself listening on tiptoe for the echoes of the mighty
+cataract. The islands were no longer visible; whether they had passed
+down the horizon to the southeast, or whether my increasing elevation
+had left them out of sight, it is impossible to say. I was inclined,
+however, to the latter opinion. The rim of ice to the northward was
+growing more and more apparent. The cold was by no means so intense.
+
+APRIL 5TH. I beheld the singular sight of the sun rising while nearly
+the whole visible surface of the earth continued to be involved in
+darkness. In time, however, the light spread itself over all, and I
+again saw the line of ice to the northward. It was now very distinct and
+appeared of a much darker hue than the waters of the ocean. I was
+evidently approaching it, and with great rapidity. I fancied I could
+again distinguish a strip of land to the eastward, and one also to the
+westward, but could not be certain.
+
+APRIL 6TH. I was surprised at finding the rim of ice at a very moderate
+distance, and an immense field of the same material stretching away off
+to the horizon in the north. It was evident that if the balloon held its
+present course, it would soon arrive above the Frozen Ocean, and I had
+now little doubt of ultimately seeing the Pole. During the whole of the
+day I continued to near the ice. Toward night the limits of my horizon
+very suddenly and materially increased, owing undoubtedly to the earth's
+form, which is round but flattened near the poles. When darkness at
+length overtook me, I went to bed in great anxiety, fearing to pass over
+the object of so much curiosity when I should have no opportunity of
+observing it.
+
+APRIL 7TH. I arose early, and, to my great joy, at length beheld what
+there could be no hesitation in supposing the northern Pole itself. It
+was there, beyond a doubt, and immediately beneath my feet; but alas! I
+had now ascended to so vast a distance that nothing could with accuracy
+be made out. Indeed, I estimated that at four o'clock in the morning of
+April the seventh the balloon had reached a height of not less than
+7,254 miles above the surface of the sea. At all events I undoubtedly
+beheld the whole of the earth's diameter; the entire northern hemisphere
+lay beneath me like a chart, and the great circle of the equator itself
+formed the boundary line of my horizon.
+
+APRIL 8TH. I found a sensible diminution in the earth's size, besides a
+material alteration in its general color and appearance. The whole area
+partook in different degrees of a tint of pale yellow, and in some
+portions had acquired a brilliancy even painful to the eye. My view was
+somewhat impeded by clouds near the earth, but nevertheless I could
+easily perceive that the balloon now hovered above the great lakes in
+North America and was holding a course due south which would soon bring
+me to the tropics. This circumstance did not fail to give me the most
+heartfelt satisfaction, and I hailed it as a happy omen of ultimate
+success. Indeed, the direction I had hitherto taken had filled me with
+uneasiness, for it was evident that had I continued it much longer,
+there would have been no possibility of my arriving at the moon at all,
+which revolves around the earth in the plane of the equator.
+
+APRIL 9TH. To-day the earth's diameter was greatly diminished, and the
+color of the surface assumed hourly a deeper tint of yellow. The balloon
+kept steadily on her course to the southward, and arrived at nine P. M.
+over the Mexican Gulf.
+
+APRIL 12TH. A singular alteration took place in regard to the direction
+of the balloon, and, although fully anticipated, afforded me the very
+greatest delight. Having reached, in its former course, about the
+twentieth parallel of southern latitude, it turned off suddenly at an
+acute angle to the eastward, and thus proceeded throughout the day,
+keeping nearly, if not altogether, in the exact plane of the moon's
+path around the earth.
+
+APRIL 13TH. Great decrease in the earth's apparent size. The moon could
+not be seen at all, being nearly above me. I still continued in the
+plane of the moon's path, but made little progress eastward.
+
+APRIL 14TH. Extremely rapid decrease in the size of the earth. To-day I
+became strongly impressed with the idea that the balloon was holding the
+direct course which would bring it immediately to the moon where it
+comes nearest the earth. The moon was directly overhead, and
+consequently hidden from my view. Great and long continued labor was
+necessary for the condensation of the atmosphere.
+
+APRIL 16TH. To-day, looking upward as well as I could, through each of
+the side windows alternately, I beheld, to my great delight, a very
+small portion of the moon's disk protruding, as it were, on all sides
+beyond the huge bulk of the balloon. My agitation was extreme, for I had
+now little doubt of soon reaching the end of my perilous voyage. Indeed,
+the labor required by the condenser had increased to such a degree that
+I had scarcely any respite from exertion. Sleep was a matter nearly out
+of question. I became quite ill, and my frame trembled with exhaustion.
+It was impossible that human nature could endure this state of intense
+suffering much longer.
+
+APRIL 17TH. This morning proved an epoch in my voyage. It will be
+remembered that on the thirteenth the earth had diminished; on the
+fourteenth, it had still further dwindled; on the fifteenth, a still
+more rapid decrease was observable; and on retiring for the night of the
+sixteenth, the earth had shrunk to small size. What, therefore, must
+have been my amazement, on awakening from a brief and disturbed slumber
+on the morning of this day, the seventeenth, at finding the surface
+beneath me so suddenly and wonderfully increased in volume as to seem
+but a comparatively short distance beneath me! I was thunderstruck! No
+words can give any adequate idea of the extreme, the absolute horror and
+astonishment, with which I was seized, possessed and altogether
+overwhelmed. My knees tottered beneath me--my teeth chattered--my hair
+started up on end. The balloon then had actually burst! These were the
+first ideas which hurried through my mind. The balloon had burst! I was
+falling--falling with the most impetuous, the most wonderful velocity!
+To judge from the immense distance already so quickly passed over, it
+could not be more than ten minutes at the farthest before I should meet
+the surface of the earth and be hurled into annihilation!
+
+But at length reflection came to my relief. I paused, I considered, and
+I began to doubt. The matter was impossible. I could not, in any reason,
+have so rapidly come down. Besides, although I was evidently approaching
+the surface below me, it was with a speed by no means commensurate with
+the velocity I had at first conceived. This consideration served to calm
+my mind, and I finally succeeded in looking at the matter in its proper
+point of view. In fact, amazement must have fairly deprived me of my
+senses when I could not see the vast difference in appearance between
+the surface below me and the surface of my mother earth. The latter was
+indeed over my head and completely hidden by the balloon, while the
+moon--the moon itself in all its glory--lay beneath me and at my feet!
+
+I had indeed arrived at the point where the attraction of the moon had
+proved stronger than the attraction of the earth, and so the moon now
+appeared to be below me and I was descending upon it. It lay beneath me
+like a chart, and I studied it with the deepest attention. The entire
+absence of ocean or sea, and indeed of any lake or river, or body of
+water whatsoever, struck me at the first glance as the most
+extraordinary feature in its appearance.
+
+APRIL 18TH. To-day I found an enormous increase in the moon's apparent
+bulk--and the evidently increased velocity of my descent began to fill
+me with alarm. I had relied on finding some atmosphere at the moon and
+on the resistance of this atmosphere to [v]gravitation as affording me a
+chance to land in safety. Should I prove to have been mistaken about the
+atmosphere, I had nothing better to expect than to be dashed into atoms
+against the rugged surface of the earth's [v]satellite. And indeed I
+had now every reason to be terrified. My distance from the moon was
+comparatively trivial, while the labor required by the condenser was
+diminished not at all, and I could discover no indication whatever of a
+decreasing rarity of the air.
+
+APRIL 19TH. This morning, to my great joy, about nine o'clock, the
+surface of the moon being frightfully near and my fears excited to the
+utmost, the pump of my condenser at length gave evident tokens of an
+alteration in the atmosphere. By ten, I had reason to believe its
+density considerably increased. By eleven, very little labor was
+necessary at the apparatus; and at twelve o'clock, with some hesitation,
+I ventured to open the car a little and suffered no inconvenience. I
+finally threw aside the gum-elastic chamber and unrigged it from around
+the car. As might have been expected, spasms and violent headache were
+the immediate consequences of an experiment so rash. But this was
+forgotten in consideration of other things. My approach was still rapid
+in the extreme; and it soon became certain that although I had probably
+not been deceived in the expectation of finding a fairly dense
+atmosphere, still I had been wrong in supposing that atmosphere dense
+enough to support the great weight contained in the car of the balloon.
+I was now close upon the planet and coming down with the most terrible
+rapidity. I lost not a moment, accordingly, in throwing overboard first
+my ballast, then my water-kegs, then my condensing apparatus and
+gum-elastic chamber, and finally every article within the car.
+
+But it was all to no purpose. I still fell with horrible speed, and was
+now not more than half a mile from the surface. As a last resource,
+therefore, having got rid of my coat, hat, and boots, I cut loose from
+the balloon the car itself, which was of no inconsiderable weight, and
+thus clinging with both hands to the net-work, I had barely time to
+observe that the whole country, as far as the eye could reach, was
+thickly sown with small habitations, ere I tumbled headlong into the
+very heart of a fantastic city and into the middle of a vast crowd of
+ugly little people. I turned from them, and gazing upward at the earth
+so lately left, and left perhaps forever, beheld it like a huge, dull
+copper shield, fixed immovably in the heavens overhead and tipped on one
+of its edges with a crescent border of the most brilliant gold.
+
+EDGAR ALLAN POE.
+
+
+=HELPS TO STUDY=
+
+     Describe the balloon Hans constructed. How did he extricate himself
+     from each difficulty he encountered? What characteristic did this
+     show? Note the changes in the appearance of the earth as he made
+     his journey. On what day did he see the North Pole? In what region
+     was he when he saw the moon? What did he find when he reached that
+     body?
+
+SUPPLEMENTARY READING
+
+     From the Earth to the Moon--Jules Verne.
+     The War of the Worlds--H. G. Wells.
+
+
+
+
+THE GREAT STONE OF SARDIS[391-*]
+
+
+     This fanciful tale is taken from Frank R. Stockton's _The Great
+     Stone of Sardis_. In this book the hero, Roland Clewe, is pictured
+     as a scientist who had made many startling discoveries and
+     inventions at his works in Sardis about the year 1946. One of his
+     inventions was an automatic shell. This was an enormous projectile,
+     the peculiarity of which was that its motive power was contained
+     within itself, very much as a rocket contains the explosives which
+     send it upward. The extraordinary piece of mechanism was of
+     [v]cylindrical form, eighteen feet in length and fourteen feet in
+     diameter. The forward end was [v]conical and not solid, being
+     formed of a number of flat steel rings, decreasing in size as they
+     approached the point of the cone. When not in operation these rings
+     did not touch one another, but they could be forced together by
+     pressure on the point of the cone. One day this shell fell from the
+     supports on which it lay, the conical end down, and ploughed its
+     way with terrific force into the earth--how far no one could tell.
+     Clewe determined to descend the hole in search of the shell by
+     means of an electric elevator. Margaret Raleigh, to whom he was
+     engaged, had gone to the seashore, and during her absence, Clewe
+     planned to make his daring venture.
+
+On the day that Margaret left Sardis, Roland began his preparations for
+descending the shaft. He had so thoroughly considered the machinery and
+appliances necessary for the undertaking and had worked out all his
+plans in such detail, in his mind and upon paper, that he knew exactly
+what he wanted to do. His orders for the great length of chain needed
+exhausted the stock of several factories, and the engines he obtained
+were even more powerful than he had intended them to be; but these he
+could procure immediately, and for smaller ones he would have been
+obliged to wait.
+
+The circular car which was intended to move up and down the shaft, and
+the peculiar machinery connected with it, together with the hoisting
+apparatus, were all made in his works. His skilled artisans labored
+steadily day and night.
+
+It was ten days before he was ready to make his descent. Margaret was
+still at the seashore. They had written to each other frequently, but
+neither had made mention of the great shaft. Even when he was ready to
+go down, Clewe said nothing to any one of an immediate intention of
+descending. There was a massive door which covered the mouth of the pit;
+this he ordered locked and went away.
+
+The next morning he walked into the building a little earlier than was
+his custom, called for the engineers, and for Bryce, who was to take
+charge of everything connected with the descent, and announced that he
+was going down that day.
+
+Bryce and the men who were to assist him looked very serious at this.
+Indeed, if their employer had been any other man than Roland Clewe, it
+is possible they might have remonstrated with him; but they knew him,
+and they said and did nothing more than what was their duty.
+
+The door of the shaft was removed, the car which had hung high above it
+was lowered to the mouth of the opening, and Roland stepped within it
+and seated himself. Above him and around him were placed [v]geological
+tools and instruments of many kinds, a lantern, food, and
+drink--everything, in fact, which he could possibly be presumed to need
+upon this extraordinary journey. A telephone was at his side by which he
+could communicate at any time with the surface of the earth. There were
+electric bells; there was everything to make his expedition safe and
+profitable. Finally he gave the word to start the engines; there were no
+ceremonies, and nothing was said out of the common.
+
+When the conical top of the car had descended below the surface, a steel
+grating, with holes for the passage of the chains, was let down over the
+mouth of the shaft, and the downward journey began. In the floor of the
+car were grated openings, through which Clewe could look downward; but,
+although the shaft below him was brilliantly illuminated by electric
+lights placed beneath the car, it failed to frighten him or make him
+dizzy to look down, for the [v]aperture did not appear to be very far
+below him. The upper part of the car was partially open, and bright
+lights shone upon the sides of the shaft.
+
+As he slowly descended, Clewe could see the various [v]strata appearing
+and disappearing in the order in which he knew them. Not far below the
+surface he passed cavities which he believed had held water; but there
+was no water in them now. He had expected these pockets, and had feared
+that upon their edges might be loosened patches of rock or soil, but
+everything seemed tightly packed and hard. If anything had been
+loosened, it had gone down already.
+
+Down, down he went until he came to the eternal rocks, where the inside
+of the shaft was polished as if it had been made of glass. The air
+became warmer and warmer, but Clewe knew that the heat would soon
+decrease. The character of the rocks changed, and he studied them as he
+went down, continually making notes.
+
+After a time the polished rocky sides of the shaft grew to be of a
+solemn sameness. Clewe ceased to take notes; he lighted a cigar and
+smoked. He tried to imagine what he would come to when he reached the
+bottom; it would be some sort of a cave, he thought, in which his shell
+had made an opening. He began to imagine what sort of a cave it would
+be, and how high the roof was from the floor. Clewe then suddenly
+wondered whether his gardener had remembered what he had told him about
+the flower-beds in front of the house; he wished certain changes made
+which Margaret had suggested. He tried to keep his mind on the
+flower-beds, but it drifted away to the cave below. He thought of the
+danger of coming into some underground body of water, where he would be
+drowned; but he knew that was a silly idea. If the shell had gone
+through [v]subterranean reservoirs, the water of these would have run
+out, and before it reached the bottom of the shaft would have dissipated
+into mist.
+
+Down, down he went. He looked at his watch; he had been in that car only
+an hour and a half. Was that possible? He had supposed he was almost at
+the bottom. Suddenly his mind reverted to the people above and the
+telephone. Why had not some of them spoken to him? It was shameful! He
+instantly called Bryce, and his heart leaped with joy when he heard the
+familiar voice in his ear. Now he talked steadily on for more than an
+hour. He had his gardener summoned, and told the man all that he wanted
+done in the flower-beds. He gave many directions in regard to the
+various operations at the works. There were two or three inventions in
+which he took particular interest, and of these he talked at great
+length with Bryce. Suddenly, in the midst of some talk about hollow
+steel rods, he told Bryce to let the engines run faster; there was no
+reason why the car should go so slowly.
+
+The windlasses moved with a little more rapidity, and Clewe now turned
+and looked at an indicator which was placed on the side of the car, a
+little over his head. This instrument showed the depth to which he had
+descended, but he had not looked at it before, for if anything would
+make him nervous, it would be the continual consideration of the depth
+to which he had descended.
+
+The indicator showed that he had gone down fourteen and one-eighth
+miles. Clewe turned and sat stiffly in his seat. He glanced down and saw
+beneath him only an illuminated hole, fading away at the bottom. Then he
+turned to speak to Bryce, but to his surprise, he could think of nothing
+to say. After that he lighted another cigar and sat quietly.
+
+Some minutes passed--he did not know how many--and he looked down
+through the gratings in the floor of the car. The electric light
+streamed downward through a deep [v]crevice, which did not now fade away
+into nothingness, but ended in something dark and glittering. Then, as
+he came nearer and nearer to this glittering thing, Clewe saw that it
+was his automatic shell, lying on its side; only a part of it was
+visible through the opening of the shaft which he was descending. In an
+instant, as it seemed to him, the car emerged from the shaft, and he
+seemed to be hanging in the air--at least there was nothing he could see
+except that great shell, lying some forty feet below him. But it was
+impossible that the shell should be lying on the air! He rang to stop
+the car.
+
+"Anything the matter?" cried Bryce.
+
+"Nothing at all," Clewe replied. "It's all right; I am near the
+bottom."
+
+In a state of the highest nervous excitement, Clewe gazed about him. He
+was no longer in a shaft; but where was he? Look around on what side he
+would, he saw nothing but the light going out from his lamps, light
+which seemed to extend indefinitely all about him. There appeared to be
+no limit to his vision in any direction. Then he leaned over the side of
+his car and looked downward. There lay the great shell directly under
+him, although under it and around it, extending as far beneath it as it
+extended in every other direction, shone the light from his own lamp.
+Nevertheless, that great shell, weighing many tons, lay as if it rested
+upon the solid ground!
+
+After a few moments, Clewe shut his eyes; they pained him. Something
+seemed to be coming into them like a fine frost in a winter wind. Then
+he called to Bryce to let the car descend very slowly. It went down,
+down, gradually approaching the great shell. When the bottom of the car
+was within two feet of it, Clewe rang to stop. He looked down at the
+complicated machine he had worked upon so long, with something like a
+feeling of affection. This he knew; it was his own. Gazing upon its
+familiar form, he felt that he had a companion in this region of
+unreality.
+
+Pushing back the sliding door of the car, Clewe sat upon the bottom and
+cautiously put out his feet and legs, lowering them until they touched
+the shell. It was firm and solid. Although he knew it must be so, the
+immovability of the great mass of iron gave him a sudden shock of
+mysterious fear. How could it be immovable when there was nothing under
+it--when it rested on air?
+
+But he must get out of that car, he must explore, he must find out.
+There certainly could be no danger so long as he clung to the shell.
+
+He cautiously got out of the car and let himself down upon the shell. It
+was not a pleasant surface to stand on, being uneven, with great spiral
+ribs, and Clewe sat down upon it, clinging to it with his hands.
+Presently he leaned over to one side and looked beneath him. The shadows
+of that shell went down, down, down into space, until it made him sick
+to look at them. He drew back quickly, clutched the shell with his arms,
+and shut his eyes. He felt as if he were about to drop with it into a
+measureless depth of atmosphere.
+
+[Illustration: He Put Out One Foot]
+
+But he soon raised himself. He had not come down there to be frightened,
+to let his nerves run away with him. He had come to find out things.
+What was it that this shell rested upon? Seizing two of the ribs with a
+strong clutch, he let himself hang over the sides of the shell until his
+feet were level with its lower side. They touched something hard. He
+pressed them downward; it was very hard. He raised himself and stood
+upon the substance which supported the shell. It was as solid as any
+rock. He looked down and saw his shadow stretching far beneath him. It
+seemed as if he were standing upon [v]petrified air. He put out one foot
+and moved a little, still holding on to the shell. He walked, as if upon
+solid air, to the foremost end of the long [v]projectile. It relieved
+him to turn his thoughts from what was around him to this familiar
+object. He found its conical end shattered.
+
+After a little he slowly made his way back to the other end of the
+shell, and now his eyes became somewhat accustomed to the great radiance
+about him. He thought he could perceive here and there faint signs of
+long, nearly horizontal lines--lines of different shades of light. Above
+him, as if it hung in the air, was the round, dark hole through which he
+had descended.
+
+He rose, took his hands from the shell, and made a few steps. He trod
+upon a horizontal surface, but in putting one foot forward, he felt a
+slight incline. It seemed to him, that he was about to slip downward!
+Instantly he retreated to the shell and clutched it in a sudden frenzy
+of fear.
+
+Standing thus, with his eyes still wandering, he heard the bell of the
+telephone ring. Without hesitation he mounted the shell and got into the
+car. Bryce was calling him.
+
+"Come up," he said. "You have been down there long enough. No matter
+what you have found, it is time for you to come up."
+
+"All right," said Roland. "You can haul me up, but go very slowly at
+first."
+
+The car rose. When it reached the orifice in the top of the cave of
+light, Clewe heard the conical steel top grate slightly as it touched
+the edge, for the car was still swinging a little from the motion given
+to it by his entrance; but it soon hung perfectly vertical and went
+silently up the shaft.
+
+Seated in the car, which was steadily ascending the great shaft, Roland
+Clewe took no notice of anything about him. He did not look at the
+brilliantly lighted interior of the shaft; he paid no attention to his
+instruments; he did not consult his watch, or glance at the dial which
+indicated the distance he had traveled. Several times the telephone bell
+rang, and Bryce inquired how he was getting along; but these questions
+he answered as briefly as possible, and sat looking down at his knees
+and seeing nothing.
+
+When he was half-way up, he suddenly became conscious that he was very
+hungry. He hurriedly ate some sandwiches and drank some water, and again
+gave himself up entirely to mental labor. When, at last, the noise of
+machinery above him and the sound of voices aroused him from his
+abstraction, and the car emerged upon the surface of the earth, Clewe
+hastily slid back the door and stepped out. At that instant he felt
+himself encircled by a pair of arms. Bryce was near by, and there were
+other men by the engines, but the owner of those arms thought nothing
+of this.
+
+"Margaret!" cried Clewe, "how came you here?"
+
+"I have been here all the time," she exclaimed; "or, at least, nearly
+all the time." And as she spoke she drew back and looked at him, her
+eyes full of happy tears. "Mr. Bryce telegraphed to me the instant he
+knew you were going down, and I was here before you had descended
+half-way."
+
+"What!" he cried. "And all those messages came from you?"
+
+"Nearly all," she answered. "But tell me, Roland--tell me; have you been
+successful?"
+
+"I am successful," he answered. "I have discovered everything!"
+
+Bryce came forward.
+
+"I will speak to you all very soon," said Clewe. "I can't tell you
+anything now. Margaret, let us go. I wish to talk to you, but not until
+I have been to my office. I will meet you at your house in a very few
+minutes." And with that he left the building and fairly ran to his
+office.
+
+A quarter of an hour later Roland entered Margaret's library, where she
+sat awaiting him. He carefully closed the doors and windows. They sat
+side by side upon the sofa.
+
+"Now, Roland," she said, "I cannot wait one second longer. What is it
+that you have discovered?"
+
+"When I arrived at the bottom of the shaft," he began, "I found myself
+in a cleft, I know not how large, made in a vast mass of transparent
+substance, hard as the hardest rock and as transparent as air in the
+light of my electric lamps. My shell rested securely upon this
+substance. I walked upon it. It seemed as if I could see miles below me.
+In my opinion, Margaret, that substance was once the head of a comet."
+
+"What is the substance?" she asked, hastily.
+
+"It is a mass of solid diamond!"
+
+Margaret screamed. She could not say one word.
+
+"Yes," said he, "I believe the whole central portion of the earth is one
+great diamond. When it was moving about in its orbit as a comet, the
+light of the sun streamed through this diamond and spread an enormous
+tail out into space; after a time this [v]nucleus began to burn."
+
+"Burn!" exclaimed Margaret.
+
+"Yes, the diamond is almost pure [v]carbon; why should it not burn? It
+burned and burned and burned. Ashes formed upon it and encircled it; it
+still burned, and when it was entirely covered with ashes it ceased to
+be transparent and ceased to be a comet; it became a planet, and
+revolved in a different orbit. It still burned within its covering of
+ashes, and these gradually changed to rock, to metal, to everything that
+forms the crust of the earth."
+
+She gazed upon him, entranced.
+
+"Some parts of this great central mass of carbon burn more fiercely than
+other parts. Some parts do not burn at all. In volcanic regions the
+fires rage; where my great shell went down it no longer burns. Now you
+have my theory. It is crude and rough, for I have tried to give it to
+you in as few words as possible."
+
+"Oh, Roland," she cried, "it is absurd! Diamond! Why, people will think
+you are crazy. You must not say such a thing as that to anybody. It is
+simply impossible that the greater part of this earth should be an
+enormous diamond."
+
+"Margaret," he answered, "nothing is impossible. The central portion of
+this earth is composed of something; it might just as well be diamond as
+anything else. In fact, if you consider the matter, it is more likely to
+be, because diamond is a very original substance. As I have said, it is
+almost pure carbon. I do not intend to repeat a word of what I have told
+you to any one--at least until the matter has been well considered--but
+I am not afraid of being thought crazy. Margaret, will you look at
+these?"
+
+He took from his pocket some shining substances resembling glass. Some
+of them were flat, some round; the largest was as big as a lemon; others
+were smaller fragments of various sizes.
+
+"These are pieces of the great diamond which were broken when the shell
+struck the bottom of the cave in which I found it. I picked them up as
+I felt my way around this shell, when walking upon what seemed to me
+solid air. I thrust them into my pocket, and I would not come to you,
+Margaret, with this story, until I had visited my office to find out
+what these fragments are. I tested them; their substance is diamond!"
+
+Half-dazed, she took the largest piece in her hand.
+
+"Roland," she whispered, "if this is really a diamond, there is nothing
+like it known to man!"
+
+"Nothing, indeed," said he.
+
+She sat staring at the great piece of glowing mineral which lay in her
+hand. Its surface was irregular; it had many faces; the subdued light
+from the window gave it the appearance of animated water. He felt it
+necessary to speak.
+
+"Even these little pieces," he said, "are most valuable jewels."
+
+"Roland," she suddenly cried, excitedly, "these are riches beyond
+imagination! What is common wealth to what you have discovered? Every
+living being on earth could--"
+
+"Ah, Margaret," he interrupted, "do not let your thoughts run that way.
+If my discovery should be put to the use of which you are thinking, it
+would bring poverty to the world, not wealth, and every diamond on earth
+would be worthless."
+
+She trembled. "And these--are they to be valued as common pebbles?"
+
+"Oh no," said he; "these broken fragments I have found are to us riches
+far beyond our wildest imagination."
+
+"Roland," she cried, "are you going down into that shaft for more of
+them?"
+
+"Never, never, never again," he answered. "What we have here is enough
+for us, and if I were offered all the good that there is in this world,
+which money cannot buy, I would never go down into that cleft again.
+There was one moment, as I stood in that cave, when an awful terror shot
+into my soul that I shall never be able to forget. In the light of my
+electric lamps, sent through a vast transparent mass, I could see
+nothing, but I could feel. I put out my foot, and I found it was upon a
+sloping surface. In another instant I might have slid--where? I cannot
+bear to think of it!" FRANK E. STOCKTON.
+
+=HELPS TO STUDY=
+
+     What happened to Clewe's automatic shell? What did he decide to do?
+     Tell of the preparations he made for his descent. What occurred
+     when he reached the end of the shaft? Of what was Clewe thinking so
+     intently while making his ascent? Why did he go at once to his
+     office? What conclusion did he reach as to the central part of the
+     earth? What did he have to prove the correctness of his theory? Why
+     was he unwilling ever to make the descent again? This story was
+     written about the end of the nineteenth century: what great
+     scientific discoveries have been made since then?
+
+
+SUPPLEMENTARY READING
+
+     A Journey to the Center of the Earth--Jules Verne.
+     The Adventures of Captain Horn--Frank R. Stockton.
+
+
+FOOTNOTE:
+
+[391-*] Copyright by Harper & Brothers.
+
+
+
+
+A STOP AT SUZANNE'S
+
+
+     The author of this sketch, a young American aviator, a resident of
+     Richmond, Virginia, was killed in battle in August, 1918.
+
+Suzanne is a very pretty girl, I was told, but the charm of "Suzanne's"
+wasn't with her alone, for, always, one spoke of the deliciously-tasting
+meal, how nice the old madame is, and how fine a chap is her _mari_, the
+father of Suzanne. Then of the garden in the back--and before you had
+finished listening you didn't know which was the most important thing
+about "Suzanne's." All you knew was that it was the place to go when on
+an aeroplane voyage.
+
+At the pilotage office I found five others ahead of me; all of us were
+bound in the same direction. We were given [v]barographs, altimeters and
+maps and full directions as to forced landings and what to do when lost.
+We hung around the voyage hangar until about eight in the morning, but
+there was a low mist and cloudy sky, so we could not start out until
+afternoon; and I didn't have luncheon at "Suzanne's."
+
+After noon several of the others started out, but I wanted to plan my
+supper stop for the second point, so I waited until about four o'clock
+before starting.
+
+Almost before I knew it a village, which on the map was twelve
+kilometers away, was slipping by beneath me and then off to one side was
+a forest, green and cool-looking and very regular around the edges.
+Pretty soon I came to a deep blue streak bordered by trees, and was so
+interested in it--it wound around under a railroad track, came up and
+brushed by lots of back gates and, finally, fell in a wide splash of
+silver over a little fall by a mill--that I forgot all about flying and
+suddenly woke up to the fact that one wing was about as low as it could
+get and that the nose of the machine was doing its best to follow the
+wing.
+
+Long before I came to the stopping point, I could see the little white
+hangar. The field is not large, but it is strange, so you come down
+rather anxiously, for if you can't make that field the first time, you
+never will be able to fly, they tell you before leaving. I glided down
+easily enough, for, after all, it is just that--either you can or you
+can't--and made a good-enough landing. The sergeant signed my paper, and
+a few minutes later away I went for "Suzanne's." The next stop is near a
+little village--Suzanne's village--so when I came to the field and
+landed I was sure to be too tired to go up again immediately. Instead,
+off I went to town after making things right with the man in charge.
+That wasn't a bit difficult, either, for all I did was to wink as hard
+as I could, and he understood perfectly.
+
+I knew where "Suzanne's" was, so I made directly for it. It was a little
+early, but you should never miss the [v]_apertif_. With that first,
+success is assured; without it, it is like getting out of bed on the
+wrong foot.
+
+Up I marched to the unimposing door and walked in to the main room--a
+big room, with long, wooden tables and benches and a zinc bar at one
+end, where all kinds of bottles rested. It isn't called "Suzanne's," of
+course; it only has that name among us.
+
+As I closed the door behind me and looked about, a _bonne_ was serving
+several men at a corner table, and behind the bar a big, red-faced,
+stout man was pouring stuff into bottles. He looked at me a moment and
+then with a tremendous "_Tiens!_" he came out from behind the tables and
+advanced toward me.
+
+"_Bon jour_," he said; "do you come from far?"
+
+"Oh, no," I answered, "only from ----."
+
+"_Tiens!_" he repeated; then, "Ah, you are from the school." _L'ecole_,
+he called it.
+
+From _l'ecole_, I admitted, and, taking me by the arm, he led me to a
+door at the rear. Through this he propelled me, and then in his huge
+voice he called "_Suzanne, un [v]pilote!_" and I was introduced.
+
+As he shut the door, I could just see the corner table with the three
+old men staring open-mouthed, the wine before them forgotten, the bread
+and cheese in their hands untasted; then, down the stairs came light
+steps and a rustle of skirts, and Suzanne was before me with smiling
+face and outstretched hand.
+
+Her instant welcome, the genuine smile! Almost immediately, I understood
+the fame of this little station, so far from everything but the air
+route.
+
+Her charm is indescribable. She is pretty, she is well dressed, but it
+isn't that. It is a sincerity of manner, complete hospitality; at once
+you are accepted as a bosom friend of the family--that is the charm of
+Suzanne's.
+
+After a few questions as to where I came from, how long I had been
+there, and where I was going, Suzanne led me upstairs to be presented to
+[v]"_Ma belle mere_," a white-haired old lady sitting in a big,
+straight-backed chair. Then, after more courtesies had been extended to
+me, Suzanne preceded me down to the garden and left me alone while she
+went in to see that the supper was exceptionally good.
+
+A soft footstep on the gravel walk sounded behind me, and I turned to
+see one of the most beautiful women I ever beheld. She was tall and
+slender, and as she came gracefully across the lawn she swung a little
+work bag from one arm. All in black she was, with a lace shawl over her
+bare head. Like every one in that most charming and hospitable house,
+there was no formality or show about her. She came, smiling, and sat on
+the bench beside me, drawing open her work bag. I could not help
+noticing, particularly, her beautiful eyes, for they told the story, a
+story too common here, except that her eyes had changed now to an
+expression of resigned peace. Then she told me about Suzanne.
+
+Long before, ages and ages ago it seemed, but really only four years, a
+huge, ungainly bird fell crashing to earth and from the wreck a man was
+taken, unconscious. He was carried to "Suzanne's," and she nursed him
+and cared for him until he was well again. "Suzanne was very happy
+then," madame told me. And no wonder, for the daring aviator and Suzanne
+were in love. She nursed him back to health, but when he went away he
+left his heart forever with her.
+
+They were engaged, and every little while he would fly over from his
+station to see Suzanne. Those were in the early days and aviation--well,
+even at that, it hasn't changed so much.
+
+One day a letter came for Suzanne, and with a catch at her throbbing
+heart she read that her _fiance_ had been killed. [v]"_Mort pour la
+patrie_," it said, and Suzanne was never the same afterward.
+
+For many months the poor girl grieved, but, finally, she began to
+realize that what had happened to her had happened to thousands of other
+girls, too, and, gradually, she took up the attitude that you find
+throughout this glorious country. Only her eyes now tell the sad story.
+
+One evening two men walked into the cafe and from their talk Suzanne
+knew they were from _l'ecole_. She sat down and listened to them. They
+talked about the war, about aviation, about deeds of heroism, and
+Suzanne drank in every word, for they were talking the language of her
+dead lover. The two aviators stayed to dinner, but the big room was not
+good enough. They must come back to the family dinner--to the intimacy
+of the back room.
+
+They stayed all night and left early next morning, but before they left
+they wrote their names in a big book. To-day, Suzanne has the book,
+filled full of names, many now famous, many names that are only a
+memory--that is how it started.
+
+When the two pilots went back to _l'ecole_, they spoke in glowing terms
+of "Suzanne's," of the soft beds, of the delicious dinner, and, I think,
+mostly of Suzanne.
+
+Visitors came after that to eat at "Suzanne's," and to see her famous
+book. They came regularly and, finally, "Suzanne's" became an
+institution.
+
+Always, a _pilote_ was taken into the back room; he ate with the family,
+he told them all the news from _l'ecole_, and, in exchange, he heard
+stories about the early days, stories that will never be printed, but
+which embody examples of the heroism and intelligence that have done
+their part to develop aviation.
+
+Soon, we went in to dinner, and such a dinner! Truly, nothing is too
+good for an aviator at "Suzanne's," and they give of their best to these
+wandering strangers. They do not ask your name, they call every one
+_Monsieur_, but before you leave you sign the book and they all crowd
+around to look, without saying anything. Your name means nothing yet,
+but a year from now, perhaps, who can tell? In the first pages are
+names that have been bywords for years and some that are famous the
+world over.
+
+After dinner, Suzanne slipped away, presently to reappear with a special
+bottle and glasses. I felt sure this was part of the entertainment
+afforded all their winged visitors, for they went about it in a
+practised manner; each was familiar with his or her part, but to me it
+was all delightfully new.
+
+Our glasses were filled, and Suzanne raised hers up first. Without a
+word, she looked around the circle. Her eyes met them all, then rested
+with madame. She had not said a word; it was "papa" who proposed my
+health, and as the bottoms went up, Suzanne and madame both had a
+struggle to repress a tear. They were drinking my health, but their
+thoughts were far away, and in my heart I was wishing that happiness
+might again come to them. Suzanne certainly deserves it.
+
+When I returned to school, they asked, "Did you stop at 'Suzanne's'?"
+And now to the others, just ready to make the voyage, I always say, "Be
+sure to stop at 'Suzanne's'."
+
+GREAYER CLOVER.
+
+
+
+
+THE MAKING OF A MAN
+
+
+I
+
+Marmaduke, otherwise Doggie, Trevor owned a pleasant home set on fifteen
+acres of ground. He had an income of three thousand pounds a year. Old
+Peddle, the butler, and his wife, the housekeeper, saved him from
+domestic cares. He led a well-regulated life. His meals, his toilet, his
+music, his wall-papers, his drawing and embroidery, his sweet peas, his
+chrysanthemums, his postage stamps, and his social engagements filled
+the hours not claimed by slumber.
+
+In the town of Durdlebury, Doggie Trevor began to feel appreciated. He
+could play the piano, the harp, the viola, the flute, and the
+clarionette, and sing a mild tenor. Besides music, Doggie had other
+accomplishments. He could choose the exact shade of silk for a
+drawing-room sofa cushion, and he had an excellent gift for the
+selection of wedding-presents. All in all, Marmaduke Trevor was a young
+gentleman of exquisite taste.
+
+After breakfast on a certain July morning, Doggie, attired in a green
+shot-silk dressing-gown, entered his own particular room and sat down to
+think. In its way it was a very beautiful room--high, spacious,
+well-proportioned, facing southeast. The wall-paper, which Doggie had
+designed himself, was ivory white, with trimmings of peacock blue.
+[v]Vellum-bound books filled the cases; delicate water-colors adorned
+the walls. On his writing-table lay an ivory set: inkstand, pen-tray,
+blotter, and calendar. Bits of old embroidery, harmonizing with the
+peacock shades, were spread here and there. A spinet inlaid with ivory
+formed the center for the arrangement of other musical instruments--a
+viol, mandolins, and flutes. One tall, closed cabinet was devoted to
+Doggie's collection of wall-papers. Another held a collection of little
+dogs in china and porcelain--thousands of them; he got them from dealers
+from all over the world.
+
+An unwonted frown creased Doggie's brow, for several problems disturbed
+him. The morning sun disclosed, beyond doubt, discolorations, stains,
+and streaks on the wall-paper. It would have to be renewed.
+
+Then, his thoughts ran on to his cousin, Oliver Manningtree, who had
+just returned from the South Sea. It was Oliver, the strong and
+masculine, who had given him the name of Doggie years before, to his
+infinite disgust. And now every one in Durdlebury seemed to have gone
+crazy over the fellow. Doggie's uncle and aunt had hung on his lips
+while Oliver had boasted unblushingly of his adventures. Even the fair
+cousin Peggy, with whom Doggie was mildly in love, had listened
+open-eyed and open-mouthed to Oliver's tales of shipwreck in distant
+seas.
+
+Doggie had reached this point in his reflections when, to his horror,
+he heard a familiar voice outside the door.
+
+"All right," it said. "Don't worry, Peddle. I'll show myself in."
+
+The door burst open, and Oliver, pipe in mouth and hat on one side, came
+into the room.
+
+"Hello, Doggie!" he cried boisterously. "Thought I'd look you up. Hope
+I'm not disturbing you."
+
+"Not at all," said Doggie. "Do sit down."
+
+But Oliver walked about and looked at things.
+
+"I like your water colors," he said. "Did you collect them yourself!"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"I congratulate you on your taste. This is a beauty."
+
+The appreciation brought Doggie at once to his side. He took Oliver
+delightedly around the pictures, expounding their merits and their
+little histories. Doggie was just beginning to like the big fellow,
+when, stopping before the collection of china dogs, the latter spoiled
+everything.
+
+"My dear Doggie," he said, "is that your family?"
+
+"It's the finest collection of the kind in the world," replied Doggie
+stiffly, "and is worth several thousand pounds."
+
+Oliver heaved himself into a chair--that was Doggie's impression of his
+method of sitting down.
+
+"Forgive me, Doggie," he said, "but you're so funny. Pictures and music
+I can understand. But what on earth is the point of these little dogs?"
+
+Doggie was hurt. "It would be useless to try to explain," he said, with
+dignity. "And my name is Marmaduke."
+
+Oliver took off his hat and sent it skimming to the couch.
+
+"Look here, old chap," he said, "I seem to have put my foot in it. I
+didn't mean to, really. I'll call you Marmaduke, if you like, instead of
+Doggie--though it's a beast of a name. I'm a rough sort of chap. I've
+had ten years' pretty tough training. I've slept on boards; I've slept
+in the open without a cent to hire a board. I've gone cold and I've gone
+hungry, and men have knocked me about, and I've lost most of my
+politeness. In the wilds if a man once gets the name, say, of Duck-Eyed
+Joe, it sticks to him, and he accepts it, and answers to it, and signs
+it."
+
+"But I'm not in the wilds," objected Marmaduke, "and haven't the
+slightest intention of ever leading the unnatural and frightful life you
+describe. So what you say doesn't apply to me."
+
+Oliver, laughing, clapped him on the shoulder.
+
+"You don't give a fellow a chance," he said. "Look here, tell me, as man
+to man, what are you going to do with your life? Here you are, young,
+strong, educated, intelligent--"
+
+"I'm not strong," said Doggie.
+
+"A month's exercise would make you as strong as a mule," returned
+Oliver. "Here you are--what are you going to do with yourself?"
+
+"I don't admit that you have any right to question me," said Doggie.
+
+"Peggy and I had a talk," declared Oliver. "I said I'd take you out with
+me to the Islands and give you a taste for fresh air and salt water and
+exercise. I'll teach you how to sail a schooner and how to go about
+barefoot and swab decks."
+
+Doggie smiled pityingly, but said politely, "Your offer is kind, Oliver,
+but I don't think that sort of life would suit me."
+
+Being a man of intelligence, he realized that Oliver's offer arose from
+a genuine desire to do him service. But if a friendly bull out of the
+fulness of its affection invited you to accompany it to the meadow and
+eat grass, what could you do but courteously decline the invitation?
+
+"I'm really most obliged to you, Oliver," said Doggie, finally. "But our
+ideas are entirely different. You're primitive, you know. You seem to
+find your happiness in defying the elements, whereas I find mine in
+adopting the resources of civilization to defeat them."
+
+"Which means," said Oliver, rudely, "that you're afraid to roughen your
+hands and spoil your complexion."
+
+"If you like to put it that way."
+
+"You're an [v]effeminate little creature!" cried Oliver, losing his
+temper. "And I'm through with you. Go sit up and beg for biscuits."
+
+"Stop!" shouted Doggie, white with sudden anger, which shook him from
+head to foot. He marched to the door, his green silk dressing-gown
+flapping about him, and threw it wide open.
+
+"This is my house," he said. "I'm sorry to have to ask you to get out of
+it."
+
+And when the door was shut on Oliver, he threw himself, shaken, on the
+couch, hating Oliver and all his works more than ever. Go about barefoot
+and swab decks! It was madness. Besides being dangerous to health, it
+would be excruciating discomfort. And to be insulted for not grasping at
+such martyrdom! It was intolerable; and Doggie remained justly indignant
+the whole day long.
+
+
+II
+
+Then the war came. Doggie Trevor was both patriotic and polite. Having a
+fragment of the British army in his house, he did his best to make it
+comfortable. By January he had no doubt that the empire was in peril,
+that it was every man's duty to do his bit. He welcomed the newcomers
+with open arms, having unconsciously abandoned his attitude of
+superiority over mere brawn. It was every patriotic Englishman's duty
+to encourage brawn. He threw himself heart and soul into the
+entertainment of officers and men. They thought Doggie a capital fellow.
+
+"My dear chap," one would protest, "you're spoiling us. I don't say we
+don't like it and aren't grateful. We are. But we're supposed to rough
+it--to lead the simple life. You're treating us too well."
+
+"Impossible!" Doggie would reply. "Don't I know what we owe you fellows?
+In what other way can a helpless, delicate being like myself show his
+gratitude and in some sort of way serve his country?"
+
+When the sympathetic guest would ask what was the nature of his malady,
+Doggie would tap his chest vaguely and reply:
+
+"Constitutional. I've never been able to do things like other fellows.
+The least thing bowls me out."
+
+"Hard lines--especially just now!" the soldier would murmur.
+
+"Yes, isn't it?" Doggie would answer.
+
+Doggie never questioned his physical incapacity. His mother had brought
+him up to look on himself as a singularly frail creature, and the idea
+was as real to him as the war. He went about pitying himself and seeking
+pity.
+
+The months passed. The soldiers moved away from Durdlebury, and Doggie
+was left alone in his house. He felt solitary and restless. News came
+from Oliver that he had accepted an infantry commission and was in
+France. "A month of this sort of thing," he wrote, "would make our dear
+old Doggie sit up." Doggie sighed. If only he had been blessed with
+Oliver's constitution!
+
+One morning Briggins, his chauffeur, announced that he could stick it
+out no longer and was going to enlist. Then Doggie remembered a talk he
+had had with one of the young officers, who had expressed astonishment
+at his not being able to drive a car.
+
+"I shouldn't have the nerve," he had replied. "My nerves are all
+wrong--and I shouldn't have the strength to change tires and things."
+
+But now Doggie was confronted by the necessity of driving his own car,
+for chauffeurs were no longer to be had. To his amazement, he found that
+he did not die of nervous collapse when a dog crossed the road in front
+of the automobile, and that the fitting of detachable wheels did not
+require the strength of a Hercules. The first time he took Peggy out
+driving, he swelled with pride.
+
+"I'm so glad you can do something!" she said, after a silence.
+
+Although the girl was as kind as ever, Doggie had noticed of late a
+curious reserve in her manner. Conversation did not flow easily. She had
+fits of abstraction, from which, when rallied, she roused herself with
+an effort. Finally, one day, Peggy asked him blankly why he did not
+enlist.
+
+Doggie was horrified. "I'm not fit," he said, "I've no constitution. I'm
+an impossibility."
+
+"You thought you had nerves until you learned to drive the car," she
+answered. "Then you discovered that you hadn't. You fancy you've a weak
+heart. Perhaps if you walked thirty miles a day, you would discover that
+you hadn't that, either. And so with the rest of it."
+
+He swung round toward her. "Do you think I'm shamming so as to get out
+of serving in the army?" he demanded.
+
+"Not consciously. Unconsciously, I think you are. What does your doctor
+say?"
+
+Doggie was taken aback. He had no doctor, having no need for one. He
+made confession of the surprising fact. Peggy smiled.
+
+"That proves it," she said. "I don't believe you have anything wrong
+with you. This is plain talking. It's horrid, I know, but it's best to
+get through with it once and for all."
+
+Some men would have taken deep offense, but Doggie, conscientious if
+ineffective, was gnawed for the first time by a suspicion that Peggy
+might possibly be right. He desired to act honorably.
+
+"I'll do," he said, "whatever you think proper."
+
+"Good!" said Peggy. "Get Doctor Murdoch to overhaul you thoroughly with
+a view to the army. If he passes you, take a commission."
+
+She put out her hand. Doggie took it firmly.
+
+"Very well," he said. "I agree."
+
+"You're flabby," announced Doctor Murdoch, the next morning, to an
+anxious Doggie, after some minutes of thumping and listening, "but
+that's merely a matter of unused muscles. Physical training will set it
+right in no time. Otherwise, my dear Trevor, you're in splendid health.
+There's not a flaw in your whole constitution."
+
+Doggie crept out of bed, put on a violet dressing-gown, and wandered to
+his breakfast like a man in a nightmare. But he could not eat. He
+swallowed a cup of coffee and took refuge in his own room. He was
+frightened--horribly frightened, caught in a net from which there was no
+escape. He had given his word to join the army if he should be passed by
+Murdoch. He had been more than passed! Now he would have to join; he
+would have to fight. He would have to live in a muddy trench, sleep in
+mud, eat in mud, plow through mud. Doggie was shaken to his soul, but he
+had given his word and he had no thought of going back on it.
+
+The fateful little letter bestowing a commission on Doggie arrived two
+weeks later; he was a second lieutenant in a battalion of the new army.
+A few days afterward he set off for the training-camp.
+
+He wrote to Peggy regularly. The work was very hard, he said, and the
+hours were long. Sometimes he confessed himself too tired to write more
+than a few lines. It was a very strange life--one he never dreamed could
+have existed. There was the riding-school. Why hadn't he learned to ride
+as a boy? Peggy was filled with admiration for his courage. She realized
+that he was suffering acutely in his new and rough environment, but he
+made no complaint.
+
+Then there came a time when Doggie's letters grew rarer and shorter. At
+last they ceased altogether. One evening an unstamped envelope addressed
+to Peggy was put in the letter-box. The envelope contained a copy of the
+_Gazette_, and a sentence was underlined and adorned with exclamation
+marks:
+
+"Royal Fusileers. Second Lieutenant J. M. Trevor resigned his
+commission."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It had been a terrible blow to Doggie. The colonel had dealt as gently
+as he could in the final interview with him. He put his hand in a
+fatherly way on Doggie's shoulder and bade him not take the thing too
+much to heart. He--Doggie--had done his best, but the simple fact was
+that he was not cut out for an officer. These were merciless times, and
+in matters of life and death there could be no weak links in the chain.
+In Doggie's case there was no personal discredit. He had always
+conducted himself like a gentleman, but he lacked the qualities
+necessary for the command of men. He must send in his resignation.
+
+Doggie, after leaving the camp, took a room in a hotel and sat there
+most of the day, the mere pulp of a man. His one desire now was to
+escape from the eyes of his fellow-men. He felt that he bore the marks
+of his disgrace, obvious at a glance. He had been turned out of the army
+as a hopeless incompetent; he was worse than a slacker, for the slacker
+might have latent qualities he was without.
+
+Presently the sight of his late brother-officers added the gnaw of envy
+to his heart-ache. On the third day of his exile he moved into lodgings
+in Woburn Place. Here at least he could be quiet, untroubled by
+heart-rending sights and sounds. He spent most of his time in dull
+reading and dispirited walking.
+
+His failure preyed on his mind. He walked for miles every day, though
+without enjoyment. He wandered one evening in the dusk to Waterloo
+Bridge and gazed out over the parapet. The river stretched below, dark
+and peaceful. As he looked down on the rippling water, he presently
+became aware of a presence by his side. Turning his head, he found a
+soldier, an ordinary private, also leaning over the parapet.
+
+"I thought I wasn't mistaken in Mr. Marmaduke Trevor," said the soldier.
+
+Doggie started away, on the point of flight, dreading the possible
+insolence of one of the men of his late regiment. But the voice of the
+speaker rang in his ears with a strange familiarity, and the great
+fleshy nose, the high cheekbones, and the little gray eyes in the
+weather-beaten face suggested vaguely some one of the long ago. His
+dawning recognition amused the soldier.
+
+"Yes, laddie, it's your old Phineas. Phineas McPhail, M. A.--now private
+P. McPhail."
+
+It was no other than Doggie's tutor of his childhood days.
+
+"Very glad to see you," Doggie murmured.
+
+Phineas, gaunt and bony, took his arm. Doggie's instinctive craving for
+companionship made Phineas suddenly welcome.
+
+"Let us have a talk," he said. "Come to my rooms. There will be some
+dinner."
+
+"Will I come? Will I have dinner? Laddie, I will."
+
+In the Strand they hailed a taxi-cab and drove to Doggie's place.
+
+"You mention your rooms," said Phineas. "Are you residing permanently in
+London?"
+
+"Yes," said Doggie, sadly. "I never expect to leave it."
+
+A few minutes later they reached Woburn Place. Doggie showed Phineas
+into the sitting-room. The table was set for Doggie's dinner. Phineas
+looked around him in surprise. The tasteless furniture, the dreadful
+pictures on the walls, the coarse glass and the well-used plate on the
+table, the crumpled napkin in a ring--all came as a shock to Phineas,
+who had expected to find Marmaduke's rooms a reproduction of the
+fastidious prettiness of the peacock and ivory room in Durdlebury.
+
+"Laddie," he said, gravely, "you must excuse me if I take a liberty, but
+I cannot fit you into this environment. It cannot be that you have come
+down in the world?"
+
+"To bed-rock," replied Doggie.
+
+"Man, I'm sorry," said Phineas. "I know what coming down feels like. If
+I had money--"
+
+Doggie broke in with a laugh. "Pray don't distress yourself, Phineas.
+It's not a question of money at all. The last thing in the world I've
+had to think of has been money."
+
+"What is the trouble?" Phineas demanded.
+
+"That's a long story," answered Doggie. "In the meantime I had better
+give some orders about dinner."
+
+The dinner came in presently, not particularly well served. They sat
+down to it.
+
+"By the way," remarked Doggie, "you haven't told me why you became a
+soldier."
+
+"Chance," replied Phineas. "I have been going down in the world for some
+time, and no one seemed to want me except my country. She clamored for
+me at every corner. A recruiting sergeant in Trafalgar Square at last
+persuaded me to take the leap. That's how I became Private Phineas
+McPhail of the Tenth Wessex Rangers, at the compensation of one
+shilling and two pence per day."
+
+"Do you like it?" asked Doggie.
+
+Phineas rubbed the side of his nose thoughtfully.
+
+"In itself it is a vile life," he made answer. "The hours are absurd,
+the work is distasteful, and the mode of living repulsive. But it
+contents me. The secret of happiness lies in adapting one's self to
+conditions. I adapt myself wherever I happen to be. And now, may I,
+without impertinent curiosity, again ask what you meant when you said
+you had come down to bed-rock?"
+
+All of Doggie's rage and shame flared up at the question.
+
+"I've been thrown out of the army!" he cried. "I'm here in
+hiding--hiding from my family and the decent folk I'm ashamed to meet!"
+
+"Tell me all about it, laddie," urged Phineas, gently.
+
+Then Doggie broke down, and with a gush of unminded tears found
+expression for his stony despair. His story took a long time in the
+telling, and Phineas interjected a sympathetic "Ay, ay," from time to
+time.
+
+"And now," cried Doggie, his young face distorted and reddened, his
+sleek hair ruffled, and his hands appealingly outstretched, "what am I
+going to do?"
+
+"You've got to go back home," said Phineas. "You've got to whip up all
+the moral courage in you and go back to Durdlebury."
+
+"I won't," said Doggie, "I can't. I'd sooner die than go back there
+disgraced. I'd sooner enlist as a private soldier."
+
+"Enlist?" repeated Phineas, and he drew himself up straight and gaunt.
+"Well, why not?"
+
+"Enlist?" echoed Doggie, in a dull tone. "As a Tommy?"
+
+"As a Tommy," replied Phineas.
+
+"Enlist!" murmured Doggie. He thought of the alternatives--flight, which
+was craven; home, which he could not bear. Doggie rose from his chair
+with a new light in his eyes. He had come to the supreme moment of his
+life; he had made his great resolution. Yes, he would enlist as a
+private soldier in the British army.
+
+
+III
+
+A year later Doggie Trevor returned to Durdlebury. He had been laid up
+in hospital with a wounded leg, the result of fighting the German
+snipers in front of the first line trenches, and he was now on his way
+back to France. Durdlebury had not changed in the interval; it was
+Marmaduke Trevor that had changed. He measured about ten inches more
+around the chest than the year before, and his hands were red and
+calloused from hard work. He was as straight as an Indian now, and in
+his rough khaki uniform of a British private he looked every bit a
+man--yes, and more than that, a veteran soldier. For Doggie had passed
+through battle after battle, gas attacks, mine explosions, and months of
+dreary duty in water-filled trenches, where only brave and tough men
+could endure. He had been tried in the furnace and he had come out pure
+gold.
+
+Doggie entered the familiar Deanery, and was met by Peggy with a glad
+smile of welcome. His uncle, the Dean, appeared in the hall, florid,
+whitehaired, benevolent, and extended both hands to the homecoming
+warrior.
+
+"My dear boy," he said, "how glad I am to see you! Welcome back! And
+how's the wound?"
+
+Opening the drawing-room door, he pushed Doggie inside. A tall, lean
+figure in uniform, which had remained in the background by the
+fireplace, advanced with outstretched hand.
+
+"Hello, old chap!"
+
+Doggie took the hand in an honest grip.
+
+"Hello, Oliver!"
+
+"How goes it?" asked Oliver.
+
+"Splendid," said Doggie. "Are you all right?"
+
+"Tip-top," answered Oliver. He clapped his cousin on the shoulder. "My
+hat! you do look fit."
+
+He turned to the Dean. "Uncle Edward, isn't he a hundred times the man
+he was?"
+
+In a little while tea came. It appeared to Doggie, handing round the
+three-tiered cake-stand, that he had returned to some forgotten
+existence. The delicate china cup in his hand seemed too frail for the
+material usages of life, and he feared lest he break it, for Doggie was
+accustomed to the rough dishes of the private.
+
+The talk lay chiefly between Oliver and himself and ran on the war. Both
+men had been at Ypres and at Arras, where the British and German
+trenches lay only five yards apart.
+
+"I ought to be over there now," said Oliver, "but I just escaped
+shell-shock and I was sent home for two weeks."
+
+"My crowd is at the Somme," said Doggie.
+
+"You're well out of it, old chap," laughed Oliver.
+
+For the first time in his life Doggie began really to like Oliver.
+Oliver stood in his eyes in a new light, that of the typical officer,
+trusted and beloved by his men, and Doggie's heart went out to him.
+
+After some further talk, the men separated to dress for dinner.
+
+"You've got the green room, Marmaduke," said Peggy. "The one with the
+Chippendale furniture you used to covet so much."
+
+"I haven't got much to change into," laughed Doggie, looking down at his
+uniform.
+
+"You'll find Peddle up there waiting for you."
+
+When Doggie entered the green room, he found Peddle, who welcomed him
+with tears of joy and a display of all the luxuries of the toilet and
+adornment which Doggie had left behind at home. There were pots of
+[v]pomade and face cream, and nail polish; bottles of hair-wash and
+tooth-wash; half a dozen gleaming razors; the array of brushes and combs
+and [v]manicure set in [v]tortoise-shell with his crest in silver;
+bottles of scent; the purple silk dressing-gown; a soft-fronted shirt
+fitted with ruby and diamond sleeve-links; the dinner jacket and suit
+laid out on the glass-topped table, with tie and handkerchief; the silk
+socks, the glossy pumps.
+
+"My, Peddle!" cried Doggie, scratching his closely-cropped head. "What's
+all this?"
+
+Peddle, gray, bent, uncomprehending, regarded him blankly.
+
+"All what, sir?"
+
+"I only want to wash my hands," said Doggie.
+
+"But aren't you going to dress for dinner, sir?"
+
+"A private soldier's not allowed to wear [v]mufti," returned Doggie.
+
+"Who's to find out?"
+
+"There's Mr. Oliver; he's a major."
+
+"Ah, Mr. Marmaduke, he wouldn't mind. Miss Peggy gave me my orders, sir,
+and I think you can leave things to her."
+
+"All right, Peddle," laughed Doggie. "If it's Miss Peggy's decree, I'll
+change my clothes. I have all I want."
+
+"Are you sure you can manage, sir?" Peddle asked anxiously, for the time
+was when Doggie could not stick his legs into his trousers unless Peddle
+helped him.
+
+"Quite," said Doggie.
+
+"It seems rather roughing it, here at the Deanery, Mr. Marmaduke, after
+what you've been accustomed to at the Hall," said Peddle.
+
+"That's so," replied Doggie. "And it's martyrdom compared to what it is
+in the trenches. There we always have a major-general to lace our boots
+and a field-marshall to hand us coffee."
+
+Peddle looked blank, being utterly unable to comprehend the nature of a
+joke.
+
+A little later, when Doggie went downstairs to dinner, he found Peggy
+alone in the drawing-room.
+
+"Now you look more like a Christian gentleman," she said. "Confess: it's
+much more comfortable than your wretched private's uniform."
+
+"I'm not quite so sure," he replied, somewhat ruefully, indicating his
+dinner jacket, which was tightly constricted beneath the arms. "Already
+I've had to slit my waistcoat down the back. Poor old Peddle will have a
+fit when he sees it. I've grown a bit since these elegant rags were made
+for me."
+
+Oliver came in--in khaki. Doggie jumped up and pointed to him.
+
+"Look here, Peggy," he said; "I'll be sent to the guard-room."
+
+Oliver laughed. "I did change my uniform," he said. "I don't know where
+my dinner clothes are."
+
+"That's the best thing about being a major," spoke up Doggie. "They have
+heaps of suits. Poor Tommy has but one suit to his name."
+
+Then the Dean and his wife entered, and they went in to dinner. It was
+for Doggie the most pleasant of meals. He had the superbly healthy man's
+whole-hearted appreciation for unaccustomed good food. There were other
+and finer pleasures--the table with its exquisite [v]napery and china
+and glass and silver and flowers. There was the delightful atmosphere of
+peace and gentle living. And there was Oliver--a new Oliver.
+
+Most of all, Doggie appreciated Oliver's comrade-like attitude. It was a
+recognition of him as a soldier. He had "made good" in the eyes of one
+of the finest soldiers in the British army, and what else mattered? To
+Doggie the supreme joy of that pleasurable evening was the knowledge
+that he had done well in the eyes of Oliver. The latter wore on his
+tunic the white, mauve, and white ribbon of the Military Cross. Honor
+where honor was due. But he--Doggie--had been wounded, and Oliver
+frankly put them both on the same plane of achievement, thus wiping away
+with generous hand all the hated memories of the past.
+
+When the ladies left the room the Dean went with them, and the cousins
+were left alone.
+
+"And now," said Oliver, "don't you think you're a bit of a fool,
+Doggie?"
+
+"I know it," Doggie returned cheerfully. "The army has drummed that into
+me at any rate."
+
+"I mean in staying in the ranks," Oliver went on. "Why don't you apply
+for the Cadet Corps and get a commission again?"
+
+Doggie's brow grew dark. "I will tell you," he replied. "The only real
+happiness I've had in my life has been as a Tommy. I'm not talking
+foolishness. The only real friends I've ever made in my life are
+Tommies. I've a real life as a Tommy, and I'm satisfied. When I came to
+my senses after being thrown out for incompetence and I enlisted, I made
+a vow that I would stick it out as a Tommy without anybody's sympathy,
+least of all that of the people here. And as a Tommy I am a real soldier
+and do my part."
+
+Oliver smiled. "I'm glad you told me, old man. I appreciate it very
+much. I've been through the ranks myself and know what it is--the bad
+and the good. Many a man has found his soul that way--"
+
+"Heavens!" cried Doggie, starting to his feet. "Do you say that, too?"
+
+The cousins clasped hands. That was Oliver's final recognition of Doggie
+as a soldier and a man. Doggie had found his soul.
+
+W. J. LOCKE.
+
+
+
+
+IN FLANDERS FIELD
+
+
+    In Flanders fields, the poppies blow
+    Between the crosses, row on row,
+    That mark our places. In the sky
+    The larks, still bravely singing, fly,
+    Scarce heard amid the guns below.
+    We are the dead. Short days ago
+    We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
+    Loved and were loved, and now we lie
+    In Flanders fields.
+
+    Take up our quarrel with the foe!
+    To you, from failing hands, we throw
+    The torch. Be yours to lift it high!
+    If ye break faith with us who die,
+    We shall not sleep, though poppies blow
+    In Flanders fields.
+
+    JOHN MCCRAE.
+
+
+
+
+IN FLANDERS FIELD
+
+(AN ANSWER)
+
+    In Flanders fields, the cannon boom
+    And fitful flashes light the gloom,
+    While up above, like eagles, fly
+    The fierce destroyers of the sky;
+    With stains the earth wherein you lie
+    Is redder than the poppy bloom,
+              In Flanders fields.
+
+    Sleep on, ye brave. The shrieking shell,
+    The quaking trench, the startled yell,
+    The fury of the battle hell
+    Shall wake you not, for all is well.
+    Sleep peacefully, for all is well.
+    Your flaming torch aloft we bear,
+    With burning heart an oath we swear
+    To keep the faith, to fight it through,
+    To crush the foe or sleep with you
+            In Flanders fields.
+
+    C. B. GALBRAITH.
+
+
+
+
+A BALLAD OF HEROES
+
+    Because you passed, and now are not,--
+      Because in some remoter day
+    Your sacred dust from doubtful spot
+      Was blown of ancient airs away,--
+      Because you perished,--must men say
+    Your deeds were naught, and so profane
+      Your lives with that cold burden? Nay,
+      The deeds you wrought are not in vain!
+
+    Though, it may be above the plot
+      That hid your once imperial clay,
+    No greener than o'er men forgot
+      The unregarded grasses sway,--
+      Though there no sweeter is the lay
+    From careless bird,--though you remain
+      Without distinction of decay,--
+      The deeds you wrought are not in vain!
+
+    No. For while yet in tower or cot
+      Your story stirs the pulse's play;
+    And men forget the sordid lot--
+      The sordid care, of cities gray;--
+      While yet, beset in homelier fray,
+    They learn from you the lesson plain
+      That life may go, so Honor stay,--
+      The deeds you wrought are not in vain!
+
+    ENVOY
+
+    Heroes of old! I humbly lay
+      The laurel on your graves again;
+    Whatever men have done, men may,--
+      The deeds you wrought are not in vain!
+
+    AUSTIN DOBSON.
+
+
+
+
+DICTIONARY
+
+=a byss'=: a deep gulf.
+
+=ac' me=: height.
+
+=ac ro bat' ics=: gymnastics; athletic exercises.
+
+=ad' age=: saying; proverb.
+
+=a e' ri al=: airy.
+
+=a lac' ri ty=: eagerness; spryness.
+
+=al' der man=: here, a Saxon nobleman.
+
+=al' gae=: seaweeds.
+
+=al ter' na tive=: a second choice.
+
+=A' ma ti ki' ta=: an Esquimau.
+
+=am' i ca bly ad just' ed=: arranged peacefully.
+
+=am' phi the a ter=: a circular building with tiers of seats arranged
+around an open space.
+
+=an' chor ite=: a hermit.
+
+=an' nals=: records.
+
+=aped=: imitated.
+
+=ap er tif'= (teef): an appetizer.
+
+=ap' er ture=: opening.
+
+=Ap' pa lach' ian=: a chain of mountains in the eastern United States.
+
+=ap pre hen' sions=: fears.
+
+=a quat' ic=: of the water.
+
+=ar cade'=: an arched gallery.
+
+=ar tic' u late=: in regular words.
+
+=at' mos phere=: air pressure at sea level used as a unit.
+
+=au ro' ra=: the Northern Lights, the red glow in the sky in the Far North.
+
+=aus ter' i ty=: soberness; sternness.
+
+=av a ri' cious= (rish us): greedy of gain.
+
+
+=Bal lin droch' a ter=: a Scotch village.
+
+=ban dit' ti=: outlaws; bandits.
+
+=bar' bi can=: a tower over a gate or bridge.
+
+=bar' o graph=: an instrument for recording changes in the atmosphere.
+
+=ba rom' e ter=: an instrument that determines the weight of the air, and
+thereby foretells changes in the weather.
+
+=ba rouche'=: a low, open carriage.
+
+=bau' ble=: a wand carried by jesters.
+
+=Beau seant= (bo sa on'): "Well-seeming," an ancient French war cry.
+
+=be nig' nant=: kind; helpful.
+
+=big' gin=: a child's cap.
+
+=Bois-Guil bert= (bwa guel bare'): a knight of the Order of the Temple.
+
+=bo' nus=: an extra payment not included in wages.
+
+=brake=: a thicket.
+
+=bre' vi a ry=: a book containing a church service.
+
+=brown-bill=: a weapon consisting of a long staff with a hook-shaped blade
+at the top.
+
+=buf foon' er y=: jesting; clownishness.
+
+=bun' sen pile=: an electric cell containing zinc covered with sulphuric
+acid at one end, and carbon surrounded by nitric acid at the other.
+
+
+
+=buoyed= (booed): kept up; supported.
+
+=bur lesque'= (lesk): humorous; not serious.
+
+=byz' ant=: a large gold coin.
+
+
+=ca lum' ni a tor=: a slanderer.
+
+=car' bon=: one of the chemical elements; charcoal is its best known form.
+
+=car' di nal=: a priest of high rank who wears a small red cap.
+
+=car' ri on=: decaying flesh.
+
+=car' tel=: a defiance; a challenge.
+
+=casque= (cask): helmet.
+
+=cas' sock=: a close-fitting garment resembling a modern coat.
+
+=catherine wheel=: a firework that turns around when lighted, throwing off
+a circle of sparks.
+
+=ce ler' i ty=: quickness; promptness.
+
+=cel' lar=: here, a wine-cellar.
+
+=che val-glass= (she' val): a large mirror swinging in a frame.
+
+=Chil how' ee=: a high mountain in east Tennessee.
+
+=chiv' al rous=: knightly; warlike.
+
+=churls=: low, rude persons.
+
+=circuit-rider=: a preacher who ministers to a number of churches.
+
+=cloth-yard=: a yard in length.
+
+=col' lo quy=: a discussion.
+
+=com punc' tion=: remorse; repentance.
+
+=cone=: a body tapering to a point.
+
+=con' ning tower=: a raised part of a vessel giving an outlook on the sea.
+
+=con strained'=: restricted; unfree.
+
+=con' va les' cence=: period of recovery.
+
+=con ver' gent=: coming nearly together.
+
+=cope=: a long robe.
+
+=co' pi ous ly=: plentifully.
+
+=cord' age=: the ropes on a ship.
+
+=Cor' do van=: made in Cordova, a Spanish city.
+
+=cor me' um e rue ta' vit=: "the heart of me burst forth."
+
+=cor rob' o ra ted=: confirmed; agreed with.
+
+=cor ro' sive sub' li mate=: a substance containing mercury and useful for
+cleaning wounds.
+
+=coun' ter-poise=: a weight used to pull up the drawbridge.
+
+=cowl=: a monk's hood.
+
+=cox' comb=: a piece of red cloth worn by jesters on their caps.
+
+=crest fall' en=: humiliated; humbled.
+
+=crev' ice=: hole; opening.
+
+=cri' sis=: critical period.
+
+=croup=: the space behind the saddle.
+
+=cur tail' ing=: cutting down.
+
+=cut' lery=: knives and forks.
+
+=cyl' in der=: a part of machinery, like a piston, longer than broad and
+with a round surface.
+
+=cy lin' dri cal=: shaped like a cylinder, that is, long but with a round
+surface, as a lead pencil.
+
+
+=decency=: here, a good appearance.
+
+=de cep' tive=: misleading.
+
+=dep re da' tion=: theft; despoiling.
+
+=De pro fun' dis cla ma' vi=: "I cried from the depths," a Latin psalm.
+
+=dif' fi dence=: shyness.
+
+=dil' a to' ri ness=: slowness; delay.
+
+=dil' a to ry=: slow.
+
+=di lem' ma=: difficulty.
+
+=dis cerned'=: saw; understood.
+
+=dis con' so late ly=: unhappily.
+
+=dis til' ling=: for condensing sweet water from sea water.
+
+=dlink=: drink, in broken English.
+
+=doit=: a coin of small value.
+
+=do mes' tic=: of the home.
+
+=Dom' i nie=: a name sometimes given clergymen or schoolmasters.
+
+=doub' let=: a garment covering the body from neck to waist.
+
+=dough ty= (dou' ty): valiant; useful.
+
+=drag=: the scent of a fox.
+
+=dross=: money spoken of contemptuously, as something of no account.
+
+=Dry' ad=: a wood nymph.
+
+=du en' na=: chaperon.
+
+=dun=: brownish.
+
+=Dun dee'=: a Scotch seaport.
+
+
+=e clipse'=: darkening; obscuring.
+
+=ef fem' i nate=: womanish.
+
+=e lec trom' e ter=: an instrument which indicates the presence of
+electricity.
+
+=em a na' tion=: a flowing forth.
+
+=em bel' lish=: ornament; touch up.
+
+=em' u late=: rival.
+
+=e' quine=: pertaining to a horse.
+
+=Esh' col=: a scene in the Bible.
+
+=ex ha la' tion=: fumes; vapor.
+
+=ex hil' a ra ted=: lifted up; greatly pleased.
+
+=ex' i gence=: emergency.
+
+=ex or' bi tant=: unreasonable; excessive.
+
+=ex pos' tu la ted=: protested.
+
+
+=fath' om=: a measure six feet in length.
+
+=fer' rule=: the piece at the end of a parasol or umbrella.
+
+=feu' dal=: relating to a lord of the Middle Ages.
+
+=fi del' i ty=: faithfulness.
+
+=fil' ial= (yal): due from a child to a parent.
+
+=first mag' ni tude=: largest size; most importance.
+
+=floe=: the ocean frozen into an ice-field.
+
+=fort' a lice=: a small fortress.
+
+=frank' lin=: a Saxon gentleman.
+
+=Front-de-Boeuf= (front de beuf'): a Norman baron.
+
+
+=gab' bro=: a kind of limestone rock.
+
+=gal' liard= (yard): a gallant, valiant man.
+
+=gear=: affair; concern.
+
+=ge' ni i= (e): spirits.
+
+=gen re= (zhan' r): dealing with everyday life.
+
+=gen teel' ly=: like gentlefolk; properly.
+
+=ge' o log' i cal=: relating to the substance of the earth.
+
+=glaive=: a weapon resembling an ax.
+
+=gra mer' cy=: thanks.
+
+=gra tu' i tous=: useless; unnecessary.
+
+=grav' i ta' tion=: the attraction of great bodies, such as the earth, for
+other bodies.
+
+=gren ade'=: a small bomb.
+
+=gro tesque'= (tesk): absurd; unsightly.
+
+=gyves= (jives): fetters; irons.
+
+
+=hatch' way=: an opening in a deck.
+
+=Hen' ri cus=: a settlement on the James river some distance above
+Jamestown.
+
+=her met' i cal ly=: tightly; impenetrably.
+
+=hi la' ri ously=: uproariously.
+
+=hor' i zon' tal=: on a level with the ground.
+
+=hum' mock=: a knoll, or hillock.
+
+=hy' dro plane=: an aeroplane which also moves on the water.
+
+
+=il lus' tri ous=: distinguished; noted.
+
+=im port' ed=: brought in from without.
+
+=im per' vi ous=: impenetrable; not to be pierced.
+
+=in' con ceiv' a ble=: beyond the understanding.
+
+=in ef' fa ble=: very great; beyond measure.
+
+=in' ef fec' tu al=: unavailing; without effect.
+
+=in ex' pli ca bly=: not to be explained.
+
+=in fal' li bly=: unerringly.
+
+=in' fin ite= (it): immeasurable.
+
+=in i ti a tive= (in ish' i a tive): an act which begins something.
+
+=In' nu it=: an American Esquimau.
+
+=in ter mit' tent=: unsteady; not regular.
+
+=in vin' ci ble=: not to be conquered.
+
+=in vi' o late=: unbroken; undefiled.
+
+
+=jave' lin= (jav): a short spear used for throwing.
+
+=joc' u lar' i ty=: mirth.
+
+=joc' und=: merry; sportive.
+
+=Jove=: the king of the gods; here, the chief person of the household.
+
+=jun' to=: a group of men; a council.
+
+
+=ka lei' do scope=: an instrument in which small pieces of colored glass
+slide about and form pleasing shapes.
+
+=Ki was' sa=: a name for the Great Spirit, or God.
+
+=Knights Templar=: an order of knights serving in Palestine and taking
+their name from a palace in Jerusalem called Solomon's Temple.
+
+
+=la goons=: lakes connecting with the sea.
+
+=La Mort= (mor): "Death," sounded on a horn when the game is killed.
+
+=la' tent=: hidden; not revealed; also, in preparation.
+
+=leg-bail=: escape by flight.
+
+=Ley' den jar=: a glass bottle used to accumulate electricity.
+
+=log' a rith' mic tables=: mathematical tables used to calculate a ship's
+position.
+
+=Long House=: a name for the Iroquois Indians, derived from their long
+communal houses.
+
+=lon' gi tude=: distance on the earth's surface from east to west.
+
+=lu' mi na ry=: a body that gives light.
+
+
+=Ma belle mere= (mare): "My pretty mother."
+
+=Ma' gi ans=: wise men of ancient Persia.
+
+=mal' a dy=: disease.
+
+=Mal voi sin= (mal vwa zan'): a Norman baron.
+
+=man' i cure set=: instruments used on the finger nails.
+
+=man' tel et=: a movable shelter of wood.
+
+=ma rau' ders=: robbers.
+
+=mar' i=: husband.
+
+=masque= (mask): a kind of theatrical performance.
+
+=mas' que rad' ing=: going in disguise.
+
+=ma ter' nal=: motherly.
+
+=mat' ins=: a morning service of the ancient church.
+
+=mer' ce na ry=: a hired soldier; a hireling.
+
+=mer' cu ry=: quicksilver, used in the thermometer.
+
+=me tal' lic=: composed of metal.
+
+=Michael mas eve= (mick' el mas): September 28.
+
+=Mi' das=: a king in Greek myth whose touch turned everything to gold.
+
+=mod' i fi ca' tion=: change.
+
+=Mon' a cans=: an Indian tribe originally living west of Richmond,
+Virginia.
+
+=mon' o syl' la ble=: a single syllable.
+
+=Mort pour la patrie=: "Dead for country."
+
+=Mount joy St. Dennis= (den ny'): the war cry of ancient France.
+
+=muf' ti= (ty): ordinary clothes.
+
+
+=na bob=: a millionaire: a wealthy man from India.
+
+=na' per y=: table linen.
+
+=Naz' a rene=: a name sometimes applied to Christians, from Jesus of
+Nazareth.
+
+=ne go' ti a ting=: bargaining.
+
+=niche= (nitch): an opening in a wall.
+
+=no' men il' lis le' gi o=: "the name of them is legion."
+
+=nor' mal=: accustomed; usual.
+
+=nu' cle us=: a central mass.
+
+=nu' tri ment=: nourishment.
+
+
+=ob' du rate=: not to be moved.
+
+=o bei sance= (o ba' sans): a bending of the body; a bow.
+
+=ob lique'= (leek): a slanting direction.
+
+=old fields=: fields no longer cultivated.
+
+=o' pa line=: the color of opals; grayish-white.
+
+=O' pe chan' ca nough= (no): the leading Indian chief in Virginia in the
+early period.
+
+=op' tion=: choice.
+
+=op' u lence=: wealth.
+
+=order=: a society of monks, with an organization and convents.
+
+=o' ri en ta tion=: adjustment.
+
+=os ten' si ble=: apparent; professed.
+
+
+=pad' u a soy'=: a rich, heavy silk.
+
+=Pa mun' keys=: an Indian tribe originally living along the Pamunkey and
+York rivers in Virginia.
+
+=pan' de mo' ni um=: the place of devils; also, and usually, a riotous
+scene.
+
+=pan' nier= (yer): a wicker basket.
+
+=par' ley=: talk; discussion.
+
+=Pas' pa heghs= (hays): an Indian tribe of Virginia.
+
+=patched=: adorned with small patches of black cloth.
+
+=pa' thos=: sadness.
+
+=pa visse'=: a large shield.
+
+=Pax' vo bis' cum=: "Peace be with you!"
+
+=pem' mi can=: powdered meat pressed into cakes.
+
+=per' i scope=: an instrument projecting above a submarine which gives a
+view of the sea surface.
+
+=per' pen dic' u lar=: straight up and down.
+
+=per' pen dic' u lar' i ty=: straightness up and down.
+
+=pet' ri fied=: turned to stone.
+
+=phil' o soph' i cal=: wise; learned.
+
+=pil' lion= (yun): a cushion used by women in riding horseback.
+
+=pi lote= (pe loat'): an aeroplane pilot.
+
+=pin' na cle=: summit.
+
+=pipe=: a musical instrument resembling a flute.
+
+=plain' tive ly=: complainingly.
+
+=plan' i sphere=: the representation of the earth on a plane; a map of the
+world.
+
+=Ple ia des= (ple' ya dees): a group of six stars in the constellation
+Taurus.
+
+=pol lute'=: to stain; to befoul.
+
+=po made'=: a perfumed ointment.
+
+=po ma' tum=: a perfumed ointment.
+
+=pon' der a ble=: weighable; having heaviness.
+
+=pon' der ous=: heavy; unwieldy.
+
+=pon' iard= (yard): a dagger.
+
+=por' tents=: signs; omens.
+
+=Pow' ha tan=: the James river; also the name of Opechancanough's
+predecessor.
+
+=pre ca' ri ous=: uncertain; dangerous.
+
+=pre' con cep' tion=: a foreshadowing; an idea of something to come.
+
+=pri me' val=: original.
+
+=prim' i tive=: original; coming down from afar.
+
+=Pro' cy on= (si): a first-magnitude star.
+
+=pro di gious= (pro dij' us): immense.
+
+=pro ject' ile=: something projected with force, or fired.
+
+=pur veyed'=: brought.
+
+
+=quarter-staff=: a short pole, used as a walking-staff and a weapon.
+
+
+=ra' di us=: the distance from the center of a body to its surface.
+
+=rail' ler y=: jesting.
+
+=ran' som=: a sum paid for the release of a prisoner.
+
+=rar' e fac' tion=: the making thin; less dense.
+
+=ra' ti o=: rate; measure.
+
+=re cip' ro ca ted=: returned.
+
+=re cum' bent=: lying down.
+
+=re fec' to ry=: a dining-room in a convent.
+
+=re frac' tion=: the bending from a straight line which occurs when a ray
+of light passes out of the air into water.
+
+=reg' u la tor=: a contrivance for controlling motion.
+
+=re mu' ner a ted=: rewarded; presented with.
+
+=re nowned'=: famous.
+
+=re plete'=: filled.
+
+=rep' ro ba' tion=: condemnation; disapproval.
+
+=res' pi ra' tor=: a device covering the mouth and nose and preventing the
+breathing of outside air.
+
+=ret' i nue=: a train of attendants.
+
+=re ver' ber a ted=: reflected; echoed.
+
+=rime=: hoarfrost.
+
+=Rolfe, John=: the first Englishman to plant tobacco in Virginia; the
+husband of Pocahontas.
+
+=rood=: cross.
+
+=ro' sa ry=: a string of beads used in counting prayers.
+
+=ru' bi cund=: ruddy; red.
+
+=rucksack=: a napsack worn by Arctic travelers.
+
+=rue' ful=: sad; distressed.
+
+=ruffle=: a contest.
+
+
+=sar cas' ti cal ly=: ironically; humorously.
+
+=sat' el lite=: an attendant; also, a body revolving around another, as
+the moon.
+
+=scar=: a cliff.
+
+=sci' en tist=: one learned in the natural sciences, as chemistry,
+physics, etc.
+
+=screen=: a surface on which the reflection from the periscope is thrown.
+
+=sem' blance=: likeness.
+
+=serf=: a kind of slave; an unfree laborer.
+
+=sex' tant=: an instrument used to determine a ship's position by
+observing the sun and other objects.
+
+=Shah=: ruler; king.
+
+=shrift=: confession made to a priest.
+
+=Shrovetide=: the days just before the beginning of Lent.
+
+=sib' yl=: prophetess.
+
+=side drift=: the drift of a vessel to one side or the other of a course.
+
+=sil hou ette= (sil oo et'): the black shadow of an object.
+
+=sin' gu lar' i ty=: strangeness.
+
+=smock race=: a race in which the contestants are hampered by garments.
+
+=sliv' er=: a long splinter.
+
+=sol' ace=: comfort.
+
+=so phis' ti ca ted=: experienced; worldly-wise.
+
+=spec' tral=: of graded colors.
+
+=spin' et=: a musical instrument like a piano.
+
+=spoor=: trail; foot-marks.
+
+=sprint' er=: a runner; a foot-racer.
+
+=spume=: froth; foam.
+
+=stac ca' to=: disconnected; jerky.
+
+=states' man=: one concerned in the governing of a country.
+
+=sten to' ri an=: loud; thundering.
+
+=stodg' i ly=: with distended eyes.
+
+=sto' ic al ly=: patiently; without complaint.
+
+=stoke-hold=: the room containing a ship's boilers.
+
+=stra' ta=: the layers of rock composing the crust of the earth.
+
+=strat' e gy=: the use of artifice; clever planning.
+
+=Stuy' ves ant=: a Dutch colonial governor of New York.
+
+=sub lim' i ty=: grandeur; magnificence.
+
+=sub' ter ra' ne an=: beneath the earth; in a cavity.
+
+=sump' ter mule=: a beast of burden.
+
+=sump' tu a ry=: relating to expense.
+
+=sump' tu ous=: plentiful; extravagant.
+
+=su' per flu' i ty=: more than is needed.
+
+=su per' flu ous=: not needed.
+
+=sur' plice=: a white outer garment worn by priests.
+
+=Sus' que han' nocks=: an Indian tribe originally inhabiting Maryland and
+Pennsylvania.
+
+=sword of Damascus=: a sword made from steel wrought in Damascus, Syria.
+
+=syl' van=: of the woods.
+
+=sym' pho ny=: harmony; music.
+
+
+=ta' bor=: a small drum.
+
+=tac' i turn= (tas): silent.
+
+=tam' bour frame=: frame for embroidery.
+
+=tap' es try=: a curtain for a wall ornamented with worked pictures.
+
+=tar' get=: a small shield.
+
+=ter' ma gant=: quarrelsome; scolding.
+
+=ter' ra fir' ma=: the firm earth.
+
+=thane=: a Saxon land-owner.
+
+=thatch=: straw or reeds.
+
+=Ti' tan=: a giant of Greek myth.
+
+=tithe=: a tenth.
+
+=tor' toise-shell=: the shell of a turtle.
+
+=traction engine=: a locomotive that draws vehicles along roads.
+
+=treasurer=: George Sandys.
+
+=tri bu' nal=: a court of justice.
+
+=trump=: the card that takes other cards in a game.
+
+=truss=: tie.
+
+=tu mul' tu ous=: riotous; very noisy.
+
+
+=ul' tra ma rine'=: deep blue.
+
+=uncle=: a familiar form of address used by jesters.
+
+=u nique'= (neek): singular; unusual.
+
+=u' su ry=: unlawful, or excessive interest.
+
+
+=vas' sals=: subjects; dependents.
+
+=ve' he ment=: passionate; forceful.
+
+=ve loc' i ty=: speed.
+
+=vel' lum=: leather.
+
+=ven' er a' tion=: respect; reverence.
+
+=ver' dure=: vegetation; green growth.
+
+=ver' i ta ble=: true; unmistakable.
+
+=vic' ar=: a clergyman in charge of a parish.
+
+=vis' count= (vi): a nobleman.
+
+=viz' ard=: a mask.
+
+=viz' or=: here, a mask.
+
+=vo ra' cious= (shus): greedy; very hungry.
+
+
+=Wat' ling Street=: a Roman road running from Dover to Chester.
+
+=wer' o wance=: a chief of the Virginia Indians.
+
+=West, Francis=: afterward governor of Virginia.
+
+=whist=: still.
+
+
+=yeo' man= (yo): a free laborer; often a small land-owner.
+
+
+=ze' nith=: highest point; summit.
+
+=zo' o phytes=: small sea animals growing together, as coral.
+
+
+
+
+
+Transcriber's Note
+
+The following printer's errors have been corrected:
+
+  56  Mountain" changed to Mountain."
+  97  all unwarned! changed to all unwarned!"
+  119 he shall" changed to he shall,"
+  125 good-bye changed to good-by
+  130 ruffllings changed to rufflings
+  151 reeentering changed to reentering
+  163 processsion changed to procession
+  177 calculatued changed to calculated
+  223 langauge changed to language
+  230 but to seaward changed to but two seaward
+  236 Majorie changed to Marjorie
+  263 attemped changed to attempted
+  267 altogther changed to altogether
+  272 miller," changed to miller?"
+  277 accomodated changed to accommodated
+  278 rescue?' changed to rescue?"
+  286 Norman, and let changed to Norman, "and let
+  305 father, said changed to father," said
+  310 "Fiends!' changed "Fiends!"
+  317 "'Nothing changed to "Nothing
+  326 of proof." changed to of proof.
+  328 stop them." changed to stop them.
+  383 April. 5th. changed to April 5th.
+  386 hugh changed to huge
+  396 the bottom. changed to the bottom."
+  402 everything! changed to everything!"
+  409 said; do you changed to said; "do you
+  444 unwieldly changed to unwieldy
+  446 spoor; changed to spoor:
+
+Other errors
+
+  116 infantile not included in vocabulary section
+  117 peer not included in the vocabulary section
+  118 mien not included in the vocabulary section
+  282 contingent is not defined in the vocabulary section
+  354 ballast is not defined in the vocabulary section
+  440 corroborated not marked in the text
+  443 mari not marked in the text
+  444 pinnacle not marked in the text
+
+Inconsistent hyphenation
+
+  foot-marks / footmarks
+  north-east / northeast
+  seal-skin / sealskin
+  snow-flakes / snowflakes
+  water-proof / waterproof
+  white-haired / whitehaired
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's The Literary World Seventh Reader, by Various
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LITERARY WORLD SEVENTH READER ***
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