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diff --git a/old/sbeag10.txt b/old/sbeag10.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..7d54e2e --- /dev/null +++ b/old/sbeag10.txt @@ -0,0 +1,4697 @@ +The Project Gutenberg Etext Stories by English Authors in Germany +#6 in our series of authors collected by Scribners + + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world, be sure to check +the copyright laws for your country before posting these files!! + +Please take a look at the important information in this header. +We encourage you to keep this file on your own disk, keeping an +electronic path open for the next readers. Do not remove this. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**Etexts Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*These Etexts Prepared By Hundreds of Volunteers and Donations* + +Information on contacting Project Gutenberg to get Etexts, and +further information is included below. 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FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS*Ver.04.29.93*END* + + + + + +Etext prepared by Dagny, dagnyj@hotmail.com +and John Bickers, jbickers@ihug.co.nz + + + + + +STORIES BY ENGLISH AUTHORS: GERMANY, ETC. +By Various Authors, Selected by Scribners + + + + + +STORIES BY ENGLISH AUTHORS + +GERMANY, ETC. + + + + +CONTENTS + +THE BIRD ON ITS JOURNEY, Beatrice Harraden +KOOSJE: A STUDY OF DUTCH LIFE, John Strange Winter +A DOG OF FLANDERS, Ouida +MARKHEIM, R. L. Stevenson +QUEEN TITA'S WAGER, William Black + + + + +THE BIRD ON ITS JOURNEY + +BY + +BEATRICE HARRADEN + + + +It was about four in the afternoon when a young girl came into the +salon of the little hotel at C---- in Switzerland, and drew her chair +up to the fire. + +"You are soaked through," said an elderly lady, who was herself trying +to get roasted. "You ought to lose no time in changing your clothes." + +"I have not anything to change," said the young girl, laughing. "Oh, I +shall soon be dry!" + +"Have you lost all your luggage?" asked the lady, sympathetically. + +"No," said the young girl; "I had none to lose." And she smiled a +little mischievously, as though she knew by instinct that her +companion's sympathy would at once degenerate into suspicion! + +"I don't mean to say that I have not a knapsack," she added, +considerately. "I have walked a long distance--in fact, from Z----." + +"And where did you leave your companions?" asked the lady, with a +touch of forgiveness in her voice. + +"I am without companions, just as I am without luggage," laughed the +girl. + +And then she opened the piano, and struck a few notes. There was +something caressing in the way in which she touched the keys; whoever +she was, she knew how to make sweet music; sad music, too, full of +that undefinable longing, like the holding out of one's arms to one's +friends in the hopeless distance. + +The lady bending over the fire looked up at the little girl, and +forgot that she had brought neither friends nor luggage with her. She +hesitated for one moment, and then she took the childish face between +her hands and kissed it. + +"Thank you, dear, for your music," she said, gently. + +"The piano is terribly out of tune," said the little girl, suddenly; +and she ran out of the room, and came back carrying her knapsack. + +"What are you going to do?" asked her companion. + +"I am going to tune the piano," the little girl said; and she took a +tuning-hammer out of her knapsack, and began her work in real earnest. +She evidently knew what she was about, and pegged away at the notes as +though her whole life depended upon the result. + +The lady by the fire was lost in amazement. Who could she be? Without +luggage and without friends, and with a tuning-hammer! + +Meanwhile one of the gentlemen had strolled into the salon; but +hearing the sound of tuning, and being in secret possession of nerves, +he fled, saying, "The tuner, by Jove!" + +A few minutes afterward Miss Blake, whose nerves were no secret +possession, hastened into the salon, and, in her usual imperious +fashion, demanded instant silence. + +"I have just done," said the little girl. "The piano was so terribly +out of tune, I could not resist the temptation." + +Miss Blake, who never listened to what any one said, took it for +granted that the little girl was the tuner for whom M. le Proprietaire +had promised to send; and having bestowed on her a condescending nod, +passed out into the garden, where she told some of the visitors that +the piano had been tuned at last, and that the tuner was a young woman +of rather eccentric appearance. + +"Really, it is quite abominable how women thrust themselves into every +profession," she remarked, in her masculine voice. "It is so +unfeminine, so unseemly." + +There was nothing of the feminine about Miss Blake; her horse-cloth +dress, her waistcoat and high collar, and her billycock hat were of +the masculine genus; even her nerves could not be called feminine, +since we learn from two or three doctors (taken off their guard) that +nerves are neither feminine nor masculine, but common. + +"I should like to see this tuner," said one of the tennis-players, +leaning against a tree. + +"Here she comes," said Miss Blake, as the little girl was seen +sauntering into the garden. + +The men put up their eye-glasses, and saw a little lady with a +childish face and soft brown hair, of strictly feminine appearance and +bearing. The goat came toward her and began nibbling at her frock. She +seemed to understand the manner of goats, and played with him to his +heart's content. One of the tennis players, Oswald Everard by name, +strolled down to the bank where she was having her frolic. + +"Good-afternoon," he said, raising his cap. "I hope the goat is not +worrying you. Poor little fellow! this is his last day of play. He is +to be killed to-morrow for /table d'hote/." + +"What a shame!" she said. "Fancy to be killed, and then grumbled at!" + +"That is precisely what we do here," he said, laughing. "We grumble at +everything we eat. And I own to being one of the grumpiest; though the +lady in the horse-cloth dress yonder follows close upon my heels." + +"She was the lady who was annoyed at me because I tuned the piano," +the little girl said. "Still, it had to be done. It was plainly my +duty. I seemed to have come for that purpose." + +"It has been confoundedly annoying having it out of tune," he said. +"I've had to give up singing altogether. But what a strange profession +you have chosen! Very unusual, isn't it?" + +"Why, surely not," she answered, amused. "It seems to me that every +other woman has taken to it. The wonder to me is that any one ever +scores a success. Nowadays, however, no one could amass a huge fortune +out of it." + +"No one, indeed!" replied Oswald Everard, laughing. "What on earth +made you take to it?" + +"It took to me," she said simply. "It wrapped me round with +enthusiasm. I could think of nothing else. I vowed that I would rise +to the top of my profession. I worked day and night. But it means +incessant toil for years if one wants to make any headway." + +"Good gracious! I thought it was merely a matter of a few months," he +said, smiling at the little girl. + +"A few months!" she repeated, scornfully. "You are speaking the +language of an amateur. No; one has to work faithfully year after +year; to grasp the possibilities, and pass on to greater +possibilities. You imagine what it must feel like to touch the notes, +and know that you are keeping the listeners spellbound; that you are +taking them into a fairy-land of sound, where petty personality is +lost in vague longing and regret." + +"I confess I had not thought of it in that way," he said, humbly. "I +have only regarded it as a necessary every-day evil; and to be quite +honest with you, I fail to see now how it can inspire enthusiasm. I +wish I could see," he added, looking up at the engaging little figure +before him. + +"Never mind," she said, laughing at his distress; "I forgive you. And, +after all, you are not the only person who looks upon it as a +necessary evil. My poor old guardian abominated it. He made many +sacrifices to come and listen to me. He knew I liked to see his kind +old face, and that the presence of a real friend inspired me with +confidence." + +"I should not have thought it was nervous work," he said. + +"Try it and see," she answered. "But surely you spoke of singing. Are +you not nervous when you sing?" + +"Sometimes," he replied, rather stiffly. "But that is slightly +different." (He was very proud of his singing, and made a great fuss +about it.) "Your profession, as I remarked before, is an unavoidable +nuisance. When I think what I have suffered from the gentlemen of your +profession, I only wonder that I have any brains left. But I am +uncourteous." + +"No, no," she said; "let me hear about your sufferings." + +"Whenever I have specially wanted to be quiet," he said--and then he +glanced at her childish little face, and he hesitated. "It seems so +rude of me," he added. He was the soul of courtesy, although he was an +amateur tenor singer. + +"Please tell me," the little girl said, in her winning way. + +"Well," he said, gathering himself together, "it is the one subject on +which I can be eloquent. Ever since I can remember, I have been +worried and tortured by those rascals. I have tried in every way to +escape from them, but there is no hope for me. Yes; I believe that all +the tuners in the universe are in league against me, and have marked +me out for their special prey." + +"/All the what/?" asked the little girl, with a jerk in her voice. + +"All the tuners, of course," he replied, rather snappishly. "I know +that we cannot do without them; but good heavens! they have no tact, +no consideration, no mercy. Whenever I've wanted to write or read +quietly, that fatal knock has come at the door, and I've known by +instinct that all chance of peace was over. Whenever I've been giving +a luncheon party, the tuner has arrived, with his abominable black +bag, and his abominable card which has to be signed at once. On one +occasion I was just proposing to a girl in her father's library when +the tuner struck up in the drawing-room. I left off suddenly, and fled +from the house. But there is no escape from these fiends; I believe +they are swarming about in the air like so many bacteria. And how, in +the name of goodness, you should deliberately choose to be one of +them, and should be so enthusiastic over your work, puzzles me beyond +all words. Don't say that you carry a black bag, and present cards +which have to be filled up at the most inconvenient time; don't--" + +He stopped suddenly, for the little girl was convulsed with laughter. +She laughed until the tears rolled down her cheeks, and then she dried +her eyes and laughed again. + +"Excuse me," she said; "I can't help myself; it's so funny." + +"It may be funny to you," he said, laughing in spite of himself; "but +it is not funny to me." + +"Of course it isn't," she replied, making a desperate effort to be +serious. "Well, tell me something more about these tuners." + +"Not another word," he said, gallantly. "I am ashamed of myself as it +is. Come to the end of the garden, and let me show you the view down +into the valley." + +She had conquered her fit of merriment, but her face wore a settled +look of mischief, and she was evidently the possessor of some secret +joke. She seemed in capital health and spirits, and had so much to say +that was bright and interesting that Oswald Everard found himself +becoming reconciled to the whole race of tuners. He was amazed to +learn that she had walked all the way from Z----, and quite alone, +too. + +"Oh, I don't think anything of that," she said; "I had a splendid +time, and I caught four rare butterflies. I would not have missed +those for anything. As for the going about by myself, that is a second +nature. Besides, I do not belong to any one. That has its advantages, +and I suppose its disadvantages; but at present I have only discovered +the advantages. The disadvantages will discover themselves!" + +"I believe you are what the novels call an advanced young woman," he +said. "Perhaps you give lectures on woman's suffrage, or something of +that sort?" + +"I have very often mounted the platform," she answered. "In fact, I am +never so happy as when addressing an immense audience. A most +unfeminine thing to do, isn't it? What would the lady yonder in the +horse-cloth dress and billycock hat say? Don't you think you ought to +go and help her drive away the goat? She looks so frightened. She +interests me deeply. I wonder whether she has written an essay on the +feminine in woman. I should like to read it; it would do me so much +good." + +"You are at least a true woman," he said, laughing, "for I see you can +be spiteful. The tuning has not driven that away." + +"Ah, I had forgotten about the tuning," she answered, brightly; "but +now you remind me, I have been seized with a great idea." + +"Won't you tell it to me?" he asked. + +"No," she answered; "I keep my great ideas for myself, and work them +out in secret. And this one is particularly amusing. What fun I shall +have!" + +"But why keep the fun to yourself?" he said. "We all want to be amused +here; we all want to be stirred up; a little fun would be a charity." + +"Very well, since you wish it, you shall be stirred up," she answered; +"but you must give me time to work out my great idea. I do not hurry +about things, not even about my professional duties; for I have a +strong feeling that it is vulgar to be always amassing riches! As I +have neither a husband nor a brother to support, I have chosen less +wealth, and more leisure to enjoy all the loveliness of life! So you +see I take my time about everything. And to-morrow I shall catch +butterflies at my leisure, and lie among the dear old pines, and work +at my great idea." + +"I shall catch butterflies," said her companion; "and I too shall lie +among the dear old pines." + +"Just as you please," she said; and at that moment the /table d'hote/ +bell rang. + +The little girl hastened to the bureau, and spoke rapidly in German to +the cashier. + +"/Ach, Fraulein/!" he said. "You are not really serious?" + +"Yes, I am," she said. "I don't want them to know my name. It will +only worry me. Say I am the young lady who tuned the piano." + +She had scarcely given these directions and mounted to her room when +Oswald Everard, who was much interested in his mysterious companion, +came to the bureau, and asked for the name of the little lady. + +"/Es ist das Fraulein welches das Piano gestimmt hat/," answered the +man, returning with unusual quickness to his account-book. + +No one spoke to the little girl at /table d'hote/, but for all that +she enjoyed her dinner, and gave her serious attention to all the +courses. Being thus solidly occupied, she had not much leisure to +bestow on the conversation of the other guests. Nor was it specially +original; it treated of the short-comings of the chef, the +tastelessness of the soup, the toughness of the beef, and all the many +failings which go to complete a mountain hotel dinner. But suddenly, +so it seemed to the little girl, this time-honoured talk passed into +another phase; she heard the word "music" mentioned, and she became at +once interested to learn what these people had to say on a subject +which was dearer to her than any other. + +"For my own part," said a stern-looking old man, "I have no words to +describe what a gracious comfort music has been to me all my life. It +is the noblest language which man may understand and speak. And I +sometimes think that those who know it, or know something of it, are +able at rare moments to find an answer to life's perplexing problems." + +The little girl looked up from her plate. Robert Browning's words rose +to her lips, but she did not give them utterance: + + God has a few of us whom He whispers in the ear; + The rest may reason, and welcome; 'tis we musicians know. + +"I have lived through a long life," said another elderly man, "and +have therefore had my share of trouble; but the grief of being obliged +to give up music was the grief which held me longest, or which perhaps +has never left me. I still crave for the gracious pleasure of touching +once more the strings of the violoncello, and hearing the dear, tender +voice singing and throbbing, and answering even to such poor skill as +mine. I still yearn to take my part in concerted music, and be one of +those privileged to play Beethoven's string-quartettes. But that will +have to be in another incarnation, I think." + +He glanced at his shrunken arm, and then, as though ashamed of this +allusion to his own personal infirmity, he added hastily: + +"But when the first pang of such a pain is over, there remains the +comfort of being a listener. At first one does not think it is a +comfort; but as time goes on there is no resisting its magic +influence. And Lowell said rightly that 'one of God's great charities +is music.' " + +"I did not know you were musical, Mr. Keith," said an English lady. +"You have never before spoken of music." + +"Perhaps not, madam," he answered. "One does not often speak of what +one cares for most of all. But when I am in London I rarely miss +hearing our best players." + +At this point others joined in, and the various merits of eminent +pianists were warmly discussed. + +"What a wonderful name that little English lady has made for herself!" +said the major, who was considered an authority on all subjects. I +would go anywhere to hear Miss Thyra Flowerdew. We all ought to be +very proud of her. She has taken even the German musical world by +storm, and they say her recitals at Paris have been brilliantly +successful. I myself have heard her at New York, Leipsic, London, +Berlin, and even Chicago." + +The little girl stirred uneasily in her chair. + +"I don't think Miss Flowerdew has ever been to Chicago," she said. + +There was a dead silence. The admirer of Miss Thyra Flowerdew looked +much annoyed, and twiddled his watch-chain. He had meant to say +"Philadelphia," but he did not think it necessary to own to his +mistake. + +"What impertinence!" said one of the ladies to Miss Blake. "What can +she know about it? Is she not the young person who tuned the piano?" + +"Perhaps she tunes Miss Thyra Flowerdew's piano!" suggested Miss +Blake, in a loud whisper. + +"You are right, madam," said the little girl, quietly. "I have often +tuned Miss Flowerdew's piano." + +There was another embarrassing silence; and then a lovely old lady, +whom every one reverenced, came to the rescue. + +"I think her playing is simply superb," she said. "Nothing that I ever +hear satisfies me so entirely. She has all the tenderness of an +angel's touch." + +"Listening to her," said the major, who had now recovered from his +annoyance at being interrupted, "one becomes unconscious of her +presence, for she /is the music itself/. And that is rare. It is but +seldom nowadays that we are allowed to forget the personality of the +player. And yet her personality is an unusual one; having once seen +her, it would not be easy to forget her. I should recognise her +anywhere." + +As he spoke, he glanced at the little tuner, and could not help +admiring her dignified composure under circumstances which might have +been distressing to any one; and when she rose with the others he +followed her, and said stiffly: + +"I regret that I was the indirect cause of putting you in an awkward +position." + +"It is really of no consequence," she said, brightly. "If you think I +was impertinent, I ask your forgiveness. I did not mean to be +officious. The words were spoken before I was aware of them." + +She passed into the salon, where she found a quiet corner for herself, +and read some of the newspapers. No one took the slightest notice of +her; not a word was spoken to her; but when she relieved the company +of her presence her impertinence was commented on. + +"I am sorry that she heard what I said," remarked Miss Blake; "but she +did not seem to mind. These young women who go out into the world lose +the edge of their sensitiveness and femininity. I have always observed +that." + +"How much they are spared then!" answered some one. + +Meanwhile the little girl slept soundly. She had merry dreams, and +finally woke up laughing. She hurried over her breakfast, and then +stood ready to go for a butterfly hunt. She looked thoroughly happy, +and evidently had found, and was holding tightly, the key to life's +enjoyment. + +Oswald Everard was waiting on the balcony, and he reminded her that he +intended to go with her. + +"Come along then," she answered; "we must not lose a moment." + +They caught butterflies; they picked flowers; they ran; they lingered +by the wayside; they sang; they climbed, and he marvelled at her easy +speed. Nothing seemed to tire her, and everything seemed to delight +her--the flowers, the birds, the clouds, the grasses, and the +fragrance of the pine woods. + +"Is it not good to live?" she cried. "Is it not splendid to take in +the scented air? Draw in as many long breaths as you can. Isn't it +good? Don't you feel now as though you were ready to move mountains? I +do. What a dear old nurse Nature is! How she pets us, and gives us the +best of her treasures!" + +Her happiness invaded Oswald Everard's soul, and he felt like a +school-boy once more, rejoicing in a fine day and his liberty, with +nothing to spoil the freshness of the air, and nothing to threaten the +freedom of the moment. + +"Is it not good to live?" he cried. "Yes, indeed it is, if we know how +to enjoy." + +They had come upon some haymakers, and the little girl hastened up to +help them, laughing and talking to the women, and helping them to pile +up the hay on the shoulders of a broad-backed man, who then conveyed +his burden to a pear-shaped stack. Oswald Everard watched his +companion for a moment, and then, quite forgetting his dignity as an +amateur tenor singer, he too lent his aid, and did not leave off until +his companion sank exhausted on the ground. + +"Oh," she laughed, "what delightful work for a very short time! Come +along; let us go into that brown chatlet yonder and ask for some milk. +I am simply parched with thirst. Thank you, but I prefer to carry my +own flowers." + +"What an independent little lady you are!" he said. + +"It is quite necessary in our profession, I can assure you," she said, +with a tone of mischief in her voice. "That reminds me that my +profession is evidently not looked upon with any favour by the +visitors at the hotel. I am heartbroken to think that I have not won +the esteem of that lady in the billycock hat. What will she say to you +for coming out with me? And what will she say of me for allowing you +to come? I wonder whether she will say, 'How unfeminine!' I wish I +could hear her!" + +"I don't suppose you care," he said. "You seem to be a wild little +bird." + +"I don't care what a person of that description says," replied his +companion. + +"What on earth made you contradict the major at dinner last night?" he +asked. "I was not at the table, but some one told me of the incident; +and I felt very sorry about it. What could you know of Miss Thyra +Flowerdew?" + +"Well, considering that she is in my profession, of course I know +something about her," said the little girl. + +"Confound it all!" he said, rather rudely. "Surely there is some +difference between the bellows-blower and the organist." + +"Absolutely none," she answered; "merely a variation of the original +theme!" + +As she spoke she knocked at the door of the chalet, and asked the old +dame to give them some milk. They sat in the /Stube/, and the little +girl looked about, and admired the spinning-wheel and the quaint +chairs and the queer old jugs and the pictures on the walls. + +"Ah, but you shall see the other room," the old peasant woman said; +and she led them into a small apartment which was evidently intended +for a study. It bore evidences of unusual taste and care, and one +could see that some loving hand had been trying to make it a real +sanctum of refinement. There was even a small piano. A carved book- +rack was fastened to the wall. + +The old dame did not speak at first; she gave her guests time to +recover from the astonishment which she felt they must be +experiencing; then she pointed proudly to the piano. + +"I bought that for my daughters," she said, with a strange mixture of +sadness and triumph. "I wanted to keep them at home with me, and I +saved and saved, and got enough money to buy the piano. They had +always wanted to have one, and I thought they would then stay with me. +They liked music and books, and I knew they would be glad to have a +room of their own where they might read and play and study; and so I +gave them this corner." + +"Well, mother," asked the little girl, "and where are they this +afternoon?" + +"Ah," she answered sadly, "they did not care to stay; but it was +natural enough, and I was foolish to grieve. Besides, they come to see +me." + +"And then they play to you?" asked the little girl, gently. + +"They say the piano is out of tune," the old dame said. "I don't know. +Perhaps you can tell." + +The little girl sat down to the piano, and struck a few chords. + +"Yes," she said; "it is badly out of tune. Give me the tuning-hammer. +I am sorry," she added, smiling at Oswald Everard, "but I cannot +neglect my duty. Don't wait for me." + +"I will wait for you," he said, sullenly; and he went into the balcony +and smoked his pipe, and tried to possess his soul in patience. + +When she had faithfully done her work she played a few simple +melodies, such as she knew the old woman would love and understand; +and she turned away when she saw that the listener's eyes were moist. + +"Play once again," the old woman whispered. "I am dreaming of +beautiful things." + +So the little tuner touched the keys again with all the tenderness of +an angel. + +"Tell your daughters," she said, as she rose to say good-bye, "that +the piano is now in good tune. Then they will play to you the next +time they come." + +"I shall always remember you, mademoiselle," the old woman said; and, +almost unconsciously, she took the childish face and kissed it. + +Oswald Everard was waiting in the hay-field for his companion; and +when she apologised to him for this little professional intermezzo, as +she called it, he recovered from his sulkiness and readjusted his +nerves, which the noise of the tuning had somewhat disturbed. + +"It was very good of you to tune the old dame's piano," he said, +looking at her with renewed interest. + +"Some one had to do it, of course," she answered, brightly, "and I am +glad the chance fell to me. What a comfort it is to think that the +next time those daughters come to see her they will play to her and +make her very happy! Poor old dear!" + +"You puzzle me greatly," he said. "I cannot for the life of me think +what made you choose your calling. You must have many gifts; any one +who talks with you must see that at once. And you play quite nicely, +too." + +"I am sorry that my profession sticks in your throat," she answered. +"Do be thankful that I am nothing worse than a tuner. For I might be +something worse--a snob, for instance." + +And, so speaking, she dashed after a butterfly, and left him to +recover from her words. He was conscious of having deserved a reproof; +and when at last he overtook her he said as much, and asked for her +kind indulgence. + +"I forgive you," she said, laughing. "You and I are not looking at +things from the same point of view; but we have had a splendid morning +together, and I have enjoyed every minute of it. And to-morrow I go on +my way." + +"And to-morrow you go," he repeated. "Can it not be the day after +to-morrow?" + +"I am a bird of passage," she said, shaking her head. "You must not +seek to detain me. I have taken my rest, and off I go to other +climes." + + + +They had arrived at the hotel, and Oswald Everard saw no more of his +companion until the evening, when she came down rather late for /table +d'hote/. She hurried over her dinner and went into the salon. She +closed the door, and sat down to the piano, and lingered there without +touching the keys; once or twice she raised her hands, and then she +let them rest on the notes, and, half unconsciously, they began to +move and make sweet music; and then they drifted into Schumann's +"Abendlied," and then the little girl played some of his +"Kinderscenen," and some of his "Fantasie Stucke," and some of his +songs. + +Her touch and feeling were exquisite, and her phrasing betrayed the +true musician. The strains of music reached the dining-room, and, one +by one, the guests came creeping in, moved by the music and anxious to +see the musician. + +The little girl did not look up; she was in a Schumann mood that +evening, and only the players of Schumann know what enthralling +possession he takes of their very spirit. All the passion and pathos +and wildness and longing had found an inspired interpreter; and those +who listened to her were held by the magic which was her own secret, +and which had won for her such honour as comes only to the few. She +understood Schumann's music, and was at her best with him. + +Had she, perhaps, chosen to play his music this evening because she +wished to be at her best? Or was she merely being impelled by an +overwhelming force within her? Perhaps it was something of both. + +Was she wishing to humiliate these people who had received her so +coldly? This little girl was only human; perhaps there was something +of that feeling too. Who can tell? But she played as she had never +played in London, or Paris, or Berlin, or New York, or Philadelphia. + +At last she arrived at the "Carnaval," and those who heard her +declared afterward that they had never listened to a more magnificent +rendering. The tenderness was so restrained; the vigour was so +refined. When the last notes of that spirited "Marche des +Davidsbundler contre les Philistins" had died away, she glanced at +Oswald Everard, who was standing near her almost dazed. + +"And now my favourite piece of all," she said; and she at once began +the "Second Novelette," the finest of the eight, but seldom played in +public. + +What can one say of the wild rush of the leading theme, and the +pathetic longing of the intermezzo? + + . . . The murmuring dying notes, + That fall as soft as snow on the sea; + +and + + The passionate strain that, deeply going, + Refines the bosom it trembles through. + +What can one say of those vague aspirations and finest thoughts which +possess the very dullest among us when such music as that which the +little girl had chosen catches us and keeps us, if only for a passing +moment, but that moment of the rarest worth and loveliness in our +unlovely lives? + +What can one say of the highest music except that, like death, it is +the great leveller: it gathers us all to its tender keeping--and we +rest. + +The little girl ceased playing. There was not a sound to be heard; the +magic was still holding her listeners. When at last they had freed +themselves with a sigh, they pressed forward to greet her. + +"There is only one person who can play like that," cried the major, +with sudden inspiration--"she is Miss Thyra Flowerdew." + +The little girl smiled. + +"That is my name," she said, simply; and she slipped out of the room. + +The next morning, at an early hour, the bird of passage took her +flight onward, but she was not destined to go off unobserved. Oswald +Everard saw the little figure swinging along the road, and she +overtook her. + +"You little wild bird!" he said. "And so this was your great idea--to +have your fun out of us all, and then play to us and make us feel I +don't know how, and then to go." + +"You said the company wanted stirring up," she answered, "and I rather +fancy I have stirred them up." + +"And what do you suppose you have done for me?" he asked. + +"I hope I have proved to you that the bellows-blower and the organist +are sometimes identical," she answered. + +But he shook his head. + +"Little wild bird," he said, "you have given me a great idea, and I +will tell you what it is: /to tame you/. So good-bye for the present." + +"Good-bye," she said. "But wild birds are not so easily tamed." + +Then she waved her hand over her head, and went on her way singing. + + + + +KOOSJE: A STUDY OF DUTCH LIFE + +by JOHN STRANGE WINTER + + + +Her name was Koosje van Kampen, and she lived in Utrecht, that most +quaint of quaint cities, the Venice of the North. + +All her life had been passed under the shadow of the grand old Dom +Kerk; she had played bo-peep behind the columns and arcades of the +ruined, moss-grown cloisters; had slipped up and fallen down the steps +leading to the /grachts/; had once or twice, in this very early life, +been fished out of those same slimy, stagnant waters; had wandered +under the great lindens in the Baan, and gazed curiously up at the +stork's nest in the tree by the Veterinary School; had pattered about +the hollow-sounding streets in her noisy wooden /klompen/; had danced +and laughed, had quarrelled and wept, and fought and made friends +again, to the tune of the silver chimes high up in the Dom--chimes +that were sometimes old /Nederlandsche/ hymns, sometimes Mendelssohn's +melodies and tender "Lieder ohne Worte." + +But that was ever so long ago, and now she had left her romping +childhood behind her, and had become a maid-servant--a very dignified +and aristocratic maid-servant indeed--with no less a sum than eight +pounds ten a year in wages. + +She lived in the house of a professor, who dwelt on the Munster +Kerkhoff, one of the most aristocratic parts of that wonderfully +aristocratic city; and once or twice every week you might have seen +her, if you had been there to see, busily engaged in washing the red +tile and blue slate pathway in front of the professor's house. You +would have seen that she was very pleasant to look at, this Koosje, +very comely and clean, whether she happened to be very busy, or +whether it had been Sunday, and, with her very best gown on, she was +out for a promenade in the Baan, after duly going to service as +regularly as the Sabbath dawned in the grand old Gothic choir of the +cathedral. + +During the week she wore always the same costume as does every other +servant in the country: a skirt of black stuff, short enough to show a +pair of very neat-set and well-turned ankles, clad in cloth shoes and +knitted stockings that showed no wrinkles; over the skirt a bodice and +a kirtle of lilac, made with a neatly gathered frilling about her +round brown throat; above the frilling five or six rows of unpolished +garnet beads fastened by a massive clasp of gold filigree, and on her +head a spotless white cap tied with a neat bow under her chin--as +neat, let me tell you, as an Englishman's tie at a party. + +But it was on Sunday that Koosje shone forth in all the glory of a +black gown and her jewellery--with great ear-rings to match the clasp +of her necklace, and a heavy chain and cross to match that again, and +one or two rings; while on her head she wore an immense cap, much too +big to put a bonnet over, though for walking she was most particular +to have gloves. + +Then, indeed, she was a young person to be treated with respect, and +with respect she was undoubtedly treated. As she passed along the +quaint, resounding streets, many a head was turned to look after her; +but Koosje went on her way like the staid maiden she was, duly +impressed with the fact that she was principal servant of Professor +van Dijck, the most celebrated authority on the study of osteology in +Europe. So Koosje never heeded the looks, turned her head neither to +the right nor to the left, but went sedately on her business or +pleasure, whichever it happened to be. + +It was not likely that such a treasure could remain long unnoticed and +unsought after. Servants in the Netherlands, I hear, are not so good +but that they might be better; and most people knew what a treasure +Professor van Dijck had in his Koosje. However, as the professor +conscientiously raised her wages from time to time, Koosje never +thought of leaving him. + +But there is one bribe no woman can resist--the bribe that is offered +by love. As Professor van Dijck had expected and feared, that bribe +ere long was held out to Koosje, and Koosje was too weak to resist it. +Not that he wished her to do so. If the girl had a chance of settling +well and happily for life, he would be the last to dream of throwing +any obstacle in her way. He had come to be an old man himself; he +lived all alone, save for his servants, in a great, rambling house, +whose huge apartments were all set out with horrible anatomical +preparations and grisly skeletons; and, though the stately passages +were paved with white marble, and led into rooms which would easily +have accommodated crowds of guests, he went into no society save that +of savants as old and fossil-like as himself; in other words, he was +an old bachelor who lived entirely for his profession and the study of +the great masters by the interpretation of a genuine old Stradivari. +Yet the old professor had a memory; he recalled the time when he had +been young who now was old--the time when his heart was a good deal +more tender, his blood a great deal warmer, and his fancy very much +more easily stirred than nowadays. There was a dead-and-gone romance +which had broken his heart, sentimentally speaking--a romance long +since crumbled into dust, which had sent him for comfort into the +study of osteology and the music of the Stradivari; yet the memory +thereof made him considerably more lenient to Koosje's weakness than +Koosje herself had ever expected to find him. + +Not that she had intended to tell him at first; she was only three and +twenty, and, though Jan van der Welde was as fine a fellow as could be +seen in Utrecht, and had good wages and something put by, Koosje was +by no means inclined to rush headlong into matrimony with undue hurry. +It was more pleasant to live in the professor's good house, to have +delightful walks arm in arm with Jan under the trees in the Baan or +round the Singels, parting under the stars with many a lingering word +and promise to meet again. It was during one of those very partings +that the professor suddenly became aware, as he walked placidly home, +of the change that had come into Koosje's life. + +However, Koosje told him blushingly that she did not wish to leave him +just at present; so he did not trouble himself about the matter. He +was a wise man, this old authority on osteology, and quoted +oftentimes, "Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof." + +So the courtship sped smoothly on, seeming for once to contradict the +truth of the old saying, "The course of true love never did run +smooth." The course of their love did, of a truth, run marvellously +smooth indeed. Koosje, if a trifle coy, was pleasant and sweet; Jan as +fine a fellow as ever waited round a corner on a cold winter night. So +brightly the happy days slipped by, when suddenly a change was +effected in the professor's household which made, as a matter of +course, somewhat of a change in Koosje's life. It came about in this +wise. + +Koosje had been on an errand for the professor,--one that had kept her +out of doors some time,--and it happened that the night was bitterly +cold; the cold, indeed, was fearful. The air had that damp rawness so +noticeable in Dutch climate, a thick mist overhung the city, and a +drizzling rain came down with a steady persistence such as quickly +soaked through the stoutest and thickest garments. The streets were +well-nigh empty. The great thoroughfare, the Oude Gracht, was almost +deserted, and as Koosje hurried along the Meinerbroederstraat--for she +had a second commission there--she drew her great shawl more tightly +round her, muttering crossly, "What weather! yesterday so warm, to-day +so cold. 'Tis enough to give one the fever." + +She delivered her message, and ran on through Oude Kerkhoff as fast as +her feet could carry her, when, just as she turned the corner into the +Domplein, a fierce gust of wind, accompanied by a blinding shower of +rain, assailed her; her foot caught against something soft and heavy, +and she fell. + +"Bless us!" she ejaculated, blankly. "What fool has left a bundle out +on the path on such a night? Pitch dark, with half the lamps out, and +rain and mist enough to blind one." + +She gathered herself up, rubbing elbows and knees vigorously, casting +the while dark glances at the obnoxious bundle which had caused the +disaster. Just then the wind was lulled, the lamp close at hand gave +out a steady light, which shed its rays through the fog upon Koosje +and the bundle, from which, to the girl's horror and dismay, came a +faint moan. Quickly she drew nearer, when she perceived that what she +had believed to be a bundle was indeed a woman, apparently in the last +stage of exhaustion. + +Koosje tried to lift her; but the dead-weight was beyond her, young +and strong as she was. Then the rain and the wind came on again in +fiercer gusts than before; the woman's moans grew louder and louder, +and what to do Koosje knew not. + +She struggled on for the few steps that lay between her and the +professor's house, and then she rang a peal which resounded through +the echoing passages, bringing Dortje, the other maid, running out; +after the manner of her class, imagining all sorts of terrible +catastrophes had happened. She uttered a cry of relief when she +perceived it was only Koosje, who, without vouchsafing any +explanation, dashed past her and ran straight into the professor's +room. + +"O professor!" she gasped out; but, between her efforts to remove the +woman, her struggle with the elements, and her race down the passage, +her breath was utterly gone. + +The professor looked up from his book and his tea-tray in surprise. +For a moment he thought that Koosje, his domestic treasure, had +altogether taken leave of her senses; for she was streaming with +water, covered with mud, and head and cap were in a state of disorder, +such as neither he nor any one else had ever seen them in since the +last time she had been fished out of the Nieuwe Gracht. + +"What is the matter, Koosje?" he asked, regarding her gravely over his +spectacles. + +"There's a woman outside--dying," she panted, "I fell over her." + +"You had better try to get her in then," the old gentleman said, in +quite a relieved tone. "You and Dortje must bring her in. Dear, dear, +poor soul! but it is a dreadful night." + +The old gentleman shivered as he spoke, and drew a little nearer to +the tall white porcelain stove. + +It was, as he had said a minute before, a terrible night. He could +hear the wind beating about the house and rattling about the casements +and moaning down the chimneys; and to think any poor soul should be +out on such a night, /dying/! Heaven preserve others who might be +belated or houseless in any part of the world! + +He fell into a fit of abstraction,--a habit not uncommon with learned +men,--wondering why life should be so different with different people; +why he should be in that warm, handsome room, with its soft rich +hangings and carpet, with its beautiful furniture of carved wood, its +pictures, and the rare china scattered here and there among the grim +array of skeletons which were his delight. He wondered why he should +take his tea out of costly and valuable Oriental china, sugar and +cream out of antique silver, while other poor souls had no tea at all, +and nothing to take it out of even if they had. He wondered why he +should have a lamp under his teapot that was a very marvel of art +transparencies; why he should have every luxury, and this poor +creature should be dying in the street amid the wind and the rain. It +was all very unequal. + +It was very odd, the professor argued, leaning his back against the +tall, warm stove; it was very odd indeed. He began to feel that, grand +as the study of osteology undoubtedly is, he ought not to permit it to +become so engrossing as to blind him to the study of the greater +philosophies of life. His reverie was, however, broken by the abrupt +reentrance of Koosje, who this time was a trifle less breathless than +she had been before. + +"We have got her into the kitchen, professor," she announced. "She is +a child--a mere baby, and so pretty! She has opened her eyes and +spoken." + +"Give her some soup and wine--hot," said the professor, without +stirring. + +"But won't you come?" she asked. + +The professor hesitated; he hated attending in cases of illness, +though he was a properly qualified doctor and in an emergency would +lay his prejudice aside. + +"Or shall I run across for the good Dr. Smit?" Koosje asked. "He would +come in a minute, only it is /such/ a night!" + +At that moment a fiercer gust than before rattled at the casements, +and the professor laid aside his scruples. + +He followed his housekeeper down the chilly, marble-flagged passage +into the kitchen, where he never went for months together--a cosey +enough, pleasant place, with a deep valance hanging from the mantel- +shelf, with many great copper pans, bright and shining as new gold, +and furniture all scrubbed to the whiteness of snow. + +In an arm-chair before the opened stove sat the rescued girl--a +slight, golden-haired thing, with wistful blue eyes and a frightened +air. Every moment she caught her breath in a half-hysterical sob, +while violent shivers shook her from head to foot. + +The professor went and looked at her over his spectacles, as if she +had been some curious specimen of his favourite study; but at the same +time he kept at a respectful distance from her. + +"Give her some soup and wine," he said, at length, putting his hands +under the tails of his long dressing-gown of flowered cashmere. "Some +soup and wine--hot; and put her to bed." + +"Is she then to remain for the night?" Koosje asked, a little +surprised. + +"Oh, don't send me away!" the golden-haired girl broke out, in a voice +that was positively a wail, and clasping a pair of pretty, slender +hands in piteous supplication. + +"Where do you come from?" the old gentleman asked, much as if he +expected she might suddenly jump up and bite him. + +"From Beijerland, mynheer," she answered, with a sob. + +"So! Koosje, she is remarkably well dressed, is she not?" the +professor said, glancing at the costly lace head-gear, the heavy gold +head-piece, which lay on the table together with the great gold spiral +ornaments and filigree pendants--a dazzling head of richness. He +looked, too, at the girl's white hands, at the rich, crape-laden gown, +at their delicate beauty, and shower of waving golden hair, which, +released from the confinement of the cap and head-piece, floated in a +rich mass of glittering beauty over the pillows which his servant had +placed beneath her head. + +The professor was old; the professor was wholly given up to his +profession, which he jokingly called his sweetheart; and, though he +cut half of his acquaintances in the street through inattention and +the shortness of his sight, he had eyes in his head, and upon +occasions could use them. He therefore repeated the question. + +"Very well dressed indeed, professor," returned Koosje, promptly. + +"And what are you doing in Utrecht--in such a plight as this, too?" he +asked, still keeping at a safe distance. + +"O mynheer, I am all alone in the world," she answered, her blue misty +eyes filled with tears. "I had a month ago a dear, good, kind father, +but he has died, and I am indeed desolate. I always believed him rich, +and to these things," with a gesture that included her dress and the +ornaments on the table, "I have ever been accustomed. Thus I ordered +without consideration such clothes as I thought needful. And then I +found there was nothing for me--not a hundred guilders to call my own +when all was paid." + +"But what brought you to Utrecht?" + +"He sent me here, mynheer. In his last illness, only of three days' +duration, he bade me gather all together and come to this city, where +I was to ask for a Mevrouw Baake, his cousin." + +"Mevrouw Baake, of the Sigaren Fabrijk," said Dortje, in an aside, to +the others. "I lived servant with her before I came here." + +"I had heard very little about her, only my father had sometimes +mentioned his cousin to me; they had once been betrothed," the +stranger continued. "But when I reached Utrecht I found she was dead-- +two years dead; but we had never heard of it." + +"Dear, dear, dear!" exclaimed the professor, pityingly. "Well, you had +better let Koosje put you to bed, and we will see what can be done for +you in the morning." + +"Am I to make up a bed?" Koosje asked, following him along the +passage. + +The professor wheeled round and faced her. + +"She had better sleep in the guest room," he said, thoughtfully, +regardless of the cold which struck to his slippered feet from the +marble floor. "That is the only room which does not contain specimens +that would probably frighten the poor child. I am very much afraid, +Koosje," he concluded, doubtfully, "that she is a lady; and what we +are to do with a lady I can't think." + +With that the old gentleman shuffled off to his cosey room, and Koosje +turned back to her kitchen. + +"He'll never think of marrying her," mused Koosje, rather blankly. If +she had spoken the thoughts to the professor himself, she would have +received a very emphatic assurance that, much as the study of +osteology and the Stradivari had blinded him to the affairs of this +workaday world, he was not yet so thoroughly foolish as to join his +fossilised wisdom to the ignorance of a child of sixteen or seventeen. + +However, on the morrow matters assumed a somewhat different aspect. +Gertrude van Floote proved to be not exactly a gentlewoman. It is true +that her father had been a well-to-do man for his station in life, and +had very much spoiled and indulged his one motherless child. Yet her +education was so slight that she could do little more than read and +write, besides speaking a little English, which she had picked up from +the yachtsmen frequenting her native town. The professor found she had +been but a distant relative of the Mevrouw Baake, to seek whom she had +come to Utrecht, and that she had no kinsfolk upon whom she could +depend--a fact which accounted for the profusion of her jewellery, all +her golden trinkets having descended to her as heirlooms. + +"I can be your servant, mynheer," she suggested. "Indeed, I am a very +useful girl, as you will find if you will but try me." + +Now, as a rule, the professor vigorously set his face against +admitting young servants into his house. They broke his china, they +disarranged his bones, they meddled with his papers, and made general +havoc. So, in truth, he was not very willing to have Gertrude van +Floote as a permanent member of his household, and he said so. + +But Koosje had taken a fancy to the girl; and having an eye to her own +departure at no very distant date,--for she had been betrothed more +than two years,--she pleaded so hard to keep her, promising to train +her in all the professor's ways, to teach her the value of old china +and osteologic specimens, that eventually, with a good deal of +grumbling, the old gentleman gave way, and, being a wise as well as an +old gentleman, went back to his studies, dismissing Koosje and the +girl alike from his thoughts. + +Just at first Truide, poor child, was charmed. + +She put away her splendid ornaments, and some lilac frocks and black +skirts were purchased for her. Her box, which she had left at the +station, supplied all that was necessary for Sunday. + +It was great fun! For a whole week this young person danced about the +rambling old house, playing at being a servant. Then she began to grow +a little weary of it all. She had been accustomed, of course, to +performing such offices as all Dutch ladies fulfil--the care of china, +of linen, the dusting of rooms, and the like; but she had done them as +a mistress, not as an underling. And that was not the worst; it was +when it came to her pretty feet having to be thrust into klompen, and +her having to take a pail and syringe and mop and clean the windows +and the pathway and the front of the house, that the game of maid- +servant began to assume a very different aspect. When, after having +been as free as air to come and go as she chose, she was only +permitted to attend service on Sundays, and to take an hour's +promenade with Dortje, who was dull and heavy and stupid, she began to +feel positively desperate; and the result of it all was that when Jan +van der Welde came, as he was accustomed to do nearly every evening, +to see Koosje, Miss Truide, from sheer longing for excitement and +change, began to make eyes at him, with what effect I will endeavour +to show. + +Just at first Koosje noticed nothing. She herself was of so faithful a +nature that an idea, a suspicion, of Jan's faithlessness never entered +her mind. When the girl laughed and blushed and dimpled and smiled, +when she cast her great blue eyes at the big young fellow, Koosje only +thought how pretty she was, and it was must a thousand pities she had +not been born a great lady. + +And thus weeks slipped over. Never very demonstrative herself, Koosje +saw nothing, Dortje, for her part, saw a great deal; but Dortje was a +woman of few words, one who quite believed in the saying, "If speech +is silver, silence is gold;" so she held her peace. + +Now Truide, rendered fairly frantic by her enforced confinement to the +house, grew to look upon Jan as her only chance of excitement and +distraction; and Jan, poor, thick-headed noodle of six feet high, was +thoroughly wretched. What to do he knew not. A strange, mad, fierce +passion for Truide had taken possession of him, and an utter distaste, +almost dislike, had come in place of the old love for Koosje. Truide +was unlike anything he had ever come in contact with before; she was +so fairy-like, so light, so delicate, so dainty. Against Koosje's +plumper, maturer charms, she appeared to the infatuated young man like +--if he had ever heard of it he would probably have said like a +Dresden china image; but since he had not, he compared her in his own +foolish heart to an angel. Her feet were so tiny, her hands so soft, +her eyes so expressive, her waist so slim, her manner so bewitching! +Somehow Koosje was altogether different; he could not endure the touch +of her heavy hand, the tones of her less refined voice; he grew +impatient at the denser perceptions of her mind. It was very foolish, +very short-sighted; for the hands, though heavy, were clever and +willing; the voice, though a trifle coarser in accent than Truide's +childish tones, would never tell him a lie; the perceptions, though +not brilliant, were the perceptions of good, every-day common sense. +It really was very foolish, for what charmed him most in Truide was +the merest outside polish, a certain ease of manner which doubtless +she had caught from the English aristocrats whom she had known in her +native place. She had not half the sterling good qualities and +steadfastness of Koosje; but Jan was in love, and did not stop to +argue the matter as you or I are able to do. Men in love--very wise +and great men, too--are often like Jan van der Welde. They lay aside +pro tem. the whole amount, be it great or small, of wisdom they +possess. And it must be remembered that Jan van der Welde was neither +a wise nor a great man. + +Well, in the end there came what the French call /un denouement/,-- +what we in forcible modern English would call a /smash/,--and it +happened thus. It was one evening toward the summer that Koosje's eyes +were suddenly opened, and she became aware of the free-and-easy +familiarity of Truide's manner toward her betrothed lover, Jan. It was +some very slight and trivial thing that led her to notice it, but in +an instant the whole truth flashed across her mind. + +"Leave the kitchen!" she said, in a tone of authority. + +But it happened that, at the very instant she spoke, Jan was furtively +holding Truide's fingers under the cover of the table-cloth; and when, +on hearing the sharp words, the girl would have snatched them away, +he, with true masculine instinct of opposition, held them fast. + +"What do you mean by speaking to her like that?" he demanded, an angry +flush overspreading his dark face. + +"What is the maid to you?" Koosje asked, indignantly. + +"Maybe more than you are," he retorted; in answer to which Koosje +deliberately marched out of the kitchen, leaving them alone. + +To say she was indignant would be but very mildly to express the state +of her feelings; she was /furious/. She knew that the end of her +romance had come. No thoughts of making friends with Jan entered her +mind; only a great storm filled her heart till it was ready to burst +with pain and anguish. + +As she went along the passage the professor's bell sounded, and +Koosje, being close to the door, went abruptly in. The professor +looked up in mild astonishment, quickly enough changed to dismay as he +caught sight of his valued Koosje's face, from out of which anger +seemed in a moment to have thrust all the bright, comely beauty. + +"How now, my good Koosje?" said the old gentleman. "Is aught amiss?" + +"Yes, professor, there is," returned Koosje, all in a blaze of anger, +and moving, as she spoke, the tea-tray, which she set down upon the +oaken buffet with a bang, which made its fair and delicate freight +fairly jingle again. + +"But you needn't break my china, Koosje," suggested the old gentleman, +mildly, rising from his chair and getting into his favourite attitude +before the stove. + +"You are quite right, professor," returned Koosje, curtly; she was +sensible even in her trouble. + +"And what is the trouble?" he asked, gently. + +"It's just this, professor," cried Koosje, setting her arms akimbo and +speaking in a high-pitched, shrill voice; "you and I have been warming +a viper in our bosoms, and, viper-like, she has turned round and +bitten me." + +"Is it Truide?" + +"Truide," she affirmed, disdainfully. "Yes, it is Truide, who but for +me would be dead now of hunger and cold--or /worse/. And she has been +making love to that great fool, Jan van der Welde,--great oaf that he +is,--after all I have done for her; after my dragging her in out of +the cold and rain; after all I have taught her. Ah, professor, but it +is a vile, venomous viper that we have been warming in our bosoms!" + +"I must beg, Koosje," said the old gentleman, sedately, "that you will +exonerate me from any such proceeding. If you remember rightly, I was +altogether against your plan for keeping her in the house." He could +not resist giving her that little dig, kind of heart as he was. + +"Serves me right for being so soft-hearted!" thundered Koosje. "I'll +be wiser next time I fall over a bundle, and leave it where I find +it." + +"No, no, Koosje; don't say that," the old gentleman remonstrated, +gently. "After all, it may be but a blessing in disguise. God sends +all our trials for some good and wise purpose. Our heaviest +afflictions are often, nay, most times, Koosje, means to some great +end which, while the cloud of adversity hangs over us, we are unable +to discern." + +"Ah!" sniffed Koosje, scornfully. + +"This oaf--as I must say you justly term him, for you are a good +clever woman, Koosje, as I can testify after the experience of years-- +has proved that he can be false; he has shown that he can throw away +substance for shadow (for, of a truth, that poor, pretty child would +make a sad wife for a poor man); yet it is better you should know it +now than at some future date, when--when there might be other ties to +make the knowledge more bitter to you." + +"Yes, that is true," said Koosje, passing the back of her hand across +her trembling lips. She could not shed tears over her trouble; her +eyes were dry and burning, as if anger had scorched the blessed drops +up ere they should fall. She went on washing up the cups and saucers, +or at least /the/ cup and saucer, and other articles the professor had +used for his tea; and after a few minutes' silence he spoke again. + +"What are you going to do? Punish her, or turn her out, or what?" + +"I shall let him--/marry/ her," replied Koosje, with a portentous nod. + +The old gentleman couldn't help laughing. "You think he will pay off +your old scores?" + +"Before long," answered Koosje, grimly, "she will find him out--as I +have done." + +Then, having finished washing the tea-things, which the professor had +shuddered to behold in her angry hands, she whirled herself out of the +room and left him alone. + +"Oh, these women--these women!" he cried, in confidence, to the +pictures and skeletons. "What a worry they are! An old bachelor has +the best of it in the main, I do believe. But oh, Jan van der Welde, +what a donkey you must be to get yourself mixed up in such a broil! +and yet--ah!" + +The fossilised old gentleman broke off with a sigh as he recalled the +memory of a certain dead-and-gone romance which had happened--goodness +only knows how many years before--when he, like Jan van der Welde, +would have thrown the world away for a glance of a certain pair of +blue eyes, at the bidding of a certain English tongue, whose broken +/Nederlandsche taal/ was to him the sweetest music ever heard on earth +--sweeter even than the strains of the Stradivari when from under his +skilful fingers rose the perfect melodies of old masters. Ay, but the +sweet eyes had been closed in death many a long, long, year, the sweet +voice hushed in silence. He had watched the dear life ebb away, the +fire in the blue eyes fade out. He had felt each day that the clasp of +the little greeting fingers was less close; each day he had seen the +outline of the face grow sharper; and at last there had come one when +the poor little English-woman met him with the gaze of one who knew +him not, and babbled, not of green fields, but of horses and dogs, and +of a brother Jack, who, five years before, had gone down with her +Majesty's ship /Alligator/ in mid-Atlantic. + +Ay, but that was many and many a year agone. His young, blue-eyed love +stood out alone in life's history, a thing apart. Of the gentler sex, +in a general way, the old professor had not seen that which had raised +it in his estimation to the level of the one woman over whose memory +hung a bright halo of romance. + + + +Fifteen years had passed away; the old professor of osteology had +passed away with them; and in the large house on the Domplein lived a +baron, with half a dozen noisy, happy, healthy children,--young +/fraulas/ and /jonkheers/,--who scampered up and down the marble +passages, and fell headlong down the steep, narrow, unlighted +stairways, to the imminent danger of dislocating their aristocratic +little necks. There was a new race of neat maids, clad in the same +neat livery of lilac and black, who scoured and cleaned, just as +Koosje and Dortje had done in the old professor's day. You might, +indeed, have heard the selfsame names resounding through the echoing +rooms: "Koos-je! Dort-je!" + +But the Koosje and Dortje were not the same. What had become of Dortje +I cannot say; but on the left-hand side of the busy, bustling, +picturesque Oude Gracht there was a handsome shop filled with all +manner of cakes, sweeties, confections, and liquors--from absinthe to +Benedictine, or arrack to chartreuse. In that shop was a handsome, +prosperous, middle-aged woman, well dressed and well mannered, no +longer Professor van Dijck's Koosje, but the Jevrouw van Kampen. + +Yes; Koosje had come to be a prosperous tradeswoman of good position, +respected by all. But she was Koosje van Kampen still; the romance +which had come to so disastrous and abrupt an end had sufficed for her +life. Many an offer had been made to her, it is true; but she had +always declared that she had had enough of lovers--she had found out +their real value. + +I must tell you that at the time of Jan's infidelity, after the first +flush of rage was over, Koosje disdained to show any sign of grief or +regret. She was very proud, this Netherland servant-maid, far too +proud to let those by whom she was surrounded imagine she was wearing +the willow for the faithless Jan; and when Dortje, on the day of the +wedding, remarked that for her part she had always considered Koosje +remarkably cool on the subject of matrimony, Koosje with a careless +out-turning of her hands, palms uppermost, answered that she was +right. + +Very soon after their marriage Jan and his young wife left Utrecht for +Arnheim, where Jan had promise of higher wages; and thus they passed, +as Koosje thought, completely out of her life. + +"I don't wish to hear anything more about them, if--you--please," she +said, severely and emphatically, to Dortje. + +But not so. In time the professor died, leaving Koosje the large +legacy with which she set up the handsome shop in the Oude Gracht; and +several years passed on. + +It happened one day that Koosje was sitting in her shop sewing. In the +large inner room a party of ladies and officers were eating cakes and +drinking chocolates and liquors with a good deal of fun and laughter, +when the door opened timidly, thereby letting in a gust of bitter +wind, and a woman crept fearfully in, followed by two small, crying +children. + +Could the lady give her something to eat? she asked; they had had +nothing during the day, and the little ones were almost famished. + +Koosje, who was very charitable, lifted a tray of large, plain buns, +and was about to give her some, when her eyes fell upon the poor +beggar's faded face, and she exclaimed: + +"Truide!" + +Truide, for it was she, looked up in startled surprise. + +"I did not know, or I would not have come in, Koosje," she said, +humbly; "for I treated you very badly." + +"Ve-ry bad-ly," returned Koosje, emphatically. "Then where is Jan?" + +"Dead!" murmured Truide, sadly. + +"Dead! so--ah, well! I suppose I must do something for you. Here +Yanke!" opening the door and calling, "Yanke!" + +"/Je, jevrouw/," a voice cried, in reply. + +The next moment a maid came running into the shop. + +"Take these people into the kitchen and give them something to eat. +Put them by the stove while you prepare it. There is some soup and +that smoked ham we had for /koffy/. Then come here and take my place +for a while." + +"/Je, jevrouw/," said Yanke, disappearing again, followed by Truide +and her children. + +Then Koosje sat down again, and began to think. + +"I said," she mused, presently, "/that/ night that the next time I +fell over a bundle I'd leave it where I found it. Ah, well! I'm not a +barbarian; I couldn't do that. I never thought, though, it would be +Truide." + +"/Hi, jevrouw/," was called from the inner room. + +"/Je, mynheer/," jumping up and going to her customers. + +She attended to their wants, and presently bowed them out. + +"I never thought it would be Truide," she repeated to herself, as she +closed the door behind the last of the gay uniforms and jingling +scabbards. "And Jan is dead--ah, well!" + +Then she went into the kitchen, where the miserable children--girls +both of them, and pretty had they been clean and less forlornly clad-- +were playing about the stove. + +"So Jan is dead," began Koosje, seating herself. + +"Yes, Jan is dead," Truide answered. + +"And he left you nothing?" Koosje asked. + +"We had had nothing for a long time," Truide replied, in her sad, +crushed voice. "We didn't get on very well; he soon got tired of me." + +"That was a weakness of his," remarked Koosje, drily. + +"We lost five little ones, one after another," Truide continued. "And +Jan was fond of them, and somehow it seemed to sour him. As for me, I +was sorry enough at the time, Heaven knows, but it was as well. But +Jan said it seemed as if a curse had fallen upon us; he began to wish +you back again, and to blame me for having come between you. And then +he took to /genever/, and then to wish for something stronger; so at +last every stiver went for absinthe, and once or twice he beat me, and +then he died." + +"Just as well," muttered Koosje, under her breath. + +"It is very good of you to have fed and warmed us," Truide went on, in +her faint, complaining tones. "Many a one would have let me starve, +and I should have deserved it. It is very good of you and we are +grateful; but 'tis time we were going, Koosje and Mina;" then added, +with a shake of her head, "but I don't know where." + +"Oh, you'd better stay," said Koosje, hurriedly. "I live in this big +house by myself, and I dare say you'll be more useful in the shop than +Yanke--if your tongue is as glib as it used to be, that is. You know +some English, too, don't you?" + +"A little," Truide answered, eagerly. + +"And after all," Koosje said, philosophically, shrugging her +shoulders, "you saved me from the beatings and the starvings and the +rest. I owe you something for that. Why, if it hadn't been for you I +should have been silly enough to have married him." + +And then she went back to her shop, saying to herself: + +"The professor said it was a blessing in disguise; God sends all our +trials to work some great purpose. Yes; that was what he said, and he +knew most things. Just think if I were trailing about now with those +two little ones, with nothing to look back to but a schnapps-drinking +husband who beat me! Ah, well, well! things are best as they are. I +don't know that I ought not to be very much obliged to her--and she'll +be very useful in the shop." + + + + +A DOG OF FLANDERS + +by OUIDA + + + +Nello and Patrasche were left all alone in the world. + +They were friends in a friendship closer than brotherhood. Nello was a +little Ardennois; Patrasche was a big Fleming. They were both of the +same age by length of years; yet one was still young, and the other +was already old. They had dwelt together almost all their days; both +were orphaned and destitute, and owed their lives to the same hand. It +had been the beginning of the tie between them,--their first bond of +sympathy,--and it had strengthened day by day, and had grown with +their growth, firm and indissoluble, until they loved one another very +greatly. + +Their home was a little hut on the edge of a little village--a Flemish +village a league from Antwerp, set amidst flat breadths of pasture and +corn-lands, with long lines of poplars and of alders bending in the +breeze on the edge of the great canal which ran through it. It had +about a score of houses and homesteads, with shutters of bright green +or sky blue, and roofs rose red or black and white, and walls +whitewashed until they shone in the sun like snow. In the centre of +the village stood a windmill, placed on a little moss-grown slope; it +was a landmark to all the level country round. It had once been +painted scarlet, sails and all; but that had been in its infancy, half +a century or more earlier, when it had ground wheat for the soldiers +of Napoleon; and it was now a ruddy brown, tanned by wind and weather. +It went queerly by fits and starts, as though rheumatic and stiff in +the joints from age; but it served the whole neighborhood, which would +have thought it almost as impious to carry grain elsewhere as to +attend any other religious service than the mass that was performed at +the altar of the little old gray church, with its conical steeple, +which stood opposite to it, and whose single bell rang morning, noon, +and night with that strange, subdued, hollow sadness which every bell +that hangs in the Low Countries seems to gain as an integral part of +its melody. + +Within sound of the little melancholy clock almost from their birth +upward, they had dwelt together, Nello and Patrasche, in the little +hut on the edge of the village, with the cathedral spire of Antwerp +rising in the northeast, beyond the great green plain of seeding grass +and spreading corn that stretched away from them like a tideless, +changeless sea. It was the hut of a very old man, of a very poor man-- +of old Jehan Daas, who in his time had been a soldier, and who +remembered the wars that had trampled the country as oxen tread down +the furrows, and who had brought from his service nothing except a +wound, which had made him a cripple. + +When old Jehan Daas had reached his full eighty, his daughter had died +in the Ardennes, hard by Stavelot, and had left him in legacy her two- +year-old son. The old man could ill contrive to support himself, but +he took up the additional burden uncomplainingly, and it soon became +welcome and precious to him. Little Nello, which was but a pet +diminutive for Nicolas, throve with him, and the old man and the +little child lived in the poor little hut contentedly. + +It was a very humble little mud hut indeed, but it was clean and white +as a sea-shell, and stood in a small plot of garden ground that +yielded beans and herbs and pumpkins. They were very poor, terribly +poor; many a day they had nothing at all to eat. They never by any +chance had enough; to have had enough to eat would have been to have +reached paradise at once. But the old man was very gentle and good to +the boy, and the boy was a beautiful, innocent, truthful, tender- +natured creature; and they were happy on a crust and a few leaves of +cabbage, and asked no more of earth or heaven--save indeed that +Patrasche should be always with them, since without Patrasche where +would they have been? + +For Patrasche was their alpha and omega; their treasury and granary; +their store of gold and wand of wealth; their bread-winner and +minister; their only friend and comforter. Patrasche dead or gone from +them, they must have laid themselves down and died likewise. Patrasche +was body, brains, hands, head, and feet to both of them; Patrasche was +their very life, their very soul. For Jehan Daas was old and a +cripple, and Nello was but a child; and Patrasche was their dog. + +A dog of Flanders--yellow of hide, large of head and limb, with wolf- +like ears that stood erect, and legs bowed and feet widened in the +muscular development wrought in his breed by many generations of hard +service. Patrasche came of a race which had toiled hard and cruelly +from sire to son in Flanders many a century--slaves of slaves, dogs of +the people, beasts of the shafts and the harness, creatures that lived +straining their sinews in the gall of the cart, and died breaking +their hearts on the flints of the streets. + +Patrasche had been born of parents who had labored hard all their days +over the sharp-set stones of the various cities and the long, +shadowless, weary roads of the two Flanders and of Brabant. He had +been born to no other heritage than those of pain and of toil. He had +been fed on curses and baptized with blows. Why not? It was a +Christian country, and Patrasche was but a dog. Before he was fully +grown he had known the bitter gall of the cart and the collar. Before +he had entered his thirteenth month he had become the property of a +hardware dealer, who was accustomed to wander over the land north and +south, from the blue sea to the green mountains. They sold him for a +small price, because he was so young. + +This man was a drunkard and a brute. The life of Patrasche was a life +of hell. To deal the tortures of hell on the animal creation is a way +which the Christians have of showing their belief in it. His purchaser +was a sullen, ill-living, brutal Brabantois, who heaped his cart full +with pots and pans and flagons and buckets, and other wares of +crockery and brass and tin, and left Patrasche to draw the load as +best he might, while he himself lounged idly by the side in fat and +sluggish ease, smoking his black pipe and stopping at every wineshop +or cafe on the road. + +Happily for Patrasche, or unhappily, he was very strong; he came of an +iron race, long born and bred to such cruel travail; so that he did +not die, but managed to drag on a wretched existence under the brutal +burdens, the scarifying lashes, the hunger, the thirst, the blows, the +curses, and the exhaustion which are the only wages with which the +Flemings repay the most patient and laborious of all their four-footed +victims. One day, after two years of this long and deadly agony, +Patrasche was going on as usual along one of the straight, dusty, +unlovely roads that lead to the city of Rubens. It was full midsummer, +and very warm. His cart was very heavy, piled high with goods in metal +and in earthenware. His owner sauntered on without noticing him +otherwise than by the crack of the whip as it curled round his +quivering loins. The Brabantois had paused to drink beer himself at +every wayside house, but he had forbidden Patrasche to stop a moment +for a draught from the canal. Going along thus, in the full sun, on a +scorching highway, having eaten nothing for twenty-four hours, and, +which was far worse to him, not having tasted water for near twelve, +being blind with dust, sore with blows, and stupefied with the +merciless weight which dragged upon his loins, Patrasche staggered and +foamed a little at the mouth, and fell. + +He fell in the middle of the white, dusty road, in the full glare of +the sun; he was sick unto death, and motionless. His master gave him +the only medicine in his pharmacy--kicks and oaths and blows with a +cudgel of oak, which had been often the only food and drink, the only +wage and reward, ever offered to him. But Patrasche was beyond the +reach of any torture or of any curses. Patrasche lay, dead to all +appearances, down in the white powder of the summer dust. After a +while, finding it useless to assail his ribs with punishment and his +ears with maledictions, the Brabantois--deeming life gone in him, or +going, so nearly that his carcass was forever useless, unless, indeed, +some one should strip it of the skin for gloves--cursed him fiercely +in farewell, struck off the leathern bands of the harness, kicked his +body aside into the grass, and, groaning and muttering in savage +wrath, pushed the cart lazily along the road uphill, and left the +dying dog for the ants to sting and for the crows to pick. + +It was the last day before kermess away at Louvain, and the Brabantois +was in haste to reach the fair and get a good place for his truck of +brass wares. He was in fierce wrath, because Patrasche had been a +strong and much-enduring animal, and because he himself had now the +hard task of pushing his /charette/ all the way to Louvain. But to +stay to look after Patrasche never entered his thoughts; the beast was +dying and useless, and he would steal, to replace him, the first large +dog that he found wandering alone out of sight of its master. +Patrasche had cost him nothing, or next to nothing, and for two long, +cruel years he had made him toil ceaselessly in his service from +sunrise to sunset, through summer and winter, in fair weather and +foul. + +He had got a fair use and a good profit out of Patrasche; being human, +he was wise, and left the dog to draw his last breath alone in the +ditch, and have his bloodshot eyes plucked out as they might be by the +birds, whilst he himself went on his way to beg and to steal, to eat +and to drink, to dance and to sing, in the mirth at Louvain. A dying +dog, a dog of the cart--why should he waste hours over its agonies at +peril of losing a handful of copper coins, at peril of a shout of +laughter? + +Patrasche lay there, flung in the grass-green ditch. It was a busy +road that day, and hundreds of people, on foot and on mules, in +waggons or in carts, went by, tramping quickly and joyously on to +Louvain. Some saw him; most did not even look; all passed on. A dead +dog more or less--it was nothing in Brabant; it would be nothing +anywhere in the world. + +After a time, among the holiday-makers, there came a little old man +who was bent and lame, and very feeble. He was in no guise for +feasting; he was very poorly and miserably clad, and he dragged his +silent way slowly through the dust among the pleasure-seekers. He +looked at Patrasche, paused, wondered, turned aside, then kneeled down +in the rank grass and weeds of the ditch, and surveyed the dog with +kindly eyes of pity. There was with him a little rosy, fair-haired, +dark-eyed child of a few years old, who pattered in amid the bushes, +that were for him breast-high, and stood gazing with a pretty +seriousness upon the poor, great, quiet beast. + +Thus it was that these two first met--the little Nello and the big +Patrasche. + +The upshot of that day was, that old Jehan Daas, with much laborious +effort, drew the sufferer homeward to his own little hut, which was a +stone's throw off amidst the fields; and there tended him with so much +care that the sickness, which had been a brain seizure brought on by +heat and thirst and exhaustion, with time and shade and rest passed +away, and health and strength returned, and Patrasche staggered up +again upon his four stout, tawny legs. + +Now for many weeks he had been useless, powerless, sore, near to +death; but all this time he had heard no rough word, had felt no harsh +touch, but only the pitying murmurs of the child's voice and the +soothing caress of the old man's hand. + +In his sickness they two had grown to care for him, this lonely man +and the little happy child. He had a corner of the hut, with a heap of +dry grass for his bed; and they had learned to listen eagerly for his +breathing in the dark night, to tell them that he lived; and when he +first was well enough to essay a loud, hollow, broken bay, they +laughed aloud, and almost wept together for joy at such a sign of his +sure restoration; and little Nello, in delighted glee, hung round his +rugged neck chains of marguerites, and kissed him with fresh and ruddy +lips. + +So then, when Patrasche arose, himself again, strong, big, gaunt, +powerful, his great wistful eyes had a gentle astonishment in them +that there were no curses to rouse him and no blows to drive him; and +his heart awakened to a mighty love, which never wavered once in its +fidelity while life abode with him. + +But Patrasche, being a dog, was grateful. Patrasche lay pondering long +with grave, tender, musing brown eyes, watching the movements of his +friends. + +Now, the old soldier, Jehan Daas, could do nothing for his living but +limp about a little with a small cart, with which he carried daily the +milk-cans of those happier neighbours who owned cattle away into the +town of Antwerp. The villagers gave him the employment a little out of +charity; more because it suited them well to send their milk into the +town by so honest a carrier, and bide at home themselves to look after +their gardens, their cows, their poultry, or their little fields. But +it was becoming hard work for the old man. He was eighty-three, and +Antwerp was a good league off, or more. + +Patrasche watched the milk-cans come and go that one day when he had +got well and was lying in the sun with the wreath of marguerites round +his tawny neck. + +The next morning, Patrasche, before the old man had touched the cart, +arose and walked to it and placed himself betwixt its handles, and +testified as plainly as dumb-show could do his desire and his ability +to work in return for the bread of charity that he had eaten. Jehan +Daas resisted long, for the old man was one of those who thought it a +foul shame to bind dogs to labor for which Nature never formed them. +But Patrasche would not be gainsaid; finding they did not harness him, +he tried to draw the cart onward with his teeth. + +At length Jehan Daas gave way, vanquished by the persistence and the +gratitude of this creature whom he had succored. He fashioned his cart +so that Patrasche could run in it, and this he did every morning of +his life thenceforward. + +When the winter came, Jehan Daas thanked the blessed fortune that had +brought him to the dying dog in the ditch that fair-day of Louvain; +for he was very old, and he grew feebler with each year, and he would +ill have known how to pull his load of milk-cans over the snows and +through the deep ruts in the mud if it had not been for the strength +and the industry of the animal he had befriended. As for Patrasche, it +seemed heaven to him. After the frightful burdens that his old master +had compelled him to strain under, at the call of the whip at every +step, it seemed nothing to him but amusement to step out with this +little light, green cart, with its bright brass cans, by the side of +the gentle old man who always paid him with a tender caress and with a +kindly word. Besides, his work was over by three or four in the day, +and after that time he was free to do as he would--to stretch himself, +to sleep in the sun, to wander in the fields, to romp with the young +child, or to play with his fellow-dogs. Patrasche was very happy. + +Fortunately for his peace, his former owner was killed in a drunken +brawl at the kermess of Mechlin, and so sought not after him nor +disturbed him in his new and well-loved home. + +A few years later, old Jehan Daas, who had always been a cripple, +became so paralyzed with rheumatism that it was impossible for him to +go out with the cart any more. Then little Nello, being now grown to +his sixth year of age, and knowing the town well from having +accompanied his grandfather so many times, took his place beside the +cart, and sold the milk and received the coins in exchange, and +brought them back to their respective owners with a pretty grace and +seriousness which charmed all who beheld him. + +The little Ardennois was a beautiful child, with dark, grave, tender +eyes, and a lovely bloom upon his face, and fair locks that clustered +to his throat; and many an artist sketched the group as it went by him +--the green cart with the brass flagons of Teniers and Mieris and Van +Tal, and the great, tawny-colored, massive dog, with his belled +harness that chimed cheerily as he went, and the small figure that ran +beside him which had little white feet in great wooden shoes, and a +soft, grave, innocent, happy face like the little fair children of +Rubens. + +Nello and Patrasche did the work so well and so joyfully together that +Jehan Daas himself, when the summer came and he was better again, had +no need to stir out, but could sit in the doorway in the sun and see +them go forth through the garden wicket, and then doze and dream and +pray a little, and then awake again as the clock tolled three and +watch for their return. And on their return Patrasche would shake +himself free of his harness with a bay of glee, and Nello would +recount with pride the doings of the day; and they would all go in +together to their meal of rye bread and milk or soup, and would see +the shadows lengthen over the great plain, and see the twilight veil +the fair cathedral spire; and then lie down together to sleep +peacefully while the old man said a prayer. + +So the days and the years went on, and the lives of Nello and +Patrasche were happy, innocent, and healthful. + +In the spring and summer especially were they glad. Flanders is not a +lovely land, and around the burg of Rubens it is perhaps least lovely +of all. Corn and colza, pasture and plough, succeed each other on the +characterless plain in wearying repetition, and, save by some gaunt +gray tower, with its peal of pathetic bells, or some figure coming +athwart the fields, made picturesque by a gleaner's bundle or a +woodman's fagot, there is no change, no variety, no beauty anywhere; +and he who has dwelt upon the mountains or amid the forests feels +oppressed as by imprisonment with the tedium and the endlessness of +that vast and dreary level. But it is green and very fertile, and it +has wide horizons that have a certain charm of their own even in their +dulness and monotony; and among the rushes by the waterside the +flowers grow, and the trees rise tall and fresh where the barges +glide, with their great hulks black against the sun, and their little +green barrels and vari-coloured flags gay against the leaves. Anyway, +there is greenery and breadth of space enough to be as good as beauty +to a child and a dog; and these two asked no better, when their work +was done, than to lie buried in the lush grasses on the side of the +canal, and watch the cumbrous vessels drifting by and bringing the +crisp salt smell of the sea among the blossoming scents of the country +summer. + +True, in the winter it was harder, and they had to rise in the +darkness and the bitter cold, and they had seldom as much as they +could have eaten any day; and the hut was scarce better than a shed +when the nights were cold, although it looked so pretty in warm +weather, buried in a great kindly clambering vine, that never bore +fruit, indeed, but which covered it with luxuriant green tracery all +through the months of blossom and harvest. In winter the winds found +many holes in the walls of the poor little hut, and the vine was black +and leafless, and the bare lands looked very bleak and drear without, +and sometimes within the floor was flooded and then frozen. In winter +it was hard, and the snow numbed the little white limbs of Nello, and +the icicles cut the brave, untiring feet of Patrasche. + +But even then they were never heard to lament, either of them. The +child's wooden shoes and the dog's four legs would trot manfully +together over the frozen fields to the chime of the bells on the +harness; and then sometimes, in the streets of Antwerp, some housewife +would bring them a bowl of soup and a handful of bread, or some kindly +trader would throw some billets of fuel into the little cart as it +went homeward, or some woman in their own village would bid them keep +a share of the milk they carried for their own food; and they would +run over the white lands, through the early darkness, bright and +happy, and burst with a shout of joy into their home. + +So, on the whole, it was well with them--very well; and Patrasche, +meeting on the highway or in the public streets the many dogs who +toiled from daybreak into nightfall, paid only with blows and curses, +and loosened from the shafts with a kick to starve and freeze as best +they might--Patrasche in his heart was very grateful to his fate, and +thought it the fairest and the kindliest the world could hold. Though +he was often very hungry indeed when he lay down at night; though he +had to work in the heats of summer noons and the rasping chills of +winter dawns; though his feet were often tender with wounds from the +sharp edges of the jagged pavement; though he had to perform tasks +beyond his strength and against his nature--yet he was grateful and +content; he did his duty with each day, and the eyes that he loved +smiled down on him. It was sufficient for Patrasche. + +There was only one thing which caused Patrasche any uneasiness in his +life, and it was this. Antwerp, as all the world knows, is full at +every turn of old piles of stones, dark and ancient and majestic, +standing in crooked courts, jammed against gateways and taverns, +rising by the water's edge, with bells ringing above them in the air, +and ever and again out of their arched doors a swell of music pealing. +There they remain, the grand old sanctuaries of the past, shut in amid +the squalor, the hurry, the crowds, the unloveliness, and the commerce +of the modern world; and all day long the clouds drift and the birds +circle and the winds sigh around them, and beneath the earth at their +feet there sleeps--RUBENS. + +And the greatness of the mighty master still rests upon Antwerp, and +wherever we turn in its narrow streets his glory lies therein, so that +all mean things are thereby transfigured; and as we pace slowly +through the winding ways, and by the edge of the stagnant water, and +through the noisome courts, his spirit abides with us, and the heroic +beauty of his visions is about us, and the stones that once felt his +footsteps and bore his shadow seem to arise and speak of him with +living voices. For the city which is the tomb of Rubens still lives to +us through him, and him alone. + +It is so quiet there by that great white sepulchre--so quiet, save +only when the organ peals and the choir cries aloud the Salve Regina +or the Kyrie eleison. Sure no artist ever had a greater gravestone +than that pure marble sanctuary gives to him in the heart of his +birthplace in the chancel of St. Jacques. + +Without Rubens, what were Antwerp? A dirty, dusky, bustling mart, +which no man would ever care to look upon save the traders who do +business on its wharves. With Rubens, to the whole world of men it is +a sacred name, a sacred soil, a Bethlehem where a god of art saw +light, a Golgotha where a god of art lies dead. + +O nations! closely should you treasure your great men; for by them +alone will the future know of you. Flanders in her generations has +been wise. In his life she glorified this greatest of her sons, and in +his death she magnifies his name. But her wisdom is very rare. + +Now, the trouble of Patrasche was this. Into these great, sad piles of +stones, that reared their melancholy majesty above the crowded roofs, +the child Nello would many and many a time enter, and disappear +through their dark, arched portals, while Patrasche, left without upon +the pavement, would wearily and vainly ponder on what could be the +charm which thus allured from him his inseparable and beloved +companion. Once or twice he did essay to see for himself, clattering +up the steps with his milk-cart behind him; but thereon he had been +always sent back again summarily by a tall custodian in black clothes +and silver chains of office; and fearful of bringing his little master +into trouble, he desisted, and remained couched patiently before the +churches until such time as the boy reappeared. It was not the fact of +his going into them which disturbed Patrasche; he knew that people +went to church; all the village went to the small, tumble-down, gray +pile opposite the red windmill. What troubled him was that little +Nello always looked strangely when he came out, always very flushed or +very pale; and whenever he returned home after such visitations would +sit silent and dreaming, not caring to play, but gazing out at the +evening skies beyond the line of the canal, very subdued and almost +sad. + +What was it? wondered Patrasche. He thought it could not be good or +natural for the little lad to be so grave, and in his dumb fashion he +tried all he could to keep Nello by him in the sunny fields or in the +busy market-place. But to the churches Nello would go; most often of +all would he go to the great cathedral; and Patrasche, left without on +the stones by the iron fragments of Quentin Matsys's gate, would +stretch himself and yawn and sigh, and even howl now and then, all in +vain, until the doors closed and the child perforce came forth again, +and winding his arms about the dog's neck would kiss him on his broad, +tawny-colored forehead, and murmur always the same words, "If I could +only see them, Patrasche!--if I could only see them!" + +What were they? pondered Patrasche, looking up with large, wistful, +sympathetic eyes. + +One day, when the custodian was out of the way and the doors left +ajar, he got in for a moment after his little friend and saw. "They" +were two great covered pictures on either side of the choir. + +Nello was kneeling, rapt as in an ecstasy, before the altar-picture of +the Assumption, and when he noticed Patrasche, and rose and drew the +dog gently out into the air, his face was wet with tears, and he +looked up at the veiled places as he passed them, and murmured to his +companion, "It is so terrible not to see them, Patrasche, just because +one is poor and cannot pay! He never meant that the poor should not +see them when he painted them, I am sure. He would have had us see +them any day, every day; that I am sure. And they keep them shrouded +there--shrouded! in the dark, the beautiful things! And they never +feel the light, and no eyes look on them, unless rich people come and +pay. If I could only see them, I would be content to die." + +But he could not see them, and Patrasche could not help him, for to +gain the silver piece that the church exacts as the price for looking +on the glories of the "Elevation of the Cross" and the "Descent of the +Cross" was a thing as utterly beyond the powers of either of them as +it would have been to scale the heights of the cathedral spire. They +had never so much as a sou to spare; if they cleared enough to get a +little wood for the stove, a little broth for the pot, it was the +utmost they could do. And yet the heart of the child was set in sore +and endless longing upon beholding the greatness of the two veiled +Rubens. + +The whole soul of the little Ardennois thrilled and stirred with an +absorbing passion for art. Going on his ways through the old city in +the early days before the sun or the people had risen, Nello, who +looked only a little peasant boy, with a great dog drawing milk to +sell from door to door, was in a heaven of dreams whereof Rubens was +the god. Nello, cold and hungry, with stockingless feet in wooden +shoes, and the winter winds blowing among his curls and lifting his +poor thin garments, was in a rapture of meditation, wherein all that +he saw was the beautiful fair face of the Mary of the Assumption, with +the waves of her golden hair lying upon her shoulders, and the light +of an eternal sun shining down upon her brow. Nello, reared in +poverty, and buffeted by fortune, and untaught in letters, and +unheeded by men, had the compensation or the curse which is called +genius. No one knew it; he as little as any. No one knew it. Only, +indeed, Patrasche, who, being with him always, saw him draw with chalk +upon the stones any and every thing that grew or breathed, heard him +on his little bed of hay murmur all manner of timid, pathetic prayers +to the spirit of the great master; watched his gaze darken and his +face radiate at the evening glow of sunset or the rosy rising of the +dawn; and felt many and many a time the tears of a strange, nameless +pain and joy, mingled together, fall hotly from the bright young eyes +upon his own wrinkled yellow forehead. + +"I should go to my grave quite content if I thought, Nello, that when +thou growest a man thou couldst own this hut and the little plot of +ground, and labor for thyself, and be called Baas by thy neighbours," +said the old man Jehan many an hour from his bed. For to own a bit of +soil, and to be called Baas (master) by the hamlet round, is to have +achieved the highest ideal of a Flemish peasant; and the old soldier, +who had wandered over all the earth in his youth, and had brought +nothing back, deemed in his old age that to live and die on one spot +in contented humility was the fairest fate he could desire for his +darling. But Nello said nothing. + +The same leaven was working in him that in other times begat Rubens +and Jordaens and the Van Eycks, and all their wondrous tribe, and in +times more recent begat in the green country of the Ardennes, where +the Meuse washes the old walls of Dijon, the great artist of the +Patroclus, whose genius is too near us for us aright to measure its +divinity. + +Nello dreamed of other things in the future than of tilling the little +rood of earth, and living under the wattle roof, and being called Baas +by neighbours a little poorer or a little less poor than himself. The +cathedral spire, where it rose beyond the fields in the ruddy evening +skies or in the dim, gray, misty mornings, said other things to him +than this. But these he told only to Patrasche, whispering, childlike, +his fancies in the dog's ear when they went together at their work +through the fogs of the daybreak, or lay together at their rest among +the rustling rushes by the water's side. + +For such dreams are not easily shaped into speech to awake the slow +sympathies of human auditors; and they would only have sorely +perplexed and troubled the poor old man bedridden in his corner, who, +for his part, whenever he had trodden the streets of Antwerp, had +thought the daub of blue and red that they called a Madonna, on the +walls of the wine-shop where he drank his sou's worth of black beer, +quite as good as any of the famous altarpieces for which the stranger +folk traveled far and wide into Flanders from every land on which the +good sun shone. + +There was only one other beside Patrasche to whom Nello could talk at +all of his daring fantasies. This other was little Alois, who lived at +the old red mill on the grassy mound, and whose father, the miller, +was the best-to-do husbandman in all the village. Little Alois was +only a pretty baby with soft round, rosy features, made lovely by +those sweet dark eyes that the Spanish rule has left in so many a +Flemish face, in testimony of the Alvan dominion, as Spanish art has +left broad-sown throughout the country majestic palaces and stately +courts, gilded house-fronts and sculptured lintels--histories in +blazonry and poems in stone. + +Little Alois was often with Nello and Patrasche. They played in the +fields, they ran in the snow, they gathered the daisies and +bilberries, they went up to the old gray church together, and they +often sat together by the broad wood fire in the mill-house. Little +Alois, indeed, was the richest child in the hamlet. She had neither +brother nor sister; her blue serge dress had never a hole in it; at +kermess she had as many gilded nuts and Agni Dei in sugar as her hands +could hold; and when she went up for her first communion her flaxen +curls were covered with a cap of richest Mechlin lace, which had been +her mother's and her grandmother's before it came to her. Men spoke +already, though she had but twelve years, of the good wife she would +be for their sons to woo and win; but she herself was a little gay, +simple child, in no wise conscious of her heritage, and she loved no +playfellows so well as Jehan Daas's grandson and his dog. + +One day her father, Baas Cogez, a good man, but somewhat stern, came +on a pretty group in the long meadow behind the mill, where the +aftermath had that day been cut. It was his little daughter sitting +amid the hay, with the great tawny head of Patrasche on her lap, and +many wreaths of poppies and blue corn-flowers round them both; on a +clean smooth slab of pine wood the boy Nello drew their likeness with +a stick of charcoal. + +The miller stood and looked at the portrait with tears in his eyes--it +was so strangely like, and he loved his only child closely and well. +Then he roughly chid the little girl for idling there while her mother +needed her within, and sent her indoors crying and afraid; then, +turning, he snatched the wood from Nello's hands. "Dost do much of +such folly?" he asked, but there was a tremble in his voice. + +Nello coloured and hung his head. "I draw everything I see," he +murmured. + +The miller was silent; then he stretched his hand out with a franc in +it. "It is folly, as I say, and evil waste of time; nevertheless, it +is like Alois, and will please the house-mother. Take this silver bit +for it and leave it for me." + +The colour died out of the face of the young Ardennois; he lifted his +head and put his hands behind his back. "Keep your money and the +portrait both, Baas Cogez," he said, simply. "You have been often good +to me." Then he called Patrasche to him, and walked away across the +fields. + +"I could have seen them with that franc," he murmured to Patrasche, +"but I could not sell her picture--not even for them." + +Baas Cogez went into his mill-house sore troubled in his mind. "That +lad must not be so much with Alois," he said to his wife that night. +"Trouble may come of it hereafter; he is fifteen now, and she is +twelve; and the boy is comely of face and form." + +"And he is a good lad and a loyal," said the housewife, feasting her +eyes on the piece of pine wood where it was throned above the chimney +with a cuckoo clock in oak and a Calvary in wax. + +"Yea, I do not gainsay that," said the miller, draining his pewter +flagon. + +"Then, if what you think of were ever to come to pass," said the wife, +hesitatingly, "would it matter so much? She will have enough for both, +and one cannot be better than happy." + +"You are a woman, and therefore a fool," said the miller, harshly, +striking his pipe on the table. "The lad is naught but a beggar, and, +with these painter's fancies, worse than a beggar. Have a care that +they are not together in the future, or I will send the child to the +surer keeping of the nuns of the Sacred Heart." + +The poor mother was terrified, and promised humbly to do his will. Not +that she could bring herself altogether to separate the child from her +favorite playmate, nor did the miller even desire that extreme of +cruelty to a young lad who was guilty of nothing except poverty. But +there were many ways in which little Alois was kept away from her +chosen companion; and Nello, being a boy proud and quiet and +sensitive, was quickly wounded, and ceased to turn his own steps and +those of Patrasche, as he had been used to do with every moment of +leisure, to the old red mill upon the slope. What his offence was he +did not know; he supposed he had in some manner angered Baas Cogez by +taking the portrait of Alois in the meadow; and when the child who +loved him would run to him and nestle her hand in his, he would smile +at her very sadly and say with a tender concern for her before +himself, "Nay, Alois, do not anger your father. He thinks that I make +you idle, dear, and he is not pleased that you should be with me. He +is a good man and loves you well; we will not anger him, Alois." + +But it was with a sad heart that he said it, and the earth did not +look so bright to him as it had used to do when he went out at sunrise +under the poplars down the straight roads with Patrasche. The old red +mill had been a landmark to him, and he had been used to pause by it, +going and coming, for a cheery greeting with its people as her little +flaxen head rose above the low mill wicket, and her little rosy hands +had held out a bone or a crust to Patrasche. Now the dog looked +wistfully at a closed door, and the boy went on without pausing, with +a pang at his heart, and the child sat within with tears dropping +slowly on the knitting to which she was set on her little stool by the +stove; and Baas Cogez, working among his sacks and his mill-gear, +would harden his will and say to himself, "It is best so. The lad is +all but a beggar, and full of idle, dreaming fooleries. Who knows what +mischief might not come of it in the future?" So he was wise in his +generation, and would not have the door unbarred, except upon rare and +formal occasions, which seemed to have neither warmth nor mirth in +them to the two children, who had been accustomed so long to a daily +gleeful, careless, happy interchange of greeting, speech, and pastime, +with no other watcher of their sports or auditor of their fancies than +Patrasche, sagely shaking the brazen bells of his collar and +responding with all a dog's swift sympathies to their every change of +mood. + +All this while the little panel of pine wood remained over the chimney +in the mill kitchen with the cuckoo clock and the waxen Calvary; and +sometimes it seemed to Nello a little hard that while his gift was +accepted, he himself should be denied. + +But he did not complain; it was his habit to be quiet. Old Jehan Daas +had said ever to him, "We are poor; we must take what God sends--the +ill with the good; the poor cannot choose." + +To which the boy had always listened in silence, being reverent of his +old grandfather; but nevertheless a certain vague, sweet hope, such as +beguiles the children of genius, had whispered in his heart, "Yet the +poor do choose sometimes--choose to be great, so that men cannot say +them nay." And he thought so still in his innocence; and one day, when +the little Alois, finding him by chance alone among the corn-fields by +the canal, ran to him and held him close, and sobbed piteously because +the morrow would be her saint's day, and for the first time in all her +life her parents had failed to bid him to the little supper and romp +in the great barns with which her feast-day was always celebrated, +Nello had kissed her and murmured to her in firm faith, "It shall be +different one day, Alois. One day that little bit of pine wood that +your father has of mine shall be worth its weight in silver; and he +will not shut the door against me then. Only love me always, dear +little Alois; only love me always, and I will be great." + +"And if I do not love you?" the pretty child asked, pouting a little +through her tears, and moved by the instinctive coquetries of her sex. + +Nello's eyes left her face and wandered to the distance, where, in the +red and gold of the Flemish night, the cathedral spire rose. There was +a smile on his face so sweet and yet so sad that little Alois was awed +by it. "I will be great still," he said under his breath--"great +still, or die, Alois." + +"You do not love me," said the little spoiled child, pushing him away; +but the boy shook his head and smiled, and went on his way through the +tall yellow corn, seeing as in a vision some day in a fair future when +he should come into that old familiar land and ask Alois of her +people, and be not refused or denied, but received in honour; while +the village folk should throng to look upon him and say in one +another's ears, "Dost see him? He is a king among men; for he is a +great artist and the world speaks his name; and yet he was only our +poor little Nello, who was a beggar, as one may say, and only got his +bread by the help of his dog." And he thought how he would fold his +grandsire in furs and purples, and portray him as the old man is +portrayed in the Family in the chapel of St. Jacques; and of how he +would hang the throat of Patrasche with a collar of gold, and place +him on his right hand, and say to the people, "This was once my only +friend;" and of how he would build himself a great white marble +palace, and make to himself luxuriant gardens of pleasure, on the +slope looking outward to where the cathedral spire rose, and not dwell +in it himself, but summon to it, as to a home, all men young and poor +and friendless, but of the will to do mighty things; and of how he +would say to them always, if they sought to bless his name, "Nay, do +not thank me--thank Rubens. Without him, what should I have been?" And +these dreams--beautiful, impossible, innocent, free of all +selfishness, full of heroical worship--were so closely about him as he +went that he was happy--happy even on this sad anniversary of Alois's +saint's day, when he and Patrasche went home by themselves to the +little dark hut and the meal of black bread, while in the mill-house +all the children of the village sang and laughed, and ate the big +round cakes of Dijon and the almond gingerbread of Brabant, and danced +in the great barn to the light of the stars and the music of flute and +fiddle. + +"Never mind, Patrasche," he said, with his arms round the dog's neck, +as they both sat in the door of the hut, where the sounds of the mirth +at the mill came down to them on the night air; "never mind. It shall +all be changed by-and-by." + +He believed in the future; Patrasche, of more experience and of more +philosophy, thought that the loss of the mill supper in the present +was ill compensated by dreams of milk and honey in some vague +hereafter. And Patrasche growled whenever he passed by Baas Cogez. + +"This is Alois's name-day, is it not?" said the old man Daas that +night, from the corner where he was stretched upon his bed of sacking. + +The boy gave a gesture of assent; he wished that the old man's memory +had erred a little, instead of keeping such sure account. + +"And why not there?" his grandfather pursued. "Thou hast never missed +a year before, Nello." + +"Thou art too sick to leave," murmured the lad, bending his handsome +head over the bed. + +"Tut! tut! Mother Nulette would have come and sat with me, as she does +scores of times. What is the cause, Nello?" the old man persisted. +"Thou surely hast not had ill words with the little one?" + +"Nay, grandfather, never," said the boy quickly, with a hot colour in +his bent face. "Simply and truly, Baas Cogez did not have me asked +this year. He has taken some whim against me." + +"But thou hast done nothing wrong?" + +"That I know--nothing. I took the portrait of Alois on a piece of +pine; that is all." + +"Ah!" The old man was silent; the truth suggested itself to him with +the boy's innocent answer. He was tied to a bed of dried leaves in the +corner of a wattle hut, but he had not wholly forgotten what the ways +of the world were like. + +He drew Nello's fair head fondly to his breast with a tenderer +gesture. "Thou art very poor, my child," he said, with a quiver the +more in his aged, trembling voice; "so poor! It is very hard for +thee." + +"Nay, I am rich," murmured Nello; and in his innocence he thought so; +rich with the imperishable powers that are mightier than the might of +kings. And he went and stood by the door of the hut in the quiet +autumn night, and watched the stars troop by and the tall poplars bend +and shiver in the wind. All the casements of the mill-house were +lighted, and every now and then the notes of the flute came to him. +The tears fell down his cheeks, for he was but a child; yet he smiled, +for he said to himself, "In the future!" He stayed there until all was +quite still and dark; then he and Patrasche went within and slept +together, long and deeply, side by side. + +Now he had a secret which only Patrasche knew. There was a little +outhouse to the hut which no one entered but himself--a dreary place, +but with abundant clear light from the north. Here he had fashioned +himself rudely an easel in rough lumber, and here, on a great gray sea +of stretched paper, he had given shape to one of the innumerable +fancies which possessed his brain. No one had ever taught him +anything; colours he had no means to buy; he had gone without bread +many a time to procure even the few rude vehicles that he had here; +and it was only in black or white that he could fashion the things he +saw. This great figure which he had drawn here in chalk was only an +old man sitting on a fallen tree--only that. He had seen old Michel, +the woodman, sitting so at evening many a time. He had never had a +soul to tell him of outline or perspective, of anatomy or of shadow; +and yet he had given all the weary, worn-out age, all the sad, quiet +patience, all the rugged, care-worn pathos of his original, and given +them so that the old, lonely figure was a poem, sitting there +meditative and alone, on the dead tree, with the darkness of the +descending night behind him. + +It was rude, of course, in a way, and had many faults, no doubt; and +yet it was real, true in nature, true in art, and very mournful, and +in a manner beautiful. + +Patrasche had lain quiet countless hours watching its gradual creation +after the labor of each day was done, and he knew that Nello had a +hope--vain and wild perhaps, but strongly cherished--of sending this +great drawing to compete for a prize of two hundred francs a year +which it was announced in Antwerp would be open to every lad of +talent, scholar or peasant, under eighteen, who would attempt to win +it with some unaided work of chalk or pencil. Three of the foremost +artists in the town of Rubens were to be the judges and elect the +victor according to his merits. + +All the spring and summer and autumn Nello had been at work upon this +treasure, which if triumphant, would build him his first step toward +independence and the mysteries of the art which he blindly, +ignorantly, and yet passionately adored. + +He said nothing to any one; his grandfather would not have understood, +and little Alois was lost to him. Only to Patrasche he told all, and +whispered, "Rubens would give it me, I think, if he knew." + +Patrasche thought so too, for he knew that Rubens had loved dogs or he +had never painted them with such exquisite fidelity; and men who loved +dogs were, as Patrasche knew, always pitiful. + +The drawings were to go in on the first day of December, and the +decision be given on the twenty-fourth, so that he who should win +might rejoice with all his people at the Christmas season. + +In the twilight of a bitter wintry day, and with a beating heart, now +quick with hope, now faint with fear, Nello placed the great picture +on his little green milk-cart, and took it, with the help of +Patrasche, into the town, and there left it, as enjoined, at the doors +of a public building. + +"Perhaps it is worth nothing at all. How can I tell?" he thought, with +the heart-sickness of a great timidity. Now that he had left it there, +it seemed to him so hazardous, so vain, so foolish, to dream that he, +a little lad with bare feet who barely knew his letters, could do +anything at which great painters, real artists, could ever deign to +look. Yet he took heart as he went by the cathedral; the lordly form +of Rubens seemed to rise from the fog and the darkness, and to loom in +its magnificence before him, while the lips, with their kindly smile, +seemed to him to murmur, "Nay, have courage! It was not by a weak +heart and by faint fears that I wrote my name for all time upon +Antwerp." + +Nello ran home through the cold night, comforted. He had done his +best; the rest must be as God willed, he thought, in that innocent, +unquestioning faith which had been taught him in the little gray +chapel among the willows and the poplar-trees. + +The winter was very sharp already. That night, after they reached the +hut, snow fell, and fell for very many days after that; so that the +paths and the divisions in the fields were all obliterated, and all +the smaller streams were frozen over, and the cold was intense upon +the plains. Then, indeed, it became hard work to go round for the milk +while the world was all dark, and carry it through the darkness to the +silent town. Hard work, especially for Patrasche, for the passage of +the years that were only bringing Nello a stronger youth were bringing +him old age, and his joints were stiff and his bones ached often. But +he would never give up his share of the labour. Nello would fain have +spared him and drawn the cart himself, but Patrasche would not allow +it. All he would ever permit or accept was the help of a thrust from +behind to the truck as it lumbered along through the ice-ruts. +Patrasche had lived in harness, and he was proud of it. He suffered a +great deal sometimes from frost and the terrible roads and the +rheumatic pains of his limbs; but he only drew his breath hard and +bent his stout neck, and trod onward with steady patience. + +"Rest thee at home, Patrasche; it is time thou didst rest, and I can +quite well push in the cart by myself," urged Nello many a morning; +but Patrasche, who understood him aright, would no more have consented +to stay at home than a veteran soldier to shirk when the charge was +sounding; and every day he would rise and place himself in his shafts, +and plod along over the snow through the fields that his four round +feet had left their print upon so many, many years. + +"One must never rest till one dies," thought Patrasche; and sometimes +it seemed to him that that time of rest for him was not very far off. +His sight was less clear than it had been, and it gave him pain to +rise after the night's sleep, though he would never lie a moment in +his straw when once the bell of the chapel tolling five let him know +that the daybreak of labor had begun. + +"My poor Patrasche, we shall soon lie quiet together, you and I," said +old Jehan Daas, stretching out to stroke the head of Patrasche with +the old withered hand which had always shared with him its one poor +crust of bread; and the hearts of the old man and the old dog ached +together with one thought: When they were gone who would care for +their darling? + +One afternoon, as they came back from Antwerp over the snow, which had +become hard and smooth as marble over all the Flemish plains, they +found dropped in the road a pretty little puppet, a tambourine player, +all scarlet and gold, about six inches high, and, unlike greater +personages when Fortune lets them drop, quite unspoiled and unhurt by +its fall. It was a pretty toy. Nello tried to find its owner, and, +failing, thought that it was just the thing to please Alois. + +It was quite night when he passed the mill-house; he knew the little +window of her room; it could be no harm, he thought, if he gave her +his little piece of treasure-trove--they had been play-fellows so +long. There was a shed with a sloping roof beneath her casement; he +climbed it and tapped softly at the lattice; there was a little light +within. The child opened it and looked out half frightened. + +Nello put the tambourine player into her hands. "Here is a doll I +found in the snow, Alois. Take it," he whispered; "take it, and God +bless thee, dear!" + +He slid down from the shed roof before she had time to thank him, and +ran off through the darkness. + +That night there was a fire at the mill. Out-buildings and much corn +were destroyed, although the mill itself and the dwelling-house were +unharmed. All the village was out in terror, and engines came tearing +through the snow from Antwerp. The miller was insured, and would lose +nothing; nevertheless, he was in furious wrath, and declared aloud +that the fire was due to no accident, but to some foul intent. + +Nello, awakened from his sleep, ran to help with the rest. Baas Cogez +thrust him angrily aside. "Thou wert loitering here after dark," he +said roughly. "I believe, on my soul, that thou dost know more of the +fire than any one." + +Nello heard him in silence, stupefied, not supposing that any one +could say such things except in jest, and not comprehending how any +one could pass a jest at such a time. + +Nevertheless, the miller said the brutal thing openly to many of his +neighbours in the day that followed; and though no serious charge was +ever preferred against the lad, it got bruited about that Nello had +been seen in the mill-yard after dark on some unspoken errand, and +that he bore Baas Cogez a grudge for forbidding his intercourse with +little Alois; and so the hamlet, which followed the sayings of its +richest landowner servilely, and whose families all hoped to secure +the riches of Alois in some future time for their sons, took the hint +to give grave looks and cold words to old Jehan Daas's grandson. No +one said anything to him openly, but all the village agreed together +to humour the miller's prejudice, and at the cottages and farms where +Nello and Patrasche called every morning for the milk for Antwerp, +downcast glances and brief phrases replaced to them the broad smiles +and cheerful greetings to which they had been always used. No one +really credited the miller's absurd suspicions, nor the outrageous +accusations born of them; but the people were all very poor and very +ignorant, and the one rich man of the place had pronounced against +him. Nello, in his innocence and his friendlessness, had no strength +to stem the popular tide. + +"Thou art very cruel to the lad," the miller's wife dared to say, +weeping, to her lord. "Sure, he is an innocent lad and a faithful, and +would never dream of any such wickedness, however sore his heart might +be." + +But Baas Cogez being an obstinate man, having once said a thing, held +to it doggedly, though in his innermost soul he knew well the +injustice that he was committing. + +Meanwhile, Nello endured the injury done against him with a certain +proud patience that disdained to complain; he only gave way a little +when he was quite alone with old Patrasche. Besides, he thought, "If +it should win! They will be sorry then, perhaps." + +Still, to a boy not quite sixteen, and who had dwelt in one little +world all his short life, and in his childhood had been caressed and +applauded on all sides, it was a hard trial to have the whole of that +little world turn against him for naught. Especially hard in that +bleak, snow-bound, famine-stricken winter-time, when the only light +and warmth there could be found abode beside the village hearths and +in the kindly greetings of neighbours. In the winter-time all drew +nearer to each other, all to all, except to Nello and Patrasche, with +whom none now would have anything to do, and who were left to fare as +they might with the old paralyzed, bedridden man in the little cabin, +whose fire was often low, and whose board was often without bread; for +there was a buyer from Antwerp who had taken to drive his mule in of a +day for the milk of the various dairies, and there were only three or +four of the people who had refused his terms of purchase and remained +faithful to the little green cart. So that the burden which Patrasche +drew had become very light, and the centime pieces in Nello's pouch +had become, alas! very small likewise. + +The dog would stop, as usual, at all the familiar gates which were now +closed to him, and look up at them with wistful, mute appeal; and it +cost the neighbours a pang to shut their doors and their hearts, and +let Patrasche draw his cart on again, empty. Nevertheless, they did +it, for they desired to please Baas Cogez. + +Noel was close at hand. + +The weather was very wild and cold; the snow was six feet deep, and +the ice was firm enough to bear oxen and men upon it everywhere. At +this season the little village was always gay and cheerful. At the +poorest dwelling there were possets and cakes, joking and dancing, +sugared saints and gilded Jesus. The merry Flemish bells jingled +everywhere on the horses; everywhere within doors some well-filled +soup-pot sang and smoked over the stove; and everywhere over the snow +without laughing maidens pattered in bright kerchiefs and stout +kirtles, going to and from the mass. Only in the little hut it was +very dark and very cold. + +Nello and Patrasche were left utterly alone, for one night in the week +before the Christmas Day, death entered there, and took away from life +forever old Jehan Daas, who had never known life aught save its +poverty and its pains. He had long been half dead, incapable of any +movement except a feeble gesture, and powerless for anything beyond a +gentle word; and yet his loss fell on them both with a great horror in +it; they mourned him passionately. He had passed away from them in his +sleep, and when in the gray dawn they learned their bereavement, +unutterable solitude and desolation seemed to close around them. He +had long been only a poor, feeble, paralyzed old man, who could not +raise a hand in their defence; but he had loved them well, his smile +had always welcomed their return. They mourned for him unceasingly, +refusing to be comforted, as in the white winter day they followed the +deal shell that held his body to the nameless grave by the little gray +church. They were his only mourners, these two whom he had left +friendless upon earth--the young boy and the old dog. + +"Surely, he will relent now and let the poor lad come hither?" thought +the miller's wife, glancing at her husband where he smoked by the +hearth. + +Baas Cogez knew her thought, but he hardened his heart, and would not +unbar his door as the little, humble funeral went by. "The boy is a +beggar," he said to himself; "he shall not be about Alois." + +The woman dared not say anything aloud, but when the grave was closed +and the mourners had gone, she put a wreath of immortelles into +Alois's hands and bade her go and lay it reverently on the dark, +unmarked mound where the snow was displaced. + +Nello and Patrasche went home with broken hearts. But even of that +poor, melancholy, cheerless home they were denied the consolation. +There was a month's rent overdue for their little home, and when Nello +had paid the last sad service to the dead he had not a coin left. He +went and begged grace of the owner of the hut, a cobbler who went +every Sunday night to drink his pint of wine and smoke with Baas +Cogez. The cobbler would grant no mercy. He was a harsh, miserly man, +and loved money. He claimed in default of his rent every stick and +stone, every pot and pan, in the hut, and bade Nello and Patrasche be +out of it on the morrow. + +Now, the cabin was lowly enough, and in some sense miserable enough, +and yet their hearts clove to it with a great affection. They had been +so happy there, and in the summer, with its clambering vine and its +flowering beans, it was so pretty and bright in the midst of the sun- +lighted fields! Their life in it had been full of labor and privation, +and yet they had been so well content, so gay of heart, running +together to meet the old man's never-failing smile of welcome! + +All night long the boy and the dog sat by the fireless hearth in the +darkness, drawn close together for warmth and sorrow. Their bodies +were insensible to the cold, but their hearts seemed frozen in them. + +When the morning broke over the white, chill earth it was the morning +of Christmas Eve. With a shudder, Nello clasped close to him his only +friend, while his tears fell hot and fast on the dog's frank forehead. +"Let us go, Patrasche--dear, dear Patrasche," he murmured. "We will +not wait to be kicked out; let us go." + +Patrasche had no will but his, and they went sadly, side by side, out +from the little place which was so dear to them both, and in which +every humble, homely thing was to them precious and beloved. Patrasche +drooped his head wearily as he passed by his own green cart; it was no +longer his,--it had to go with the rest to pay the rent,--and his +brass harness lay idle and glittering on the snow. The dog could have +lain down beside it and died for very heart-sickness as he went, but +while the lad lived and needed him Patrasche would not yield and give +way. + +They took the old accustomed road into Antwerp. The day had yet scarce +more than dawned; most of the shutters were still closed, but some of +the villagers were about. They took no notice while the dog and the +boy passed by them. At one door Nello paused and looked wistfully +within; his grandfather had done many a kindly turn in neighbour's +service to the people who dwelt there. + +"Would you give Patrasche a crust?" he said, timidly. "He is old, and +he has had nothing since last forenoon." + +The woman shut the door hastily, murmuring some vague saying about +wheat and rye being very dear that season. The boy and the dog went on +again wearily; they asked no more. + +By slow and painful ways they reached Antwerp as the chimes tolled +ten. + +"If I had anything about me I could sell to get him bread!" thought +Nello; but he had nothing except the wisp of linen and serge that +covered him, and his pair of wooden shoes. + +Patrasche understood, and nestled his nose into the lad's hand as +though to pray him not to be disquieted for any woe or want of his. + +The winner of the drawing prize was to be proclaimed at noon, and to +the public building where he had left his treasure Nello made his way. +On the steps and in the entrance-hall there was a crowd of youths,-- +some of his age, some older, all with parents or relatives or friends. +His heart was sick with fear as he went among them holding Patrasche +close to him. The great bells of the city clashed out the hour of noon +with brazen clamour. The doors of the inner hall were opened; the +eager, panting throng rushed in. It was known that the selected +picture would be raised above the rest upon a wooden dais. + +A mist obscured Nello's sight, his head swam, his limbs almost failed +him. When his vision cleared he saw the drawing raised on high; it was +not his own! A slow, sonorous voice was proclaiming aloud that victory +had been adjudged to Stephen Kiesslinger, born in the burg of Antwerp, +son of a wharfinger in that town. + +When Nello recovered his consciousness he was lying on the stones +without, and Patrasche was trying with every art he knew to call him +back to life. In the distance a throng of the youths of Antwerp were +shouting around their successful comrade, and escorting him with +acclamations to his home upon the quay. + +The boy staggered to his feet and drew the dog into his embrace. "It +is all over, dear Patrasche," he murmured--"all over!" + +He rallied himself as best he could, for he was weak from fasting, and +retraced his steps to the village. Patrasche paced by his side with +his head drooping and his old limbs feeble from hunger and sorrow. + +The snow was falling fast; a keen hurricane blew from the north; it +was bitter as death on the plains. It took them long to traverse the +familiar path, and the bells were sounding four of the clock as they +approached the hamlet. Suddenly Patrasche paused, arrested by a scent +in the snow, scratched, whined, and drew out with his teeth a small +case of brown leather. He held it up to Nello in the darkness. Where +they were there stood a little Calvary, and a lamp burned dully under +the cross; the boy mechanically turned the case to the light; on it +was the name of Baas Cogez, and within it were notes for two thousand +francs. + +The sight roused the lad a little from his stupor. He thrust it in his +shirt, and stroked Patrasche and drew him onward. The dog looked up +wistfully in his face. + +Nello made straight for the mill-house, and went to the house door and +struck on its panels. The miller's wife opened it weeping, with little +Alois clinging close to her skirts. "Is it thee, thou poor lad?" she +said kindly, through her tears. "Get thee gone ere the Baas see thee. +We are in sore trouble to-night. He is out seeking for a power of +money that he has let fall riding homeward, and in this snow he never +will find it; and God knows it will go nigh to ruin us. It is Heaven's +own judgment for the things we have done to thee." + +Nello put the note-case in her hand and called Patrasche within the +house. "Patrasche found the money to-night," he said quickly. "Tell +Baas Cogez so; I think he will not deny the dog shelter and food in +his old age. Keep him from pursuing me, and I pray of you to be good +to him." + +Ere either woman or dog knew what he meant he had stooped and kissed +Patrasche, then closed the door hurriedly, and disappeared in the +gloom of the fast-falling night. + +The woman and the child stood speechless with joy and fear; Patrasche +vainly spent the fury of his anguish against the iron-bound oak of the +barred house door. They did not dare unbar the door and let him forth; +they tried all they could to solace him. They brought him sweet cakes +and juicy meats; they tempted him with the best they had; they tried +to lure him to abide by the warmth of the hearth; but it was of no +avail. Patrasche refused to be comforted or to stir from the barred +portal. + +It was six o'clock when from an opposite entrance the miller at last +came, jaded and broken, into his wife's presence. "It is lost +forever," he said, with an ashen cheek and a quiver in his stern +voice. "We have looked with lanterns everywhere; it is gone--the +little maiden's portion and all!" + +His wife put the money into his hand, and told him how it had come to +her. The strong man sank trembling into a seat and covered his face, +ashamed and almost afraid. "I have been cruel to the lad," he muttered +at length; "I deserved not to have good at his hands." + +Little Alois, taking courage, crept close to her father and nestled +against him her fair curly head. "Nello may come here again, father?" +she whispered. "He may come to-morrow as he used to do?" + +The miller pressed her in his arms; his hard, sunburnt face was very +pale and his mouth trembled. "Surely, surely," he answered his child. +"He shall bide here on Christmas Day, and any other day he will. God +helping me, I will make amends to the boy--I will make amends." + +Little Alois kissed him in gratitude and joy; then slid from his knees +and ran to where the dog kept watch by the door. "And to-night I may +feast Patrasche?" she cried in a child's thoughtless glee. + +Her father bent his head gravely: "Ay, ay! let the dog have the best;" +for the stern old man was moved and shaken to his heart's depths. + +It was Christmas eve, and the mill-house was filled with oak logs and +squares of turf, with cream and honey, with meat and bread, and the +rafters were hung with wreaths of evergreen, and the Calvary and the +cuckoo clock looked out from a mass of holly. There were little paper +lanterns, too, for Alois, and toys of various fashions and sweetmeats +in bright-pictured papers. There were light and warmth and abundance +everywhere, and the child would fain have made the dog a guest +honoured and feasted. + +But Patrasche would neither lie in the warmth nor share in the cheer. +Famished he was and very cold, but without Nello he would partake +neither of comfort nor food. Against all temptation he was proof, and +close against the door he leaned always, watching only for a means of +escape. + +"He wants the lad," said Baas Cogez. "Good dog! good dog! I will go +over to the lad the first thing at day-dawn." For no one but Patrasche +knew that Nello had left the hut, and no one but Patrasche divined +that Nello had gone to face starvation and misery alone. + +The mill kitchen was very warm; great logs crackled and flamed on the +hearth; neighbours came in for a glass of wine and a slice of the fat +goose baking for supper. Alois, gleeful and sure of her playmate back +on the morrow, bounded and sang and tossed back her yellow hair. Baas +Cogez, in the fulness of his heart, smiled on her through moistened +eyes, and spoke of the way in which he would befriend her favourite +companion; the house-mother sat with calm, contented face at the +spinning-wheel; the cuckoo in the clock chirped mirthful hours. Amidst +it all Patrasche was bidden with a thousand words of welcome to tarry +there a cherished guest. But neither peace nor plenty could allure him +where Nello was not. + +When the supper smoked on the board, and the voices were loudest and +gladdest, and the Christ-child brought choicest gifts to Alois, +Patrasche, watching always an occasion, glided out when the door was +unlatched by a careless new-comer, and, as swiftly as his weak and +tired limbs would bear him sped over the snow in the bitter, black +night. He had only one thought--to follow Nello. A human friend might +have paused for the pleasant meal, the cheery warmth, the cosey +slumber; but that was not the friendship of Patrasche. He remembered a +bygone time, when an old man and a little child had found him sick +unto death in the wayside ditch. + +Snow had fallen freshly all the evening long; it was now nearly ten; +the trail of the boy's footsteps was almost obliterated. It took +Patrasche long to discover any scent. When at last he found it, it was +lost again quickly, and lost and recovered, and again lost and again +recovered, a hundred times or more. + +The night was very wild. The lamps under the wayside crosses were +blown out; the roads were sheets of ice; the impenetrable darkness hid +every trace of habitations; there was no living thing abroad. All the +cattle were housed, and in all the huts and homesteads men and women +rejoiced and feasted. There was only Patrasche out in the cruel cold-- +old and famished and full of pain, but with the strength and the +patience of a great love to sustain him in his search. + +The trail of Nello's steps, faint and obscure as it was under the new +snow, went straightly along the accustomed tracks into Antwerp. It was +past midnight when Patrasche traced it over the boundaries of the town +and into the narrow, tortuous, gloomy streets. It was all quite dark +in the town, save where some light gleamed ruddily through the +crevices of house shutters, or some group went homeward with lanterns +chanting drinking-songs. The streets were all white with ice; the high +walls and roofs loomed black against them. There was scarce a sound +save the riot of the winds down the passages as they tossed the +creaking signs and shook the tall lamp-irons. + +So many passers-by had trodden through and through the snow, so many +diverse paths had crossed and recrossed each other, that the dog had a +hard task to retain any hold on the track he followed. But he kept on +his way, though the cold pierced him to the bone, and the jagged ice +cut his feet, and the hunger in his body gnawed like a rat's teeth. He +kept on his way,--a poor gaunt, shivering thing,--and by long patience +traced the steps he loved into the very heart of the burg and up to +the steps of the great cathedral. + +"He is gone to the things that he loved," thought Patrasche; he could +not understand, but he was full of sorrow and of pity for the art +passion that to him was so incomprehensible and yet so sacred. + +The portals of the cathedral were unclosed after the midnight mass. +Some heedlessness in the custodians, too eager to go home and feast or +sleep, or too drowsy to know whether they turned the keys aright, had +left one of the doors unlocked. By that accident the footfalls +Patrasche sought had passed through into the building, leaving the +white marks of snow upon the dark stone floor. By that slender white +thread, frozen as it fell, he was guided through the intense silence, +through the immensity of the vaulted space--guided straight to the +gates of the chancel, and, stretched there upon the stones, he found +Nello. He crept up, and touched the face of the boy. "Didst thou dream +that I should be faithless and forsake thee? I--a dog?" said that mute +caress. + +The lad raised himself with a low cry and clasped him close. "Let us +lie down and die together," he murmured. "Men have no need of us, and +we are all alone." + +In answer, Patrasche crept closer yet, and laid his head upon the +young boy's breast. The great tears stood in his brown, sad eyes; not +for himself--for himself he was happy. + +They lay close together in the piercing cold. The blasts that blew +over the Flemish dikes from the northern seas were like waves of ice, +which froze every living thing they touched. The interior of the +immense vault of stone in which they were was even more bitterly chill +than the snow-covered plains without. Now and then a bat moved in the +shadows; now and then a gleam of light came on the ranks of carven +figures. Under the Rubens they lay together quite still, and soothed +almost into a dreaming slumber by the numbing narcotic of the cold. +Together they dreamed of the old glad days when they had chased each +other through the flowering grasses of the summer meadows, or sat +hidden in the tall bulrushes by the water's side, watching the boats +go seaward in the sun. + +Suddenly through the darkness a great white radiance streamed through +the vastness of the aisles; the moon, that was at her height, had +broken through the clouds; the snow had ceased to fall; the light +reflected from the snow without was clear as the light of dawn. It +fell through the arches full upon the two pictures above, from which +the boy on his entrance had flung back the veil: the "Elevation" and +the "Descent of the Cross" were for one instant visible. + +Nello rose to his feet and stretched his arms to them; the tears of a +passionate ecstasy glistened on the paleness of his face. "I have seen +them at last!" he cried aloud. "O God, it is enough!" + +His limbs failed under him, and he sank upon his knees, still gazing +upward at the majesty that he adored. For a few brief moments the +light illumined the divine visions that had been denied to him so long +--light clear and sweet and strong as though it streamed from the +throne of Heaven. Then suddenly it passed away; once more a great +darkness covered the face of Christ. + +The arms of the boy drew close again the body of the dog. "We shall +see His face--/there/," he murmured; "and He will not part us, I +think." + +On the morrow, by the chancel of the cathedral, the people of Antwerp +found them both. They were both dead; the cold of the night had frozen +into stillness alike the young life and the old. When the Christmas +morning broke and the priests came to the temple, they saw them lying +thus on the stones together. Above, the veils were drawn back from the +great visions of Rubens, and the fresh rays of the sunrise touched the +thorn-crowned head of the Christ. + +As the day grew on there came an old, hard-featured man who wept as +women weep. "I was cruel to the lad," he muttered; "and now I would +have made amends,--yea, to the half of my substance,--and he should +have been to me as a son." + +There came also, as the day grew apace, a painter who had fame in the +world, and who was liberal of hand and of spirit. "I seek one who +should have had the prize yesterday had worth won," he said to the +people--"a boy of rare promise and genius. An old wood-cutter on a +fallen tree at eventide--that was all his theme; but there was +greatness for the future in it. I would fain find him, and take him +with me and teach him art." + +And a little child with curling fair hair, sobbing bitterly as she +clung to her father's arm, cried aloud, "Oh, Nello, come! We have all +ready for thee. The Christ-child's hands are full of gifts, and the +old piper will play for us; and the mother says thou shalt stay by the +hearth and burn nuts with us all the Noel week long--yes, even to the +Feast of the Kings! And Patrasche will be so happy! Oh, Nello, wake +and come!" + +But the young pale face, turned upward to the light of the great +Rubens with a smile upon its mouth, answered them all, "It is too +late." + +For the sweet, sonorous bells went ringing through the frost, and the +sunlight shone upon the plains of snow, and the populace trooped gay +and glad through the streets, but Nello and Patrasche no more asked +charity at their hands. All they needed now Antwerp gave unbidden. + +Death had been more pitiful to them than longer life would have been. +It had taken the one in the loyalty of love, and the other in the +innocence of faith, from a world which for love has no recompense and +for faith no fulfilment. + +All their lives they had been together, and in their deaths they were +not divided; for when they were found the arms of the boy were folded +too closely around the dog to be severed without violence, and the +people of their little village, contrite and ashamed, implored a +special grace for them, and, making them one grave, laid them to rest +there side by side--forever! + + + + +MARKHEIM + +by ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON + + + +"Yes," said the dealer, "our windfalls are of various kinds. Some +customers are ignorant, and then I touch a dividend on my superior +knowledge. Some are dishonest," and here he held up the candle, so +that the light fell strongly on his visitor, "and in that case," he +continued, "I profit by my virtue." + +Markheim had but just entered from the daylight streets, and his eyes +had not yet grown familiar with the mingled shine and darkness in the +shop. At these pointed words, and before the near presence of the +flame, he blinked painfully and looked aside. + +The dealer chuckled. "You come to me on Christmas Day," he resumed, +"when you know that I am alone in my house, put up my shutters, and +make a point of refusing business. Well, you will have to pay for +that; you will have to pay for my loss of time, when I should be +balancing my books; you will have to pay, besides, for a kind of +manner that I remark in you to-day very strongly. I am the essence of +discretion, and ask no awkward questions; but when a customer cannot +look me in the eye, he has to pay for it." The dealer once more +chuckled; and then, changing to his usual business voice, though still +with a note of irony, "You can give, as usual, a clear account of how +you came into the possession of the object?" he continued. "Still your +uncle's cabinet? A remarkable collector, sir!" + +And the little pale, round-shouldered dealer stood almost on tip-toe, +looking over the top of his gold spectacles, and nodding his head with +every mark of disbelief. Markheim returned his gaze with one of +infinite pity, and a touch of horror. + +"This time," said he, "you are in error. I have not come to sell, but +to buy. I have no curios to dispose of; my uncle's cabinet is bare to +the wainscot; even were it still intact, I have done well on the Stock +Exchange, and should more likely add to it than otherwise, and my +errand to-day is simplicity itself. I seek a Christmas present for a +lady," he continued, waxing more fluent as he struck into the speech +he had prepared; "and certainly I owe you every excuse for thus +disturbing you upon so small a matter. But the thing was neglected +yesterday; I must produce my little compliment at dinner; and, as you +very well know, a rich marriage is not a thing to be neglected." + +There followed a pause, during which the dealer seemed to weigh this +statement incredulously. The ticking of many clocks among the curious +lumber of the shop, and the faint rushing of the cabs in a near +thoroughfare, filled up the interval of silence. + +"Well, sir," said the dealer, "be it so. You are an old customer after +all; and if, as you say, you have the chance of a good marriage, far +be it from me to be an obstacle. Here is a nice thing for a lady now," +he went on, "this hand-glass--fifteenth century, warranted; comes from +a good collection, too; but I reserve the name, in the interests of my +customer, who was just like yourself, my dear sir, the nephew and sole +heir of a remarkable collector." + +The dealer, while he thus ran on in his dry and biting voice, had +stooped to take the object from its place; and, as he had done so, a +shock had passed through Markheim, a start both of hand and foot, a +sudden leap of many tumultuous passions to the face. It passed as +swiftly as it came, and left no trace beyond a certain trembling of +the hand that now received the glass. + +"A glass," he said hoarsely, and then paused, and repeated it more +clearly. "A glass? For Christmas? Surely not?" + +"And why not?" cried the dealer. "Why not a glass?" + +Markheim was looking upon him with an indefinable expression. "You ask +me why not?" he said. "Why, look here--look in it--look at yourself! +Do you like to see it? No! nor I--nor any man." + +The little man had jumped back when Markheim had so suddenly +confronted him with the mirror; but now, perceiving there was nothing +worse on hand, he chuckled. "Your future lady, sir, must be pretty +hard favoured," said he. + +"I ask you," said Markheim, "for a Christmas present, and you give me +this--this damned reminder of years, and sins and follies--this hand- +conscience! Did you mean it? Had you a thought in your mind? Tell me. +It will be better for you if you do. Come, tell me about yourself. I +hazard a guess now, that you are in secret a very charitable man." + +The dealer looked closely at his companion. It was very odd, Markheim +did not appear to be laughing; there was something in his face like an +eager sparkle of hope, but nothing of mirth. + +"What are you driving at?" the dealer asked. + +"Not charitable?" returned the other, gloomily. "Not charitable; not +pious; not scrupulous; unloving, unbeloved; a hand to get money, a +safe to keep it. Is that all? Dear God, man, is that all?" + +"I will tell you what it is," began the dealer, with some sharpness, +and then broke off again into a chuckle. "But I see this is a love +match of yours, and you have been drinking the lady's health." + +"Ah!" cried Markheim, with a strange curiosity. "Ah, have you been in +love? Tell me about that." + +"I," cried the dealer. "I in love! I never had the time, nor have I +the time to-day for all this nonsense. Will you take the glass?" + +"Where is the hurry?" returned Markheim. "It is very pleasant to stand +here talking; and life is so short and insecure that I would not hurry +away from any pleasure--no, not even from so mild a one as this. We +should rather cling, cling to what little we can get, like a man at a +cliff's edge. Every second is a cliff, if you think upon it--a cliff a +mile high--high enough, if we fall, to dash us out of every feature of +humanity. Hence it is best to talk pleasantly. Let us talk of each +other; why should we wear this mask? Let us be confidential. Who +knows? we might become friends." + +"I have just one word to say to you," said the dealer. "Either make +your purchase, or walk out of my shop." + +"True, true," said Markheim. "Enough fooling. To business. Show me +something else." + +The dealer stooped once more, this time to replace the glass upon the +shelf, his thin blond hair falling over his eyes as he did so. +Markheim moved a little nearer, with one hand in the pocket of his +greatcoat; he drew himself up and filled his lungs; at the same time +many different emotions were depicted together on his face--terror, +horror, and resolve, fascination and a physical repulsion; and through +a haggard lift of his upper lip, his teeth looked out. + +"This, perhaps, may suit," observed the dealer. And then, as he began +to rearise, Markheim bounded from behind upon his victim. The long, +skewer-like dagger flashed and fell. The dealer struggled like a hen, +striking his temple on the shelf, and then tumbled on the floor in a +heap. + +Time had some score of small voices in that shop--some stately and +slow as was becoming to their great age; others garrulous and hurried. +All these told out the seconds in an intricate chorus of tickings. +Then the passage of a lad's feet, heavily running on the pavement, +broke in upon these smaller voices and startled Markheim into the +consciousness of his surroundings. He looked about him awfully. The +candle stood on the counter, its flame solemnly wagging in a draught; +and by that inconsiderable movement the whole room was filled with +noiseless bustle and kept heaving like a sea: the tall shadows +nodding, the gross blots of darkness swelling and dwindling as with +respiration, the faces of the portraits and the china gods changing +and wavering like images in water. The inner door stood ajar, and +peered into that leaguer of shadows with a long slit of daylight like +a pointing finger. + +From these fear-stricken rovings, Markheim's eyes returned to the body +of his victim, where it lay, both humped and sprawling, incredibly +small and strangely meaner than in life. In these poor, miserly +clothes, in that ungainly attitude, the dealer lay like so much +sawdust. Markheim had feared to see it, and, lo! it was nothing. And +yet, as he gazed, this bundle of old clothes and pool of blood began +to find eloquent voices. There it must lie; there was none to work the +cunning hinges or direct the miracle of locomotion; there it must lie +till it was found. Found! ay, and then? Then would this dead flesh +lift up a cry that would ring over England, and fill the world with +the echoes of pursuit. Ay, dead or not, this was still the enemy. +"Time was that when the brains were out," he thought; and the first +word struck into his mind. Time, now that the deed was accomplished-- +time, which had closed for the victim, had become instant and +momentous for the slayer. + +The thought was yet in his mind, when, first one and then another, +with every variety of pace and voice--one deep as the bell from a +cathedral turret, another ringing on its treble notes the prelude of a +waltz,--the clocks began to strike the hour of three in the afternoon. + +The sudden outbreak of so many tongues in that dumb chamber staggered +him. He began to bestir himself, going to and fro with the candle, +beleaguered by moving shadows, and startled to the soul by chance +reflections. In many rich mirrors, some of home design, some from +Venice or Amsterdam, he saw his face repeated and repeated, as it were +an army of spies; his own eyes met and detected him; and the sound of +his own steps, lightly as they fell, vexed the surrounding quiet. And +still, as he continued to fill his pockets, his mind accused him with +a sickening iteration, of the thousand faults of his design. He should +have chosen a more quiet hour; he should have prepared an alibi; he +should not have used a knife; he should have been more cautious, and +only bound and gagged the dealer, and not killed him; he should have +been more bold, and killed the servant also; he should have done all +things otherwise. Poignant regrets, weary, incessant toiling of the +mind to change what was unchangeable, to plan what was now useless, to +be the architect of the irrevocable past. Meanwhile, and behind all +this activity, brute terrors, like the scurrying of rats in a deserted +attic, filled the more remote chambers of his brain with riot; the +hand of the constable would fall heavy on his shoulder, and his nerves +would jerk like a hooked fish; or he beheld, in galloping defile, the +dock, the prison, the gallows, and the black coffin. + +Terror of the people in the street sat down before his mind like a +besieging army. It was impossible, he thought, but that some rumour of +the struggle must have reached their ears and set on edge their +curiosity; and now, in all the neighbouring houses, he divined them +sitting motionless and with uplifted ear--solitary people, condemned +to spend Christmas dwelling alone on memories of the past, and now +startingly recalled from that tender exercise; happy family parties +struck into silence round the table, the mother still with raised +finger--every degree and age and humour, but all, by their own +hearths, prying and hearkening and weaving the rope that was to hang +him. Sometimes it seemed to him he could not move too softly; the +clink of the tall Bohemian goblets rang out loudly like a bell; and +alarmed by the bigness of the ticking, he was tempted to stop the +clocks. And then, again, with a swift transition of his terrors, the +very silence of the place appeared a source of peril, and a thing to +strike and freeze the passer-by; and he would step more boldly, and +bustle aloud among the contents of the shop, and imitate, with +elaborate bravado, the movements of a busy man at ease in his own +house. + +But he was now so pulled about by different alarms that, while one +portion of his mind was still alert and cunning, another trembled on +the brink of lunacy. One hallucination in particular took a strong +hold on his credulity. The neighbour hearkening with white face beside +his window, the passer-by arrested by a horrible surmise on the +pavement--these could at worst suspect, they could not know; through +the brick walls and shuttered windows only sounds could penetrate. But +here, within the house, was he alone? He knew he was; he had watched +the servant set forth sweet-hearting, in her poor best, "out for the +day" written in every ribbon and smile. Yes, he was alone, of course; +and yet, in the bulk of empty house above him, he could surely hear a +stir of delicate footing; he was surely conscious, inexplicably +conscious of some presence. Ay, surely; to every room and corner of +the house his imagination followed it; and now it was a faceless +thing, and yet had eyes to see with; and again it was a shadow of +himself; and yet again behold the image of the dead dealer, reinspired +with cunning and hatred. + +At times, with a strong effort, he would glance at the open door which +still seemed to repel his eyes. The house was tall, the skylight small +and dirty, the day blind with fog; and the light that filtered down to +the ground story was exceedingly faint, and showed dimly on the +threshold of the shop. And yet, in that strip of doubtful brightness, +did there not hang wavering a shadow? + +Suddenly, from the street outside, a very jovial gentleman began to +beat with a staff on the shop door, accompanying his blows with shouts +and railleries in which the dealer was continually called upon by +name. Markheim, smitten into ice, glanced at the dead man. But no! he +lay quite still; he was fled away far beyond earshot of these blows +and shoutings; he was sunk beneath seas of silence; and his name, +which would once have caught his notice above the howling of a storm, +had become an empty sound. And presently the jovial gentleman desisted +from his knocking and departed. + +Here was a broad hint to hurry what remained to be done, to get forth +from this accusing neighbourhood, to plunge into a bath of London +multitudes, and to reach, on the other side of day, that haven of +safety and apparent innocence--his bed. One visitor had come; at any +moment another might follow and be more obstinate. To have done the +deed, and yet not to reap the profit, would be too abhorrent a +failure. The money--that was now Markheim's concern; and as a means to +that, the keys. + +He glanced over his shoulder at the open door, where the shadow was +still lingering and shivering; and with no conscious repugnance of the +mind, yet with a tremor of the belly, he drew near the body of his +victim. The human character had quite departed. Like a suit half- +stuffed with bran, the limbs lay scattered, the trunk doubled, on the +floor; and yet the thing repelled him. Although so dingy and +inconsiderable to the eye, he feared it might have more significance +to the touch. He took the body by the shoulders, and turned it on its +back. It was strangely light and supple, and the limbs, as if they had +been broken, fell into the oddest postures. The face was robbed of all +expression; but it was as pale as wax, and shockingly smeared with +blood about one temple. That was, for Markheim, the one displeasing +circumstance. It carried him back, upon the instant, to a certain +fair-day in a fishers' village: a gray day, a piping wind, a crowd +upon the street, the blare of brasses, the booming of drums, the nasal +voice of a ballad singer; and a boy going to and fro, buried overhead +in the crowd and divided between interest and fear, until, coming out +upon the chief place of concourse, he beheld a booth and a great +screen with pictures, dismally designed, garishly coloured--Brownrigg +with her apprentice, the Mannings with their murdered guest, Weare in +the death-grip of Thurtell, and a score besides of famous crimes. The +thing was as clear as an illusion He was once again that little boy; +he was looking once again, and with the same sense of physical revolt, +at these vile pictures; he was still stunned by the thumping of the +drums. A bar of that day's music returned upon his memory; and at +that, for the first time, a qualm came over him, a breath of nausea, a +sudden weakness of the joints, which he must instantly resist and +conquer. + +He judged it more prudent to confront than to flee from these +considerations, looking the more hardily in the dead face, bending his +mind to realise the nature and greatness of his crime. So little a +while ago that face had moved with every change of sentiment, that +pale mouth had spoken, that body had been all on fire with governable +energies; and now, and by his act, that piece of life had been +arrested, as the horologist, with interjected finger, arrests the +beating of the clock. So he reasoned in vain; he could rise to no more +remorseful consciousness; the same heart which had shuddered before +the painted effigies of crime, looked on its reality unmoved. At best, +he felt a gleam of pity for one who had been endowed in vain with all +those faculties that can make the world a garden of enchantment, one +who had never lived and who was now dead. But of penitence, no, not a +tremor. + +With that, shaking himself clear of these considerations, he found the +keys and advanced toward the open door of the shop. Outside, it had +begun to rain smartly, and the sound of the shower upon the roof had +banished silence. Like some dripping cavern, the chambers of the house +were haunted by an incessant echoing, which filled the ear and mingled +with the ticking of the clocks. And, as Markheim approached the door, +he seemed to hear, in answer to his own cautious tread, the steps of +another foot withdrawing up the stair. The shadow still palpitated +loosely on the threshold. He threw a ton's weight of resolve upon his +muscles, and drew back the door. + +The faint, foggy daylight glimmered dimly on the bare floor and +stairs; on the bright suit of armour posted, halbert in hand, upon the +landing; and on the dark wood-carvings, and framed pictures that hung +against the yellow panels of the wainscot. So loud was the beating of +the rain through all the house that, in Markheim's ears, it began to +be distinguished into many different sounds. Footsteps and sighs, the +tread of regiments marching in the distance, the chink of money in the +counting, and the creaking of doors held stealthily ajar, appeared to +mingle with the patter of the drops upon the cupola and the gushing of +the water in the pipes. The sense that he was not alone grew upon him +to the verge of madness. On every side he was haunted and begirt by +presences. He heard them moving in the upper chambers; from the shop, +he heard the dead man getting to his legs; and as he began with a +great effort to mount the stairs, feet fled quietly before him and +followed stealthily behind. If he were but deaf, he thought, how +tranquilly he would possess his soul! And then again, and hearkening +with ever fresh attention, he blessed himself for that unresting sense +which held the outposts and stood a trusty sentinel upon his life. His +head turned continually on his neck; his eyes, which seemed starting +from their orbits, scouted on every side, and on every side were half +rewarded as with the tail of something nameless vanishing. The four +and twenty steps to the first floor were four and twenty agonies. + +On that first story, the doors stood ajar--three of them, like three +ambushes, shaking his nerves like the throats of cannon. He could +never again, he felt, be sufficiently immured and fortified from men's +observing eyes; he longed to be home, girt in by walls, buried among +bedclothes, and invisible to all but God. And at that thought he +wondered a little, recollecting tales of other murderers and the fear +they were said to entertain of heavenly avengers. It was not so, at +least, with him. He feared the laws of nature, lest, in their callous +and immutable procedure, they should preserve some damning evidence of +his crime. He feared tenfold more, with a slavish, superstitious +terror, some scission in the continuity of man's experience, some +wilful illegality of nature. He played a game of skill, depending on +the rules, calculating consequence from cause; and what if nature, as +the defeated tyrant overthrew the chess-board, should break the mould +of their succession? The like had befallen Napoleon (so writers said) +when the winter changed the time of its appearance. The like might +befall Markheim: the solid walls might become transparent and reveal +his doings like those of bees in a glass hive; the stout planks might +yield under his foot like quicksands and detain him in their clutch. +Ay, and there were soberer accidents that might destroy him; if, for +instance, the house should fall and imprison him beside the body of +his victim, or the house next door should fly on fire, and the firemen +invade him from all sides. These things he feared; and, in a sense, +these things might be called the hands of God reached forth against +sin. But about God himself he was at ease; his act was doubtless +exceptional, but so were his excuses, which God knew; it was there, +and not among men, that he felt sure of justice. + +When he had got safe into the drawing-room, and shut the door behind +him, he was aware of a respite from alarms. The room was quite +dismantled, uncarpeted besides, and strewn with packing-cases and +incongruous furniture; several great pier-glasses, in which he beheld +himself at various angles, like an actor on a stage; many pictures, +framed and unframed, standing, with their faces to the wall; a fine +Sheraton sideboard, a cabinet of marquetry, and a great old bed, with +tapestry hangings. The windows opened to the floor; but by great good +fortune the lower part of the shutters had been closed, and this +concealed him from the neighbours. Here, then, Markheim drew in a +packing-case before the cabinet, and began to search among the keys. +It was a long business, for there were many; and it was irksome, +besides; for, after all, there might be nothing in the cabinet, and +time was on the wing. But the closeness of the occupation sobered him. +With the tail of his eye he saw the door--even glanced at it from time +to time directly, like a besieged commander pleased to verify the good +estate of his defences. But in truth he was at peace. The rain falling +in the street sounded natural and pleasant. Presently, on the other +side, the notes of a piano were wakened to the music of a hymn, and +the voices of many children took up the air and words. How stately, +how comfortable was the melody! How fresh the youthful voices! +Markheim gave ear to it smilingly, as he sorted out the keys; and his +mind was thronged with answerable ideas and images: church-going +children, and the pealing of the high organ; children afield, bathers +by the brookside, ramblers on the brambly common, kite-flyers in the +windy and cloud-navigated sky; and then, at another cadence of the +hymn, back again to church, and the somnolence of summer Sundays, and +the high genteel voice of the parson (which he smiled a little to +recall) and the painted Jacobean tombs, and the dim lettering of the +Ten Commandments in the chancel. + +And as he sat thus, at once busy and absent, he was startled to his +feet. A flash of ice, a flash of fire, a bursting gush of blood, went +over him, and then he stood transfixed and thrilling. A step mounted +the stair slowly and steadily, and presently a hand was laid upon the +knob, and the lock clicked, and the door opened. + +Fear held Markheim in a vice. What to expect he knew not--whether the +dead man walking, or the official ministers of human justice, or some +chance witness blindly stumbling in to consign him to the gallows. But +when a face was thrust into the aperture, glanced round the room, +looked at him, nodded and smiled as if in friendly recognition, and +then withdrew again, and the door closed behind it, his fear broke +loose from his control in a hoarse cry. At the sound of this the +visitant returned. + +"Did you call me?" he asked, pleasantly, and with that he entered the +room and closed the door behind him. + +Markheim stood and gazed at him with all his eyes. Perhaps there was a +film upon his sight, but the outlines of the new comer seemed to +change and waver like those of the idols in the wavering candle-light +of the shop; and at times he thought he knew him; and at times he +thought he bore a likeness to himself; and always, like a lump of +living terror, there lay in his bosom the conviction that this thing +was not of the earth and not of God. + +And yet the creature had a strange air of the commonplace, as he stood +looking on Markheim with a smile; and when he added, "You are looking +for the money, I believe?" it was in the tones of everyday politeness. + +Markheim made no answer. + +"I should warn you," resumed the other, "that the maid has left her +sweetheart earlier than usual and will soon be here. If Mr. Markheim +be found in this house, I need not describe to him the consequences." + +"You know me?" cried the murderer. + +The visitor smiled. "You have long been a favourite of mine," he said; +"and I have long observed and often sought to help you." + +"What are you?" cried Markheim; "the devil?" + +"What I may be," returned the other, "cannot affect the service I +propose to render you." + +"It can," cried Markheim; "it does! Be helped by you? No, never; not +by you! You do not know me yet; thank God, you do not know me!" + +"I know you," replied the visitant, with a sort of kind severity or +rather firmness. "I know you to the soul." + +"Know me!" cried Markheim. "Who can do so? My life is but a travesty +and slander on myself. I have lived to belie my nature. All men do; +all men are better than this disguise that grows about and stifles +them. You see each dragged away by life, like one whom bravos have +seized and muffled in a cloak. If they had their own control--if you +could see their faces, they would be altogether different, they would +shine out for heroes and saints! I am worse than most; myself is more +overlaid; my excuse is known to me and God. But, had I the time, I +could disclose myself." + +"To me?" inquired the visitant. + +"To you before all," returned the murderer. "I supposed you were +intelligent. I thought--since you exist--you would prove a reader of +the heart. And yet you would propose to judge me by my acts! Think of +it--my acts! I was born and I have lived in a land of giants; giants +have dragged me by the wrists since I was born out of my mother--the +giants of circumstance. And you would judge me by my acts! But can you +not look within? Can you not understand that evil is hateful to me? +Can you not see within me the clear writing of conscience, never +blurred by any wilful sophistry, although too often disregarded? Can +you not read me for a thing that surely must be common as humanity-- +the unwilling sinner?" + +"All this is very feelingly expressed," was the reply, "but it regards +me not. These points of consistency are beyond my province, and I care +not in the least by what compulsion you may have been dragged away, so +as you are but carried in the right direction. But time flies; the +servant delays, looking in the faces of the crowd and at the pictures +on the hoardings, but still she keeps moving nearer; and remember, it +is as if the gallows itself was striding towards you through the +Christmas streets! Shall I help you--I, who know all? Shall I tell you +where to find the money?" + +"For what price?" asked Markheim. + +"I offer you the service for a Christmas gift," returned the other. + +Markheim could not refrain from smiling with a kind of bitter triumph. +"No," said he, "I will take nothing at your hands; if I were dying of +thirst, and it was your hand that put the pitcher to my lips, I should +find the courage to refuse. It may be credulous, but I will do nothing +to commit myself to evil." + +"I have no objection to a death-bed repentance," observed the +visitant. + +"Because you disbelieve their efficacy!" Markheim cried. + +"I do not say so," returned the other; "but I look on these things +from a different side, and when the life is done my interest falls. +The man has lived to serve me, to spread black looks under colour of +religion, or to sow tares in the wheat-field, as you do, in a course +of weak compliance with desire. Now that he draws so near to his +deliverance, he can add but one act of service: to repent, to die +smiling, and thus to build up in confidence and hope the more timorous +of my surviving followers. I am not so hard a master. Try me; accept +my help. Please yourself in life as you have done hitherto; please +yourself more amply, spread your elbows at the board; and when the +night begins to fall and the curtains to be drawn, I tell you, for +your greater comfort, that you will find it even easy to compound your +quarrel with your conscience, and to make a truckling peace with God. +I came but now from such a death-bed, and the room was full of sincere +mourners, listening to the man's last words; and when I looked into +that face, which had been set as a flint against mercy, I found it +smiling with hope." + +"And do you, then, suppose me such a creature?" asked Markheim. "Do +you think I have no more generous aspirations than to sin and sin and +sin and at last sneak into heaven? My heart rises at the thought. Is +this, then, your experience of mankind? or is it because you find me +with red hands that you presume such baseness? And is this crime of +murder indeed so impious as to dry up the very springs of good?" + +"Murder is to me no special category," replied the other. "All sins +are murder, even as all life is war. I behold your race, like starving +mariners on a raft, plucking crusts out of the hands of famine and +feeding on each other's lives. I follow sins beyond the moment of +their acting; I find in all that the last consequence is death, and to +my eyes, the pretty maid who thwarts her mother with such taking +graces on a question of a ball, drips no less visibly with human gore +than such a murderer as yourself. Do I say that I follow sins? I +follow virtues also. They differ not by the thickness of a nail; they +are both scythes for the reaping angel of Death. Evil, for which I +live, consists not in action but in character. The bad man is dear to +me, not the bad act, whose fruits, if we could follow them far enough +down the hurtling cataract of the ages, might yet be found more +blessed than those of the rarest virtues. And it is not because you +have killed a dealer, but because you are Markheim, that I offer to +forward your escape." + +"I will lay my heart open to you," answered Markheim. "This crime on +which you find me is my last. On my way to it I have learned many +lessons; itself is a lesson--a momentous lesson. Hitherto I have been +driven with revolt to what I would not; I was a bond-slave to poverty, +driven and scourged. There are robust virtues that can stand in these +temptations; mine was not so; I had a thirst of pleasure. But to-day, +and out of this deed, I pluck both warning and riches--both the power +and a fresh resolve to be myself. I become in all things a free actor +in the world; I begin to see myself all changed, these hands the +agents of good, this heart at peace. Something comes over me out of +the past--something of what I have dreamed on Sabbath evenings to the +sound of the church organ, of what I forecast when I shed tears over +noble books, or talked, an innocent child, with my mother. There lies +my life; I have wandered a few years, but now I see once more my city +of destination." + +"You are to use this money on the Stock Exchange, I think?" remarked +the visitor; "and there, if I mistake not, you have already lost some +thousands?" + +"Ah," said Markheim, "but this time I have a sure thing." + +"This time, again, you will lose," replied the visitor quietly. + +"Ah, but I keep back the half!" cried Markheim. + +"That also you will lose," said the other. + +The sweat started upon Markheim's brow. "Well then, what matter?" he +exclaimed. "Say it be lost, say I am plunged again in poverty, shall +one part of me, and that the worse, continue until the end to override +the better? Evil and good run strong in me, hailing me both ways. I do +not love the one thing; I love all. I can conceive great deeds, +renunciations, martyrdoms; and though I be fallen to such a crime as +murder, pity is no stranger to my thoughts. I pity the poor; who knows +their trials better than myself? I pity and help them. I prize love; I +love honest laughter; there is no good thing nor true thing on earth +but I love it from my heart. And are my vices only to direct my life, +and my virtues to lie without effect, like some passive lumber of the +mind? Not so; good, also, is a spring of acts." + +But the visitant raised his finger. "For six and thirty years that you +have been in this world," said he, "through many changes of fortune +and varieties of humour, I have watched you steadily fall. Fifteen +years ago you would have started at a theft. Three years back you +would have blenched at the name of murder. Is there any crime, is +there any cruelty or meanness, from which you still recoil? Five years +from now I shall detect you in the fact! Downward, downward, lies your +way; nor can anything but death avail to stop you." + +"It is true," Markheim said huskily, "I have in some degree complied +with evil. But it is so with all; the very saints, in the mere +exercise of living, grow less dainty, and take on the tone of their +surroundings." + +"I will propound to you one simple question," said the other; "and as +you answer I shall read to you your moral horoscope. You have grown in +many things more lax; possibly you do right to be so; and at any +account, it is the same with all men. But granting that, are you in +any one particular, however trifling, more difficult to please with +your own conduct, or do you go in all things with a looser rein?" + +"In any one?" repeated Markheim, with an anguish of consideration. +"No," he added, with despair; "in none! I have gone down in all." + +"Then," said the visitor, "content yourself with what you are, for you +will never change; and the words of your part on this stage are +irrevocably written down." + +Markheim stood for a long while silent, and, indeed, it was the +visitor who first broke the silence. "That being so," he said, "shall +I show you the money?" + +"And grace?" cried Markheim. + +"Have you not tried it?" returned the other. "Two or three years ago +did I not see you on the platform of revival meetings, and was not +your voice the loudest in the hymn?" + +"It is true," said Markheim; "and I see clearly what remains for me by +way of duty. I thank you for these lessons from my soul; my eyes are +opened, and I behold myself at last for what I am." + +At this moment, the sharp note of the door-bell rang through the +house; and the visitant, as though this were some concerted signal for +which he had been waiting, changed at once in his demeanour. + +"The maid!" he cried. "She has returned, as I forewarned you, and +there is now before you one more difficult passage. Her master, you +must say, is ill; you must let her in, with an assured but rather +serious countenance; no smiles, no overacting, and I promise you +success! Once the girl within, and the door closed, the same dexterity +that has already rid you of the dealer will relieve you of this last +danger in your path. Thenceforward you have the whole evening--the +whole night, if needful--to ransack the treasures of the house and to +make good your safety. This is help that comes to you with the mask of +danger. Up!" he cried; "up, friend. Your life hangs trembling in the +scales; up, and act!" + +Markheim steadily regarded his counsellor. "If I be condemned to evil +acts," he said, "there is still one door of freedom open: I can cease +from action. If my life be an ill thing, I can lay it down. Though I +be, as you say truly, at the beck of every small temptation, I can +yet, by one decisive gesture, place myself beyond the reach of all. My +love of good is damned to barrenness; it may, and let it be! But I +have still my hatred of evil; and from that, to your galling +disappointment, you shall see that I can draw both energy and +courage." + +The features of the visitor began to undergo a wonderful and lovely +change: they brightened and softened with a tender triumph, and, even +as they brightened, faded and dislimned. But Markheim did not pause to +watch or understand the transformation. He opened the door and went +downstairs very slowly, thinking to himself. His past went soberly +before him; he beheld it as it was, ugly and strenuous like a dream, +random as chance medley--a scene of defeat. Life, as he thus reviewed +it, tempted him no longer; but on the further side he perceived a +quiet haven for his bark. He paused in the passage, and looked into +the shop, where the candle still burned by the dead body. It was +strangely silent. Thoughts of the dealer swarmed into his mind, as he +stood gazing. And then the bell once more broke out into impatient +clamour. + +He confronted the maid upon the threshold with something like a smile. + +"You had better go for the police," said he; "I have killed your +master." + + + + +QUEEN TITA'S WAGER + +by WILLIAM BLACK + + + +I +FRANZISKA FAHLER + +It is a Christmas morning in Surrey--cold, still and gray, with a +frail glimmer of sunshine coming through the bare trees to melt the +hoar-frost on the lawn. The postman has just gone out, swinging the +gate behind him. A fire burns brightly in the breakfast-room; and +there is silence about the house, for the children have gone off to +climb Box Hill before being marched to church. + +The small and gentle lady who presides over the household walks +sedately in, and lifts the solitary letter that is lying on her plate. +About three seconds suffice to let her run through its contents, and +then she suddenly cries: + +"I knew it! I said it! I told you two months ago she was only flirting +with him; and now she has rejected him. And oh! I am so glad of it! +The poor boy!" + +The other person in the room, who had been meekly waiting for his +breakfast for half an hour, ventures to point out that there is +nothing to rejoice over in the fact of a young man having been +rejected by a young woman. + +"If it were final, yes! If these two young folks were not certain to +go and marry somebody else, you might congratulate them both. But you +know they will. The poor boy will go courting again in three months' +time, and be vastly pleased with his condition." + +"Oh, never, never!" she says. "He has had such a lesson! You know I +warned him. I knew she was only flirting with him. Poor Charlie! Now I +hope he will get on with his profession, and leave such things out of +his head. And as for that creature--" + +"I will do you the justice to say," observes her husband, who is still +regarding the table with a longing eye, "that you did oppose this +match, because you hadn't the making of it. If you had brought these +two together they would have been married ere this. Never mind; you +can marry him to somebody of your own choosing now." + +"No," she says, with much decision; "he must not think of marriage. He +cannot think of it. It will take the poor lad a long time to get over +this blow." + +"He will marry within a year." + +"I will bet you whatever you like that he doesn't," she says, +triumphantly. + +"Whatever I like! That is a big wager. If you lose, do you think you +could pay? I should like, for example, to have my own way in my own +house." + +"If I lose you shall," says the generous creature; and the bargain is +concluded. + +Nothing further is said about this matter for the moment. The children +return from Box Hill, and are rigged out for church. Two young people, +friends of ours, and recently married, having no domestic circle of +their own, and having promised to spend the whole Christmas Day with +us, arrived. Then we set out, trying as much as possible to think that +Christmas Day is different from any other day, and pleased to observe +that the younger folk, at least, cherish the delusion. + +But just before reaching the church I say to the small lady who got +the letter in the morning, and whom we generally call Tita: + +"When do you expect to see Charlie?" + +"I don't know," she answers. "After this cruel affair he won't like to +go about much." + +"You remember that he promised to go with us to the Black Forest?" + +"Yes; and I am sure it will be a pleasant trip for him." + +"Shall we go to Huferschingen?" + +"I suppose so." + +"Franziska is a pretty girl." + +Now you would not think that any great mischief could be done by the +mere remark that Franziska was a pretty girl. Anybody who had seen +Franziska Fahler, niece of the proprietor of the "Goldenen Bock" in +Huferschingen, would admit that in a moment. But this is nevertheless +true, that our important but diminutive Queen Tita was very thoughtful +during the rest of our walk to this little church; and in church, too, +she was thinking so deeply that she almost forgot to look at the +effect of the decorations she had nailed up the day before. Yet +nothing could have offended in the bare observation that Franziska was +a pretty girl. + +At dinner in the evening we had our two guests and a few young fellows +from London who did not happen to have their families or homes there. +Curiously enough, there was a vast deal of talk about travelling, and +also about Baden, and more particularly about the southern districts +of Baden. Tita said the Black Forest was the most charming place in +the world; and as it was Christmas Day, and as we had been listening +to a sermon all about charity and kindness and consideration for +others, nobody was rude enough to contradict her. But our forbearance +was put to a severe test when, after dinner, she produced a +photographic album and handed it round, and challenged everybody to +say whether the young lady in the corner was not absolutely lovely. +Most of them said that she was certainly very nice-looking; and Tita +seemed a little disappointed. + +I perceived that it would no longer do to say that Franziska was a +pretty girl. We should henceforth have to swear by everything we held +dear that she was absolutely lovely. + + + +II +ZUM "GOLDENEN BOCK" + +We felt some pity for the lad when we took him abroad with us; but it +must be confessed that at first he was not a very desirable travelling +companion. There was a gloom about him. Despite the eight months that +had elapsed, he professed that his old wound was still open. Tita +treated him with the kindest maternal solicitude, which was a great +mistake; tonics, not sweets, are required in such cases. Yet he was +very grateful, and he said, with a blush, that, in any case, he would +not rail against all women because of the badness of one. Indeed, you +would not have fancied he had any great grudge against womankind. +There were a great many English abroad that autumn, and we met whole +batches of pretty girls at every station and at every /table d'hote/ +on our route. Did he avoid them, or glare at them savagely, or say +hard things of them? Oh no! quite the reverse. He was a little shy at +first; and when he saw a party of distressed damsels in a station, +with their bewildered father in vain attempting to make himself +understood to a porter, he would assist them in a brief and +businesslike manner as if it were a duty, lift his cap, and then march +off relieved. But by-and-by he began to make acquaintances in the +hotel; and as he was a handsome, English-looking lad, who bore a +certificate of honesty in his clear gray eyes and easy gait, he was +rather made much of. Nor could any fault be decently found with his +appetite. + +So we passed on from Konigswinter to Coblenz, and from Coblenz to +Heidelberg, and from Heidelberg south to Freiburg, where we bade adieu +to the last of the towns, and laid hold of a trap with a pair of +ancient and angular horses, and plunged into the Hollenthal, the first +great gorge of the Black Forest mountains. From one point to another +we slowly urged our devious course, walking the most of the day, +indeed, and putting the trap and ourselves up for the night at some +quaint roadside hostelry, where we ate of roe-deer and drank of +Affenthaler, and endeavoured to speak German with a pure Waldshut +accent. And then, one evening, when the last rays of the sun were +shining along the hills and touching the stems of the tall pines, we +drove into a narrow valley and caught sight of a large brown building +of wood, with projecting eaves and quaint windows, that stood close by +the forest. + +"Here is my dear inn!" cried Tita, with a great glow of delight and +affection in her face. "Here is /mein gutes Thal! Ich gruss' dich ein +tausend Mal!/ And here is old Peter come out to see us; and there is +Franziska!" + +"Oh, this is Franziska, is it?" said Charlie. + +Yes, this was Franziska. She was a well-built, handsome girl of +nineteen or twenty, with a healthy, sunburnt complexion, and dark hair +plaited into two long tails, which were taken up and twisted into a +knot behind. That you could see from a distance. But on nearer +approach you found that Franziska had really fine and intelligent +features, and a pair of frank, clear, big brown eyes that had a very +straight look about them. They were something of the eyes of a deer, +indeed; wide apart, soft, and apprehensive, yet looking with a certain +directness and unconsciousness that overcame her natural girlish +timidity. Tita simply flew at her and kissed her heartily and asked +her twenty questions at once. Franziska answered in very fair English, +a little slow and formal, but quite grammatical. Then she was +introduced to Charlie, and she shook hands with him in a simple and +unembarrassed way; and then she turned to one of the servants and gave +some directions about the luggage. Finally she begged Tita to go +indoors and get off her travelling attire, which was done, leaving us +two outside. + +"She's a very pretty girl," Charlie said, carelessly. "I suppose she's +sort of head cook and kitchen-maid here." + +The impudence of these young men is something extraordinary. + +"If you wish to have your head in your hands," I remarked to him, +"just you repeat that remark at dinner. Why, Franziska is no end of a +swell. She has two thousand pounds and the half of a mill. She has a +sister married to the Geheimer-Ober-Hofbaurath of Hesse-Cassel. She +had visited both Paris and Munich, and she has her dresses made in +Freiburg." + +"But why does such an illustrious creature bury herself in this +valley, and in an old inn, and go about bareheaded?" + +"Because there are folks in the world without ambition, who like to +live a quiet, decent, homely life. Every girl can't marry a Geheimer- +Ober-Hofbaurath. Ziska, now, is much more likely to marry the young +doctor here." + +"Oh, indeed! and live here all her days. She couldn't do better. Happy +Franziska!" + +We went indoors. It was a low, large, rambling place, with one immense +room all hung round with roe-deers' horns, and with one lesser room +fitted up with a billiard-table. The inn lay a couple of hundred yards +back from Huferschingen; but it had been made the headquarters of the +keepers, and just outside this room there were a number of pegs for +them to sling their guns and bags on when they came in of an evening +to have a pipe and a chopin of white wine. Ziska's uncle and aunt were +both large, stout, and somnolent people, very good-natured and kind, +but a trifle dull. Ziska really had the management of the place, and +she was not slow to lend a hand if the servants were remiss in waiting +on us. But that, it was understood, was done out of compliment to our +small Queen Tita. + +By-and-by we sat down to dinner, and Franziska came to see that +everything was going on straight. It was a dinner "with scenery." You +forgot to be particular about the soup, the venison, and the +Affenthaler when from the window at your elbow you could look across +the narrow valley and behold a long stretch of the Black Forest +shining in the red glow of the sunset. The lower the sun sank the more +intense became the crimson light on the tall stems of the pines; and +then you could see the line of shadow slowly rising up the side of the +opposite hill until only the topmost trees were touched with fire. +Then these too lost it, and all the forest around us seemed to have a +pale-blue mist stealing over it as the night fell and the twilight +faded out of the sky overhead. Presently the long undulations of fir +grew black, the stars came out, and the sound of the stream could be +heard distantly in the hollow; and then, at Tita's wish, we went off +for a last stroll in among the soft moss and under the darkness of the +pines, now and again starting some great capercailzie, and sending it +flying and whirring down the glades. + +When we returned from that prowl into the forest, we found the inn +dark. Such people as may have called in had gone home; but we +suspected that Franziska had given the neighbours a hint not to +overwhelm us on our first arrival. When we entered the big room, +Franziska came in with candles; then she brought some matches, and +also put on the table an odd little pack of cards, and went out. Her +uncle and aunt had, even before we went out, come and bade us good- +night formally, and shaken hands all round. They are early folk in the +Black Forest. + +"Where has that girl gone now?" says Charlie. "Into that lonely +billiard-room! Couldn't you ask her to come in here? Or shall we go +and play billiards?" + +Tita stares, and then demurely smiles; but it is with an assumed +severity that she rebukes him for such a wicked proposal, and reminds +him that he must start early next morning. He groans assent. Then she +takes her leave. + +The big young man was silent for a moment or two, with his hands in +his pockets and his legs stretched out. I begin to think I am in for +it--the old story of blighted hopes and angry denunciation and +hypocritical joy, and all the rest of it. But suddenly Charlie looks +up with a businesslike air and says: + +"Who is that doctor fellow you were speaking about! Shall we see him +to-morrow?" + +"You saw him to-night. It was he who passed us on the road with the +two beagles." + +"What! that little fellow with the bandy legs and the spectacles?" he +cries, with a great laugh. + +"That little fellow," I observe to him, "is a person of some +importance, I can tell you. He--" + +"I suppose his sister married a Geheimer-Ober-under--what the dickens +is it?" says this disrespectful young man. + +"Dr. Krumm has got the Iron Cross." + +"That won't make his legs any the straighter." + +"He was at Weissenburg." + +"I suppose he got that cast in the eye there." + +"He can play the zither in a way that would astonish you. He has got a +little money. Franziska and he would be able to live very comfortably +together." + +"Franziska and that fellow?" says Charlie; and then he rises with a +sulky air, and proposes we should take our candles with us. + +But he is not sulky very long; for Ziska, hearing our footsteps, comes +to the passage and bids us a friendly good-night. + +"Good-night, Miss Fahler!" he says, in rather a shamefaced way; "and I +am so awfully sorry we have kept you up so late. We sha'n't do it +again." + +You would have thought by his manner that it was two o'clock, whereas +it was only half-past eleven! + + + +III +DR. KRUMM + +There was no particular reason why Dr. Krumm should marry Franziska +Fahler, except that he was the most important young man in +Huferschingen, and she was the most important young woman. People +therefore thought they would make a good match, although Franziska +certainly had the most to give in the way of good looks. Dr. Krumm was +a short, bandy-legged, sturdy young man, with long, fair hair, a +tanned complexion, light-blue eyes not quite looking the same way, +spectacles, and a general air of industrious common sense about him, +if one may use such a phrase. There was certainly little of the lover +in his manner toward Ziska, and as little in hers toward him. They +were very good friends, though, and he called her Ziska, while she +gave him his nickname of Fidelio, his real name being Fidele. + +Now on this, the first morning of our stay in Huferschingen, all the +population had turned out at an early hour to see us start for the +forest; and as the Ober-Forster had gone away to visit his parents in +Bavaria, Dr. Krumm was appointed to superintend the operations of the +day. And when everybody was busy renewing acquaintance with us, +gathering the straying dogs, examining guns and cartridge-belts, and +generally aiding in the profound commotion of our setting out, Dr. +Krumm was found to be talking in a very friendly and familiar manner +with our pretty Franziska. Charlie eyed them askance. He began to say +disrespectful things of Krumm: he thought Krumm a plain person. And +then, when the bandy-legged doctor had got all the dogs, keepers, and +beaters together, we set off along the road, and presently plunged +into the cool shade of the forest, where the thick moss suddenly +silenced our footsteps, and where there was a moist and resinous smell +in the air. + +Well, the incidents of the forenoon's shooting, picturesque as they +were, and full of novelty to Tita's protege, need not be described. At +the end of the fourth drive, when we had got on nearly to luncheon- +time, it appeared that Charlie had killed a handsome buck, and he was +so pleased with this performance that he grew friendly with Dr. Krumm, +who had, indeed, given him the /haupt-stelle/. But when, as we sat +down to our sausages and bread and red wine, Charlie incidentally +informed our commander-in-chief that, during one of the drives, a +splendid yellow fox had come out of the underwood and stood and stared +at him for three or four seconds, the doctor uttered a cry of despair. + +"I should have told you that," he said, in English that was not quite +so good as Ziska's, "if I had remembered, yes! The English will not +shoot the foxes; but they are very bad for us; they kill the young +deer. We are glad to shoot them; and Franziska she told me she wanted +a yellow fox for the skin to make something." + +Charlie got very red in the face. He /had/ missed a chance. If he had +known that Franziska wanted a yellow fox, all the instinctive +veneration for that animal that was in him would have gone clean out, +and the fate of the animal--for Charlie was a smart shot--would have +been definitely sealed. + +"Are there many of them?" said he, gloomily. + +"No; not many. But where there is one there are generally four or +five. In the next drive we may come on them, yes! I will put you in a +good place, sir, and you must not think of letting him go away; for +Franziska, who has waited two, three weeks, and not one yellow fox not +anywhere, and it is for the variety of the skin in a--a--I do not know +what you call it." + +"A rug, I suppose," said Charlie. + +I subsequently heard that Charlie went to his post with a fixed +determination to shoot anything of yellow colour that came near him. +His station was next to that of Dr. Krumm; but of course they were +invisible to each other. The horns of the beaters sounded a warning; +the gunners cocked their guns and stood on the alert; in the perfect +silence each one waited for the first glimmer of a brown hide down the +long green glades of young fir. Then, according to Charlie's account, +by went two or three deer like lightning--all of them does. A buck +came last, but swerved just as he came in sight, and backed and made +straight for the line of beaters. Two more does, and then an absolute +blank. One or two shots had been heard at a distance; either some of +the more distant stations had been more fortunate, or one or other of +the beaters had tried his luck. Suddenly there was a shot fired close +to Charlie; he knew it must have been the doctor. In about a minute +afterward he saw some pale-yellow object slowly worming its way +through the ferns; and here, at length, he made sure he was going to +get his yellow fox. But just as the animal came within fair distance, +it turned over, made a struggle or two, and lay still. Charlie rushed +along to the spot: it was, indeed, a yellow fox, shot in the head, and +now as dead as a door-nail. + +What was he to do? Let Dr. Krumm take home this prize to Franziska, +after he had had such a chance in the afternoon? Never! Charlie fired +a barrel into the air, and then calmly awaited the coming up of the +beaters and the drawing together of the sportsmen. + +Dr. Krumm, being at the next station, was the first to arrive. He +found Charlie standing by the side of the slain fox. + +"Ha!" he said, his spectacles fairly gleaming with delight, "you have +shotted him! You have killed him! That is very good--that is +excellent! Now you will present the skin to Miss Franziska, if you do +not wish to take it to England." + +"Oh no!" said Charlie, with a lordly indifference. "I don't care about +it. Franziska may have it." + +Charlie pulled me aside, and said, with a solemn wink: + +"Can you keep a secret?" + +"My wife and I can keep a secret. I am not allowed to have any for +myself." + +"Listen," said the unabashed young man; "Krumm shot that fox. Mind you +don't say a word. I must have the skin to present to Franziska." + +I stared at him; I had never known him guilty of a dishonest action. +But when you do get a decent young English fellow condescending to do +anything shabby, be sure it is a girl who is the cause. I said +nothing, of course; and in the evening a trap came for us, and we +drove back to Huferschingen. + +Tita clapped her hands with delight; for Charlie was a favourite of +hers, and now he was returning like a hero, with a sprig of fir in his +cap to show that he had killed a buck. + +"And here, Miss Franziska," he said, quite gaily, "here is a yellow +fox for you. I was told that you wanted the skin of one." + +Franziska fairly blushed for pleasure; not that the skin of a fox was +very valuable for her, but that the compliment was so open and marked. +She came forward, in German fashion, and rather shyly shook hands with +him in token of her thanks. + +When Tita was getting ready for dinner I told her about the yellow +fox. A married man must have no secrets. + +"He is not capable of such a thing," she says, with a grand air. + +"But he did it," I point out. "What is more, he glories in it. What +did he say when I remonstrated with him on the way home! '/Why/,' says +he, '/I will put an end to Krumm! I will abolish Krumm! I will +extinguish Krumm!/' Now, madame, who is responsible for this? Who had +been praising Franziska night and day as the sweetest, gentlest, +cleverest girl in the world, until this young man determines to have a +flirtation with her and astonish you?" + +"A flirtation!" says Tita, faintly. "Oh no! Oh, I never meant that." + +"Ask him just now, and he will tell you that women deserve no better. +They have no hearts; they are treacherous. They have beautiful eyes, +but no conscience. And so he means to take them as they are, and have +his measure of amusement." + +"Oh, I am sure he never said anything so abominably wicked," cried +Tita, laying down the rose that Franziska had given her for her hair. +"I know he could not say such things. But if he is so wicked--if he +has said them--it is not too late to interfere. /I/ will see about +it." + +She drew herself up as if Jupiter had suddenly armed her with his +thunderbolts. If Charlie had seen her at this moment he would have +quailed. He might by chance have told the truth, and confessed that +all the wicked things he had been saying about woman's affection were +only a sort of rhetoric, and that he had no sort of intention to flirt +with poor Franziska, nor yet to extinguish and annihilate Dr. Krumm. + +The heartbroken boy was in very good spirits at dinner. He was +inclined to wink. Tita, on the contrary, maintained an impressive +dignity of demeanour; and when Franziska's name happened to be +mentioned she spoke of the young girl as her very particular friend, +as though she would dare Charlie to attempt a flirtation with one who +held that honour. But the young man was either blind or reckless, or +acting a part for mere mischief. He pointed the finger of scorn at Dr. +Krumm. He asked Tita if he should bring her a yellow fox next day. He +declared he wished he could spend the remainder of his life in a Black +Forest Inn, with a napkin over his arm, serving chopins. He said he +would brave the wrath of the Furst by shooting a capercailzie on the +very first opportunity, to bring the shining feathers home to +Franziska. + +When Tita and I went upstairs at night the small and gentle creature +was grievously perplexed. + +"I cannot make it out," she said. "He is quite changed. What is the +matter with him?" + +"You behold, madam, in that young man the moral effects of vulpicide. +A demon has entered into him. You remember, in 'Der Freischutz,' +how--" + +"Did you say vulpicide?" she asks, with a sweet smile. "I understood +that Charlie's crime was that he did /not/ kill the fox." + +I allow her the momentary triumph. Who would grudge to a woman a +little verbal victory of that sort? And, indeed, Tita's satisfaction +did not last long. Her perplexity became visible on her face once +more. + +"We are to be here three weeks," she said, almost to herself, "and he +talks of flirting with poor Franziska. Oh, I never meant that!" + +"But what did you mean?" I ask her, with innocent wonder. + +Tita hangs down her head, and there is an end to that conversation; +but one of us, at least, has some recollection of a Christmas wager. + + + +IV +CONFESSIO AMANTIS + +Charlie was not in such good spirits next morning. He was standing +outside the inn, in the sweet, resinous-scented air, watching +Franziska coming and going, with her bright face touched by the early +sunlight, and her frank and honest eyes lit up by a kindly look when +she passed us. His conscience began to smite him for claiming that +fox. + +We spent the day in fishing a stream some few miles distant from +Huferschingen, and Franziska accompanied us. What need to tell of our +success with the trout and the grayling, or of the beautiful weather, +or of the attentive and humble manner in which the unfortunate youth +addressed Franziska from time to time? + +In the evening we drove back to Huferschingen. It was a still and +beautiful evening, with the silence of the twilight falling over the +lonely valleys and the miles upon miles of darkening pines. Charlie +has not much of a voice, but he made an effort to sing with Tita: + + "The winds whistle cold and the stars glimmer red, + The sheep are in fold and the cattle in shed;" + +and the fine old glee sounded fairly well as we drove through the +gathering gloom of the forest. But Tita sang, in her low, sweet +fashion, that Swedish bridal song that begins: + + "Oh, welcome her so fair, with bright and flowing hair; + May Fate through life befriend her, love and smiles attend her;" + +and though she sang quietly, just as if she were singing to herself, +we all listened with great attention, and with great gratitude too. +When we got out of Huferschingen, the stars were out over the dark +stretches of forest, and the windows of the quaint old inn were +burning brightly. + +"And have you enjoyed the amusement of the day?" says Miss Fahler, +rather shyly, to a certain young man who is emptying his creel of +fish. He drops the basket to turn round and look at her face and say +earnestly: + +"I have never spent so delightful a day; but it wasn't the fishing." + +Things were becoming serious. + +And next morning Charlie got hold of Tita, and said to her, in rather +a shamefaced way: + +"What am I to do about that fox? It was only a joke, you know; but if +Miss Fahler gets to hear of it, she'll think it was rather shabby." + +It was always Miss Fahler now; a couple of days before it was +Franziska. + +"For my part," says Tita, "I can't understand why you did it. What +honour is there in shooting a fox?" + +"But I wanted to give the skin to her." + +It was "her" by this time. + +"Well, I think the best thing you can do is to go and tell her all +about it; and also to go and apologise to Dr. Krumm." + +Charlie started. + +"I will go and tell her, certainly; but as for apologising to Krumm, +that is absurd!" + +"As you please," says Tita. + +By-and-by Franziska--or rather Miss Fahler--came out of the small +garden and round by the front of the house. + +"O Miss Fahler," says Charlie, suddenly,--and with that she stops and +blushes slightly,--"I've got something to say to you. I am going to +make a confession. Don't be frightened; it's only about a fox--the fox +that was brought home the day before yesterday; Dr. Krumm shot that." + +"Indeed," says Franziska, quite innocently, "I thought you shot it." + +"Well, I let them imagine so. It was only a joke." + +"But it is of no matter; there are many yellow foxes. Dr. Krumm can +shoot them at another time; he is always here. Perhaps you will shoot +one before you go." + +With that Franziska passed into the house, carrying her fruit with +her. Charlie was left to revolve her words in his mind. Dr. Krumm +could shoot foxes when he chose; he was always here. He, Charlie, on +the contrary, had to go away in little more than a fortnight. There +was no Franziska in England; no pleasant driving through great pine +woods in the gathering twilight; no shooting of yellow foxes, to be +brought home in triumph and presented to a beautiful and grateful +young woman. Charlie walked along the white road and overtook Tita, +who had just sat down on a little camp-stool, and got out the +materials for taking a water-colour sketch of the Huferschingen +Valley. He sat down at her feet on the warm grass. + +"I suppose I sha'n't interrupt your painting by talking to you?" he +says. + +"Oh dear, no," is the reply; and then he begins, in a somewhat +hesitating way, to ask indirect questions and drop hints and fish for +answers, just as if this small creature, who was busy with her sepias +and olive greens, did not see through all this transparent cunning. + +At last she said to him, frankly: + +"You want me to tell you whether Franziska would make a good wife for +you. She would make a good wife for any man. But then you seem to +think that I should intermeddle and negotiate and become a go-between. +How can I do that. My husband is always accusing me of trying to make +up matches; and you know that isn't true." + +"I know it isn't true," says the hypocrite; "but you might only this +once. I believe all you say about this girl; I can see it for myself; +and when shall I ever have such a chance again?" + +"But dear me!" says Tita, putting down the white palette for a moment, +"how can I believe you are in earnest? You have only known her three +days." + +"And that is quite enough," says Charlie, boldly, "to let you find out +all you want to know about a girl if she is of the right sort. If she +isn't you won't find out in three years. Now look at Franziska; look +at the fine, intelligent face and the honest eyes; you can have no +doubt about her; and then I have all the guarantee of your long +acquaintance with her." + +"Oh," says Tita, "that is all very well. Franziska is an excellent +girl, as I have told you often--frank, kind, well educated, and +unselfish. But you cannot have fallen in love with her in three days?" + +"Why not?" says this blunt-spoken young man. + +"Because it is ridiculous. If I meddle in the affair I should probably +find you had given up the fancy in other three days; or if you did +marry her and took her to England you would get to hate me because I +alone should know that you had married the niece of an innkeeper." + +"Well, I like that!" says he, with a flush in his face. "Do you think +I should care two straws whether my friends knew I had married the +niece of an innkeeper? I should show them Franziska. Wouldn't that be +enough? An innkeeper's niece! I wish the world had more of 'em, if +they're like Franziska." + +"And besides," says Tita, "have you any notion as to how Franziska +herself would probably take this mad proposal?" + +"No," says the young man, humbly. "I wanted you to try and find out +what she thought about me; and if, in time something were said about +this proposal, you might put in a word or two, you know, just to--to +give her an idea, you know, that you don't think it quite so mad, +don't you know?" + +"Give me your hand, Charlie," says Tita, with a sudden burst of +kindness. "I'll do what I can for you; for I know she's a good girl, +and she will make a good wife to the man who marries her." + +You will observe that this promise was given by a lady who never, in +any circumstances whatsoever, seeks to make up matches, who never +speculates on possible combinations when she invites young people to +her house in Surrey, and who is profoundly indignant, indeed, when +such a charge is preferred against her. Had she not, on that former +Christmas morning, repudiated with scorn the suggestion that Charlie +might marry before another year had passed? Had she not, in her wild +confidence, staked on a wager that assumption of authority in her +household and out of it without which life would be a burden to her? +Yet no sooner was the name of Franziska mentioned, and no sooner had +she been reminded that Charlie was going with us to Huferschingen, +than the nimble little brain set to work. Oftentimes it has occurred +to one dispassionate spectator of her ways that this same Tita +resembled the small object which, thrown into a dish of some liquid +chemical substance, suddenly produces a mass of crystals. The +constituents of those beautiful combinations, you see, were there; but +they wanted some little shock to hasten the slow process of +crystallisation. Now in our social circle we have continually observed +groups of young people floating about in an amorphous and chaotic +fashion--good for nothing but dawdling through dances, and flirting, +and carelessly separating again; but when you dropped Tita among them, +then you would see how rapidly this jellyfish sort of existence was +abolished--how the groups got broken up, and how the sharp, +businesslike relations of marriage were precipitated and made +permanent. But would she own to it? Never! She once went and married +her dearest friend to a Prussian officer; and now she declares he was +a selfish fellow to carry off the girl in that way, and rates him +soundly because he won't bring her to stay with us more than three +months out of the twelve. There are some of us get quite enough of +this Prussian occupation of our territory. + +"Well," says Tita to this long English lad, who is lying sprawling on +the grass, "I can safely tell you this, that Franziska likes you very +well." + +He suddenly jumps up, and there is a great blush on his face. + +"Has she said so?" he asks, eagerly. + +"Oh yes! in a way. She thinks you are good-natured. She likes the +English generally. She asked me if that ring you wear was an engaged +ring." + +These disconnected sentences were dropped with a tantalising slowness +into Charlie's eager ears. + +"I must go and tell her directly that it is not," said he; and he +might probably have gone off at once had not Tita restrained him. + +"You must be a great deal more cautious than that if you wish to carry +off Franziska some day or other. If you were to ask her to marry you +now she would flatly refuse you, and very properly; for how could a +girl believe you were in earnest? But if you like, Charlie, I will say +something to her that will give her a hint; and if she cares for you +at all before you go away she won't forget you. I wish I was as sure +of you as I am of her." + +"Oh I can answer for myself," says the young man, with a becoming +bashfulness. + +Tita was very happy and pleased all that day. There was an air of +mystery and importance about her. I knew what it meant; I had seen it +before. + +Alas! poor Charlie! + + + +V +"GAB MIR EIN' RING DABEI" + +Under the friendly instructions of Dr. Krumm, whom he no longer +regarded as a possible rival, Charlie became a mighty hunter; and you +may be sure that he returned of an evening with sprigs of fir in his +cap for the bucks he had slain, Franziska was not the last to come +forward and shake hands with him and congratulate him, as is the +custom in these primitive parts. And then she was quite made one of +the family when we sat down to dinner in the long, low-roofed room; +and nearly every evening, indeed, Tita would have her to dine with us +and play cards with us. + +You may suppose, if these two young folk had any regard for each +other, those evenings in the inn must have been a pleasant time for +them. There were never two partners at whist who were so courteous to +each other, so charitable to each other's blunders. Indeed, neither +would ever admit that the other blundered. Charlie used to make some +frightful mistakes occasionally that would have driven any other +player mad; but you should have seen the manner in which Franziska +would explain that he had no alternative but to take her king with his +ace, that he could not know this, and was right in chancing that. We +played three-penny points, and Charlie paid for himself and his +partner, in spite of her entreaties. Two of us found the game of whist +a profitable thing. + +One day a registered letter came for Charlie. He seized it, carried it +to a window, and then called Tita to him. Why need he have any secret +about it? It was nothing but a ring--a plain hoop with a row of +rubies. + +"Do you think she would take this thing?" he said, in a low voice. + +"How can I tell?" + +The young man blushed and stammered, and said: + +"I don't want you to ask her to take the ring, but to get to know +whether she would accept any present from me. And I would ask her +myself plainly, only you have been frightening me so much about being +in a hurry. And what am I to do? Three days hence we start." + +Tita looked down with a smile and said, rather timidly: + +"I think if I were you I would speak to her myself--but very gently." + +We were going off that morning to a little lake some dozen miles off +to try for a jack or two. Franziska was coming with us. She was, +indeed, already outside, superintending the placing in the trap of our +rods and bags. When Charlie went out she said that everything was +ready; and presently our peasant driver cracked his whip, and away we +went. + +Charlie was a little grave, and could only reply to Tita's fun with an +effort. Franziska was mostly anxious about the fishing, and hoped that +we might not go so far to find nothing. + +We found few fish anyhow. The water was as still as glass, and as +clear; the pike that would have taken our spinning bits of metal must +have been very dull-eyed pike indeed. Tita sat at the bow of the long +punt reading, while our boatman steadily and slowly plied his single +oar. Franziska was for a time eagerly engaged in watching the progress +of our fishing, until even she got tired of the excitement of rolling +in an immense length of cord, only to find that our spinning bait had +hooked a bit of floating wood or weed. At length Charlie proposed that +he should go ashore and look out for a picturesque site for our +picnic, and he hinted that perhaps Miss Franziska might also like a +short walk to relieve the monotony of the sailing. Miss Franziska said +she would be very pleased to do that. We ran them in among the rushes, +and put them ashore, and then once more started on our laborious +career. + +Tita laid down her book. She was a little anxious. Sometimes you could +see Charlie and Franziska on the path by the side of the lake; at +other times the thick trees by the water's side hid them. + +The solitary oar dipped in the lake; the boat glided along the shores. +Tita took up her book again. The space of time that passed may be +inferred from the fact that, merely as an incident to it, we managed +to catch a chub of four pounds. When the excitement over this event +had passed, Tita said: + +"We must go back to them. What do they mean by not coming on and +telling us? It is most silly of them." + +We went back by the same side of the lake, and we found both Franziska +and her companion seated on the bank at the precise spot where we had +left them. They said it was the best place for the picnic. They asked +for the hamper in a businesslike way. They pretended they had searched +the shores of the lake for miles. + +And while Tita and Franziska are unpacking the things, and laying the +white cloth smoothly on the grass, and pulling out the bottles for +Charlie to cool in the lake, I observe that the younger of the two +ladies rather endeavours to keep her left hand out of sight. It is a +paltry piece of deception. Are we moles, and blinder than moles, that +we should continually be made the dupes of these women? I say to her: + +"Franziska, what is the matter with your left hand?" + +"Leave Franziska's left hand alone," says Tita, severely. + +"My dear," I reply, humbly, "I am afraid Franziska has hurt her left +hand." + +At this moment Charlie, having stuck the bottles among the reeds, +comes back, and, hearing our talk, he says, in a loud and audacious +way: + +"Oh, do you mean the ring? It's a pretty little thing I had about me, +and Franziska has been good enough to accept it. You can show it to +them, Franziska. + +Of course he had it about him. Young men always do carry a stock of +ruby rings with them when they go fishing, to put in the noses of the +fish. I have observed it frequently. + +Franziska looks timidly at Tita, and then she raises her hand, that +trembles a little. She is about to take the ring off to show it to us +when Charlie interposes: + +"You needn't take it off, Franziska." + +And with that, somehow, the girl slips away from among us, and Tita is +with her, and we don't get a glimpse of either of them until the +solitude resounds with our cries for luncheon. + +In due time Charlie returned to London, and to Surrey with us in very +good spirits. He used to come down very often to see us; and one +evening at dinner he disclosed the fact that he was going over to the +Black Forest in the following week, although the November nights were +chill just then. + +"And how long do you remain?" + +"A month," he says. + +"Madam," I say to the small lady at the other end of the table," a +month from now will bring us to the 4th of December. You have lost the +bet you made last Christmas morning; when will it please you to resign +your authority?" + +"Oh, bother the bet," says this unscrupulous person. + +"But what do you mean?" says Charlie. + +"Why," I say to him, "she laid a wager last Christmas Day that you +would not be married within a year. And now you say you mean to bring +Franziska over on the 4th of December next. Isn't it so?" + +"Oh, no!" he says; "we don't get married till the spring." + +You should have heard the burst of low, delightful laughter with which +Queen Tita welcomed this announcement. She had won her wager. + + + + + +The Project Gutenberg Etext Stories by English Authors in Germany + diff --git a/old/sbeag10.zip b/old/sbeag10.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..3862a35 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/sbeag10.zip |