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| author | Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org> | 2025-10-15 04:42:09 -0700 |
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| committer | Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org> | 2025-10-15 04:42:09 -0700 |
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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/13440-0.txt b/13440-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..7cd3457 --- /dev/null +++ b/13440-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,9134 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 13440 *** + +LIPPINCOTT'S MAGAZINE + +OF + +_POPULAR LITERATURE AND SCIENCE_. + +VOLUME XV., No. 85. + +PHILADELPHIA: + +J. B. LIPPINCOTT AND CO. + + + +January, 1875. + + + +CONTENTS + +THE NEW HYPERION. + FROM PARIS TO MARLY BY WAY OF THE RHINE. + XIX.--TYING UP THE CLEWS. + +FOLLOWING THE TIBER + TWO PAPERS.--1. + +THE PARADOX by CHARLOTTE F. BATES. + +THE LEADEN ARROW by EDWARD C. BRUCE. + +TWO MIRRORS by F.A. HILLARD. + +MALCOLM. + CHAPTER LXIV. THE LAIRD AND HIS MOTHER. + CHAPTER LXV. THE LAIRD'S VISION. + CHAPTER LXVI. THE CRY FROM THE CHAMBER. + CHAPTER LXVII. FEET OF WOOL. + CHAPTER LXVIII. HANDS OF IRON. + CHAPTER LXIX. THE MARQUIS AND THE SCHOOLMASTER. + CHAPTER LXX. END OR BEGINNING? + +THE STAGE IN ITALY by R. DAVEY. + +THREE FEATHERS BY WILLIAM BLACK. + CHAPTER XX. TINTAGEL'S WALLS. + CHAPTER XXI. CONFESSION. + CHAPTER XXII. ON WINGS OF HOPE. + +ON THE VIA SAN BASILIO by EARL MARBLE. + +A CHRISTMAS HYMN by T. BUCHANAN READ. + +THE PARSEES by FANNIE ROPER FEUDGE. + +OUR MONTHLY GOSSIP + A SWEDISH PROVINCIAL THEATRE. + VENETIAN CAFFÈS. + A NEW MEXICAN CHRISTMAS EVE. + ENGLISH BIBLE TRANSLATIONS. + +LITERATURE OF THE DAY. + _Books Received._ + + + + +ILLUSTRATIONS + + CÆSAR'S PENNY. + THE THRONED CORPSE. + THE SKELETON IN ARMOR. + BRUSSELS. + FATHER JOLIET. + THE CATECHISM. + FRAU KRANICH. + "TO MY ARMS." + THE FUTURE OF FFARINA. + HOHENFELS' FAILURE. + READING THE CONTRACT. + INTERRUPTED REPOSE. + COALS vs. COATS + THE JESTER AT THE FEAST. + ST. GUDOLE, BRUSSELS. + SQUARE OF THE HÔTEL DE VILLE, BRUSSELS. + DIVERS DIVERSIONS. + THE MIMIC HUNT. + HOMEWARD BOUND. + CHARLES AND JOSEPHINE. + ARGUS AND ULYSSES. + "HAND IT OVER TO ART." + NEAR THE SOURCE OF THE TIBER. + CAPRESE. + LAKE THRASIMENE. + THE TIBER NEAR PERUGIA. + TODI. + CHURCH AND CONVENT OF SAINT FRANCIS, AT ASSISI. + + + + +THE NEW HYPERION. + +FROM PARIS TO MARLY BY WAY OF THE RHINE. + + +XIX.--TYING UP THE CLEWS. + + +[Illustration: CÆSAR'S PENNY.] + +In leaving Cologne for Aix-la-Chapelle you turn your back to the +river--a particular which suited my mood well enough. The railway bore +us away from the Rhine-shore at an abrupt angle, and in my notion the +noble Germanic goddess or image seemed at this point to recede with +grand theatric strides, like a divinity of the stage backing away +from her admirers over the billowy whirlpool of her own skirts. As +I dreamed we penetrated the tunnel of Königsdorf, which is fifteen +hundred yards long, and which seemed to me sufficiently protracted to +contain the slumber of Barbarossa. The thought gave me a useful hint, +and I fell into a light sleep, while Charles and Hohenfels pervaded +the darkness merely by their perfumes--the former with whiffs at a +concealed bottle of Farina, the latter with a pastille counterfeiting +the incense of the cathedral. In a couple of hours from the Hôtel de +Hollande we reached Aachen, as the fond natives call the burgh so dear +to Charlemagne. Deprived of that magnificent mirror, the Rhine, the +pretty towns throughout this part of Germany seem but like country +belles. We should hardly have paused at Aix but for the sake of +affording a rest to Charles, who grew worse whenever lunch-time +competed with railway-time. As for the dull little city, for us it was +a wilderness, with the blank cleanliness of the desert, except in so +far as it was informed and populated by the memory of Charlemagne. + +[Illustration: THE THRONED CORPSE.] + +Here he died, and entered his tomb in the church himself had founded. +Into this sepulchre the emperor Otho III. dared to penetrate in the +year 997, impelled by a motive of vile and varlet-like curiosity. They +say the dead monarch confronted his living visitor in the great marble +chair in which he had been seated at his own command, haughty and +inflexible as in life, the ivory sceptre in his ivory fingers, his +white skull crowned with the diadem of gold. The peeping emperor +looked upon him with awe, half afraid of the mysterious and +penetrating shadows that reached forth out of his rayless eyes. Before +he left, however, he peered about, touched the sceptre and the throne, +fingered this and that, and having, as it were, trimmed the nails and +combed the beard of the great spectre, retired with a valet's bow. +Observing that Charlemagne had lost most of his nose, he caused it +to be replaced in gold very delicately chiseled and enchased. The +sacrilege was repeated by Frederick Barbarossa in 1165, who went +farther and forced Charlemagne to get up from his chair before him. +The corpse, in rising, fell in pieces, which have been dispersed +through Europe as relics. We saw such of them as remain here at the +Chapelle. I was allowed, for about the equivalent of an American +dollar, to measure the Occidental emperor's leg--they call it his arm. +And then, as a makeweight in the bargain, the venal sacristan placed +in my hands the head of Charlemagne. + +I thought Hohenfels would have sunk to the ground with disgust. He +colored deeply and dragged me into the air. "I am ashamed of every +drop of German blood in my veins," he cried. "What are we to think of +the commerce of these wretches, for whom the very wounds of Cæsar are +the lips of a money-box?" + +I had given back the skull, as Hamlet returns the skull of Yorick to +the grave-digger, and was dusting my fingers with a handkerchief, +as hundreds of Hamlets have dusted theirs. I said, "'Thrift, thrift, +Horatio.'" + +"At Kreutzberg there are twenty monks on the counter! This morning, at +St. Ursula's, it was the eleven thousand virgins, their skulls ranged +like Dutch cheeses above our heads or in rows around the walls, with +a battery-full of them in the neighboring apartment, like a +cheesemonger's reserved magazine. Here, the very leader of modern +ideas, the creator of our form of civilization, is shown for so +many pennies to any grocer who wants to weigh the head of a king! +Profanation! Barbarians! Philistines!" + +[Illustration: THE SKELETON IN ARMOR.] + +I turned rather hastily, while my hands were yet clammy with the +skull, thinking that this accusation of Philistinism was aimed at me. +But Hohenfels thought of nothing less than of a personality, being +in his cloudiest mood of generalization. So I only concealed the +handkerchief, while I said, as easily as I might, "You need not accuse +your German blood, for I have lived long enough in my American's +Paradise to know that civilized Paris is considerably worse in this +particular respect, with the addition of a certain goblin levity +particularly French. How often have I seen babies frightened by the +skulls in the dentists' windows, with their cynical chewing action! +It is said that a child sat next a dentist's apprentice once in an +omnibus, and was observed to turn rigid, fixed and white, but unable +to speak: he had sat on one of these skulls, and it had bitten him. +Silver-mounted skulls set as goblets, in imitation of Byron, are to +be seen at any of the china-shops rubbing against the chaste cheeks +of the old maid's teacup. Skeletons are sold, bleached and with gilded +hinges, to the medical students, who buy the pale horrors as openly +as meerschaum pipes. Have I not often found young Grandstone +supping among his doctors' apprentices of the Ober restaurant after +theatre-hours, a skeleton in the corner filled with umbrellas like +a hall-rack, and crowned with the triple or quintuple tiara of the +girls' best bonnets? Ay, Mimi Pinson's cap has known what it is to +perch on the bony head of Death. The juxtaposition is but an emblem. +The sewing-girl, like Hood's shirtmaker, scarcely fears the +'phantom of grisly bone.' Poor Francine! where have you taken _your_ +artisanne's cap to, I wonder? Are you left alone, all alone again, and +thinking of the pretty solitude you have left behind you at Carlsruhe? +Who uses those polished keys now?" + +Hohenfels interrupted me, complaining that my monologue was +uninteresting and diffuse, and was interfering with the railway +time-table. But I finished it in the car: "And the railway! What has +a person of fixed and independent habits to do with railways but +to growl at them? Before I was tempted upon the railway by that +impertinent engineer at Noisy, I got up and sat down when I liked, ate +wholesome food at my own hours, and was contented at home. Confusion +to him who made me the victim of his engineering calculations! +Confusion to Grandstone and his nest of serpents at Épernay! Did they +not introduce me to Fortnoye, who has doubly destroyed my peace? Where +are the conspirators, that I may pulverize them with my maledictions?" + +[Illustration: BRUSSELS.] + +This question--which Hohenfels called peevish as he buried himself in +his book--was not answered until we had passed Verviers, Chaudfontaine +and Liège. I was aroused from a sulky slumber in the station at +Brussels by Hohenfels, who said, in his musical scolding way, like the +busy wheeze of a clicking music-box, "You may say what you like, with +your left-handed flatteries, in regard to Fortnoye, and you may praise +Ariadnes and widows to the end of the chapter. You are sorry at +this moment not to be at Épernay to see the destroyer of your peace +married: you had rather assist at the making of a wife than at the +making of a widow." + +I was just sending Fortnoye to the gloomiest shades of Acheron when a +strong hand entered the carriage-door, helped me handsomely down the +steps, and then began warmly to shake my own. Fortnoye!--Fortnoye +in flesh and blood was before me. While my mouth was yet filled with +maledictions he began to pour out a storm of thanks with all his own +particular warmth, expressing the most effusive gratitude for the +trouble I had taken in forsaking my route to be his wife's bridesmaid. +That is what he called it. "She has but one other," said Fortnoye. +At the same time I began to recognize other faces not unknown to me, +crudely illuminated by the raw colors of the railway-lights. They +all had black wedding-suits and enormous buttonhole nosegays of +orange-flowers. I picked them out, with a particular recognition for +each: 'twas the civil engineer of Noisy; the short gentleman named +Somerard; James Athanasius Grandstone, with his saintly aureole upon +him in the shape of a Yankee wide-awake; the nameless mutes, or rather +chorus, of the champagne-crypt; in short, my nest of serpents in +all its integrity. Still entangled with my slumbers, I hesitated +to respond to the friendly hands that were everywhere thrust +centripetally toward me. + +I looked blackly at Hohenfels. He was chuckling. + +At Heidelberg, making the acquaintance of M. Fortnoye +contemporaneously with my departure, he had become more enthralled +than he ever confessed to this radiant traveler--whom he called a +packman, but regarded as a Mercury--and his pretty scheme of matrimony +in motion. Even now, if I can believe my eyes, he goes up to the +"vintner" and "peddler" of his objurgations, and meekly whispers into +his ear with the air of a conspirator reporting a plot to his chief. +Having engaged to produce me at the wedding of Fortnoye, and finding +me unexpectedly recusant, he had adopted a little stratagem for +bringing me to the scene while thinking to escape from it. + +"Thou too, Brutus!" I said, and gave it up. It only remained for me +to return all round, after five minutes of petrified stupidity, +the hand-grasps that had been offered from every quarter of the +compass-box. + +Next morning, at an early hour, I was interrupted by a knock, just +as Charles had buttoned my gaiters and the young man from the +perruquier's (who had stolen in with that air of delicacy and of +almost literary refinement which belongs to his gentle profession) had +lathered me. A nick he gave my chin at the shock made my countenance +all argent and gules, and the visitor entering saw me thus emblazoned, +while the barber and Charles, "like two wild men supporters of a +shield," could only stare at the untimely apparition. + +"Do you know him, Charles?" I asked, not recognizing my guest, and +putting over my painted face a mask of wet toweling. + +"I know him intimately," replied my jester-in-ordinary: "I would thank +Monsieur Paul just to tell me his name. Do you remember, monsieur, a +sort of beggar, with a wagon and a stylish horse and a pretty wife, +who limped a bit with his right hand, or perhaps his left hand? Does +monsieur know what I mean? He used to come and see us at Passy; and +monsieur even had some traffic with him in a little matter of two +chickens." + +"Father Joliet!" I cried. + +"Present!" shouted the personage thus designated at my appeal to his +name. I turned round, toweled, and he grasped my hands. The unusual +hour, appropriate as I supposed only to some porter or other +stipendiary visitor of my hotel, caused to shine out with startling +refulgence the morning splendors in which Papa Joliet had arrayed +himself. He wore a courtly dress, appropriate to the most formal +possible ceremony; his black suit was glossy; his hat was glossy; +his varnished pumps were more than glossy--they were phosphorescent. +Gloves only were wanting to his honest hands. + +[Illustration: PERRUQUIER.] + +Soaped, napkined and generally extinguished, I could only stammer, +"You here in Brussels? What a droll meeting!" + +"Wherefore droll?" asked Joliet, with a huge surprise, which lasted +him all through his next sentence. "I come here to marry my daughter. +Everything is ready; we count on your presence at the wedding; the +lawyer has drawn up the contract; and the breakfast is now cooking at +the best restaurant in the place." + +"Francine's wedding, my dear Joliet!" I exclaimed. And, going back to +my apprehensions at her furtive disappearance from Carlsruhe, and +to my conjectures of some amorous mystery between her and her Yankee +traducer, Kraaniff, I added gravely, "It is very creditable!" + +"How, creditable--and droll?" repeated the honest man, evidently much +surprised at my own accumulating surprises. "Did not you hear?" + +[Illustration: FATHER JOLIET.] + +"Not the faintest word," I said, "but I am none the less gratified to +find this affair ending, as it should, in the presence of a lawyer. As +for your wedding-invitation, my good friend, you are a little tardy in +delivering it, for it is exactly to-day that I am obliged to attend at +the marriage of one of my friends, M. Fortnoye." + +"Ah, that is a good joke!" cried Joliet, breaking into an explosion of +laughter and clapping me pleasantly on the shoulder--an action which +caused a slight frown on the part of Charles. "You always would have +your jest, Monsieur the American! Tease me and scare me as much as +you like: I like these hoaxes better before a wedding than after. +Hold that," he added, extending his hand as if it were a piece of +merchandise. + +I "held" it, and he went on, dwelling slowly on his words: "If you are +at Henri Fortnoye's wedding you will be at Francine Joliet's also, for +both of these persons are to be married at one church." + +"Impossible!" I exclaimed, dropping the hand and stepping back. + +"What! again?" said Joliet, his manly face visibly darkening. "Droll! +and creditable! and impossible! Why impossible?" Then he dropped his +head and looked angrily at the floor. "Ah, yes, even you," he said, +his eyes still fixed on the boards, "believed that a French girl, +trained as French girls are trained, would flirt and expose herself to +remark; and all on account of such a man as your compatriot, the other +American! Well! well! you ought to know your countrymen best." + +"I know of no harm," I interposed hastily. "I should always have +thought Kraaniff hard to swallow as a mere matter of taste. I can but +recollect, Father Joliet," I went on more seriously, "that the last +time I met you you begged me not to talk of Francine if I would not +break your heart. I have to add to this the news brought me from +Heidelberg, that this Kraaniff was a serpent who had fascinated some +young girl for an approaching meal.--How dare you, Charles," I cried +suddenly, recalled to the consciousness of his presence by this +souvenir of his oratory, "stand here staring? Show the young man out +directly, and pay him." + +I will not answer for Charles's having got much farther away than the +door. Joliet continued: "But his aunt knows him now for what he is. +Kraaniff, say you? I call him Kranich, though he had better change his +baptismal record than disgrace one of the best names in Brussels." + +[Illustration: THE CATECHISM.] + +"Frau Kranich, then, my old friend, is really his aunt?" + +"Madame Kranich, whom I have known in your parlor, is really +Francine's godmother. Did you never know of all her secret kindness? +That rigid lady would commit a perjury to deny one of her own good +actions. Young Kranich has written her a letter confessing his lies. +Don't you know? The very same day when you were determined to fight +him in a duel--" + +"Certainly, certainly," I said, a little confused. "We will change the +subject and leave my ferocity alone. Let us understand one another. +In regard to Fortnoye's marriage, was there not some talk of a Madame +Ashburleigh?" + +"I believe you. Madame Ashburleigh is the very key of the manoeuvre. +Madame Ashburleigh--don't you perceive?--lost a child." + +"For that matter, she has lost four. I know the lady confidentially, +and she told me their histories and present address. Lucia lies in +Glasgow, Hannibal at Nice, and Waterloo sleeps somewhere hereabout, as +well as another nameless little dear." + +"She is a good woman. She has collected all her proofs, and has come +hither with them voluntarily--has perhaps already arrived. Brussels, +where two of her marmots rest, is one of her most frequent stations. +That censorious Madame Kranich made a scene, but she had to yield to +conviction." + +"A censorious Madame Kranich! Is the young duelist married?" + +"What? No, no! It is Francine's guardian I speak of. Of late years she +has become a sort of Puritan abbess, seeking the Protestant society +which abounds in Belgium, and lamenting her husband, whom they say she +used to drug with opium." + +"Then is she not Kranich's aunt?" + +"Oh yes, an aunt by marriage; but he is not her nephew: I will die +before I call him so." + +"Listen," said I, "Father Joliet. You are as full of information as an +oracle, but you are not coherent. This month past I have been hunting +down a chimaera, a hydra with a dozen heads: each head shows me by +turn the portrait of Fortnoye, or Francine, or yourself, or Kranich, +or Mrs. Ashburleigh. Ever since Noisy I have been meandering through +the folds of a mystery. My head is turning with it. If you want to +save me from distraction, sit down in this chair and answer me a long +catechism, without saying a word but in reply to my questions." + +[Illustration: FRAU KRANICH.] + +"I am sure I talk as plain as a professor. Look! You frightened me at +first with your doubts and your impossibilities. You have only to make +Kranich's aunt agree with Francine's guardian, and at the same time +forgive Francine's husband for having assumed the undertaker's bill +for Madame Ashburleigh's baby." + +"Yes, yes, my dear Joliet, you are clearer than Euclid." And I +administered a category of questions. Joliet, with his fatherly joy +bursting out of him in the longest of parentheses, kept quiet in his +refulgent shoes and answered as well as he could. + +[Illustration: "TO MY ARMS."] + +Francine, he protested, had never been a flirt (I have met no +Frenchmen who were ignorant of that one English word, to which they +give a new value by pronouncing it in a very orotund manner, as +_flort_). When she came to be ten or twelve, Frau Kranich--until then +a well-preserved lioness with an appetite for society--ceased to give +her dolls and promised to give her an education. At the same time, the +banker's widow left Paris, and repaired with her charge to Brussels, +where the little girl received some good half-Jesuitical, half-English +schooling, of the kind suggested in the Brontë novels. Her diploma +attained, Francine begged to accompany her English teacher back to +London: she wished to become a _meess_, she said, and be competent to +teach like a new Hypatia. She had hardly bidden her kind protectress +adieu when Frau Kranich's nephew arrived at Brussels, exceedingly +dissatisfied with his American business in the bar-rooms of the grand +duke of Mississippi. A sordid jealousy of Mademoiselle Joliet's claims +upon his aunt took possession of this prudent spirit. He took up a +watch-post at a university town on the Rhine. He began to whisper +vague exaggerations of her coquetries and liveliness, which the +Protestant circle that revolved about Madame Kranich did not fail to +bear in to her. This lady admired her nephew, sure that his want of +manners was the sign of a noble frankness. She wrote to Francine, +bidding her come immediately from London. The girl not replying, the +hopeful nephew was put upon her track. He went away. His letters from +England reported that Francine was no longer in that country, but was +probably come back to Belgium, "I know not in what suburb of Brussels +our very independent miss may this instant be hiding," he wrote. + +About the same time, in the circle of French exiles at Brussels, +a young _romantique_ named Fortnoye was reported as weeping and +lavishing statues over the grave of an unknown infant in the +churchyard at Laaken. It was a delicious mystery. Kind meddlers +approached the sexton, who said that all he knew of the babe's mother +was that she was a beautiful lady from London. Kranich carried the +story dutifully to his aunt, adding his own ingenious surmise: "Can +Francine have become sufficiently Anglicised to contract secret +marriages with roving revolutionists, and scamper about the country +with ardent young Frenchmen in the style of Gretna Green?" In fact, it +was really from London that Mrs. Ashburleigh was proceeding, for the +purpose of taking care, in the Rhenish city where he was dying, of +her handsome, dissipated, worthless husband. Taken suddenly ill at +Brussels, she left her infant to the unequaled chill of a strange, +unknown cemetery, hastening thence with tears and despair to the +bedside where duty called her. + +Has my reader forgotten the dim, tear-swollen story which I heard--not +at all improved in the telling--from my generous young friend +Grandstone--how an impulsive Frenchman had laid to rest, in flowers +and evergreens, the unnamed baby of a woman he had never seen? Jealous +as I was of Fortnoye, I never could think without tenderness of this +singular action. To make the tomb of this helpless Innocence the young +man braved the curiosity of his comrades--despised the rumor, the +obloquy, and, hardest of all, the jests. Well has the wise dramatist +decided that Ophelia must needs be laid in Yorick's bed! + +Poor Francine, gay, frivolous, innocently vain of her little travesty +of English behavior, found her accomplishments and graces received +by her guardian's circle with incomprehensible coldness. Hurt and +humiliated, she asked to pay a visit to her father. The honest rustic +received her with a miserable confusion of doubt and severity, for +her escapade to England had never pleased him, and her return from her +godmother's home wore to him the air of a repudiation. At her father's +house, however, she was discovered by Fortnoye, who had never heard +the ingenious Kranich's theory of his own private wedding with +Francine, and who thought to find in her the veiled unknown of the +cemetery. He saw for the first time, in the flowery home at Noisy, +that fresh ingenuous beauty, a little over-cast with disappointment. +His generous nature was touched; and, with his talent for +administration and planning, he conceived the idea of establishing +Francine in the pretty bird's nest at Carlsruhe, distant alike from +the strongholds of her calumniators, Belgium and France. + +Fortnoye now had an object in life. "There is a very young person in +the cemetery of Laaken who is much in need of a chaperone," he said. +The frank proofs of his own relations with this churchyard would +not only do credit to his own reputation, but would gratify the best +friends of Mademoiselle Joliet and at least one other lady. To attain +these proofs he had to step over the coiling, writhing bodies of +a whole nest of rumors. When he seized by the throat the especial +slander that he himself was the husband of the babe's mother, he found +written on its crest the signature of John Kranich. He sought the +aunt. This lady gave him several interviews, the Lutheran prayer-book +for ever in her hand. "Why does the dear girl not come to me?" +she would say, weeping, but she refused to hear a word against her +precious nephew, the personification of bluff frankness. As if to make +crushing him impossible, young Kranich had now withdrawn to America, +leaving his reputation in that best possible protection, the chivalry +that is extended toward the absent. Fortnoye was baffled. "I will ask +the baby at its tomb for its mother's and father's name," he cried. +In the pretty God's Acre he found a fresh harvest of flowers and a +new statue over the well-known grave. It was a pretty miniature of +Thorwaldsen's Psyche, on which the proud copyist had inscribed his +name. A respectful correspondence with Mrs. Ashburleigh, to whom +he was guided by the sculptor, and who was now taking the waters at +Wildbad, soon put the whole tangled story to rights. Fortnoye had the +happiness of conducting Francine, by this time his affianced wife, to +the good Frau Kranich, who, convinced that she had wrongly judged +her, threw her arms ardently around her recovered jewel, letting the +eternal little book fly from her hand like a projectile. + +[Illustration: THE FUTURE OF FFARINA.] + +"But the most singular part of the story," concluded Father Joliet, +"is the letter which Fortnoye, after two or three quarrels, forced +out of young Kranich when the latter had returned to Europe, full of +triumph and debts, to take possession of his aunt for the rest of his +life. Here it is," added the good man, opening a pocket-book. "The +hand-writing is drunken, but the sense is clear as Seltzer-water. +The scholars tell me _in vino veritas est_, but it appears to me that +truth really comes out in the repentance and headache that follow." + +[Illustration: HOHENFELS' FAILURE.] + +"MY DEAR AUNT" (ran the letter which Charles had seen forced from the +alligator after his unlucky game of dominoes): "You have known me as +the soul of candor. It is this happy quality which compels me to state +(for I am something of a Rousseau) that if I ever playfully accused +your pretty pet Francine of being a flirt, I knew nothing about it. +The best proof is that she absolutely refused to join her expectations +with mine, though I am something of an Adonis. If you believed that +she and the wine-peddler had made a match, I pity your credulity and +ignorance of human nature. I am certain that neither the peddler nor +myself would touch the enterprise until you had shown exactly what you +would (pecuniarily) do. For my part, I have acted throughout on the +most exact and advanced scientific principles. Intending to modify +the spirit-trade in America, and especially to introduce the exclusive +agency of the Farina essences, I found that the sinew particularly +needed for this leap was capital. Desiring to absorb your bounties +toward Francine, I at first proposed matrimony. This offer was made +without any enmity toward the girl, as my next move was without +affection, though it seems to be resulting to her benefit. I became +her accuser as coolly as I had been her lover. Passion has nothing +to do with the combinations of strategic genius: I am something of a +Washington. My theory of her clandestine marriage was one of the most +masterly fictions of the age--a plot worthy of Thackeray. If I could +have succeeded in mutilating the statue in the graveyard, I might have +carried it, while you would have admired my act of iconoclasm with all +your Puritan nature. In the momentary abandonment of my plans, owing +to the machinations of my enemies, you will conceive that I am not +very rich. My college-debts and other expenses I am obliged to leave +for your kind attention. The main point of this letter, which M. +Fortnoye has persuaded me to set down as distinctly as in my present +feeble state I can, is that Francine is a pretty little maid who has +never passed by Gretna Green. There! that is my _credo_, and I will +subscribe to it, + +"Your loving nephew, JOHN. + +"P. S. Address, with such an enclosure as your generosity will prompt, +JEAN K. FFARINA, sole representative and cosmetical chemist in America +on behalf of the Farinas of Cologne, at New Orleans where I am going +to beat my adversaries like Old HIC--" + +At this point the tipsy scrawl became illegible. + +"This is not a very handsome apology. Did Fortnoye accept it?" I +asked, turning over the clammy and malodorous epistle. At this inquiry +the crack of the door widened and Charles appeared, on fire with +enthusiasm, and so possessed with self-importance that he forgot the +betrayal of his indiscretion. + +"I can reply to that question," said Charles. "When M. Fortnoye +received the paper from the duelist he read it over and said, 'You +have meant to impose on me, monsieur, with an incomplete confession. +But, in return for your imperfect restoration of Mademoiselle Joliet's +portrait, you have unconsciously set down such a masterpiece of +yourself that I am certain your aunt will see you as she never did +before.'" + +Charles, having thus added himself to our cabal without rebuke, took +a lively interest in what followed. The proud father continued: "My +son-in-law, after some business preliminaries, wrote me a handsome +letter demanding what he had already effectively possessed himself of. +I wrote to Francine, already returned to her duties, to be a good girl +and make her husband obey her in all things." + +"That may have been," said I, "what made Francine take to laughing +all day and all night, as I heard she did some little time after my +departure from her house. The next news of her," I pursued, "was +that she had been spirited away by some sly old kidnapper. I almost +suspected Kranich." + +"The old kidnapper," said Joliet, laughing heartily at the compliment, +"is the man now talking to you. I wanted to take Francine to her +godmother. I turned the key in the door at Carlsruhe, set the +geographers all upon their travels to explore new worlds, and we have +been living ever since quite close to Madame Kranich, who treats me +like an emperor." + +It was easy now to understand why the young Kranich, as soon as he +could identify me as a protector of Francine, had been thrown off his +guard and tempted to attack me with his clumsy abuse. It was not very +mysterious, even, why he had wished all handsome girls to be drowned +in the Rhine. For him a pretty damsel was simply a rival in trade. + +[Illustration: READING THE CONTRACT.] + +Had I stopped at Wildbad with the party of orpheonists, I should have +encountered rather sooner the fatal beauties of Mary Ashburleigh. It +was to meet her that Fortnoye had paused at that resort, considering +her introduction to Frau Kranich almost indispensable to the success +of his scheme. She had no hesitation in following the protecting angel +of her lost child. "My object in this journey is a happy marriage," +she had told me when to my unworthy care her guardianship had been +transferred. If I timorously suspected the marriage to be her own, +whose fault was it but mine? My heart leaped up at the successive +stages of this recital, its hopes confirmed by every additional fact: +the Dark Ladye's hand was certainly free. Fortnoye, I should surmise, +was not too desirous to abandon this magnificent companion at +Schwetzingen; but the serpent, he knew, was left behind, in company +with two or three of his and my friends: it was necessary to take +the youth by the ear, as it were, and dismiss him from the country, +without loss of time, to his future of counter-jumping. His dueling +experience may be of some use to him among the bowie-knives of +Louisiana. If his subsequent path is not strewn with roses, let him +rejoice that it is at least lubricated with cologne-water. + +[Illustration: INTERRUPTED REPOSE.] + +An hour had passed, and into my room from his own adjoining one now +ambled amicably my friend the baron. He greeted Joliet as an old +friend. Many a smoking-match had they had in my garden at Marly. But +Hohenfels this morning was in robes of state, with shoes that shone +even beside old Father Joliet's, and as a concession to elegance he +had abandoned his cavernous pipes in favor of cigarettes. A scroll of +this description, flavored with his Cologne pastille and very badly +rolled, was trying to exhale itself between his lips. + +"What a genius for conversation you have to-day, my Flemming! This +hour I have rocked back and forth in bed, trying to understand your +observations or to cover my ears and go to rest. Your tongue has been +like the tongue of a monastery-bell summoning all hands to penance." +But I had hardly spoken ten consecutive words. The ears of the baron +were this morning quite muffled, I think, with the abundance of his +hair, which he had evidently been dressing with an avalanche of soap +and water, for the topknot was as harsh and tight as a felt. He had +lemon-blossoms on his lappel and lemon kids on his fists. + +It was then I remembered that my bags were all in the steamer, where +I had left them when surprised by Charles's indisposition. My tin box +would possibly yield me a button-nosegay, but otherwise I might beat +my breast, like the wedding-guest in the _Ancient Mariner_, for I +heard the summons and was unable to attend in right attire. "We two +must take you out in the street and dress you," said Hohenfels. + +Although I had never been dressed in the street, I yielded. It was a +grand public holiday, and the sounds of festivity, which had floated +into my chamber with the entrance of Hohenfels, were in full cadence +outside. Everybody was pouring out to the city-gate, or returning from +thence, where, in honor of some visit from the king of the Belgians +and count and countess of Flanders, a festival was going on in +imitation or rehearsal of the grand annual _kermesse_. These +festivals, retained in Belgium with a delightful fidelity to the +customs of antique Brabant, would fit the brush of Teniers better +than the pen of a mere bewildered tourist. Still, I will try, copying +principally from the reports of Charles (who contrives to peep at +everything, with an interest whose amount is in ratio with the square +of his distance from his master), to give a few features of the scene, +which he spread in detail before the attentive Josephine during many +an evening after. + +[Illustration: COALS vs. COATS] + +The principal fair-ground--though the occasion crammed the whole city +with revelers--was just outside the gate. It was a veritable town in +miniature, with a pattern of checker-board streets--Columbine street, +Polichinelle street, Avenue des Parades, Place des Parades, Street of +the Chanson, and the like. There were more than five hundred booths, +all numbered--shops and restaurants. There were the Salon Curtius, +the Ménagerie Bidel, the Bal Mabille, the Café Bataclan, the American +Tavern. From one of the little costumers' shops, Charles--with +a higher evincement of antiquarian taste than I should have +expected--managed to bear away a pattern of wall-paper, which I +afterward conferred on Mary Ashburleigh with great applause: it was +Parisian of 1824, the epoch of Charles Dix, and was entirely covered +with giraffes in honor of that puissant and elegant monarch. The above +establishments were near the entrance, to the right. + +At the left were more attractions: another menagerie, a heap of +ostensible gold representing the five milliards paid by France, a +gallery of astonished wax soldiers representing the Franco-Prussian +war, a cook-shop with "mythologic" confectionery. Farther on, in the +Théâtre Casti, was exposed the "renowned buffoon Peppino," breveted by +His Majesty the "king of Egypt;" then came the Chiarini Theatre; then +the Théâtre Adrien Delille, an enchantingly pretty structure, where +receptions were given by a little creature who should have sat under +a microscope: she was "the Princess Felicia, aged thirteen, born at +Clotat, near Marseilles, weighing three kilogrammes and measuring +forty-six centimètres--a ravishing figure, admirably proportioned in +her littleness and _tout à fait sympathique!"_ + +The announcements were heard, it was thought by Charles, to the very +centre of the city. A low-browed animal with rasped hair was shouting, +"Messieurs and ladies, come and see--come and see the theatre of the +galleys! The only one in the world! This is the place to view the real +instruments of torture used on the prisoners---chains four yards long +and balls of thirty-five pounds. All authentic, gentlemen and ladies. +You will see the poisoners of Marseilles, Grosjon who killed his +father, Madame Cottin who ate her baby. Come in, come in, gentlemen +and ladies! Fifteen centimes! 'Tis given away! You enter and go out +when you like. Come in! It is educational: you see vice and crime +depicted on the faces of the criminals!" + +[Illustration: THE JESTER AT THE FEAST.] + +In another place a malicious Flemish Figaro explained the analogy +betwen _een spinnekop_ and _eene meisie_, the perspiration streaming +over his face; and my ancient minnesinger's blood stirred within me at +the report of the pleasantries which were improvised by this Rabelais +of the people, and I remembered that I too was a Flemming. + +The bands belonging to the different booths tried to play each other +down, forming a stupefying charivari, with tributary processions that +quite overflowed the city. The house of "confections" yielded me no +broadcloth of a cut or dimension suitable to my figure. But my two +friends chose me a hat, a light pale-tot (my second purchase in that +sort on this eventful journey), a scented cambric handkerchief, a +rosebud, and a snowy waistcoat, in which, as in a whited sepulchre, +I concealed the decay of my toilet. These changes were judged to be +sufficient for my accoutrement. They might have done very well, but on +my way back I paused at a lace-shop window to inspect some present for +Francine. A band, with many banners and figures in masquerade, swept +past, followed by a shouting crowd. My friends lost me in a moment, +and I lost my way. I turned into a street which I was sure led to the +hotel, gave it up for another, lost that in a blind alley, and finally +brought up in a steep, narrow cañon, where I was forced to ask a +direction. The passer-by who obliged me was a man bearing a bag of +charcoal. He answered with a ready intelligence that did honor to his +heart and his sense of Progressive Geography. But he left on my white +waistcoat, alas! a charcoal sketch, full of chiaroscuro and _coloris_, +representing his index-finger surrounded with a sort of cloud-effect. +My waistcoat had to be given over in favor of the elder garment +buttoned up in the all-concealing overcoat. + +[Illustration: ST. GUDOLE, BRUSSELS.] + +The ceremonies of the day, I soon found, were to consist in an early +and informal breakfast at the house of Frau Kranich; then the civil +wedding at the mayor's office, followed by the usual church-service, +from which the Protestant godmother of Francine begged to be excused; +the day to wind up with a general dinner at a place of resort outside +the city at four o'clock, the usual dining-hour in old Brabant. + +The early breakfast gave a renewal of my friendship with good Frau +Kranich and a glimpse of the bride, with her sweet, patient, dewy face +shadowed like a honey-drop in the gauzy calyx of her artisanne cap; +for she was in the simplest of morning dresses--something gray, with +a clean white apron. The quaint, old-fashioned house where we met was +decorated with exquisite trifles, the memorials of the mistress's old +fashionable taste, but scattered over the tables also were lecture +programmes, hospital reports and photographs of eminent philosophers. +As I took up for a plaything a gold pen-case, well used, which rested +on a magnificent old fan, the Kranich said, with just a reminiscence +of her former vivacity, "You find me much changed, Mr. Flemming. I +used to be the grasshopper in the fable--now I am the ant." + +"I bless any change, ma'am," said I, "which increases your kindness +toward this charming girl." + +"Dear Mr. Flemming," said pretty Francine, "how nice and shabby you +look! You will do admirably to stand by a poor girl--so poor that she +has hardly a bridesmaid. I hope you are as indigent as you were at +Carlsruhe." Upon this I felt very fatherly, and clasped her waist from +behind as I kissed her forehead. + +The lawyer, a professionally bland old man, with a porous bald head +like an emu's egg, said as he was introduced, "Ah, I have heard of you +before, monsieur. You are the man of the two chickens." + +Joliet was so enchanted with this rare joke, laughing and clapping +all his nearer neighbors on the back, that I could not but accept it +graciously. For this exceptional day, at least, I must bear my eternal +nickname. Was not the maid now present whose dower had been hatched +by those well-omened fowls? and was not the dower now coming to +use? Hohenfels paired off with the notary, and discussed with that +parchment person the music of Mozart, and, what would have been absurd +and incredible in any Anglo-Saxon country, the scribe understood it! + +Our party had to wait but ten minutes for the groom and his men. +Fortnoye, in a grand blue suit, with a wondrous dazzle of frilling +on his broad chest, looked a noble husband, but was preoccupied and +silent. His chorus supported him--Grandstone, Somerard, my engineer +and the others--in dignified black clothes, official boutonnières +and ceremonial cravats: they greeted Frau Kranich with awe, and +bowed before the polished head of the lawyer with the parallelism of +ninepins. My little group of fellow-travelers was almost complete. +The young duelist, of course, was not expected or wanted. The Scotch +doctor, Somerard told me, had been obliged to fly to London, where a +mammoth meeting of the homoeopathic faith was in progress. + +The great feature of the breakfast came on when every crumb of +breakfast had been eaten. Charles and the maid cleared away the table, +and the notary stood up to read the marriage contract. The reading, +ordinarily a dull affair, was in this instance vivified by curious +incidents. In the first place, Frau Kranich. amending the injustice +her over-credulity had caused, gave her _protègée_ a wedding-present +of twenty thousand francs, accompanying the gift with some singularly +tart remarks about her nephew: this sum was increased by the groom to +sixty thousand. The second incident was when Joliet, amid the almost +incredulous surprise of the whole table, raised the gift, by the +addition of ten thousand, to seventy thousand francs: the money was +the product of his former house and garden--that house of shreds and +patches which had cost him ten francs. When it came to affixing the +signatures, the notary appealed to Joliet for his name. He could +not sign it, being gouty and half forgetful of pen-practice, but he +responded to the question as bold as a lion: "John Thomas Joliet, +baron de Rouvière," throwing to the lawyer a fine bunch of papers +bearing witness to the validity of the title; after which he added, no +less proudly, "wine-merchant, wholesale and retail, at the sign of the +Golden Chickens, Noisy." + +[Illustration: SQUARE OF THE HÔTEL DE VILLE, BRUSSELS.] + +In truth, Joliet's father had rightfully borne the title of baron de +Rouvière, but, ruined by '48, had abandoned the practice of signing +it. Joliet resumed it for this special occasion, having every warrant +for the act, but whispered to me that he should never so call himself +in future, greatly preferring the enumeration of his qualities on his +business-card. + +Poor Francine meanwhile had looked so timid and blushed so that Frau +Kranich nodded to her permission of absence. She gave one glance at +Fortnoye, buried her face in her hands, laughed a sweet little gurgle, +and fled. When her presence was again necessary, she reappeared, +drowned in white. We went to the mayor's office, where she lost a +pretty little surname that had always seemed to fit her like a +glove; then to the church, an obscure one in the neighborhood of Frau +Kranich's house. But at the door of the sacred edifice the elder lady +said, with much conciliatory grace in her manner, "I claim exemption +from witnessing this part of the ceremony; and you, Mr. Flemming, must +resume or discover your Protestantism and enter the carriage with +me. I must show you a little of the city while these young birds are +pairing." + +No objection was made to this rather strange proposal. The bride, +between her father and husband, forgot that she had no friend of her +own sex to stand near her. We arranged for a general meeting at the +dinner. + +In the carriage she said, "I brought you away because I am devoured +with uneasiness. Mrs. Ashburleigh wrote me that she would certainly +be here for at least the principal part of the ceremony. I do not know +what to make of it. It may be of no use, but we will scour the city. +These throngs, this noise, make me uneasy. I fear some accident, +having," she added with a smile, "one lone woman's sympathy for +another lone woman." + +[Illustration: DIVERS DIVERSIONS.] + +I peered through the crowds at this, right and left, with +inexpressible emotion. Perhaps this accidental sort of quest was that +which destiny had arranged for the solution of my life-problem. To +light upon Mary Ashburleigh in these festal throngs, perhaps wanting +assistance, perhaps calling upon my name even now through her velvet +lips, was a chance the mere notion of which made my blood leap. + +When Brussels gives herself over to holiday-making, she does it in +a whole-souled and self-consistent way that has plenty of +attractiveness. The houses seemed to have turned themselves inside +out to replenish the streets. People in their best clothes, equipages, +processions, bands, troops of children, filled the avenues. Some +conjecture that there might have been a mistake about the church took +us to the cathedral of St. Gudule. Here, amid the superb spectrums of +the stained windows, we searched through the vari-colored throngs that +covered the floor, but no familiar face looked upon us. Strange to +us as the old, impassive monumental dukes of Brabant who occupy the +niches, the people made way to let us pass from the doorway between +the lofty brace of towers to the high altar, which is a juggler's +apparatus, and has concealed machinery causing the sacred wafer to +come down seemingly of its own accord at the moment when the priest is +about to lift the Host. All was unfamiliar and splendid, and we came +away, feeling as if our own little wedding-group would have been lost +in so magnificent a tabernacle. The Grande Place, on which lay the +wedge-like shadow of the high-towered Hôtel de Ville, was perhaps as +thronged a honeycomb of buzzing populace as when Alva looked out upon +it to see the execution of Egmont and Horn. Among all the good-natured +Netherlandish countenances that paved the square there was none that +responded to my own. + +We drove vaguely through the principal streets, and then, baffled, +made our way to the faubourg in which is situated the zoological +garden, toward which a considerable portion of the inhabitants was +going even as ourselves. At the entrance our carriage encountered +that of the bride and groom, and soon the whole party of the +breakfast-table assembled by the gate, for the great coffee-rooms at +which our meal was laid were close by the garden, and a promenade +in this famous living museum was a premeditated part of the day's +enjoyment. We entered the grounds in character, frankly putting +forward our claims as a wedding-procession. That is the delightful +French custom among those who are brought up as Francine had been: +her father would have been heartbroken to have been denied the proud +exhibition of his joy, and Fortnoye was too great a traveler, too +cosmopolitan, to object to a little family pageant that he had seen +equaled or exceeded in publicity in most of the Catholic countries +on the globe. Francine, her artisanne cap for ever lost, her +gleaming dark hair set, like a Milky Way, with a half wreath of +orange-blossoms, the silvery gauzes of her protecting veil floating +back from her forehead, strayed on at the head of the little parade. +She was wrapped in the delicious reverie of the wedding-day. She was +not yellow nor meagre, nor uglier than herself, as so many brides +contrive to be. Her air of delicacy and tenderness was a blossom of +character, not a canker of ill-health. Her color was hardly raised, +though her head was perpetually bent. Fortnoye, holding her on his +firm arm, seemed like a man walking through enchantments. Just behind, +protecting Madame Kranich with an action of effusive gallantry that +must have been seen to be conceived, walked the baron de Rouvière, +his brave knotted hands, for which he had not found any gloves, busily +occupied in pointing out the animated rarities that to him seemed most +worthy of selection. The hilarious hyenas, the seals, the polar bears +plunging from their lofty rocks, all attracted his commendation; and +we, who walked behind in such order as our friendships or familiarity +taught us, were perpetually tripping upon his honest figure brought to +a halt before some object more than usually interesting. Exclamations +of delight at the bride's beauty, politely wrapped in whispers, arose +on all sides as we penetrated the throng: it was a proud thing to be +a part of a procession so distinguished. My good Joliet beamed with +complacency, and drove his little herd up and down and across and +about till the greater part of the garden was explored. The zoological +garden of Brussels has the beauty of not showing too obviously the +character of a prison. It is extensive, umbrageous, and the poor +captives within its borders have enough air and space around their +eyes to give them a semblance of liberty. For the special feast-day +on which we visited it the place had been arranged with particular +adaptation to the character of the time. There were elephant-races and +rides upon the camels free to all ladies who would make the venture. +In addition to the zebras, gnus and Shetlands, there was that species +of race-horse which never wins and never spoils a course, being +of wood and constructed to go round in a tent, and never to arrive +anywhere or lose any prizes. The pelicans were in high excitement, for +all along their beautiful little river, where it winds through bowery +trees, a profusion of living fish had been emptied and confined here +and there by grated dams, so that the awkward birds had opportunity +to angle in perfect freedom and to their hearts' content. In the +more wooded part of the garden a mimic hunt had been arranged, and +sportsmen in correct suits of green, with curly brass horns and baying +hounds, coursed through the grounds, following a stag which, though +mangy and asthmatic, may yet have been a descendant of the fawn that +fed Genevieve of Brabant. We had re-entered one of the grand alleys, +and were receiving again the little tribute of encomiums which the +greater privacy of the groves had pretermitted--we were parading +happily along, conscious of nothing to be ashamed of, our +orange-blossoms glistening, our veil flying, our broadcloth and +wedding-favors gleaming--when we met another group, which, though more +furtively, bore that matrimonial character which distinguished our +own. + +[ILLUSTRATION: THE MIMIC HUNT.] + +At the head walked Mr. Cookson & Jenkinson. He still wore that species +of shooting-costume which he had made his uniform, but it was decked +with roses, and his hands were encased in milk-white gloves: on his +hands, besides the gloves, he had the two grammatical ladies from +the Rhine steamboat in guise of bridesmaids. Behind him walked Mary +Ashburleigh. And emerging from the skirts of Mary Ashburleigh's dress, +with the embarrassed happiness of a middle-aged bridegroom, was--no? +yes! no, no! but yes--was Sylvester Berkley. I will not expose what I +suffered to the curiosity of imperfectly sympathetic strangers. I did +not faint, and I believe men in genuine despair never do so. But +I felt that weakness and unmanageableness of knee which comes with +strong mental anguish, and I sank back impotent upon the baron, whose +lingering legs repudiated the pressure, so that we both accumulated +miserably upon Grandstone. My eyes closed, and I did not hear the Dark +Ladye's salutations to Frau Kranich. But I awoke to see with anguish a +sight that drew involuntary applause from all that careless crowd. + +It was the salute of the two brides. Imagine, if you can, two +great purple pansies, flushed with all the perfumed sap of an Eden +spring-time, threaded with diamonds of myriad-faceted dew,--imagine +them leaning forward on their elastic stems until both their soft +velvet countenances cling together and exchange mutually their +caparisons of honeyed gems; then let them sway gently back, and +balance once more in their morning splendor. Such was the effect when +these two imperial creatures approached each other and imprinted with +lips and palms a sister's salute. Mary Ashburleigh, whom the throng +recognized as a natural empress, was arrayed this morning as brides +are seldom arrayed, but with a sense of artistic obedience to her own +sumptuous nature and personality. The royal purple of her velvets +was cut, on skirt and bodice, into one continuous fretwork of heavy +scrolls and leafage, and through the crevices of this textile carving +shone the robe she carried beneath: it was tawny yellow, for she wore +under her outward dress a complete robe of ancient lace, whose cobweb +softness was more than half sacrificed--only perceived as the slashes +of her velvets made it evident. It was such dressing as queens alone +should indulge in perhaps, but Mary Ashburleigh chose for once to do +justice to her style and her magnificence. + +I was leaning against a tree, stunned in the sick sunshine. I heard, +while my eyes were closed, a sort of voluminous cloudy roll, and the +Dark Ladye was beside me. She whispered quickly and volubly in my +ear, "I tried to confide in you, but I could not get it spoken. Yet +I managed to confess that my heart had been touched. It was only this +summer--at the Molkencur over Heidelberg--he lectured about the ruins. +'Twas information--'twas rapture! I found at once he was the Magician. +We were quietly united at the embassy this morning. And now he can +leave that dreadful consulate and has got his promotion, for he is +to be _chargé_ here in Brussels. It is sudden, but we were positively +afraid to do it in any other way, I am such a timid creature. When I +saw the travelers' agent on the steamboat, I was at first struck with +his manly British bearing and his resemblance to Sylvester. Then I +found he had the matrimonial prospectus, and perceived he might be a +link. He has managed everything beautifully. I had no idea--With his +assistance you need no more mind being married than going into a shop +for a plate of pudding. You must come up and be presented, to show you +bear no malice." + +I cannot tell how I did it, but I allowed Sylvester and the agent to +grasp my hands, one on either side. Berkley, as to his collar, his +cravat, his face and his white gloves, presented one general surface +of mat silver. He clasped me with some affection, but his intellect +had quite gone, and he said it was a fine day. + +I did not rally in the least until after my fourth glass of champagne +at the dinner. We made one party: indeed, Mrs. Ashburleigh had brought +her husband hither in that expectation. Fortnoye vanished a minute +to arrange the banquet-room; and as his wife rushed in to find him, +followed by the rest of us, he snatched a great damask cloth from +the table, and there was such a set-out of flowers and viands as has +seldom been seen in Belgium or elsewhere. The table, instead of a +cloth, was entirely laid with; young emerald vine-leaves: our places +were marked, and at each plate was a gift for the bride, ostensibly +coming from the person who sat there, but really provided by the +forethought of Fortnoye. In front of my own cover two pretty downy +chicks were pecking in a cottage made of crystal slats and heavily +thatched with spun glass--the prettiest birdcage in the world. On the +eaves was an inscription: "The Man of the Two Chickens." It happened +that the little keepsake I had found for Francine consisted of +wheat-ears in pearls and gold, adapted for brooch and eardrops; so +I only had to drop them in beside the chickens and the present was +appropriate and complete. + +I cannot tell of the effect as Mary Ashburleigh swept into that +splendid banqueting-room, one long pyramid of velvet pierced with +webbed interstices of light. If the largest window of St. Ursula's +church had come down and entered the room, the spectacle could not +have been so superb. One item struck me: the younger bride, of course, +wore orange buds; but for the Englishwoman, a beauty ripe with many +summers, buds and blossoms were inappropriate; she wore fruits: in +the grand coronal of plaits that massed itself upon her head were +set, like gems, three or four small, delicious, amber-scented mandarin +oranges. With this piece of exquisite apropos did the infallible Mary +Ashburleigh crown the edifice of her good taste. The two brides sat +opposite each other. A small watch, which I had happened to buy at +Coblenz, I managed to detach and lay on the Dark Ladye's plate as my +offering. On a card beside it I merely wrote, "ANOTHER TIME!" + +Who knows? Perhaps Sylvester may fill and founder as the other has +done. He looks miserably bilious and frightened. + +I had rather partake of a rare dinner than describe one. The wines +alone represented all the cellars of the Rhine and the whole champagne +country. Fortnoye, who gave the feast, entertained both Sylvester's +party and his own with regal good cheer. Think not that Henri Fortnoye +was the ordinary obfuscated, superfluous, bewildered bridegroom. On +the contrary, assuming immediately the head of his own table, he took +the responsibility of the party's merriment, and made the good humor +flow like the wine. I know not how it was, but ere the meal was over +I found myself joining in one of his choruses; Frau Kranich forgot +her asceticism and exhumed all her youthful air of gayety; James +Athanasius Grandstone promised the host to set his wines running in +every State of America. But the prettiest moment was when the two +brides rose and touched glasses, mutually and to the health of the +company, apropos of a little wedding-song which Fortnoye had composed +and was trolling at the head our willing chorus. + +[ILLUSTRATION: HOMEWARD BOUND.] + + + + +CONCLUSION. + + +I have arrived at Marly, and, with the ssistance of much sarcasm from +Hohenfels, am getting on with considerable spirit at my Progressive +Geography. When man's Hope ceases temporarily to take a merely Human +aspect, may it not suffer a fresh avatar and begin in a new and +Geographical form its beneficent career? The Dark Ladye has sunk +beneath my horizon, but speculations over the Atlantean and Lunar +Mountains are still succulent and vivifying. + +[ILLUSTRATION: CHARLES AND JOSEPHINE.] + +I fled, lashed by a hundred despairs and by many symptoms of headache +and dyspepsia, from the wedding-feast at Brussels. Charles and the +baron of Hohenfels accompanied me. It was a night-train. The spectacle +of so much wedded happiness was too much for me, too much for +Hohenfels. The effect was, contrarily, rather stimulating to Charles, +who has made a match with Josephine, and with her assistance is +now listening, the tear of sensibility in his eye, to Mendelssohn's +"Wedding March" as executed by the village organ! + +We passed Valenciennes, Somain, Donai, Arras, Amiens, Clermont, Criel, +Pontoise--the last points of merely bodily travel that I shall ever +make: here-after my itineracy shall be entirely theoretical. We took +a carriage at Pontoise, and traversed the woods of Saint-Germain. As I +neared home I bowed right and left to amicable and smiling neighbors, +who waved me good-day from their doors. So did my Newfoundland, +who broke his chain and leaped upon my shoulders, flourishing his +tail--overjoyed to salute the returning Ulysses. + +[ILLUSTRATION: ARGUS AND ULYSSES.] + +In the British Museum, among the Elgin Marbles, Phidias has carved +a pile of heaped-up marble waves, and out of them rise the arms of +Hyperion--the most beautiful arms in the world. Homesick for heaven, +those weary arms try to free themselves of the clinging foam. Another +minute and surely the triumphant god will leap from his watery couch +and guide with unerring hands the coursers of the Dawn! But that +reluctant minute is eternal, and the divinity still remains incapable, +clogged and wrapped in the embrace of marble waves. Yet the real +sun every morning succeeds in equipping himself for his journey, and +arrives, glad, at his welcome bath in the western sea. + +The inference I draw is: If you want a career to be eternal instead of +transitory, hand it over to Art. + +[ILLUSTRATION: "HAND IT OVER TO ART."] + +The true moral of it all is, that we are all savage myths of the +Course of the Sun. We disappear any number of times, but we rise and +trail new clouds of glory, and our readers or our audiences perceive +that it is the same old Hyperion back again. The youth who by the +faithful hound, half buried in the snow, is found far up on the most +inaccessible peaks of imagination, is perceived to grasp still in his +hand of ice that Germanesque and strange device--_Auf Wiedersehen_. + +[ILLUSTRATION] + + + + +FOLLOWING THE TIBER. + + +TWO PAPERS.--1. + + +[Illustration: NEAR THE SOURCE OF THE TIBER.] + +"Ecce Tiberum!" cried the Roman legions when they first beheld the +Scottish Tay. What power of association could have made them see in +the clear and shallow stream the likeless of their tawny Tiber, +with his full-flowing waters sweeping down to the sea? Perhaps those +soldiers under whose mailed and rugged breasts lay so tender a thought +of home came from the northerly region among the Apennines, where a +little bubbling mountain-brook is the first form in which the storied +Tiber greets the light of day. One who has made a pilgrimage from its +mouth to its source thus describes the spot: "An old man undertook to +be our guide. By the side of the little stream, which here constitutes +the first vein of the Tiber, we penetrated the wood. It was an immense +beech-forest.... The trees were almost all great gnarled veterans +who had borne the snows of many winters: now they stood basking above +their blackened shadows in the blazing sunshine. The little stream +tumbled from ledge to ledge of splintered rock, sometimes creeping +into a hazel thicket, green with long ferns and soft moss, and then +leaping once more merrily into the sunlight. Presently it split into +numerous little rills. We followed the longest of these. It led us +to a carpet of smooth green turf amidst an opening in the trees; +and there, bubbling out of the green sod, embroidered with white +strawberry-blossoms, the delicate blue of the crane's bill and dwarf +willow-herb, a copious little stream arose. Here the old man paused, +and resting upon his staff, raised his age-dimmed eyes, and pointing +to the gushing water, said, _'E questo si chiama il Tevere a Roma!'_ +('And this is called the Tiber at Rome!') ... We followed the stream +from the spot where it issued out of the beech-forest, over barren +spurs of the mountains crested with fringes of dark pine, down to a +lonely and desolate valley, shut in by dim and misty blue peaks. Then +we entered the portals of a solemn wood, with gray trunks of trees +everywhere around us and impenetrable foliage above our heads, the +deep silence only broken by fitful songs of birds. To this succeeded +a blank district of barren shale cleft into great gullies by many a +wintry torrent. Presently we found ourselves at an enormous height +above the river, on the ledge of a precipice which shot down almost +perpendicularly on one side to the bed of the stream.... A little past +this place we came upon a very singular and picturesque spot. It was +an elevated rock shut within a deep dim gorge, about which the river +twisted, almost running round it. Upon this rock were built a few +gloomy-looking houses and a quaint, old-world mill. It was reached +from the hither side by a widely-spanning one-arched bridge. It was +called Val Savignone."[1] Beyond this, at a small village called +Balsciano, the hills begin to subside into gentler slopes, which +gradually merge in the plain at the little town of Pieve San Stefano. + +[Illustration: CAPRESE.] + +Thus far the infant stream has no history: its legends and chronicles +do not begin so early. But a few miles farther, on a tiny branch +called the Singerna, are the vestiges of what was once a place of +some importance--Caprese, where Michael Angelo was born exactly four +hundred years ago. His father was for a twelvemonth governor of this +place and Chiusi, five miles off (not Lars Porsenna's Clusium, which +is to the south, but Clusium Novum), and brought his wife with him to +inhabit the _palazzo communale_. During his regency the painter of the +"Last Judgment," the sculptor of "Night and Morning," the architect of +St. Peter's cupola, first saw the light. Here the history of the Tiber +begins--here men first mingled blood with its unsullied waves. On +another little tributary is Anghiara, where in 1440 a terrible battle +was fought between the Milanese troops, under command of the gallant +free-lance Piccinino, and the Floren-tines, led by Giovanni Paolo +(commonly called Giampaolo) Orsini; and a little farther, on the main +stream, Città di Castello recalls the story of a long siege which it +valiantly sustained against Braccio da Montone, surnamed Fortebraccio +(Strongarm), another renowned soldier of fortune of the fifteenth +century. + +[Footnote 1: _The Pilgrimage of the Tiber_, by Wm. Davies.] + +[Illustration: LAKE THRASIMENE.] + +As the widening flood winds on through the beautiful plain, a broad +sheet of water on the right spreads for miles to the foot of the +mountains, whose jutting spurs form many a bay, cove and estuary. It +was in the small hours of a night of misty moonlight that our eyes, +stretched wide with the new wonder of beholding classic ground, first +caught sight of this smooth expanse gleaming pallidly amid the dark, +blurred outlines of the landscape and trees. The monotonous noise and +motion of the train had put our fellow-travelers to sleep, and when it +gradually ceased they did not stir. There was no bustle at the little +station where we stopped; a few drowsy figures stole silently by in +the dim light, like ghosts on the spectral shore of Acheron; the whole +scene was strangely unreal, phantasmal. "What can it be?" we asked +each other under our breaths. "There is but one thing that it can +be--Lake Thrasimene." And so it was. Often since, both by starlight +and daylight, we have seen that watery sheet of fatal memories, but +it never wore the same shadowy yet impressive aspect as on our first +night-journey from Florence to Rome. + +Not far from here one leaves the train for Perugia, seated high on +a bluff amid walls and towers. We had been told a good deal of the +terrors of the way--how so steep was the approach that at a certain +point horses give out and carriages must be dragged up by oxen. It was +with some surprise, therefore, that we saw ordinary hotel omnibuses +and carriages waiting at the station. But we did not allow ourselves +to feel any false security: by and by we knew the tug must come. We +set off by a wide, winding road, uphill undoubtedly, but smooth and +easy: however, this was only the beginning; and as it grew steeper and +steeper, we waited in trepidation for the moment when the heavy beasts +should be hitched on to haul us up the acclivity. We crawled up safely +and slowly between orchards of olive trees, which will grow wherever +a goat can set its foot: beneath us the great fertile vale of Umbria +spread like a lake, the encircling mountains, which had looked like +a close chain from below, unlinking themselves to reveal gorges and +glimpses of other valleys. Thus by successive zigzags we mounted +the broad turnpike-road, now directly under the fortifications, now +farther off, until we saw them close above us, with the old citadel +and the new palace. And now surely the worst had come, but the carnage +turned a sharp corner, showing two more zigzags, forming a long acute +angle which carried us smoothly to the rocky plateau on which the city +stands, and we bowled in through the old gate-way at a round trot, +with the usual cracking of whips and rattling and jingling of harness +which announces the arrival of travelers at minor places on the +Continent. + +We were not comfortable at Perugia--and let no one think to be so +until there is a new hotel on a new principle--but it is a place where +one can afford to forego creature comforts. Of all the towns on the +Tiber, so rich in heirlooms of antiquity and art, none can boast such +various wealth as this. The moment one leaves the centre of the town, +which is built on a table of rock, the narrow streets plunge down on +every side like dangerous broken flights of stairs: they disappear +under deep cavernous arches, so that if you are below they seem to +lead straight up through the darkness to the soft blue heaven, while +from above they seem to go straight down into deep cellars, but +cellars full of slanting sunshine. And whether you look up or down, +there is always a picture in the dark frame against the bright +background--a woman in a scarlet kerchief with a water-vessel of +antique form, or a ragged brown boy leading a ragged brown donkey, or +a soldier in gay uniform striking a light for his pipe. As soon as +you leave the live part of the town, with the few little _caffès_ and +shops, and the esplanades whence the thrice-lovely landscape unfolds +beneath your gaze, you wander among quiet little paved _piazzas_ with +a bit of daisied grass in their midst, surrounded by great silent +buildings, whence through some opening you descry a street which is a +ravine, and the opposite cliff rising high above you piled close with +gray houses overhung with shrubs and creepers, and little gardens in +their crevices like weeds between the stones of a wall; or you come +out upon a secluded gallery with tall, deserted-looking mansions on +one hand--except that at some sunny window there is always to be seen +a girl's head beside a pot of carnations or nasturtiums--and on the +other a parapet over which you lean to see the town scrambling up the +hillside, while a great breadth of valley and hill and snow-covered +mountain stretches away below. + +Then what historical associations, straggling away across three +thousand years to when Perugia was one of the thirty cities of +Etruria, and kept her independence through every vicissitude until +Augustus starved her out in 40 B.C.! Portions of the wall, huge smooth +blocks of travertine stone, are the work of the vanished Etruscans, +and fragments of several gateways, with Roman alterations. One +is perfect, imbedded in the outer wall of the castle: it has a +round-headed arch, with six pilasters, in the intervals of which are +three half-length human figures and two horses' heads. On the southern +slope of the hill, three miles beyond the walls, a number of Etruscan +tombs were accidentally discovered by a peasant a few years ago. The +outer entrance alone had suffered, buried under the rubbish of two +millenniums: the burial-place of the Volumnii has been restored +externally after ancient Etruscan models, but within it has been left +untouched. Descending a long flight of stone steps, which led into the +heart of the hill, we passed through a low door formerly closed by a +single slab of travertine, too ponderous for modern hinges. At first +we could distinguish nothing in the darkness, but by the uncertain +flaring of two candles, which the guide waved about incessantly, we +saw a chamber hewn in the rock, with a roof in imitation of beams and +rafters, all of solid tufa stone. A low stone seat against the wall +on each hand and a small hanging lamp were all the furniture of this +apartment, awful in its emptiness and mystery. On every side there +were dark openings into cells whence came gleams of white, indefinite +forms: a great Gorgon's head gazed at us from the ceiling, and from +the walls in every direction started the crested heads and necks of +sculptured serpents. We entered one by one the nine small grotto-like +compartments which surround the central cavern: the white shapes +turned out to be cinerary urns, enclosing the ashes of the three +thousand years dead Volumnii. Urns, as we understand the word, they +are not, but large caskets, some of them alabaster, on whose lids +recline male figures draped and garlanded as for a feast: the faces +differ so much in feature and expression that one can hardly doubt +their being likenesses: the figures, if erect, would be nearly two +feet in height. The sides of these little sarcophagi are covered +with _bassi-rilievi_, many of them finely executed: the subjects are +combats and that favorite theme the boar-hunt of Kalydon; there was +one which represented the sacrifice of a child. The Medusa's head, +as it is thought to be, recurs constantly, treated with extraordinary +power: we were divided among ourselves whether it was Medusa or an +Erinnys with winged head. The sphinx appears several times: there +are four on the corners of an alabaster urn in the shape of a +temple, exquisite in form and features, and exceedingly delicate in +workmanship. Bulls' heads, with garlands drooping between them, a +well-known ornament of antique altars, are among the decorations. But +far the most beautiful objects were the little hanging figures, which +seemed to have been lamps of a green bronze color, though we were +assured that they are _terra-cotta_: they are male figures of +exquisite grace and beauty, with a lightness and airiness commonly +given to Mercury; but these had large angel pinions on the shoulders, +and none on the head or feet. There was not a scholar in the party, +so we all returned unenlightened, but profoundly interested and +impressed, and with that delightful sense of stimulated curiosity +which is worth more than all Eurekas. With the exception of a few +weapons and trinkets, which we saw at the museum, this is all that +remains of the mighty Etruscans, save the shapes of the common red +pottery which is spread out wholesale in the open space opposite the +cathedral on market-days--the most graceful and useful which could +be devised, and which have not changed their model since earlier days +than the occupants of those tombs could remember. + +[Illustration: THE TIBER NEAR PERUGIA.] + +The conquering Roman has left his sign-manual everywhere, but one +is so used to him in Italy that the scantier records of later ages +interest us more here. Like every other old Italian town, Perugia +had its great family, the Baglioni, who lorded it over the place, +sometimes harshly and cruelly enough, sometimes generously and +splendidly--protectors of popular rights and patrons of art and +letters. Their mediaeval history is full of picturesque incident and +dramatic catastrophe: it would make a most romantic volume, but +a thick one. At length the Perugians, master and men, grew too +turbulent, and Pope Paul III. put them down, and sat upon them, so to +speak, by building the citadel. + +But time would fail us to tell of the Baglioni, or Pope Paul the +Borghese, or Fortebraccio, the chivalric _condottiere_ who led the +Perugians to war against their neighbors of Todi, or even the still +burning memories of the sack of Perugia by command of the present +pope. We can no longer turn our thoughts from the treasures of art +which make Perugia rich above all cities of the Tiber, save Rome +alone. We cannot tarry before the cathedral, noble despite its +incompleteness and the unsightly alterations of later times, and full +of fine paintings and matchless wood-carving and wrought metal and +precious sculptures; nor before the Palazzo Communale, another grand +Gothic wreck, equally dignified and degraded; nor even beside the +great fountain erected six hundred years ago by Nicolo and Giovanni da +Pisa, the chiefs and founders of the Tuscan school of sculpture; nor +beneath the statue of Pope Julius III., which Hawthorne has made known +to all; for there are a score of churches and palaces, each with its +priceless Perugino, and drawings and designs by his pupil Raphael +in his lovely "first manner," which has so much of the Eden-like +innocence of his master; and the Academy of Fine Arts, where one may +study the Umbrian school at leisure; and last, but not least, the Sala +del Cambio, or Hall of Exchange, where Perugino may be seen in his +glory. It is not a hall of imposing size, so that nothing interferes +with the impression of the frescoes which gaze upon you from every +side as you enter. Or no; they do not gaze upon you nor return your +glance, but look sweetly and serenely forth, as if with eyes never +bent on earthly things. The right-hand wall is dedicated to the sibyls +and prophets, the left to the greatest sages and heroes of antiquity. +There is something capricious or else enigmatical in the mode of +presenting many of them--the dress, attitude and general appearance +often suggest a very different person from the one intended--but the +grace and loveliness of some, the dignity and elevation of others, the +expression of wisdom in this face, of celestial courage in that, the +calm and purity and beauty of all, give them an indescribable charm +and potency. At the end of the room facing the door are the "Nativity" +and "Transfiguration," the latter, infinitely beautiful and religious, +full of quiet concentrated feeling. We were none of us critics: none +of us had got beyond the stage when the sentiment of a work of art is +what most affects our enjoyment of it; and we all confessed how much +more impressive to us was this Transfiguration, with its three quiet +spectators, than the world-famous one at the Vatican. Although +there are masterpieces of Perugino's in nearly every great European +collection, I cannot but think one must go to Perugia to appreciate +fully the limpid clearness, the pensive, tranquil suavity, which +reigns throughout his pictures in the countenances, the landscape, the +atmosphere. + +[Illustration: TODI.] + +We found it hard to rob Perugia even of a day for a pilgrimage to the +tomb of Saint Francis at Assisi, yet could not leave the neighborhood +without making it. We took the morning-train for the little excursion, +meaning to drive back, and crossed the Tiber for the first time on the +downward journey at Ponte San Giovanni. We got out at the station of +Santa Maria degli Angeli, so named from the immense church built over +the cell where Saint Francis lived and died and the little chapel +where he prayed. The Porzionuncula it was called, or "little share," +being all that he deemed needful for man's abode on earth, and more +than needful. It was hither that he came in the heyday of youth, +forsaking the house of his wealthy father, the love of his mother, +a life of pleasure with his gay companions, and dedicated himself to +poverty and preaching the word of God. One of our party had said that +she considered Saint Francis the author of much evil, and as having +done irreparable harm to the Italian people in sanctifying dirt and +idleness. But apostles are not to be judged by the abuse of their +doctrine; and although it cannot be denied that Saint Francis +encouraged beggary by forbidding his followers to possess aught of +their own, he enjoined that they should labor with their hands for +several hours daily. And to me it seemed as if out of Palestine +there could be no spot of greater significance and sacredness to any +Christian than this, where in a sanguinary and licentious age a young +man suddenly broke all the bonds of self, and taught in his own person +humility, renunciation and brotherly love as they had hardly been +taught since his Master's death. The sternness of his personal +self-denial is only equaled by his sweetness toward all living things: +not men alone, but animals, birds, fishes, the frogs, the crickets, +shared his love, and were called brother and sister by him. The great +and instantaneous movement which he produced in his own time was no +short-lived blaze of fanaticism, for its results have lasted from the +twelfth century to our own; and although we may well believe that the +day is past for serving Christ by going barefoot and living on +alms, the spirit of Saint Francis's doctrine, charity, purity, +self-abnegation, might do as much for modern men as for those of six +hundred years ago. Believing all this, we were not sorry that our +uncompromising friend had stayed behind, and it was in a reverent +mood that we left the little stone chamber--which shrinks to lowlier +proportions by contrast with the enormous dome above it--and turned +to climb the long hill which leads to the magnificent monument which +enthusiasm raised over him who in life had coveted so humble a home. + +[Illustration: CHURCH AND CONVENT OF SAINT FRANCIS, AT ASSISI.] + +The cliff on which Assisi stands rises abruptly on the side toward +the Tiber: long lines of triple arches, which look as if hewn in +the living stone, stretch along its face, one above another, like +galleries, the great mass of the church and convent, with its towers +and gables and spire-like cypress trees, crowning all. It is this +marriage of the building to the rock, these lower arcades which rise +halfway between the valley and the plateau seeking the help of +the solid crag to sustain the upper ones and the vast superimposed +structure, that makes the distant sight of Assisi so striking, and +almost overwhelms you with a sense of its greatness as the winding +road brings you close below on your way up to the town. It is a triple +church. The uppermost one, begun two years after the saint's death, +has a magnificent Gothic west front and high steps leading from the +piazza, and a rich side-portal with a still higher flight leading from +a court on a lower level. As we entered, the early afternoon sun was +streaming in through the immense rose-window and flooding the vast +nave, illumining the blue star-studded vault of the lofty roof and the +grand, simple frescoes of Cimabue and Giotto on the walls. Thence we +descended to the second church, in whose darkness our vision groped, +half blind from the sudden change; but gradually through the dusk we +began to discern low vaults stretching heavily across pillars which +look like stunted giants, so short are they and so tremendously +thick-set, the high altar enclosed by an elaborate grating, the little +side-chapels like so many black cells, and through the gloom a twinkle +and glimmer of gold and color and motes floating in furtive sunbeams +that had strayed in through the superb stained glass of the infrequent +windows. The frescoes of Giotto and his school enrich every spandril +and interspace with their simple, serious forms--no other such place +to study the art of that early day--but a Virgin enthroned among +saints by Lo Spagna, a disciple of Perugino's, made a pure light in +the obscurity: it had all the master's golden transparency, like clear +shining after the rain. From this most solemn and venerable place we +went down to the lowest church, the real sepulchre: it was darker than +the one we had left, totally dark it seemed to me, and contracted, +although--it is in the form of a Greek cross--each arm is sixty feet: +in fact, it is only a crypt of unusual size; and although here +were the saint's bones in an urn of bronze, we were conscious of a +weakening of the impression made by the place we had just left. No +doubt it is because the crypt is of this century, while the other two +churches are of the thirteenth. + +There are other things to be seen at Assisi; and after dining at the +little Albergo del Leone, which, like every part of the town except +the churches, is remarkably clean, my companion set out to climb up to +the castle, and I wandered back to the great church. As I sat idly +on the steps a monk accosted me, and finding that I had not seen the +convent, carried me through labyrinthine corridors and galleries, down +long flights of subterranean stone steps, one after another, until +I thought we could not be far from the centre of the earth, when he +suddenly turned aside into a vast cloister with high arched openings +and led me to one of them. Oh, the beauty, the glory, the wonder of +the sight! We were halfway down the mountain-side, hanging between the +blue heaven and the billowy Umbrian plain, with its verdure and its +azure fusing into tints of dreamy softness as they vanished in the +deep violet shadows of thick-crowding mountains, on whose surfaces +and gorges lay changing colors of the superbest intensity. Poplars and +willows showed silvery among the tender green of other deciduous trees +in their fresh spring foliage and the deep velvet of the immortal +cypresses and the blossoming shrubs, which looked like little puffs +of pink and white cloud resting on the bosom of the valley. A small, +clear mountain-stream wound round the headland to join the Tiber, +which divides the landscape with its bare, pebbly bed. It was almost +the same view that one has from twenty places in Perugia, but coming +out upon it as from the bowels of the earth, framed in its huge stone +arch, it was like opening a window from this world into Paradise. + +Slowly and lingeringly I left the cloister, and panted up the many +steps back to the piazza to await my companion and the carriage which +was to take us back to Perugia. The former was already there, and in a +few minutes a small omnibus came clattering down the stony street, and +stopping beside us the driver informed us that he had come for us. Our +surprise and wrath broke forth. Hours before we had bespoken a little +open carriage, and it was this heavy, jarring, jolting vehicle which +they had sent to drive us ten miles across the hills. The driver +declared, with truly Italian volubility and command of language and +gesture, that there was no other means of conveyance to be had; that +it was excellent, swift, admirable; that it was what the signori +always went from Assisi to Perugia in; that, in fine, we had engaged +it, and _must_ take it. My companion hesitated, but I had the +advantage here, being the one who could speak Italian; so I promptly +replied that we would not go in the omnibus under any circumstances. +The whole story was then repeated with more adjectives and +superlatives, and gestures of a form and pathos to make the fortune +of a tragic actor. I repeated my refusal. He began a third time: I +sat down on the steps, rested my head on my hand and looked at the +carvings of the portal. This drove him to frenzy: so long as you +answer an Italian he gets the better of you; entrench yourself in +silence and he is impotent. The driver's impotence first exploded +in fury and threats: at least we should pay for the omnibus, for his +time, for his trouble; yes, pay the whole way to Perugia and back, and +his _buon' mano_ besides. All the beggars who haunt the sanctuary of +their patron had gathered about us, and from playing Greek chorus +now began to give us advice: "Yes, we would do well to go: the only +carriage in Assisi, and excellent, admirable!" The numbers of these +vagrants, their officiousness, their fluency, were bewildering. "But +what are we to do?" asked my anxious companion. "Why, if it comes to +the worst, walk down to the station and take the night-train back." He +walked away whistling, and I composed myself to a visage of stone +and turned my eyes to the sculptures once more. Suddenly the driver +stopped short: there was a minute's pause, and then I heard a voice +in the softest accents asking for something to buy a drink. I turned +round--beside me stood the driver hat in hand: "Yes, the signora is +right, quite right: I go, but she will give me something to get a +drink?" I nearly laughed, but, biting my lips, I said firmly, "A +drink? Yes, if it be poison." The effect was astounding: the man +uttered an ejaculation, crossed himself, mounted his box and drove +off; the beggars shrank away, stood aloof and exchanged awestruck +whispers; only a few liquid-eyed little ragamuffins continued to turn +somersets and stand on their heads undismayed. + +Half an hour elapsed: the sun was beginning to descend, when the sound +of wheels was again heard, and a light wagon with four places and a +brisk little horse came rattling down the street. A pleasant-looking +fellow jumped down, took off his hat and said he had come to drive +us to Perugia. We jumped up joyfully, but I asked the price. "Fifty +francs"--a sum about equivalent to fifty dollars in those regions. I +smiled and shook my head: he eagerly assured me that this included +his _buon mano_ and the cost of the oxen which we should be obliged +to hire to drag us up some of the hills. I shook my head again: he +shrugged and turned as if to go. My unhappy fellow-traveler started +forward: "Give him whatever he asks and let us get away." I sat down +again on the steps, saying in Italian, as if in soliloquy, that +we should have to go by the train, after all. Then the new-comer +cheerfully came back: "Well, signora, whatever you please to give." +I named half his price--an exorbitant sum, as I well knew--and in +a moment more we were skimming along over the hard, smooth +mountain-roads: we heard no more of those mythical beasts the oxen, +and in two hours were safe in Perugia. + + + + +THE PARADOX. + + + I wish that the day were over, + The week, the month and the year; + Yet life is not such a burden + That I wish the end were near. + + And my birthdays come so swiftly + That I meet them grudgingly: + Would it be so were I longing + For the life that is to be? + + Nay: the soul, though ever reaching + For that which is out of sight, + Yet soars with reluctant motion, + Since there is no backward flight. + +CHARLOTTE F. BATES. + + + + +A NIGHT AT COCKHOOLET CASTLE. + +I. + + +Cockhoolet was the name of the place: it was a farm of which the +Ormistons were and had been tenants for several generations. A father, +mother and five olive-branches made up the family. A healthy, happy, +united, thriving family they were, and as such much respected. There +were two sons and three daughters, the eldest of whom was Bessie, +the "Rose of Cockhoolet," as she was called; for that she had all the +beauty and sweetness of the rose was generally allowed, although +there were people who could not be made to see this--people who were +probably idiopts; not idiots--although they might have a streak +of idiocy in them, too, perhaps--but idiopts, or persons who were +color-blind. None of the young men of the district were color-blind. + +The clergyman of the parish in which Cockhoolet was situated, and at +whose church the Ormistons attended, was an old man comparatively, +whose sermons were old-fashioned, and not given forth with the fire +of youth: he was not one you would have expected to be very popular, +especially with the young; yet various young men from considerable +distances were attracted to his church, and, generally speaking, they +settled themselves in pews opposite the gallery in front of which +sat Mr. Ormiston and his family. Any person who chanced to be in the +vicinity, if of discerning powers, might have been conscious of the +electricity in the air. Dull people neither saw nor felt it. + +Bessie Ormiston was not dull, but, being a modest girl, she would +rather not have been stared at; and, being a good girl, she thought +people might be better employed in church: still, she was only a girl, +and it would not be the truth to say she was mortally offended. Did +the person ever exist who was offended at an honest compliment? If +he ever did, he ought to have been fed on sarcasm for the rest of his +days. + +Not only was Bessie pretty--she was also rich. A grand-uncle had left +her five thousand pounds, her brothers and sisters getting only one +thousand each. There is no use in asking reasons for this: simply, the +Rose was born with a silver spoon in her mouth. Perhaps, indeed, the +old man did not know he had so much money, for it was as residuary +legatee that Bessie got the five thousand pounds, and it was not +thought she would get anything like that: people remarked, in the +language of the district, which was apt occasionally to be strong and +graphic rather than elegant,--people remarked that "old Ormiston +had cut up well." Five thousand charms added to those Bessie already +possessed--not to mention that her father was a rich man--made her +most miraculously charming: like Tibby Fowler of the Glen, whose +perplexities of this kind have been embalmed in song, she had wealth +of wooers, and wealth, it is well known, makes wit waver. + +It is a saying that an Englishman's house is his castle, but the +phrase is understood to be figurative: Mr. Ormiston's house was his +castle without a figure. Cockhoolet Castle is very old, at least one +part of it is, having been built probably about the year 1400. A more +modern part was built in 1527, while the most modern part of all was +added in 1726: this last division of it is used as the farm-house. +The rooms have been painted and papered in the present style of house +decoration, and in the sitting-rooms, in addition to the little old +windows, the thick walls have been pierced and a large bow-window put +in with fine effect. There are three narrow stone staircases leading +up the three divisions of the castle; there are long passages; there +are sudden short flights of steps taking you up or down into all +manner of cornered rooms; there is a hall which might hold the +population of the county. Keeping up one of the spiral staircases, +you come out on the roof, round which there is a walk guarded by a low +stone coping: should you want to fling yourself over, you have ample +opportunity. There are stone sentry-boxes where you can sit hidden +from the wind and everything else, and look far and wide over the +country, and down into the garden if you can do so without growing +giddy. There is also a dungeon tenanted by nothing more subject +to suffering than potatoes and other roots, for which it is a most +favorable receptable, the walls being so thick and the roof so low +that cold cannot get in in winter nor heat in summer: there is only a +single narrow slit in the wall for the admission of light, but it is +comforting to know that the doomed wretches who inhabited it in past +ages had at least a temperate climate. + +There is the room Queen Mary Stuart slept in when she occasionally +visited in the vicinity. The reader is perhaps not familiar with Queen +Mary's name in connection with Cockhoolet Castle, but there may be +other facts about her of which he is also ignorant. Does he know, for +instance, that she had a daughter by her third marriage, whom, as an +infant, she despatched to France to be reared in a nunnery, "that she +may not," said the unhappy queen, "run the risk of having such a lot +as I have"? Does he know that John Knox was possessed by a mad passion +of love for Mary Stuart? It has always been thought otherwise--that +in point of fact he held her in contempt; but as it is proverbial that +"nippin' and scartin' (figurative of course) is Scotch folks' wooin'," +there may be truth in the new discovery. But true or not true, it +is enough to make the bold Reformer blush standing on the top of his +pillar in the necropolis of Glasgow: perhaps he _is_ blushing, if he +were near enough to see. + +Be that as it may, there is no manner of doubt that Mary Stuart +honored Cockhoolet Castle by abiding under its roof when it suited her +to do so. Have not I, the present writer, stood in the room she slept +in--looked from the small windows set in the ten-foot thick wall from +which she looked? Have I not gazed over the same country, up to the +same skies, into the same moon at which she gazed? Could her face be +more fair than that of the present Rose of Cockhoolet, her thoughts +more innocent, her reveries more sweet, than those of Bessie Ormiston, +who in the course of time had succeeded to the room which had been +consecrated by royal slumbers? + +It is a matter of certainty that Mary Stuart planted a tree fast by +Cockhoolet Castle--she would not have been herself if she had not done +that--and a magnificent tree it is, very old and quite big enough +for its age. The queen must have been fond of planting trees, and, +considering the number she planted, it is astonishing how she found +time for so many less innocent employments: she must have improved +each shining hour, and, poor woman! she had not too many of these. + +There is a walk also, called the Lady's Walk, leading away from +the castle up a bosky dell, where a burn amuses itself playing at +hide-and-seek, but, like a little child, betrays its hiding-places by +its voice, and comes out into the light again and laughs at its own +joke. Did the queen ever wander here? did she ever "paidle in the burn +when summer days were fine"? did its murmur ever soothe her ear? +did she ever see her fair face in its pools, or drop bitter tears to +mingle and; flow on with its waters? + +The burn has kept trotting through the dell for six thousand years, +singing its song all the time, and its speed is as good and its voice +as clear and musical as when the morning stars sang together and all +the sons of God shouted for joy. Many a wild story it could tell if +its murmur could be understood; but it is a murmur only--a murmur +which crept into the ears of Cæsar's legions, of Queen Mary, of Bessie +Ormiston, and will creep into yours, O reader! if you like to go +and explore the Lady's Walk, when you can interpret the murmur for +yourself, as all your predecessors no doubt did. In days of old it +fed the moat, traces of which are to be seen round the castle still, +although it has long since been filled up and covered, like the park +of which it forms part, with rich natural pasture, soft, thick and +velvety. In short, Cockhoolet had everything that a castle ought to +have, and wanted nothing that a castle ought not to want, not even a +ghost. + +It was not the ghost of Mary Stuart: that would have been too +shocking--a ghost without a head, or having a head and a broad vivid +ray of red encircling its neck. Such a ghost would have made every one +who saw it lose his senses. Cockhoolet Castle had a ghost: so much was +certain, but hitherto no one had ever either seen or heard it. How, +then, was it certain? Why ask a question like that? Is it reasonable +to pin a human being down to prove a ghost? Will not presumptive +evidence do? Strange things had happened, must have happened, at +the castle: is it for a moment to be supposed that these things had +happened and all gone scot free?--in other words, that not one of them +had left a ghost? It is not to be supposed. + + + + +II. + + +It was Christmas Day. Christmas Day is not solemnized and festivalized +in Scotland as it is in England; still, the observance of it in some +shape is creeping in more and more. It was Christmas, and Mr. and Mrs. +Ormiston had gone to be present at a feast from which they were not +expected to return till the following day. There were left at home the +Rose, as head of the family for the time being; her sisters, Bell and +Jessie, supposed to be little girls still, although the supposition +made them very indignant; and her two brothers, John and William. A +guest aad two servants made up the known inhabitants of the house. + +The guest was a young man who had arrived before the heads of the +house left, and had been laughingly charged by them to see that the +children did not work mischief. He was an old friend of the family; at +least as old a friend as he was a man, and she had been in the world +a quarter of a century. We shall call him Edwin: that name will do as +well as another; indeed, better, for he might not like his own made +public. It need hardly be said that among the rest young Edwin loved, +and, like his namesake in the ballad, he never talked of love. This +might be stupid, but the stupidity which springs from true modesty +is not to be classed with the stupidity which springs from want of +brains, even when, as is quite likely, the consequences are to the +full as disastrous. Now, how is a young lady to understand or bring +things to a bearing in a case like this? The Rose could not go up +to Edwin and tell him she was not a goddess; neither could she say, +"Although I have five thousand pounds--and you know it, and I know +that you know it, and you know that I know that you know it--I am +quite ready to believe that you love me, and would love me if I hadn't +a farthing:" she could not say this, but she thought it, she worried +herself thinking over it, and, being a sensible girl with a humble +opinion of herself, she came to the conclusion that she had been +altogether mistaken--that Edwin did not care for her, at least not +as she cared for him, otherwise why should he not say so? "If," she +thought--"if I were in his place and he in mine, neither money nor +pride, nor anything else, would keep me silent." And the roses in +her face deepened in color as she thought of her own silly folly in +allowing her feelings to be drawn in, and she determined her folly +should cease from that hour; which determination had the effect of +bringing sharp, short speeches about Edwin's ears tinged with sarcasm +that were meant to convey to him the conviction that she did not care +a pin about him; and they answered the purpose admirably. + + Love is a fickle game, which they + Whose stakes are deepest worst can play, + +Edwin was at Cockhoolet that Christmas Day by the same fatality that +causes a moth to hover round a brilliant light; and when her sister +told Bessie that Edwin had come and was putting his horse into the +stable, she said, "Is Mr. Forrester here again? He must surely be dull +at home." But of course she received him with friendly civility. + +Edwin employed the forenoon out of doors with the boys and two other +visitors. A Mr. and Mrs. Parker arriving unexpectedly, who were +anxious to see the castle, the afternoon was spent in going through +every part of it from dungeon to roof. + +Bessie carried the keys: she was châtelaine, seneschal and cicerone, +all rolled in one. + +Going up the narrow stairs, the party had to climb Indian file: in the +passages they could spread out a little, and in some of the rooms in +the uninhabited portion they had to walk circumspectly, as if they +were crossing water on stepping-stones, for the flooring was wanting +in some places, leaving a stretch of bare rafters. Bessie tripped +lightly over them, and then turned to wait for the others. "Don't be +frightened," she said: "these rafters are as sound as the day they +were laid down. The flooring has not rotted: it must have been taken +up for some purpose. They did not know how to scamp work in those +days." + +"If we fall through, where shall we go?" inquired Mrs. Parker, looking +down into what seemed deep mysterious darkness. + +"Oh, not very far; but don't fall: it won't be pleasant," said Bessie: +"you would alight on very hard stones." + +Mr. Forrester got on the roof first, and handed up the ladies; and +they all stood looking out over the country. It was not a cold, bleak, +snowy day, as Christmas in northern latitudes has a right to be. The +winter had been mild--one of a series of mild winters, overturning the +old traditions of frosts and snow-storms that lasted for months, +and to a great extent stopped traffic and labor, and made traveling +difficult and wearisome. This Christmas was different. The year was +dying with calmness and dignity, and with a smile on its face, as you +might take the pale gleam of sunshine to be; and if you were a little +sad in mood you could suppose there was a wistfulness in the smile +that was spread over the still, soft face of Nature. Cockhoolet stood +high, and the country immediately round it was flat, and much of it +moorland. + + If you climb to our castle's top, + I don't see where your eye can stop; + For when you've passed the corn-field country, + Where vineyards leave off flocks are packed, + And sheep-range leads to cattle-tract, + And cattle-tract to open chase, + And open chase to the very base + O' the mountain. + +Strike out the vineyards and that description will apply very well +to Cockhoolet; and in addition you ought to have seen from its roof +Edinburgh and the sea; but on this day the sea wore a garment of mist, +and had wrapped the metropolis in it also, as it not unfrequently +does. You ought to have seen more than one range of hills too, yet +except by eyes well acquainted with them their outlines could hardly +be distinguished from the leaden gray clouds lying in bands along the +horizon. + +But as the party stood on the roof the clouds began to rise, tower +upon tower, against the sky, and the sun, who retires early at this +season, went behind them, when, instead of the pale, wistful gleam he +had been keeping up all day, he suddenly threw a deep bright golden +border on all the edges of the dark misty battlements which had piled +themselves like castles of the Titans: a big rift appearing at their +base, there poured through it, filling up the space, a great belt of +crimson rays streaked with gray, as if from burning ashes falling into +it, and like the dense glow from a furnace, giving the idea that the +cloud-building was on fire, and that the flames from below, shooting +up inside the dark walls, were the cause of the brilliant illumination +that shone round every pinnacle and coign of vantage. It was a grand +and a curious sight. You could fancy the sun looking across to the +old Castle of Edinburgh standing on its rock, and saying, "Can you +do anything like this with all the gas and paddelle you can lay your +hands on?" Precisely this idea struck Mrs. Parker, for she said, "I +think that is as good a sight as the castle the night the prince was +married." + +"That was a very good sight in its way," said Mr. Parker, "but we can +hardly hope to compete with the sun, my dear: he has all his materials +within himself, and we have to pay for them." + +"Do you know, Miss Ormiston," said Mrs. Parker, "one of the buildings +they said had such a fine effect put me in mind of a trunk studded +with brass nails--the initials of the happy pair in gas-jets looked +like the name of the owner of the trunk. All the time I was on the +street I could not get that notion out of my head; and I was sorry, +for I am sure it cost a great deal of money to light it up, and I +really wished to think it grand." + +"We were all in town that night," said John Ormiston--"papa and mamma, +and the whole of us, and Mr. Forrester, who made eight." + +"I thought it a beautiful sight," said Bessie. + +"I never enjoyed anything more in my life," said Mr. Forrester, who on +that occasion had been Miss Ormiston's escort through the streets, in +which they lost their party, and had the supreme bliss of wandering +together in the crowd, when Mr. Forrester almost forgot that Miss +Ormiston was a goddess with five thousand earthly charms, and Miss +Ormiston had compared his merits as a guide and protector with those +of her brothers, and found he was much more considerate, and made her +wish law, which they were often far from doing. In point of fact, a +thaw had been very imminent, but, alas! since then a sharp frost had +set in between them, as unaccountably as frosts frequently do set in. + +"I think, now," said Mrs. Parker, "a fine old castle like this ought +to have had a grander name: don't you think so, Miss Ormiston?" + +"Yes, I do, and it had, originally. There was a monastery here at one +time, over in that field with the trees in the corner of it: it was +called the abbey of Cakeholy, and when the castle was built it got the +name of Cakeholy Castle, after the abbey. The name Cakeholy, tradition +says, arose from the fact that an extraordinary saint, whose wants had +been relieved at the monastery, blessed all the bread that should ever +be baked there, and the bread ever after had a great sustaining power +in it; so that pilgrims from Edinburgh and the North, going to the +southern shrines, all passed this way to get themselves supplied with +the holy cakes. At the Reformation the abbey was destroyed, and became +a ruin haunted by owls, so that, partly in derision and partly as +suiting the altered circumstances, the common people corrupted the +name into Cockhoolet; and in process of time it was given to the +castle also, and stuck to it. That is the history of a name which is +certainly neither romantic, nor high-sounding." + +"How interesting!" said Mrs. Parker. "If I were you, I would go back +to the old name: there is a reverence about it there is not about the +other. Only think of bands of pilgrims coming across the moor there!" + +"Yes, in their gowns and rope girdles, with wallets and +scallop-shells," said Bessie. "It must have been a curious old world +then: one could sit here and muse by the hour on all that has come and +gone. I often bring up my work or my book here in summer and think of +it." + +"I do like old things," said Mrs. Parker, "and old families and old +names. Our name, for instance, has no smack of age about it, and it is +so short and perky: it must have been given to some one who had to do +with parks." + +"But parks may be a very old institution," said Bessie, "if we looked +into the thing, though not so old as Forrester: that is an ancient +name," glancing at Edwin, who was leaning against a sentry-box +listening and watching the sun putting out the lights in his +bed-chamber; "yet not nearly so ancient as Ormiston. I always feel +it is fitting we should live in an old castle, we are so ancient +ourselves." + +"Are we?" said John: "I never knew that before." + +"Ormiston," she said, "is perhaps as pure a Saxon word as now exists. +It was during the Roman invasion our ancestor led an army through a +dense mist against the invaders: just as he came up with them the sun +shone out and the mist. The legions were taken by surprise, for the +advancing enemy had been hidden by the mist, and they were utterly +routed. The Saxon king--" + +"What was his name?" asked John. + +"John," she said, "don't seek to be wise above what is revealed. The +king called our ancestor to the front and made him earl of Ormiston on +the spot--'Gold-Mist-on;' that is, 'Be ever in the van;' and a proud +race were the earls of Ormiston, and well they answered to the name. +But their fortunes waned when the modern upstart, the Norman William, +laid his greedy hands on everything for himself and his mob of +pirates, and at present we are only middle-class people, but our blood +must be the bluest of the blue." + +"Mine must be as blue," said Edwin, "for the Forresters came in with +the trees, and the trees were early settlers." + +"But the mists were first by a very long time," answered Bessie. + +"I don't believe that story," said John. "I have read about the +Cakeholy business somewhere, but you have made that Or-Mist-on affair +out of your own head: isn't that true, Bessie?" + +"I am not bound to answer unbelievers, John." + +"Besides," said John, "Ormiston is far; liker French than Saxon." + +"Mr. Parker," said Bessie, "there was an abbot John of Cakeholy who +flourished in the thirteenth century: his ghost is said to revisit its +old habitation, or rather the place where it stood. I should like to +meet it and have a talk over things; it would be very interesting." + +"Would you not be terrified?" asked Mrs. Parker. + +"If I saw what I believed to be a ghost, I should die of terror," said +Bessie; "especially if I was alone and it was the dead of night; but I +have no faith whatever in ghosts." + +"It is getting rather chilly," said Mrs. Parker. + +"Perhaps we had better go down now, then," Miss Ormiston said. "Mr. +Forrester, would you come out of your brown study and let us pass?" + +"Certainly. I'll see you all safe off the battlements. I wasn't in a +brown study: I was in a mist." + +"Then take care: people in a mist always think they are going the +right way when they are going directly wrong." + +"If I only knew the right way!" he said. + +"That's true, Mr. Forrester," said Mrs. Parker. "If we only knew the +right way; and people tell you to be guided by Providence, but I say +I never know when it is Providence and when it is myself;" and she +threaded her way down the narrow stairs, followed by the rest of the +party. + + + + +III. + + +The dining-room, with its low roof, its crimson walls, dark furniture +and handsome fire (the fires at Cockhoolet were always handsome: +Bessie was the architect and superintended the building herself; they +never looked harum-scarum nor meaningless nor thoughtless, nor as if +they were not meant to burn; they combined taste, comfort, and, as a +consequence, economy; everything tasteful and comfortable is in the +long run economical), its table-cloth, glistening like the summit of +the Alps and laden with good things, looked a place where people even +not in love with each other might, unless naturally perverse, be very +happy. + +Mrs. Parker, being from town, was in raptures with every country +eatable, especially the scones, which she found were manufactured by +Miss Ormiston herself. + +"And have they," asked Mr. Parker, "the sustaining power that the +cakes made here of old had?" + +"If you eat enough of them you may get to Edinburgh to-night before +you are very hungry," said John. + +"The abbey cakes were unleavened," Bessie explained, "which these are +not, so that they are less substantial fare." + +"What do you raise them with?" asked Mrs. Parker. + +"Butter, milk and carbonate of soda," said Miss Ormiston. + +"We call Bessie a doctor of the Carbon," said John: "she makes very +good scones, although you would hardly go from here to Canterbury on +the strength of one of them." + +"Mr. Forrester, are you dull?" asked Jessie: "you are not saying +anything." + +"I am too busy eating the holy cakes, Jessie," said Edwin: "your +sister is a master in her art." + +"I say," Jessie went on, "are you ever dull at home? When I told +Bessie that you had come she was surprised, and said that you must +surely be dull at home. I am sorry for you if you are: you should come +here oftener--we are never dull here." + +"Perhaps," said Edwin, "your sister thinks I come too often, as it +is." + +Bessie was so deeply engaged pressing Mr. Parker to eat strawberry +jam, with cheeks the color of the fruit, that of course she could not +have heard what her sister had been saying. + +"Oh no, I don't think she thinks that at all," Jessie said: "we never +think any one can come too often. Bessie, can Mr. Forrester come too +often?" + +But still Miss Ormiston was so occupied with Mr. Parker that she did +not hear. + +And Mrs. Parker said, "It is a most intensely interesting old place, +this: do not people come to look at it?" + +"Oh yes," replied Bessie, "especially in summer: we generally have +several parties every week. One of the servants takes them over the +castle--grand people often, with carriages and livery servants." + +"Do you not keep a book for them to write their names in?" + +"No, we have never done that." + +"I would do it if I were you: it would be interesting to know who +comes and how many. Why, very remarkable people may have been here +without your knowing." + +"I doubt we are not sufficiently alive to our privileges," Bessie +said. + +"It's fine moonlight," said the boys, who, seeing that they and every +one had ceased eating, were impatient to be out again. "Come, Mr. +Parker, we'll show you the echo: Mr. Forrester, come." + +"I'll go too," said Mrs. Parker; and they all went but the Rose, who +stayed behind for a little to direct about household matters. + +The echo was a favorite with the boys, it gave such unlimited scope +to their powers of shouting: it was the _sight_ they most enjoyed +exhibiting to strangers. And it was an echo that could repeat every +word of a sentence with such perfection that it was difficult to +believe that it was not a human being shouting back from the +other side of the park, where stood some houses inhabited by the +farm-servants and their families. + +"Hallo, Abbot John! is that you?" shouted one of the boys, and +the other cried, "Yes, I'm taking a walk," so quickly that the one +sentence seemed the answer to the other, and both came back loud and +distinct on the still night-air. + +"Are the Ormistons ancient? It's all fudge," shouted John. + +"Well," said Mr. Parker, "that's the most perfect echo I ever heard. +I've no doubt the holy fathers of the Middle Ages knew of it, and used +it in some shape to keep the superstitious people in awe." + +"It is awesome," said his wife, "here in the moonlight, with the old +castle so near: if I were alone, positively I should feel eerie." + +"Are you dull at home, Mr. Forrester?" was sent out from the depths of +Will's chest, and sent back again just as Bessie came out and joined +the party. + +"Boys! boys!" she said, "don't be foolish." + +"Why, it was what you said yourself," her sister remarked. + +"_Are_ you ever dull?" the lad shouted again. + +"Often," answered Edwin, and "Often" came back instantly. + +"In that case, Mr. Forrester," said Mrs. Parker, "why don't you get a +wife? There's no company for a young man like a good wife. Here's Miss +Ormiston; I don't think you could do better." + +Think of the delicate wound of these young people being thus openly +probed in broad moonlight in the presence of so many people! What +could Mrs. Parker be thinking of? Not of her own love-passages surely, +or, if she was, they must have been of a blunter order than those of +the Rose and her lover. + +"Oh no," said Bessie in cool, indifferent tones: "Mr. Forrester knows +better than that." + +"There!" said Edwin, "you see, Mrs. Parker, I have been refused." + +"'Faint heart never won fair lady,'" said Mrs. Parker. + +The boys hallooed this sentiment to the echo, and the echo took it up +and sent it back so vigorously that even a timid man might have been +inspired. "Mary Stuart," "Henry Darnley," "James Bothwell," the lads +went on calling to the echo alternately--names which are not mere +echoes even after three hundred years, but live on by sheer force of +tragic romance. And it was possible that here, on this very spot, that +historical trio had stood and laughed and talked and amused themselves +as the young Ormistons and their visitors were doing. What words had +they used to rouse the echo? If only it could be made to give them +back now, what a wonderful echo it would be! The world would come +to listen to it. Would it tell of the passions of love and ambition, +grief and hatred, all hurrying their victims to their doom? or was the +place sacred only to gentler memories and softer moods--the scene +of enjoyment and freedom from care for however short a time? Who can +tell? + +There was a woman in the village of Cockhoolet who was ninety-eight +years old, having all her faculties not perhaps quite so fresh as when +she was nineteen, but in wonderful preservation after having been in +daily use for little short of a century. She was one of a long-lived +race: her father had been eighty-nine when he died, and her +grandfather ninety-nine. Now, it is perfectly possible--and, as the +family had been on the spot for centuries, it is even probable--that +her great-grandfather might have dug the hole in which Mary planted +her tree, or he may have saddled the queen's horse when she went +hunting, or stood by the roadside and lifted his bonnet as she and her +gay train swept by. Or he may have been despatched upon royal errands +through the subterranean passage which is said to exist all the way +between Cockhoolet Castle and Edinburgh--the private telegraph of +those days, when wires in the air or under the sea by which to send +messages would have cost the inventors their lives as guilty of +witchcraft. While shaking hands with this old woman and speaking to +her, you lost sight of her and the present time and felt the air of +the sixteenth century blow in your face. Mary came up before you in +moving habit as she lived--the young Mary who caught all hearts, not +heartless herself, and laid hold of mere straws to save herself as +she drifted desperately with circumstances; not the woman who has been +painted as an actor from first to last, as coming forth draped for +effect at the very closing scene,--not that woman, but the girlish +queen who laughed and called to the echo, and forgot the cares of a +kingdom while she could. + + + + +IV. + + +"They are a nice family, those Ormistons," said Mr. Parker to his wife +as they drove to the railway-station in the moonlight. + +"Very," said Mrs. Parker; "and Mr. Forrester is a nice lad. I hope he +and Miss Ormiston will make it out: I did my best for them." + +"They'll be quite able to do the best for themselves: it is always +better to let things of that kind alone." + +"I don't know that," said Mrs. Parker: "if a little shove is all that +is needed, it is a pity not to give it." + +"But what if your shove sends people separate? That's not what you +intended, I fancy?" + +"No fear: people are not so easily separated as all that." + +"Well, we have had an uncommonly pleasant visit: I only wish the heads +of the house had been at home." + +Either the attachment of this pair must have been pretty evident to +ordinary capacities, or Mrs. Parker must have been of a matchmaking +turn of mind; probably the latter, for Bessie at least was sure that +no mortal guessed her secret; which was a great comfort to her, seeing +that Edwin was so indifferent. Alas! there is no rose without a thorn, +or if there is it is a scentless, useless thing, most likely incapable +of giving either pleasure or pain. + +The Parkers had left early. When the young people went in-doors again +it was only seven o'clock: the girls proposed a game at hide-and-seek, +and Bessie seconded the proposal; for you see it would have been +rather a formidable business to sit down and entertain Mr. Forrester +all the evening with conversation, rational or otherwise; and although +at the moment she was in the dignified position of lady of the castle, +she could not the less enjoy a game amazingly. + +The theatre of operations was wisely restricted, because if they had +gone all over the castle they might have hidden themselves so that the +game would have been endless; therefore they kept to the under part +of the inhabited region. At length, tiring of this, they changed their +game to blindman's buff, and went to the kitchen to play it, there +being more room and fewer obstacles there; besides that, it was empty +of tenants at the time, the servants having gone to see some of the +neighbors. + +It was a curious old kitchen, with a very low roof, and having a +fireplace in a big semicircular stone recess. Many a boar's head had +revolved there, and many a venison pasty had sent forth its fragrance +to greet the tired hunters returning from the chase. The fire glowed +in its deep recess like the eye of an old-world monster in a cavern, +till one of the boys seized the poker and made it flame up, throwing +its blaze out as far as it could for its walls, and making the kitchen +and the group standing in it like a picture by Rembrandt. + +"Who's to be blind man first?" cried the girls. + +"Edwin: that will be the best fun," the boys said. + +"Very well, I sha'n't be long blind," said Edwin: "I shall soon catch +some of you. Who'll tie the handkerchief?" + +"Bessie: she always ties it. Go and kneel to her, and she'll tie it so +that you won't see." + +What must Mr. Forrester have felt while being blinded by the Rose? +Only, he had long been accustomed to be if not blinded, at least +dazed, by her. The boys led him into the middle of the floor and +dispersed themselves into corners. While he stood in the attitude of +listening intently, he was conscious of a very gentle movement near +him, and instantly closed his arms round it, as he thought, and +encountered empty air, while with a shout of laughter the children +cried, "Bessie was too quick for you. There, quick! quick! Edwin!" He +sprang to the corner the voices came from, and the boys rushed along +the wall to avoid his arms spread out to catch them, when suddenly the +doorbell rang. + +At the sound Edwin put up his hand to take off the handkerchief, but +the boys cried, "Don't take it off: if it's any one, Bessie can speak +to them in the dining-room: we don't need to stop our game." + +They were not aware that to Mr. Forrester the game without Bessie was +like _Hamlet_ with the part of Hamlet left out. + +"Yes," said Bessie, "just go on, and I'll see who is at the door." As +she left the kitchen she honored Mr. Forrester with a good long look: +people can feel so much at ease looking at a blind person. + +The door was chained for greater security, and Bessie did not take +off the chain: she merely opened the door as far as it would open, but +seeing no one, she opened it fully and went out on the steps; still +she saw no person, although she thought whoever rang the bell had not +had time to get out of sight. Waiting a little without result, she +went back to the kitchen. + +"Who was it?" cried the children. + +"No one," she said. + +"But the bell rang," said John. + +"Of course it did," Will corroborated. + +"And somebody must have rung it," John said. + +"Some one for a trick, I suppose," Bessie said, "although I don't know +how he disappeared so fast." + +Without further remark the game was resumed. Edwin had caught John, +and John had caught Bessie, and when he was putting the handkerchief +round her eyes Mr. Forrester said, "You are making it far too tight, +John: you are hurting your sister." + +"No fear," said John: "none of us have soft heads here. Is it too +tight, Bessie?" + +"Rather, but I can bear it: go on." + +"I'll slacken it first," Edwin said. + +"Thank you, that will do. Now move off or I'll catch you." She went +very vigorously to work, and sent them all flying round the kitchen, +when the bell rang, and rang loudly, again. + +John darted to the door and flung it wide, sure that he would see the +person who rang it, whether running away or not; but there was no +one, and the whole party followed him out, and they surveyed round and +round, but all was still and quiet and vacant, the moonlight making it +impossible that any figure should be there without being seen. + +Now, if you lived in an ordinary house in an ordinary street in an +ordinary town, an incident like this would create no surprise. It +happens often: true, it is not a very new or bright joke, still it is +a joke that boys and girls enjoy, and will continue to enjoy. But away +in the country, at an old castle, with no house within a quarter of +a mile of it, the case is very different. How was it to be accounted +for? + +The Ormistons came in, the girls looking scared, and the boys laughing +and saying that Mary Stuart or Darnley or Bothwell, whose names they +had made so free with shouting to the echo, must have heard themselves +called and were ringing the bell, although not allowed to show +themselves; but even as they said it the boys would fain have whistled +to keep their courage up. + +"I wish papa and mamma had been at home," said Bell. + +"Or if only the Parkers could have been persuaded to stay all night," +suggested Jessie. + +"Nonsense!" Bessie said. "Some one is playing us a trick, but we don't +need to let it spoil our game;" and she put the handkerchief over +her eyes. "Look here, Edwin: will you tie this? You do it better than +John." + +"He doesn't," said John. "I believe he leaves it so that you can see. +I'll do it. No, I won't make it too tight." + +"Don't you think, Jessie," Edwin asked, "that I could protect you, in +case of danger, as well as the Parkers?" + +"I don't know. Perhaps if you were like yourself, but you're not like +yourself." + +"He's as dull as ditch-water," said John. + +"But," said Jessie, taking his hand with a feeling of security, +"you're better than nothing--a great deal better than nothing." + +"Thank you, Jessie, thank you! A man is the better for a little +encouragement, you know;" and he looked at the Rose, but she was +blind; which made her easier looked at, to be sure, but there was less +chance of an answer, encouraging or otherwise. + +They had got up the spirit of the game again, and were going on +briskly, when they were all brought to a stand by the bell ringing for +the third time. + +"Don't stop," cried Bessie: "go on with the game and take no notice +unless it rings again;" and as a leader who must show no fear she +chased her sisters round the kitchen, making them flee to avoid being +caught, when, as if in answer to her remark, the bell did ring again. + +This was too much. They all ran to the door, but neither human being +nor ghost was to be seen. + +"I say," said John to his brother, "you and I will go out and watch. +Edwin, you'll stay with the girls--they are frightened--and if the +bell rings again we'll see who does it." + +"You have more need of Edwin than we have, John," Bessie said: "it +will take you all to catch a ghost." + +"Come away, then," cried John; and he posted his sentinels at +different angles, where each could have his eye on the door. The girls +shut themselves in the house, and outside and in they awaited the +result. + +There was no result. + +Ordinary sentinels can pace to and fro to make the moments go more +quickly, but Edwin and John and William were compelled to stand +without speech or motion, as to betray their presence would have been +to defeat their purpose. At the end of half an hour their patience was +worn out, and they came to the conclusion that whoever was playing the +trick knew that they were watching; so they went in, and hardly were +they in and the door shut when the bell rang again. + +John rushed from the kitchen, whither he had gone for something, but +the others, being in the dining-room and nearer the door, reached it +before him; and again nothing was to be seen but the still calm night, +in which hung the moon with all her accustomed unimpassioned serenity. +What cared she for ghosts? Perhaps she is only a ghost herself, else +why, with all her pale quiet ways, does she never turn round and show +herself thoroughly? No doubt she has reasons of her own, whether +they are good or not: her sex is apt to be both capricious and +persistent--two qualities which she possesses in perfection. + +The Ormistons and Edwin stood out on the broad walk before the door, +none of them feeling very comfortable, if the truth must be told, but +none of them showing their feelings except Bell and Jessie, who openly +declared that they were very much frightened. + +"Nonsense!" said Bessie. "Who is going to be frightened at a silly +trick?" + +"But it may be somebody wanting to get in to do us harm--kill us +perhaps," suggested Bell. + +"People who want to get into a house for bad ends don't ring the front +doorbell, or any bell," said Bessie. + +At this junction two figures appeared in the distance advancing along +the road to the castle--soon made out to be the servants, so that they +at least were guiltless in the affair. + +"It has not been them, you see," cried John. + +"No," Bessie said, "and you are not to say anything about it to them +when they come: if they know anything of it, it will soon leak out; +and if they don't tell, they will be quite frightened: they are as +easily frightened as Bell or Jessie here." + + + + +V. + + +All this time Mr. Forrester was feeling--not frightened certainly, +but--perplexed; and while he could not but admire Miss Ormiston's +coolness and courage, he could not help wishing that she had been just +a little bit chicken-hearted: it would have been so delightful to have +to act as protector and supporter. But there was no opening whatever +for such a position: she took the mysterious affair into her own hands +and pooh-poohed it entirely. + +They were accustomed to early hours at Cockhoolet, but when the time +came for going to bed the girls declared they were too frightened to +go up stairs alone. "It would be far better," they both said, "for us +to stay here all together in this room till morning: we could sit up +quite well." + +"Absurd!" said Bessie. + +"Well, we could not sleep even if we were in bed," they protested. + +"No fear," said the châtelaine. "If you were to sit up all night you +would be like ghosts yourselves to-morrow morning. Come, I'll go with +you and sit beside you till you sleep. But wait a minute till I come +back." + +When they were bidding Mr. Forrester good-night he said to the girls, +"If anything happens let me know." + +"Nothing will happen," said Bessie: "the bell is quiet now and the +servants are sound asleep. I have just been looking at them, and the +sooner we follow their example the better." + +"What are we to do if we hear the bell ring again?" John asked. + +"Nothing. Keep below the blankets, John," his sister said. "It will +ring a loud peal indeed if you hear it: I think a cannon might be +fired at your ear without disturbing you." + +"That's a mistake," said John, "I am a remarkably light sleeper: a fly +on my nose will make me turn round any time." + +"I believe that, but it won't waken you. Good-night;" and she took +a hand of each of her sisters and went off with all the dignity +beseeming her position as head of the family and governor of the +castle. Her presence being withdrawn, Edwin felt much as you do on a +March day when the sun goes under a cloud, although he had not +enjoyed the sun either, owing to the undercurrent of east wind that +continually chilled him. He almost determined to give it up. Of what +use was it? Evidently she did not care for him, and the words, "Mr. +Forrester here again! he must surely be dull at home," sounded in +his ears. Very east-windy they were; still, he loved her with a great +love, and he could not give her up: he was in a mist, and could see +neither to go back nor forward. + +"I say, Edwin," said John confidentially, "what do you think about +this bell business? Of course one couldn't speak of it before the +girls, they are frightened enough already--Bessie too, although she +pretends not. What's your own private opinion about it?" + +"Oh, it must be a ghost," said Edwin: "they do things of that kind, +you know--turn tables and rap and so on. I've been thinking I must be +an unconscious medium." + +"Well," said John, "I, for one, don't believe in that kind of thing: +if the spirits ever told anything worth hearing, or did anything worth +doing, it might be different; but would Darnley or Bothwell or the +abbot, or even any of the smaller fry of monks, come back here to ring +a bell? I know in their place it's what I wouldn't do myself." + +"It would depend on where they are and how employed," said Edwin: +"like some other people, they may be dull at home." + +"Ah, that's what Bessie said that's sticking in your throat. Man, it's +no use minding what girls say: I never do. + +"The spirits must be deplorably dull if ringing a bell is a diversion +to them." + +"They may enjoy mystifying us," said Edwin. "Who knows but they are +listening just now, and laughing in whatever they may have instead of +sleeves?" + +"I'm not frightened," said Will, "but I don't like subjects of this +kind at bedtime, so I wish you wouldn't say any more about it." + +"It seems, however, that the bell was rung by invisible agency," said +John. + +"Come, come, we'll stop talking and go to bed," Edwin said. + +"But, Edwin," said Will with big eyes, out of which he could not keep +a frightened look, "do you think a spirit did it?" + +"No: it is a trick, and you'll find out who did it before long." + +"Well," said John, "it was a stupid trick, but cleverly done--very +cleverly done, or whoever did it would not have escaped me." + +"I should not like to sleep alone to-night," Will said to his brother +in confidence when they were in their own room, "and I don't believe +you would either, although you don't say so. I wonder if Edwin likes +it, away from every one too, in that room with the hole in its roof? I +wonder papa does not get that hole mended?" + +"He has often spoken about it," said John, "but if I slept in that +room I should rather like the hole. It's uncommon: every room hasn't a +hole in its roof. If you couldn't sleep, for instance, you'd have only +to stare at the hole, and you would doze off before you knew." + +"Staring at it would only keep me from sleeping," Will said: "I should +always think something was looking at me through it." + +"What could look at you but light--moonlight or daylight from the room +above? In the dark you would the hole." + +"Let's sleep," said Will; and, forgetting ghosts and bells and all +influences, the two boys were soon asleep. + +It is to be hoped the girls were asleep also; indeed, there is little +doubt the younger ones were. But Bessie, with the cares of a castle +on her head, the mysteries of the evening to perplex her, and an +unfortunate love-affair going more and more awry, how was it with her? + +And Edwin, in his remote room with its hole in the roof, how did he +fare? He had gone up a stone staircase, through a long passage and +down a short flight of steps, into a room large, somewhat low in +ceiling, and, with the exception of the hole, most comfortably +appointed. It felt warm, rather too warm, and he did not replenish +the fire, preferring to let it go out. The room and the way to it +were both very familiar to him, and, like John, he enjoyed the hole: +staring at it made you sleep, and when not sleeping your fancy could +play round it to any extent. On this night the light of the moon, +shining in at the shutterless windows of the empty room above, fell +across its floor, and gleamed down through the opening. + +A superstitious person with a talent for being eerie would have had +nice scope for being frightened out of his senses in a situation +like this--alone in a distant room of an old castle where bells rang +mysteriously, and with borrowed moonlight peering down from above +like a ghost looking for ghosts. But Mr. Forrester was not +superstitious--not in the least. He feared nothing material or +immaterial except--and it was a curious exception--except Bessie +Ormiston; yet it is true he loved her, perfectly as he thought, but +there was a flaw somewhere: it was not the perfect love that casteth +out fear. The turning of a straw, however, might make it that, but +who was to turn the straw? He feared to do it, and she would not. +Notwithstanding these perturbed and cantankerous circumstances, these +two people, being young and naturally sleepy, slept. + +How long he had been sleeping Edwin did not know, when he awoke +suddenly, as if he had been startled by some noise. However, he might +have been dreaming: he did not know. The fire was thoroughly out +and black, there was no ray of light from the roof, and the +window-curtains being closely drawn, if there was any light outside it +was effectually shut out: the room was as dark as midnight. + +He rose, and finding his way to the table groped for a box of matches +that he had noticed lying there, and lighted his lamp, when, looking +at his watch, he found the hour to be half-past three. Before going to +bed again he thought he would see what night it was. Accordingly, +he opened the curtains and shutters and gazed forth. The moon had +disappeared--which was not remarkable, as it was past her hour for +retiring--and the night was very dark and hazy. But a remarkable +object met his eye. But from an angle of the house, and toward the +corner of the field which had been the site of the ancient monastery, +there stood a column five or six feet in height of what through +the haze appeared luminous vapor. It seemed such an altogether +unaccountable thing, standing there, that Edwin pushed the window open +and rubbed his eyes to get a better sight of it. He expected it would +disappear in some way almost immediately, but it did not: there it +stood, perfectly still and perfectly distinct, at the corner of the +field, where there was absolutely nothing to cause it. He watched it +for a considerable time, and as his eye got accustomed to peering into +the darkness, he could see there was nothing near it, and not a sound +disturbed the stillness of the night. + +"That's not a trick," he thought: "no one would think it worth while +to play a trick, certain of being without an audience either to see or +hear it. I question even if it is the abbot himself; or if he likes to +air himself there in the middle of a winter night, he must be too hot +at home, if not too dull." + +A filmy mantle of pale white vapor is surely a more likely garment for +a spirit to snatch up and wrap round him when about to indulge in an +earthly tour than the conventional and traditionary white sheet: +in point of fact, for the sheet he must wait till he arrives in our +world, and when he does arrive he must of necessity help himself to +it; which I, for one, should be sorry to think any well-conditioned +ghost would do; but light, pale shadowy light, lying about everywhere +for the picking up, what so suitable as raiment for a being who has +nothing to wear? + +It could not but occur to Edwin, Had the abbot come back to his old +haunt on some errand? Had he a benevolent ghostly interest in its +present inhabitants? Here was a work in which even a spirit of mark +might engage without loss of dignity and with perfect propriety. He +might turn tables on the perverse circumstances that kept two young +people separate; and if marriages are made in heaven, an angel need +not despise such a mission as making two lovers happy. + +"Well" thought Edwin, "if you are Abbot John, how do you like to see +the dear old stones of your monastery built into dykes? or would you +have preferred seeing them applied to villa purposes?" If it were +the abbot, Edwin felt he would like to have that familiar kind of +intercourse with him which in our country is known as twa-handed +crack; and if it were not the abbot, he had a wonderful curiosity to +know what it was--to have it accounted for. There it stood, apparently +as firm and sure as the first moment he had seen it; and a cause it +must have. + +Accordingly, he dressed himself with the intention of proceeding to +the spot to interview the abbot and see what kind of stuff he was made +of. Mr. Forrester took the lamp in his hand and opened the room-door +softly: not that he thought any one would hear him, but soft sounds +best become the stillness of the night. As he went down the stairs he +became conscious of a cold air playing about, as if from an open door +or window. He set his lamp on the stone sill of the passage-window, +and had his hand on the key of the outer door to unlock it, when he +heard a quick, sudden scream, apparently from the oldest part of +the building. He listened intently for a second, but there was no +repetition of it, and everything was perfectly quiet. + +"That was human," he said to himself; and seizing his lamp he ran +along till he came to the door of the ancient keep, which was standing +open: he took the way he and the rest of the party had gone the +previous afternoon, and found the doors that were usually kept locked +all open. Going on very hurriedly, he came to the room where the bare +rafters were the only flooring, and at the other end of it he saw +something like a white heap gleaming. He strode across instantly, and +stooping with the light in hand discovered Bessie Ormiston lying in a +dead faint just at the edge of one of the rafters: the least movement +would have sent her down on the hard pavement below. He did not stop +to think how she came to be there: setting his lamp where it would +light him across the dangerous flooring, he lifted her up and threaded +the passages and stairs in the darkness till he laid her safe on the +dining-room sofa, still unconscious. + +Kneeling beside her in the darkness, he felt that her face and hands +were very cold. He did not know what to do. If she had been any other +person, he would have had his senses about him, but, being who she +was, they had scattered themselves, and he felt dazed. The fire was +not quite out, and he thought of smashing up a chair to make it burn, +but searching in the coal-scuttle at the side, of the fireplace, he +found both sticks and coals, and heaped them on: then he lighted the +lamp that was still standing on the table. All this was the work of +a minute or two. A fainting-fit was quite beyond the range of his +experience, but he had some vague idea that in cases of the kind water +should be dashed in the face or a smelling-bottle held to the nostrils +or brandy poured down the throat; but none of these things were at +hand, and as he looked at Bessie, hesitating what to do, he saw the +color steal back to her face, and she opened her eyes and suddenly +shut them. When she opened them again she took his presence as a +matter of course, and said, "I sometimes walk in my sleep, I know, but +I am not in the habit of fainting;" and she smiled, looking much more +like the lily than the rose. + +"I hope not," he said. + +"It was the fright I got when I woke and saw where I was. I shouldn't +have been frightened, for I knew the place as well as I know this +room, and could have found my way back in the dark." + +"What can I get for you?--you must have something." It is an awkward +thing when a nurse has to seek directions from a patient. + +"Nothing," she said: "I can take nothing, and I am quite well. I can't +think how I was so foolish as to scream, and I am sorry for disturbing +you." + +"You did not disturb me: if I had been asleep I should never have +heard you." + +"I wish you had been asleep." + +"You might have fallen through the rafters and been hurt or perished +of cold." + +"I shouldn't have fallen through the rafters: I should have come to +myself and have walked back quite well alone; but I am not the less +obliged to you." + +"I should say not," he said with a curl of sarcasm. "Then is there +nothing I can do for you?" + +"Nothing, unless, indeed, you could get hot water for me to wash my +feet in. Sleeping as I was, I had the good sense to put on a thick +shawl, but I made my excursion barefoot: they say walking barefoot +improves one's carriage." + +"Bessie, I never know what to make of you." + +"If you know what to make of yourself it's a great matter: sometimes +people don't know that," she said, rather wearily. + +"I had better make myself scarce at present, probably?" he said. + +"I think so." + +"Then good-night. You won't faint again?" + +"No: good-night." + +He left the room and shut the door gently, but when a few paces away +some impulse moved him to go back: she might faint again, and he would +ask if he should send one of the servants to her. + +When he opened the door she was sitting with her face hidden in her +hands. At the sound of the door opening she glanced up, and Edwin saw +tears. + +She turned away instantly. He went up to her and said, "I did not mean +to intrude. I forgot to ask if I should tell one of the servants to +come." + +"No, you needn't." + +"Bessie," he said, "you are not well, and something is vexing you. +Could you not tell me about it. I mean nothing but kindness." + +"I know you don't," she said almost fiercely, "and I hate kindness: +it's an insult." + +He stood in blank astonishment, "An insult?" he said. + +"Yes, an insult; and if you were not obtuse you would see it. But you +don't see and you don't feel, or you would never have tried to make +any one care for you for whom you did not care a bit. But I won't care +for you, and I don't." + +Off her guard, she had been stung into this. She was standing away +from him, her head erect and her eyes gleaming through tears: Mary +Stuart herself could not have been more effective. + +"Care for you! not care for you!" he said in a voice he could hardly +control. "I have cared for you as I never cared for a thing on earth: +I have loved and shall love you as I have never loved a human being." + +"How am I to believe it? Why did you not say it? Why did you not say +it without making me ashamed of myself?" + +"Ashamed! Oh, Bessie, I only feared to annoy you." + +"Annoy!" + +He gathered her to him and kissed her. + +A castle all to themselves at four o'clock in the morning is a piece +of fortune that rarely falls to lovers, and they need not expect it; +but those great thick walls were no way taken by surprise: they had +not been confidants of this kind of thing off and on for four or five +hundred years to be taken by surprise now. Whether after such long +familiarity with the old story they felt it any way stale, you will +readily believe they did not say. + + + + +VI. + + +"I've forgotten the abbot entirely," said Edwin when he had time to +come to himself after the first draught of miraculous champagne. "I +was on my way to investigate his ghost when I heard an unaccountable +scream." + +"I never screamed before, and I don't think I shall ever scream again: +I don't know how I have been so weak to-night." + +"Weakness always draws out kindness," said Edwin. + +"I would rather be weak than obtuse," said Bessie. + +"But it is better to be only obtuse than both. I know someone who was +both." + +"Well, what was I to think, and what could I do?" + +"Nothing better than you did--make a declar--" + +"What were you saying about the abbot's ghost?" + +"I was on my way to have an interview with it when--" + +"What was it like, and where did you find it?" + +"It was like a column of light standing not far from the house near the +corner of the abbey-field." + +"And you did not think of any explanation of the phenomenon?" + +"No, I did not: it seemed more mysterious even than the ringing of the +bell." + +"To obtuse people it does." + +"I thought the abbot might be feeling without a home, and sympathized +with him, I assure you, very heartily." + +"I can tell you what it is: the servants had to rise at three this +morning to work. It is the light shining out from the laundry-window: +I've seen it often enough." + +"Well, it was a providential ghost for you and Edwin." + +"[illegible]" said John when they were assembled at breakfast next +morning, looking no worse for the excitement of the previous evening, +having all slept well: if the bell had rung it had disturbed no one +at all. Mr. Forrester and Bessie had not made any one the wiser of the +well-timed appearance of the abbot's ghost which had played such an +effective part in their previous night's drama,--"I say," he +said looking at Mr. Forrester and then at Bessie, "there is some +understanding between you two; you are always looking at each other, +and when you entered the room this morning you [illegible], and +started off [illegible] been caught. But I have [illegible] this +time." + +Bessie realized that her secret had become common property, and +blushed becomingly. + +Mr. Forrester said, "What have you suspected, John?" + +"That Bessie and you laid your heads together to make the bell ring +last night to frighten us. Remember, I'm not stupid altogether." + +"I assure you, John, I had nothing to do with the ringing of the +bell," Bessie said. + +"Nor had I," said Edwin. + +"That's queer, then," said John; "but I'm sure there's something of +some kind between you two: you're planning something, I know. What is +it?" + +"Wise people don't reveal their plans to every one till near the time +for executing them, John," said Edwin. + +"Oh, very well," John answered: "you can keep them to yourselves. +I dare say it's nothing of consequence;" and having finished his +breakfast, John was off to his out-door business. The shortest cut +to his destination--and he always took short cuts--was through the +kitchen, and as he hastily brushed along the wall toward the door he +was brought up suddenly by a loud peal of the bell, and he looked at +one of the servants, who was working at the table, as much as to say, +"Do you hear that?" + +She answered his look: "Yes, I ha'en, but there's naebody at the door. +It was yu that rang the bell: ye cam against that bag of worsted +clues for durning that I hung on the bell-wine yesterday. When onybody +happens to touch it the weight o' 't gars the bell ring; I would hae +to ta'en off." + +With this simple and inglorious explanation John rushed to the +dining-room where he found Mrs. Forrester and the châtelaine in deep +Conspiracy again; and to this hour the ghost of Cockhoolet is a matter +(if you can use that word in connection with a ghost at all) of faith +and not of sight. + +When Mrs. and Mrs Ormiston returned they found that their eldest +daughter was engaged to be married, which surprised them as little as +it did the old woman but moved them a good deal more. + + + + +THE LEADEN ARROW. + + +A wondrous half-century was that which forms an isthmus rather than a +bridge between the Middle Ages and the times termed Modern. Exit +the Last of the Barons--enter the printing-press. Exit Boabdil +el Chico--enter Columbus and Da Gama. The plot thickened as the +_cinquecenti_ hove in view. The last years were the most pregnant. +While the last sigh of the Moor was dying into the murmurs of the +Xenil, that solitary shout that will ring while earth lasts went up +from the bows of the Pinta. Together came America and the sea-way to +India and--the rifle. For in 1498, when Buonarotti was at his prime, +Raphael, fifteen years old, had just taken his seat at the paternal +easel, and the scenes of the _Lusiad_ were in progress, "barrels were +first grooved at Venice." + +Who grooved them we are not told. The name of that artist has not +survived, though we still remember his contemporary townsman, Titian. +Strictly, he is not entitled to the immortality of an originator. That +belongs to the unknown savage who, in the miocene era probably, first +gave a twist to the feather of his arrow, thereby communicating to it +a revolving motion at right angles to the line of flight, and making +it an "arm of precision." But pre-historic artillery we may dismiss +or leave to Milton. The blind bard omits to inform us whether the +guns used in the great pounding-match between Lucifer and Michael +were smooth-bores or rifles. The strong presumption is that they were +exclusively the former, and that a well-served battery of Parrotts +would have silenced them in fifteen minutes. By giving him a few +pieces of the kind the poet would have further brightened the feather +he sets in Satan's cap as the benefactor of mankind by inventing +gunpowder and shortening wars. The bow he presents to us as an old and +familiar weapon even at the date of that first and greatest of +pitched battles. Its claim, as the parent of projectile implements, +is recognized in the common etymology of _arcus, arcualia_--artillery. +Arblast, arquebuse, blunderbuss, mark a humbler collateral descent +in the same verbal family. The ballista, or fifty-man-power bow, +constituted the heavy, and the individual article the light, artillery +of twenty centuries ago. Slings and javelins, being for hand-to-hand +fighting (David was near enough to hold an easy conversation with +Goliath before bringing him down), can hardly be brought within +the designation. The twang of either heavy or light was but a thin +contribution to the orchestra of battle compared to "the diapason of +the cannonade." How much we have lost in the absence of this element +of tremendous noise from the conflicts of ancient days! What a tool +it would have been in Homer's hands! How trivial, to the author of +the book of Job, would have seemed the noise of the captains and +the shouting! We cannot, indeed, quite suppress the fancy that some +mightier counter-concussion must have filled the air at Thrasimene, +when "an earthquake reeled unheededly away:" _Nemo pugnantium +senserit_, avers Livy. But nothing is said of it. The old heroes died +in silence, like the wolf "biting hard among the dying dogs." + +A well-known essay of a modern poet beautifully uses this piece of the +modern machinery of his craft. Dryden here makes distance mellow the +thunder of a naval fight into a musical undertone. The great sea-fight +between the duke of York and the Dutch, fought within hearing of +London, left "the town almost empty" of its anxious citizens, whose +"dreadful suspense would not allow them to rest at home," but drew +them into the eastern fields and suburbs, "all seeking the noise +in the depth of silence." Dryden and three friends took a barge and +descended the river. Once clear of the crowded port above Greenwich, +"they ordered the watermen to let fall their oars more gently; and +then, every one favoring his own curiosity with a strict silence, it +was not long ere they perceived the air to break about them like the +noise of distant thunder or of swallows in a chimney; those little +undulations of sound, though almost vanishing before they reached +them, yet still seeming to retain somewhat of their first horror which +they had between the fleets. After they had attentively listened till +such time as the sound by little and little went from them, Eugenius, +lifting up his head and taking notice of it, was the first who +congratulated to the rest that happy omen of our nation's victory." + +This, the eloquent eolian music of distant and unseen battle, was +unheard by the ancient cities and their chroniclers and poets. It will +grow again less familiar as rifled ordnance is introduced, with its +thinner and sharper style of expression. Waterloo appears to have been +heard farther than Sedan or Metz, although its pieces were but popguns +compared with those that spoke the requiem of the Third Napoleon. +And perhaps, if we allow for smallness in number and calibre, those +employed by Robert the Bruce at the battle of Werewater in 1327--said +to be the first recorded occasion in Europe--were more vociferous than +their successors of to-day. Few and cumbrous they must indeed have +been, since Edward III. could only bring four into the field at Crécy; +and they did far less service than the twanging cloth-yard shaft in +deciding the event of that conflict. + +It was not till centuries later that the rifle perceptibly exerted +its treble voice in the multitudinous debates of the _ultima ratio_. +Shrill as John Randolph's, its pipe, once set up, was very attentively +and respectfully listened to. Like his, it spoke from the woods +of America. "Stand your ground, my brave fellows," shouted Colonel +Washington under the sycamores of the Monongahela on the 9th of +July, 1755, "and draw your sights for the honor of old Virginia!" +The colonial rifle covered the retreat of the British queen's-arm, if +retreat such a rout as Braddock's could be called. + +It is about the same time that we find a British writer, who had +witnessed the efficiency of the rifle as a companion implement to +the axe in pushing European settlement on this continent, saying, +"Whatever state shall thoroughly comprehend the nature and advantages +of rifle-pieces, and, having facilitated and completed their +construction, shall introduce into its armies their general use, with +a dexterity in the management of them, will by this means acquire a +superiority which will almost equal anything that has been done at +any time by the particular excellence of any one kind of firearms, +and will perhaps fall but little short of the wonderful effects which +histories relate to have been formerly produced by the first inventors +of firearms." + +This was written in 1748, at which time the rifle was used only by +the hunters of the Alps and the hunters of the American backwoods; +the latter having doubtless derived it from the former through German +immigration. Bull's conservatism, however, was in the way. The lessons +of Fort Duquesne, of Saratoga and of New Orleans were successively +wasted on him. He did arm one regiment, the Ninety-fifth, with this +weapon toward the close of the last century, but for a long time it +stood alone in the royal service. Austria had previously maintained +some corps of Tyrolese Jägers. The French fought through all the wars +of their Revolution without having recourse to the rifle, save in the +campaign of 1793. It is singular that the keen eye of Napoleon failed +to detect its value, especially when we note the use he made of light +troops. The fate of Nelson justifies the idea that a large body of +good riflemen might have changed the issue of Trafalgar. + +Curiously enough, the French, who were the last to realize the merits +of the rifle, were the first to institute those improvements which +caused, within the present generation, its universal substitution +for the musket. The Gallic pioneer was Delvigne, but his first +improvements proved, as Pat might say, no improvement at all. The +inconvenience of slow loading was the most obvious. Delvigne's remedy +was to give the ball increased windage; in other words, to diminish +its diameter comparatively with that of the bore. The ball thus went +easily down to the shoulders of the chamber containing the charge. +Arrived there, a smart rap with the ramrod moulded it to the grooves. +But it also flattened the top, and forced the bottom partly into the +chamber. Thus misshapen at birth, the bullet was cast upon the world +to an erratic and fruitless career. + +In 1828 a second Frenchman took the tube in hand. Colonel Thouvenin +abandoned the chamber, and filled up much of the place it had occupied +with a cylindrical steel pillar, or _tige_, which projected from the +breech-plug longitudinally into the barrel. This formed a little anvil +whereon the bullet was to be beaten into the grooves. But the bottom +was flattened, and the powder acted only on the periphery of the ball +instead of the centre, tending thus to give it an oblique direction. + +Here Delvigne picked up the weapon for another trial. He accomplished +far the most important advance yet seen--an advance relatively as +great as Watt's separate condenser in the steam-engine. He retained +the _tige_, but he _changed the spherical ball into a cylinder with a +conical point_, as we now have it. In this he, in effect, reached the +ultimatum of progress as regards the general form of the projectile. +He assimilated it to Newton's solid of least resistance. That primeval +missile, the arrow, had for unnumbered centuries presented to the +eyes of men an illustration of a simple truth which scientific formula +succeeded, scarce a couple of centuries since, in evolving. "The +bridge was built," as the old sapper told his commander, "before them +picters" (the engineer's designs) "came." The arrow-head describes, as +it whirls through the air, a solid varying from a cone only so far as +its edges vary from straight lines. This variation serves to blend the +cone with the cylinder formed by the revolution of the arrow-head and +the feather. The difference in length between the ball and the arrow +is due to the necessities of the case. The least practicable length +is best for both. The office of the spirally-wound feather in +communicating a rotary motion, and thereby balancing, by an opposite +force, the tendency of the missile to swerve in any given direction, +is fulfilled by the spiral groove of the rifle. Of course, the +ordinary smooth musket is unfitted to the conico-cylindrical ball. +Discharged from such a barrel, there being nothing to keep the point +in the direction of its flight, it soon tumbles over, like an arrow +without a feather, and strikes wide of the mark. + +Delvigne's new gun came into use in 1840. The long matchlocks of the +Arabs had been very worrying to the French in Algiers. It was a common +pastime of the Ishmaelites to pick off the Gauls at a distance which +left Brown Bess helpless. Protruded over an almost inaccessible crag, +the former primitive instrument would plump its ball into the ranks +of the Giaour in the dell below with a precision and an effect hardly +requited by victories in the open field or by the cave-smokings of +His Grace of Malakoff. Delvigne's arm was accordingly supplied to the +Chasseurs d'Orléans, and in their hands served the desired purpose. +The matchlock met its match. + +Under M. Delvigne's system, however, the ball was not always well +forced into the grooves. The _tige_, too, made cleaning difficult: +it often got crooked, and it sometimes broke off. A M. Tamisier +did something toward removing the former difficulty by cutting +very shallow grooves on the ball itself. The other called forth the +ingenuity of the now famous Minié, who made his first appearance +in 1847-1848, and whose name has attained the same kind of lethal +immortality with the names of Shrapnell, Congreve and Rodman. M. Minié +abandoned the _tige_ entirely. He scooped out the base of the ball and +inserted into it an iron cup. This cup was driven into the ball by +the explosion, and forced the soft lead into the grooves. The leading +objection to the Minié ball in this form was that the device did its +work too thoroughly. The iron was often driven so deep into the lead +as to tear off the solid point and scatter the whole projectile into +two or three pieces. This mitrailleuse-like distribution of disrupted +spheres or leaden asteroids was obviated by the abandonment of the +iron cup, the powder being left to act on the lead itself. Two or +three channels cut around the neck of the bullet helped to keep +the point in line, and aided at the same time the fastening of the +cartridge. Thus came its final metamorphosis to the buzzing little +torment that has been at intervals for the last twenty years flying +over all the continents and perplexing the nations. + +It was not till 1852 that the Enfield rifle was settled on as the +standard weapon of the British army. Machinery and machinists were +imported for its fabrication from the United States, the appliances +of our government armories being copied, and Colonel Bruton, of the +Harper's Ferry Works, employed to set them going. Prior to that time +all firearms of public or private manufacture, in England, had been +made by hand, the interchangeability of all the parts of any given +number of guns being an end accomplished in this country alone. The +advantage of having every corresponding detail of each piece a fac +simile of the same part in all the firelocks of an army must have been +perceived from the time when such weapons were first invented; +and nothing but the most inveterate conservatism, or the steadiest +opposition of that stamp which mobbed threshing-machines and the +spinning-jenny, could have so long staved off its practical adoption. + +Once awakened, however, England became, as she usually does, active, +innovating and experimental enough. Rifled cannon, breech-loaders and +armored ships--all the legitimate offspring of the Venetian barrel +and its American employment--have kept her ever since in a ferment of +boards, commissions and target-firing. But these would carry us +beyond our prescribed limit into a boundless field of inquiry and +description. It would be like passing from a notice of the tubular +boiler of Stephenson's Rocket to a discussion of the vast railway +system it begot. + +The Crimean war afforded the first test, on a large scale, in +civilized warfare, of the issue between smooth and twist. How the +conoidal bullet and rifled barrel, opposed at Inkermann to the +antiquated Russian musket, tore through the dense columns which +had forced their way to the brow of the plateau, driving the stolid +Muscovites, "incapable of panic," back into the ravine pell-mell--how, +at many periods of the siege of Sebastopol, the rifle-pits did more to +cripple the defence than did the mortars and battering-guns--we need +not recount. These pits, and the rope mantlets wherewith they obliged +the Russians to cover their embrasures, were pronounced by Captain +(since General) George B. McClellan, in his report of the United +States Military Commission, about the only marked novelties of +the siege. Of both, _mutatis mutandis_, he and his opponents made +effective use in our civil war. + +Nor shall we pick our perilous way among the Sniders, Chassepots, +Zündnadelgewehre, and Zündnadelbüchsen whose various charms absorb the +military mind at this day. The debate among them is but as to the best +utilization of the old arrow-theory. The oblong projectile, that goes +singing on its winding way, is common to them all. Slipped in at the +back door or rammed home at the front, delicately stirred up by the +insinuating needle and its titbit of fulminate or bluntly ordered off +by the snappish percussion-cap, it is the same obedient and faithful +messenger, and goes on its appointed errand in much the same style. + +Under the ancient régime of the musket it required the soldier's +weight in lead to kill him. Its point-blank range was about sixty +yards, but precision even at that short distance it by no means +possessed. At the battle of Fontenoy the English and French Guards, +drawn up in opposite lines, conversed with each other prior to firing, +like two groups of friends across the street. "Gentlemen of the French +Guards, fire!" was the courteous invitation of the British commander. +"The French Guards never fire first," was the reply. And not till then +did punctilio come to an end. Such a colloquy in our day would need +to be carried on with forty-horse power speaking-trumpets, or with the +thunderous articulation of that between the bellowing Alps and echoing +Jura. Even smooth-bore field-pieces, with point-blank of three hundred +and twenty yards and service range of one thousand, have to keep their +distance. It is a rare thing now for cannon to be captured by a charge +of cavalry or the bayonet. The rifle destroys _quantum suff._ of their +horses, and, their support overpowered, they remain a helpless prey. + +For this default of the blustering cannon in the trying of conclusions +with its quiet little cousin, the natural remedy is to improve its +interior in the same manner. This has been done, and with marvelous +effect in some respects. But the rifled cannon, though extensively +used both on sea and land, throwing shot and shell five miles, and at +close range through iron plates a foot thick, cannot be yet styled a +perfected weapon. It may be in a very few years, thanks to the ardent +anxiety, on the part of the several peoples composing "the parliament +of man, the federation of the world," to excel each other in the +"brain-spattering, windpipe-slitting art." At present it is maintained +by very good American authority that for use under some conditions, +at short or moderate range, the smooth gun of large calibre is more +effective than a rifled gun throwing a missile of the same weight. +Our monitors continue to be armed with the fifteen-inch Rodman, very +recent experiments being cited to prove its penetrating effect on iron +plates greater than that of the European rifled guns. This, of course, +at very close range. + +The rifle is, in its simplest form, a more complex instrument than the +smooth-bored piece, and will always require superior intelligence to +manage it. The army which naturally possesses this requisite in the +highest degree will best handle this decisive weapon, and be, other +things equal, the strongest army. This consideration operates in favor +of our people, among whom the rifle has always been in so much more +constant and familiar use than with those of other countries. Our +broad forests will have to be cleared and our mountain-chains, +east and west, more densely settled than Switzerland, before the +distinction of a nation of marksmen can be lost to us. So far, there +is little evidence of this change. The deer and the wild-turkey are +nearly as abundant on the Atlantic slope of the Alleghanies as they +ever were. Probably there are more of both in Virginia than at the +time of the settlement of Jamestown. Like the quail and the bee, they +are favored by a certain advance of population and cultivation. + +Another species of aborigine does not similarly thrive in the path of +the rifle. The Indian of the Plains is still troublesome occasionally, +but far less so than when blue-coats and blunderbusses joined forces +against him. The odds then were often on his side, for many of the red +men were armed with the rifle, while the troops had but the musket and +carbine. The appearance of the breech-loading rifle in the hands of +the United States dragoons on the frontier just fifteen years ago let +in new light upon the Camanche and Apache mind. Up to that period the +badgering of a detachment of "heavies" was a favorite pastime with +these gentry. They got up their "spring fights" with as much coolness +and regularity as the early patriarchs of Texas are related to have +done, and not merely, as in the case of the latter, in utter contempt, +but directly at the expense, of the constituted authorities. Tying +a bag of dried mule-meat and pounded corn to the peak of his saddle, +fashioning a small supply of arrows, or balls if he boasted the +spectre of a gun, coloring the inferior half of his frontispiece a +rich vermilion and the upper a delicate green, with ramifications of +lampblack coursing tastefully along the cheek-bones and the bridge of +the nose, twisting a crane's feather into the tail of his horse, and +giving his affectionate squaw a farewell kick, the cavalier of the +prairie was ready for a raid on the Long-knives. Making a rapid +night-march or two, he would carry the "latest intelligence from +the Indian country" to the border ranches of Texas or New Mexico. +Stampeding all the horses and mules that stood or ranged convenient, +and under favorable circumstances some cattle and sheep, and +"gobbling" on occasion some incautious Cyrion or Phyllis of the +Western Arcadia, the marauder made for the mountains. By the time he +had well passed the last outpost the hue-and-cry was at his heels, +followed, after an easy-going delay, by the lumbering dragoon. The +soldier, armed with ineffectual sabre and carbine, encumbered with +a variety of traps about as useful as they, usually managed, if not +forced to put back by stress of provisions, to come up with him in the +gates of the hills. There an idle interchange of arrow and round ball +between hollow and cliff wound up the eventful history of the chase. +As a rule, no marked chastisement was inflicted on the Indian: he +realized in peace the proceeds of his little speculation. + +Now, Minié, like the Harpagon of his countryman, has "changed all +that." The retreating heathen flies to his hills in vain. They do not +cover him, but the rifle does. Cantering to the summit of a knoll, +he waves his compliments to the distant dragoon with a gesture of +derision, more expressive than elegant, he has acquired from the +white. Turning calmly to depart, as he sinks below the crest of the +hill a sagittiform bullet, fired at five hundred yards' distance with +all the science and talent purchasable with thirteen dollars a month +and rations, plumps into the rump of his unhappy pony, and the Stoic +of the woods is unhorsed. Reared on horseback, and weak in the legs +from long addiction to that mode of locomotion, this is a _casus +omissus_ in Lo's tactics. Scant time, however, has he for reflection. +He gathers up himself and his drapery as well as circumstances will +allow, and scuttles hurriedly off, a fluttering chaos of rags and +feathers. It is too late. Heaven is on the side of the best artillery. +A few minutes and the Philistines are upon him. Burnside's or +Remington's last patent again lifts up its voice, and the triumph of +civilization is complete. + +The prairie Indian, unlike his congener of the woods, has as yet been +but partially able to substitute gunpowder for the bow. The advantage +he has in the protection afforded him by the desolation of his +waterless _mesas_ and sage-covered hills is thus in great measure +neutralized. What, when he does possess the modern firearm, he is +capable of doing with it, the achievements of the Modocs in their +volcanic stronghold will attest. But these were few, and soon went +down. The extinction of the tribes west and south of the Rio Grande +and the Humboldt cannot be many years postponed. The red rover of that +region will disappear as a combatant in the same way, and before the +same weapon, as his brother nomad of Algeria, the earliest victim of +the conoidal bullet. The spherical ball has done its appointed part +in disposing of the aborigines east of the Mississippi, where forests +covered the land and trees generally intercepted the sight at a +hundred or a hundred and fifty yards. With the extension of Caucasian +empire to the Plains came an extension of the range of vision, which +necessitated an advance in the range of the rifle. The weapon of +Sharpe figured for the first time in the van when the woods of +Missouri were passed and the open plains of Kansas reached. There +its office was, unfortunately, the strife of white against white. The +largest possible range, the greatest possible number of shots in a +given time, were demanded in a war wherein the opposing armies were +seldom within five miles of each other, or more than one man hurt to +five hundred charges of powder burned. How the Lenni Lenape must have +opened their eyes at this reproduction of the drama of a century ago +when the whites, English and French, were fighting each other for the +possession of the Delawares' lands in Pennsylvania! The feeble remnant +of the compatriots of Logan had "moved on," under pressure of a very +urgent police, a thousand miles westward to a reservation not a great +deal larger, when portioned out, than that last reservation allotted +to all men; and the pale-faces who had hung upon his track he now saw +fighting for that. + +From its warlike aspect it is pleasant to turn to the contributions +of the rifle to peaceful amusement, if not peaceful industry. +Contemptuously giving the go-by to its minutest phase in this +field--the "parlor rifle," with a target against the chimney-piece +or meandering, in feline form, along our neighbor's roof-tree--we go +forth, with Snider and sunrise, to the forest fastness. Our companions +throng, tall, bronzed, close-knit and sinewy, true children of +the four-grooved, from frosty Caucasus, the Hartz, the Alps, the +Dovrafjeld, the Grampians, the Himmalaya, the Adirondack, the +Alleghany, the Nevada. The chamois, the ibex, the red deer, the +Virginia deer, the wapiti, the gour, or the royal tiger may be the +game in hand. The tiger we are accustomed to associate exclusively +with the dank jungles of Lower India, but he climbs, each summer, the +great passes of Central Asia, "the roof of the world," and makes his +way to the frontier of Siberia, beyond 50° north. + +The equipment of the mountain-rifleman is characterized by simplicity +and a strict attention to business. The nature of the ground over +which he works inexorably prescribes this. The superfluities of the +fox-hunter or the partridge-shooter with his dog-cart cannot be his. +Hatchet, pouch, knife and knapsack, with alpenstock on occasion, about +comprise his kit. He may be attended by a hound or two, but not a +pack. He wants no yelling. He hears but + + the Spirit of the Mist, + And it speaks to the Spirit of the Fell. + +For little hollows and little hills Scott's dogs, that + + raved through the hollow pass amain, + Chiding the rocks that yelled again, + +may have been highly effective when his mediæval sportsmen, who +carried no guns, could keep within a furlong of them. But in the +depths of the great mountains, with point-blank range of six hundred +yards and long pops of nearly twice that, they would be preposterous. +Fancy the Quorndon or the Pytchley on the flanks of the Matterhorn! + +Chamois-hunting, the sporting specialty of the Swiss and the Tyrolese, +appears to be dying out. The hunter of our day keeps it up rather as +a tradition than as a practical pursuit. He rarely bags a "goat," +for goats are very few to bag, and those few even more supernaturally +fleet and sure of foot and keen of nose than their less-hunted +ancestors. Still, somewhere in that upper world of lilac-white that +melts into the clouds in vast but distance-softened chasms of viscid +ice and rifts of gray gneiss, there is an object for him. In some nook +or on some crag of the square leagues of desert that swell around him +a troop of the desiderated ruminants is grazing, if grazing it can +be called where grass is none. He is very sure of that. Even from the +door of his chalet he scans the slopes in the half hope of detecting a +flock or a single goat. His father and his grandfather before him had +looked forth from the same door on the same scene, snuffed the same +"caller air," mentally shaped the same pretext for yielding to the +same spirit of adventure begotten of the peaks and by going forth +to battle with the solitude, and hunted patiently, sometimes with +success, oftener without, the progenitors of the same quarry. So he +prepares himself anew for the wild and perilous tramp. A day--two or +three days--may pass without the compassing of a shot, or even hearing +the whistle of the sentinel goat as he shrills the alarm far out of +range and leads his fellows in twenty minutes to crags the hunter +cannot reach in as many hours. Death crouches in the treacherous +snow-crust beneath or the poised avalanche above. A false step or an +inch's miscalculation of leap may make him a waif for the lämmergeier +or land him among the buried villages of the last century. He toils +on until success or starvation sends him home. In the former case he +out-generals his shy game after a series of manoeuvres to which the +deepest stratagems of our Indians are straightforwardness personified. +He gets a long shot at a distance that would make the musket or +buckshot as useless as a sabre. The certainty may be apparent that the +animal, if hit mortally, must fall some hundreds of feet, perhaps into +an inaccessible chasm. There is no help for that. Now or never! The +short rifle, assisted by a portable rest, is called on for its best. +The concentrated energy of the whole chase is thrown into the long and +carefully calculated aim. A thin spurt of white smoke jets forth; a +sharp report echoes "from peak to peak the rattling crags among;" half +a dozen chamois whisk around the next rock-buttress, and "one more +unfortunate" tumbles from the verge into vacancy. The labor of days is +rewarded. Securing the scanty venison if he can, the hunter is off for +his hillside burrow, advertising his approach by an exultant jodel of +extra nerve-splitting power. + +In Great Britain the rifle, ancient or modern, like, indeed, any other +firearm, has yet to establish itself as a democratic "institution." +Her forests are not forests in our sense, and her mountain-dwellers +know little of the rifle. In the duke of Athol's seventy-mile forest, +with scarce a tree save planted larches, the stag roams by thousands, +but of course the game-laws interpose, as they did eight hundred years +ago, between him and the (biped) hind. He is still the reserved +luxury of the Norman. So with the leagues of upland where His Grace of +Sutherland has made the Highlander give place to the hart, the "lassie +wi' the lint-white locks" to the Cheviot ewe--where, in short, the +white Celt has been improved out of existence as remorselessly as the +red man in America, and that in favor not of a superior race of men, +but of _feræ naturæ_. Into these and similar districts, at stated +seasons, sundry squads of gentlemen are turned loose. They either +"pay their shot," as _Punch_ has it, in the shape of rent, or are the +guests of the noble proprietors. Their devices for circumventing the +antlered monarch of the waste are amply detailed by Scrope, Hawker, +Herbert and also by the late Edwin Landseer doing the pictorial +department with a success attributable chiefly to his management of +landscape effect, for his dogs, deer and other animals from his Æsop's +fable-like groups to his four duplicated lions in Trafalgar Square, +belong--heretic that we are to say it!--properly to still life, their +want of action and _verve_ placing them beneath comparison with the +works of either one of a score of Flemish and French painters, +from Rubens and Snyders down to Bonheur and Vernet. That his unsold +pictures have brought, since his death, something like half a million +proves nothing. Time was when the worthless canvases of West and +Morland were equally transmutable into gold. + +Like other forms of British field-sports, deer-stalking is +sufficiently intricate and artificial. It is obviously the occupation +of men whose primary object is more to kill time than to kill deer. +According to print, from type and plate, the stag, a reduced edition +of the American wapiti, is, in the heart of a little kingdom of some +hundreds of souls to the square mile, as little accustomed to the +sight of man and as hard to approach as he would be on the head-waters +of the Yellowstone. If five or six hours' worming, _ventre à terre_, +up the bed of a mountain-torrent, with not even a rowan-bush to aid +concealment, succeed in bringing the sports-man within two hundred +yards of his unconscious game, it is a good day's performance. How, +the dun deer's hide once perforated, the "tail" of game-keepers, +beaters and volunteer hangers-on is gathered up, the comforting +toothfu' of usquebaugh absorbed by the toilers of the brae, the victim +"gralloched" and suspended across the inevitable gray Highland pony +that makes such a capital "first light" for the foreground, and the +line of triumphant march taken up for hunting-box, clachan or castle, +have we not been told to repletion? The tool used on these occasions +is up to the latest requirements of modern science. Whitworth and +Lancaster, thanks to their projectile's being wedged in so tight as +to cause an occasional misunderstanding it and the breech-plug as to +which was expected to move, have grown unpopular. The style and the +patentee vary every year or two or oftener, breech-loading and the +elongated bullet being the only persistent features. + +Among the commonalty of Britain, within a very few years past, +rifle-clubs and matches have been brought greatly into vogue under +government encouragement. Austria, _tu infelix_ this time, having +served unwillingly as an experimental target, with the most +distinguished and gratifying success to the experimenters, at +Solferino and Sadowa, gave a new impetus to the rifle movement in +England, as France, a trifle later, did to the Battle-of-Dorking +school of prophetic literature. Thus it happens that the rifle is +taking its place gradually by the side of fat Durhams, gooseberries, +lop eared rabbits and the Derby as a popular sensation. Johnny sends +over a "team," evidently in his judgment a whole one, to "shoot the +American continent." His next deputation ought to be sent, after +vanquishing the "blarsted" Gothamites, to the recesses of the +Alleghany, and pitted there against the woodsman with his ancient +weapon carrying a round ball of seventy-five to the pound, five +feet long and decorated with tin sights, double trigger and mayhap +flint-lock. The adventurers would beat in the long run, but they would +go home not wholly unlearned. Should they stay to a turkey-shoot, +they would see in it the Occidental analogue of their own public +matches--more picturesque, if not quite so prim and scientific. +Strictly, it presupposes conditions non-existent in England--a +community, for instance, first of hunters, and second of hunters with +the rifle. + +This recreation, primarily belonging to localities where large game, +such as deer and wild-turkeys, is found, has spread down to the +cities, where it breaks out in a sporadic form about Christmas. But +the hills are its home--the foot-hills, notably, of the Appalachian +range, the domestic turkey not being very common higher up, nor its +wild original ("original," we insist, _pace_ the _Agricultural Report_ +ornithologist, who finds an ineffaceable distinction in the fact that +the tail-ring of the one is sometimes, and that of the other never, +white!) lower down. + +We mind us of an ancient town in the Valley of Virginia, settled +nearly a century and a half ago by riflemen, sheltered by them through +a stormy infancy, and still steeped in the traditions of the implement +in question. Spitted by the railway, the hub of many turnpikes, and +surrounded by a thickly-peopled country, it is yet near enough to the +mountains to receive from them each winter quite a delegation of their +inhabitants. Last year wild-turkeys were shot within the corporate +limits, a deer was chased within half a mile of them, and a fine +specimen of _Felis Canadensis_ was killed in an orchard still nearer. + +Four miles west of the town the fertile limestone _carse_ swells into +the shady hills, clad largely with pine, that form the long glacis of +the Alleghanies. These hills are peopled principally by a hardy race +not unlike the German woodsmen, whose blood, indeed, a great many of +them share, as their surnames, though sadly thinned down into English +spelling and pronunciation, denote. They inherit, likewise, their +fancy for the rifle. Allied with the axe, which, like Talleyrand's +supposititious frontiersman, they have not forgotten, it supplies them +materially with sport and subsistence. Their land, where arable +at all, being unproductive as a rule, wood-chopping is their most +profitable branch of farming. A score or two of them drive into town +daily, each with his four-, three- or two-horse cargo of wood. The +pile is frequently topped off with a brace or two of ruffed grouse, +there called pheasant, or a wild-turkey, less often a deer, and +more often hares; which last multiply along the narrow intervales in +extraordinary numbers. We have seen three sledge-loads of hares--say +two thousand in all--on the street of a winter's day. + +This sappy and sapid contribution to its comfort and luxury the town +often repays with a jug of whisky as an addendum to the cash receipts; +although it must not be inferred from this that the hillmen are noted +for a weakness in that direction. Generally, they are as sober as they +are hard-working, independent and honest. The few who do take kindly +to strong waters are so hardened by a life of toil and exposure +that the enemy is a lifetime in bringing them down.. One little old +hook-nosed fellow was an every-day feature of the road for fifteen or +twenty years. In that entire period he was rarely, if once, seen to go +out sober. He drove but two horses, which were apparently coeval with +himself. Long practice had taught them perfectly how to accommodate +themselves to their master's failing. The saddle-horse adapted his +movements with vigilant dexterity to the rolling and pitching aloft. +On more than one occasion the woodman was found lying in the road by +the side or under the feet of his faithful and motionless team. Poor +old Jack! thou hast "gone under," deeper than that, at last, leaving +behind thee the savor of an honest name, slightly modified by that of +corn whisky. + +The Hayfield Inn, a little hostelrie on the Northern "pike," is the +scene of many a turkey-shoot. Between the hill and the road, at the +foot of a ravine that runs down at right angles, room enough has +been scooped out, partly by the rains and partly by the pick, for +the house, offices and microscopic yard decorated with hollyhocks and +larkspurs. Across the highway stands a capacious barn, with open space +for wagons, and between it and the brook beyond stretches a narrow +meadow, whence a vivid imagination has extracted the name of the +caravanserai. The open space flanking the house and road is the +rifle-course, so to speak. When occupied of a mellow October afternoon +by a party of the autochthones, in their pea-jackets of blue or +hickory homespun, it presents a gay and cheery spectacle. Festooning +fence and tree around them, the Virginia creeper, or _Ampelopsis_, +shames vermilion against the mass of pines that glooms skyward beyond. +Other tints of vegetable decay fringe the brook where it winds from +side to side of the long strip of grass, green from the autumnal rain. +Little reck the assembled marksmen of Nature's stage-decorations. One +group will be mentally weighing the turkeys, another discussing the +distance--too long or too short for the peculiar powers of this or the +other individual or his weapon. Around the rude target kneel two or +three, scoring on it each man his "centre," above or below, to the +right or left, of the true centre, to counteract the ascertained +obliquity of his eye or his gun. Here a six-foot Stoic, the Nestor +of the glen, is very formally going through the ceremony of loading. +Another is slowly, and with the precision of an astronomer, adjusting +the tin slides which protect his barrel from the glitter of the sun. +The chatter of a bevy of country maidens ripples from over the way. +The horses whinny under their square-skirted saddles, or stand "hard +by their chariots champing golden corn," like the horses of Nestor, +Agamemnon, Homer and Gladstone before Dr. Schliemann's Troy; the +yearlings in the meadow alternately gaze and graze; the guinea-fowl +now and then honors the shout over a good shot with its harsh but +well-meant rattle; the rifle speaks at measured intervals; the +prizes thin off to the remainder gobbler; and so, with the quiet +characteristic of rifle-matches, the evening draws toward the dew. The +smoke-whitened guns are carefully swabbed with tow and prepared for +their rest as tenderly as infants. Dobbin is rescued from the (fence) +stake to hie hill-ward with his master, cantering exultant or jogging +grumly according to the result of the "event;" and the metropolis of +Petticoat Gap--for such, in the vernacular and on the maps, is its +unfortunate designation--relapses into virtuous repose. + +The implement employed at these rural reunions is rarely the +breech-loader, or even the short gun. It promises to hold its ground +for years yet, gradually yielding to the little modern tool. The +essential characteristics of this we have described as they exist +and will probably remain. Variations in the rifling and--where +muzzle-loading is abandoned--in the appliances of the chamber will +continue to be made, as they have heretofore been made without number +numberless. The patterns now fashionable will give place to others, +in their turn to be dropped like a last year's coat. Remington, +Winchester and the rest will retire in favor of new contrivers, +devoted, like them, to the simple task of facilitating the flight of +the leaden arrow with its grooved feather in steel or iron. With them +will rise and fall a parallel series of names on a broader and more +sonorous field--the field of heavy artillery, the ponderous Wiard +being full brother to the liliputian Sharpe. Rifled cannon certainly +present problems far more complicated than the small-arm. They can +by no means be considered, as yet, so near perfection. It is boldly +maintained by many experts, both here and in England, that the +"smashing" power at point-blank range of such smooth-bores as the +Rodman 12-inch and 15-inch is greater than that of the rifle of +the same weight. The question is so closely involved with that of +armor-plates for ships and ports, and that with buoyancy and other +naval requirements, and economy and stability on land, that a long +period must elapse ere the reaching of fixed conclusions. Within the +present generation wooden line-of-battle ships, with sails alone, have +ruled the wave. These have given place to the steam-liners that began +and closed their brief career at Sebastopol and Bomarsund; and the +prize-belt is now borne, among the bruisers of the main, by the mob of +iron-clads, infinitely diverse of aspect and some of them shapeless, +like the geologic monsters that weltered in the primal deep. Which of +these is to triumph ultimately and devour its misshapen kindred, or +whether they are not all to go down before the torpedo, that carries +no gun and fires no shot, is a "survival-of-the-fittest" question to +be solved by Darwins yet to come. But it is tolerably safe to say that +where the best shooting is to be done it will continue to be done with +the conico-cylindrical missile, spirally revolving around the line of +flight; that is, with the arrow-rifle. + +EDWARD C. BRUCE. + + + + +TWO MIRRORS. + + My love but breathed upon the glass, + And, lo! upon the crystal sheen + A tender mist did straightway pass, + And raised its jealous veil between. + + But quick, as when Aurora's face + Is hid behind some transient shroud, + The sun strikes through with golden grace, + And she emerges from the cloud; + + So from her eyes celestial light + Shines on the mirror's cloudy plain, + And swift the envious mist takes flight, + And shows her lovely face again. + + When o'er the mirror of my heart, + Wherein her image true endures, + Some misty doubt doth sudden start, + And all the sweet reflex obscures, + + There beams such glow from her clear eyes + That swift the rising mists are laid; + And, fixed again, her image lies, + All lovelier for the passing shade. + +F.A. HILLARD. + + + + +MALCOLM. + +BY GEORGE MACDONALD, AUTHOR OF "ANNALS OF A QUIET NEIGHBORHOOD," +"ROBERT FALCONER," ETC. CHAPTER LXIV. + +THE LAIRD AND HIS MOTHER. + + +When Malcolm and Joseph set out from Duff Harbor to find the laird, +they could hardly be said to have gone in search of him: all in their +power was to seek the parts where he was occasionally seen, in the +hope of chancing upon him; and they wandered in vain about the woods +of Fife House all that week, returning disconsolate every evening to +the little inn on the banks of the Wan Water. Sunday came and +went without yielding a trace of him; and, almost in despair, they +resolved, if unsuccessful the next day, to get assistance and organize +a search for him. Monday passed like the days that had preceded it, +and they were returning dejectedly down the left bank of the Wan +Water in the gloaming, and nearing a part where it is hemmed in by +precipitous rocks and is very narrow and deep, crawling slow and black +under the lofty arch of an ancient bridge that spans it at one leap, +when suddenly they caught sight of a head peering at them over the +parapet. They dared not run for fear of terrifying him if it should be +the laird, and hurried quietly to the spot. But when they reached +the end of the bridge its round back was bare from end to end. On +the other side of the river the trees came close up, and pursuit was +hopeless in the gathering darkness. + +"Laird, laird! they've ta'en awa' Phemy, an' we dinna ken whaur to +luik for her," cried the poor father aloud. + +Almost the same instant, and as if he had issued from the ground, the +laird stood before them. The men started back with astonishment--soon +changed into pity, for there was light enough to see how miserable the +poor fellow looked. Neither exposure nor privation had thus weighed +upon him: he was simply dying of fear. Having greeted Joseph with +embarrassment, he kept glancing doubtfully at Malcolm, as if ready +to run on his least movement. In few words Joseph explained their +quest--with trembling voice and tears that would not be denied +enforcing the tale. Ere he had done the laird's jaw had fallen and +further speech was impossible to him. But by gestures sad and plain +enough he indicated that he knew nothing of her, and had supposed her +safe at home with her parents. In vain they tried to persuade him +to go back with them, promising every protection: for sole answer he +shook his head mournfully. + +There came a sudden gust of wind among the branches. Joseph, little +used to trees and their ways with the wind, turned toward the sound, +and Malcolm unconsciously followed his movement. When they turned +again the laird had vanished, and they took their way homeward in +sadness. + +What passed next with the laird can be but conjectured. It came to be +well enough known afterward where he had been hiding; and had it not +been dusk as they came down the river-bank the two men might, looking +up to the bridge from below, have had it suggested to them. For in the +half-spandrel wall between the first arch and the bank they might +have spied a small window looking down on the sullen, silent gloom, +foam-flecked with past commotion, that crept languidly away from +beneath. It belonged to a little vaulted chamber in the bridge, +devised by some vanished lord as a kind of summer-house--long +neglected, but having in it yet a mouldering table, a broken chair +or two and a rough bench. A little path led steep from the end of +the parapet down to its hidden door. It was now used only by the +game-keepers for traps and fishing-gear and odds and ends of things, +and was generally supposed to be locked up. The laird had, however, +found it open, and his refuge in it had been connived at by one of the +men, who, as they heard afterward, had given him the key and assisted +him in carrying out a plan he had devised for barricading the door. +It was from this place he had so suddenly risen at the call of Blue +Peter, and to it he had as suddenly withdrawn again--to pass in +silence and loneliness through his last purgatorial pain.[1] + +[Footnote 1: + Com' io fui dentro, in un bogliente vetro + Gittato mi sarei per rinfrescarmi, + Tant' era ivi lo'ncendio senza metro. + +_Del Purgatorio_, xxvii. 49.] + +Mrs. Stewart was sitting in her drawing-room alone: she seldom had +visitors at Kirkbyres--not that she liked being alone, or indeed being +there at all, for she would have lived on the Continent, but that her +son's trustees, partly to indulge their own aversion to her, taking +upon them a larger discretionary power than rightly belonged to them, +kept her too straitened, which no doubt in the recoil had its share +in poor Stephen's misery. It was only after scraping for a whole year +that she could escape to Paris or Homburg, where she was at home. +There her sojourn was determined by her good or ill fortune at faro. + +What she meditated over her knitting by the firelight--she had put out +her candles--it would be hard to say, perhaps unwholesome to think: +there are souls to look into which is, to our dim eyes, like gazing +down from the verge of one of the Swedenborgian pits. + +But much of the evil done by human beings is as the evil of evil +beasts: they know not what they do--an excuse which, except in regard +to the past, no man can make for himself, seeing the very making of it +must testify its falsehood. + +She looked up, gave a cry and started to her feet: Stephen stood +before her, halfway between her and the door. Revealed in a flicker +of flame from the fire, he vanished in the following shade, and for +a moment she stood in doubt of her seeing sense. But when the coal +flashed again there was her son, regarding her out of great eyes that +looked as if they had seen death. A ghastly air hung about him, as if +he had just come back from Hades, but in his silent bearing there was +a sanity, even dignity, which strangely impressed her. He came forward +a pace or two, stopped, and said, "Dinna be frichtit, mem. I'm come. +Sen' the lassie hame an' du wi' me as ye like. I canna haud aff o' me. +But I think I'm deein', an' ye needna misguide me." + +His voice, although it trembled a little, was clear and unimpeded, +and, though weak in its modulation, manly. + +Something in the woman's heart responded. Was it motherhood or the +deeper godhead? Was it pity for the dignity housed in the crumbling +clay, or repentance for the son of her womb? Or was it that sickness +gave hope, and she could afford to be kind? + +"I don't know what you mean, Stephen," she said, more gently than he +had ever heard her speak. + +Was it an agony of mind or of body, or was it but a flickering of the +shadows upon his face? A moment, and he gave a half-choked shriek and +fell on the floor. His mother turned from him with disgust and rang +the bell. "Send Tom here," she said. + +An elderly, hard-featured man came. + +"Stephen is in one of his fits," she said. + +The man looked about him: he could see no one in the room but his +mistress. + +"There he is," she continued, pointing to the floor. "Take him away. +Get him up to the loft and lay him in the hay." + +The man lifted his master like an unwieldy log and carried him, +convulsed, from the room. + +Stephen's mother sat down again by the fire and resumed her knitting. + + + + +CHAPTER LXV. + +THE LAIRD'S VISION. + + +Malcolm had just seen his master set out for his solitary ride when +one of the maids informed him that a man from Kirkbyres wanted him. +Hiding his reluctance, he went with her and found Tom, who was Mrs. +Stewart's grieve and had been about the place all his days. + +"Mr. Stephen's come hame, sir," he said, touching his bonnet, a +civility for which Malcolm was not grateful. + +"It's no possible," returned Malcolm. "I saw him last nicht." + +"He cam aboot ten o'clock, sir, an' hed a turn o' the fa'in' sickness +o' the spot. He's verra ill the noo, an' the mistress sent me ower to +speir gien ye wad obleege her by gaein' to see him." + +"Has he ta'en till's bed?" asked Malcolm. + +"We pat him infill 't, sir. He's ravin' mad, an' I'm thinkin' he's no +far frae his hin'er en'." + +"I'll gang wi' ye direckly," said Malcolm. + +In a few minutes they were riding fast along the road to Kirkbyres, +neither with much to say to the other, for Malcolm distrusted every +one about the place, and Tom was by nature taciturn. + +"What garred them sen' for me, div ye ken?" asked Malcolm at length +when they had gone about halfway. + +"He cried oot upo' ye i' the nicht," answered Tom. + +When they arrived Malcolm was shown into the drawing-room, where Mrs. +Stewart met him with red eyes. "Will you come and see my poor boy?" +she said. + +"I wull du that, mem. Is he verra ill?" + +"Very. I'm afraid he is in a bad way." + +She led him to a dark, old-fashioned chamber, rich and gloomy. There, +sunk in the down of a huge bed with carved ebony posts, lay the +laird, far too ill to be incommoded by the luxury to which he was +unaccustomed. His head kept tossing from side to side and his eyes +seemed searching in vacancy. + +"Has the doctor been to see 'im, mem?" asked Malcolm. + +"Yes, but he says he can't do anything for him." + +"Wha waits upon 'im, mem?" + +"One of the maids and myself." + +"I'll jist bide wi' 'im." + +"That will be very kind of you." + +"I s' bide wi' 'im till I see 'im oot o' this, ae w'y or ither,", +added Malcolm, and sat down by the bedside of his poor distrustful +friend. There Mrs. Stewart left him. + +The laird was wandering in the thorny thickets and slimy marshes +which, haunted by the thousand misshapen horrors of delirium, beset +the gates of life. That one so near the light and slowly drifting into +it should lie tossing in hopeless darkness! Is it that the delirium +falls, a veil of love, to hide other and more real terrors? + +His eyes would now and then meet those of Malcolm as they gazed +tenderly upon him, but the living thing that looked out of the windows +was darkened and saw him not. Occasionally a word would fall from him, +or a murmur of half-articulation float up like the sound of a river +of souls; but whether Malcolm heard, or only seemed to hear, something +like this, he could not tell, for he could not be certain that he had +not himself shaped the words by receiving the babble into the moulds +of the laird's customary thought and speech: "I dinna ken whaur I cam +frae--I kenna whaur I'm gaein' till.--Eh, gien He wad but come oot an' +shaw Himsel'!--O Lord! tak the deevil aff o' my puir back.--O Father +o' lichts! gar him tak the hump wi' him. I hae no fawvor for't, though +it's been my constant compainion this mony a lang." + +But in general he only moaned, and after the words thus heard or +fashioned by Malcolm lay silent and nearly still for an hour. + +All the waning afternoon Malcolm sat by his side, and neither mother, +maid nor doctor came near them. + +"Dark wa's an' no a breath!" he murmured or seemed to murmur again. +"Nae gerse nor flooers nor bees! I hae na room for my hump, an' I +canna lie upo' 't, for that wad kill me. Wull I _ever_ ken whaur I cam +frae? The wine's unco guid. Gie me a drap mair, gien ye please, Lady +Horn.--I thought the grave was a better place. I hae lain safter afore +I dee'd.--Phemy! Phemy! Rin, Phemy, rin! I s' bide wi' them this time. +Ye rin, Phemy!" + +As it grew dark the air turned very chill, and snow began to +fall thick and fast. Malcolm laid a few sticks on the smouldering +peat-fire, but they were damp and did not catch. All at once the laird +gave a shriek, and crying out, "Mither! mither!" fell into a fit so +violent that the heavy bed shook with his convulsions. Malcolm held +his wrists and called aloud. No one came, and, bethinking himself that +none could help, he waited in silence for what would soon follow. + +The fit passed quickly, and he lay quiet. The sticks had meantime +dried, and suddenly they caught fire and blazed up. The laird turned +his face toward the flame; a smile came over it; his eyes opened wide, +and with such an expression of seeing gazed beyond Malcolm that he +turned his in the same direction. + +"Eh, the bonny man! The bonny man!" murmured the laird. + +But Malcolm saw nothing, and turned again to the laird: his jaw had +fallen, and the light was fading out of his face like the last of a +sunset. He was dead. + +Malcolm rang the bell, told the woman who answered it what had taken +place, and hurried from the house, glad at heart that his friend was +at rest. + +He had ridden but a short distance when he was overtaken by a boy on a +fast pony, who pulled up as he neared him. + +"Whaur are ye for?" asked Malcolm. "I'm gaein' for Mistress Cat'nach," +answered the boy. + +"Gang yer w'ys than, an' dinna haud the deid waitin'," said Malcolm +with a shudder. + +The boy cast a look of dismay behind him and galloped off. + +The snow still fell and the night was dark. Malcolm spent nearly two +hours on the way, and met the boy returning, who told him that Mrs. +Catanach was not to be found. + +His road lay down the glen, past Duncan's cottage, at whose door he +dismounted, but he did not find him. Taking the bridle on his arm, he +walked by his horse the rest of the way. It was about nine o'clock, +and the night very dark. As he neared the house, he heard Duncan's +voice. "Malcolm, my son! Will it pe your ownself?" it said. + +"It wull that, daddy," answered Malcolm. + +The piper was sitting on a fallen tree, with the snow settling softly +upon him. + +"But it's ower cauld for ye to be sittin' there i' the snaw, an' the +mirk tu," added Malcolm. + +"Ta tarkness will not be ketting to ta inside of her," returned the +seer. "Ah, my poy! where ta light kets in, ta tarkness will pe ketting +in too. This now, your whole pody will pe full of tarkness, as ta +Piple will say, and Tuncan's pody tat will pe full of ta light." Then +with suddenly changed tone he said, "Listen, Malcolm, my son! Shell pe +ferry uneasy till you'll wass pe come home." + +"What's the maitter noo, daddy?" returned Malcolm. "Onything wrang +aboot the hoose?" + +"Something will pe wrong, yes, put she'll not can tell where. No, her +pody will not pe full of light! For town here, in ta curset Lowlands, +ta sight has peen almost cone from her, my son. It will now pe no more +as a co creeping troo' her, and shell nefer see plain no more till +she'll pe come pack to her own mountains." + +"The puir laird's gane back to his," said Malcolm. "I won'er gien he +kens yet, or gien he gangs speirin' at ilk ane he meets gien he can +tell him whaur he cam frae. He's mad nae mair, ony gait." + +"How? Will he pe not tead? Ta poor lairt! Ta poor maad lairt!" + +"Ay, he's deid: maybe that's what'll be troublin' yer sicht, daddy." + +"No, my son. Ta maad lairt was not ferry maad, and if he was maad +he was not paad, and it was not ta plame of him: he was coot always, +howefer." + +"He wass that, daddy." + +"But it will pe something ferry paad, and it will pe efer troubling +her speerit. When she'll pe take ta pipes to pe amusing herself, and +will plow 'Till an crodh a' Dhonnaehaidh' ('Turn the Cows, Duncan'), +out will pe come' Cumhadh an fhir mhoir' ('The Lament of the Big +Man'). Aal is not well, my son." + +"Weel, dinna distress yersel', daddy. Lat come what wull come. +Foreseein' 's no forefen'in'. Ye ken yersel' at mony 's the time the +seer has broucht the thing on by tryin' to haud it aff." + +"It will be true, my son. Put it would aalways haf come." + +"Nae doubt. Sae ye jist come in wi' me, daddy, an' sit doon by the ha' +fire, an' I'll come to ye as sune's I've been to see 'at the maister +disna want me. But ye'll better come up wi' me to my room first," he +went on, "for the maister disna like to see me in onything but the +kilt." + +"And why will he not pe in ta kilts aal as now?" + +"I hae been ridin', ye ken, daddy, an' the trews fits the saiddle +better nor the kilts." + +"She'll not pe knowing tat. Old Allister, your creat--her own +crandfather, was ta pest horseman ta worlt efer saw, and he'll nefer +pe hafing ta trews to his own lecks nor ta saddle to his horse's pack. +He'll chust make his men pe strap on an old plaid, and he'll be kive +a chump, and away they wass, horse and man, one peast, aal two of tem +poth together." + +Thus chatting, they went to the stable, and from the stable to the +house, where they met no one, and went straight up to Malcolm's room, +the old man making as little of the long ascent as Malcolm himself. + + + + +CHAPTER LXVI. + +THE CRY FROM THE CHAMBER. + + +Brooding--if a man of his temperament may ever be said to brood--over +the sad history of his young wife and the prospects of his daughter, +the marquis rode over fields and through gates--he never had been one +to jump a fence in cold blood--till the darkness began to fall; and +the bearings of his perplexed position came plainly before him. + +First of all, Malcolm acknowledged and the date of his mother's death +known, what would Florimel be in the eyes of the world? Supposing the +world deceived by the statement that his mother died when he was born, +where yet was the future he had marked out for her? He had no money to +leave her, and she must be helplessly dependent on her brother. + +Malcolm, on the other hand, might make a good match, or, with the +advantages he could secure him in the army, still better in the navy, +well enough push his way in the world. + +Miss Horn could produce no testimony, and Mrs. Catanach had asserted +him to be the son of Mrs. Stewart. He had seen enough, however, to +make him dread certain possible results if Malcolm were acknowledged +as the laird of Kirkbyres. No: there was but one hopeful measure, one +which he had even already approached in a tentative way--an appeal, +namely, to Malcolm himself, in which, while acknowledging his probable +rights, but representing in the strongest manner the difficulty of +proving them, he would set forth in their full dismay the consequences +to Florimel of their public recognition, and offer, upon the pledge +of his word to a certain line of conduct, to start him in any path he +chose to follow. + +Having thought the thing out pretty thoroughly, as he fancied, and +resolved at the same time to feel his way toward negotiations with +Mistress Catanach, he turned and rode home. + +After a tolerable dinner he was sitting over a bottle of the port +which he prized beyond anything else his succession had brought +him, when the door of the dining-room opened suddenly and the butler +appeared, pale with terror. "My lord! my lord!" he stammered as he +closed the door behind him. + +"Well? What the devil's the matter now? Whose cow's dead?" + +"Your lordship didn't hear it, then?" faltered the butler. + +"You've been drinking, Bings," said the marquis, lifting his seventh +glass of port. + +"_I_ didn't say I heard it, my lord." + +"Heard what, in the name of Beelzebub?" + +"The ghost, my lord." + +"The what?" shouted the marquis. + +"That's what they call it, my lord. It's all along of having that +wizard's chamber in the house, my lord." + +"You're a set of fools," said the marquis--"the whole kit of you!" + +"That's what I say, my lord. I don't know what to do with them, +stericking and screaming. Mrs. Courthope is trying her best with them, +but it's my belief she's about as bad herself." + +The marquis finished his glass of wine, poured out and drank another, +then walked to the door. When the butler opened it a strange sight +met his eyes. All the servants in the house, men and women, Duncan and +Malcolm alone excepted, had crowded after the butler, every one afraid +of being left behind; and there gleamed the crowd of ghastly faces +in the light of the great hall-fire. Demon stood in front, his mane +bristling and his eyes flaming. Such was the silence that the marquis +heard the low howl of the waking wind, and the snow like the patting +of soft hands against the windows. He stood for a moment, more than +half enjoying their terror, when from somewhere in the building a +far-off shriek, shrill and piercing, rang in every ear. Some of the +men drew in their breath with a gasping sob, but most of the women +screamed outright; and that set the marquis cursing. + +Duncan and Malcolm had but just entered the bed-room of the latter +when the shriek rent the air close beside, and for a moment deafened +them. So agonized, so shrill, so full of dismal terror was it, that +Malcolm stood aghast, and Duncan started to his feet with responsive +outcry. But Malcolm at once recovered himself. "Bide here till I come +back," he whispered, and hurried noiselessly out. + +In a few minutes he returned, during which all had been still. "Noo, +daddy," he said, "I'm gaein' to drive in the door o' the neist room. +There's some deevilry at wark there. Stan' ye i' the door, an' ghaist +or deevil 'at wad win by ye, grip it, an' haud on like Demon the dog." + +"She will so, she will so," muttered Duncan in a strange tone. +"Ochone! that she'll not pe hafing her turk with her! Ochone! ochone!" + +Malcolm took the key of the wizard's chamber from his chest and his +candle from the table, which he set down in the passage. In a moment +he had unlocked the door, put his shoulder to it and burst it open. +A light was extinguished, and a shapeless figure went gliding away +through the gloom. It was no shadow, however, for, dashing itself +against a door at the other side of the chamber, it staggered back +with an imprecation of fury and fear, pressed two hands to its head, +and, turning at bay, revealed the face of Mrs. Catanach. + +In the door stood the blind piper with outstretched arms and hands +ready to clutch, the fingers curved like claws, his knees and haunches +bent, leaning forward like a rampant beast prepared to spring. In his +face was wrath, hatred, vengeance, disgust--an enmity of all mingled +kinds. + +Malcolm was busied with something in the bed, and when she turned Mrs, +Catanach saw only Duncan's white face of hatred gleaming through the +darkness. "Ye auld donnert deevil!" she cried, with an addition too +coarse to be set down, and threw herself upon him. + +The old man said never a word, but with indrawn breath hissing through +his clenched teeth clutched her, and down they went together in the +passage, the piper undermost. He had her by the throat, it is true, +but she had her fingers in his eyes, and, kneeling on his chest, kept +him down with a vigor of hostile effort that drew the very picture of +murder. It lasted but a moment, however, for the old man, spurred +by torture as well as hate, gathered what survived of a most sinewy +strength into one huge heave, threw her back into the room, and rose +with the blood streaming from his eyes, just as the marquis came round +the near end of the passage, followed by Mrs. Courthope, the butler, +Stoat and two of the footmen. Heartily enjoying a row, he stopped +instantly, and, signing a halt to his followers, stood listening to +the mud-geyser that now burst from Mrs. Catanach's throat. + +"Ye blin' abortion o' Sawtan's soo!" she cried, "didna I tak ye to +du wi' ye as I likit? An' that deil's tripe ye ca' yer oye +(_grandson_)--He! he! _him_ yer gran'son! He's naething but ane o' yer +hatit Cawm'ells!" + +"A teanga a' diabhuil mhoir, tha thu ag dènamh breug (O tongue of the +great devil! thou art making a lie)," screamed Duncan, speaking for +the first time. + +"God lay me deid i' my sins gien he be onything but a bastard +Cawm'ell!" she asseverated with a laugh of demoniacal scorn. "Yer +dautit (_petted_) Ma'colm's naething but the dyke-side brat o' the +late Grizel Cawm'ell, 'at the fowk tuik for a sant 'cause she grat +an' said naething. I laid the Cawm'ell pup i' yer boody (_scarecrow_) +airms wi' my ain han's, upo' the tap o' yer curst scraighin' bagpipes +'at sae aften drave the sleep frae my een. Na, ye wad nane o' me! But +I ga'e ye a Cawm'ell bairn to yer hert for a' that, ye auld, hungert, +weyver (_spider_)-leggit, worm-aten idiot!" + +A torrent of Gaelic broke from Duncan, into the midst of which rushed +another from Mrs. Catanach, similar, but coarse in vowel and harsh +in consonant sounds. The marquis stepped into the room. "What is the +meaning of all this?" he said with dignity. + +The tumult of Celtic altercation ceased. The old piper drew himself up +to his full height and stood silent. Mrs. Catanach, red as fire +with exertion and wrath, turned ashy pale. The marquis cast on her a +searching and significant look. + +"See here, my lord," said Malcolm. + +Candle in hand, his lordship approached the bed. At the same moment +Mrs. Catanach glided out with her usual downy step, gave a wink as of +mutual intelligence to the group at the door, and vanished. + +On Malcolm's arm lay the head of a young girl. Her thin, worn +countenance was stained with tears and livid with suffocation. She was +recovering, but her eyes rolled stupid and visionless. + +"It's Phemy, my lord--Blue Peter's lassie, 'at was tint," said +Malcolm. + +"It begins to look serious," said the marquis.--"Mrs. Catanach! Mrs. +Courthope!" + +He turned toward the door. Mrs. Courthope entered, and a head or two +peeped in after her. Duncan stood as before, drawn up and stately, his +visage working, but his body motionless as the statue of a sentinel. + +"Where is the Catanach woman gone?" cried the marquis. + +"Cone!" shouted the piper. "Cone! and her huspant will be waiting to +pe killing her! Och nan ochan!" + +"Her husband!" echoed the marquis. + +"Ach! she'll not can pe helping it, my lort--no more till one will +pe tead; and tat should pe ta woman, for she'll pe a paad woman--ta +worstest woman efer was married, my lort." + +"That's saying a good deal," returned the marquis. + +"Not one wort more as enough, my lort," said Duncan. "She was only pe +her next wife, put, ochone! ochone! why did she'll pe marry her? You +would haf stapt her long aco, my lort, if she'll was your wife and +you was knowing ta tamned fox and padger she was pe. Ochone! and she +tidn't pe have her turk at her hench nor her sgian in her hose." + +He shook his hands like a despairing child, then stamped and wept in +the agony of frustrated rage. + +Mrs. Courthope took Phemy in her arms and carried her to her own room, +where she opened the window and let the snowy wind blow full upon her. +As soon as she came quite to herself, Malcolm set out to bear the good +tidings to her father and mother. + +Only a few nights before had Phemy been taken to the room where they +found her. She had been carried from place to place, and had been some +time, she believed, in Mrs. Catanach's own house. They had always kept +her in the dark, and removed her at night blindfolded. When asked if +she had never cried out before, she said she had been too frightened; +and when questioned as to what had made her do so then, she knew +nothing of it: she remembered only that a horrible creature appeared +by the bedside, after which all was blank. On the floor they found +a hideous death-mask, doubtless the cause of the screams which Mrs. +Catanach had sought to stifle with the pillows and bed-clothes. + +When Malcolm returned he went at once to the piper's cottage, where +he found him in bed, utterly exhausted and as utterly restless. "Weel, +daddy," he said, "I doobt I daurna come near ye noo." + +"Come to her arms, my poor poy," faltered Duncan. "She'll pe sorry in +her sore heart for her poy. Nefer you pe minding, my son: you couldn't +help ta Cam'ell mother, and you'll pe her own poy however. Ochone! it +will pe a plot upon you aal your tays, my son, and she'll not can help +you, and it'll pe preaking her old heart." + +"Gien God thoucht the Cam'ells worth makin', daddy, I dinna see 'at I +hae ony richt to compleen 'at I cam' o' them." + +"She hopes you'll pe forgifing ta plind old man, however. She couldn't +see, or she would haf known at once petter." + +"I dinna ken what ye're efter noo, daddy," said Malcolm. + +"That she'll do you a creat wrong, and she'll be ferry sorry for it, +my son." + +"What wrang did ye ever du me, daddy?" + +"That she was let you crow up a Cam'ell, my poy. If she tid put know +ta paad blood was pe in you, she wouldn't pe tone you ta wrong as +pring you up." + +"That's a wrang no ill to forgi'e, daddy. But it's a pity ye didna +lat me lie, for maybe syne Mistress Catanach wad hae broucht me up +hersel', an' I micht hae come to something." + +"Ta duvil mhor (_great_) would pe in your heart and prain and poosom, +my son." + +"Weel, ye see what ye hae saved me frae." + +"Yes; put ta duvil will be to pay, for she couldn't safe you from ta +Cam'ell plood, my son. Malcolm, my poy," he added after a pause, and +with the solemnity of a mighty hate, "ta efil woman herself will pe a +Cam'ell--ta woman Catanach will pe a Cam'ell, and her nainsel' she'll +not know it pefore she'll be in ta ped with ta worstest Cam'ell tat +ever God made; and she pecks his pardon, for she'll not pelieve He +wass making ta Cam'ells." + +"Divna ye think God made me, daddy?" asked Malcolm. + +The old man thought for a little. "Tat will tepend on who was pe your +father, my son," he replied. "If he too will be a Cam'ell--ochone! +ochone! Put tere may pe some coot plood co into you--more as enough to +say God will pe make you, my son. Put don't pe asking, Malcolm--ton't +you'll pe asking." + +"What am I no to ask, daddy?" + +"Ton't pe asking who made you, who was ta father to you, my poy. She +would rather not pe knowing, for ta man might pe a Cam'ell poth. And +if she couldn't pe lofing you no more, my son, she would pe tie before +her time, and her tays would pe long in ta land under ta crass, my +son." + +But the remembrance of the sweet face whose cold loveliness he had +once kissed was enough to outweigh with Malcolm all the prejudices of +Duncan's instillation, and he was proud to take up even her shame. +To pass from Mrs. Stewart to her was to escape from the clutches of a +vampire demon to the arms of a sweet mother-angel. + +Deeply concerned for the newly-discovered misfortunes of the old man +to whom he was indebted for this world's life at least, he anxiously +sought to soothe him; but he had far more and far worse to torment him +than Malcolm even yet knew, and with burning cheeks and bloodshot +eyes he lay tossing from side to side, now uttering terrible curses +in Gaelic and now weeping bitterly. Malcolm took his loved pipes, and +with the gentlest notes he could draw from them tried to charm to rest +the ruffled waters of his spirit; but his efforts were all in vain, +and believing at length that he would be quieter without him, he went +to the House and to his own room. + +The door of the adjoining chamber stood open, and the long-forbidden +room lay exposed to any eye. Little did Malcolm think as he gazed +around it that it was the room in which he had first breathed the air +of the world; in which his mother had wept over her own false position +and his reported death; and from which he had been carried, by +Duncan's wicked wife, down the ruinous stair and away to the lip of +the sea, to find a home in the arms of the man whom he had just +left on his lonely couch torn between the conflicting emotions of a +gracious love for him and the frightful hate of her. + + + + +CHAPTER LXVII. + +FEET OF WOOL. + + +The next day, Miss Horn, punctual as Fate, presented herself at Lossie +House, and was shown at once into the marquis's study, as it was +called. When his lordship entered she took the lead the moment the +door was shut. "By this time, my lord, ye'll doobtless hae made up yer +min' to du what's richt?" she said. + +"That's what I have always wanted to do," returned the marquis. + +"Hm!" remarked Miss Horn as plainly as inarticulately. + +"In this affair," he supplemented; adding, "It's not always so easy to +tell what _is_ right." + +"It's no aye easy to luik for 't wi' baith yer een," said Miss Horn. + +"This woman Catanach--we must get her to give credible testimony. +Whatever the fact may be, we must have strong evidence. And there +comes the difficulty, that she has already made an altogether +different statement." + +"It gangs for naething, my lord. It was never made afore a justice o' +the peace." + +"I wish you would go to her and see how she is inclined." + +"Me gang to Bawbie Catanach!" exclaimed Miss Horn. "I wad as sune gang +an' kittle Sawtan's nose wi' the p'int o' 's tail. Na, na, my lord. +Gien onybody gang till her wi' my wull, it s' be a limb o' the law. I +s' hae nae cognostin' wi' her." + +"You would have no objection, however; to my seeing her, I +presume--just to let her know that we have an inkling of the truth?" +said the marquis. + +Now, all this was the merest talk, for of course Miss Horn could not +long remain in ignorance of the declaration her fury had, the night +previous, forced from Mrs. Catanach; but he must, he thought, put +her off and keep her quiet, if possible, until he had come to an +understanding with Malcolm, after which he would no doubt have his +trouble with her. + +"Ye can du as yer lordship likes," answered Miss Horn, "but I wadna +hae 't said o' me 'at I had ony dealin's wi' her. Wha kens but she +micht say ye tried to bribe her? There's naething she wad bogle at +gien she thoucht it worth her while. No 'at I 'm feart at her. Lat her +lee! I'm no sae blate but--Only dinna lippen till a word she says, my +lord." + +The marquis hesitated. "I wonder whether the real source of my +perplexity occurs to you, Miss Horn," he said at length. "You know I +have a daughter?" + +"Weel eneuch that, my lord." + +"By my second marriage." + +"Nae merridge ava', my lord." + +"True, if I confess to the first." + +"A' the same whether or no, my lord." + +"Then you see," the marquis went on, refusing offence, "what the +admission of your story would make of my daughter?" + +"That's plain eneuch, my lord." + +"Now, if I have read Malcolm right he has too much regard for +his--mistress--to put her in such a false position." + +"That is, my lord, ye wad hae yer lawfu' son beir the lawless name." + +"No, no: it need never come out what he is. I will provide for him--as +a gentleman, of course." + +"It canna be, my lord. Ye can du naething for him, wi' that face o' +his, but oot comes the trouth as to the father o' 'im; an' it wadna be +lang afore the tale was ekit oot wi' the name o' his mither--Mistress +Catanach wad see to that, gien 'twas only to spite me--an' I wunna hae +my Grizel ca'd what she is not for ony lord's dauchter i' the three +kynriks." + +"What _does_ it matter, now she's dead and gone?" said the marquis, +false to the dead in his love for the living. + +"Deid an' gane, my lord? What ca' ye deid an' gane? Maybe the great +anes o' the yerth get sic a forlethie (_surfeit_) o' grand'ur 'at +they're for nae mair, an' wad perish like the brute beast. For +onything I ken, they may hae their wuss, but for mysel', I wad warstle +to haud my sowl waukin' (_awake_) i' the verra article o' deith, for +the bare chance o' seein' my bonny Grizel again. It's a mercy I hae +nae feelin's," she added, arresting her handkerchief on its way to her +eyes, and refusing to acknowledge the single tear that ran down her +cheek. + +Plainly she was not like any of the women whose characters the marquis +had accepted as typical of womankind. + +"Then you won't leave the matter to her husband and son?" he said +reproachfully. + +"I tellt ye, my lord, I wad du naething but what I saw to be richt. +Lat this affair oot o' my han's I daurna. That laad ye micht work +to onything 'at made agane himsel'. He's jist like his puir mither +there." + +"If Miss Campbell _was_ his mother," said the marquis. + +"Miss Cam'ell!" cried Miss Horn. "I'll thank yer lordship to ca' her +by her ain, an' that's Lady Lossie." + +What of the something ruinous heart of the marquis was habitable was +occupied by his daughter, and had no accommodation at present either +for his dead wife or his living son. Once more he sat thinking in +silence for a while. "I'll make Malcolm a post-captain in the navy and +give you a thousand pounds," he said at length, hardly knowing that he +spoke. + +Miss Horn rose to her full height and stood like an angel of rebuke +before him. Not a word did she speak, only looked at him for a moment +and turned to leave the room. The marquis saw his danger, and striding +to the door stood with his back against it. + +"Think ye to scare _me_, my lord?" she asked with a scornful laugh. +"Gang an' scare the stane lion-beast at yer ha'-door. Haud oot o' the +gait an' lat me gang." + +"Not until I know what you are going to do," said the marquis very +seriously. + +"I hae naething mair to transac' wi' yer lordship. You an' me 's +strangers, my lord." + +"Tut! tut! I was but trying you." + +"An' gien I had ta'en the disgrace ye offert me, ye wad hae drawn +back?" + +"No, certainly." + +"Ye wasna tryin' me, then: ye was duin' yer best to corrup' me." + +"I'm no splitter of hairs." + +"My lord, it's nane but the corrup'ible wad seek to corrup'." + +The marquis gnawed a nail or two in silence. Miss Horn dragged an +easy-chair within a couple of yards of him. + +"We'll see wha tires o' this ghem first, my lord," she said as she +sank into its hospitable embrace. + +The marquis turned to lock the door, but there was no key in it. +Neither was there any chair within reach, and he was not fond of +standing. Clearly, his enemy had the advantage. + +"Hae ye h'ard o' puir Sandy Graham--hoo they're misguidin' him, my +lord?" she asked with composure. + +The marquis was first astounded, and then tickled by her assurance. +"No," he answered. + +"They hae turnt him oot o' hoose an' ha'--schuil, at least, an' hame," +she rejoined. "I may say they hae turnt him oot o' Scotlan', for what +presbytery wad hae him efter he had been fun' guilty o' no thinkin' +like ither fowk? Ye maun stan' his guid freen', my lord." + +"He shall be Malcolm's tutor," answered the marquis, not to be outdone +in coolness, "and go with him to Edinburgh--or Oxford, if he prefers +it." + +"Never yerl o' Colonsay had a better," said Miss Horn. + +"Softly, softly, ma'am," returned the marquis. "I did not say he +should go in that style." + +"He s' gang as my lord o' Colonsay or he s' no gang at _your_ expense, +my lord," said his antagonist. + +"Really, ma'am, one would think you were my grandmother, to hear you +order my affairs for me." + +"I wuss I war, my lord: I sud gar ye hear risson upo' baith sides o' +yer heid, I s' warran'." + +The marquis laughed. "Well, I can't stand here all day," he said, +impatiently swinging one leg. + +"I'm weel awaur o' that, my lord," answered Miss Horn, rearranging her +scanty skirt. + +"How long are you going to keep me, then?" + +"I wadna hae ye bide a meenute langer nor's agreeable to yersel'. But +_I_'m in nae hurry sae lang's ye're afore me. Ye're nae ill to luik +at, though ye maun hae been bonnier the day ye wan the hert o' my +Grizel." + +The marquis uttered an oath and left the door. Miss Horn sprang to it, +but there was the marquis again. "Miss Horn," he said, "I beg you will +give me another day to think of this." + +"Whaur's the use? A' the thinkin' i' the warl' canna alter a single +fac'. Ye maun do richt by my laddie o' yer ainsel', or I maun gar ye." + +"You would find a lawsuit heavy, Miss Horn." + +"An' ye wad fin' the scandal o' 't ill to bide, my lord. It wad come +sair upo' Miss--I kenna what name she has a richt till, my lord." + +The marquis uttered a frightful imprecation, left the door, and, +sitting down, hid his face in his hands. + +Miss Horn rose, but instead of securing her retreat, approached him +gently and stood by his side. "My lord," she said, "I canna thole to +see a man in tribble. Women's born till 't, an' they tak it an' are +thankfu'; but a man never gies in till 't, an' sae it comes harder +upo' him nor upo' them. Hear me, my lord: gien there be a man upo' +this earth wha wad shield a woman, that man's Ma'colm Colonsay." + +"If only she weren't his sister!" murmured the marquis. + +"An' jist bethink ye, my lord: wad it be onything less nor an +imposition to lat a man merry her ohn tellt him what she was?" + +"You insolent old woman!" cried the marquis, losing his temper, +discretion and manners all together. "Go and do your worst, and be +damned to you!" + +So saying, he left the room, and Miss Horn found her way out of the +house in a temper quite as fierce as his--in character, however, +entirely different, inasmuch as it was righteous. + +At that very moment Malcolm was in search of his master, and seeing +the back of him disappear in the library, to which he had gone in a +half-blind rage, he followed him. "My lord!" he said. + +"What do you want?" returned his master in a rage. For some time he +had been hauling on the curb-rein, which had fretted his temper the +more, and when he let go the devil ran away with him. + +"I thoucht yer lordship wad like to see an auld stair I cam upo' the +ither day, 'at gangs frae the wizard's chaumer--" + +"Go to hell with your damned tomfoolery!" said the marquis. "If ever +you mention that cursed hole again I'll kick you out of the house." + +Malcolm's eyes flashed and a fierce answer rose to his lips, but he +had seen that his master was in trouble, and sympathy supplanted rage. +He turned and left the room in silence. + +Lord Lossie paced up and down the library for a whole hour--a +long time for him to be in one mood. The mood changed color pretty +frequently during the hour, however, and by degrees his wrath +assuaged. But at the end of it he knew no more what he was going to do +than when he left Miss Horn in the study. Then came the gnawing of his +usual ennui and restlessness: he must find something to do. + +The thing he always thought of first was a ride, but the only animal +of horse-kind about the place which he liked was the bay mare, and her +he had lamed. He would go and see what the rascal had come bothering +about--alone, though, for he could not endure the sight of the +fisher-fellow, damn him! + +In a few minutes he stood in the wizard's chamber, and glanced around +it with a feeling of discomfort rather than sorrow--of annoyance at +the trouble of which it had been for him both fountain and storehouse, +rather than regret for the agony and contempt which his selfishness +had brought upon the woman he loved: then spying the door in the +farthest corner, he made for it, and in a moment more, his curiosity +now thoroughly roused, was slowly gyrating down the steps of the old +screw-stair. + +But Malcolm had gone to his own room, and, hearing some one in the +next, half suspected who it was, and went in. Seeing the closet-door +open, he hurried to the stair, and shouted, "My lord! my lord! or +whaever ye are! tak care hoo ye gang or ye'll get a terrible fa'." + +Down a single yard the stair was quite dark, and he dared not follow +fast for fear of himself falling and occasioning the accident he +feared. As he descended he kept repeating his warnings, but either his +master did not hear or heeded too little, for presently Malcolm heard +a rush, a dull fall and a groan. Hurrying as fast as he dared with +the risk of falling upon him, he found the marquis lying amongst the +stones in the ground entrance, apparently unable to move, and white +with pain. Presently, however, he got up, swore a good deal and limped +swearing into the house. + +The doctor, who was sent for instantly, pronounced the knee-cap +injured, and applied leeches. Inflammation set in, and another doctor +and surgeon were sent for from Aberdeen. They came, applied poultices, +and again leeches, and enjoined the strictest repose. The pain was +severe, but to one of the marquis's temperament the enforced quiet was +worse. + + + + +CHAPTER LXVIII. + +HANDS OF IRON. + + +The marquis was loved by his domestics, and his accident, with its +consequences, although none more serious were anticipated, cast a +gloom over Lossie House. Far apart as was his chamber from all the +centres of domestic life, the pulses of his suffering beat as it were +through the house, and the servants moved with hushed voice and gentle +footfall. + +Outside, the course of events waited upon his recovery, for Miss Horn, +was too generous not to delay proceedings while her adversary was +ill. Besides, what she most of all desired was the marquis's free +acknowledgment of his son; and after such a time of suffering and +constrained reflection as he was now passing through he could hardly +fail, she thought, to be more inclined to what was just and fair. + +Malcolm had of course hastened to the schoolmaster with the joy of his +deliverance from Mrs. Stewart, but Mr. Graham had not acquainted him +with the discovery Miss Horn had made, or her belief concerning his +large interest therein, to which Malcolm's report of the wrath-born +declaration of Mrs. Catanach had now supplied the only testimony +wanting, for the right of disclosure was Miss Horn's. To her he had +carried Malcolm's narrative of late events, tenfold strengthening +her position; but she was anxious in her turn that the revelation +concerning his birth should come to him from his father. Hence, +Malcolm continued in ignorance of the strange dawn that had begun to +break on the darkness of his origin. + +Miss Horn had told Mr. Graham what the marquis had said about the +tutorship, but the schoolmaster only shook his head with a smile, and +went on with his preparations for departure. + +The hours went by, the days lengthened into weeks, and the marquis's +condition did not improve. He had never known sickness and pain +before, and like most of the children of this world counted them the +greatest of evils; nor was there any sign of their having as yet begun +to open his eyes to what those who have seen them call truths--those +who have never even boded their presence count absurdities. + +More and more, however, he desired the attendance of Malcolm, who was +consequently a great deal about him, serving with a love to account +for which those who knew his nature would not have found it necessary +to fall back on the instinct of the relation between them. The marquis +had soon satisfied himself that that relation was as yet unknown to +him, and was all the better pleased with his devotion and tenderness. + +The inflammation continued, increased, spread, and at length the +doctors determined to amputate. But the marquis was absolutely +horrified at the idea--shrank from it with invincible repugnance. +The moment the first dawn of comprehension vaguely illuminated +their periphrastic approaches he blazed out in a fury, cursed them +frightfully, called them all the contemptuous names in his rather +limited vocabulary, and swore he would see them--uncomfortable first. + +"We fear mortification, my lord," said the physician calmly. + +"So do I. Keep it off," returned the marquis. + +"We fear we cannot, my lord." It had, in fact, already commenced. + +"Let it mortify, then, and be damned," said his lordship. + +"I trust, my lord, you will reconsider it," said the surgeon. "We +should not have dreamed of suggesting a measure of such severity had +we not had reason to dread that the further prosecution of gentler +means would but lessen your lordship's chance of recovery." + +"You mean, then, that my life is in danger?" + +"We fear," said the physician, "that the amputation proposed is the +only thing that can save it." + +"What a brace of blasted bunglers you are!" cried the marquis, and, +turning away his face, lay silent. + +The two men looked at each other and said nothing. + +Malcolm was by, and a pang shot to his heart at the verdict. The men +retired to consult. Malcolm approached the bed. "My lord!" he said +gently. + +No reply came. + +"Dinna lea 's oor lanes, my lord--no yet," Malcolm persisted. "What's +to come o' my leddy?" + +The marquis gave a gasp. Still he made no reply. + +"She has naebody, ye ken, my lord, 'at ye wad like to lippen her wi'." + +"You must take care of her when I am gone, Malcolm," murmured the +marquis; and his voice was now gentle with sadness and broken with +misery. + +"Me, my lord!" returned Malcolm. "Wha wad min' me? An' what cud I du +wi' her? I cudna even hand her ohn wat her feet. Her leddy's maid cud +du mair wi' her, though I wad lay doon my life for her, as I tauld ye, +my lord; an' she kens 't weel eneuch." + +Silence followed. Both men were thinking. + +"Gie me a richt, my lord, an' I'll du my best," said Malcolm, at +length breaking the silence. + +"What do you mean?" growled the marquis, whose mood had altered. + +"Gie me a legal richt, my lord, an' see gien I dinna." + +"See what?" + +"See gien I dinna luik weel efter my leddy." + +"How am I to see? I shall be dead and damned." + +"Please God, my lord, ye'll be alive an' weel--in a better place, if +no here to luik efter my leddy yersel'." + +"Oh, I dare say," muttered the marquis. + +"But ye'll hearken to the doctors, my lord," Malcolm went on, "an' no +dee wantin' time to consider o' 't." + +"Yes, yes: to-morrow I'll have another talk with them. We'll see about +it. There's time enough yet. They're all coxcombs, every one of them. +They never give a patient the least credit for common sense." + +"I dinna ken, my lord," said Malcolm doubtfully. + +After a few minutes' silence, during which Malcolm thought he had +fallen asleep, the marquis resumed abruptly. "What do you mean by +giving you a legal right?" he said. + +"There's some w'y o' makin' ae body guairdian till anither, sae 'at +the law 'll uphaud him--isna there, my lord?" + +"Yes, surely. Well! Rather odd--wouldn't it be?--a young fisher-lad +guardian to a marchioness! Eh? They say there's nothing new under the +sun, but that sounds rather like it, I think." + +Malcolm was overjoyed to hear him speak with something like his old +manner. He felt he could stand any amount of chaff from him now, and +so the proposition he had made in seriousness he went on to defend in +the hope of giving amusement, yet with a secret wild delight in the +dream of such full devotion to the service of Lady Florimel. + +"It wad soon' queer eneuch, my lord, nae doobt, but fowk maunna min' +the soon' o' a thing gien 't be a' straucht an' fair, an' strong +eneuch to stan'. They cudna lauch me oot o' my richts, be they 'at +they likit--Lady Bellair or ony o' them--na, nor jaw me oot o' them +aither." + +"They might do a good deal to render those rights of little use," said +the marquis. + +"That wad come till a trial o' brains, my lord," returned Malcolm: +"an' ye dinna think I wadna hae the wit to speir advice; an', what's +mair, to ken whan it was guid, an' tak it. There's lawyers, my lord." + +"And their expenses?" + +"Ye cud lea' sae muckle to be waured (_spent_) upo' the cairryin' oot +o' yer lordship's wull." + +"Who would see that you applied it properly?" + +"My ain conscience, my lord, or Mr. Graham gien ye likit." + +"And how would you live yourself?" + +"Ow! lea' ye that to me, my lord. Only dinna imagine I wad be behauden +to yer lordship. I houp I hae mair pride nor that. Ilka poun'-not', +shillin' an' bawbee sud be laid oot for _her_, an' what was left +hainet (_saved_) for her." + +"By Jove! it's a daring proposal!" said the marquis; and, which seemed +strange to Malcolm, not a single thread of ridicule ran through the +tone in which he made the remark. + +The next day came, but brought neither strength of body nor of mind +with it. Again his professional attendants besought him, and he heard +them more quietly, but rejected their proposition as positively as +before. In a day or two he ceased to oppose it, but would not hear of +preparation. Hour glided into hour, and days had gathered to a week, +when they assailed him with a solemn and last appeal. + +"Nonsense!" answered the marquis. "My leg is getting better. I feel no +pain--in fact, nothing but a little faintness. Your damned medicines, +I haven't a doubt." + +"You are in the greatest danger, my lord. It is all but too late even +now." + +"To-morrow, then, if it must be. To-day I could not endure to have my +hair cut, positively; and as to having my leg off--pooh! the thing's +preposterous." + +He turned white and shuddered, for all the nonchalance of his speech. + +When to-morrow came there was not a surgeon in the land who would have +taken his leg off. He looked in their faces, and seemed for the first +time convinced of the necessity of the measure. + +"You may do as you please," he said: "I am ready." + +"Not to-day, my lord," replied the doctor--"your lordship is not equal +to it to-day." + +"I understand," said the marquis, and paled frightfully and turned his +head aside. + +When Mrs. Courthope suggested that Lady Florimel should be sent for, +he flew into a frightful rage, and spoke as it is to be hoped he had +never spoken to a woman before. She took it with perfect gentleness, +but could not repress a tear. The marquis saw it, and his heart was +touched. "You mustn't mind a dying man's temper," he said. + +"It's not for myself, my lord," she answered. + +"I know: you think I'm not fit to die; and, damn it! you are right. +Never one was less fit for heaven or less willing to go to hell." + +"Wouldn't you like to see a clergyman, my lord?" she suggested, +sobbing. + +He was on the point of breaking out into a still worse passion, but +controlled himself. "A clergyman!" he cried: "I would as soon see the +undertaker. What could he do but tell me I was going to be damned--a +fact I know better than he can? That is, if it's not all an invention +of the cloth, as, in my soul, I believe it is. I've said so any time +these forty years." + +"Oh, my lord! my lord! do not fling away your last hope." + +"You imagine me to have a chance, then? Good soul! you don't know any +better." + +"The Lord is merciful." + +The marquis laughed--that is, he tried, failed, and grinned. + +"Mr. Cairns is in the dining-room, my lord." + +"Bah! A low pettifogger, with the soul of a bullock. Don't let me hear +the fellow's name. I've been bad enough, God knows, but I haven't sunk +to the level of _his_ help yet. If he's God Almighty's factor, and the +saw holds, 'Like master, like man,' well, I would rather have nothing +to do with either." + +"That is, if you had the choice, my lord," said Mrs. Courthope, her +temper yielding somewhat, though in truth his speech was not half so +irreverent as it seemed to her. + +"Tell him to go to hell. No, don't: set him down to a bottle of port +and a great sponge-cake, and you needn't tell him to go to heaven, +for he'll be there already. Why, Mrs. Courthope, the fellow isn't a +gentleman. And yet all he cares for the cloth is that he thinks it +makes a gentleman of him--as if anything in heaven, earth or hell +could work that miracle!" + +In the middle of the night, as Malcolm sat by his bed, thinking +him asleep, the marquis spoke suddenly. "You must go to Aberdeen +to-morrow, Malcolm," he said. + +"Verra weel, my lord." + +"And bring Mr. Glennie, the lawyer, back with you." + +"Yes, my lord." + +"Go to bed, then." + +"I wad raither bide, my lord. I cudna sleep a wink for wantin' to be +back aside ye." + +The marquis yielded, and Malcolm sat by him all the night through. He +tossed about, would doze off and murmur strangely, then wake up and +ask for brandy and water, yet be content with the lemonade Malcolm +gave him. + +Next day he quarreled with every word that Mrs. Courthope uttered, +kept forgetting he had sent Malcolm away, and was continually wanting +him. His fits of pain were more severe, alternated with drowsiness, +which deepened at times to stupor. + +It was late before Malcolm returned. He went instantly to his bedside. + +"Is Mr. Glennie with you?" asked his master feebly. + +"Yes, my lord." + +"Tell him to come here at once." + +When Malcolm returned with the lawyer the marquis directed him to +place a table and chair by the bedside, light four candles, provide +everything necessary for writing and go to bed. + + + + +CHAPTER LXIX. + +THE MARQUIS AND THE SCHOOLMASTER. + + +Before Malcolm was awake his lordship had sent for him. When he +re-entered the sick chamber Mr. Glennie had vanished, the table had +been removed, and, instead of the radiance of the wax-lights, the cold +gleam of a vapor-dimmed sun, with its sickly blue-white reflex from +the widespread snow, filled the room. The marquis looked ghastly, but +was sipping chocolate with a spoon. + +"What w'y are ye the day, my lord?" asked Malcolm. + +"Nearly well," he answered; "but those cursed carrion-crows are set +upon killing me--damn their souls!" + +"We'll hae Leddy Florimel sweirin' awfu' gien ye gang on that gait, my +lord," said Malcolm. + +The marquis laughed feebly. + +"An' what's mair," Malcolm continued, "I doobt they're some partic'lar +aboot the turn o' their phrases up yonner, my lord." + +The marquis looked at him keenly. "You don't anticipate that +inconvenience for me?" he said. "I'm pretty sure to have my billet +where they're not so precise." + +"Dinna brak my hert, my lord," cried Malcolm, the tears rushing to his +eyes. + +"I should be sorry to hurt you, Malcalm," rejoined the marquis gently, +almost tenderly. "I won't go there if I can help it--I shouldn't like +to break any more hearts--but how the devil am I to keep out of it? +Besides, there are people up there I don't want to meet: I have no +fancy for being made ashamed of myself. The fact is, I'm not fit for +such company, and I don't believe there is any such place. But if +there be, I trust in God there isn't any other, or it will go badly +with your poor master, Malcolm. It doesn't look _like_ true--now does +it? Only such a multitude of things I thought I had done with for ever +keep coming up and grinning at me. It nearly drives me mad, Malcolm; +and I would fain die like a gentleman, with a cool bow and a sharp +face-about." + +"Wadna ye hae a word wi' somebody 'at kens, my lord?" said Malcolm, +scarcely able to reply. + +"No," answered the marquis fiercely. "That Cairns is a fool." + +"He's a' that, an' mair, my lord. I didna mean _him_." + +"They're all fools together." + +"Ow, na, my lord. There's a heap o' them no muckle better, it may be; +but there's guid men an' true amang them, or the Kirk wad hae been wi' +Sodom and Gomorrah by this time. But it's no a minister I wad hae yer +lordship confar wi'." + +"Who, then? Mrs. Courthope, eh?" + +"Ow na, my lord--no Mistress Courthoup. She's a guid body, but she +wadna believe her ain een gien onybody ca'd a minister said contrar' +to them." + +"Who the devil do you mean, then?" + +"Nae deevil, but an honest man 'at's been his warst enemy sae lang 's +I hae kent him--Maister Graham, the schuil-maister." + +"Pooh!" said the marquis with a puff. "I'm too old to go to school." + +"I dinna ken the man 'at isna a bairn till _him_, my lord." + +"In Greek and Latin?" + +"I' richteousness an' trouth, my lord--in what's been an' what is to +be." + +"What! has he the second sight, like the piper?" + +"He _has_ the second sicht, my lord, but ane 'at gangs a sicht farther +nor my auld daddy's." + +"He could tell me, then, what's going to become of me?" + +"As weel 's ony man, my lord." + +"That's not saying much, I fear." + +"Maybe mair nor ye think, my lord." + +"Well, take him my compliments and tell him I should like to see him," +said the marquis after a minute's silence. + +"He'll come direckly, my lord." + +"Of course he will," said the marquis. + +"Jist as readily, my lord, as he wad gang to ony tramp 'at sent for +'im at sic a time," returned Malcolm, who did not relish either the +remark or its tone. + +"What do you mean by that? _You_ don't think it such a serious affair, +do you?" + +"My lord, ye haena a chance." + +The marquis was dumb. He had actually begun once more to buoy himself +up with earthly hopes. + +Dreading a recall of his commission, Malcolm slipped from the room, +sent Mrs. Courthope to take his place, and sped to the schoolmaster. +The moment Mr. Graham heard the marquis's message he rose without +a word and led the way from the cottage. Hardly a sentence passed +between them as they went, for they were on a solemn errand. + +"Mr. Graham's here, my lord," said Malcolm. + +"Where? Not in the room?" returned the marquis. + +"Waitin' at the door, my lord." + +"Bah! You needn't have been so ready. Have you told the sexton to get +a new spade? But you may let him in; and leave him alone with me." + +Mr. Graham walked gently up to the bedside. + +"Sit down, sir," said the marquis courteously, pleased with the calm, +self-possessed, unobtrusive bearing of the man. "They tell me I'm +dying, Mr. Graham." + +"I'm sorry it seems to trouble you, my lord." + +"What! wouldn't it trouble you, then?" + +"I don't think so, my lord." + +"Ah! you're one of the elect, no doubt?" + +"That's a thing I never did think about, my lord." + +"What do you think about, then?" + +"About God." + +"And when you die you'll go straight to heaven, of course?" + +"I don't know, my lord. That's another thing I never trouble my head +about." + +"Ah! you're like me, then. _I_ don't care much about going to heaven. +What do you care about?" + +"The will of God. I hope your lordship will say the same." + +"No I won't: I want my own will." + +"Well, that is to be had, my lord." + +"How?" + +"By taking his for yours as the better of the two, which it must be +every way." + +"That's all moonshine." + +"It _is_ light, my lord." + +"Well, I don't mind confessing, if I am to die, I should prefer heaven +to the other place, but I trust I have no chance of either. Do you now +honestly believe there are two such places?" + +"I don't know, my lord." + +"You don't know? And you come here to comfort a dying man!" + +"Your lordship must first tell me what you mean by 'two _such_ +places.' And as to comfort, going by my notions, I cannot tell which +you would be more or less comfortable in; and that, I presume, would +be the main point with your lordship." + +"And what, pray, sir, would be the main point with you?" + +"To get nearer to God." + +"Well, I can't say _I_ want to get nearer to God. It's little he's +ever done for me." + +"It's a good deal he has tried to do for you, my lord." + +"Well, who interfered? Who stood in his way, then?" + +"Yourself, my lord." + +"I wasn't aware of it. When did he ever try to do anything for me and +I stood in his way?" + +"When he gave you one of the loveliest of women, my lord," said Mr. +Graham with solemn, faltering voice, "and you left her to die in +neglect and her child to be brought up by strangers." + +The marquis gave a cry. The unexpected answer had roused the +slowly-gnawing death and made it bite deeper. + +"What have _you_ to do," he almost screamed, "with my affairs? It was +for _me_ to introduce what I chose of them. You presume." + +"Pardon me, my lord: you led me to what I was bound to say. Shall I +leave you, my lord?" + +The marquis made no answer. "God knows I loved her," he said after a +while with a sigh. + +"You loved her, my lord?" + +"I did, by God!" + +"Love a woman like that and come to this?" + +"Come to this? We must all come to this, I fancy, sooner or later. +Come to what, in the name of Beelzebub?" + +"That, having loved a woman like her, you are content to lose her. In +the name of God, have you no desire to see her again?" + +"It would be an awkward meeting," said the marquis. + +His was an old love, alas! He had not been capable of the sort that +defies change. It had faded from him until it seemed one of the things +that are not. Although his being had once glowed in its light, he +could now speak of a meeting as awkward. + +"Because you wronged her?" suggested the schoolmaster. + +"Because they lied to me, by God!" + +"Which they dared not have done had you not lied to them first." + +"Sir!" shouted the marquis, with all the voice he had left.--"O God, +have mercy! I _cannot_ punish the scoundrel." + +"The scoundrel is the man who lies, my lord." + +"Were I anywhere else--" + +"There would be no good in telling you the truth, my lord. You showed +her to the world as a woman over whom you had prevailed, and not as +the honest wife she was. What _kind_ of a lie was that, my lord? Not a +white one, surely?" + +"You are a damned coward to speak so to a man who cannot even turn on +his side to curse you for a base hound. You would not dare it but that +you know I cannot defend myself." + +"You are right, my lord: your conduct is indefensible." + +"By Heaven! if I could but get this cursed leg under me, I would throw +you out of the window." + +"I shall go by the door, my lord. While you hold by your sins, your +sins will hold by you. If you should want me again I shall be at your +lordship's command." + +He rose and left the room, but had not reached his cottage before +Malcolm overtook him with a second message from his master. He turned +at once, saying only, "I expected it." + +"Mr. Graham," said the marquis, looking ghastly, "you must have +patience with a dying man. I was very rude to you, but I was in +horrible pain." + +"Don't mention it, my lord. It would be a poor friendship that gave +way for a rough word." + +"How can you call yourself my friend?" + +"I should be your friend, my lord, if it were only for your wife's +sake. She died loving you. I want to send you to her, my lord. You +will allow that, as a gentleman, you at least owe her an apology." + +"By Jove, you are right, sir! Then you really and positively believe +in the place they call heaven?" + +"My lord, I believe that those who open their hearts to the truth +shall see the light on their friends' faces again, and be able to set +right what was wrong between them." + +"It's a week too late to talk of setting right." + +"Go and tell her you are sorry, my lord--that will be enough for her." + +"Ah! but there's more than her concerned." + +"You are right, my lord. There is another--One who cannot be satisfied +that the fairest works of his hands, or rather the loveliest children +of his heart, should be treated as you have treated women." + +"But the Deity you talk of--" + +"I beg your pardon, my lord: I talked of no deity. I talked of a +living Love that gave us birth and calls us his children. Your deity I +know nothing of." + +"Call Him what you please: _He_ won't be put off so easily." + +"He won't be put off, one jot or one tittle. He will forgive anything, +but He will pass nothing. Will your wife forgive you?" + +"She will, when I explain." + +"Then why should you think the forgiveness of God, which created her +forgiveness, should be less?" + +Whether the marquis could grasp the reasoning may be doubtful. + +"Do you really suppose God cares whether a man comes to good or ill?" + +"If He did not, He could not be good Himself." + +"Then you don't think a good God would care to punish poor wretches +like us?" + +"Your lordship has not been in the habit of regarding himself as +a poor wretch. And, remember, you can't call a child a poor wretch +without insulting the father of it." + +"That's quite another thing." + +"But on the wrong side for your argument, seeing the relation between +God and the poorest creature is infinitely closer than that between +any father and his child." + +"Then He can't be so hard on him as the parsons say." + +"He will give him absolute justice, which is the only good thing. He +will spare nothing to bring his children back to Himself, their sole +well-being. What would you do, my lord, if you saw your son strike a +woman?" + +"Knock him down and horsewhip him." + +It was Mr. Graham who broke the silence that followed: "Are you +satisfied with yourself, my lord?" + +"No, by God!" + +"You would like to be better?" + +"I would." + +"Then you are of the same mind with God." + +"Yes, but I'm not a fool. It won't do to say I should like to be. I +must be it, and that's not so easy. It's damned hard to be good. I +would have a fight for it, but there's no time. How is a poor devil to +get out of such an infernal scrape?" + +"Keep the commandments." + +"That's it, of course; but there's no time, I tell you--no time; at +least, so those cursed doctors will keep telling me." + +"If there were but time to draw another breath, there would be time to +begin." + +"How am I to begin? Which am I to begin with?" + +"There is one commandment which includes all the rest." + +"Which is that?" + +"To believe in the Lord Jesus Christ." + +"That's cant." + +"After thirty years' trial of it, it is to me the essence of wisdom. +It has given me a peace which makes life or death all but indifferent +to me, though I would choose the latter." + +"What am I to believe about Him, then?" + +"You are to believe _in_ Him, not about Him." + +"I don't understand." + +"He is our Lord and Master, Elder Brother, King, Saviour, the divine +Man, the human God: to believe in Him is to give ourselves up to Him +in obedience--to search out his will and do it." + +"But there's no time, I tell you again," the marquis almost shrieked. + +"And I tell you there is all eternity to do it in. Take Him for your +master, and He will demand nothing of you which you are not able to +perform. This is the open door to bliss. With your last breath you can +cry to Him, and He will hear you as He heard the thief on the cross, +who cried to Him dying beside him: 'Lord, remember me when Thou comest +into Thy kingdom.'--'To-day shalt thou be with me in paradise.' It +makes my heart swell to think of it, my lord. No cross-questioning of +the poor fellow, no preaching to him. He just took him with Him where +He was going, to make a man of him." + +"Well, you know something of my history: what would you have me do +now?--at once, I mean. What would the Person you are speaking of have +me do?" + +"That is not for me to say, my lord." + +"You could give me a hint." + +"No. God is telling you Himself. For me to presume to tell you would +be to interfere with Him. What He would have a man do He lets him know +in his mind." + +"But what if I had not made up my mind before the last came?" + +"Then I fear He would say to you, 'Depart from me, thou worker of +iniquity.'" + +"That would be hard when another minute might have done it." + +"If another minute would have done it, you would have had it." + +A paroxysm of pain followed, during which Mr. Graham silently left +him. + + + + +CHAPTER LXX. + +END OR BEGINNING? + + +When the fit was over and he found Mr. Graham was gone, he asked +Malcolm, who had resumed his watch, how long it would take Lady +Florimel to come from Edinburgh. + +"Mr. Crathie left wi' fower horses frae the Lossie Airms last nicht, +my lord," said Malcolm; "but the ro'ds are ill, an' she winna be here +afore some time the morn." + +The marquis stared aghast: they had sent for her without his orders. +"What _shall_ I do?" he murmured. "If once I look in her eyes, I shall +be damned.--Malcolm!" + +"Yes, my lord." + +"Is there a lawyer in Portlossie?" + +"Yes, my lord: there's auld Maister Carmichael." + +"He won't do: he was my brother's rascal. Is there no one besides?" + +"No in Portlossie, my lord. There can be nane nearer than Duff Harbor, +I doobt." + +"Take the chariot and bring him here directly. Tell them to put four +horses to: Stokes can ride one." + +"I'll ride the ither, my lord." + +"You'll do nothing of the kind: you're not used to the pole." + +"I can tak the leader, my lord." + +"I tell you you're to do nothing of the kind," cried the marquis +angrily. "You're to ride inside, and bring Mr.--what's his name?--back +with you." + +"Soutar, my lord, gien ye please." + +"Be off, then. Don't wait to feed. The brutes have been eating all +day, and they can eat all night. You must have him here in an hour." + +In an hour and a quarter Miss Horn's friend stood by the marquis's +bedside, Malcolm was dismissed, but was presently summoned again to +receive more orders. + +Fresh horses were put to the chariot, and he had to set out once +more--this time to fetch a justice of the peace, a neighbor laird. The +distance was greater than to Duff Harbor; the roads were worse; the +north wind, rising as they went, blew against them as they returned, +increasing to a violent gale; and it was late before they reached +Lossie House. + +When Malcolm entered he found the marquis alone. + +"Is Morrison here at last?" he cried, in a feeble, irritated voice. + +"Yes, my lord." + +"What the devil kept you so long? The bay mare would have carried me +there and back in an hour and a half." + +"The roads war verra heavy, my lord. An' jist hear till the win'." + +The marquis listened a moment, and a frightened expression grew over +his thin, pale, anxious face. "You don't know what depends on it," he +said, "or you would have driven better. Where is Mr. Soutar?" + +"I dinna ken, my lord. I'm only jist come, an' I've seen naebody." + +"Go and tell Mrs. Courthope I want Soutar. You'll find her crying +somewhere--the old chicken!--because I swore at her. What harm could +that do the old goose?" + +"It'll be mair for love o' yer lordship than fricht at the sweirin', +my lord." + +"You think so? Why should _she_ care? Go and tell her I'm sorry. +But really she ought to be used to me by this time. Tell her to send +Soutar directly." + +Mr. Soutar was not to be found, the fact being that he had gone to see +Miss Horn. The marquis flew into an awful rage, and began to curse and +swear frightfully. + +"My lord! my lord!" said Malcolm, "for God's sake, dinna gang on that +gait. He canna like to hear that kin' o' speech; an' frae ane o' his +ain' tu!" + +The marquis stopped, aghast at his presumption and choking with rage, +but Malcolm's eyes filled with tears, and, instead of breaking out +again, his master turned his head away and was silent. + +Mr. Soutar came. + +"Fetch Morrison," said the marquis, "and go to bed." + +The wind howled terribly as Malcolm ascended the stairs and half felt +his way, for he had no candle, through the long passages leading to +his room. As he entered the last a huge vague form came down upon +him like a deeper darkness through the dark. Instinctively he stepped +aside. It passed noiselessly, with a long stride, and not even a +rustle of its garments--at least Malcolm heard nothing but the roar +of the wind. He turned and followed it. On and on it went, down the +stair, through a corridor, down the great stone turnpike stair, and +through passage after passage. When it came into the more frequented +and half-lighted thoroughfares of the house it showed as a large +figure in a long cloak, indistinct in outline. + +It turned a corner close by the marquis's room. But when Malcolm, +close at its heels, turned also, he saw nothing but a vacant lobby, +the doors around which were all shut. One after another he quickly +opened them, all except the marquis's, but nothing was to be seen. +The conclusion was that it had entered the marquis's room. He must +not disturb the conclave in the sick chamber with what might be but "a +false creation proceeding from the heat-oppressed brain," and turned +back to his own room, where he threw himself on his bed and fell +asleep. + +About twelve Mrs. Courthope called him: his master was worse, and +wanted to see him. + +The midnight was dark and still, for the wind had ceased. But a hush +and a cloud seemed gathering in the stillness and darkness, and with +them came the sense of a solemn celebration, as if the gloom were +canopy as well as pall--black, but bordered and hearted with purple +and gold; and the terrible stillness seemed to tremble as with the +inaudible tones of a great organ at the close or commencement of some +mighty symphony. + +With beating heart he walked softly toward the room where, as on an +altar, lay the vanishing form of his master, like the fuel in whose +dying flame was offered the late and ill-nurtured sacrifice of his +spirit. + +As he went through the last corridor leading thither, Mrs. Catanach, +type and embodiment of the horrors that haunt the dignity of death, +came walking toward him like one at home, her great round body lighty +upborne on her soft foot. It was no time to challenge her presence, +and yielding her the half of the narrow way he passed without a +greeting. She dropped him a courtesy with an up-look and again a +veiling of her wicked eyes. + +The marquis would not have the doctors come near him, and when Malcolm +entered there was no one in the room but Mrs. Courthope. The shadow +had crept far along the dial. His face had grown ghastly, the skin had +sunk to the bones, and his eyes stood out as if from much staring into +the dark. They rested very mournfully on Malcolm for a few moments, +and then closed softly. + +"Is she come yet?" he murmured, opening them wide with sudden stare. + +"No, my lord." + +The lids fell again, softly, slowly. + +"Be good to her, Malcolm," he murmured. + +"I wull, my lord," said Malcolm solemnly. + +Then the eyes opened and looked at him: something grew in them, a +light as of love, and drew up after it a tear; but the lips said +nothing. The eyelids fell again, and in a minute more Malcolm knew by +his breathing that he slept. + +The slow night waned. He woke sometimes, but soon dozed off again. +The two watched by him till the dawn. It brought a still gray morning, +without a breath of wind and warm for the season. The marquis appeared +a little revived, but was hardly able to speak. Mostly by signs he +made Malcolm understand that he wanted Mr. Graham, but that some one +else must go for him. Mrs. Courthope went. + +As soon as she was out of the room he lifted his hand with effort, +laid feeble hold on Malcolm's jacket, and, drawing him down, kissed +him on the forehead. Malcolm burst into tears and sank weeping by the +bedside. + +Mr. Graham, entering a little after, and seeing Malcolm on his knees, +knelt also and broke into a prayer. + +"O blessed Father!" he said, "who knowest this thing, so strange to +us, which we call death, breathe more life into the heart of Thy dying +son, that in the power of life he may front death. O Lord Christ! who +diedst Thyself, and in Thyself knowest it all, heal this man in his +sore need--heal him with strength to die." + +A faint _Amen_ came from the marquis. + +"Thou didst send him into the world: help him out of it. O God! +we belong to Thee utterly. We dying men are Thy children, O living +Father! Thou art such a father that Thou takest our sins from us and +throwest them behind Thy back. Thou cleansest our souls as Thy Son did +wash our feet. We hold our hearts up to Thee: make them what they must +be, O Love! O Life of men! O Heart of hearts! Give Thy dying child +courage and hope and peace--the peace of Him who overcame all the +terrors of humanity, even death itself, and liveth for evermore, +sitting at Thy right hand, our God-brother, blessed to all ages. +Amen." + +"Amen!" murmured the marquis, and, slowly lifting his hand from the +coverlid, he laid it on the head of Malcolm, who did not know it was +the hand of his father blessing him ere he died. + +"Be good to her," said the marquis once more. + +But Malcolm could not answer for weeping, and the marquis was not +satisfied. Gathering all his force, he said again, "Be good to her." + +"I wull, I wull," burst from Malcolm in sobs; and he wailed aloud. + +The day wore on, and the afternoon came. Still Lady Florimel had not +arrived, and still the marquis lingered. + +As the gloom of the twilight was deepening into the early darkness of +the winter night he opened wide his eyes, and was evidently listening. +Malcolm could hear nothing, but the light in his master's face grew +and the strain of his listening diminished. At length Malcolm became +aware of the sound of wheels, which came rapidly nearer, till at last +the carriage swung up to the hall-door. A moment, and Lady Florimel +was flitting across the room. + +"Papa! papa!" she cried, and, throwing her arm over him, laid her +cheek to his. + +The marquis could not return her embrace: he could only receive her +into the depths of his shining, tearful eyes. + +"Flory!" he murmured, "I'm going away. I'm going--I've got--to make +an--apology. Malcolm, be good--" + +The sentence remained unfinished. The light paled from his +countenance: he had to carry it with him. He was dead. + +Lady Florimel gave a loud cry. Mrs. Courthope ran to her assistance. +"My lady's in a dead faint," she whispered, and left the room to get +help. + +Malcolm lifted Lady Florimel in his great arms and bore her tenderly +to her own apartment. There he left her to the care of her women and +returned to the chamber of death. + +Meantime, Mr. Graham and Mr. Soutar had come. When Malcolm re-entered +the schoolmaster took him kindly by the arm and said, "Malcolm, there +can be neither place nor moment fitter for the solemn communication +I am commissioned to make to you: I have, as in the presence of your +dead father, to inform you that you are now marquis of Lossie; and +God forbid you should be less worthy as marquis than you have been as +fisherman!" + +Malcolm stood stupefied. For a while he seemed to himself to be +turning over in his mind something he had heard read from a book, with +a nebulous notion of being somehow concerned in it. The thought of his +father cleared his brain. He ran to the dead body, kissed its lips as +he had once kissed the forehead of another, and falling on his knees +wept, he knew not for what. Presently, however, he recovered himself, +rose, and, rejoining the two men, said, "Gentlemen, hoo mony kens this +turn o' things?" + +"None but Mr. Morrison, Mrs. Catanach and ourselves--so far as I +know," answered Mr. Soutar. + +"And Miss Horn," added Mr. Graham, "She first brought out the truth +of it, and ought to be the first to know of your recognition by your +father." + +"I s' tell her mysel'," returned Malcolm. "But, gentlemen, I beg o' +ye, till I ken what I'm aboot an' gie ye leave, dinna open yer moo' to +leevin' cratur' aboot this. There's time eneuch for the warl' to ken +'t." + +"Your lordship commands me," said Mr. Soutar. + +"Yes, Malcolm, until you give me leave," said Mr. Graham. + +"Whaur's Mr. Morrison?" asked Malcolm. + +"He is still in the house," said Mr. Soutar. + +"Gang till him, sir, an' gar him promise, on the word o' a gentleman, +to haud his tongue. I canna bide to hae't blaret a' gait an' a' at +ance. For Mistress Catanach, I s' deal wi' her mysel'." + +The door opened, and, in all the conscious dignity conferred by the +immunities and prerogatives of her calling, Mrs. Catanach walked into +the room. + +"A word wi' ye, Mistress Catanach," said Malcolm. + +"Certainly, my lord," answered the howdy with mingled presumption and +respect, and followed him to the dining-room. "Weel, my lord--" she +began, before he had turned from shutting the door behind them, in the +tone and with the air--or rather _airs_--of having conferred a great +benefit, and expecting its recognition. + +"Mistress Catanach," interrupted Malcolm, turning and facing her, +"gien I be un'er ony obligation to you, it's frae anither tongue I +maun hear't. But I hae an offer to mak ye: Sae lang as it disna coom +oot 'at I'm onything better nor a fisherman born, ye s' hae yer twinty +poun' i' the year, peyed ye quarterly. But the moment fowk says wha +I am ye touch na a poun'-not' mair, an' I coont mysel' free to pursue +onything I can pruv agane ye." + +Mrs. Catanach attempted a laugh of scorn, but her face was gray as +putty and its muscles declined response. + +"_Ay_ or _no_?" said Malcolm. "I winna gar ye sweir, for I wad lippen +to yer aith no a hair." + +"Ay, my lord," said the howdy, reassuming at least outward composure, +and with it her natural brass, for as she spoke she held out her open +palm. + +"Na, na," said Malcolm, "nae forhan' payments. Three months o' +tongue-haudin', an' there's yer five poun'; an' Maister Soutar o' Duff +Harbor 'ill pay 't intill yer ain han'. But brack troth wi' me, an' ye +s' hear o' 't; for gien ye war hangt the warl' wad be a' the cleaner. +Noo quit the hoose, an' never lat me see ye aboot the place again. +But afore ye gang I gie ye fair warnin' 'at I mean to win at a' yer +byganes." + +The blood of red wrath was seething in Mrs. Catanach's face: she drew +herself up and stood flaming before him, on the verge of explosion. + +"Gang frae the hoose," said Malcolm, "or I'll set the muckle hun' to +shaw ye the gait." + +Her face turned the color of ashes, and with hanging cheeks and +scared but not the less wicked eyes she hurried from the room. Malcolm +watched her out of the house, then, following her into the town, +brought Miss Horn back with him to aid in the last earthly services, +and hastened to Duncan's cottage. + +But, to his amazement and distress, it was forsaken and the hearth +cold. In his attendance on his father he had not seen the piper--he +could not remember for how many days; and on inquiry he found that, +although he had not been missed, no one could recall having seen him +later than three or four days agone. The last he could hear of him was +that about a week before a boy had spied him sitting on a rock in the +Baillies' Barn with his pipes in his lap. Searching the cottage, he +found that his broadsword and dirk, with all his poor finery, were +gone. + +That same night Mrs. Catanach also disappeared. + +A week after, what was left of Lord Lossie was buried. Malcolm +followed the hearse with the household. Miss Horn walked immediately +behind him, on the arm of the schoolmaster. It was a great funeral, +with a short road, for the body was laid in the church--close to the +wall, just under the crusader with the Norman canopy. + +Lady Florimel wept incessantly for three days; on the fourth she +looked out on the sea and thought it very dreary; on the fifth +she found a certain gratification in hearing herself called the +marchioness; on the sixth she tried on her mourning and was pleased; +on the seventh she went with the funeral and wept again; on the eighth +came Lady Bellair, who on the ninth carried her away. + +To Malcolm she had not spoken once. + +Mr. Graham left Portlossie. + +Miss Horn took to her bed for a week. + +Mr. Crathie removed his office to the House itself, took upon him the +function of steward as well as factor, had the state-rooms dismantled, +and was master of the place. + +Malcolm helped Stoat with the horses and did odd jobs for Mr. Crathie. +From his likeness to the old marquis, as he was still called, the +factor had a favor for him, firmly believing the said marquis to be +his father and Mrs. Stewart his mother; and hence it came that he +allowed him a key to the library. + +The story of Malcom's plans and what came of them requires another +book. + + + + + +THE STAGE IN ITALY. + + +The Italians are undoubtedly the most theatre-loving people in the +world. With them the play-house takes the place to a great extent of +drawing-room and evening lounge. Almost every Italian family of any +social position possesses a box at one of the principal theatres, +where visits are received and many a scene from the _School for +Scandal_ is enacted whilst the fair gossip-mongers flirt and sip +ices. In winter the opera is the standard amusement of the fashionable +world, while the favorite resort in summer is the _diurno_ or open air +theatre, which is in the form of an amphitheatre, the stage with its +accessories facing an unroofed enclosure, with the seats arranged in +tiers one above another, and fenced off by an iron balustrade from a +terrace which serves the purpose of a gallery. A vast covered corridor +is nearly always to be found adjacent to the _diurno_, beneath which +the audience can take refuge in case of a shower, walk between the +acts and indulge in _bebite_--cooling drinks, such as sherbets and +beer. The _abbonamento_ (or subscription) to a diurno costs from three +to ten dollars for the season of thirty or forty representations. When +a dramatic company is about to visit a city the manager first secures +his _abbonati_, for according to their number he is able to regulate +his expenses, as he counts little on chance spectators, and is sure to +have almost always to play before the same audience. + +The lyric stage in Italy takes precedence of the dramatic, and in the +large cities, Milan, Venice, Genoa, Florence, Rome and Naples, the +production of a new opera is considered a national event, forming for +many days previous to its production the chief topic of conversation +in salons and _caffès_. No such enthusiasm is manifested in regard to +the first representation of a new play; and although the house may be +crowded and the author called before the curtain, he may deem himself +happy if his drama is played four times during the season; whereas +a popular opera will be given night after night for two months. An +opera, if it has any merit, may be the means of carrying the fame of +Italian genius to the farthest limits of the earth, but it is a chance +if the comedy which pleases at Venice will be appreciated in the +least degree at Rome or Naples, such are the variations in manners +and customs, especially amongst the lower orders, between one Italian +province and another. Hence, opera is greatly fostered and protected. +There are a dozen musical _conservatori_, public and private, in each +of the principal cities, for the training of singers, and prizes are +accorded to them out of funds especially set apart for the purpose +by the government, which also grants large annual subsidies to the +leading lyric theatres, such as the Scala at Milan, the San Carlo +at Naples, the Fenice at Venice, the Pergola at Florence, the Carlo +Felice at Genoa, the Communale at Bologna, and the Apollo at Rome. The +dramatic stage has none of these aids, the various companies have to +pay their own expenses, and, whatever may be the merits of the artists +who compose them, they scarcely ever obtain any special recognition +from the government. Although the smallest Italian city possesses its +theatre, and some of the capitals--Milan and Naples, for instance--at +least a dozen, there is no training-school for the stage in any +part of the country. Nor is there such an institution as the English +Dramatic College, where decayed artists can retire when their day of +glory is past and they have become poor and lonely. Each city has one +theatre, the largest and most magnificent, reserved exclusively for +operatic performances, and where the unmusical drama is scarcely ever +tolerated. I once saw Ristori act in Metastasio's _Dido_ at the +Scala for the benefit of the wounded during the war for Italian +independence; but this was the only occasion in fifty years on which +an actress had declaimed in that enormous edifice, and nothing +but patriotic charity would have excused such an infringement of +time-honored etiquette. When, therefore, the Italian opera-houses +close for the season, they are never reopened for the accommodation +of wandering "stars." The consequence of this is, that the drama is +banished to the inferior theatres, and whilst thousands of francs are +spent on the scenery of a new opera or ballet, the poor player has to +content himself with an indifferent stage and wretched decorations. In +short, to quote an observation made to me recently by Signor Salvini, +"Theatrical affairs are just the opposite in Italy to what they are +in America. In Italy the opera-bill is never changed more than three +times in as many months: in America it varies almost every evening. In +Italy the play-bill is renewed nightly, while in this country and +in England a drama, if good, may have a run of over a hundred +representations." Nothing surprised Salvini more during his stay in +the United States than the splendor of the _mise en scène_ of some +of the New York plays, but he accounted for it easily enough. The +managers of most of the New York, Paris and London theatres do not +hesitate to lavish large sums of money upon their decorations and +scenery, because should the piece fail for which they were painted +they can be used in some other. The Italian theatres are nearly always +the property either of some nobleman or of a company of speculators, +whose principal object is to make as much money out of them, and spend +as little upon them, as possible. They are rented out for a month or +so to one or other of the many troupes of actors which are constantly +wandering about the country, and which bring their own scenery +and dresses with them, generally of the cheapest and most tawdry +description. + +A Tuscan proverb says, "_Figlio d'attore, attore_" ("The son of an +actor is always an actor"); and this in Italy is pretty sure to be the +case. The three greatest living actors, Salvini, Rossi and Majeroni, +belong to families which have long been popular on the stage, and so +do the actresses Ristori and Sedowsky. Signora Ristori made her début +as an infant in the cradle, and was for years a member of a troupe the +leading lady of which was her late mother, Signora Maddalena Ristori, +a woman of great talent and merit, whose death at an advanced age +has recently occasioned her celebrated daughter poignant grief. There +still exists in Italy a Venetian troupe of comedians whose ancestors +were the first interpreters of the comedies of Goldoni, and several of +them claim descent from players who enacted the tragedies and comedies +of serious classical literature before the courts of Lucrezia Borgia +and Leonora d'Este. In glancing over an Italian play-bill one is +invariably struck by the fact that many of the artists bear the same +name, and are evidently connected by ties of consanguinity or of +marriage. In the Ristori troupe, for instance, there are several +actors calling themselves by the same name as that great artist, and +who are doubtless of her family. The Salvini company embraces, besides +the two brothers Tommaso and Alessandro, several Piamontis, two or +three Piccininis and two Colonellos. I once knew in Italy a manager +named Spada who directed a little troupe of buffo actors consisting +of his grandfather and grandmother, father and mother, three or four +uncles and aunts, two brothers, and one or two sisters, in addition to +himself, his wife and children. Such facts are in part accounted for +by the social status--or rather want of status--of the profession. +Down to within a very recent period ecclesiastical censures weighed +heavily upon all actors, and Christian burial was denied them unless +during their final illness they had formally declared their intention +to abandon the stage in case of recovery. So severe a condemnation on +the part of the clergy naturally produced a strong prejudice against +those who connected themselves in any way with the stage; and it is +only recently that in Italy, a land where social changes are slow, the +doors of her somewhat formal society have been opened to admit even +persons so distinguished in every sense of the word as are Ristori, +Piamonti, Salvini and Rossi. The social unfriendliness of the +audiences--who can applaud so enthusiastically that a stranger +witnessing for the first time their noisy demonstrations would easily +believe every man and woman in the theatre ready to die for the sake +of the admired artist--is doubtless the cause of the patriarchal +system observable in the formation of Italian dramatic companies. The +members thereof prefer adopting their fathers' profession rather +than enter another where they would be constantly mortified by being +pointed at as the children of actors. + +A little research into the history of the stage in Italy will +enlighten the reader as to the true cause both of the harsh +condemnation of the Church and of the prejudice of society against +this great profession. The plays of the old Romans were proverbially +loose both in their plots and dialogues, and Juvenal has spoken of the +actors of his time with the bitterest contempt. During the Middle Ages +the members of the various religious confraternities monopolized the +stage with their sacred dramas and mysteries, and the "profane stage," +as an Italian writer calls it, was so degraded that more than once +both the Church and State had to use their influence to put down +performances which were too infamous to be here described. When the +Renaissance came the drama was reinstated in the position it occupied +during the days of Roman civilization, but the plays of this period +were merely imitations of the Latin comedies; and if we may judge by +the most celebrated of them which still exists--the _Mandragora_ of +Macchiavelli, for example--far exceeded their models in obscenity. +When Benedict XIV. ascended the pontifical throne he established a +severe censorship, and inaugurated the harsh system to which I have +already alluded, with the effect of banishing immoral productions +from the stage, though without improving its intellectual tone. In the +eighteenth century Goldoni appeared and gave to the world his graceful +comedies, which were followed by the lyric dramas of Metastasio and +the lofty tragedies of Alfieri. Since then there has been a succession +of able dramatists--Monti, Gozzi, Manzoni, Pellico, Ippolito d'Asti, +etc.; and as the class of plays acted was elevated, so the character +of the performers was also improved. From being dissolute they became +generally respectable; and at present it may be safely asserted that +a better-conducted, more frugal or industrious class of men and woman +can scarcely be found than are the Italian players. That class of +actresses with whom their profession is only a means of displaying +their beauty and splendid but often ill-gotten robes and jewelry, is +little known in Italy, Such persons would be scarcely tolerated either +by their comrades or by the public. Indeed, although within the past +few years, owing to the unsettled state of affairs, a great many plays +of questionable morality have been acted, especially in Rome, still +the tone of the performances usually witnessed in an Italian theatre +is greatly above the average of what even Americans applaud; and a +French play has to go through more careful pruning for the Italian +stage than for ours. + +The Italian actors have always been in the habit of forming themselves +into troupes, or, as they call them, _compagnie_, placed under the +direction of one person, who is both manager and principal performer. +They divide these troupes according to the various kinds of acting; +thus, there are companies of tragic, melodramatic and comic actors, +but it is very rare to find a combination of tragedy and comedy in +the same entertainment. There are at present about eighty different +troupes of actors in Italy, including those devoted to the marionnette +and dialect performances. The principal are the "Salvini," "Ristori," +"Majeroni," "Sedowsky," and "Rossi" for tragedy, the "Bellotti Bon" +for high comedy, and the "De Mestri" for farce and vaudeville. The +"Ristori," "Salvini" and "Rossi" troupes have been the round of the +world. The "Bellotti Bon" has, I believe, never quitted Italy. It is a +remarkable combination of well-trained actors, devoted exclusively +to the representation of modern society plays and dramas, mostly +translated or adapted from the French. Bellotti-Bon, the director, +is not excelled in his own line even on the stage of the Théâtre +Français. His company is rich, and its scenery and dresses are +tasteful. The late Signora Cazzola, formerly the leading lady of this +troupe, was perhaps the best high-comedy and dramatic actress Italy +has produced. Signer Salvini informed me that Alexandre Dumas _fils_ +told him he preferred this lady's interpretation of the _rôle_ of +Marguerite Gauthier (Camille) in _La Dame aux Camélias_ to that of +Madame Doche, who created the part. She produced a great effect when +the dying Camille looks at herself in the glass for the first time +after her long illness. Instead of screaming or fainting, as is usual +with most actresses who undertake the character, Signora Cazzola stood +for a long time gazing intently at the havoc disease had wrought upon +her lovely countenance. Then, with a deep sigh and an expression +of intense agony, she turned the mirror with its back toward her, +implying that she could never again endure the pain of seeing herself +reflected upon its truth-telling surface. On the toilette-table was +a vase full of camellias--those beautiful but scentless flowers which +were emblematic of her brilliant but artificial life. Taking one of +these in her hand, she plucked it to pieces leaf by leaf, and when +the last petal fell to the ground went quietly back to her bed, there +hopelessly to await the coming on of death. Her parting with Armand +was very pathetic, and her death, although harrowing and true to +Nature, was not revolting, its horrors being moderated by artistic +good sense and delicacy. This great artiste died young, worn out by +the strong emotions she not only represented, but actually felt. + +Signora Cazzola, together with Virginia Marini and Isolina Piamonti, +was a pupil of Signor Salvini. Virginia Marini is well considered in +Italy, and used to be the leading lady in the Salvini troupe. She now +directs a company of her own, and has been succeeded in her former +position by the estimable Signora Piamonti, whom Salvini declares to +be one of the most versatile artistes he has ever known, equally good +in the highest tragedy or the liveliest farce. Her Dalilla in _Samson_ +was much admired in America, but her rendering of the _rôle_ of +Francesca di Rimini in the tragedy of that name is perhaps her +greatest performance. + +Signora Sedowsky is undoubtedly the greatest tragic actress of Italy. +She is perhaps less stately and grand than Ristori, but in fire and +depth of feeling she greatly surpasses this eminent tragédienne. Her +Phèdre is pronounced by excellent judges equal to that of Rachel. +Signora Sedowsky was born at Naples, and is the proprietress of three +large theatres in that city. She is the wife of a wealthy nobleman. +Notwithstanding her rank, she still keeps on the stage, but is +received with honor in the first society. She has never acted out of +Italy, and very rarely beyond the walls of Naples. + +The superlative merits of Signora Ristori are so well known in America +that the mere mention of her name is sure to recall some of the most +delightful evenings ever spent by many of my readers. Her genius and +beauty, her majesty and glorious method of declamation, have won her +a foremost rank in her profession, and her virtues and nobility of +conduct the esteem of all who have ever known her. There are indeed +few women more estimable than Adelaide Ristori, Marchioness Capranica +del Grillo. It may be a matter of surprise to some who are not aware +of the fact when I tell them that in Italy Ristori is more famous in +comedy than in tragedy. She is inimitable in such parts as the hostess +in Goldoni's clever comedy of _La Locandiera_. + +Of all Italian actors, Gustavo Modena was the most renowned. He is to +the stage of his native land what Garrick was to that of England, and +his conception of the various parts in classic drama, his "points," +and even his dress, have become traditional, and are almost invariably +retained by his followers. I never saw him act, but I once heard him +recite in a private _salon_ his famous _rôle_ of Saul in Alfieri's +tragedy of that name. In person he was tall and largely built, His +countenance was not prepossessing, and, like Michael Angelo, he had a +broken nose. His eye could assume a terrific aspect, and his voice +was rich, powerful and varied in its tone. At times it rolled like +thunder, while at other moments it was as soft and tender as the +sweetest notes of a flute. Signor Modena died some years ago. He was +the master of Salvini, and to him that illustrious actor does not +hesitate to attribute much of his fame. + +Rossi, the only living rival of Salvini, is still a young man, and +doubtless has great talents. I think him even more impetuous and +ardent than Salvini, but he is less intellectual, and his elocution is +decidedly inferior. + +Majeroni is an actor of the same school, but he is becoming old, and +has a tendency to rant. + +Tommaso Salvini, our late visitor, is of Milanese parentage, and was +born in the Lombard capital on January 1, 1830. His father, as I have +already said, was an able actor, and his mother a popular actress +named Guglielmina Zocchi. When quite a boy he showed a rare talent +for acting, and performed in certain plays given during the Easter +holidays in the school where he was educated, with such rare ability +that his father determined to devote him to the stage. For this +purpose he placed him under the tuition of the great Modena, who +conceived much affection for him. The training received thus early +from such able hands soon bore fruits, and before he was thirteen +Salvini had already won a kind of renown in juvenile characters. At +fifteen he lost both his parents, and the bereavement so preyed upon +his spirits that he was obliged to abandon his career for two years, +and returned once more under the tuition of Modena. When he again +emerged from retirement he joined the Ristori troupe, and shared with +that great actress many a triumph. In 1849, Salvini entered the army +of Italian independence, and fought valiantly for the defence of his +country, receiving in recognition of his services several medals of +honor. Peace being proclaimed, he again appeared upon the stage in a +company directed by Signer Cesare Dondini. He played in the _Edipo_ +of Nicolini--a tragedy written expressly for him--and achieved a great +success. Next he appeared in Alfieri's _Saul_, and then all Italy +declared that Modena's mantle had fallen on worthy shoulders. His +fame was now prodigious, and wherever he went he was received with +boundless enthusiasm. He visited Paris, where he played Orasmane, +Orestes, Saul and Othello. On his return to Florence he was hospitably +entertained by the marquis of Normanby, then English ambassador to the +court of Tuscany, and this enlightened nobleman strongly encouraged +him to extend his repertory of Shakespearian characters. In 1865 +occurred the sixth centenary of Dante's birthday, and the four +greatest Italian actors were invited to perform in Silvio Pellico's +tragedy of _Francesca di Rimini_, which is founded on an episode in +the _Divina Commedia_. The cast originally stood on the play-bills +thus: Francesca, Signora Ristori; Lancelotto, Signor Rossi; Paulo, +Signor Salvini; and Guido, Signor Majeroni. It happened, however, that +Rossi, who was unaccustomed to play the part of Lancelotto, felt timid +at appearing in a character so little suited to him. Hearing this, +Signor Salvini, with exquisite politeness and good-nature, volunteered +to take the insignificant part, relinquishing the grand _rôle_ of +Paulo to his junior in the profession. He created by the force of his +genius an impression in the minor part which is still vivid in +the minds of all who witnessed the performance. The government of +Florence, grateful for his urbanity, presented him with a statuette of +Dante, and King Victor Emmanuel rewarded him with the title of knight +of the Order of the Saints Maurice and Lazarus. Later he received from +the same monarch a diamond ring, with the rank of officer in the Order +of the Crown of Italy. In 1868, Signer Salvini visited Madrid, where +his acting of the death of Conrad in _La Morte Civile_ produced such +an impression that the easily-excited Madrilese rushed upon the stage +to ascertain whether the death was actual or fictitious. The queen, +Isabella II., conferred upon the great actor many marks of favor, +and so shortly afterward did King Louis of Portugal, who frequently +entertained him at the royal palace of Lisbon. + +Signor Salvini's recent visit to America I need scarcely mention: its +triumphs are still fresh in the memory of the public, and the only +drawback to its complete success was the unhappy fact that the eminent +artist did not appeal to his audiences in their own language. + +I know of nothing more remarkable than the difference which exists +between the Salvini of the stage and the Salvini of private life, the +one so imposing, impetuous and fiery, the other so gentle, urbane, and +even retiring. He is a gentleman possessing the manners of the good +old school--courtly and somewhat ceremonious, reminding one of those +Italian nobles of the sixteenth century of whom we lead in the novels +of Giraldo Cinthio and Fiorentino--_uomini illustri, e di civil +costumi_. His greeting is cordial and his conversation delightful, +full of anecdote and marked with enthusiasm for his art. When I first +became acquainted with him I was of opinion that his interpretation of +Hamlet was based only upon the translated text, but in the course of +a very long conversation on the subject I discovered that he was well +acquainted (through literal translations) not only with the text, but +also with the notes and comments of our leading critics. In speaking +of the part in which he is altogether unrivaled he said, "I am of +opinion that Shakespeare intended Othello to be a Moor of Barbary or +some other part of Northern Africa, of whom there were many in Italy +during the sixteenth century. I have met several, and think I imitate +their ways and manners pretty well. You are aware, however, that the +historical Othello was not a black at all. He was a white man, and +a Venetian general named Mora. His history resembles that of +Shakespeare's hero in many particulars. Giraldo Cinthio, probably for +better effect, made out of the name Mora, _moro_, a blackamoor; and +Shakespeare, unacquainted with the true story, followed this old +novelist's lead; and it was well he did so, for have we not in +consequence the most perfect delineation of the peculiarities of +Moorish temperament ever conceived?" The costumes worn by Salvini in +this play are copied from those depicted in certain Venetian pictures +of the fifteenth century in which several Moorish officers appear. It +took him many years to master this _rôle_, and he assured me he could +not play it more than three times in succession without experiencing +terrible fatigue. "It is a matter of wonder to me," he observed, "that +English actors can play a great character like this so many nights in +succession; and, above all, that they retain self-possession whilst +the fidgety noise of scene-shifting is going on behind them. To avoid +this, I have been obliged to cut _Othello_ into six acts, and to make +many changes in _Hamlet_." The intensity of feeling with which he +throws himself into the part he is representing was especially evident +on the occasion of his playing Saul. After the performance I was +invited to go behind the scenes to speak with him, and was surprised +as well as pained to find him utterly exhausted. I could not help +saying, "How can you exert yourself thus to please so few people?" +There were scarcely four hundred persons assembled to see this sublime +performance. He answered with honest simplicity, "They have paid their +money, and are entitled to the best I can do for them; besides that, +when I am on the stage I forget the world and all that is in it, and +live the character I represent." "You will," said I, "make a grand +Lear." "Yes," he replied, "I think I shall be able to make something +out of the old king. I have been reading the tragedy for some time, +but it will still take me two years to study it thoroughly." + +Salvini related to me several anecdotes which show how quick he is to +master any difficulties accident throws in his way. "Once I bought," +he said, "a play of a poor young writer which I thought I could make +something of; but when we came to rehearse it for the last time before +representation, it seemed to me utterly flat and unprofitable. The +piece was called _La Suonatrice d'Arpa_ ('The Harp-Girl'). The actors +all said the last act was so stupid that we should make a _fiasco_. I +at last hit upon an idea. We had, however, only a few hours to execute +it in. I changed the story: instead of the play ending happily, I made +the father kill his daughter accidentally, and then die of grief. All +the dialogue had to be improvised by the leading actress and myself. +I played the father, and Signora Piamonti the daughter. Such was the +success of our invention that the piece was played eight nights in +succession, and a rival actor, hearing of the triumph achieved by _The +Harp-Girl_, bought from the author for a handsome sum the privilege of +acting it in certain districts which were not included in my purchase +of the drama. Not being aware of the alterations we had made, and +performing it according to the letter of the text, he made _un fiasco +solenne_--a dead failure." + +After the first performance of _Zaïre_ I took the liberty of observing +to Salvini that a superb piece of "business" which marks his acting +in the last act was not to be found in the text. "Oh," he replied, +"I will tell you the origin of it. I was playing at Naples, and one +night, when I threw the body of my murdered wife upon the ottoman in +the last act, my burnouse fell off and fixed itself to my waist like +a tail. I saw at once that if I was not careful I should provoke +laughter, and instantly imagined that I would pretend to believe the +clinging drapery was the wounded Zaïre grasping me behind. I appeared +to dread even to look round, lest I should encounter her pallid face. +I hesitated, I trembled, and when with a supreme effort I at last +grasped the burnouse and cast it from me, I still lacked the courage +to ascertain what it really was, and stood shivering before the +white heap it made upon the floor. Finally, just as I thought public +curiosity to know what I was going to do began to grow weary, I +stooped down and seizing the white mantle dashed it from me with +contempt, showing by the gesture that I had discovered what it was, +and felt anger that such a trifle should thus alarm a bold man who had +committed murder." This pantomime obtained for Salvini at the New York +Academy of Music one of his greatest ovations. + +When asked why he did not learn English, "Ah!" he replied, "I am too +old; and even if I mastered it, I could not control my knowledge of +it. When excited I should be lapsing into Italian, which would be very +absurd. You asked me the other day why I do not play Orestes. I should +make a queer young Greek with an Apollo-like figure now-a-days! The +time was when I looked the part and acted it well, and then I liked +to play it. I must leave it, with many other good things, to younger +men." Speaking about dramatic elocution, he said, "The best method is +obtained by close observation of Nature, and above all by earnestness. +If you can impress people with the conviction that you feel what you +say, they will pardon many shortcomings. And, above all, study, study, +study! All the genius in the world will not help you along with any +art unless you become a hard student. It has taken me years to master +a single part." + +Salvini's visit to America has been fruitful of a double good. He has +shown forth the splendor of Italian genius, even revealing to us new +marvels in that mine of wealth, the works of the greatest Bard of +the English-speaking race; and he has gone back to Italy to tell +her people of things he has seen in the New World which his great +compatriot discovered--as wonderful in their way as any related by +Othello to Desdemona's willing ear. + +R. DAVEY. + + + + +THREE FEATHERS. + +BY WILLIAM BLACK, AUTHOR OF "A PRINCESS OF THULE." + +CHAPTER XX. + +TINTAGEL'S WALLS. + + +What was the matter with Harry Trelyon? His mother could not make out; +and there never had been much confidence between them, so that she +did not care to ask. But she watched, and she saw that he had, for +the time at least, forsaken his accustomed haunts and ways and become +gloomy, silent and self-possessed. Dick was left neglected in the +stables: you no longer heard his rapid clatter along the highway, with +the not over-melodious voice of his master singing "The Men of +Merry, Merry England" or "The Young Chevalier." The long and slender +fishing-rod remained on the pegs in the hall, although you could hear +the flop of the small burn-trout of an evening when the flies were +thick over the stream. The dogs were deprived of their accustomed +runs; the horses had to be taken out for exercise by the groom; and +the various and innumerable animals about the place missed their doses +of alternate petting and teasing, all because Master Harry had chosen +to shut himself up in his study. + +The mother of the young man very soon discovered that her son was +not devoting his hours of seclusion in that extraordinary museum of +natural history to making trout-flies, stuffing birds and arranging +pinned butterflies in cases, as was his custom. These were not the +occupations which now kept Master Harry up half the night. When she +went in of a morning, before he was up, she found that he had been +covering whole sheets of paper with careful copying out of passages +taken at random from the volumes beside him. A Latin grammar was +ordinarily on the table--a book which the young gentleman had brought +back from school free from thumb-marks. Occasionally a fencing-foil +lay among these evidences of study, while the small aquaria, the cases +of stuffed animals with fancy backgrounds and the numerous bird-cages +had been thrust aside to give fair elbow-room. + +"Perhaps," said Mrs. Trelyon to herself with much +satisfaction--"perhaps, after all, that good little girl has given him +a hint about Parliament, and he is preparing himself." + +A few days of this seclusion, however, began to make the mother +anxious; and so one morning she went into his room. He hastily turned +over the sheet of paper on which he had been writing: then he looked +up, not too well pleased. + +"Harry, why do you stay in-doors on such a beautiful morning? It is +quite like summer." + +"Yes, I know," he said. "I suppose we shall soon have a batch of +parsons here: summer always brings them. They come out with the hot +weather--like butterflies." + +Mrs. Trelyon was shocked and disappointed: she thought Wenna Rosewarne +had cured him of his insane dislike to clergymen--indeed, for many a +day gone by he had kept respectfully silent on the subject. + +"But we shall not ask them to come if you'd rather not," she said, +wishing to do all she could to encourage the reformation of his ways. +"I think Mr. Barnes promised to visit us early in May, but he is only +one." + +"And one is worse than a dozen. When there's a lot you can leave 'em +to fight it out among themselves. But one!--to have one stalking about +an empty house, like a ghost dipped in ink! Why can't you ask anybody +but clergymen, mother? There are whole lots of people would like to +run down from London for a fortnight before getting into the thick of +the season: there's the Pomeroy girls as good as offered to come." + +"But they can't come by themselves," Mrs. Trelyon said with a feeble +protest. + +"Oh yes, they can: they're ugly enough to be safe anywhere. And why +don't you get Juliott up? She'll be glad to get away from that old +curmudgeon for a week. And you ought to ask the Trewhellas, father and +daughter, to dinner: that old fellow is not half a bad sort of fellow, +although he's a clergyman." + +"Harry," said his mother, interrupting him, "I'll fill the house if +that will please you; and you shall ask just whomsoever you please." + +"All right," said he: "the place wants waking up." + +"And then," said the mother, wishing to be still more gracious, "you +might ask Miss Rosewarne to dine with us: she might come well enough, +although Mr. Roscorla is not here." + +A sort of gloom fell over the young man's face again: "I can't ask +her--you may if you like." + +Mrs. Trelyon stared: "What is the matter, Harry? Have you and she +quarreled? Why, I was going to ask you, if you were down in the +village to-day, to say that I should like to see her." + +"And how could I take such a message?" the young man said, rather +warmly, "I don't see why the girl should be ordered up to see you as +if you were conferring a favor on her by joining in this scheme. She's +very hard-worked; you have got plenty of time; you ought to call on +her and study her convenience, instead of making her trot all the way +up here whenever you want to talk to her." + +The pale and gentle woman flushed a little, but she was anxious not to +give way to petulance just then: "Well, you are quite right, Harry: +it was thoughtless of me. I should like to go down and see her this +morning; but I have sent Jakes over to the blacksmith's, and I am +afraid of that new lad." + +"Oh, I will drive you down to the inn. I suppose among them they +can put the horses to the wagonette," the young man said, not very +graciously: and then Mrs. Trelyon went off to get ready. + +It was a beautiful, fresh morning, the far-off line of the sea still +and blue, the sunlight lighting up the wonderful masses of primroses +along the tall banks, the air sweet with the resinous odor of the +gorse. Mrs. Trelyon looked with a gentle and childlike pleasure on +all these things, and was fairly inclined to be very friendly with the +young gentleman beside her. But he was more than ordinarily silent +and morose. Mrs. Trelyon knew she had done nothing to offend him, and +thought it hard she should be punished for the sins of anybody else. + +He spoke scarcely a word to her as the carriage rolled along the +silent highways. He drove rapidly and carelessly down the steep +thoroughfare of Eglosilyan, although there were plenty of loose stones +about. Then he pulled sharply up in front of the inn, and George +Rosewarne appeared. + +"Mr. Rosewarne, let me introduce you to my mother. She wants to see +Miss Wenna for a few moments, if she is not engaged." + +Mr. Rosewarne took off his cap, assisted Mrs. Trelyon to alight, and +then showed her the way into the house. + +"Won't you come in, Harry?" his mother said. + +"No." + +A man had come out to the horses' heads. + +"You leave 'em alone," said the young gentleman: "I sha'n't get down." + +Mabyn came out, her bright young face full of pleasure. + +"How do you do, Mabyn?" he said coldly, and without offering to shake +hands. + +"Won't you come in for a minute?" she said, rather surprised. + +"No, thank you. Don't you stay out in the cold: you've got nothing +round your neck." + +Mabyn went away without saying a word, but thinking that the coolness +of the air was much less apparent than that of his manner and speech. + +Being at length left to himself, he turned his attention to the +horses before him, and eventually, to pass the time, took out his +pocket-handkerchief and began to polish the silver on the handle of +the whip. He was disturbed in this peaceful occupation by a very +timid voice, which said, "Mr. Trelyon." He turned round and found that +Wenna's wistful face was looking up to him, with a look in it +partly of friendly gladness and partly of anxiety and entreaty. "Mr. +Trelyon," she said, with her eyes cast down, "I think you are offended +with me. I am very sorry: I beg your forgiveness." + +The reins were fastened up in a minute, and he was down in the road +beside her. "Now look here, Wenna," he said. "What could you mean by +treating me so unfairly? I don't mean in being vexed with me, but in +shunting me off, as it were, instead of having it out at once. I don't +think it was fair." + +"I am very sorry," she said. "I think I was very wrong, but you don't +know what a girl feels about such things. Will you come into the inn?" + +"And leave my horses? No," he said, good-naturedly. "But as soon as I +get that fellow out, I will; so you go in at once, and I'll follow you +directly. And mind, Wenna, don't you be so silly again, or you and I +may have a real quarrel; and I know that would break your heart." + +The old pleased smile lit up her face again as she turned and went +in-doors: he meanwhile proceeded to summon a hostler by shouting his +name at the pitch of his voice. + +The small party of women assembled in the parlor were a trifle +embarrassed: it was the first time that the great lady of the +neighborhood had honored the inn with a visit. She herself was merely +quiet, gentle and pleased, but Mrs. Rosewarne, with her fine eyes and +her sensitive face all lit up and quickened by, the novel excitement, +was all anxiety to amuse and interest and propitiate her distinguished +guest. Mabyn, too, was rather shy and embarrassed: she said things +hastily, and then seemed afraid of her interference. Wenna was +scarcely at her ease, because she saw that her mother and sister were +not; and she was very anxious, moreover, that these two should think +well of Mrs. Trelyon and be disposed to like her. + +The sudden appearance of a man with a man's rough ways and loud voice +seemed to shake these feminine elements better together, and to clear +the air of timid apprehensions and cautions. Harry Trelyon came into +the room with quite a marked freshness and good-nature on his face. +His mother was surprised: what had completely changed his manner in a +couple of minutes? + +"How are you, Mrs. Rosewarne?" he cried in his off-hand fashion. "You +oughtn't to be in-doors on such a morning, or we shall never get you +well, you know; and the doctor will be sending you to Penzance or +Devonport for a change. Well, Mabyn, have you convinced anybody yet +that your farm-laborers with their twelve shillings a week are better +off than the slate-workers with their eighteen? You'd better take your +sister's opinion on that point, and don't squabble with me. Mother, +what's the use of sitting here? You bring Miss Wenna with you into the +wagonette, and talk to her there about all your business-affairs, and +I'll take you for a drive. Come along. And of course I want +somebody with me: will you come, Mrs. Rosewarne, or will Mabyn? You +can't?--then Mabyn must. Go along, Mabyn, and put your best hat on, +and make yourself uncommonly smart, and you shall be allowed to sit +next the driver--that's me." + +And indeed he bundled the whole of them about until they were seated +in the wagonette just as he had indicated; and away they went from the +inn-door. + +"And you think you are coming back in half an hour?" he said to his +companion, who was much pleased and very proud to occupy such a place. +"Oh no, you're not. You're a young and simple thing, Mabyn. These two +behind us will go on talking now for any time about yards of calico +and crochet-needles and twopenny subscriptions, while you and I, don't +you see, are quietly driving them over to Tintagel--" + +"Oh, Mr. Trelyon!" said Mabyn. + +"You keep quiet. That isn't the half of what's going to befall you. I +shall put up the horses at the inn, and I shall take you all down to +the beach for a scramble to improve your appetite; and at the said inn +you shall have luncheon with me, if you're all very good and behave +yourselves. Then we shall drive back just when we particularly please. +Do you like the picture?" + +"It is delightful: oh, I am sure Wenna will enjoy it," Mabyn said. +"But don't you think, Mr. Trelyon, that you might ask her to sit here? +One sees better here than sitting sideways in a wagonette." + +"They have their business-affairs to settle." + +"Yes," said Mabyn petulantly, "that is what every one says: nobody +expects Wenna ever to have a moment's enjoyment to herself. Oh, here +is old Uncle Cornish--he's a great friend of Wenna's: he will be +dreadfully hurt if she passes him without saying a word." + +"Then we shall pull up and address Uncle Cornish. I believe he used to +be the most thieving old ruffian of a poacher in this county." + +There was a hale old man of seventy or so seated on a low wall in +front of one of the gardens, his face shaded from the sunlight by a +broad hat, his lean gray hands employed in buckling up the leathern +leggings that encased his spare calves. He got up when the horses +stopped, and looked in rather a dazed fashion at the carriage. + +"How do you do this morning, Mr. Cornish?" Wenna said. + +"Why, now, to be sure!" the old man said, as if reproaching his own +imperfect vision. "'Tis a fine marnin', Miss Wenna, and yü be agwoin' +for a drive." + +"And how is your daughter-in-law, Mr. Cornish? Has she sold the pig +yet?" + +"Naw, she hasn't sold the peg. If yü be agwoin' thrü Trevalga, Miss +Wenna, just yü stop and have a look at that peg: yü'll be 'mazed to +see en. 'Tis many a year agone sence there has been such a peg by me. +And perhaps yü'd take the laste bit o' refrashment, Miss Wenna, as yü +go by: Jane would get yü a coop o' tay to once." + +"Thank you, Mr. Cornish, I'll look in and see the pig some other time: +to-day we sha'n't be going as far as Trevalga." + +"Oh, won't you?" said Master Harry in a low voice as he drove on. +"You'll be in Trevalga before you know where you are." + +Which was literally the case. Wenna was so much engaged in her talk +with Mrs. Trelyon that she did not notice how far away they were +getting from Eglosilyan; but Mabyn and her companion knew. They were +now on the high uplands by the coast, driving between the beautiful +banks, which were starred with primroses and stitchwort and red +dead-nettle and a dozen other bright and tender-hued firstlings of the +year. The sun was warm on the hedges and the fields, but a cool breeze +blew about these lofty heights, and stirred Mabyn's splendid masses of +hair as they drove rapidly along. Far over on their right, beyond the +majestic wall of cliff, lay the great blue plain of the sea; and there +stood the bold brown masses of the Sisters Rocks, with a circle of +white foam round their base. As they looked down into the south the +white light was so fierce that they could but faintly discern objects +through it; but here and there they caught a glimpse of a square +church-tower or of a few rude cottages clustered on the high plain, +and these seemed to be of a transparent gray in the blinding glare of +the sun. + +Then suddenly in front of them they found a deep chasm, with the white +road leading down through its cool shadows. There was the channel of +a stream, with the rocks looking purple amid the gray bushes; and +here were rich meadows, with cattle standing deep in the grass and the +daisies; and over there, on the other side, a strip of forest, with +the sunlight shining along one side of the tall and dark-green pines. +As they drove down into this place, which is called the Rocky Valley, +a magpie rose from one of the fields and flew up into the firs. + +"That is sorrow," said Mabyn. + +Another one rose and flew up to the same spot. + +"And that is joy," she said, with her face brightening. + +"Oh, but I saw another as we came to the brow of the hill, and that +means a marriage," her companion remarked to her. + +"Oh no," she said quite eagerly, "I am sure there was no third one: I +am certain there were only two. I am quite positive we only saw two." + +"But why should you be so anxious?" Trelyon said, "You know you ought +to be looking forward to a marriage, and that is always a happy thing. +Are you envious, Mabyn?" + +The girl was silent for a moment or two. Then she said, with a sudden +bitterness in her tone, "Isn't it a fearful thing to have to be civil +to people whom you hate? Isn't it, when they come and establish a +claim on you through some one you care for? You look at them--yes, you +can look at them--and you've got to see them kiss some one that you +love; and you wonder she doesn't rush away for a bit of caustic and +cauterize the place, as you do when a mad dog bites you." + +"Mabyn," said the young man beside her, "you are a most unchristian +sort of person this morning. Who is it you hate in such a fashion? +Will you take the reins while I walk up the hill?" + +Mabyn's little burst of passion still burned in her cheeks and gave +a proud and angry look to her mouth, but she took the reins all the +same, and her companion leapt to the ground. The banks on each side of +the road going up this hill were tall and steep: here and there great +masses of wild flowers were scattered among the grass and the gorse. +From time to time he stopped to pick up a handful, until, when +they had got up to the high and level country again, he had brought +together a very pretty bouquet of wild blossoms. When he got into his +seat and took the reins again he carelessly gave the bouquet to Mabyn. + +"Oh, how pretty!" she said; and then she turned round: "Wenna, are you +very much engaged? Look at the pretty bouquet Mr. Trelyon has gathered +for you." + +Wenna's quiet face flushed with pleasure when she took the flowers, +and Mrs. Trelyon looked pleased and said they were very pretty. She +evidently thought that her son was greatly improved in his manners +when he condescended to gather flowers to present to a girl. Nay, was +he not at this moment devoting a whole forenoon of his precious time +to the unaccustomed task of taking ladies for a drive? Mrs. Trelyon +regarded Wenna with a friendly look, and began to take a greater +liking than ever to that sensitive and expressive face and to the +quiet and earnest eyes. + +"But, Mr. Trelyon," said Wenna, looking round, "hadn't we better turn? +We shall be at Trevenna directly." + +"Yes, you are quite right," said Master Harry: "you will be at +Trevenna directly, and you are likely to be there for some time. For +Mabyn and I have resolved to have luncheon there, and we are going +down to Tintagel, and we shall most likely climb to King Arthur's +Castle. Have you any objections?" + +Wenna had none. The drive through the cool and bright day had braced +up her spirits. She was glad to know that everything looked promising +about this scheme of hers. So she willingly surrendered herself to +the holiday, and in due time they drove into the odd and remote little +village and pulled up in front of the inn. + +So soon as the hostler had come to the horses' heads the young +gentleman who had been driving jumped down and assisted his three +companions to alight: then he led the way into the inn. In the doorway +stood a stranger, probably a commercial traveler, who, with his hands +in his pockets, his legs apart and a cigar in his mouth, had been +visiting those three ladies with a very hearty stare as they got out +of the carriage. Moreover, when they came to the doorway he did not +budge an inch nor did he take his cigar from his mouth; and so, as it +had never been Mr. Trelyon's fashion to sidle past any one, that young +gentleman made straight for the middle of the passage, keeping +his shoulders very square. The consequence was a collision. The +imperturbable person with his hands in his pockets was sent staggering +against the wall, while his cigar dropped on the stone. "What the +devil--!" he was beginning to say, when Trelyon got the three women +past him and into the small parlor. Then he went back: "Did you wish +to speak to me, sir? No, you didn't: I perceive you are a prudent +person. Next time ladies pass you, you'd better take your cigar out of +your mouth or somebody'll destroy that two-pennyworth of tobacco for +you. Good-morning." + +Then he returned to the little parlor, to which a waitress had been +summoned: "Now, Jinny, pull yourself together and let's have something +nice for luncheon--in an hour's time, sharp. You will, won't you? And +how about that Sillery with the blue star--not the stuff with the gold +head that some abandoned ruffian in Plymouth brews in his back garden. +Well, can't you speak?" + +"Yes, sir," said the bewildered maid. + +"That's a good thing--a very good thing," said he, putting the shawls +together on a sofa. "Don't you forget how to speak until you get +married. And don't let anybody come into this room. And you can let my +man have his dinner and a pint of beer. Oh, I forgot: I'm my own man +this morning, so you needn't go asking for him. Now, will you remember +all these things?" + +"Yes, sir; but what would you like for luncheon?" + +"My good girl, we should like a thousand things such as Tintagel never +saw, but what you've got to do is to give us the nicest things you've +got: do you see? I leave it entirely in your hands. Come along, young +people." + +And so he bundled his charges out again into the main street of the +village; and somehow it happened that Mabyn addressed a timid remark +to Mrs. Trelyon, and that Mrs. Trelyon, in answering it, stopped for +a moment; so that Master Harry was sent to Wenna's side, and these two +led the way down the wide thoroughfare. There were few people visible +in the old-fashioned place: here and there an aged crone came out to +the door of one of the rude stone cottages to look at the strangers. +Overhead the sky was veiled over with a thin fleece of white cloud, +but the light was intense for all that, and indeed the colors of the +objects around seemed all the more clear and marked. + +"Well, Miss Wenna," said the young man gayly, "how long are we to +remain good friends? What is the next fault you will have to find with +me? Or have you discovered something wrong already?" + +"Oh no," she said with a quiet smile, "I am very good friends with you +this morning. You have pleased your mother very much by bringing her +for this drive." + +"Oh, nonsense!" he said. "She might have as many drives as she chose; +but presently you'll find a lot of those parsons back at the house, +and she'll take to her white gowns again, and the playing of the organ +all the day long, and all that sham stuff. I tell you what it is: she +never seems alive, she never seems to take any interest in anything, +unless you're with her. Now, you will see how the novelty of this +luncheon-party in an inn will amuse her; but do you think she would +care for it if she and I were here alone?" + +"Perhaps you never tried?" Miss Wenna said gently. + +"Perhaps I knew she wouldn't come. However, don't let's have a fight, +Wenna: I mean to be very civil to you to-day--I do, really." + +"I am so much obliged to you," she said meekly. "But pray don't give +yourself unnecessary trouble." + +"Oh," said he, "I'd always be civil to you if you would treat me +decently. But you say far more rude things than I do--in that soft +way, you know, that looks as if it were all silk and honey. I do think +you've awfully little consideration for human failings. If one goes +wrong in the least thing, even in one's spelling, you say something +that sounds as pleasant as possible, and all the same it transfixes +one just as you stick a pin through a beetle. You are very hard, you +are--mean with those who would like to be friends with you. When it's +mere strangers and cottagers and people of that sort, who don't care +a brass farthing about you, then I believe you're all gentleness +and kindness; but to your real friends the edge of a saw is smooth +compared to you." + +"Am I so very harsh to my friends?" the young lady said in a resigned +way. + +"Oh, well," he said, with some compunction, "I don't quite say that, +but you could be much more pleasant if you liked, and a little more +charitable to their faults. You know there are some who would give a +great deal to win your approval; and perhaps when you find fault they +are so disappointed that they think your words are sharper than you +mean; and sometimes they think you might give them credit for trying +to please you, at least." + +"And who are these persons?" Wenna said, with another smile stealing +over her face. + +"Oh," said he rather shamefacedly, "there's no need to explain +anything to you: you always see it before one need put it in words." + +Well, perhaps it was in his manner or in the tone of his voice that +there was something which seemed at this moment to touch her deeply, +for she half turned and looked up at his face with her honest and +earnest eyes, and said to him kindly, "Yes, I do know without you +telling me; and it makes me happy to hear you talk so; and if I am +unjust to you, you must not think it intentional. And I shall try not +to be so in the future." + +Mrs. Trelyon was regarding with a kindly look the two young people +walking on in front of her. Whatever pleased her son pleased her, and +she was glad to see him enjoy himself in so light-hearted a fashion. +These two were chatting to each other in the friendliest manner: +sometimes they stopped to pick up wild flowers: they were as two +children together under the fair and light summer skies. + +They went down and along a narrow valley, until they suddenly stood +in front of the sea, the green waters of which were breaking in upon a +small and lonely creek. What strange light was this that fell from +the white skies above, rendering all the objects around them sharp its +outline and intense in color? The beach before them seemed of a pale +lilac, where the green waves broke in a semicircle of white. On their +right some masses of ruddy rock jutted out into the cold sea, and +there were huge black caverns into which the waves dashed and roared. +On their left and far above them towered a great and isolated rock, +its precipitous sides scored here and there with twisted lines of red +and yellow quartz; and on the summit of this bold headland, amid +the dark green of the sea-grass, they could see the dusky ruins--the +crumbling walls and doorways and battlements--of the castle that is +named in all the stories of King Arthur and his knights. The bridge +across to the mainland has, in the course of centuries, fallen away, +but there, on the other side of the wide chasm, were the ruins of the +other portions of the castle, scarcely to be distinguished in parts +from the grass-grown rocks. How long ago was it since Sir Tristram +rode out here to the end of the world, to find the beautiful Isoulde +awaiting him--she whom he had brought from Ireland as an unwilling +bride to the old king Mark? And what of the joyous company of knights +and ladies who once held high sport in the courtyard there? Trelyon, +looking shyly at his companion, could see that her eyes seemed +centuries away from him. She was quite unconscious of his covertly +staring at her, for she was absently looking at the high and bare +precipices, the deserted slopes of dark sea-grass and the lonely +and crumbling ruins. She was wondering whether the ghosts of those +vanished people ever came back to this lonely headland, where they +would find the world scarcely altered since they had left it. Did they +come at night, when the land was dark, and when there was a light +over the sea only coming from the stars? If one were to come at night +alone, and to sit down here by the shore, might not one see strange +things far overhead or hear some sound other than the falling of the +waves? + +"Miss Wenna," he said--and she started suddenly--"are you bold enough +to climb with me up to the castle? I know my mother would rather stay +here." + +She went with him mechanically. She followed him up the rude steps +cut in the steep slopes of slate, holding his hand where that was +possible, but her head was so full of dreams that she answered him +when he spoke only with a vague yes or no. When they descended again +they found that Mabyn had taken Mrs. Trelyon down to the beach, and +had inveigled her into entering a huge cavern, or rather a natural +tunnel, that went right through underneath the promontory on which the +castle is built. They were in a sort of green-hued twilight, a scent +of seaweed filling the damp air, and their voices raising an echo in +the great hall of rock. + +"I hope the climbing has not made you giddy," Mrs. Trelyon said in her +kind way to Wenna, noticing that she was very silent and distrait. + +"Oh no," Mabyn said promptly. "She has been seeing ghosts. We always +know when Wenna has been seeing ghosts: she remains so for hours." + +And, indeed, at this time she was rather more reserved than usual all +during their walk back to luncheon and while they were in the inn; +and yet she was obviously very happy, and sometimes even amused by +the childlike pleasure which Mrs. Trelyon seemed to obtain from these +unwonted experiences. + +"Come, now, mother," Master Harry said, "what are you going to do for +me when I come of age next month? Fill the house with guests--yes, you +promised that--with not more than one parson to the dozen? And when +they're all feasting and gabbling, and missing the targets with their +arrows, you'll slip quietly away, and I'll drive you and Miss Wenna +over here, and you'll go and get your feet wet again in that cavern, +and you'll come up here again and have an elegant luncheon, just like +this. Won't that do?" + +"I don't quite know about the elegance of the luncheon, but I'm sure +our little excursion has been very pleasant. Don't you think so, Miss +Rosewarne?" Mrs. Trelyon said. + +"Indeed I do," said Wenna, with her big, earnest eyes coming back from +their trance. + +"And here is another thing," remarked young Trelyon. "There's +a picture I've seen of the heir coming of age--he's a horrid, +self-sufficient young cad, but never mind--and it seems to be a day of +general jollification. Can't I give a present to somebody? Well, I'm +going to give it to a young lady who never cares for anything but what +she can give away again to somebody else; and it is--well, it is--Why +don't you guess, Mabyn?" + +"I don't know what you mean to give Wenna," said Mabyn naturally. + +"Why, you silly! I mean to give her a dozen sewing-machines--a baker's +dozen--thirteen. There! Oh, I heard you as you came along. It was all, +'Three sewing-machines will cost so much, and four sewing-machines +will cost so much, and five sewing-machines will cost so much. And a +penny a week from so many subscribers will be so much, and twopence a +week from so many will be so much;' and all this as if my mother could +tell you how much twice two was. My arithmetic ain't very brilliant, +but as for hers--And these you shall have, Miss Wenna--one baker's +dozen of sewing-machines, as per order, duly delivered, carriage +free--empty casks and bottles to be returned." + +"That is very kind of you, Mr. Trelyon," Wenna said--and all +the dreams had gone straight out of her head so soon as this was +mentioned--"but we can't possibly accept them. You know our scheme is +to make the sewing club quite self-supporting--no charity." + +"Oh, what stuff!" the young gentleman cried. "You know you will give +all your labor and supervision for nothing: isn't that charity? And +you know you will let off all sorts of people owing you subscriptions +the moment some blessed baby falls ill. And you know you won't charge +interest on all the outlay. But if you insist on paying me back for +my sewing-machines out of the overwhelming profits at the end of next +year, then I'll take the money. I'm not proud." + +"Then we will take six sewing-machines from you, if you please, +Mr. Trelyon, on those conditions," said Wenna gravely. And Master +Harry--with a look toward Mabyn which was just about as good as a +wink--consented. + +As they drove quietly back again to Eglosilyan, Mabyn had taken her +former place by the driver, and found him uncommonly thoughtful. He +answered her questions, but that was all; and it was so unusual to +find Harry Trelyon in this mood that she said to him, "Mr. Trelyon, +have you been seeing ghosts, too?" + +He turned to her and said, "I was thinking about something. Look here, +Mabyn: did you ever know any one, or do you know any one, whose face +is a sort of barometer to you? Suppose that you see her look pale and +tired or sad in any way, then down go your spirits, and you almost +wish you had never been born. When you see her face brighten up and +get full of healthy color, you feel glad enough to burst out singing +or go mad: anyhow, you know that everything's all right. What the +weather is, what people may say about you, whatever else may happen +to you, that's nothing: all you want to see is just that one person's +face look perfectly bright and perfectly happy, and nothing can +touch you then. Did you ever know anybody like that?" he added rather +abruptly. + +"Oh yes," said Mabyn, in a low voice: "that is when you are in love +with some one. And there is only one face in all the world that I look +to for all these things, there is only one person I know who tells you +openly and simply in her face all that affects her, and that is our +Wenna. I suppose you have noticed that, Mr. Trelyon?" + +But he did not make any answer. + + + + +CHAPTER XXI. + +CONFESSION. + + +The lad lay dreaming in the warm meadows by the side of a small and +rapid brook, the clear waters of which plashed and bubbled in the +sunlight as they hurried past the brown stones. His fishing-rod lay +beside him, hidden in the long grass and the daisies. The sun was hot +in the valley--shining on a wall of gray rock behind him, and throwing +purple shadows over the clefts; shining on the dark bushes beside +the stream and on the lush green of the meadows; shining on the trees +beyond, in the shadow of which some dark red cattle were standing. +Then away on the other side of the valley rose gently-sloping woods, +gray and green in the haze of the heat, and over these again was the +pale blue sky with scarcely a cloud in it. It was a hot day to be +found in spring-time, but the waters of the brook seemed cool and +pleasant as they gurgled by, and occasionally a breath of wind blew +over from the woods. For the rest, he lay so still on this fine, +indolent, dreamy morning that the birds around seemed to take no note +of his presence, and one of the large woodpeckers, with his scarlet +head and green body brilliant in the sun, flew close by him and +disappeared into the bushes opposite like a sudden gleam of color shot +by a diamond. + +"Next month," he was thinking to himself as he lay with his hands +behind his head, not caring to shade his handsome and well-tanned face +from the warm sun--"next month I shall be twenty-one, and most folks +will consider me a man. Anyhow, I don't know the man whom I wouldn't +fight or run or ride or shoot against for any wager he liked. But of +all the people who know anything about me, just that one whose opinion +I care for will not consider me a man at all, but only a boy. And that +without saying anything. You can tell, somehow, by a mere look, what +her feelings are; and you know that what she thinks is true. Of course +it's true--I am only a boy. What's the good of me to anybody? I could +look after a farm--that is, I could look after other people doing +their work--but I couldn't do any work myself. And that seems to me +what she is always looking at: 'What's the good of you, what are you +doing, what are you busy about?' It's all very well for her to be +busy, for she can do a hundred thousand things, and she is always at +them. What can I do?" + +Then his wandering day-dreamings took another turn: "It was an odd +thing for Mabyn to say--'_That is when you are in love with some +one_.' But those girls take everything for love. They don't know how +you can admire, almost to worshiping, the goodness of a woman, and how +you are anxious that she should be well and happy, and how you would +do anything in the world to please her, without fancying straight away +that you are in love with her, and want to marry her and drive about +in the same carriage with her. I shall be quite as fond of Wenna +Rosewarne when she is married, although I shall hate that little brute +with his rum and his treacle. The cheek of him, in asking her to marry +him, is astonishing. He is the most hideous little beast that could +have been picked out to marry any woman, but I suppose he has appealed +to her compassion, and then she'll do anything. But if there was +anybody else in love with her, if she cared the least bit about +anybody else, wouldn't I go straight to her and insist on her shunting +that fellow aside? What claim has he on any other feeling of hers but +her compassion? Why, if that fellow were to come and try to frighten +her, and if I were in the affair, and if she appealed to me even by a +look, then there would be short work with something or somebody." + +He got up hastily, with something of a gloomy and angry look on his +face. He did not notice that he had startled all the birds around from +out of the bushes. He picked up his rod and line in a morose +fashion, not seeming to care about adding to the half dozen small and +red-speckled trout he had in his basket. + +While he was thus irresolutely standing he caught sight of a girl's +figure coming rapidly along the valley under the shadow of some ash +trees growing by the stream. It was Wenna Rosewarne herself, and she +seemed to be hurrying toward him. She was carrying some black object +in her arms. + +"Oh, Mr. Trelyon," she said, "what am I to do with this little dog? I +saw him kicking in the road and foaming at the mouth; and then he got +up and ran, and I caught him--" + +Before she had time to say anything more the young man made a sudden +dive at the dog, caught hold of him and turned and heaved him into the +stream. He fell into a little pool of clear brown water: he spluttered +and paddled there for a second, then he got his footing and scrambled +across the stones up to the opposite bank, where he began shaking the +water from his coat among the long grass. + +"Oh, how could you be so disgracefully cruel?" she said, with her face +full of indignation. + +"And how could you be so imprudent?"' he said quite as vehemently. +"Why, whose is the dog?" + +"I don't know." + +"And you catch up some mongrel little cur in the middle of the +highway--He might have been mad." + +"I knew he wasn't mad," she said: "it was only a fit; and how could +you be so cruel as to throw him into the river?" + +"Oh," said the young man, coolly, "a clash of cold water is the best +thing for a dog that has a fit. Besides, I don't care what he had or +what I did with him, so long as you are safe. Your little finger is of +more consequence than the necks of all the curs in the country." + +"Oh, it is mean of you to say that," she retorted warmly. "You have no +pity for those wretched little things that are at every one's mercy. +If it were a handsome and beautiful dog, now, you would care for that, +or if it were a dog that was skilled in getting game for you, you +would care for that." + +"Yes, certainly," he said: "these are dogs that have something to +recommend them." + +"Yes, and every one is good to them: they are not in need of your +favor. But you don't think of the wretched little brutes that have +nothing to recommend them, that only live on sufferance, that every +one kicks and despises and starves." + +"Well," said he with some compunction, "look there! That new friend of +yours--he's no great beauty, you must confess--is all right now. The +bath has cured him. As soon as he's done licking his paws he'll be off +home, wherever that may be. But I've always noticed that about you, +Wenna: you're always on the side of things that are ugly and helpless +and useless in the world; and you're not very just to those who don't +agree with you. For after all, you know, one wants time to acquire +that notion of yours--that it is only weak and ill-favored creatures +that are worthy of the least consideration." + +"Yes," she said rather sadly, "you want time to learn that." + +He looked at her. Did she mean that her sympathy with those who were +weak and ill-favored arose from some strange consciousness that she +herself was both? His cheeks began to burn red. He had often heard her +hint something like that, and yet he had never dared to reason with +her or show her what he thought of her. Should he do so now? + +"Wenna," he said, blushing hotly, "I can't make you out sometimes. You +speak as if no one cared for you. Now, if I were to tell you--" + +"Oh, I am not so ungrateful," she said hastily. "I know that two or +three do; and--and, Mr. Trelyon, do you think you could coax that +little dog over the stream again? You see he has come back again--he +can't find his way home." + +Mr. Trelyon called to the dog: it came down to the river's side, and +whined and shivered on the brink. + +"Do you care a brass farthing about the little beast?" he said to +Wenna. + +"I must put him on his way home," she answered. + +Thereupon the young man went straight through the stream to the other +side, jumping the deeper portions of the channel: he caught up the dog +and brought it back to her; and when she was very angry with him for +this mad performance, he merely kicked some of the water out of his +trousers and laughed. + +Then a smile broke over her face also. "Is that an example of what +people would do for me?" she said shyly. "Mr. Trelyon, you must keep +walking through the warm grass till your feet are dry; or will you +come along to the inn, and I shall get you some shoes and stockings? +Pray do, and at once. I am rather in a hurry." + +"I'll go along with you, anyway," he said, "and put this little brute +into the highway. But why are you in a hurry?" + +"Because," said Wenna, as they set out to walk down the +valley--"because my mother and I are going to Penzance the day after +to-morrow, and I have a lot of things to get ready." + +"To Penzance?" said he with a sudden falling of the face. + +"Yes. She has been dreadfully out of sorts lately, and she has sunk +into a kind of despondent state. The doctor says she must have a +change--a holiday, really--to take her away from the cares of the +house--" + +"Why, Wenna, it's you who want the holiday--it's you who have the +cares of the house," Trelyon said warmly. + +"And so I have persuaded her to go to Penzance for a week or two, and +I go with her to look after her. Mr. Trelyon, would you be kind enough +to keep Rock for me until we come back? I am afraid of the servants +neglecting him." + +"You needn't be afraid of that: he's not one of the ill-favored--every +one will attend to him," said Trelyon; and then he added, after a +minute or two of silence, "The fact is, I think I shall be at Penzance +also while you are there. My cousin Juliott is coming here in about a +fortnight to celebrate the important event of my coming of age, and I +promised to go for her. I might as well go now." + +She said nothing. + +"I might as well go any time," he said rather impatiently. "I haven't +got anything to do. Do you know, before you came along just now, I was +thinking what a very useful person you were in the world, and what +a very useless person I was--about as useless as this little cur. I +think somebody should take me up and heave me into a river. And I was +wondering, too"--here he became a little more embarrassed and slow of +speech--"I was wondering what you would say if I spoke to you, and +gave you a hint that sometimes--that sometimes one might wish to cut +this lazy life if one only knew how, and whether so very busy a person +as yourself mightn't--don't you see?--give one some notion--some sort +of hint, in fact--" + +"Oh, but then, Mr. Trelyon," she said quite cheerfully, "you would +think it very strange if I asked you to take any interest in the +things that keep me busy. That is not a man's work. I wouldn't accept +you as a pupil." + +He burst out laughing. "Why," said he, "do you think I offered to mend +stockings and set sums on slates and coddle babies?" + +"As for setting sums on slates," she remarked with a quiet +impertinence, "the working of them out might be of use to you." + +"Yes, and a serious trouble too," he said candidly. "No, no--that +cottage business ain't in my line. I like to have a joke with the +old folks or a romp with the kids, but I can't go in for cutting out +pinafores. I shall leave my mother to do my share of that for me; and +hasn't she come out strong lately, eh? It's quite a new amusement for +her, and it's driven a deal of that organ-grinding and stuff out of +her head; and I've a notion some o' those parsons--" + +He stopped short, remembering who his companion was; and at this +moment they came to a gate which opened out on the highway, through +which the small cur was passed to find his way home. + +"Now, Miss Wenna," said the young man--"By the way, you see how I +remember to address you respectfully ever since you got sulky with me +about it the other day?" + +"I am sure I did not get sulky with you, and especially about that," +she remarked with much composure. "I suppose you are not aware that +you have dropped the 'Miss' several times this morning already?" + +"Did I, really? Well, then, I'm awfully sorry; but then you are so +good-natured you tempt one to forget; and my mother she always calls +you Wenna Rosewarne now in speaking to me, as if you were a little +school-girl, instead of being the chief support and pillar of all the +public affairs of Eglosilyan. And now, Miss Wenna, I sha'n't go down +the road with you, because my damp boots and garments would gather the +dust; but perhaps you wouldn't mind stopping two seconds here, and I'm +going to go a cracker and ask you a question: What should a fellow in +my position try to do? You see, I haven't had the least training for +any one of the professions, even if I had any sort of capacity--" + +"But why should you wish to have a profession?" she said simply. "You +have more money than is good for you already." + +"Then you don't think it ignominious," he said, with his face lighting +up considerably, "to fish in summer and shoot in autumn and hunt in +winter, and make that the only business of one's life?" + +"I should if it were the only business, but it needn't be, and you +don't make it so. My father speaks very highly of the way you look +after your property; and he knows what attending to an estate is. And +then you have so many opportunities of being kind and useful to the +people about you that you might do more good that way than by working +night and day at a profession. Then you owe much to yourself, because +if every one began with himself, and educated himself, and became +satisfied and happy with doing his best, there would be no bad conduct +and wretchedness to call for interference. I don't see why you should +be ashamed of shooting and hunting and all that, and doing them as +well as anybody else, or far better, as I hear people say. I don't +think a man is bound to have ambition and try to become famous: you +might be of much greater use in the world, even in such a little +place as Eglosilyan, than if you were in Parliament. I did say to Mrs. +Trelyon that I should like to see you in Parliament, because one has +a natural pride in any person one admires and likes very much, and one +wishes--" + +He saw the quick look of fear that sprang to her eyes--not a sudden +appearance of shy embarrassment, but of absolute fear--and he was +almost as startled by her blunder as she herself was. He hastily came +to her rescue. He thanked her in a few rapid and formal words for her +patience and advice; and, as he saw she was trying to turn away and +hide the mortification visible on her face, he shook hands with her +and let her go. + +Then he turned. He had been startled, it is true, and grieved to see +the pain her chance words had caused her. But now a great glow of +delight rose up within him, and he could have called aloud to the blue +skies and the silent woods because of the joy that filled his heart. +They were but chance words, of course. They were uttered with no +deliberate intention: on the contrary, her quick look of pain showed +how bitterly she regretted the blunder. Moreover, he congratulated +himself on his rapid piece of acting, and assured himself that she +would believe that he had not noticed that admission of hers. They +were idle words: she would forget them. The incident, so far as she +was concerned, was gone. + +But not so far as he was concerned. For now he knew that the person +whom, above all other persons in the world, he was most desirous to +please, whose respect and esteem he was most anxious to obtain, had +not only condoned much of his idleness out of the abundant charity of +her heart, but had further, and by chance, revealed to him that she +gave him some little share of that affection which she seemed to shed +generously and indiscriminately on so many folks and things around +her. He, too, was now in the charmed circle. He walked with a new +pride through the warm, green meadows, his rod over his shoulder: he +whistled as he went, or he sang snatches of "The Rose of Allandale." +He met two small boys out bird's-nesting: he gave them a shilling +apiece, and then inconsistently informed them that if he caught them +then or at any other time with a bird's nest in their hands he would +cuff their ears. Then he walked hastily home, put by his fishing-rod, +and shut himself up in his study with half a dozen of those learned +volumes which he had brought back unsoiled from school. + + + + +CHAPTER XXII. + +ON WINGS OF HOPE. + + +When Trelyon arrived late one evening at Penzance he was surprised +to find his uncle's coachman awaiting him at the station: "What's the +matter, Tobias? Is the old gentleman going to die? You don't mean to +say you are here for me?" + +"Yaäs, zor, I be," said the little old man with no great courtesy. + +"Then he is going to die if he sends out his horse at this time o' +night. Look here, Tobias: I'll put my portmanteau inside and come on +the box to have a talk with you--you're such a jolly old card, you +know--and you'll tell me all that's happened since I last enjoyed my +uncle's bountiful hospitality." + +This the young man did: and then the brown-faced, wiry and surly +little person, having started his horse, proceeded to tell his story +in a series of grumbling and disconnected sentences. He was not nearly +so taciturn as he looked: "The maäster he went sün to bed to-night: +'twere Miss Juliott sent me to the station, without tellin' en. He's +gettin' worse and worse, that's sure: if yü be for giving me half a +crown, like, or any one that comes to the house, he finds it out and +stops it out o' my wages: yes, he does, zor, the old fule!" + +"Tobias, be a little more respectful to my uncle, if you please." + +"Why, zor, yü knaw en well enough," said the man in the same surly +fashion. "And I'll tell yü this, Maäster Harry, if yü be after +dinner with en, and he has a bottle o' poort wine that he puts on +the mantelpiece, and he says to yü to let that aloän, vor 'tis a +medicine-zart o' wine, don't yü heed en, but have that wine. 'Tis the +real old poort wine, zor, that yür vather gied en--the dahmned old +pagan!" + +The young man burst out laughing, instead of reprimanding Tobias, who +maintained his sulky impassiveness of face. + +"Why, zor, I be gardener now, too: yaäs I be, to save the wages. +And he's gone clean mazed about that garden--yaäs, I think. Would yü +believe this, Maäster Harry, that he killed every one o' the blessed +strawberries last year with a lot o' wrack from the bache, because he +said it wüd be as good for them as for the 'sparagus?" + +"Well, but the old chap finds amusement in pottering about the +garden--" said Master Harry. + +"The old fule!" repeated Tobias, in an under tone. + +"And the theory is sound about the seaweed and the strawberries; +just as his old notion of getting a green rose by pouring sulphate of +copper in at the roots." + +"Yaäs, that were another pretty thing, Maäster Harry, and he had the +tin labels all printed out in French, and he waited and waited, and +there bain't a fairly güde rose left in the garden. And his violet +glass for the cucumbers: he burned en up to once, although 'twere fine +to hear'n talk about the sunlight and the rays and such nonsenses. He +be a strange mahn, zor, and a dahmned close'n with his penny-pieces, +Christian and all as he calls his-sen. There's Miss Juliott, zor, +she's go-in' to get married, I suppose; and when she goes no one 'll +dare spake to 'n. Be yü going to stop long this time, Maäster Harry?" + +"Not at the Hollies, Tobias. I shall go down to the Queen's to-morrow: +I've got rooms there." + +"So much the better--so much the better," said the frank but +inhospitable retainer; and presently the jogtrot old animal between +the shafts was pulled up in front of a certain square old-fashioned +building of gray stone which was prettily surrounded with trees. They +had arrived at the Rev. Mr. Penaluna's house, and there was a young +lady standing in the light of the hall, she having opened the door +very softly as she heard the carriage drive up. + +"So here you are, Harry; and you'll stay with us the whole fortnight, +won't you? Come in to the dining-room--I have some supper ready for +you. Papa's gone to bed, and he desired me to give you his excuses, +and he hopes you'll make yourself quite at home, as you always do, +Harry." + +He did make himself quite at home, for, having kissed his cousin and +flung his topcoat down in the hall, he went into the dining-room and +took possession of an easy-chair. + +"Sha'n't have any supper, Jue, thank you. You won't mind my lighting +a cigar--somebody's been smoking here already. And what's the least +poisonous claret you've got?" + +"Well, I declare!" she said, but she got him the wine all the +same, and watched him light his cigar: then she took the easy-chair +opposite. + +"Tell us about your young man, Jue," he said. "Girls always like to +talk about that." + +"Do they?" she said. "Not to boys." + +"I shall be twenty-one in a fortnight. I am thinking of getting +married." + +"So I hear," she remarked quietly. + +Now he had been talking nonsense at random, mostly intent on getting +his cigar well lit, but this little observation rather startled him. +"What have you heard?" he said abruptly. + +"Oh, nothing--the ordinary stupid gossip," she said, though she was +watching him rather closely. "Are you going to stay with us for the +next fortnight?" + +"No, I have got rooms at the Queen's." + +"I thought so. One might have expected you, however, to stay with your +relations when you came to Penzance." + +"Oh, that's all gammon, Jue," he said: "you know very well your father +doesn't care to have any one stay with you--it's too much bother. +You'll have quite enough of me while I am in Penzance." + +"Shall we have anything of you?" she said with apparent indifference. +"I understood that Miss Rosewarne and her mamma had already come +here." + +"And what if they have?" he said with unnecessary fierceness. + +"Well, Harry," she said, "you needn't get unto a temper about it, but +people will talk, you know; and they say that your attentions to that +young lady are rather marked, considering that she is engaged to be +married; and you have induced your mother to make a pet of her. Shall +I go on?" + +"No, you needn't," he said with a strong effort to overcome his anger. +"You're quite right--people do talk, but they wouldn't talk so much +if other people didn't carry tales. Why, it isn't like you, Jue! I +thought you were another sort. And about this girl, of all girls in +the world!" + +He got up and began walking about the room, and talking with +considerable vehemence, but no more in anger. He would tell her what +cause there was for this silly gossip. He would tell her who this +girl was who had been lightly mentioned. And in his blunt, frank, +matter-of-fact way, which did not quite conceal his emotion, he +revealed to his cousin all that he thought of Wenna Rosewarne, and +what he hoped for her in the future, and what their present relations +were, and then plainly asked her if she could condemn him. + +Miss Juliott was touched: "Sit down, Harry: I have wanted to talk +to you, and I don't mean to heed any gossip. Sit down, please--you +frighten me by walking up and down like that. Now, I'm going to talk +common sense to you, for I should like to be your friend; and your +mother is so easily led away by any sort of sentiment that she isn't +likely to have seen with my eyes. Suppose that this Miss Rosewarne--" + +"No, hold hard a bit, Jue," he said imperatively. "You may talk till +the millennium, but just keep off her, I warn you." + +"Will you hear me out, you silly boy? Suppose that Miss Rosewarne +is everything that you believe her to be. I'm going to grant that, +because I'm going to ask you a question. You can't have such an +opinion of any girl, and be constantly in her society, and go +following her about like this, without falling in love with her. Now, +in that case would you propose to marry her?" + +"I marry her!" he said, his face becoming suddenly pale for a moment. +"Jue, you are mad! I am not fit to marry a girl like that. You don't +know her. Why--" + +"Let all that alone, Harry: when a man is in love with a woman he +always thinks he's good enough for her; and whether he does or not +he tries to get her for a wife. Don't let us discuss your comparative +merits: one might even put in a word for you. But suppose you drifted +into being in love with her--and I consider that quite probable--and +suppose you forgot, as I know you would forget, the difference in your +social position, how would you like to go and ask her to break her +promise to the gentleman to whom she is engaged?" + +Master Harry laughed aloud in a somewhat nervous fashion: "Him? Look +here, Jue: leave me out of it--I haven't the cheek to talk of myself +in that connection--but if there was a decent sort of fellow whom that +girl really took a liking to, do you think he would let that elderly +and elegant swell out in Jamaica stand in his way? He would be no +such fool, I can tell you. He would consider the girl first of all. +He would say to himself, 'I mean to make this girl happy; if any one +interferes, let him look out!' Why, Jue, you don't suppose any man +would be frightened by that sort of thing?" + +Miss Juliott did not seem quite convinced by this burst of scornful +oratory. She continued quietly, "You forget something, Harry. Your +heroic young man might find it easy to do something wild--to fight +with that gentleman in the West Indies, or murder him, or anything +like that, just as you see in a story--but perhaps Miss Rosewarne +might have something to say." + +"I meant if she cared for him," Trelyon said, looking down. + +"Granting that also, do you think it likely your hot-headed gentleman +would be able to get a young lady to disgrace herself by breaking her +plighted word and deceiving a man who went away trusting in her? +You say she has a very tender conscience--that she is so anxious to +consult every one's happiness before her own, and all that. Probably +it is true. I say nothing against her. But to bring the matter back to +yourself--for I believe you're hot-headed enough to do anything--what +would you think of her if you or anybody else persuaded her to do such +a treacherous thing?" + +"She is not capable of treachery," he said somewhat stiffly. "If +you've got no more cheerful things to talk about, you'd better go to +bed, Jue. I shall finish my cigar by myself." + +"Very well, then, Harry. You know your room. Will you put out the lamp +when you have lit your candle?" + +So she went, and the young man was left alone in no very enviable +frame of mind. He sat and smoked while the clock on the mantelpiece +swung its gilded boy and struck the hours and half hours with unheeded +regularity. He lit a second cigar, and a third; he forgot the wine. +It seemed to him that he was looking on all the roads of life that lay +before him, and they were lit up by as strange and new a light as +that which was beginning to shine over the world outside. New fancies +seemed to awake with the new dawn. For himself to ask Wenna Rosewarne +to be his wife! Could he but win the tender and shy regard of her eyes +he would fall at her feet and bathe them with his tears. And if this +wonderful thing were possible--if she could put her hand in his +and trust to him for safety in all the coming years they might live +together--what man of woman born would dare to interfere? There was a +blue light coming in through the shutters. He went to the window: +the topmost leaves of the trees were quivering in the cold air far up +there in the clearing skies, where the stars were fading out one by +one, and he could hear the sound of the sea on the distant beach, and +he knew that across the gray plain of waters the dawn was breaking, +and that over the sleeping world another day was rising that seemed to +him the first day of a new and tremulous life, full of joy and courage +and hope. + +[TO BE CONTINUED.] + + + + +ON THE VIA SAN BASILIO. + + +In Rome, 1851; a cold, dreary day in December--one of those days in +which a man's ambition seems to desert him entirely, leaving only its +grinning skeleton to mock him. Depressing as was the weather to a man +who had cheerfulness as a companion by which to repel its blustering +attacks, and raise his mind above the despondency it was calculated +to produce, how much more so to one whose hope had gone out as a +flickering lamp in a sudden gust of wind, and the sharp steel of whose +ambition had turned to pierce his own heart! + +Such a man, on the day mentioned, was walking along the Via San +Basilio. He was small in stature, poorly clad, and so thin, and +even cadaverous, that the casual observer might have been under +apprehension lest a gust of wind a little stronger than the average +might blow him entirely away; yet his air and manner were proud and +haughty, and what little evidences of feeling peered through the signs +of dissipation too apparent on his naturally attractive face were +those of genuine refinement. He was accompanied by a cicerone, or +servant, as villainous-looking a fellow as one often meets, even in +Italy, where an evil expression is so often seen stamped on handsome +features. + +Along the Via San Basilio the two men walked until they stood opposite +the door of No. 51. Sacred ground this, and historical as well. Art +had her votaries here, as the tourist of to-day will find she still +has, at whose shrines pilgrims from afar and from near worshiped, and +grew better and stronger for their ministrations. Crawford, then +at the acme of his fame, had his constantly-thronged studio in the +immediate vicinity, while those at No. 51 embraced, among others, that +of Tenerani, the famous Italian sculptor, whose work is always in such +fine dramatic taste, although he never sacrifices his love and +deep feeling of reverence for Nature, combining that with the most +delightful charms of Greek art. Among this artist's most noted works +will be remembered his "Descent from the Cross," which tourists +visiting the Torlonia chapel in the Lateran never gaze upon without +a thrill. The house was owned and also occupied by Bienaimé, a French +sculptor who afterward became famous. + +In the immediate vicinity stands the famous Palazzo Barberini, begun +by Urban VIII. (Maffeo Barberini), who sat in the pontifical chair +from 1623 to 1644, and finished by Bernini in 1640. This palace +contains many paintings of historical interest by Raphael, Titian, +Guido, Claude and others. The one by the first-mentioned artist is a +Fornarina, and bears the autograph of the painter on the armlet. But +the picture that attracts the most attention here is one of world-wide +reputation, copies, engravings and photographs of which are everywhere +to be met with--Guido's Beatrice Cenci. A great divergence of opinion, +as is well known, exists in regard to the portrait. It bears the +pillar and crown of the Colonnas, to which family it probably +belonged. According to the family tradition, it was taken on the night +before her execution. Other accounts state that it was painted by +Guido from memory after he had seen her on the scaffold. Judging from +the position in which the poor girl's head is represented, one would +more readily give credence to the latter story, and think the artist's +memory had preserved her look and position as she turned her head for +a last look at the brutal, bellowing crowd behind. + +In the piazza of the palace is a very beautiful fountain, utilized +by one of the oldest Roman statues, representing a faun blowing water +from a conch-shell. + +But we must return to the Via San Basilio, and the two wayfarers we +left standing in front of No. 51. After gazing a moment at the number +to assure themselves that they were right, they entered, and knocked +at the first door, which was opened by the occupant of the apartment. +He was an artist and a man of very marked characteristics. Seven +years later Hawthorne wrote as follows of him: "He is a plain, homely +Yankee, quite unpolished by his many years' residence in Italy. He +talks ungrammatically; walks with a strange, awkward gait and stooping +shoulders; is altogether unpicturesque, but wins one's confidence +by his very lack of grace. It is not often that we see an artist +so entirely free from affectation in his aspect and deportment. +His pictures were views of Swiss and Italian scenery, and were most +beautiful and true. One of them, a moonlight picture, was really +magical--the moon shining so brightly that it seemed to throw a +light even beyond the limits of the picture; and yet his sunrises and +sunsets, and noontides too, were nowise inferior to this, although +their excellence required somewhat longer study to be fully +appreciated." + +After this introduction by our sweet and quaint romancer, the reader +will hardly need be told that the two strangers stood in the presence +of America's now illustrious artist, George L. Brown. But one seeing +him then, as he stood almost scowling at the two strangers, would +hardly have idealized him into the artist whose pencil has done so +much of late years to give American art a distinctive name through his +poetical delineations of the rare, sun-tinted atmosphere that hovers +over Italian landscapes. However, our apology for him must be that the +day was raw and blustering, and that he had no sooner caught sight +of the men through his window, as they hesitatingly entered the door, +than his suspicions were aroused. + +The Italian acted as spokesman, and inquired if there were any rooms +to let in the building. Brown, thinking this the easiest way of +ridding himself of the visitors, went in search of the landlord, who +came, and after a moment's conversation the whole party entered the +studio, much to its owner's displeasure. + +The cicerone did most of the talking, though now and then the other +made a remark or two in broken Italian. But this was only for the +first few moments. He soon became oblivious of all save art, of which +one could see at a glance he was passionately fond. One of Mr. Brown's +pictures--a large one he was then engaged on--particularly attracted +his attention. He drew closer and closer to the canvas, examining it +with a minuteness that showed the connoisseur, and finally remarked: +"It is very fine in color, sir, and the atmosphere is delicious. Why +have I not heard of you before?" examining the corner of the canvas +for the artist's name, but speaking in a tone and with an air that +gave Brown the impression he was indulging in the random flattery so +current in studios. So, ignoring the question, he asked with a slight +shrug of the shoulders, "Are you an artist?" + +"I paint a little," was the reply, with an air of modesty which Brown +mistook for the bashful half-assertion of some daubing amateur. + +Just then the cicerone came forward and announced that the bargain was +completed and the room ready for occupancy. + +"I shall be happy--no, _happy_ is not a good word for me--I shall be +glad to see you in my studio when I have moved in, and perhaps you may +see some things to please you." + +So saying, the stranger departed, leaving Brown not a whit better +impressed with him than at first. + +The next morning the two called again, when the gentleman made an +examination of the room selected the day before, having met Mr. Brown +in the hall-way and invited him in. On entering, the new occupant took +from his pocket a piece of chalk and a compass and made a number of +circles and figures on the floor to determine when the sun would shine +in the room. Brown watched him with a certain degree of curiosity and +amusement, and finally, concluding he was half crazy, returned to his +own studio. + +The next day the cicerone called alone to see about some repairs, when +Brown hailed him: "_Buono giorno. Che è questo_?" ("Good-day. Who is +that?") + +"_Non sapete_?" ("Don't you know?"), was the Italian's response. "Why, +that is the celebrated Brullof." + +Brown started as though shot. First there flashed through his brain +the remembrance of how cavalierly he had treated the distinguished +artist, and then a quick panorama of his recent history, which had +been the gossip of studios and art-circles for some time back. "I must +go to him," he said, "and apologize for not treating him with more +deference." + +"_Non, signore_," was the cicerone's response. "Never mind: let it +rest. He is a man of the world, and pays little heed to such things. +Besides, he is so overwhelmed with his private griefs that he has +probably noticed no slight." + +However, when the great Russian artist took possession of his studio +his American brother of the pencil made his apology, and received this +response; "Don't waste words on so trivial a matter. Do I not court +the contempt of a world that I despise to my heart's core? Say no more +about it. Run in and see me when agreeable; and if you have no better +callers than such a plaything of fate as I, maybe you will not refuse +me occasional admittance." + +The Russian artist now shunned notoriety as he had formerly courted +it. Little is known of his history beyond mere rumor, and that only in +artistic circles. He was born at St. Petersburg in 1799 or 1800, and +gave himself to the study of art at an early age, becoming an especial +proficient in color and composition. One of his most widely-known +works is "The Last Days of Pompeii," which created great enthusiasm a +quarter of a century ago. This, however, was painted during his career +of dissipation, and its vivid coloring seemed to have been drawn from +a soul morbid with secret woes and craving a nepenthe which never +came. + +The young artist was petted and idolized by the wealth and nobility +of St. Petersburg, where he married a beautiful woman, and became +court-painter to the czar Nicholas about the year 1830. For some years +no couple lived more happily, and no artist swayed a greater multitude +of fashion and wealth than he; but scandal began to whisper that +the czar was as fond of the handsome, brilliant wife of the young +court-painter as the cultivated people of St. Petersburg were of the +husband's marvelously colored works; and when at last the fact became +known to Brullof that the monarch who had honored him through an +intelligent appreciation of art had dishonored him through a guilty +passion for his wife, he left St. Petersburg, swore never again to +set foot on Russian soil or be recognized as a Russian subject, and, +plunging headlong into a wild career of dissipation, was thenceforth a +wanderer up and down the continent of Europe. + +It was when this career had borne its inevitable fruit, and he was but +a mere wreck of the polished gentleman of a few years previous, that +Brullof came to the Via San Basilio, where, as soon as the fact +became known, visitors began to call. Among the first were the Russian +ambassador and suite, who were driven up in a splendid carriage, with +liveried attendants; but after the burly Italian had announced to his +master who was in waiting, the door was closed, and with no message in +return the representatives of the mightiest empire on the globe +were left to withdraw with the best grace they could muster for the +occasion. Similar scenes were repeated often during the entire Roman +season. He saw but few of his callers--Russians, never. + +The Russian and the American artists became quite intimate during the +few months they were thrown together, and Mr. Brown has acknowledged +that he owes much of the success of his later efforts to hints +received from the self-exiled, dying Russian. + +"Mr. Brown," he said on one occasion, while examining the picture on +the artist's easel, "no one since Claude has painted atmosphere as you +do. But you must follow Calamé's example, and make drawing more of +a study. Draw from Nature, and do it faithfully, and with your +atmosphere I will back you against the world. That is bad," pointing +to the huge limb of a tree in the foreground: "it bulges both ways, +you see. Now, Nature is never so. Look at my arm," speaking with +increased animation, and suddenly throwing off his coat and rolling +up his shirt-sleeve. "When you see a convexity, you will see concavity +opposite. Just so in Nature, especially in the trunks and limbs of +trees." + +This criticism made such an impression on Brown that it decided him +to go into more laborious work, and was the foundation of his habit +of getting up at daybreak and going out to sketch rocks, trees and +cattle, until he stands where he now does as a draughtsman. + +The painting which Brullof had first admired, and which had induced +him to compare Brown to Claude in atmospheric effects, was a view of +the Pontine Marshes, painted for Crawford the sculptor, and now in +possession, of his widow, Mrs. Terry, at Rome. + +During this entire season the penuriousness exhibited by Brullof is +one of the hardest phases of his character to explain. Though he was +worth at least half a million of dollars, his meals were generally of +the scantiest kind, purchased by the Italian cicerone, and cooked and +eaten in his room. Yet a kindness would touch the hidden springs of +his generosity as the staff of Moses did the rock of Horeb. + +Toward the close of the Roman season, Brullof, growing more and more +moody, and becoming still more of a recluse, painted his last picture, +which showed how diseased and morbid his mind had become. He called it +"The End of All Things," and made it sensational to the verge of that +flexible characteristic. It represented popes and emperors tumbling +headlong into a terrible abyss, while the world's benefactors +were ascending in a sort of theatrical transformation-scene. A +representation of Christ holding a cross aloft was given, and winged +angels were hovering here and there, much in the same manner as +_coryphées_ and lesser auxiliaries of the ballet. A capital portrait +of George Washington was painted in the mass of rubbish, perhaps as +a compliment to Brown. In contradistinction to the portrait of +Washington were seen prominently those of the czar Nicholas and the +emperor Napoleon; the former put in on account of the artist's own +private wrong, and the latter because at that time, just after the +_coup d'ètat_, he was the execration of the liberty-loving world. + +In the spring the Russian artist gave up his studio, and went down +to some baths possessing a local reputation situated on the road to +Florence, where he died very suddenly. Much mystery overhangs his last +days, and absolutely no knowledge exists as to what became of his +vast property. His cicerone robbed him of his gold watch and all +his personal effects and disappeared. His remains lie buried in the +Protestant burying-ground outside the walls of Rome, near the Porto +di Sebastiano. His tomb is near that of Shelley and Keats, and +the monument erected to his memory is very simple, his head being +sculptured upon it in _alto relievo_, and on the opposite side an +artist's palette and brushes. + +EARL MARBLE. + + + + +A CHRISTMAS HYMN. + + The air was still o'er Bethlehem's plain, + As if the great Night held its breath, + When Life Eternal came to reign + Over a world of Death. + + The pagan at his midnight board + Let fall his brimming cup of gold: + He felt the presence of his Lord + Before His birth was told. + + The temples trembled to their base, + The idols shuddered as in pain: + A priesthood in its power of place + Knelt to its gods in vain. + + All Nature felt a thrill divine + When burst that meteor on the night, + Which, pointing to the Saviour's shrine, + Proclaimed the new-born light-- + + Light to the shepherds! and the star + Gilded their silent midnight fold-- + Light to the Wise Men from afar, + Bearing their gifts of gold-- + + Light to a realm of Sin and Grief-- + Light to a world in all its needs-- + The Light of life--a new belief + Rising o'er fallen creeds-- + + Light on a tangled path of thorns, + Though leading to a martyr's throne-- + Light to guide till Christ returns + In glory to His own. + + There still it shines, while far abroad + The Christmas choir sings now, as then, + "Glory, glory unto God! + Peace and good-will to men!" + +ROME, Christmas, 1871. + +T. BUCHANAN READ. + + + + +THE PARSEES. + + +Hanging in my study is a noteworthy portrait, generally the first +object observed by those who enter. It is an exquisite painting on +glass, the work of Là ng Quà , the best artist China has produced in our +day, and it delineates the form and features of a singularly handsome +young man. But it is the quaint Parsee garb that first attracts +attention; and the weird romance that attaches to the history of the +Fire-worshipers gives this work of art its real value, rather than +its lines of beauty or the celebrity of the painter's name. This +delicately-featured portrait _may_ depict the countenance of Musaljee +Jamsetjee Jejeebhoy, the first-born son and heir of the late Sir +Jamsetjee Jejeebhoy, baronet, of Bombay, India. That he really sat for +this portrait I cannot, however, positively assert, since I obtained +the painting from an English officer, who bought it of the artist, but +had "forgotten the strange, outlandish name of the Indian nabob," as +he said. It is certainly the portrait of a _Parsee_--true to the life +in features and garb, and it bears a striking resemblance to the young +Musaljee when about eighteen years of age. He was not then a personage +of any great celebrity, though the worthy son of a most remarkable +sire, the latter long known and honored in Europe for his liberal and +enlightened charities, and especially for his munificent donations, +that saved the lives of thousands of British subjects, during the +terrible famines that occurred in India between the years 1840 and +1846. It was in grateful recognition of this noble philanthropy that +Queen Victoria conferred upon him the honor of a baronetcy, sending +out a nobleman to act as her proxy in the presentation of a sword +which had been handled by more than one British monarch. Sir Jamsetjee +was the first East Indian who ever received a title from a European +sovereign. During the terrible famines alluded to he not only +distributed daily from his own palace a plentiful supply of food to +all who came, but he made also large donations of provisions to the +English governor of Bombay for the supply of his starving troops. +When, subsequently, pestilence followed in the footsteps of famine, +this true-hearted philanthropist, overstepping all prejudices of creed +and clan, built and endowed at his own expense a free hospital for the +sick of all nations and religions. Temporary bamboo cottages at first +received the sick till there was time for the erection of the present +elegant structure, which is built in the Gothic style, and is capable +of accommodating some six or eight hundred patients, besides nurses +and attendants. The physicians have been from the beginning of the +enterprise all English, as are many of the nurses, and the supplies in +every department are the very best the country can furnish. Since the +death of the noble founder, the son, who inherits his name and title, +has continued to foster with loving devotion the institution +which stands as a lasting monument of the fame and virtues of his +illustrious sire. The conception of such a charity tells not only of a +generous heart, but of far-reaching intelligence, while the energy and +perseverance of both father and son in carrying on, year after year, +so vast a system of benefactions, challenge our warmest admiration. + +The name of the late Sir Jamsetjee stood for more than a score of +years at the very head of the list of merchant-princes and ship-owners +in Bombay, where he was born, and where his ancestors for many +generations resided. He came of an old and wealthy family, who trace +their genealogy back to the Parsee exodus of the eighth century; and +it is said that the "sacred fire" has never once during all that time +burned out upon their altar. Sir Jamsetjee himself, though probably +faithful in the observance of the actual requirements of his creed, +was assuredly less strict than the majority, and being a man of large +intellect, cultivated mind and great independence of character, he did +not hesitate to borrow from other nations any customs, institutions or +inventions that might tend to the improvement of his own people. +His stately mansion was built and furnished in European style; his +children, even his daughters, were carefully educated in foreign as +well as native lore; and his own associations were with refined and +cultivated people, without any regard to their nation or creed. It was +while visiting at his house, in familiar intercourse with his family, +and with other Parsees of similar position, that I gleaned many +items of interest concerning the history and practices of the +Fire-worshipers. Other facts were added from time to time during +several years of frequent association with these singular people, in +whose glorious though unsuccessful struggles for home and liberty it +is impossible not to feel an interest. + +As a race, the Parsees are intelligent, active and energetic. With +business capacities far above the average, they are usually successful +in amassing wealth, while they are extremely benevolent in dispensing +their gains for both public and private charities. For private +benefactions they have, however, little call among themselves, since a +Parsee pauper would be an unheard-of anomaly. Their style of living is +princely but peculiar. In the reception-rooms of the wealthy--and most +of the Parsees in the city of Bombay are wealthy--one finds a +rather quaint mingling of Oriental luxury and European +elegance--brightly-tinted Persian carpets placed in Eastern fashion +over divans strewn with embroidered cushions and jewel-studded +pillows, among which recline, with genuine Oriental indolence, some of +the members of the family; while in another part of the same room +half a dozen more may be grouped about a table of marble and rosewood, +occupying velvet chairs that have traveled unmistakably from London +or Paris. French mirrors and Italian statuettes may have for their +_vis-à -vis_ the exquisite mosaics, the massive gold vases and the +costly bijouterie of the Orient, strewn so profusely around as to +startle unaccustomed eyes; and a genuine Meissonier will be just as +likely to be placed side by side with a Persian houri as anywhere +else. The Parsees drive the finest Arab steeds, but on their equipages +there is a more lavish display of ornament than we should deem quite +in accordance with good taste. The same is true in regard to personal +decoration. They wear immense quantities of costly jewelry, and nearly +all their garments are of silk, generally richly embroidered in gold, +and often with the addition of precious stones. Even little children +wear only silk, infants from the very first being wrapped in long, +loose robes of plain white silk that are gradually displaced by others +more elaborate and costly; while the toilette of a Parsee lady in full +evening-dress is often of the value of a hundred thousand rupees (or +forty-five thousand dollars). The female costume consists of silk or +cotton skirts gathered full round the waist, and long, loose robes +of silk, lace or muslin, all more or less decorated according to the +wealth of the wearer. The dress of the men is composed of trousers and +shirts of white or colored silk and long caftans of muslin, with the +addition of a fanciful little scarf fringed at the ends, and worn +jauntily across one shoulder and under the other arm. Their caps are +made of pasteboard covered with gay-colored silk, embroidered and +studded with precious stones or pearls. The form of a Parsee's shirt +is a matter of vital importance, both in regard to respectability and +religion. It must have five seams, neither more nor less, and be made +to lap on the breast exactly in a certain way. Both sexes wear around +the body a double string, which they loosen when at prayer, and which +a Parsee is never, under any circumstances, permitted to dispense +with. No engagement or business transaction is legally binding if by +any chance this talismanic cord was left off by either party when the +contract was made. The cord is first placed on children when they have +completed their ninth year, and this serves to mark the most important +epoch of their lives. Before the investiture the eating of food with +Christians or heathen does not defile the juvenile Parsee, and girls +may even go about in public with their fathers; but after the bestowal +of the sacred cord the girls must be kept in seclusion and the boys +eat only with their own people. + +Only the most liberal Parsees will permit those of other creeds to eat +under the same roof with themselves, and even these never eat at the +table with their guests. The table is first covered for the visitors, +and they are waited on with the utmost assiduity, often by the members +of the family in addition to the servants. When the guests leave the +board not only is the cloth changed, but the table itself is washed +before being recovered: salts, castors and other similar articles are +all emptied and washed, and the table newly laid in every particular. +Small flat cakes are distributed round the board to do service as +plates, and the various dishes arranged in the centre within reach of +all. The family then wash hands and faces and the father says a short +prayer, after which all take their seats and the meal begins. Neither +knives nor forks are used, but the meat is torn from the bones with +the fingers only, and with the left hand each one dips, from time to +time, bread, meat or vegetables into the broth or gravy as he wishes, +and then tosses it into his mouth, without allowing his fingers to +touch his lips. This requires some dexterity, and children are not +permitted at the family board till they have learned thus to acquit +themselves. If, however, the fingers of any one, child or adult, +should chance to come in contact with the lips, though ever so +slightly, he is required to leave the table instantly and perform +his ablutions over again, or else to take the dish from which he was +eating to himself, and touch no other during the meal. In drinking +they exercise the same caution, adroitly throwing the liquid into the +mouth or throat without touching the lips with the cup or glass. The +left hand is the one with which food is always taken; and the reason +assigned is, that the right, having of necessity to perform most +labor, is more frequently brought in contact with things unclean. + +I once made a voyage with an American lady and gentleman in a Bombay +ship that was owned and commanded by a wealthy Parsee merchant, though +the real sailing-master and mate were Englishmen. Our party ate at one +table, and the Parsee nabob had his own in solitary state. I was then +quite a youthful wife, and, as my husband was not of the party, the +Parsee supposed me unmarried, and overwhelmed me with the most gallant +attentions, among which were frequent invitations to our party to dine +in his cabin. But, though he would stand at my side all the time I +was eating, fill my cup or glass with his own hands, and urge me to +partake of certain dishes that were favorites of his own, nothing +could induce him to eat or drink in our presence, even after we had +left the table. And I learned afterward that the costly service of +rare china, silver and glass from which we had eaten and drunk at his +table, though carefully laid aside, was never again used by the owner. +One evening, as we sat on the upper deck inhaling the balmy air, he +invited me to smoke. Of course I declined, and when he insisted I told +him that it was contrary to the customs of good society in our country +for ladies to use tobacco in any form. He laughed heartily, and said, +"Did you suppose I would ask a lady to pollute her fragrant breath +and dewy lips with so foul a thing as vile tobacco? Taste and see." He +brought his splendid hookah, which I found filled with the "fragrant +spices of Araby" perfumed with attar of roses, while a long slender +tube rested in a vessel of rose-water at my feet; and the fumes were +certainly as agreeable as harmless. But this, my first experiment in +smoking, cost my Parsee friend three hundred dollars, the estimated +value of his gold-mounted hookah, with its complicated array of tubes +and vessels of the same precious metal, none of which he durst ever +use again. + +As we sat chatting together in the bright moonlight our ears were +suddenly greeted by the sound of sweet music--wild, unearthly melody +that seemed to rise from the very depths of the ocean just below our +feet. At first it was only a soft trill or a subdued hum, as of a +single voice: then followed what seemed a full chorus of voices of +enchanting sweetness. Presently the melody died away in the distance, +only, however, to burst forth anew after a brief interval. All the +time we were being regaled with the music we could see nothing to +enlighten us as to its source, and were inclined to pronounce it a +trick played by our fun-loving sailing-master. He, however, denied all +agency in the matter, but counseled us to "keep a close look-out on +the lee bow" if we wanted to see a mermaid. We had noticed a sort of +thrilling motion on the lower deck, not unlike the sensation produced +by the charge of an electro-galvanic battery; and this, the Parsee +captain gravely assured us, was the mermaids' dance, and their efforts +to drag down our ship. "But I'll catch one of them yet--see if I +don't," he said energetically as he caught up something from the deck +and ran forward, and was presently, with two of the Lascars, leaning +over the bow. Half an hour afterward he returned, and with a merry +laugh laid in my lap two little brown fish, informing me that they +were singing-fish, and that the music we had heard had been produced +by shoals of these tiny vocalists then clinging to the bottom of our +ship. Our Parsee friend told me that the Arabs and Persians always +speak of the singing-fish as "tiny women of the sea;" but he had +never heard our version of their long hair, and their twining it about +hapless sailors to drag them down to their coral caverns beneath the +ocean's wave. He showed me how to preserve the fish by drying in the +sun after repeated anointings with an aromatic oil, which he gave me +for the purpose; and I have still in my cabinet these two specimens as +a reminder of the incident. + +The manner in which the Parsees dispose of their dead seems to us too +shocking to be tolerated by a people so gentle and refined. But they +have grown familiar with a custom that, generation after generation, +has been observed by their race till it has ceased to be repugnant. +They call it "consigning the dead to the element of air." For +this purpose they have roofless enclosures, the walls of which are +twenty-five or thirty feet high, and within are three biers--one each +for men, women and children. Upon these the bodies of the dead are +laid, and fastened down with chains or iron bands. Presently birds +of prey, so numerous within the tropics and always waiting to devour, +pounce upon the corpse and quickly tear the flesh from the bones, +while the skeleton remains intact. This is afterward deposited in +a pit dug within the same enclosure, and which remains open till +completely filled up with bones; after which another is dug, and +when the enclosure can conveniently contain no more pits a new one is +selected and prepared. None but priests and bearers of the dead may +enter, or even look into, these walled cemeteries. The priests, by +virtue of their holy office, are preserved from defilement, but the +bearers are men set apart for this express purpose, and they are +considered so unclean that they may not enter under the roof of any +other Parsee or salute him on the street. If in passing a bearer do +but touch one's clothes accidentally, he is subject to a heavy fine, +while he who has been thus contaminated must bathe his entire +person and burn every article of raiment he wore at the time of his +defilement. + +I was anxious to visit one of their temples, but this, Sir Jamsetjee +assured me, was impossible, as none but the initiated are allowed +even to approach the entrance, still less to get a glimpse of what is +passing within. He, however, volunteered the information that, so far +as the sanctuary itself was concerned, there was little to be seen, +only naked walls, bare floors, and an altar upon which burns the +sacred fire brought with the Parsees from Persia, and which, he said, +had never been extinguished since it was kindled by Zoroaster from the +sun four thousand years ago. Of the form of service I could not induce +the baronet to speak, but I learned afterward from my ship-friend that +the altar is enclosed by gratings, within which none but the priest +may enter. He goes in every day to tend "the eternal fire," when he +must remain for the space of an hour, repeating certain invocations, +with a bundle of rods in his hand to repel any unclean spirits that +should venture to approach the sacred fire. Meanwhile, the assembled +multitudes prostrate themselves without and offer up their silent +adoration. "Yet, after all," musingly said the Parsee, "the universe +is the throne of the invisible God, of whom fire is but the emblem, +and we worship Him most acceptably with our eyes fixed on the east +when the sun rides forth at morning in his celestial chariot of fire." +This form of worship those curious in such matters may see on any +bright morning at Bombay, where whole crowds of Parsee men, women and +children rush out at sunrise to greet the king of day and offer up +their morning oblations. I was not surprised at the avowed preference +of my Parsee friends for out-door worship, since it is well known that +the ancient Persians not only permitted few temples to be erected to +their gods, and held in abhorrence all painted and graven images, but +they laid it to the charge of the Greeks, as a daring impiety, that +"they shut up their gods in shrines and temples, like puppets in a +cabinet, when all created things were open to them and the wide world +was their dwelling-place." It was probably religious zeal, even more +than revenge against the Greeks, that induced the burning of the +temple at Athens by Xerxes, led on, as he may have been, by the +fanatical zeal of the Magi who accompanied him. + +Plutarch speaks of the Persians, in common with the Chaldeans and +Egyptians, as worshipers of the sun under the name of Mithra, whom +they regarded as standing between Ormuzd, "the author of good," and +Ahriman, "the author of evil," occupied alternately in aiding the +former and subduing the latter. So do the Parsees of our own day +regard him; and their only hope for the ultimate triumph of Ormuzd is +in constant sacrifices and prayers and propitiatory offerings to the +sun as the fire that is to burn out and utterly consume all evil +from our earth. Fire is to the Parsees now, as it has ever been, the +holiest of all holy things, carried about by princes and great men for +safety; by warriors, as that which is to give them the victory over +their foes; and by all, as their sole and ever-present deity. Sir +Jamsetjee assured me that the _intelligent_ Parsees regard the sun +and fire as only the symbols that are to remind them of the God +they worship. But there can be no doubt that the mass of the Parsees +literally worship the sun and the "sacred fire;" and hence arise the +utter repugnance many of them have to celebrating their religious +rites within closed walls, and the decided preference ever shown for +out-door worship. I have often heard them say that the Fire-god +shows his aversion to confinement by drooping when he is shut up, and +growing vigorous just in proportion as free scope is given him. +The sun appears everywhere on the shields and armor of the ancient +Persians, as on some of the old-time monuments that have come down +to us; while occasionally Mithra is depicted as a youthful hero, with +high Persian cap, his knee on a prostrate bull, into whose heart he +seems plunging a dagger--symbolically, "the power of evil" in +complete subjection to the victorious sun, and about to be for ever +annihilated. + +Zoroaster (called by the Persians _Zerduscht_) was not, the Parsees +say, the _founder_ of their sect, but only the reviser and perfecter +of the system as it now exists among them. Living in the reign of +Darius Hystaspes, he was the contemporary, probably an associate, +of the prophet Daniel. Before the advent of this reformer the Magi +acknowledged two great First Causes--i.e., the light and the darkness, +the former the author of all good, the latter of every evil, moral +and physical--and these they believed were at perpetual war with each +other. Zoroaster taught, as he may have learned from Daniel, that +there was One greater still, who created both the light and the +darkness, making both to subserve His own will. He also inculcated the +duty of building temples for the preservation of the sacred fire from +storm and tempest, when "by sudden extinction of the light the powers +of darkness do gain often a signal victory." The Parsees hold in +supreme veneration the name of Zoroaster as the most noted of all +their Magi for wisdom and virtue. They believe that the sacred fire +was lighted by him miraculously from the sun--that it has burned +steadily ever since, and can never go out till it has consumed all +evil from the earth and the good has become universally triumphant. +They claim also that from the reforms wrought by Zoroaster there was +never the slightest change in any of their observances until about +twelve centuries ago, when Persia was overrun and conquered by the +Mohammedan Arabs. But not the fiercest persecution could induce +the Fire-worshipers to change their religion for that of the +Koran. Preferring liberty and their altars in a foreign land to the +alternative of apostasy or persecution at home, the aboriginal Persian +inhabitants fled to other lands, settling immense colonies in Surat +and Bombay, where their descendants form in our day a large and +valuable element of the population. Their integrity, industry and +enterprise are proverbial all over the East; and while they live +strictly apart from all other races, the Parsees are never wanting in +sympathy and help for those who need them. Dwelling amid nations +who are almost universally destitute of veracity, the Parsees are +eminently truthful; surrounded by polygamists and sensualists, they +maintain habits of purity and virtue; and accustomed to every-day +association with those who make a boast of cheating, my memory fails +to recall the case of a single Fire-worshiper who was not strictly +upright and honorable in his dealings. + +Commencing with the worship of the sun, and of fire as his emblem, the +Parsee grew into a sort of reverence for the elements of air, earth +and water. The air must not be contaminated by foul odors, and of +necessity no filth could be tolerated anywhere in house, street or +suburb; and to this reverence for the purity of the atmosphere may +be traced the absolute cleanliness for which Fire-worshipers are +everywhere noted. As the earth must receive no defilement, the Parsees +would deem it sacrilege to deposit therein their dead for corruption +and decay; and hence have doubtless originated their strange rites +of sepulture, as they believe that the body is thus more readily and +rapidly reduced to its original elements. Streams of water, even the +tiniest rivulets, are deemed too holy to be desecrated by washing +or spitting in them, and still less would they make the water the +receptacle of offal of any sort. To each of these elements, as well as +to the fire, the Parsees still make oblations on their high-days. +It is true that their ceremonies now are less imposing than those +described by Xenophon, when a thousand head of cattle were immolated +at a single festival, four beautiful bulls presented to Jupiter, or +the sky, and a magnificent chariot, drawn by white horses crowned with +flowers and wearing a golden yoke, was offered to the sun; while the +king in his chariot was escorted by princes and great nobles, +two thousand spearmen marching on either side, and three +hundred sceptre-bearers, armed with javelins and mounted on +splendidly-caparisoned horses, bringing up the rear. But those +jubilant days have passed: the Fire-worshipers are in exile, and +have no king to lead them, either in battle against their foes or in +triumphal processions in honor of their gods. Yet is Parseeism not +dead, nor even on the decrease. Sacrifices, numerous and costly, are +still piled upon their altars, the finest cattle are dedicated to +their gods, the flesh being cut up and roasted for the people, while +the Magi cast the caul and a portion of the fat into the fire as +emblematic of the souls of the victims being imbibed by the gods, +while the grosser portions are rejected. + +The sacrifices and those who offer them are always crowned with +flowers, but the pontifical robes of the Magi, though of pure white +silk, are severely plain in style and utterly devoid of ornament. In +their lives the Magi claim to practice a rigid asceticism, making the +earth their bed and subsisting wholly on fruit, vegetables and +bread, besides submitting to frequent painful penances from fasting, +scourging and the endurance of fatiguing exercises. "Wine, women and +flesh" they are commanded to eschew as "special abominations to those +who aspire to minister before the gods." The most remarkable feast of +the ancient Parsees was one called by them the "sack-feast." On the +appointed day a condemned malefactor was clothed in royal robes, +seated on a kingly throne and the sceptre of regal power placed in +his hand. Princes and people bowed the knee in mock homage before +this king of a day, and he was suffered to glut his appetite with all +manner of sensual delights till the sun went down, and then he was +cruelly beaten with rods, and forthwith executed. (Were the crown and +sceptre, the purple robe and mock reverence, that were the antecedents +of the Redeemer's crucifixion, a reproduction of this barbarous +custom?) The modern Parsees, though recognizing this feast as a +legitimate part of their worship, say that they have not observed it +since their flight from Persia in the eighth century, because since +then, being under a foreign yoke, they have had no jurisdiction over +human life, and durst not sacrifice even those who chanced to be +in their power. This may be one reason for the renunciation of this +barbarous practice of the olden time, but there has been wonderful +progress in civilization during the last twelve hundred years; and +certain it is that scenes of cruelty that suited the ferocious +tastes of the eighth century could not possibly be repeated in the +nineteenth. + +FANNIE ROPER FEUDGE. + + + + +OUR MONTHLY GOSSIP. + +A SWEDISH PROVINCIAL THEATRE. + + +It is not so magnificent as the Scala and San Carlo, and still, after +seeing both those famous theatres, I must confess I preferred that +of Carlstad to either. It is small and different in form from the +generality: it reminded me, in fact, of a hall in a certain New +England town where I used to go to the panorama as a child. There +was a gallery like that in which the men and boys sat who tramped the +loudest and kissed their hands, to the confusion of their neighbors, +when the lights were turned down to enhance the effect of the burning +of Moscow; only, at my panorama the gallery was unfashionable on +account of the noisy male element, whereas at Carlstad it was the +dress-circle. We--a party of Americans, the only foreigners in the +house that night--occupied orchestra-stalls, as I presume the two or +three front benches in the parquet may be called. There was a white +cape in our vicinity, as well as one in the balcony; so our seats were +probably as fashionable as those in the first and only circle; but +behind us, stretching out to the doors and in under the gallery, was a +dense mass unrelieved by opera-cloaks of any description; and that was +the region of the unpretending---of those who came simply to enjoy, to +see and not to be seen. + +As we spent a good part of a day at Carlstad, I should, perhaps, +relate something more of the place than merely how we went to +the theatre there; but that delightful evening effaced all other +impressions, and after the interval that has since elapsed _Fleur +de Thé_ and our commissioner are the only things that have retained +somewhat of their original savor. + +The railway from Stockholm to Christiania ceased at Carlstad on Lake +Wener, which gave us a day's drive to Arvika to strike the track +again; and while we stood consulting where we were to get carriages, +and whether we should go directly on, there came up a flourishing +specimen of the genus _valet de place_, who took possession of us and +laid out a plan that he had apparently prepared over night for our +especial benefit. It is a way those persons have, and one that gives +them a tremendous advantage over travelers weakened by a long journey, +that they act as if they were there by appointment to meet you, or as +if you had telegraphed precisely what you wished to do, and they were +merely carrying out your intentions. "You want to go to the Black +Eagle Hotel: I take you there. You would like to dine: you can have +dinner at the hotel, or I shall show you a nice restaurant." We had +not expected to find a member of the great European brotherhood just +there in a little town in the heart of Sweden, and, taken unawares, +fell an easy prey. However, they do not invariably succeed in that +way: sometimes, if their officiousness is excessive, their English +very exasperating and the traveler a little fractious as well as +tired, they get the tables turned on them. A lady just arrived +at Genoa, when halfway to the hotel with one of these persuasive +personages snatched her bag out of his hand and walked into the rival +albergo because he said with an aggravating accent, "I sall get you +a ticket for de steam-er." "No you sha'n't, either: I have got +it myself," she said; and so they parted company, to his infinite +amazement. My friend--it was a friend of mine--turned back, on +second thoughts, to offer the man something for having carried her +belongings, but he put on offended dignity and declared that he didn't +want her money. She was rather sorry afterward that he didn't do +violence to his feelings and take it; and so, no doubt, was he. + +Our Carlstad commissioner beguiled the length of the way to the +inn, at which we were a little inclined to grumble, by pointing out +everything of note in our walk through the town. We had been reading +up in the train, and knew that Carlstad was the capital of a district, +had five thousand inhabitants, and was nearly destroyed by fire in +1865; but he, a son of the place, and seeing in his mind's eye its +rising glory when the railroad should be completed, did not let us +off with that. We had to look and admire just where he told us. "Wide +streets," he would say in his finely-chopped English. "Houses all very +high--new since the fire. See here! there's the telegraph-office." + +At which, to answer in the style he understood best, we must have +responded, "Oh, I say! Well. Very good! All right!" + +"You shall go to the theatre if you want to," he remarked at last, +in that sweet, protecting way peculiar to his class from the habitual +confounding of _can, shall_ and _will_, and that put us into good +humor directly. To go to the theatre would be just the thing. + +"Oh yes, everybody goes," he said. It was a Danish company--very good +actors--very pretty piece; but we rather expected to care more for the +_everybody_ than either the piece or the actors; and so it proved. + +We went early, and established ourselves in the orchestra-stalls, as +already stated, while our guardian accepted an unpretending seat +for himself, where he remained in readiness to tow us home after the +performance. And then the spectators began to come in, and positively +some of the very people who used to be at the panorama. I know there +was a lady in front of me, in Mechanic Hall, who wore her hair in +just such a little knot--_pug_ is, I think, the classic name for that +coiffure--and her dress cut as low in the throat and adorned with +precisely such a self-embroidered collar as the lady rejoiced in who +occupied the seat before me at the theatre. That she was one of the +fashionables of Carlstad could be seen in the lofty pose of that pug, +and in the curious structure of ribbon and lace that sat astride of +it and hung down at each side. Her husband, a small, rather dried-up +gentleman, had the look of a town oracle who was oppressed at home, +and her daughter was one of the prettiest girls in the house. The +overgrown boy, the son and heir, was not pretty: he sat beside his +sister and kept nudging her. I could not exactly understand what he +said in Swedish, but I know it must have been of this nature: "There's +Jim Davis over there. Look, sister, look!" + +Sister only glanced at him with a reproving air of "Don't push me so," +and then gazed steadfastly in the other direction; but she was not +left long in peace. Tom's elbow began again in a minute: "He's looking +right at you, all the time. You'd better turn round and bow to him." +And the color would creep up in her cheeks, do all she could to +prevent it, so that she had to lean across mamma and say something to +her father, just so as not to bow to Mr. Davis, which would have been +such a simple thing to do, after all. + +Everybody who came in nodded and spoke to everybody else, and then +shook hands across the seats; and we felt quite out of our element +under the inquiring but superior glances that fell to our lot. It was +all very well for us to make our little observations and smile at +each other on the sly: we had the consciousness all the while of not +belonging to the first society in Carlstad, and of being viewed as +intruders in that select circle. + +We had been studying one family party after another as the seats +filled around us, for the audience collected by families, when, with a +little rustle and stir attending her progress, and a whispering behind +her as she advanced, the Bride appeared, for she had arrived from +Stockholm by our train. It was the first time any one had seen her +since she started on the wedding-tour, and the bows and smiles she +dealt out on every side were not to be numbered. Our pretty girl got +one--they were school-friends--and the horrid boy another, which he +barely answered with a solemn nod of his head, being as shy of her, +apparently, in her blue silk and white cape, as his sister was of Mr. +Davis. It was really a very pretty dress of the Bride's, and one that +made our traveling costumes look uncommonly shabby: it was taken up +behind in the approved style, and only needed a bustle to have been +truly effective. Doubtless she had seen plenty of those articles in +Stockholm, only her husband said, "I hope, dear, you will never put on +one of those horrid things;" and she told him certainly not if he did +not like them; but I think she found afterward she needed one for +that blue dress, and sent for it at the first opportunity. The young +husband was not got up for show, knowing very well that no one would +mind him, but he looked beamingly happy; and if he was not in a +dress-coat with a flower in his buttonhole, like the _habitués_ of +the Comédie Française or the Italiens, he understood how they use an +opera-glass there. The glass was a new acquisition that he had brought +home with him, and after practicing with it at the Royal Theatre in +the capital, he was fully prepared to stand up between the acts, with +his arm behind him in a negligently graceful attitude, and study +the balcony. His acquaintances there must have found it rather +embarrassing, for it was not a usual thing in Carlstad to look at +one's friends through an opera-glass: he was the only person who did +it, and they probably all talked about it when they went home. + +We were so occupied with our surroundings that we hardly thought of +the piece, though it was given with considerable spirit, if I remember +rightly. The sailors were fine, jolly tars, and the Chinese ladies +and gentlemen toddled about in flowered dressing-gowns and talked +with their thumbs, as it would appear the inhabitants of the Celestial +Empire usually do; but the house did not allow itself to be betrayed +into unseemly enthusiasm. There was an involuntary laugh now and then, +and once somebody said _bravo_, but as a general thing a discreet +reticence prevailed, and the actors might have gone through the piece +on their heads in an extravagant desire to elicit signs of approval: +they would only have received a cool little round of applause when the +curtain fell. + +We, at all events, had no hesitation in telling the commissioner that +we had enjoyed ourselves immensely; and so, it appeared, had he. He +was even bold enough to call it a very fine company, and as we walked +back to the hotel at half-past nine in broad daylight, he told us what +they were going to play the next evening, possibly in the hope that we +should stay for it and he should get another seat. That was out of the +question, however, sorry as we were to disappoint him. He had to tuck +us into the carriage the following day, and let us drive away and +leave him bereft of his charges. "You shall have a good ride," were +his parting words, kind and fatherly as he was to the last; and so we +had. But we found no one again to care for us so tenderly as our +old friend, nor did any one take us to the theatre throughout the +remainder of the journey. G.H. + + + + +VENETIAN CAFFÈS. + + +It is years since so lovely an autumn as that of 1874 has been seen +in Europe: people say not since the last great comet year, and they +credit the erratic visitor of last summer with the exceptional beauty +of the weather. As in the case of other marked comet years, the +vintages of which still bring extraordinary prices, Italy has had +exceptionally fine harvests of all kinds this year. The grain has been +abundant, the vintage has been superb, the olives have escaped the +danger of unseasonable frosts, and the still more important crop of +foreigners seems to be pretty well assured. The charming weather in +October and November made the interesting blossoms sprout plentifully; +and boat-loads and train-loads came in with an abundance promising an +unusually fine winter for _la bella Italia_. Venice, indeed, may be +said to have pretty well housed her crop in this kind already. It has +been a magnificent one, and the Queen of the Adriatic admits that due +homage has been done to her. The _forestieri_ season sets in earlier +in her case than in her sister cities. The real "Carnival de Venice" +is in August, September and October now-a-days, let the calendar say +what it may. Some flaunting of gaudy-colored calico, some dancing on +the Piazza of St. Mark, there may be on the eve of Lent in obedience +to old usages, but the dancing that really glads the Italian heart is +the dancing for which the _forestiere_ pays the piper, and the true +Lenten time is that when his beneficent presence is wanting. + +Venice, then, has already brought her Carnival to a conclusion; and +it has been a splendid one. English, Americans, Germans, all came in +shoals--all thronged the galleries, the churches and the palaces in +the morning, sauntered or bathed on the outer shore of the Lido in the +afternoon, and met at Florian's in the evening. "What is Florian's?" +will be asked by those who have never been at Venice--by some such, +at least. For probably the fame of the celebrated _caffè_ may have +traveled across the Atlantic, just as many who have never crossed +it westward are no strangers to the name of Delmonico. Florian's, +however, in any case, deserves a word of recognition. It is the +principal, largest and most fashionable caffè on the Piazza di San +Marco. But the singular and curious specialty of the place is that it +has never been closed--no, not for five minutes--day or night, for +a period of more than a hundred and thirty years! Probably it is the +only human habitation of any sort on the face of the globe of which +that could be said. + +But the caffè in itself is in many respects a specialty of Venetian +life, and has been so since the days of Goldoni. The readers of his +comedies, so abundantly rich in local coloring, will not have failed +to observe that the caffè plays a larger part in the life of Venice +than is the case in any other city. Probably no Venetian passes +a single day without visiting once at least, if not oftener, his +accustomed caffè. Men of business write their letters and arrange +their meetings there. Men of pleasure know that they shall find their +peers there. Mere loafers take their seats there, and gaze at the +stream of life, as it flows past them, for hours together. And, most +marked specialty of all, Venice is the only city in Italy where the +native female aristocracy frequents the caffè. Indeed, I know no place +in all the Peninsula where so large an amount of Italian beauty may +be seen as among the fashionable crowd at Florian's on a brilliant +midsummer moonlight night. + +Venice is of all the cities in the world the one which those who have +never seen it know best. The peculiarities of it are so marked and so +unlike anything else in the world, and the graphic representations of +every part of the city are so numerous and so admirably accurate, that +every traveler finds it to be exactly what he was prepared to see, and +can hardly fancy that he sees the Queen of the Adriatic for the first +time. I may therefore assume, perhaps, that my readers are acquainted +with the appearance of that most matchless of city spaces, the Piazza +di San Marco. They will readily call to mind the long series of +arcades that form the two long sides of the parallellogram which has +the gorgeous front of St. Mark's church occupying the entirety of one +of the shorter sides. Well, about halfway up the length of the piazza +six of the arches on the right hand of one facing St. Mark's church +are occupied by the celebrated caffè. The six never-closed rooms, +corresponding each with one of the arches of the arcade, are very +small, and would not suffice to accommodate a twentieth part of the +throng which finds itself at Florian's quite as a matter of course +every fine summer's night. But nobody thinks of entering these +smartly-furnished little cabinets save for breakfast or during the +hours of the day. Some take their evening ice or coffee on the seats +under the arcade, either immediately in front of the cabinets +or around the pillars which support the arches, and thus have an +opportunity of observing the never-ceasing and ever-varying stream of +life that flows by them under the arcade. But the vast majority of the +crowd place themselves on chairs arranged around little tables set out +on the flags of the piazza. A hundred or so of these little tables +are placed in long rows extending far out into the piazza, and far on +either side beyond the extent of the six arches which are occupied by +the caffè itself. A London or New York policeman would have his very +soul revolted, and conclude that there must be something very rotten +indeed in the state of a city in which the public way could be thus +encumbered and no cry of "move on" ever heard. Assuredly, it is +public ground which Florian, in the person of his nineteenth-century +representative, thus occupies with his tables and chairs. Probably, +if a Venetian were asked by what right he does so, the question would +seem to him much as if one asked by what right the tide covers the +shallows of the lagoon. It always has been so. It is in the natural +order of things. And how could Venice live without Florian's? + +But it is not Florian's alone which is thus a trespasser on the domain +of the public. The other less celebrated caffès do the same thing. +One immediately opposite to Florian's, on the other side of the +piazza--Quadri's--has almost as large a spread of chairs and tables +as Florian himself. But it is a curious instance of the permanence of +habits at Venice, that though at Quadri's the articles supplied are +quite as good, and the prices exactly the same, the fashionable +world never deserts Florian's. The only difference between the +two establishments, except this one of their customers, that is +perceptible to the naked eye, is that at Quadri's beer is served, +while Florian ignores the existence of that plebeian beverage, which +assuredly was never heard of in Venice in the days when he began his +career and formed his habitudes. + +I am tempted to endeavor to give the reader some picture of the scene +on the piazza on a night when (as is the case almost every other +evening) a military band is playing in the middle of the open space, +and the cosmopolitan crowd is assembled in force--to describe the +wonderful surroundings of the scene, the charm of the quietude broken +by no sound of hoof or of wheel, the soft and tempered light, the gay +clatter, athwart which comes every fifteen minutes the solemn mellow +tone of the great clock of St. Mark with importunate warning that +another pleasant quarter of an hour has drifted away down the stream +of time. It is a scene that tempts the pen. But the well-dressed +portion of mankind is very similar in all countries and under all +circumstances, and perhaps my readers may be more interested in a few +traits of the popular life of Venice, which the magnificent Piazza +of St. Mark is not the best place for studying, for some of the +most characteristic phases of it are absolutely banished thence. The +strolling musician or singer, who may be heard every night in other +parts of the city, never plies his trade on the piazza. Mendicancy, +which is more rife at Venice, I am sorry to say, than in any other +Italian city, except perhaps Naples, is not tolerated on the piazza. + +But if we wish for a good specimen of the truly popular life of +Venice, it will not be necessary to wander far from the great centre +of the piazza. Coming down the Piazzetta, or Little Piazza, which +opens out of the great square at one end, and abuts on the open lagoon +opposite the island of St. George at the other, and turning round the +corner of the ducal palace, we cross the bridge over the canal, which +above our heads is bridged by the "Bridge of Sighs," with its "palace +and a prison on each hand," as Byron sings, and find ourselves on the +"Riva dei Schiavoni"--the quay at which the Slavonic vessels arrived, +and arrive still. The quay is a very broad one, by far the broadest in +Venice, paved with flagstones, and teeming with every characteristic +form of Venetian life from early morning till late into the night. +There are two or three hotels frequented by foreigners on the Riva, +for the situation facing the open lagoon is an exceptionally good one; +and there are three or four caffès at which the cosmopolitan and not +too aristocratic visitor may get an excellent cup of coffee (for the +Venetians, thanks to their long connection with the East, know +what coffee is, and will not take chiccory or other such detestable +substitutes in lieu of it) for the modest charge of thirteen +centimes--just over two cents--and study as he drinks it the moving +and ever-amusing scenes enacted before his eyes. His neighbor perhaps +will be an old gentleman, the very type of the old "pantaloon" whose +mask was in the old comedy supposed to be the impersonation of +Venice. There are the long, slender and rather delicately-cut features +terminating in a long, narrow and somewhat protruding chin; the high +cheek-bones, the lank and sombre cheeks, the high nose, the dark +bright eye under its bushy brow. He is very thin, very seedy, and +evidently _very_ poor. But he salutes you, as you take your seat +beside him, with the air of an ex-member of "The Ten;" his ancient +hat and napless coat are carefully brushed; his outrageously high +shirt-collar and voluminous unstarched neckcloth, after the fashion of +a former generation, though as yellow as saffron, are clean; and his +poor old boots as irreproachable as blacking--which can do much, but, +alas! not all things--can make them. His expenditure of a penny will +entitle him not only to a cup of coffee, as aforesaid, but also to a +glass of fresh water, which has been turned to an opaline color by +the shaking into it of a few drops of something which the waiter drops +from a bottle with some contrivance at its mouth, the effect of which +is to cause only a drop or two of the liquor, whatever it may be, to +come out at each shake. Our old friend is also entitled, in virtue of +his expenditure, to occupy the chair he sits on for as many hours as +he shall see fit to remain in it. And after the coffee, which must +be drunk while hot, has been despatched, the sippings of the opaline +mixture aforesaid may be protracted indefinitely while he enjoys the +cool evening-breezes from the lagoon, the perfection of _dolce far +niente_, and the amusement the life of the Riva never fails to afford +him. An itinerant vender of little models of gondolas and bracelets +and toys made out of shells comes by, seeking a customer among the +folk assembled at the caffè. He does not address Pantaloon, for of +course he knows that there is nothing to be done in that line with +him. But spying with a hawk's glance a _forestiere_ among the crowd, +he strolls up to him, holding up one of his gimcrack bracelets +daintily--and he thinks temptingly, poor fellow!--between his finger +and thumb. "Un franco! Un sol franco! è una beleza per una contesa!" +("One franc! only one franc! It would be beautiful on the arm of a +countess!") he murmurs in his soft lisping Venetian, which abolishes +all double consonants, and supplies their place by prolonging the soft +liquid sound of the preceding vowel. One franc! It is wonderful how +the thing, worthless as it is, can be made even by the most starving +fingers for such a price. Yet after dangling his toy for a minute, and +gazing, oh, so wistfully! the while out of his big haggard eyes, he +says, "Seventy-five centimes! half a franc!" and still lingers ere he +turns away with a sigh, a weary movement of his emaciated figure and a +longing look on his poor hollow face that make one feel that the +drama we are witnessing is not all comedy. But it is all supremely +interesting to our neighbor, Si'or Pantaleone. He has been keenly +watching the attempted deal, and no doubt wished that his countryman +might succeed. But there was no element of tragedy in the matter for +him, a condition of semi-starvation is too much an ordinary, every-day +and normal spectacle. He looked on more as a retired merchant might +look on at the progress of a bargain for the delivery of a shipload +of grain. Presently, a middle-aged woman and a girl of some fourteen +years station themselves in front of the audience seated outside the +caffè. The elder woman has a guitar, and the girl a violin and some +sheets of music in her hand. The woman has her wonderful wealth of +black hair grandly dressed and as shining as oil can make it. She +has large gilt earrings in her ears, a heavy coral necklace, and a +gaudy-colored shawl in good condition. Whatever might be beneath +and below this is in dark shadow--"et sic melius situm." She is not +starved, however, for, as she prepares to finger her guitar, she shows +a well-nourished and not ill-formed arm. The young girl has one of +those pale, delicate, oval faces so common in Venice: she also has a +good shawl--an amber-colored one--which so sets off the olive-colored +complexion of her face as to make her a perfect picture. This +couple do not in any degree assume an attitude of appealing _ad +misericordiam_. They pose themselves _en artistes_. The girl sets +about arranging her music in a business-like way, and then they play +the well-known air of "La Stella Confidente," the little violinist +really playing remarkably well. Then the elder woman comes round with +a little tin saucer for our contributions. No slightest word or look +of disappointment or displeasure follows the refusal of those who give +nothing. The saucer is presented to each in turn. I supposed that +the application to Si'or Pantaleone was an empty form. But no. That +retired gentleman could still find wherewithal to patronize the fine +arts, and dropped a centime--the fifth part of a cent--into the dish +with the air of a prince bestowing the grand cross of the Golden +Fleece. Then comes a dealer in ready-made trousers, which Pantaloon +examines curiously and cheapens. Then a body of men singing +part-songs, not badly, but to some disadvantage, as they utterly +ignore the braying of half a dozen trumpets which are coming along the +Riva in advance of a body of soldiers returning to some neighboring +barracks. Then there are fruit-sellers and fish-sellers and +hot-chestnut dealers, and, most vociferous of all, the cryers of +"Acqua! acqua! acqua fresca!" There, making its way among the numerous +small vessels from Dalmatia, Greece, etc. moored to the quay of the +Schiavoni, comes a boat from the Peninsular and Oriental steamer, +which arrived this morning from Alexandria, with four or five +Orientals on board. They come on shore, and proceed to saunter +along the Riva toward the Grand Piazza, while their dark faces and +brightly-colored garments add an element to the motley scene which is +perfectly in keeping with old Venetian reminiscences. + +T.A.T. + + + + +A NEW MEXICAN CHRISTMAS EVE. + + +It is Christmas Eve in Albuquerque. Blazing fagots of mesquite-roots +placed on the surrounding adobe walls illuminate the old church on +the plaza. There is a grand _baile_ at the fonda, to which we and our +"family are most respectfully invited." The sounds of music already +invite us to the ball-room. We enter. The floor is full; a hundred +couples are gliding through the graceful "Spanish dance," or "slow +waltz," as it is termed here. Not a few blue-and-gold United States +uniforms are to be seen in the throng. A full-uniformed major-general +of volunteers adds the éclat of his epaulettes to the occasion. The +ranchos have poured in their señoras and señoritas, and three rows of +the dark-eyed creatures sit ranged around the room. + +The Mexican women look their best in a ball-room. Their black eyes, +black hair and white teeth glisten in the light; they are dressed +in the gayest of gay colors; ponderous ornaments of gold, strongly +relieved by their dusk complexions, shed around them a rich barbaric +lustre. Not that they eschew adventitious means to blanch their +sun-shadowed tints. For days some of the señoras and señoritas have +worn a mask of a white clayey mixture to give them an ephemeral +whiteness for this occasion. Those who could procure nothing else have +worn a pasty vizard kneaded of common clay, to effect in some degree +a like result by protecting their faces from the sun and wind. Should +you visit New Mexico, and as you ride along slowly in the heat of +midday meet a señorita who gazes at you with a pair of jet black eyes +through a hideous, ghastly mask of mud or mortar, do not be frightened +from your accustomed propriety. The señorita is preparing her +_toilette de bal_. + +The New Mexican women cannot be considered pretty, generally speaking. +In artistic symmetry of feature, in purity of complexion, they are +not to be compared with our countrywomen. These can bear the searching +light of day, when delicacy of detail can be distinguished and +appreciated. Those look their best in the artificial light of the +ball-room. There the blue-black hair, the brilliant black eyes, the +well-traced eyebrows, the magnificently white and regular teeth, the +richly-developed forms, produce a general effect before which our +blond and delicate beauties seem pale and _fades_. But the Mexican's +coarser skin--her _teint basané_--is too plainly visible in the light +of the sun: you should see her only by the lamps. It is doubtless +rather from an instinct of coquetry than from any other feeling that +in the day-time the Mexican women shroud their dusky traits in the +folds of their _rebosas_, leaving only one pilot eye to look upon the +outer world. + +No introductions are necessary at the public bailes. Saunter around +the room, inspect the show of expectant partners, and when you see one +who suits your fancy ask her to dance, without more ado. If she be not +engaged she will at once accept your proffered arm. She will not +say anything. Ten to one she will not breathe a syllable during your +evolutions. Conversation is not the forte of the señoritas. But she +will smile and smile, and you will have no reason to complain of her +waltzing. The Mexican _caballero_, when he seeks a partner, will +not put himself out so far as to have any words about it. He merely +beckons the chosen one, as the sultan might throw the handkerchief, +and she comes to him at once. + +Each dance concluded, you lead your partner to a sort of bar where +refreshments are furnished, and ask her whether she will take _vino_ +or _dulces_--wine or candies? She will take _dulces_--"Gracias, +señor!" This is _de rigueur_. You pay for them of course, and +conduct her to her seat. She pours the _dulces_ into the awaiting +pocket-handkerchiefs of the old people, her _comadres_, and of her +younger brothers and sisters. + +In a little room adjoining the ball-room, with door invitingly open, +is the shrine of _monte_. The revelry of the ball-room is unheeded by +the preoccupied votaries of the changeful deity as they sit around the +green table watching the dealer as he turns the cards, and nervously +fingering their little piles of red or white "chips." We have no +business and no pleasure here. Let us merely look in and pass on. + +Waltzes, "round" and "slow," are the _pièces de résistance_ of a +Mexican baile: quadrilles are not relished by the dusky danseuses. +There are some New Mexican dances which do not lack prettiness. Of +these, the Cuna is the most popular. It commences with a see-saw +movement suggestive of its name--cuna- or cradle-dance. For the rest, +the waltz enters much into its composition. + +The orchestra generally consists of one or more violins and a guitar +or two. The New Mexican guitar is strung conversely: the base-string +is where we put the treble, and _vice versâ_. The strings are +generally struck with the thumb-nail or with a piece of horn or wood +like the ancient _plectrum_. This produces a harsh metallic sound, +without any rotundity. Few New Mexican fiddlers or guitar-players are +capable of playing in any time except dancing time, and the character +of the baile, funeral and sacred music is the same. The only +distinction is the addition of a continuous _tremolo_ to the latter +two, which produces the same unpleasant effect on the nerves as a +comic song chanted by the shaky, cracked, piping and quavering voice +of senility. As the fiddles invariably play their parts in funerals as +well as on festive processions, it requires some familiarity with the +customs of the country to distinguish one from the other. The music +to-night is much better than the ordinary baile music. A native +harpist adds the music of his many strings; and not bad music either, +though he does not know a quaver from a semibreve, and his harp is of +his own manufacture. The sameness, however, caused by playing always +and everything in the same key is perceptible. But dancing critics are +not disposed to be very severe. + +The enjoyment of the evening is at high pressure. The dancers are +swinging, surging, spinning through the Spanish dance. Everybody who +can find a partner and a place on the floor--there are many who cannot +find the latter--is dancing. It is a gay, a brilliant scene. All is +going as merrily as a whole chime of marriage-bells when a deep and +solemn peal from the church close by breaks in over the music, the +laughter and the dancing. It is midnight! It is the _Noche Buena_, +and the bell summons the faithful to the midnight mass. The effect is +electric. The last twirl of the waltz is suspended, half executed. The +dancers stop as suddenly as if they were puppets moved and stilled by +the cunning of some wire-pulling hand. A general rush is made for the +church: in a moment the ball-room is empty. The church is filled as +instantaneously, and the wildly gay dancers of a moment ago are now +kneeling, hushed and down-bent, in devotional attitudes. + +The scene is impressive: the bright ball-toilettes contrasted in a +"dim religious light," the sudden change of place and mood, from gay +to grave, from ball-room to sanctuary, strikes a stranger's eye with +thrilling effect. At the conclusion of the service the dancers return +to the ball-room, to change from grave to gay, and dance _ad libitum_ +till daylight. + +J.T. + + + + +ENGLISH BIBLE TRANSLATIONS. + + +The first complete translation of the Bible into our language was +made about the year 1380 by John de Wycliffe, or Wickliffe. There are +several manuscript copies of it in the Bodleian and other European +libraries. This great work unlocked the Scriptures to the multitude, +or, as one of his antagonists, bewailing such an enterprise, worded +it, "the gospel pearl was cast abroad and trodden under foot." Long +before the appearance of this translation various versions of portions +of the Bible had appeared, specimens of which, of every century from +the reign of Alfred to Chaucer's time, are preserved in the British +Museum and elsewhere. Sir Thomas More says: "The Holy Byble was longe +before Wycliffis daies by virtuose and well-learned men translated +into the English tongue, and by good and godly people with devotion +and soberness well and reverently read." This statement is further +corroborated by Foxe, the martyrologist, who remarks: "If histories +be well examined, we shall find both before and after the Conquest, as +well before John Wickliffe was borne as since, the whole body of the +Scriptures by sundry men translated into this our country tongue." +Wycliffe's Bible was first printed at Oxford in 1850, previous to +which the New Testament appeared in 1721 and was reprinted in 1810. + +In 1526, William Tyndale completed and published in English his +translation of the New Testament. He also translated and printed +the Pentateuch and the book of Jonah, and was preparing them for +publication when he was put to death in Flanders, being strangled and +burnt for heresy. Tyndale's translation, with his latest revisions +(1534), was republished in the English Hexapla in 1841. A copy of his +translation of the Pentateuch which had belonged to Bishop Heber was +sold in 1854 for $795. Four years later another copy sold for within +twenty dollars of that amount. + +The first English translation of the entire Bible was made by Miles +Coverdale, who afterward became bishop of Exeter, and was printed in +folio in the year 1535. In 1538 a second edition of Coverdale's Bible +was printed at Paris, but the Inquisition interfered and committed the +whole edition of twenty-five hundred copies to the flames. No perfect +copy of Coverdale's version is known to exist, but one lacking +the original title-page and first leaf was sold in 1854 for $1725. +Another, at the Perkins' sale, in June, 1873, brought $2000. + +Two years after the appearance of the first edition of Coverdale's +Bible, John Rogers, the first martyr in Queen Mary's reign, published +his version of the Scriptures. He made some emendations, but the text +is chiefly that of Tyndale and Coverdale. It was printed by Grafton +and Whitchurch in 1537, and the title runs: "The Byble, which is all +the holy Scripture: in which are contayned the Olde and Newe Testament +truely and purely translated into Englysh by Thomas Matthew." For +safety, Rogers assumed the name of Matthew, whence it is known as +Matthew's Bible. Seven hundred and fifty dollars have been paid for a +copy. + +The third version of the Bible, known as Taverner's, was published +in 1539. Richard Taverner was a learned man who published many +translations during the sixteenth century. Horne says of his +translation, "This is neither a bare revisal of Cranmer's Bible nor +a new version, but a kind of intermediate work, being a correction of +what is called 'Matthew's Bible.'" + +The first edition of Cranmer's Bible, the printing of which was begun +in Paris in 1538 and completed in London in 1540--the Inquisition +having interposed by imprisoning the printers and burning the greater +part of the impression--is excessively rare. Cranmer's Bible--or the +Great Bible, as it was called--is Tyndale's, Coverdale's and Rogers's +translations most carefully revised throughout. This was the first +sound and authorized English version; and as soon as it was perfected +a proclamation was issued ordering it to be provided for every parish +church, under a penalty of forty shillings a month. A second edition +of Cranmer's Bible appeared in 1560, a copy of which brought, at a +recent sale in England, the sum of $610. + +The Genevan version of the Bible was made by several English exiles +at Geneva in Queen Mary's reign--viz., Cole, Coverdale, Gilby, Knox, +Sampson, Whittingham and Woodman--and was first printed in 1560. +It went through fifty editions in the course of thirty years. This +translation was very popular with the Puritan party. In this version +the first division into verses was made. It is commonly known as the +"Breeches Bible," from the peculiar rendering of Genesis iii. 7--" +breeches of fig-leaves." To the Geneva Bible we owe the beautiful +phraseology of the admired passage in Jeremiah viii. 22. Coverdale, +Matthew and Taverner render it, "For there is no more treacle at +Gilead?" Cranmer, "Is there no treason at Gilead?" The Genevan first +gave the poetic rendering, "Is there no balm in Gilead?" + +In the year 1568 another translation appeared, which is +indiscriminately known as "Matthew Parker's Bible," the "Bishops' +Bible" and the "Great English Bible." This version was undertaken and +carried on under the inspection of Matthew Parker, second Protestant +archbishop of Canterbury. Of the fifteen translators, six were +bishops, hence this edition is often called the Bishops' Bible, though +it is sometimes designated the Great English Bible, from its being a +huge folio volume. In 1569 it was published in octavo form. There is a +well-preserved copy of the first edition of Matthew Parker's Bible in +the possession of a gentleman residing in New York City. This was +the authorized version of the Scriptures for forty years, when it was +superseded by our present English Bible. + +The English Roman Catholic College at Rheims issued in the year 1582 +a translation of the New Testament, known as the "Rhemish New +Testament." It was condemned by the queen of England, and copies +imported into that country were seized and destroyed. In 1609 the +first volume of the Old Testament, and in the following year the +second volume, were published at Douay, hence ever since known as the +Douay Bible. Some years since Cardinal Wiseman remarked that the names +Rhemish and Douay, as applied to the current editions, are absolute +misnomers. The publishers of the edition chiefly used in this country +state that it is translated from the Latin Vulgate, "being the edition +published by the English College at Rheims A.D. 1582, and at Douay in +1609, as revised and corrected in 1750, according to the Clementine +edition of the Scriptures, by the Rt. Rev. Richard Challoner, +bishop of Debra, with his annotations for clearing up the principal +difficulties of Holy Writ." + +Theodore Beza translated the New Testament out of the Greek into the +Latin. This was first published in England in 1574, and afterward +frequently. In 1576 it was "Engelished" by Leonard Tomson, +under-secretary to Sir Francis Walsingham, and was afterward +frequently annexed to the Genevan Old Testament. The following is a +copy of the title-page of the New Testament, _verbatim et literatim_: +"The New Testament of our Lord Jesus Christ, translated out of Greeke +by Theod Beza: with brief summaries and expositions upon the hard +places by the said authour, _Ioach Amer and P Loseler Vallerius_. +Engelished by L Tomson. Together with the Annotations of _Fr Junius_ +upon the Revelation of S. John. Imprinted at London by the Deputies +of Christopher Barker, Printer to the Queene's Most Excellent +Majestie--1599." The volume opens with a primitive version of the +Psalms in verse, then follow the Old Testament, the Apocrypha and the +New Testament, as in Bibles of the present day. + +The version of the Scriptures now in use among Protestants was +translated by the authority of King James I., and published in 1611. +Fifty-four learned men were appointed to accomplish the work of +revision, but from death or other causes seven of the number failed +to enter upon it. The remaining forty-seven were ranged under six +divisions, different portions of the Bible being assigned to each +division. They entered upon their task in 1607, and after three years +of diligent labor the work was completed. This version was generally +adopted, and the former translations soon fell into disuse. The +authors of King James's version of the Bible included the most learned +divines of the day; one of whom was master of Latin, Greek, Hebrew, +Chaldee, Syriac and fifteen modern languages. + +Among other rare and highly-coveted editions of the Bible is one +printed in England in the seventeenth century, in which the important +word _not_ was omitted in the seventh commandment, from which +circumstance it has ever since been known as "The Adulterer's Bible." +Another edition, known as the Pearl Bible, appeared about the same +time, filled with errata, a single specimen of which will suffice: +"Know ye not the ungodly _shall inherit_ the kingdom of God?" Bibles +were once printed which affirmed that "all Scripture was profitable +for _de_struction;" while still another edition of the sacred volume +is known as the "Vinegar Bible," from the erratum in the title to the +twentieth chapter of St. Luke, in which "Parable of the Vineyard" is +printed "Parable of the Vinegar." + +J.G.W. + + + + +LITERATURE OF THE DAY. + + +Life and Labours of Mr. Brassey, 1805-1870. By Sir Arthur Helps, +K.C.B. Boston: Roberts Brothers. + +The "captains of industry," who constitute in our day so distinct and +notable a class of worthies, are doubtless as well entitled to have +their achievements recorded and their fame sounded throughout the +lands as were the doughty men of war who of old were deemed the only +fitting heroes of chronicle and epic. Few of them, however, can +hope to have their deeds commemorated by a "veray parfit, gentle +knight"--of the quill, not of the sword, albeit the letters which +he writes after his name would once have indicated the possession of +military rank and distinction. Sir Arthur Helps is not a man of few +words or of a very stern or passionate temperament. It is the graces +of chivalry, not its fiery ardor, that he cultivates and reflects, +and though "arms and the man" have often been his theme, the soft and +delicate strain was ever more suggestive of the pastoral pipe than +of the bardic lyre. Essayist, historian, biographer, novelist, he is +always intent to smooth away the asperities of his subject, and, like +some stately grandame enthroned in high-backed chair, he remembers +that his simple auditors are to be not merely entertained by the +matter of his discourse, but impressed by the suave tones and +high-bred prolixity of the speaker. With a dignified courtesy unknown +in these latter times--when biographers and historians do not scruple +to take liberties with their heroes to the extent even of designating +them by nicknames--the subject of the present memoir is introduced to +us as _Mr_. Brassey, a form not only adopted on the title-page, but +preserved in the body of the work, where we read that "Mr. Brassey +was born November 7, 1805," that "Mr. Brassey, at twelve years of age, +went to a school at Chester," and that, being afterward articled to +a surveyor, "Mr. Brassey was permitted by his master" to assist in +making certain surveys. It is only from a side whisper to the American +public, which is honored with a preface all to itself, that we are +permitted to learn that the great contractor owned to the Christian +name of Thomas. Besides the two prefaces there is a dedication to +the queen, an introduction telling how Sir Arthur Helps made the +acquaintance of Mr. Brassey and what impressions he received from the +interview, and a preliminary chapter containing a brief outline of +Mr. Brassey's character as "a man of business;" so that we get at the +substance of the book by a process like that which in a well-conducted +household precedes the carving and distribution of a Christmas cake, +any eagerness we might feel to "put in a thumb and pull out a plum" +being kept in check by a proper amount of ceremony and tissue-paper. + +Plums, however, there are, though not perhaps in full proportion to +the frosted coating, or of just the kind that are best agglutinated by +the biographical dough. Of anecdote or gossip, glimpses of "life and +manners" or personal details, there is nothing. Nor can we justly take +exception to this. On the contrary, it gives a unity to the subject by +excluding whatever had no relation to the enterprises with which Mr. +Brassey's name is connected, and which absorbed his time and thoughts +to a degree that can have left him but little opportunity for +intercourse with mankind except in a business capacity. It is these +enterprises--not in their entirety or with reference to the objects +with which they were designed, but as evidences and illustrations +of the working force, mental and physical, demanded for their +execution--that form the real subject of the book, the matter of which +has been chiefly furnished by the various agents entrusted with the +immediate supervision of the labor and outlay of the capital employed. +The details thus brought together afford perhaps a more vivid idea of +the industrial energy and activity of the nineteenth century, and +of the resources they have called into play, than could have been +obtained from a survey of any other field in which the like qualities +have been displayed. It was chiefly with railway enterprises, and this +almost from their inception, and to an extent far beyond the rivalry +of any other constructor, that Mr. Brassey was engaged; and the +railway system, not only by its own immense demands on capital, labor +and inventive skill, but still more by the stimulus and aid it has +given to industrial enterprises of every kind, must be regarded as the +main lever of a material progress that has outstripped the conceptions +and possibilities of all previous ages. With the development of a +system so different in its nature from the great undertakings of any +former period came the need of the contractor, entrusted with the +direction and laden with the full responsibility of works which no +government "boards" or similar machinery would have been competent to +carry through under the conditions imposed by the novel circumstances +of the movement and the exacting spirit by which it was impelled. To +attain the foremost place in the new career thus created demanded, +obviously, no ordinary powers--special knowledge of various kinds, +equal facility in mastering details and grasping a general plan, tact +in the choice and management of subordinates, courage and promptness +in encountering unforeseen obstacles and disasters, and skill and +clearheadedness in the general control of enormous and intricate +financial interests. To these qualities must be added in the present +case what is not so invariably associated with the names of succesful +contractors--a faithfulness and integrity which merited and received +the fullest confidence. Whether working at a gain or at a loss, Mr. +Brassey was ever resolute to execute his engagements to the letter, +and he declined to make demands for extra compensation when his +contracts proved unprofitable, though it was customary with him to +make good the losses of his sub-contractors. He amassed a colossal +fortune, not through excessive gains, but by a small profit--"as +nearly as possible three per cent."--which accrued to him from all his +enterprises taken as a whole, and the accumulations consequent on an +inexpensive mode of life. + +The railways constructed by Mr. Brassey, generally in partnership +with some other contractor, between the years 1834 and 1870, comprised +between six and seven thousand miles in all parts of the globe, +including Australia and in almost every civilized country except +Russia and the United States. "There were periods in his career during +which he and his partners were giving employment to 80,000 persons, +upon works requiring £ 17,000,000 of capital for their completion." +Yet a large part of his time and of the time of his agents was +spent in the investigation of schemes which he either decided not to +undertake or for which he tendered unsuccessfully. It was necessary at +times to transport materials, a large staff of employés and an army +of laborers from one country to another. In some cases works were +prosecuted in regions occupied or threatened by hostile armies, in +others under all the embarrassments and gloom of a great financial +revulsion. In countries where commercial transactions were usually +very limited the great difficulty was to obtain coin for the payment +of wages, while in others there was the danger of the supply of labor +failing through the enticements of superabundant capital or the more +dazzling temptations of gold-digging. It is needless to mention the +usual accidents and impediments to which all such undertakings are +liable, and which the skill and ingenuity of the modern engineer never +fail to overcome; but it is certainly not a little remarkable, when +the multiplicity of Mr. Brassey's contracts is remembered, as well +as the early period from which they date, to find that they were +invariably completed within the specified time. + + + +Personal Reminiscences of Barham, Harness and Hodder. (Bric-à -Brac +Series, edited by Richard Henry Stoddard.) New York: Scribner, +Armstrong & Co. + +Why we should love so dearly a fresh anecdote of a literary celebrity, +a new quip by Talleyrand, a new stutter of Lamb's, a new impertinence +of Sheridan's, may be not hard to understand, but it is rather hard to +defend, any regard being paid to our dignity. The best stories about +that particular line of authors who have possessed _bonhomie_ and +become classic for it are long since told. What remains is the dregs. +Yet the other day we found ourselves smiling with real delight over +a new "bit" of Cowper. It was merely that his barber, being late with +the poet's wig, said, "Twill soon be here, it is upon the road;" and +that Cowper had smiled, with a "Very well, William," or a "Very fair, +Thomas." The _mot_, like most of the stories that crop up now, was not +good; it did not exhibit the author of "John Gilpin" in a brilliant +light; it was not even uttered by the poet--he had merely smiled at +it; yet it had the effect of rekindling the vapid embers about the +dear old hearthstone of Olney, and the shy, gentle creatures that used +to disport there among the hares when nobody was looking became for a +moment more real from the citation. Now, the question is, What is +the superiority of a new piece of gossip like this, which involves +no witticism and confers no wisdom, over the next bit of history that +will be exchanged between the heroines of the alley-gate? When Mrs. +Jones tells Mrs. Baker that Mrs. Briggs has delivered a daughter, and +that Mr. Briggs said he had rather she had given him a wooden leg, the +epigram is quite as good as a _Bric-à -Brac_ anecdote, the people are +quite as worthy as Cowper's barber, and the effect upon the history +of letters quite as close and important. With this demurrer, we will +apply ourselves for a moment to Mr. Stoddard's last collection, which +of course we relish as much as anybody. We could wish that, after +discharging his very well-executed duty of writing the preface, he +could find some further time for elucidating the text. The present +book being about three people, whose memoirs are taken from three +volumes, it is confusing to the reader to find on a page headed +"Rogers" or "Scott" a foot-note about what "my father" said or +what "my friend" remembered, without anything to point out that +the authority is other than Mr. Stoddard's father or friend. Other +peculiarities, too, suggest that the pretty little volume is clipped +instead of edited: on page 134 we find that "William, who had lived +many years with Hook, grew rich and saucy. The latter used to assert +of him that for the first three years he was as good a servant as ever +came into a house; for the next two a kind and considerate friend; +and afterward an abominably bad master." And on page 240, that when +_Rogers_ was condoled with about the death of an old servant, he +exclaimed, "Well, I don't know that I feel his loss so much, after +all. For the first _seven_ years he was an obliging servant; for the +second _seven_ years an agreeable companion; but for the last seven +years he was a tyrannical master." This duality of epigrams seems to +show a discrepancy somewhere; or are we to believe that the wits of +the Regency used to drive their jokes as hired hacks, like the livery +carriages employed by faded dowagers in Hampton Court? The rest of the +little book is perhaps free from duplicates. It is a good one to turn +over for an hour in the cars, which is perhaps all it claims to be. +The anecdotes are good old familiar anecdotes, but it is pleasant to +have them strung on a thread. We are reminded that the original +Bride of Lammermoor was a Miss Dalrymple; that the "laughing Tom" +of Thackeray's "Ballad of Bouillabaise" was Thomas Frazer, Paris +correspondent of the _Morning Chronicle_; that the dramatist of +_Nicholas Nickleby_, so savagely assaulted by Dickens in the course of +the work, was a Mr. Moncrief, who would never have prepared the story +for the stage if Dickens had intimated his objection. + + + + +_Books Received._ + + +The American Educational Annual: A Reference Book for all matters +pertaining to Education. Vol. I., 1875. New York: J.W. Schermerhorn & +Co. + +The Song-Fountain: A Vocal Music-book. By Wm. Tillinghast & D.P. +Horton. New York: J.W. Schermerhorn & Co. + +My. Sister Jennie: A Novel. By George Sand. Translated by T.S. +Crocker. Boston: Roberts Brothers. + +Democracy and Monarchy in France. By Charles Kendall Adams. New York: +Henry Holt & Co. + +Egypt and Iceland in the year 1874. By Bayard Taylor. New York: G.P. +Putnam's Sons. + +Elements of Geometry. By W.H.H. Phillips, Ph. D. New York: J.W. +Schermerhorn & Co. + +The Old Woman who Lived in a Shoe. By Amanda M. Duglas. Boston: +William F. Gill & Co. + +The Lily and the Cross: A Tale of Acadia. By Prof. James De Mille. +Boston: Lee & Shepard. + +Alleged Discrepancies of the Bible. By John W. Haley, M.A. Andover: +Warren F. Draper. + +History of the United States. By George Bancroft. Vol. X. Boston: +Little, Brown & Co. + +Roddy's Romance. By Helen Kendrick Johnson. New York: G.P. Putnam's +Sons. + +My Life on the Plains. By Gen. G.A. Custer, U.S.A. New York: Sheldon & +Co. + +American Wild-Fowl Shooting. By Joseph W. Long. New York: J.B. Ford & +Co. + +Hazel-Blossoms. By John Greenleaf Whittier. Boston: James R. Osgood & +Co. + +Losing to Win: A Novel. By Theodore Davies. New York: Sheldon & Co. + +Linley Rochford: A Novel. By Justin McCarthy. New York: Sheldon & Co. + +A First Book in German. By Dr. Emil Otto. New York: Henry Holt & Co. + +What of the Churches and Clergy? Springfield, Mass: D.E. Fisk & Co. + + + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Lippincott's Magazine of Popular +Literature and Science Vol. XV., No. 85. January, 1875., by Various + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 13440 *** diff --git a/13440-h/13440-h.htm b/13440-h/13440-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..56a1c7c --- /dev/null +++ b/13440-h/13440-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,10821 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd"> + +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> +<head> + <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" + content="text/html; charset=UTF-8" /> + + <title>The Project Gutenberg eBook of Lippincott's Magazine of + Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XV, No. 85, January, + 1875.</title> + <style type="text/css"> + /*<![CDATA[*/ + + <!-- + body {margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%;} + p {text-align: justify;} + blockquote {text-align: justify;} + h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6 {text-align: center;} + h1 {margin-top: 2em; margin-bottom: 2em} + h2 {margin-top: 4em; margin-bottom: 2em} + h3 {margin-top: 2em; margin-bottom: 2em} + + pre {font-size: 0.7em;} + + hr {text-align: center; width: 50%;} + html>body hr {margin-right: 25%; margin-left: 25%; width: 50%;} + hr.full {width: 100%;} + html>body hr.full {margin-right: 0%; margin-left: 0%; width: 100%;} + hr.short {text-align: center; width: 20%;} + html>body hr.short {margin-right: 40%; margin-left: 40%; width: 20%;} + + .note {margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-size: 0.9em;} + + span.pagenum {position: absolute; left: 1%; right: 91%; font-size: 8pt;} + + .poem {margin-left:10%; margin-right:10%; margin-bottom: 1em; + text-align: left;} + .poem .stanza {margin: 1em 0em 1em 0em;} + .poem p {margin: 0; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} + .poem p.i2 {margin-left: 1em;} + .poem p.i4 {margin-left: 2em;} + .poem p.i6 {margin-left: 3em;} + .poem p.i8 {margin-left: 4em;} + .poem p.i10 {margin-left: 5em;} + + .figure, .figcenter, .figright, .figleft + {padding: 1em; margin: 0; text-align: center;} + .figure img, .figcenter img, .figright img, .figleft img + {border: none;} + .figure p, .figcenter p, .figright p, .figleft p + {margin: 0; text-indent: 1em;} + .figcenter {margin: auto;} + .figright {float: right;} + .figleft {float: left;} + + .inline {border: none; vertical-align: middle;} + + .footnote {font-size: 0.9em; margin-right: 10%; margin-left: 10%;} + + .side {float:right; + font-size: 75%; + width: 25%; + padding-left:10px; + border-left: dashed thin; + margin-left: 10px; + text-align: left; + text-indent: 0; + font-weight: bold; + font-style: italic;} + + div.trans-note {border-style: solid; border-width: 1px; + margin: 3em 15%; padding: 1em; text-align: center;} + + .illustrations {margin: 0.5em 10%; font-size: 0.9em;} + + .toc {margin: 0 10%; text-align: left; font-size: 0.9em;} + .toc p {margin: 0.5em 0;} + .toc p.i4 {margin-left: 2em;} + + p.author {text-align: right; margin-right: 5%;} + + a:link {color: blue; text-decoration: none;} + link {color: blue; text-decoration: none;} + a:visited {color: blue; text-decoration: none;} + a:hover {color: red;} + + --> + /*]]>*/ + </style> +</head> + +<body> +<div>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 13440 ***</div> + + <div class="trans-note"> + Transcriber's Note: The Table of Contents and the list of + illustrations were added by the transcriber. + </div> + <hr class="full" /> + + <h1>LIPPINCOTT'S MAGAZINE</h1> + + <h3>OF</h3> + + <h2><i>POPULAR LITERATURE AND SCIENCE.</i></h2> + <hr class="short" /> + + <h4>January, 1875.<br /> + Vol. XV. No. 85.</h4> + <hr class="short" /> + + <div class="figcenter" + style="width:10%;"> + <a href="images/title_page.png"><img width="100%" + src="images/title_page.png" + alt="decoration" /></a> + </div> + + <h4>PHILADELPHIA:<br /> + J. B. LIPPINCOTT AND CO.</h4><br /> + + <hr /> + <br /> + <br /> + + + <h3>TABLE OF CONTENTS</h3> + + <div class="toc"> + <p><a href="#illustrations">ILLUSTRATIONS</a></p> + + <p>THE NEW HYPERION.</p> + + <p class="i4">FROM PARIS TO MARLY BY WAY OF THE RHINE.</p> + + <p class="i4">XIX.--TYING UP THE CLEWS. + <a href="#page9">9</a></p> + + <p class="i4">CONCLUSION. <a href="#page28">28</a></p> + + <p>FOLLOWING THE TIBER.</p> + + <p class="i4">TWO PAPERS.--1. <a href="#page30">30</a></p> + + <p>THE PARADOX by CHARLOTTE F. BATES. + <a href="#page39">39</a></p> + + <p>A NIGHT AT COCKHOOLET CASTLE. + <a href="#page40">40</a></p> + + <p>THE LEADEN ARROW by EDWARD C. BRUCE. + <a href="#page56">56</a></p> + + <p>TWO MIRRORS by F.A. HILLARD. + <a href="#page66">66</a></p> + + <p>MALCOLM.</p> + + <p class="i4">CHAPTER LXIV. THE LAIRD AND HIS MOTHER. + <a href="#page67">67</a></p> + + <p class="i4">CHAPTER LXV. THE LAIRD'S VISION. + <a href="#page68">68</a></p> + + <p class="i4">CHAPTER LXVI. THE CRY FROM THE CHAMBER. + <a href="#page71">71</a></p> + + <p class="i4">CHAPTER LXVII. FEET OF WOOL. + <a href="#page75">75</a></p> + + <p class="i4">CHAPTER LXVIII. HANDS OF IRON. + <a href="#page78">78</a></p> + + <p class="i4">CHAPTER LXIX. THE MARQUIS AND THE + SCHOOLMASTER. <a href="#page81">81</a></p> + + <p class="i4">CHAPTER LXX. END OR BEGINNING? + <a href="#page85">85</a></p> + + <p>THE STAGE IN ITALY by R. DAVEY. + <a href="#page90">90</a></p> + + <p>THREE FEATHERS by WILLIAM BLACK.</p> + + <p class="i4">CHAPTER XX. TINTAGEL'S WALLS. + <a href="#page97">97</a></p> + + <p class="i4">CHAPTER XXI. CONFESSION. + <a href="#page105">105</a></p> + + <p class="i4">CHAPTER XXII. ON WINGS OF HOPE. + <a href="#page109">109</a></p> + + <p>ON THE VIA SAN BASILIO by EARL MARBLE. + <a href="#page112">112</a></p> + + <p>A CHRISTMAS HYMN by T. BUCHANAN READ. + <a href="#page116">116</a></p> + + <p>THE PARSEES by FANNIE ROPER FEUDGE. + <a href="#page117">117</a></p> + + <p>OUR MONTHLY GOSSIP.</p> + + <p class="i4">A SWEDISH PROVINCIAL THEATRE. + <a href="#page123">123</a></p> + + <p class="i4">VENETIAN CAFFÈS by T.A.T. + <a href="#page126">126</a></p> + + <p class="i4">A NEW MEXICAN CHRISTMAS EVE by J.T. + <a href="#page129">129</a></p> + + <p class="i4">ENGLISH BIBLE TRANSLATIONS by J.G.W. + <a href="#page131">131</a></p> + + <p>LITERATURE OF THE DAY. <a href="#page134">134</a></p> + + <p><i>Books Received.</i> <a href="#page136">136</a></p> + </div> + <hr /> + <a name="illustrations" + id="illustrations"></a> + + <h4>ILLUSTRATIONS</h4> + + <p class="illustrations"><a href="#fig009">CÆSAR'S + PENNY.</a></p> + + <p class="illustrations"><a href="#fig010">THE THRONED + CORPSE.</a></p> + + <p class="illustrations"><a href="#fig011">THE SKELETON IN + ARMOR.</a></p> + + <p class="illustrations"><a href="#fig012">BRUSSELS.</a></p> + + <p class="illustrations"><a href="#fig014-1">FATHER + JOLIET.</a></p> + + <p class="illustrations"><a href="#fig014-2">THE + CATECHISM.</a></p> + + <p class="illustrations"><a href="#fig015">FRAU + KRANICH.</a></p> + + <p class="illustrations"><a href="#fig016">"TO MY + ARMS."</a></p> + + <p class="illustrations"><a href="#fig017">THE FUTURE OF + FFARINA.</a></p> + + <p class="illustrations"><a href="#fig018">HOHENFELS' + FAILURE.</a></p> + + <p class="illustrations"><a href="#fig019">READING THE + CONTRACT.</a></p> + + <p class="illustrations"><a href="#fig020-1">INTERRUPTED + REPOSE.</a></p> + + <p class="illustrations"><a href="#fig020-2">COALS vs. + COATS</a></p> + + <p class="illustrations"><a href="#fig021">THE JESTER AT THE + FEAST.</a></p> + + <p class="illustrations"><a href="#fig022">ST. GUDOLE, + BRUSSELS.</a></p> + + <p class="illustrations"><a href="#fig023">SQUARE OF THE + HÔTEL DE VILLE, BRUSSELS.</a></p> + + <p class="illustrations"><a href="#fig024">DIVERS + DIVERSIONS.</a></p> + + <p class="illustrations"><a href="#fig025">THE MIMIC + HUNT.</a></p> + + <p class="illustrations"><a href="#fig028-1">HOMEWARD + BOUND.</a></p> + + <p class="illustrations"><a href="#fig028-2">CHARLES AND + JOSEPHINE.</a></p> + + <p class="illustrations"><a href="#fig028-3">ARGUS AND + ULYSSES.</a></p> + + <p class="illustrations"><a href="#fig029-1">"HAND IT OVER TO + ART."</a></p> + + <p class="illustrations"><a href="#fig030">NEAR THE SOURCE OF + THE TIBER.</a></p> + + <p class="illustrations"><a href="#fig031">CAPRESE.</a></p> + + <p class="illustrations"><a href="#fig032">LAKE + THRASIMENE.</a></p> + + <p class="illustrations"><a href="#fig034">THE TIBER NEAR + PERUGIA.</a></p> + + <p class="illustrations"><a href="#fig036">TODI.</a></p> + + <p class="illustrations"><a href="#fig037">CHURCH AND CONVENT + OF SAINT FRANCIS, AT ASSISI.</a></p> + <hr /> + <span class="pagenum"><a name="page9" + id="page9"></a>[pg 9]</span> + + <h2>THE NEW HYPERION.</h2> + + <h3>FROM PARIS TO MARLY BY WAY OF THE RHINE.</h3> + + <h3>XIX.—TYING UP THE CLEWS.</h3> + + <div class="figcenter" + style="width:75%;"> + <a href="images/009.png" + name="fig009" + id="fig009"><img width="100%" + src="images/009.png" + alt="CÆSAR'S PENNY." /></a>CÆSAR'S PENNY. + </div> + + <p>In leaving Cologne for Aix-la-Chapelle you turn your back to + the river—a particular which suited my mood well enough. + The railway bore us away from the Rhine-shore at an abrupt + angle, and in my notion the noble Germanic goddess or image + seemed at this point to recede with grand theatric strides, + like a divinity of the stage backing away from her admirers + over the billowy whirlpool of her own skirts. As I dreamed we + penetrated the tunnel of Königsdorf, which is fifteen + hundred yards long, and which seemed to me sufficiently + protracted to contain the slumber of Barbarossa. The thought + gave me a useful hint, and I fell into a light sleep, while + Charles and Hohenfels pervaded the darkness merely by their + perfumes—the former with whiffs at a concealed bottle of + Farina, the latter with a pastille counterfeiting the incense + of the cathedral. In a couple of hours from the Hôtel de + Hollande we reached Aachen, as the fond natives call the burgh + so dear to Charlemagne. Deprived of that + <span class="pagenum"><a name="page10" + id="page10"></a>[pg 10]</span> magnificent mirror, the + Rhine, the pretty towns throughout this part of Germany seem + but like country belles. We should hardly have paused at Aix + but for the sake of affording a rest to Charles, who grew + worse whenever lunch-time competed with railway-time. As for + the dull little city, for us it was a wilderness, with the + blank cleanliness of the desert, except in so far as it was + informed and populated by the memory of Charlemagne.</p> + + <div class="figleft" + style="width:60%;"> + <a href="images/010.png" + name="fig010" + id="fig010"><img width="100%" + src="images/010.png" + alt="THE THRONED CORPSE." /></a>THE THRONED CORPSE. + </div> + + <p>Here he died, and entered his tomb in the church himself had + founded. Into this sepulchre the emperor Otho III. dared to + penetrate in the year 997, impelled by a motive of vile and + varlet-like curiosity. They say the dead monarch confronted his + living visitor in the great marble chair in which he had been + seated at his own command, haughty and inflexible as in life, + the ivory sceptre in his ivory fingers, his white skull crowned + with the diadem of gold. The peeping emperor looked upon him + with awe, half afraid of the mysterious and penetrating shadows + that reached forth out of his rayless eyes. Before he left, + however, he peered about, touched the sceptre and the throne, + fingered this and that, and having, as it were, trimmed the + nails and combed the beard of the great spectre, retired with a + valet's bow. Observing that Charlemagne had lost most of his + nose, he caused it to be replaced in gold very delicately + chiseled and enchased. The sacrilege was repeated by Frederick + Barbarossa in 1165, who went farther and forced Charlemagne to + get up from his chair before him. The corpse, in rising, fell + in pieces, which have been dispersed through Europe as relics. + We saw such of them as remain here at the Chapelle. I was + allowed, for about the equivalent of an American dollar, to + measure the Occidental emperor's leg—they call it his + arm. And then, as a makeweight in the bargain, the venal + sacristan placed in my hands the head of Charlemagne.</p> + + <p>I thought Hohenfels would have sunk to the ground with + disgust. He colored deeply and dragged me into the air. "I am + ashamed of every drop of German blood in my veins," he cried. + "What are we to think of the commerce of these wretches, for + whom the very wounds of Cæsar are the lips of a + money-box?"</p> + + <p>I had given back the skull, as Hamlet returns the skull of + Yorick to the grave-digger, and was dusting my fingers with a + handkerchief, as hundreds of Hamlets have dusted theirs. I + said, "'Thrift, thrift, Horatio.'"</p> + + <p>"At Kreutzberg there are twenty monks on the counter! This + morning, at St. Ursula's, it was the eleven thousand virgins, + their skulls ranged like Dutch cheeses above our heads or in + rows around the walls, with a battery-full of them in the + neighboring apartment, like a cheesemonger's reserved magazine. + <span class="pagenum"><a name="page11" + id="page11"></a>[pg 11]</span> Here, the very leader of + modern ideas, the creator of our form of civilization, is + shown for so many pennies to any grocer who wants to weigh + the head of a king! Profanation! Barbarians! + Philistines!"</p> + + <div class="figright" + style="width:60%;"> + <a href="images/011.png" + name="fig011" + id="fig011"><img width="100%" + src="images/011.png" + alt="THE SKELETON IN ARMOR." /></a>THE SKELETON IN + ARMOR. + </div> + + <p>I turned rather hastily, while my hands were yet clammy with + the skull, thinking that this accusation of Philistinism was + aimed at me. But Hohenfels thought of nothing less than of a + personality, being in his cloudiest mood of generalization. So + I only concealed the handkerchief, while I said, as easily as I + might, "You need not accuse your German blood, for I have lived + long enough in my American's Paradise to know that civilized + Paris is considerably worse in this particular respect, with + the addition of a certain goblin levity particularly French. + How often have I seen babies frightened by the skulls in the + dentists' windows, with their cynical chewing action! It is + said that a child sat next a dentist's apprentice once in an + omnibus, and was observed to turn rigid, fixed and white, but + unable to speak: he had sat on one of these skulls, and it had + bitten him. Silver-mounted skulls set as goblets, in imitation + of Byron, are to be seen at any of the china-shops rubbing + against the chaste cheeks of the old maid's teacup. Skeletons + are sold, bleached and with gilded hinges, to the medical + students, who buy the pale horrors as openly as meerschaum + pipes. Have I not often found young Grandstone supping among + his doctors' apprentices of the Ober restaurant after + theatre-hours, a skeleton in the corner filled with umbrellas + like a hall-rack, and crowned with the triple or quintuple + tiara of the girls' best bonnets? Ay, Mimi Pinson's cap has + known what it is to perch on the bony head of Death. The + juxtaposition is but an emblem. The sewing-girl, like Hood's + shirtmaker, scarcely fears the 'phantom of grisly bone.' Poor + Francine! where have you taken <i>your</i> artisanne's cap to, + I wonder? Are you left alone, all alone again, and thinking of + the pretty solitude you have left behind you at Carlsruhe? Who + uses those polished keys now?"</p> + + <p>Hohenfels interrupted me, complaining that my monologue was + uninteresting and diffuse, and was interfering with the railway + time-table. But I finished it in the car: "And the railway! + What has a person of fixed and independent habits to do with + railways but to growl at them? Before I was tempted upon the + railway by that impertinent engineer at Noisy, I got up and sat + down when I liked, ate wholesome food at my own hours, and was + contented at home. Confusion to him who made me the victim of + his engineering calculations! + <span class="pagenum"><a name="page12" + id="page12"></a>[pg 12]</span> Confusion to Grandstone and + his nest of serpents at Épernay! Did they not + introduce me to Fortnoye, who has doubly destroyed my peace? + Where are the conspirators, that I may pulverize them with + my maledictions?"</p> + + <div class="figcenter" + style="width:80%;"> + <a href="images/012.png" + name="fig012" + id="fig012"><img width="100%" + src="images/012.png" + alt="BRUSSELS." /></a>BRUSSELS. + </div> + + <p>This question—which Hohenfels called peevish as he + buried himself in his book—was not answered until we had + passed Verviers, Chaudfontaine and Liège. I was aroused + from a sulky slumber in the station at Brussels by Hohenfels, + who said, in his musical scolding way, like the busy wheeze of + a clicking music-box, "You may say what you like, with your + left-handed flatteries, in regard to Fortnoye, and you may + praise Ariadnes and widows to the end of the chapter. You are + sorry at this moment not to be at Épernay to see the + destroyer of your peace married: you had rather assist at the + making of a wife than at the making of a widow."</p> + + <p>I was just sending Fortnoye to the gloomiest shades of + Acheron when a strong hand entered the carriage-door, helped me + handsomely down the steps, and then began warmly to shake my + own. Fortnoye!—Fortnoye in flesh and blood was before me. + While my mouth was yet filled with maledictions he began to + pour out a storm of thanks with all his own particular warmth, + expressing the most effusive gratitude for the trouble I had + taken in forsaking my route to be his wife's bridesmaid. That + is what he called it. "She has but one other," said Fortnoye. + At the same time I began to recognize other faces not unknown + to me, crudely illuminated by the raw colors of the + railway-lights. They all had black wedding-suits and enormous + buttonhole nosegays of orange-flowers. I picked them out, with + a particular recognition for each: 'twas the civil engineer of + Noisy; the short gentleman named Somerard; James Athanasius + Grandstone, with his saintly aureole upon him in the shape of a + Yankee wide-awake; the nameless mutes, or rather chorus, of the + champagne-crypt; in short, my nest of serpents in all its + integrity. Still entangled with my slumbers, I hesitated to + respond to the friendly hands that were everywhere thrust + centripetally toward me.</p> + + <p>I looked blackly at Hohenfels. He was chuckling.</p> + + <p>At Heidelberg, making the acquaintance of M. Fortnoye + contemporaneously with my departure, he had become more + enthralled than he ever confessed to this radiant + traveler—whom he called a + <span class="pagenum"><a name="page13" + id="page13"></a>[pg 13]</span> packman, but regarded as a + Mercury—and his pretty scheme of matrimony in motion. + Even now, if I can believe my eyes, he goes up to the + "vintner" and "peddler" of his objurgations, and meekly + whispers into his ear with the air of a conspirator + reporting a plot to his chief. Having engaged to produce me + at the wedding of Fortnoye, and finding me unexpectedly + recusant, he had adopted a little stratagem for bringing me + to the scene while thinking to escape from it.</p> + + <p>"Thou too, Brutus!" I said, and gave it up. It only remained + for me to return all round, after five minutes of petrified + stupidity, the hand-grasps that had been offered from every + quarter of the compass-box.</p> + + <p>Next morning, at an early hour, I was interrupted by a + knock, just as Charles had buttoned my gaiters and the young + man from the perruquier's (who had stolen in with that air of + delicacy and of almost literary refinement which belongs to his + gentle profession) had lathered me. A nick he gave my chin at + the shock made my countenance all argent and gules, and the + visitor entering saw me thus emblazoned, while the barber and + Charles, "like two wild men supporters of a shield," could only + stare at the untimely apparition.</p> + + <p>"Do you know him, Charles?" I asked, not recognizing my + guest, and putting over my painted face a mask of wet + toweling.</p> + + <p>"I know him intimately," replied my jester-in-ordinary: "I + would thank Monsieur Paul just to tell me his name. Do you + remember, monsieur, a sort of beggar, with a wagon and a + stylish horse and a pretty wife, who limped a bit with his + right hand, or perhaps his left hand? Does monsieur know what I + mean? He used to come and see us at Passy; and monsieur even + had some traffic with him in a little matter of two + chickens."</p> + + <p>"Father Joliet!" I cried.</p> + + <p>"Present!" shouted the personage thus designated at my + appeal to his name. I turned round, toweled, and he grasped my + hands. The unusual hour, appropriate as I supposed only to some + porter or other stipendiary visitor of my hotel, caused to + shine out with startling refulgence the morning splendors in + which Papa Joliet had arrayed himself. He wore a courtly dress, + appropriate to the most formal possible ceremony; his black + suit was glossy; his hat was glossy; his varnished pumps were + more than glossy—they were phosphorescent. Gloves only + were wanting to his honest hands.</p> + + <div class="figright" + style="width:30%;"> + <a href="images/013.png" + name="fig013" + id="fig013"><img width="100%" + src="images/013.png" + alt="PERRUQUIER." /></a>PERRUQUIER. + </div> + + <p>Soaped, napkined and generally extinguished, I could only + stammer, "You here in Brussels? What a droll meeting!"</p> + + <p>"Wherefore droll?" asked Joliet, with a huge surprise, which + lasted him all through his next sentence. "I come here to marry + my daughter. Everything is ready; we count on your presence at + the wedding; the lawyer has drawn up the contract; and the + breakfast is now cooking at the best restaurant in the + place."</p> + + <p>"Francine's wedding, my dear Joliet!" I exclaimed. And, + going back to my apprehensions at her furtive disappearance + from Carlsruhe, and to my conjectures of some amorous mystery + between her and her Yankee traducer, Kraaniff, I added gravely, + "It is very + creditable!"</p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page14" + id="page14"></a>[pg 14]</span> + + <p>"How, creditable—and droll?" repeated the honest man, + evidently much surprised at my own accumulating surprises. "Did + not you hear?"</p> + + <div class="figleft" + style="width:30%;"> + <a href="images/014-1.png" + name="fig014-1" + id="fig014-1"><img width="100%" + src="images/014-1.png" + alt="FATHER JOLIET." /></a>FATHER JOLIET. + </div> + + <p>"Not the faintest word," I said, "but I am none the less + gratified to find this affair ending, as it should, in the + presence of a lawyer. As for your wedding-invitation, my good + friend, you are a little tardy in delivering it, for it is + exactly to-day that I am obliged to attend at the marriage of + one of my friends, M. Fortnoye."</p> + + <p>"Ah, that is a good joke!" cried Joliet, breaking into an + explosion of laughter and clapping me pleasantly on the + shoulder—an action which caused a slight frown on the + part of Charles. "You always would have your jest, Monsieur the + American! Tease me and scare me as much as you like: I like + these hoaxes better before a wedding than after. Hold that," he + added, extending his hand as if it were a piece of + merchandise.</p> + + <p>I "held" it, and he went on, dwelling slowly on his words: + "If you are at Henri Fortnoye's wedding you will be at Francine + Joliet's also, for both of these persons are to be married at + one church."</p> + + <p>"Impossible!" I exclaimed, dropping the hand and stepping + back.</p> + + <p>"What! again?" said Joliet, his manly face visibly + darkening. "Droll! and creditable! and impossible! Why + impossible?" Then he dropped his head and looked angrily at the + floor. "Ah, yes, even you," he said, his eyes still fixed on + the boards, "believed that a French girl, trained as French + girls are trained, would flirt and expose herself to remark; + and all on account of such a man as your compatriot, the other + American! Well! well! you ought to know your countrymen + best."</p> + + <p>"I know of no harm," I interposed hastily. "I should always + have thought Kraaniff hard to swallow as a mere matter of + taste. I can but recollect, Father Joliet," I went on more + seriously, "that the last time I met you you begged me not to + talk of Francine if I would not break your heart. I have to add + to this the news brought me from Heidelberg, that this Kraaniff + was a serpent who had fascinated some young girl for an + approaching meal.—How dare you, Charles," I cried + suddenly, recalled to the consciousness of his presence by this + souvenir of his oratory, "stand here staring? Show the young + man out directly, and pay him."</p> + + <p>I will not answer for Charles's having got much farther away + than the door. Joliet continued: "But his aunt knows him now + for what he is. Kraaniff, say you? I call him Kranich, though + he had better change his baptismal record than disgrace one of + the best names in Brussels."</p> + + <div class="figright" + style="width:40%;"> + <a href="images/014-2.png" + name="fig014-2" + id="fig014-2"><img width="100%" + src="images/014-2.png" + alt="THE CATECHISM." /></a>THE CATECHISM. + </div> + + <p>"Frau Kranich, then, my old friend, is really his aunt?"</p> + + <p>"Madame Kranich, whom I have + <span class="pagenum"><a name="page15" + id="page15"></a>[pg 15]</span> known in your parlor, is + really Francine's godmother. Did you never know of all her + secret kindness? That rigid lady would commit a perjury to + deny one of her own good actions. Young Kranich has written + her a letter confessing his lies. Don't you know? The very + same day when you were determined to fight him in a + duel—"</p> + + <p>"Certainly, certainly," I said, a little confused. "We will + change the subject and leave my ferocity alone. Let us + understand one another. In regard to Fortnoye's marriage, was + there not some talk of a Madame Ashburleigh?"</p> + + <p>"I believe you. Madame Ashburleigh is the very key of the + manoeuvre. Madame Ashburleigh—don't you + perceive?—lost a child."</p> + + <p>"For that matter, she has lost four. I know the lady + confidentially, and she told me their histories and present + address. Lucia lies in Glasgow, Hannibal at Nice, and Waterloo + sleeps somewhere hereabout, as well as another nameless little + dear."</p> + + <p>"She is a good woman. She has collected all her proofs, and + has come hither with them voluntarily—has perhaps already + arrived. Brussels, where two of her marmots rest, is one of her + most frequent stations. That censorious Madame Kranich made a + scene, but she had to yield to conviction."</p> + + <p>"A censorious Madame Kranich! Is the young duelist + married?"</p> + + <p>"What? No, no! It is Francine's guardian I speak of. Of late + years she has become a sort of Puritan abbess, seeking the + Protestant society which abounds in Belgium, and lamenting her + husband, whom they say she used to drug with opium."</p> + + <p>"Then is she not Kranich's aunt?"</p> + + <p>"Oh yes, an aunt by marriage; but he is not her nephew: I + will die before I call him so."</p> + + <div class="figright" + style="width:35%;"> + <a href="images/015.png" + name="fig015" + id="fig015"><img width="100%" + src="images/015.png" + alt="FRAU KRANICH." /></a>FRAU KRANICH. + </div> + + <p>"Listen," said I, "Father Joliet. You are as full of + information as an oracle, but you are not coherent. This month + past I have been hunting down a chimaera, a hydra with a dozen + heads: each head shows me by turn the portrait of Fortnoye, or + Francine, or yourself, or Kranich, or Mrs. Ashburleigh. Ever + since Noisy I have been meandering through the folds of a + mystery. My head is turning with it. If you want to save me + from distraction, sit down in this chair and answer me a long + catechism, without saying a word but in reply to my + questions."</p> + + <p>"I am sure I talk as plain as a professor. Look! You + frightened me at first with your doubts and your + impossibilities. You have only to make Kranich's aunt agree + with Francine's guardian, and at the same time forgive + Francine's husband for having assumed the undertaker's bill for + Madame Ashburleigh's baby."</p> + + <p>"Yes, yes, my dear Joliet, you are clearer than Euclid." And + I administered a category of questions. Joliet, with his + fatherly joy bursting out of him in the longest of parentheses, + kept quiet in his refulgent shoes and answered as well as he + could.</p> + + <div class="figleft" + style="width:30%;"> + <a href="images/016.png" + name="fig016" + id="fig016"><img width="100%" + src="images/016.png" + alt="'TO MY ARMS.'" /></a>"TO MY ARMS." + </div> + + <p>Francine, he protested, had never been + <span class="pagenum"><a name="page16" + id="page16"></a>[pg 16]</span> a flirt (I have met no + Frenchmen who were ignorant of that one English word, to + which they give a new value by pronouncing it in a very + orotund manner, as <i>flort</i>). When she came to be ten or + twelve, Frau Kranich—until then a well-preserved + lioness with an appetite for society—ceased to give + her dolls and promised to give her an education. At the same + time, the banker's widow left Paris, and repaired with her + charge to Brussels, where the little girl received some good + half-Jesuitical, half-English schooling, of the kind + suggested in the Brontë novels. Her diploma attained, + Francine begged to accompany her English teacher back to + London: she wished to become a <i>meess</i>, she said, and + be competent to teach like a new Hypatia. She had hardly + bidden her kind protectress adieu when Frau Kranich's nephew + arrived at Brussels, exceedingly dissatisfied with his + American business in the bar-rooms of the grand duke of + Mississippi. A sordid jealousy of Mademoiselle Joliet's + claims upon his aunt took possession of this prudent spirit. + He took up a watch-post at a university town on the Rhine. + He began to whisper vague exaggerations of her coquetries + and liveliness, which the Protestant circle that revolved + about Madame Kranich did not fail to bear in to her. This + lady admired her nephew, sure that his want of manners was + the sign of a noble frankness. She wrote to Francine, + bidding her come immediately from London. The girl not + replying, the hopeful nephew was put upon her track. He went + away. His letters from England reported that Francine was no + longer in that country, but was probably come back to + Belgium, "I know not in what suburb of Brussels our very + independent miss may this instant be hiding," he wrote.</p> + + <p>About the same time, in the circle of French exiles at + Brussels, a young <i>romantique</i> named Fortnoye was reported + as weeping and lavishing statues over the grave of an unknown + infant in the churchyard at Laaken. It was a delicious mystery. + Kind meddlers approached the sexton, who said that all he knew + of the babe's mother was that she was a beautiful lady from + London. Kranich carried the story dutifully to his aunt, adding + his own ingenious surmise: "Can Francine have become + sufficiently Anglicised to contract secret marriages with + roving revolutionists, and scamper about the country with + ardent young Frenchmen in the style of Gretna Green?" In fact, + it was really from London that Mrs. Ashburleigh was proceeding, + for the purpose of taking care, in the Rhenish city where he + was dying, of her handsome, dissipated, worthless husband. + Taken suddenly ill at Brussels, she left her infant to the + unequaled chill of a strange, unknown cemetery, hastening + thence with tears and despair to the bedside where duty called + her.</p> + + <p>Has my reader forgotten the dim, tear-swollen story which I + heard—not at all improved in the telling—from my + generous young friend Grandstone—how an impulsive + Frenchman had laid to rest, in flowers and evergreens, the + unnamed baby of a woman he had never seen? Jealous as I was of + Fortnoye, I never could think without tenderness of this + singular action. To make the tomb of this helpless Innocence + the young man braved the curiosity of his + comrades—despised the rumor, the obloquy, and, hardest of + all, the jests. Well has the wise dramatist decided that + Ophelia must needs be laid in Yorick's + bed!</p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page17" + id="page17"></a>[pg 17]</span> + + <p>Poor Francine, gay, frivolous, innocently vain of her little + travesty of English behavior, found her accomplishments and + graces received by her guardian's circle with incomprehensible + coldness. Hurt and humiliated, she asked to pay a visit to her + father. The honest rustic received her with a miserable + confusion of doubt and severity, for her escapade to England + had never pleased him, and her return from her godmother's home + wore to him the air of a repudiation. At her father's house, + however, she was discovered by Fortnoye, who had never heard + the ingenious Kranich's theory of his own private wedding with + Francine, and who thought to find in her the veiled unknown of + the cemetery. He saw for the first time, in the flowery home at + Noisy, that fresh ingenuous beauty, a little over-cast with + disappointment. His generous nature was touched; and, with his + talent for administration and planning, he conceived the idea + of establishing Francine in the pretty bird's nest at + Carlsruhe, distant alike from the strongholds of her + calumniators, Belgium and France.</p> + + <div class="figright" + style="width:50%;"> + <a href="images/017.png" + name="fig017" + id="fig017"><img width="100%" + src="images/017.png" + alt="THE FUTURE OF FFARINA." /></a>THE FUTURE OF + FFARINA. + </div> + + <p>Fortnoye now had an object in life. "There is a very young + person in the cemetery of Laaken who is much in need of a + chaperone," he said. The frank proofs of his own relations with + this churchyard would not only do credit to his own reputation, + but would gratify the best friends of Mademoiselle Joliet and + at least one other lady. To attain these proofs he had to step + over the coiling, writhing bodies of a whole nest of rumors. + When he seized by the throat the especial slander that he + himself was the husband of the babe's mother, he found written + on its crest the signature of John Kranich. He sought the aunt. + This lady gave him several interviews, the Lutheran prayer-book + for ever in her hand. "Why does the dear girl not come to me?" + she would say, weeping, but she refused to hear a word against + her precious nephew, the personification of bluff frankness. As + if to make crushing him impossible, young Kranich had now + withdrawn to America, leaving his reputation in that best + possible protection, the chivalry that is extended toward the + absent. Fortnoye was baffled. "I will ask the baby at its tomb + for its mother's and father's name," he cried. In the pretty + God's Acre he found a fresh harvest of flowers and a new statue + over the well-known grave. It was a pretty miniature of + Thorwaldsen's Psyche, on which the proud copyist had inscribed + his name. A respectful correspondence with Mrs. Ashburleigh, to + whom he was guided by the sculptor, and who was now taking the + waters at Wildbad, soon put the whole tangled story to rights. + Fortnoye had the happiness of conducting Francine, by this time + his affianced wife, to the good Frau Kranich, who, convinced + that she had wrongly judged her, threw her arms ardently around + her recovered jewel, letting the eternal little book fly from + her hand like a projectile.</p> + + <p>"But the most singular part of the story," concluded Father + Joliet, "is the <span class="pagenum"><a name="page18" + id="page18"></a>[pg 18]</span> letter which Fortnoye, after + two or three quarrels, forced out of young Kranich when the + latter had returned to Europe, full of triumph and debts, to + take possession of his aunt for the rest of his life. Here + it is," added the good man, opening a pocket-book. "The + hand-writing is drunken, but the sense is clear as + Seltzer-water. The scholars tell me <i>in vino veritas + est</i>, but it appears to me that truth really comes out in + the repentance and headache that follow."</p> + + <div class="figcenter" + style="width:80%;"> + <a href="images/018.png" + name="fig018" + id="fig018"><img width="100%" + src="images/018.png" + alt="HOHENFELS' FAILURE." /></a>HOHENFELS' FAILURE. + </div> + + <p>"MY DEAR AUNT" (ran the letter which Charles had seen forced + from the alligator after his unlucky game of dominoes): "You + have known me as the soul of candor. It is this happy quality + which compels me to state (for I am something of a Rousseau) + that if I ever playfully accused your pretty pet Francine of + being a flirt, I knew nothing about it. The best proof is that + she absolutely refused to join her expectations with mine, + though I am something of an Adonis. If you believed that she + and the wine-peddler had made a match, I pity your credulity + and ignorance of human nature. I am certain that neither the + peddler nor myself would touch the enterprise until you had + shown exactly what you would (pecuniarily) do. For my part, I + have acted throughout on the most exact and advanced scientific + principles. Intending to modify the spirit-trade in America, + and especially to introduce the exclusive agency of the Farina + essences, I found that the sinew particularly needed for this + leap was capital. Desiring to absorb your bounties toward + Francine, I at first proposed matrimony. This offer was made + without any enmity toward the girl, as my next move was without + affection, though it seems to be resulting to her benefit. I + became her accuser as coolly as I had been her lover. Passion + has nothing to do with the combinations of strategic genius: I + am something of a Washington. My theory of her clandestine + marriage was one of the most masterly fictions of the + age—a plot worthy of Thackeray. If I could have succeeded + in mutilating the statue in the graveyard, I might have carried + it, while you would have admired my act of iconoclasm with all + your Puritan nature. In the momentary abandonment of my plans, + owing to the machinations of my enemies, you will conceive that + I am not very rich. My college-debts and other expenses I am + obliged to leave for your kind attention. The main point of + this letter, which M. Fortnoye has persuaded me to set down as + distinctly as in my present feeble state I can, is that + Francine is a pretty little maid who has never passed by Gretna + Green. There! that is my <i>credo</i>, and I will subscribe to + it,</p> + + <p>"Your loving nephew, JOHN.</p> + + <p>"P. S. Address, with such an enclosure as your generosity + will prompt, JEAN K. FFARINA, sole representative and + cosmetical chemist in America on behalf of the Farinas of + Cologne, at New Orleans <span class="pagenum"><a name="page19" + id="page19"></a>[pg 19]</span> where I am going to beat my + adversaries like Old HIC—"</p> + + <p>At this point the tipsy scrawl became illegible.</p> + + <p>"This is not a very handsome apology. Did Fortnoye accept + it?" I asked, turning over the clammy and malodorous epistle. + At this inquiry the crack of the door widened and Charles + appeared, on fire with enthusiasm, and so possessed with + self-importance that he forgot the betrayal of his + indiscretion.</p> + + <p>"I can reply to that question," said Charles. "When M. + Fortnoye received the paper from the duelist he read it over + and said, 'You have meant to impose on me, monsieur, with an + incomplete confession. But, in return for your imperfect + restoration of Mademoiselle Joliet's portrait, you have + unconsciously set down such a masterpiece of yourself that I am + certain your aunt will see you as she never did before.'"</p> + + <p>Charles, having thus added himself to our cabal without + rebuke, took a lively interest in what followed. The proud + father continued: "My son-in-law, after some business + preliminaries, wrote me a handsome letter demanding what he had + already effectively possessed himself of. I wrote to Francine, + already returned to her duties, to be a good girl and make her + husband obey her in all things."</p> + + <p>"That may have been," said I, "what made Francine take to + laughing all day and all night, as I heard she did some little + time after my departure from her house. The next news of her," + I pursued, "was that she had been spirited away by some sly old + kidnapper. I almost suspected Kranich."</p> + + <p>"The old kidnapper," said Joliet, laughing heartily at the + compliment, "is the man now talking to you. I wanted to take + Francine to her godmother. I turned the key in the door at + Carlsruhe, set the geographers all upon their travels to + explore new worlds, and we have been living ever since quite + close to Madame Kranich, who treats me like an emperor."</p> + + <p>It was easy now to understand why the young Kranich, as soon + as he could identify me as a protector of Francine, had been + thrown off his guard and tempted to attack me with his clumsy + abuse. It was not very mysterious, even, why he had wished all + handsome girls to be drowned in the Rhine. For him a pretty + damsel was simply a rival in trade.</p> + + <div class="figright" + style="width:50%;"> + <a href="images/019.png" + name="fig019" + id="fig019"><img width="100%" + src="images/019.png" + alt="READING THE CONTRACT." /></a>READING THE + CONTRACT. + </div> + + <p>Had I stopped at Wildbad with the party of orpheonists, I + should have encountered rather sooner the fatal beauties of + Mary Ashburleigh. It was to meet her that Fortnoye had paused + at that resort, considering her introduction to Frau Kranich + almost indispensable to the success of his scheme. She had no + hesitation in following the protecting angel of her lost child. + "My object in this journey is a happy marriage," she had told + me when to my unworthy care her guardianship had been + transferred. If I timorously suspected the marriage to be her + own, whose fault was it but mine? My heart leaped up at the + successive stages of this recital, its hopes + <span class="pagenum"><a name="page20" + id="page20"></a>[pg 20]</span> confirmed by every additional + fact: the Dark Ladye's hand was certainly free. Fortnoye, I + should surmise, was not too desirous to abandon this + magnificent companion at Schwetzingen; but the serpent, he + knew, was left behind, in company with two or three of his + and my friends: it was necessary to take the youth by the + ear, as it were, and dismiss him from the country, without + loss of time, to his future of counter-jumping. His dueling + experience may be of some use to him among the bowie-knives + of Louisiana. If his subsequent path is not strewn with + roses, let him rejoice that it is at least lubricated with + cologne-water.</p> + + <div class="figleft" + style="width:50%;"> + <a href="images/020-1.png" + name="fig020-1" + id="fig020-1"><img width="100%" + src="images/020-1.png" + alt="INTERRUPTED REPOSE." /></a>INTERRUPTED REPOSE. + </div> + + <p>An hour had passed, and into my room from his own adjoining + one now ambled amicably my friend the baron. He greeted Joliet + as an old friend. Many a smoking-match had they had in my + garden at Marly. But Hohenfels this morning was in robes of + state, with shoes that shone even beside old Father Joliet's, + and as a concession to elegance he had abandoned his cavernous + pipes in favor of cigarettes. A scroll of this description, + flavored with his Cologne pastille and very badly rolled, was + trying to exhale itself between his lips.</p> + + <p>"What a genius for conversation you have to-day, my + Flemming! This hour I have rocked back and forth in bed, trying + to understand your observations or to cover my ears and go to + rest. Your tongue has been like the tongue of a monastery-bell + summoning all hands to penance." But I had hardly spoken ten + consecutive words. The ears of the baron were this morning + quite muffled, I think, with the abundance of his hair, which + he had evidently been dressing with an avalanche of soap and + water, for the topknot was as harsh and tight as a felt. He had + lemon-blossoms on his lappel and lemon kids on his fists.</p> + + <p>It was then I remembered that my bags were all in the + steamer, where I had left them when surprised by Charles's + indisposition. My tin box would possibly yield me a + button-nosegay, but otherwise I might beat my breast, like the + wedding-guest in the <i>Ancient Mariner</i>, for I heard the + summons and was unable to attend in right attire. "We two must + take you out in the street and dress you," said Hohenfels.</p> + + <p>Although I had never been dressed in the street, I yielded. + It was a grand public holiday, and the sounds of festivity, + which had floated into my chamber with the entrance of + Hohenfels, were in full cadence outside. Everybody was pouring + out to the city-gate, or returning from thence, where, in honor + of some visit from the king of the Belgians and count and + countess of Flanders, a festival was going on in imitation or + rehearsal of the grand annual <i>kermesse</i>. These festivals, + retained in Belgium with a delightful fidelity to the customs + of antique Brabant, would fit the brush of Teniers better than + the pen of a mere bewildered tourist. Still, I will try, + copying principally from the reports of Charles (who contrives + to peep at everything, with an interest whose amount is in + ratio with the square of his distance from his master), to give + a few features of the scene, which he spread in detail before + the attentive Josephine during many an evening after.</p> + + <div class="figright" + style="width:20%;"> + <a href="images/020-2.png" + name="fig020-2" + id="fig020-2"><img width="100%" + src="images/020-2.png" + alt="COALS vs. COATS" /></a>COALS vs. COATS + </div> + + <p>The principal fair-ground—though the + <span class="pagenum"><a name="page21" + id="page21"></a>[pg 21]</span> occasion crammed the whole + city with revelers—was just outside the gate. It was a + veritable town in miniature, with a pattern of checker-board + streets—Columbine street, Polichinelle street, Avenue + des Parades, Place des Parades, Street of the Chanson, and + the like. There were more than five hundred booths, all + numbered—shops and restaurants. There were the Salon + Curtius, the Ménagerie Bidel, the Bal Mabille, the + Café Bataclan, the American Tavern. From one of the + little costumers' shops, Charles—with a higher + evincement of antiquarian taste than I should have + expected—managed to bear away a pattern of wall-paper, + which I afterward conferred on Mary Ashburleigh with great + applause: it was Parisian of 1824, the epoch of Charles Dix, + and was entirely covered with giraffes in honor of that + puissant and elegant monarch. The above establishments were + near the entrance, to the right.</p> + + <p>At the left were more attractions: another menagerie, a heap + of ostensible gold representing the five milliards paid by + France, a gallery of astonished wax soldiers representing the + Franco-Prussian war, a cook-shop with "mythologic" + confectionery. Farther on, in the Théâtre Casti, + was exposed the "renowned buffoon Peppino," breveted by His + Majesty the "king of Egypt;" then came the Chiarini Theatre; + then the Théâtre Adrien Delille, an enchantingly + pretty structure, where receptions were given by a little + creature who should have sat under a microscope: she was "the + Princess Felicia, aged thirteen, born at Clotat, near + Marseilles, weighing three kilogrammes and measuring forty-six + centimètres—a ravishing figure, admirably + proportioned in her littleness and <i>tout à fait + sympathique!"</i></p> + + <p>The announcements were heard, it was thought by Charles, to + the very centre of the city. A low-browed animal with rasped + hair was shouting, "Messieurs and ladies, come and + see—come and see the theatre of the galleys! The only one + in the world! This is the place to view the real instruments of + torture used on the prisoners—-chains four yards long and + balls of thirty-five pounds. All authentic, gentlemen and + ladies. You will see the poisoners of Marseilles, Grosjon who + killed his father, Madame Cottin who ate her baby. Come in, + come in, gentlemen and ladies! Fifteen centimes! 'Tis given + away! You enter and go out when you like. Come in! It is + educational: you see vice and crime depicted on the faces of + the criminals!"</p> + + <div class="figright" + style="width:40%;"> + <a href="images/021.png" + name="fig021" + id="fig021"><img width="100%" + src="images/021.png" + alt="THE JESTER AT THE FEAST." /></a>THE JESTER AT THE + FEAST. + </div> + + <p>In another place a malicious Flemish Figaro explained the + analogy betwen <i>een spinnekop</i> and <i>eene meisie</i>, the + perspiration streaming over his face; and my ancient + minnesinger's blood stirred within me at the report of the + pleasantries which were improvised by this Rabelais of the + people, and I remembered that I too was a Flemming.</p> + + <p>The bands belonging to the different booths tried to play + each other down, forming a stupefying charivari, with tributary + processions that quite overflowed the city. The house of + "confections" yielded me no broadcloth of a cut or dimension + suitable to my figure. But my two friends chose me a hat, a + light pale-tot (my second purchase in that sort on this + eventful journey), a scented cambric handkerchief, a rosebud, + and a snowy waistcoat, in which, as in a whited sepulchre, I + concealed the decay of my toilet. These changes were judged to + be sufficient for my accoutrement. They might have done very + well, but on my way back I paused at a lace-shop window to + inspect some present for Francine. A band, with many banners + and figures in <span class="pagenum"><a name="page22" + id="page22"></a>[pg 22]</span> masquerade, swept past, + followed by a shouting crowd. My friends lost me in a + moment, and I lost my way. I turned into a street which I + was sure led to the hotel, gave it up for another, lost that + in a blind alley, and finally brought up in a steep, narrow + cañon, where I was forced to ask a direction. The + passer-by who obliged me was a man bearing a bag of + charcoal. He answered with a ready intelligence that did + honor to his heart and his sense of Progressive Geography. + But he left on my white waistcoat, alas! a charcoal sketch, + full of chiaroscuro and <i>coloris</i>, representing his + index-finger surrounded with a sort of cloud-effect. My + waistcoat had to be given over in favor of the elder garment + buttoned up in the all-concealing overcoat.</p> + + <div class="figleft" + style="width:70%;"> + <a href="images/022.png" + name="fig022" + id="fig022"><img width="100%" + src="images/022.png" + alt="ST. GUDOLE, BRUSSELS." /></a>ST. GUDOLE, + BRUSSELS. + </div> + + <p>The ceremonies of the day, I soon found, were to consist in + an early and informal breakfast at the house of Frau Kranich; + then the civil wedding at the mayor's office, followed by the + usual church-service, from which the Protestant godmother of + Francine begged to be excused; the day to wind up with a + general dinner at a place of resort outside the city at four + o'clock, the usual dining-hour in old Brabant.</p> + + <p>The early breakfast gave a renewal of my friendship with + good Frau Kranich and a glimpse of the bride, with her sweet, + patient, dewy face shadowed like a honey-drop in the gauzy + calyx of her artisanne cap; for she was in the simplest of + morning dresses—something gray, with a clean white apron. + The quaint, old-fashioned house where we met was decorated with + exquisite trifles, the memorials of the mistress's old + fashionable taste, but scattered over the tables also were + lecture programmes, hospital reports and photographs of eminent + philosophers. As I took up for a plaything a gold pen-case, + well used, which rested on a magnificent old fan, the Kranich + said, with just a reminiscence of her former vivacity, "You + find me much changed, Mr. Flemming. I used to be the + grasshopper in the fable—now I am the ant."</p> + + <p>"I bless any change, ma'am," said I, "which increases your + kindness toward this charming girl."</p> + + <p>"Dear Mr. Flemming," said pretty Francine, "how nice and + shabby you look! You will do admirably to stand by a poor + girl—so poor that she has hardly a bridesmaid. I hope you + are as indigent as you were at Carlsruhe." Upon this I felt + very fatherly, and clasped her waist from behind as I kissed + her forehead.</p> + + <p>The lawyer, a professionally bland old man, with a porous + bald head like an emu's egg, said as he was introduced, "Ah, I + have heard of you before, monsieur. You are the man of the two + chickens."</p> + + <p>Joliet was so enchanted with this rare joke, laughing and + clapping all his nearer neighbors on the back, that I could not + but accept it graciously. For this exceptional day, at least, I + must bear my eternal nickname. Was not the maid now present + whose dower had been hatched by those well-omened fowls? and + was not the dower now coming to use? Hohenfels paired off with + the notary, and discussed with that parchment person the music + of Mozart, and, what <span class="pagenum"><a name="page23" + id="page23"></a>[pg 23]</span> would have been absurd and + incredible in any Anglo-Saxon country, the scribe understood + it!</p> + + <p>Our party had to wait but ten minutes for the groom and his + men. Fortnoye, in a grand blue suit, with a wondrous dazzle of + frilling on his broad chest, looked a noble husband, but was + preoccupied and silent. His chorus supported + him—Grandstone, Somerard, my engineer and the + others—in dignified black clothes, official + boutonnières and ceremonial cravats: they greeted Frau + Kranich with awe, and bowed before the polished head of the + lawyer with the parallelism of ninepins. My little group of + fellow-travelers was almost complete. The young duelist, of + course, was not expected or wanted. The Scotch doctor, Somerard + told me, had been obliged to fly to London, where a mammoth + meeting of the homoeopathic faith was in progress.</p> + + <p>The great feature of the breakfast came on when every crumb + of breakfast had been eaten. Charles and the maid cleared away + the table, and the notary stood up to read the marriage + contract. The reading, ordinarily a dull affair, was in this + instance vivified by curious incidents. In the first place, + Frau Kranich. amending the injustice her over-credulity had + caused, gave her <i>protègée</i> a + wedding-present of twenty thousand francs, accompanying the + gift with some singularly tart remarks about her nephew: this + sum was increased by the groom to sixty thousand. The second + incident was when Joliet, amid the almost incredulous surprise + of the whole table, raised the gift, by the addition of ten + thousand, to seventy thousand francs: the money was the product + of his former house and garden—that house of shreds and + patches which had cost him ten francs. When it came to affixing + the signatures, the notary appealed to Joliet for his name. He + could not sign it, being gouty and half forgetful of + pen-practice, but he responded to the question as bold as a + lion: "John Thomas Joliet, baron de Rouvière," throwing + to the lawyer a fine bunch of papers bearing witness to the + validity of the title; after which he added, no less proudly, + "wine-merchant, wholesale and retail, at the sign of the Golden + Chickens, Noisy."</p> + + <div class="figright" + style="width:70%;"> + <a href="images/023.png" + name="fig023" + id="fig023"><img width="100%" + src="images/023.png" + alt="SQUARE OF THE HÔTEL DE VILLE, BRUSSELS." /> + </a>SQUARE OF THE HÔTEL DE VILLE, BRUSSELS. + </div> + + <p>In truth, Joliet's father had rightfully borne the title of + baron de Rouvière, but, ruined by '48, had abandoned the + practice of signing it. Joliet resumed it for this special + occasion, having every warrant for the act, but whispered to me + that he should never so call himself in future, greatly + preferring the enumeration of his qualities on his + business-card.</p> + + <p>Poor Francine meanwhile had looked so timid and blushed so + that Frau Kranich nodded to her permission of absence. She gave + one glance at Fortnoye, buried her face in her hands, laughed a + sweet little gurgle, and fled. When her presence was again + necessary, she reappeared, drowned in white. We went to the + mayor's office, where she lost a pretty little surname that had + always seemed to fit her like a glove; then to the church, an + obscure one in the neighborhood of Frau Kranich's house. But at + the door of the sacred edifice the elder lady said, with much + conciliatory grace in her manner, "I claim exemption from + <span class="pagenum"><a name="page24" + id="page24"></a>[pg 24]</span> witnessing this part of the + ceremony; and you, Mr. Flemming, must resume or discover + your Protestantism and enter the carriage with me. I must + show you a little of the city while these young birds are + pairing."</p> + + <p>No objection was made to this rather strange proposal. The + bride, between her father and husband, forgot that she had no + friend of her own sex to stand near her. We arranged for a + general meeting at the dinner.</p> + + <p>In the carriage she said, "I brought you away because I am + devoured with uneasiness. Mrs. Ashburleigh wrote me that she + would certainly be here for at least the principal part of the + ceremony. I do not know what to make of it. It may be of no + use, but we will scour the city. These throngs, this noise, + make me uneasy. I fear some accident, having," she added with a + smile, "one lone woman's sympathy for another lone woman."</p> + + <div class="figleft" + style="width:30%;"> + <a href="images/024.png" + name="fig024" + id="fig024"><img width="100%" + src="images/024.png" + alt="DIVERS DIVERSIONS." /></a>DIVERS DIVERSIONS. + </div> + + <p>I peered through the crowds at this, right and left, with + inexpressible emotion. Perhaps this accidental sort of quest + was that which destiny had arranged for the solution of my + life-problem. To light upon Mary Ashburleigh in these festal + throngs, perhaps wanting assistance, perhaps calling upon my + name even now through her velvet lips, was a chance the mere + notion of which made my blood leap.</p> + + <p>When Brussels gives herself over to holiday-making, she does + it in a whole-souled and self-consistent way that has plenty of + attractiveness. The houses seemed to have turned themselves + inside out to replenish the streets. People in their best + clothes, equipages, processions, bands, troops of children, + filled the avenues. Some conjecture that there might have been + a mistake about the church took us to the cathedral of St. + Gudule. Here, amid the superb spectrums of the stained windows, + we searched through the vari-colored throngs that covered the + floor, but no familiar face looked upon us. Strange to us as + the old, impassive monumental dukes of Brabant who occupy the + niches, the people made way to let us pass from the doorway + between the lofty brace of towers to the high altar, which is a + juggler's apparatus, and has concealed machinery causing the + sacred wafer to come down seemingly of its own accord at the + moment when the priest is about to lift the Host. All was + unfamiliar and splendid, and we came away, feeling as if our + own little wedding-group would have been lost in so magnificent + a tabernacle. The Grande Place, on which lay the wedge-like + shadow of the high-towered Hôtel de Ville, was perhaps as + thronged a honeycomb of buzzing populace as when Alva looked + out upon it to see the execution of Egmont and Horn. Among all + the good-natured Netherlandish countenances that paved the + square there was none that responded to my own.</p> + + <p>We drove vaguely through the principal streets, and then, + baffled, made our way to the faubourg in which is situated the + zoological garden, toward which a considerable portion of the + inhabitants was going even as ourselves. At the entrance our + carriage encountered that of the bride and groom, and soon the + whole party of the breakfast-table assembled by the gate, for + the great coffee-rooms at which our meal was laid were close by + the garden, and a promenade in this famous living museum was a + premeditated part of the day's enjoyment. We entered the + grounds in character, frankly putting forward our claims as a + wedding-procession. That is the delightful French custom among + those who are brought up as Francine had been: her father would + have been heartbroken to have been denied the proud exhibition + of his joy, and Fortnoye was too great a traveler, too + cosmopolitan, to object to a little family pageant that he had + seen equaled or exceeded in publicity in most of the Catholic + <span class="pagenum"><a name="page25" + id="page25"></a>[pg 25]</span> countries on the globe. + Francine, her artisanne cap for ever lost, her gleaming dark + hair set, like a Milky Way, with a half wreath of + orange-blossoms, the silvery gauzes of her protecting veil + floating back from her forehead, strayed on at the head of + the little parade. She was wrapped in the delicious reverie + of the wedding-day. She was not yellow nor meagre, nor + uglier than herself, as so many brides contrive to be. Her + air of delicacy and tenderness was a blossom of character, + not a canker of ill-health. Her color was hardly raised, + though her head was perpetually bent. Fortnoye, holding her + on his firm arm, seemed like a man walking through + enchantments. Just behind, protecting Madame Kranich with an + action of effusive gallantry that must have been seen to be + conceived, walked the baron de Rouvière, his brave + knotted hands, for which he had not found any gloves, busily + occupied in pointing out the animated rarities that to him + seemed most worthy of selection. The hilarious hyenas, the + seals, the polar bears plunging from their lofty rocks, all + attracted his commendation; and we, who walked behind in + such order as our friendships or familiarity taught us, were + perpetually tripping upon his honest figure brought to a + halt before some object more than usually interesting. + Exclamations of delight at the bride's beauty, politely + wrapped in whispers, arose on all sides as we penetrated the + throng: it was a proud thing to be a part of a procession so + distinguished. My good Joliet beamed with complacency, and + drove his little herd up and down and across and about till + the greater part of the garden was explored. The zoological + garden of Brussels has the beauty of not showing too + obviously the character of a prison. It is extensive, + umbrageous, and the poor captives within its borders have + enough air and space around their eyes to give them a + semblance of liberty. For the special feast-day on which we + visited it the place had been arranged with particular + adaptation to the character of the time. There were + elephant-races and rides upon the camels free to all ladies + who would make the venture. In addition to the zebras, gnus + and Shetlands, there was that species of race-horse which + never wins and never spoils a course, being of wood and + constructed to go round in a tent, and never + <span class="pagenum"><a name="page26" + id="page26"></a>[pg 26]</span> to arrive anywhere or lose + any prizes. The pelicans were in high excitement, for all + along their beautiful little river, where it winds through + bowery trees, a profusion of living fish had been emptied + and confined here and there by grated dams, so that the + awkward birds had opportunity to angle in perfect freedom + and to their hearts' content. In the more wooded part of the + garden a mimic hunt had been arranged, and sportsmen in + correct suits of green, with curly brass horns and baying + hounds, coursed through the grounds, following a stag which, + though mangy and asthmatic, may yet have been a descendant + of the fawn that fed Genevieve of Brabant. We had re-entered + one of the grand alleys, and were receiving again the little + tribute of encomiums which the greater privacy of the groves + had pretermitted—we were parading happily along, + conscious of nothing to be ashamed of, our orange-blossoms + glistening, our veil flying, our broadcloth and + wedding-favors gleaming—when we met another group, + which, though more furtively, bore that matrimonial + character which distinguished our own.</p> + + <div class="figright" + style="width:60%;"> + <a href="images/025.png" + name="fig025" + id="fig025"><img width="100%" + src="images/025.png" + alt="THE MIMIC HUNT." /></a>THE MIMIC HUNT. + </div> + + <p>At the head walked Mr. Cookson & Jenkinson. He still + wore that species of shooting-costume which he had made his + uniform, but it was decked with roses, and his hands were + encased in milk-white gloves: on his hands, besides the gloves, + he had the two grammatical ladies from the Rhine steamboat in + guise of bridesmaids. Behind him walked Mary Ashburleigh. And + emerging from the skirts of Mary Ashburleigh's dress, with the + embarrassed happiness of a middle-aged bridegroom, + was—no? yes! no, no! but yes—was Sylvester Berkley. + I will not expose what I suffered to the curiosity of + imperfectly sympathetic strangers. I did not faint, and I + believe men in genuine despair never do so. But I felt that + weakness and unmanageableness of knee which comes with strong + mental anguish, and I sank back impotent upon the baron, whose + lingering legs repudiated the pressure, so that we both + accumulated miserably upon Grandstone. My eyes closed, and I + did not hear the Dark Ladye's salutations to Frau Kranich. But + I awoke to see with anguish a sight that drew involuntary + applause from all that careless crowd.</p> + + <p>It was the salute of the two brides. Imagine, if you can, + two great purple pansies, flushed with all the perfumed sap of + an Eden spring-time, threaded with diamonds of myriad-faceted + dew,—imagine them leaning forward on their elastic stems + until both their soft velvet countenances cling together and + exchange mutually their caparisons of honeyed gems; then let + them sway gently back, and balance once more in their morning + splendor. Such was the effect when these two imperial creatures + approached each other and imprinted with lips and palms a + sister's salute. Mary Ashburleigh, whom the throng recognized + as a natural empress, was arrayed this morning as brides are + seldom arrayed, but with a sense of artistic obedience to her + own sumptuous nature and personality. The royal purple of her + velvets was cut, on skirt and bodice, into one continuous + fretwork of heavy scrolls and leafage, and through the crevices + of this textile carving shone the robe she carried beneath: it + was tawny yellow, for she wore under her outward dress a + complete robe of ancient lace, whose cobweb softness was more + than — only perceived as the slashes of + her velvets made it evident. It was such dressing as queens + alone should indulge in perhaps, but Mary Ashburleigh chose for + once to do justice to her style and her magnificence.</p> + + <p>I was leaning against a tree, stunned in the sick sunshine. + I heard, while my eyes were closed, a sort of voluminous cloudy + roll, and the Dark Ladye was beside me. She whispered quickly + and volubly in my ear, "I tried to confide in you, but I could + not get it spoken. Yet I managed to confess that my heart had + been touched. It was only this summer—at the Molkencur + over Heidelberg—he lectured about the ruins. 'Twas + information—'twas rapture! I found at once he was the + Magician. We were quietly united at the embassy this morning. + And now he can leave that dreadful consulate and has got his + promotion, <span class="pagenum"><a name="page27" + id="page27"></a>[pg 27]</span> for he is to be + <i>chargé</i> here in Brussels. It is sudden, but we + were positively afraid to do it in any other way, I am such + a timid creature. When I saw the travelers' agent on the + steamboat, I was at first struck with his manly British + bearing and his resemblance to Sylvester. Then I found he + had the matrimonial prospectus, and perceived he might be a + link. He has managed everything beautifully. I had no + idea—With his assistance you need no more mind being + married than going into a shop for a plate of pudding. You + must come up and be presented, to show you bear no + malice."</p> + + <p>I cannot tell how I did it, but I allowed Sylvester and the + agent to grasp my hands, one on either side. Berkley, as to his + collar, his cravat, his face and his white gloves, presented + one general surface of mat silver. He clasped me with some + affection, but his intellect had quite gone, and he said it was + a fine day.</p> + + <p>I did not rally in the least until after my fourth glass of + champagne at the dinner. We made one party: indeed, Mrs. + Ashburleigh had brought her husband hither in that expectation. + Fortnoye vanished a minute to arrange the banquet-room; and as + his wife rushed in to find him, followed by the rest of us, he + snatched a great damask cloth from the table, and there was + such a set-out of flowers and viands as has seldom been seen in + Belgium or elsewhere. The table, instead of a cloth, was + entirely laid with; young emerald vine-leaves: our places were + marked, and at each plate was a gift for the bride, ostensibly + coming from the person who sat there, but really provided by + the forethought of Fortnoye. In front of my own cover two + pretty downy chicks were pecking in a cottage made of crystal + slats and heavily thatched with spun glass—the prettiest + birdcage in the world. On the eaves was an inscription: "The + Man of the Two Chickens." It happened that the little keepsake + I had found for Francine consisted of wheat-ears in pearls and + gold, adapted for brooch and eardrops; so I only had to drop + them in beside the chickens and the present was appropriate and + complete.</p> + + <p>I cannot tell of the effect as Mary Ashburleigh swept into + that splendid banqueting-room, one long pyramid of velvet + pierced with webbed interstices of light. If the largest window + of St. Ursula's church had come down and entered the room, the + spectacle could not have been so superb. One item struck me: + the younger bride, of course, wore orange buds; but for the + Englishwoman, a beauty ripe with many summers, buds and + blossoms were inappropriate; she wore fruits: in the grand + coronal of plaits that massed itself upon her head were set, + like gems, three or four small, delicious, amber-scented + mandarin oranges. With this piece of exquisite apropos did the + infallible Mary Ashburleigh crown the edifice of her good + taste. The two brides sat opposite each other. A small watch, + which I had happened to buy at Coblenz, I managed to detach and + lay on the Dark Ladye's plate as my offering. On a card beside + it I merely wrote, "ANOTHER TIME!"</p> + + <p>Who knows? Perhaps Sylvester may fill and founder as the + other has done. He looks miserably bilious and frightened.</p> + + <p>I had rather partake of a rare dinner than describe one. The + wines alone represented all the cellars of the Rhine and the + whole champagne country. Fortnoye, who gave the feast, + entertained both Sylvester's party and his own with regal good + cheer. Think not that Henri Fortnoye was the ordinary + obfuscated, superfluous, bewildered bridegroom. On the + contrary, assuming immediately the head of his own table, he + took the responsibility of the party's merriment, and made the + good humor flow like the wine. I know not how it was, but ere + the meal was over I found myself joining in one of his + choruses; Frau Kranich forgot her asceticism and exhumed all + her youthful air of gayety; James Athanasius Grandstone + promised the host to set his wines running in every State of + America. But the prettiest moment was when the two brides rose + and touched glasses, mutually and to the health of the company, + apropos of a little wedding-song which Fortnoye had + <span class="pagenum"><a name="page28" + id="page28"></a>[pg 28]</span> composed and was trolling at + the head our willing chorus.</p> + + <div class="figcenter" + style="width:75%;"> + <a href="images/028-1.png" + name="fig028-1" + id="fig028-1"><img width="100%" + src="images/028-1.png" + alt="HOMEWARD BOUND." /></a>HOMEWARD BOUND. + </div> + + <h3>CONCLUSION.</h3> + + <p>I have arrived at Marly, and, with the ssistance of much + sarcasm from Hohenfels, am getting on with considerable spirit + at my Progressive Geography. When man's Hope ceases temporarily + to take a merely Human aspect, may it not suffer a fresh avatar + and begin in a new and Geographical form its beneficent career? + The Dark Ladye has sunk beneath my horizon, but speculations + over the Atlantean and Lunar Mountains are still succulent and + vivifying.</p> + + <div class="figleft" + style="width:40%;"> + <a href="images/028-2.png" + name="fig028-2" + id="fig028-2"><img width="100%" + src="images/028-2.png" + alt="CHARLES AND JOSEPHINE." /></a>CHARLES AND + JOSEPHINE. + </div> + + <p>I fled, lashed by a hundred despairs and by many symptoms of + headache and dyspepsia, from the wedding-feast at Brussels. + Charles and the baron of Hohenfels accompanied me. It was a + night-train. The spectacle of so much wedded happiness was too + much for me, too much for Hohenfels. The effect was, + contrarily, rather stimulating to Charles, who has made a match + with Josephine, and with her assistance is now listening, the + tear of sensibility in his eye, to Mendelssohn's "Wedding + March" as executed by the village organ!</p> + + <p>We passed Valenciennes, Somain, Donai, Arras, Amiens, + Clermont, Criel, Pontoise—the last points of merely + bodily travel that I shall ever make: here-after my itineracy + shall be entirely theoretical. We took a carriage at Pontoise, + and traversed the woods of Saint-Germain. As I neared home I + bowed right and left to amicable and smiling neighbors, who + waved me good-day <span class="pagenum"><a name="page29" + id="page29"></a>[pg 29]</span> from their doors. So did my + Newfoundland, who broke his chain and leaped upon my + shoulders, flourishing his tail—overjoyed to salute + the returning Ulysses.</p> + + <div class="figright" + style="width:40%;"> + <a href="images/028-3.png" + name="fig028-3" + id="fig028-3"><img width="100%" + src="images/028-3.png" + alt="ARGUS AND ULYSSES." /></a>ARGUS AND ULYSSES. + </div> + + <p>In the British Museum, among the Elgin Marbles, Phidias has + carved a pile of heaped-up marble waves, and out of them rise + the arms of Hyperion—the most beautiful arms in the + world. Homesick for heaven, those weary arms try to free + themselves of the clinging foam. Another minute and surely the + triumphant god will leap from his watery couch and guide with + unerring hands the coursers of the Dawn! But that reluctant + minute is eternal, and the divinity still remains incapable, + clogged and wrapped in the embrace of marble waves. Yet the + real sun every morning succeeds in equipping himself for his + journey, and arrives, glad, at his welcome bath in the western + sea.</p> + + <p>The inference I draw is: If you want a career to be eternal + instead of transitory, hand it over to Art.</p> + + <div class="figright" + style="width:60%;"> + <a href="images/029-1.png" + name="fig029-1" + id="fig029-1"><img width="100%" + src="images/029-1.png" + alt="'HAND IT OVER TO ART.'" /></a>"HAND IT OVER TO + ART." + </div> + + <p>The true moral of it all is, that we are all savage myths of + the Course of the Sun. We disappear any number of times, but we + rise and trail new clouds of glory, and our readers or our + audiences perceive that it is the same old Hyperion back again. + The youth who by the faithful hound, half buried in the snow, + is found far up on the most inaccessible peaks of imagination, + is perceived to grasp still in his hand of ice that Germanesque + and strange device—<i>Auf Wiedersehen</i>.</p> + + <div class="figcenter" + style="width:80%;"> + <a href="images/029-2.png" + name="fig029-2" + id="fig029-2"><img width="100%" + src="images/029-2.png" + alt="Finis" /></a> + </div><span class="pagenum"><a name="page30" + id="page30"></a>[pg 30]</span> + + <h2>FOLLOWING THE TIBER.</h2> + + <h3>TWO PAPERS.—1.</h3> + + <div class="figcenter" + style="width:80%;"> + <a href="images/030.png" + name="fig030" + id="fig030"><img width="100%" + src="images/030.png" + alt="NEAR THE SOURCE OF THE TIBER." /></a>NEAR THE + SOURCE OF THE TIBER. + </div> + + <p>"Ecce Tiberum!" cried the Roman legions when they first + beheld the Scottish Tay. What power of association could have + made them see in the clear and shallow stream the likeless of + their tawny Tiber, with his full-flowing waters sweeping down + to the sea? Perhaps those soldiers under whose mailed and + rugged breasts lay so tender a thought of home came from the + northerly region among the Apennines, where a little bubbling + mountain-brook is the first form in which the storied Tiber + greets the light of day. One who has made a pilgrimage from its + mouth to its source thus describes the spot: "An old man + undertook to be our guide. By the side of the little stream, + which here constitutes the first vein of the Tiber, we + penetrated the wood. It was an immense beech-forest.... The + trees were almost all great gnarled veterans who had borne the + snows of many winters: now they stood basking above their + blackened shadows in the blazing sunshine. The little stream + tumbled from ledge to ledge of splintered rock, sometimes + creeping into a hazel thicket, green with long ferns and soft + moss, and then leaping once more merrily into the sunlight. + Presently it split into numerous little rills. We followed the + longest of these. It led us to a carpet of smooth green turf + amidst an opening in the trees; and there, bubbling out of the + green sod, embroidered with white strawberry-blossoms, the + delicate blue of the crane's bill and dwarf willow-herb, a + copious little stream arose. Here the old man paused, and + resting upon his staff, raised his age-dimmed eyes, and + pointing to the gushing water, said, <i>'E questo si chiama il + Tevere a Roma!'</i> ('And this is called the Tiber at Rome!') + ... We followed the stream from the spot where it issued out of + the beech-forest, over barren spurs + <span class="pagenum"><a name="page31" + id="page31"></a>[pg 31]</span> of the mountains crested with + fringes of dark pine, down to a lonely and desolate valley, + shut in by dim and misty blue peaks. Then we entered the + portals of a solemn wood, with gray trunks of trees + everywhere around us and impenetrable foliage above our + heads, the deep silence only broken by fitful songs of + birds. To this succeeded a blank district of barren shale + cleft into great gullies by many a wintry torrent. Presently + we found ourselves at an enormous height above the river, on + the ledge of a precipice which shot down almost + perpendicularly on one side to the bed of the stream.... A + little past this place we came upon a very singular and + picturesque spot. It was an elevated rock shut within a deep + dim gorge, about which the river twisted, almost running + round it. Upon this rock were built a few gloomy-looking + houses and a quaint, old-world mill. It was reached from the + hither side by a widely-spanning one-arched bridge. It was + called Val Savignone."<a id="footnotetag1" + name="footnotetag1"></a><a href="#footnote1"><sup>1</sup></a> + Beyond this, at a small village called Balsciano, the hills + begin to subside into gentler slopes, which gradually merge + in the plain at the little town of Pieve San Stefano.</p> + + <div class="figcenter" + style="width:80%;"> + <a href="images/031.png" + name="fig031" + id="fig031"><img width="100%" + src="images/031.png" + alt="CAPRESE." /></a>CAPRESE. + </div> + + <p>Thus far the infant stream has no history: its legends and + chronicles do not begin so early. But a few miles farther, on a + tiny branch called the Singerna, are the vestiges of what was + once a place of some importance—Caprese, where Michael + Angelo was born exactly four hundred years ago. His father was + for a twelvemonth governor of this place and Chiusi, five miles + off (not Lars Porsenna's Clusium, which is to the south, but + Clusium Novum), and brought his wife with him to inhabit the + <i>palazzo communale</i>. During his regency the painter of the + "Last Judgment," the sculptor of "Night and Morning," the + architect of St. Peter's cupola, first saw the light. Here the + history of the Tiber begins—here men first mingled blood + with its unsullied waves. On another little tributary is + Anghiara, where in 1440 a terrible battle was fought between + the Milanese troops, under command of the gallant free-lance + Piccinino, and the Floren-tines, led by Giovanni Paolo + (commonly called Giampaolo) Orsini; and a little + <span class="pagenum"><a name="page32" + id="page32"></a>[pg 32]</span> farther, on the main stream, + Città di Castello recalls the story of a long siege + which it valiantly sustained against Braccio da Montone, + surnamed Fortebraccio (Strongarm), another renowned soldier + of fortune of the fifteenth century.</p> + + <div class="figcenter" + style="width:80%;"> + <a href="images/032.png" + name="fig032" + id="fig032"><img width="100%" + src="images/032.png" + alt="LAKE THRASIMENE." /></a>LAKE THRASIMENE. + </div> + + <p>As the widening flood winds on through the beautiful plain, + a broad sheet of water on the right spreads for miles to the + foot of the mountains, whose jutting spurs form many a bay, + cove and estuary. It was in the small hours of a night of misty + moonlight that our eyes, stretched wide with the new wonder of + beholding classic ground, first caught sight of this smooth + expanse gleaming pallidly amid the dark, blurred outlines of + the landscape and trees. The monotonous noise and motion of the + train had put our fellow-travelers to sleep, and when it + gradually ceased they did not stir. There was no bustle at the + little station where we stopped; a few drowsy figures stole + silently by in the dim light, like ghosts on the spectral shore + of Acheron; the whole scene was strangely unreal, phantasmal. + "What can it be?" we asked each other under our breaths. "There + is but one thing that it can be—Lake Thrasimene." And so + it was. Often since, both by starlight and daylight, we have + seen that watery sheet of fatal memories, but it never wore the + same shadowy yet impressive aspect as on our first + night-journey from Florence to Rome.</p> + + <p>Not far from here one leaves the train for Perugia, seated + high on a bluff amid walls and towers. We had been told a good + deal of the terrors of the way—how so steep was the + approach that at a certain point horses give out and carriages + must be dragged up by oxen. It was with some surprise, + therefore, that we saw ordinary hotel omnibuses and carriages + waiting at the station. But we did not allow ourselves to feel + any false security: by and by we knew the tug must come. We set + off by a wide, winding road, uphill undoubtedly, but smooth and + easy: however, this was only the beginning; and as it grew + steeper and steeper, we waited in trepidation for the moment + when the heavy beasts should be hitched on to haul us up the + acclivity. We crawled up safely and slowly between orchards of + olive trees, which will grow wherever a goat can set its foot: + beneath us the great fertile vale of Umbria spread like a lake, + the encircling mountains, which had looked like a close chain + from <span class="pagenum"><a name="page33" + id="page33"></a>[pg 33]</span> below, unlinking themselves + to reveal gorges and glimpses of other valleys. Thus by + successive zigzags we mounted the broad turnpike-road, now + directly under the fortifications, now farther off, until we + saw them close above us, with the old citadel and the new + palace. And now surely the worst had come, but the carnage + turned a sharp corner, showing two more zigzags, forming a + long acute angle which carried us smoothly to the rocky + plateau on which the city stands, and we bowled in through + the old gate-way at a round trot, with the usual cracking of + whips and rattling and jingling of harness which announces + the arrival of travelers at minor places on the + Continent.</p> + + <p>We were not comfortable at Perugia—and let no one + think to be so until there is a new hotel on a new + principle—but it is a place where one can afford to + forego creature comforts. Of all the towns on the Tiber, so + rich in heirlooms of antiquity and art, none can boast such + various wealth as this. The moment one leaves the centre of the + town, which is built on a table of rock, the narrow streets + plunge down on every side like dangerous broken flights of + stairs: they disappear under deep cavernous arches, so that if + you are below they seem to lead straight up through the + darkness to the soft blue heaven, while from above they seem to + go straight down into deep cellars, but cellars full of + slanting sunshine. And whether you look up or down, there is + always a picture in the dark frame against the bright + background—a woman in a scarlet kerchief with a + water-vessel of antique form, or a ragged brown boy leading a + ragged brown donkey, or a soldier in gay uniform striking a + light for his pipe. As soon as you leave the live part of the + town, with the few little <i>caffès</i> and shops, and + the esplanades whence the thrice-lovely landscape unfolds + beneath your gaze, you wander among quiet little paved + <i>piazzas</i> with a bit of daisied grass in their midst, + surrounded by great silent buildings, whence through some + opening you descry a street which is a ravine, and the opposite + cliff rising high above you piled close with gray houses + overhung with shrubs and creepers, and little gardens in their + crevices like weeds between the stones of a wall; or you come + out upon a secluded gallery with tall, deserted-looking + mansions on one hand—except that at some sunny window + there is always to be seen a girl's head beside a pot of + carnations or nasturtiums—and on the other a parapet over + which you lean to see the town scrambling up the hillside, + while a great breadth of valley and hill and snow-covered + mountain stretches away below.</p> + + <p>Then what historical associations, straggling away across + three thousand years to when Perugia was one of the thirty + cities of Etruria, and kept her independence through every + vicissitude until Augustus starved her out in 40 B.C.! Portions + of the wall, huge smooth blocks of travertine stone, are the + work of the vanished Etruscans, and fragments of several + gateways, with Roman alterations. One is perfect, imbedded in + the outer wall of the castle: it has a round-headed arch, with + six pilasters, in the intervals of which are three half-length + human figures and two horses' heads. On the southern slope of + the hill, three miles beyond the walls, a number of Etruscan + tombs were accidentally discovered by a peasant a few years + ago. The outer entrance alone had suffered, buried under the + rubbish of two millenniums: the burial-place of the Volumnii + has been restored externally after ancient Etruscan models, but + within it has been left untouched. Descending a long flight of + stone steps, which led into the heart of the hill, we passed + through a low door formerly closed by a single slab of + travertine, too ponderous for modern hinges. At first we could + distinguish nothing in the darkness, but by the uncertain + flaring of two candles, which the guide waved about + incessantly, we saw a chamber hewn in the rock, with a roof in + imitation of beams and rafters, all of solid tufa stone. A low + stone seat against the wall on each hand and a small hanging + lamp were all the furniture of this apartment, awful in its + emptiness and mystery. On every side there were dark openings + into cells whence came gleams + <span class="pagenum"><a name="page34" + id="page34"></a>[pg 34]</span> of white, indefinite forms: a + great Gorgon's head gazed at us from the ceiling, and from + the walls in every direction started the crested heads and + necks of sculptured serpents. We entered one by one the nine + small grotto-like compartments which surround the central + cavern: the white shapes turned out to be cinerary urns, + enclosing the ashes of the three thousand years dead + Volumnii. Urns, as we understand the word, they are not, but + large caskets, some of them alabaster, on whose lids recline + male figures draped and garlanded as for a feast: the + <span class="pagenum"><a name="page35" + id="page35"></a>[pg 35]</span> faces differ so much in + feature and expression that one can hardly doubt their being + likenesses: the figures, if erect, would be nearly two feet + in height. The sides of these little sarcophagi are covered + with <i>bassi-rilievi</i>, many of them finely executed: the + subjects are combats and that favorite theme the boar-hunt + of Kalydon; there was one which represented the sacrifice of + a child. The Medusa's head, as it is thought to be, recurs + constantly, treated with extraordinary power: we were + divided among ourselves whether it was Medusa or an Erinnys + with winged head. The sphinx appears several times: there + are four on the corners of an alabaster urn in the shape of + a temple, exquisite in form and features, and exceedingly + delicate in workmanship. Bulls' heads, with garlands + drooping between them, a well-known ornament of antique + altars, are among the decorations. But far the most + beautiful objects were the little hanging figures, which + seemed to have been lamps of a green bronze color, though we + were assured that they are <i>terra-cotta</i>: they are male + figures of exquisite grace and beauty, with a lightness and + airiness commonly given to Mercury; but these had large + angel pinions on the shoulders, and none on the head or + feet. There was not a scholar in the party, so we all + returned unenlightened, but profoundly interested and + impressed, and with that delightful sense of stimulated + curiosity which is worth more than all Eurekas. With the + exception of a few weapons and trinkets, which we saw at the + museum, this is all that remains of the mighty Etruscans, + save the shapes of the common red pottery which is spread + out wholesale in the open space opposite the cathedral on + market-days—the most graceful and useful which could + be devised, and which have not changed their model since + earlier days than the occupants of those tombs could + remember.</p> + + <div class="figcenter" + style="width:100%;"> + <a href="images/034.png" + name="fig034" + id="fig034"><img width="100%" + src="images/034.png" + alt="THE TIBER NEAR PERUGIA." /></a>THE TIBER NEAR + PERUGIA. + </div> + + <p>The conquering Roman has left his sign-manual everywhere, + but one is so used to him in Italy that the scantier records of + later ages interest us more here. Like every other old Italian + town, Perugia had its great family, the Baglioni, who lorded it + over the place, sometimes harshly and cruelly enough, sometimes + generously and splendidly—protectors of popular rights + and patrons of art and letters. Their mediaeval history is full + of picturesque incident and dramatic catastrophe: it would make + a most romantic volume, but a thick one. At length the + Perugians, master and men, grew too turbulent, and Pope Paul + III. put them down, and sat upon them, so to speak, by building + the citadel.</p> + + <p>But time would fail us to tell of the Baglioni, or Pope Paul + the Borghese, or Fortebraccio, the chivalric <i>condottiere</i> + who led the Perugians to war against their neighbors of Todi, + or even the still burning memories of the sack of Perugia by + command of the present pope. We can no longer turn our thoughts + from the treasures of art which make Perugia rich above all + cities of the Tiber, save Rome alone. We cannot tarry before + the cathedral, noble despite its incompleteness and the + unsightly alterations of later times, and full of fine + paintings and matchless wood-carving and wrought metal and + precious sculptures; nor before the Palazzo Communale, another + grand Gothic wreck, equally dignified and degraded; nor even + beside the great fountain erected six hundred years ago by + Nicolo and Giovanni da Pisa, the chiefs and founders of the + Tuscan school of sculpture; nor beneath the statue of Pope + Julius III., which Hawthorne has made known to all; for there + are a score of churches and palaces, each with its priceless + Perugino, and drawings and designs by his pupil Raphael in his + lovely "first manner," which has so much of the Eden-like + innocence of his master; and the Academy of Fine Arts, where + one may study the Umbrian school at leisure; and last, but not + least, the Sala del Cambio, or Hall of Exchange, where Perugino + may be seen in his glory. It is not a hall of imposing size, so + that nothing interferes with the impression of the frescoes + which gaze upon you from every side as you enter. Or no; they + do not gaze upon you nor return your glance, but look sweetly + and serenely forth, as if with eyes never bent + <span class="pagenum"><a name="page36" + id="page36"></a>[pg 36]</span> on earthly things. The + right-hand wall is dedicated to the sibyls and prophets, the + left to the greatest sages and heroes of antiquity. There is + something capricious or else enigmatical in the mode of + presenting many of them—the dress, attitude and + general appearance often suggest a very different person + from the one intended—but the grace and loveliness of + some, the dignity and elevation of others, the expression of + wisdom in this face, of celestial courage in that, the calm + and purity and beauty of all, give them an indescribable + charm and potency. At the end of the room facing the door + are the "Nativity" and "Transfiguration," the latter, + infinitely beautiful and religious, full of quiet + concentrated feeling. We were none of us critics: none of us + had got beyond the stage when the sentiment of a work of art + is what most affects our enjoyment of it; and we all + confessed how much more impressive to us was this + Transfiguration, with its three quiet spectators, than the + world-famous one at the Vatican. Although there are + masterpieces of Perugino's in nearly every great European + collection, I cannot but think one must go to Perugia to + appreciate fully the limpid clearness, the pensive, tranquil + suavity, which reigns throughout his pictures in the + countenances, the landscape, the atmosphere.</p> + + <div class="figcenter" + style="width:80%;"> + <a href="images/036.png" + name="fig036" + id="fig036"><img width="100%" + src="images/036.png" + alt="TODI." /></a>TODI. + </div> + + <p>We found it hard to rob Perugia even of a day for a + pilgrimage to the tomb of Saint Francis at Assisi, yet could + not leave the neighborhood without making it. We took the + morning-train for the little excursion, meaning to drive back, + and crossed the Tiber for the first time on the downward + journey at Ponte San Giovanni. We got out at the station of + Santa Maria degli Angeli, so named from the immense church + built over the cell where Saint Francis lived and died and the + little chapel where he prayed. The Porzionuncula it was called, + or "little share," being all that he deemed needful for man's + abode on earth, and more than needful. It was hither that he + came in the heyday of youth, forsaking the house of his wealthy + father, the love of his mother, a life of pleasure with his gay + companions, and dedicated himself to poverty and preaching the + word of God. One of our party had said that she considered + Saint Francis the author of much evil, and as having done + irreparable harm to the Italian people in sanctifying dirt and + idleness. But apostles are not + <span class="pagenum"><a name="page37" + id="page37"></a>[pg 37]</span> to be judged by the abuse of + their doctrine; and although it cannot be denied that Saint + Francis encouraged beggary by forbidding his followers to + possess aught of their own, he enjoined that they should + labor with their hands for several hours daily. And to me it + seemed as if out of Palestine there could be no spot of + greater significance and sacredness to any Christian than + this, where in a sanguinary and licentious age a young man + suddenly broke all the bonds of self, and taught in his own + person humility, renunciation and brotherly love as they had + hardly been taught since his Master's death. The sternness + of his personal self-denial is only equaled by his sweetness + toward all living things: not men alone, but animals, birds, + fishes, the frogs, the crickets, shared his love, and were + called brother and sister by him. The great and + instantaneous movement which he produced in his own time was + no short-lived blaze of fanaticism, for its results have + lasted from the twelfth century to our own; and although we + may well believe that the day is past for serving Christ by + going barefoot and living on alms, the spirit of Saint + Francis's doctrine, charity, purity, self-abnegation, might + do as much for modern men as for those of six hundred years + ago. Believing all this, we were not sorry that our + uncompromising friend had stayed behind, and it was in a + reverent mood that we left the little stone + chamber—which shrinks to lowlier proportions by + contrast with the enormous dome above it—and turned to + climb the long hill which leads to the magnificent monument + which enthusiasm raised over him who in life had coveted so + humble a home.</p> + + <div class="figright" + style="width:60%;"> + <a href="images/037.png" + name="fig037" + id="fig037"><img width="100%" + src="images/037.png" + alt="CHURCH AND CONVENT OF SAINT FRANCIS, AT ASSISI." /> + </a>CHURCH AND CONVENT OF SAINT FRANCIS, AT ASSISI. + </div> + + <p>The cliff on which Assisi stands rises abruptly on the side + toward the Tiber: long lines of triple arches, which look as if + hewn in the living stone, stretch along its face, one above + another, like galleries, the great mass of the church and + convent, with its towers and gables and spire-like cypress + trees, crowning all. It is this marriage of the building to the + rock, these lower arcades which rise halfway between the valley + and the plateau seeking the help of the solid crag to sustain + the upper ones and the vast superimposed structure, that makes + the distant sight of Assisi so striking, and almost overwhelms + you with a sense of its greatness as the winding road brings + you close below on your way up to the town. It is a triple + church. The uppermost one, begun two years after the saint's + death, has a magnificent Gothic west front and high steps + leading from the piazza, and a rich side-portal with a still + higher flight leading from a court on a lower level. As we + entered, the early afternoon sun was streaming in through the + immense rose-window and flooding the vast nave, illumining the + blue star-studded vault of the lofty roof and the grand, simple + frescoes of Cimabue and Giotto on the walls. Thence we + descended to the second church, in whose darkness our vision + groped, half blind from the sudden change; but gradually + through the dusk we began to discern low vaults stretching + heavily across pillars which look like stunted giants, so short + are they and so tremendously thick-set, the high altar enclosed + by an elaborate grating, the little side-chapels like so many + black cells, and through the gloom a twinkle and glimmer of + gold and color and motes floating in furtive sunbeams that had + strayed in through the superb stained glass of the infrequent + windows. The <span class="pagenum"><a name="page38" + id="page38"></a>[pg 38]</span> frescoes of Giotto and his + school enrich every spandril and interspace with their + simple, serious forms—no other such place to study the + art of that early day—but a Virgin enthroned among + saints by Lo Spagna, a disciple of Perugino's, made a pure + light in the obscurity: it had all the master's golden + transparency, like clear shining after the rain. From this + most solemn and venerable place we went down to the lowest + church, the real sepulchre: it was darker than the one we + had left, totally dark it seemed to me, and contracted, + although—it is in the form of a Greek cross—each + arm is sixty feet: in fact, it is only a crypt of unusual + size; and although here were the saint's bones in an urn of + bronze, we were conscious of a weakening of the impression + made by the place we had just left. No doubt it is because + the crypt is of this century, while the other two churches + are of the thirteenth.</p> + + <p>There are other things to be seen at Assisi; and after + dining at the little Albergo del Leone, which, like every part + of the town except the churches, is remarkably clean, my + companion set out to climb up to the castle, and I wandered + back to the great church. As I sat idly on the steps a monk + accosted me, and finding that I had not seen the convent, + carried me through labyrinthine corridors and galleries, down + long flights of subterranean stone steps, one after another, + until I thought we could not be far from the centre of the + earth, when he suddenly turned aside into a vast cloister with + high arched openings and led me to one of them. Oh, the beauty, + the glory, the wonder of the sight! We were halfway down the + mountain-side, hanging between the blue heaven and the billowy + Umbrian plain, with its verdure and its azure fusing into tints + of dreamy softness as they vanished in the deep violet shadows + of thick-crowding mountains, on whose surfaces and gorges lay + changing colors of the superbest intensity. Poplars and willows + showed silvery among the tender green of other deciduous trees + in their fresh spring foliage and the deep velvet of the + immortal cypresses and the blossoming shrubs, which looked like + little puffs of pink and white cloud resting on the bosom of + the valley. A small, clear mountain-stream wound round the + headland to join the Tiber, which divides the landscape with + its bare, pebbly bed. It was almost the same view that one has + from twenty places in Perugia, but coming out upon it as from + the bowels of the earth, framed in its huge stone arch, it was + like opening a window from this world into Paradise.</p> + + <p>Slowly and lingeringly I left the cloister, and panted up + the many steps back to the piazza to await my companion and the + carriage which was to take us back to Perugia. The former was + already there, and in a few minutes a small omnibus came + clattering down the stony street, and stopping beside us the + driver informed us that he had come for us. Our surprise and + wrath broke forth. Hours before we had bespoken a little open + carriage, and it was this heavy, jarring, jolting vehicle which + they had sent to drive us ten miles across the hills. The + driver declared, with truly Italian volubility and command of + language and gesture, that there was no other means of + conveyance to be had; that it was excellent, swift, admirable; + that it was what the signori always went from Assisi to Perugia + in; that, in fine, we had engaged it, and <i>must</i> take it. + My companion hesitated, but I had the advantage here, being the + one who could speak Italian; so I promptly replied that we + would not go in the omnibus under any circumstances. The whole + story was then repeated with more adjectives and superlatives, + and gestures of a form and pathos to make the fortune of a + tragic actor. I repeated my refusal. He began a third time: I + sat down on the steps, rested my head on my hand and looked at + the carvings of the portal. This drove him to frenzy: so long + as you answer an Italian he gets the better of you; entrench + yourself in silence and he is impotent. The driver's impotence + first exploded in fury and threats: at least we should pay for + the omnibus, for his time, for his trouble; yes, pay the whole + way to Perugia and back, and his <i>buon' mano</i> besides. All + the beggars who haunt the + <span class="pagenum"><a name="page39" + id="page39"></a>[pg 39]</span> sanctuary of their patron had + gathered about us, and from playing Greek chorus now began + to give us advice: "Yes, we would do well to go: the only + carriage in Assisi, and excellent, admirable!" The numbers + of these vagrants, their officiousness, their fluency, were + bewildering. "But what are we to do?" asked my anxious + companion. "Why, if it comes to the worst, walk down to the + station and take the night-train back." He walked away + whistling, and I composed myself to a visage of stone and + turned my eyes to the sculptures once more. Suddenly the + driver stopped short: there was a minute's pause, and then I + heard a voice in the softest accents asking for something to + buy a drink. I turned round—beside me stood the driver + hat in hand: "Yes, the signora is right, quite right: I go, + but she will give me something to get a drink?" I nearly + laughed, but, biting my lips, I said firmly, "A drink? Yes, + if it be poison." The effect was astounding: the man uttered + an ejaculation, crossed himself, mounted his box and drove + off; the beggars shrank away, stood aloof and exchanged + awestruck whispers; only a few liquid-eyed little + ragamuffins continued to turn somersets and stand on their + heads undismayed.</p> + + <p>Half an hour elapsed: the sun was beginning to descend, when + the sound of wheels was again heard, and a light wagon with + four places and a brisk little horse came rattling down the + street. A pleasant-looking fellow jumped down, took off his hat + and said he had come to drive us to Perugia. We jumped up + joyfully, but I asked the price. "Fifty francs"—a sum + about equivalent to fifty dollars in those regions. I smiled + and shook my head: he eagerly assured me that this included his + <i>buon mano</i> and the cost of the oxen which we should be + obliged to hire to drag us up some of the hills. I shook my + head again: he shrugged and turned as if to go. My unhappy + fellow-traveler started forward: "Give him whatever he asks and + let us get away." I sat down again on the steps, saying in + Italian, as if in soliloquy, that we should have to go by the + train, after all. Then the new-comer cheerfully came back: + "Well, signora, whatever you please to give." I named half his + price—an exorbitant sum, as I well knew—and in a + moment more we were skimming along over the hard, smooth + mountain-roads: we heard no more of those mythical beasts the + oxen, and in two hours were safe in Perugia.</p> + + <h2>THE PARADOX.</h2> + + <div class="poem"> + <div class="stanza"> + <p>I wish that the day were over,</p> + + <p class="i2">The week, the month and the year;</p> + + <p>Yet life is not such a burden</p> + + <p class="i2">That I wish the end were near.</p> + </div> + + <div class="stanza"> + <p>And my birthdays come so swiftly</p> + + <p class="i2">That I meet them grudgingly:</p> + + <p>Would it be so were I longing</p> + + <p class="i2">For the life that is to be?</p> + </div> + + <div class="stanza"> + <p>Nay: the soul, though ever reaching</p> + + <p class="i2">For that which is out of sight,</p> + + <p>Yet soars with reluctant motion,</p> + + <p class="i2">Since there is no backward flight.</p> + </div> + </div> + + <p class="author">CHARLOTTE F. + BATES.</p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page40" + id="page40"></a>[pg 40]</span> + + <h2>A NIGHT AT COCKHOOLET CASTLE.</h2> + + <h3>I.</h3> + + <p>Cockhoolet was the name of the place: it was a farm of which + the Ormistons were and had been tenants for several + generations. A father, mother and five olive-branches made up + the family. A healthy, happy, united, thriving family they + were, and as such much respected. There were two sons and three + daughters, the eldest of whom was Bessie, the "Rose of + Cockhoolet," as she was called; for that she had all the beauty + and sweetness of the rose was generally allowed, although there + were people who could not be made to see this—people who + were probably idiopts; not idiots—although they might + have a streak of idiocy in them, too, perhaps—but + idiopts, or persons who were color-blind. None of the young men + of the district were color-blind.</p> + + <p>The clergyman of the parish in which Cockhoolet was + situated, and at whose church the Ormistons attended, was an + old man comparatively, whose sermons were old-fashioned, and + not given forth with the fire of youth: he was not one you + would have expected to be very popular, especially with the + young; yet various young men from considerable distances were + attracted to his church, and, generally speaking, they settled + themselves in pews opposite the gallery in front of which sat + Mr. Ormiston and his family. Any person who chanced to be in + the vicinity, if of discerning powers, might have been + conscious of the electricity in the air. Dull people neither + saw nor felt it.</p> + + <p>Bessie Ormiston was not dull, but, being a modest girl, she + would rather not have been stared at; and, being a good girl, + she thought people might be better employed in church: still, + she was only a girl, and it would not be the truth to say she + was mortally offended. Did the person ever exist who was + offended at an honest compliment? If he ever did, he ought to + have been fed on sarcasm for the rest of his days.</p> + + <p>Not only was Bessie pretty—she was also rich. A + grand-uncle had left her five thousand pounds, her brothers and + sisters getting only one thousand each. There is no use in + asking reasons for this: simply, the Rose was born with a + silver spoon in her mouth. Perhaps, indeed, the old man did not + know he had so much money, for it was as residuary legatee that + Bessie got the five thousand pounds, and it was not thought she + would get anything like that: people remarked, in the language + of the district, which was apt occasionally to be strong and + graphic rather than elegant,—people remarked that "old + Ormiston had cut up well." Five thousand charms added to those + Bessie already possessed—not to mention that her father + was a rich man—made her most miraculously charming: like + Tibby Fowler of the Glen, whose perplexities of this kind have + been embalmed in song, she had wealth of wooers, and wealth, it + is well known, makes wit waver.</p> + + <p>It is a saying that an Englishman's house is his castle, but + the phrase is understood to be figurative: Mr. Ormiston's house + was his castle without a figure. Cockhoolet Castle is very old, + at least one part of it is, having been built probably about + the year 1400. A more modern part was built in 1527, while the + most modern part of all was added in 1726: this last division + of it is used as the farm-house. The rooms have been painted + and papered in the present style of house decoration, and in + the sitting-rooms, in addition to the little old windows, the + thick walls have been pierced and a large bow-window put in + with fine effect. There are three narrow stone staircases + leading up the three divisions of the castle; there are long + passages; there are sudden short flights of steps taking you up + or down into all manner <span class="pagenum"><a name="page41" + id="page41"></a>[pg 41]</span> of cornered rooms; there is a + hall which might hold the population of the county. Keeping + up one of the spiral staircases, you come out on the roof, + round which there is a walk guarded by a low stone coping: + should you want to fling yourself over, you have ample + opportunity. There are stone sentry-boxes where you can sit + hidden from the wind and everything else, and look far and + wide over the country, and down into the garden if you can + do so without growing giddy. There is also a dungeon + tenanted by nothing more subject to suffering than potatoes + and other roots, for which it is a most favorable + receptable, the walls being so thick and the roof so low + that cold cannot get in in winter nor heat in summer: there + is only a single narrow slit in the wall for the admission + of light, but it is comforting to know that the doomed + wretches who inhabited it in past ages had at least a + temperate climate.</p> + + <p>There is the room Queen Mary Stuart slept in when she + occasionally visited in the vicinity. The reader is perhaps not + familiar with Queen Mary's name in connection with Cockhoolet + Castle, but there may be other facts about her of which he is + also ignorant. Does he know, for instance, that she had a + daughter by her third marriage, whom, as an infant, she + despatched to France to be reared in a nunnery, "that she may + not," said the unhappy queen, "run the risk of having such a + lot as I have"? Does he know that John Knox was possessed by a + mad passion of love for Mary Stuart? It has always been thought + otherwise—that in point of fact he held her in contempt; + but as it is proverbial that "nippin' and scartin' (figurative + of course) is Scotch folks' wooin'," there may be truth in the + new discovery. But true or not true, it is enough to make the + bold Reformer blush standing on the top of his pillar in the + necropolis of Glasgow: perhaps he <i>is</i> blushing, if he + were near enough to see.</p> + + <p>Be that as it may, there is no manner of doubt that Mary + Stuart honored Cockhoolet Castle by abiding under its roof when + it suited her to do so. Have not I, the present writer, stood + in the room she slept in—looked from the small windows + set in the ten-foot thick wall from which she looked? Have I + not gazed over the same country, up to the same skies, into the + same moon at which she gazed? Could her face be more fair than + that of the present Rose of Cockhoolet, her thoughts more + innocent, her reveries more sweet, than those of Bessie + Ormiston, who in the course of time had succeeded to the room + which had been consecrated by royal slumbers?</p> + + <p>It is a matter of certainty that Mary Stuart planted a tree + fast by Cockhoolet Castle—she would not have been herself + if she had not done that—and a magnificent tree it is, + very old and quite big enough for its age. The queen must have + been fond of planting trees, and, considering the number she + planted, it is astonishing how she found time for so many less + innocent employments: she must have improved each shining hour, + and, poor woman! she had not too many of these.</p> + + <p>There is a walk also, called the Lady's Walk, leading away + from the castle up a bosky dell, where a burn amuses itself + playing at hide-and-seek, but, like a little child, betrays its + hiding-places by its voice, and comes out into the light again + and laughs at its own joke. Did the queen ever wander here? did + she ever "paidle in the burn when summer days were fine"? did + its murmur ever soothe her ear? did she ever see her fair face + in its pools, or drop bitter tears to mingle and; flow on with + its waters?</p> + + <p>The burn has kept trotting through the dell for six thousand + years, singing its song all the time, and its speed is as good + and its voice as clear and musical as when the morning stars + sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy. Many a + wild story it could tell if its murmur could be understood; but + it is a murmur only—a murmur which crept into the ears of + Cæsar's legions, of Queen Mary, of Bessie Ormiston, and + will creep into yours, O reader! if you like to go and explore + the Lady's Walk, when you can interpret the murmur for + yourself, as all your predecessors no doubt did. In + <span class="pagenum"><a name="page42" + id="page42"></a>[pg 42]</span> days of old it fed the moat, + traces of which are to be seen round the castle still, + although it has long since been filled up and covered, like + the park of which it forms part, with rich natural pasture, + soft, thick and velvety. In short, Cockhoolet had everything + that a castle ought to have, and wanted nothing that a + castle ought not to want, not even a ghost.</p> + + <p>It was not the ghost of Mary Stuart: that would have been + too shocking—a ghost without a head, or having a head and + a broad vivid ray of red encircling its neck. Such a ghost + would have made every one who saw it lose his senses. + Cockhoolet Castle had a ghost: so much was certain, but + hitherto no one had ever either seen or heard it. How, then, + was it certain? Why ask a question like that? Is it reasonable + to pin a human being down to prove a ghost? Will not + presumptive evidence do? Strange things had happened, must have + happened, at the castle: is it for a moment to be supposed that + these things had happened and all gone scot free?—in + other words, that not one of them had left a ghost? It is not + to be supposed.</p> + + <h3>II.</h3> + + <p>It was Christmas Day. Christmas Day is not solemnized and + festivalized in Scotland as it is in England; still, the + observance of it in some shape is creeping in more and more. It + was Christmas, and Mr. and Mrs. Ormiston had gone to be present + at a feast from which they were not expected to return till the + following day. There were left at home the Rose, as head of the + family for the time being; her sisters, Bell and Jessie, + supposed to be little girls still, although the supposition + made them very indignant; and her two brothers, John and + William. A guest aad two servants made up the known inhabitants + of the house.</p> + + <p>The guest was a young man who had arrived before the heads + of the house left, and had been laughingly charged by them to + see that the children did not work mischief. He was an old + friend of the family; at least as old a friend as he was a man, + and she had been in the world a quarter of a century. We shall + call him Edwin: that name will do as well as another; indeed, + better, for he might not like his own made public. It need + hardly be said that among the rest young Edwin loved, and, like + his namesake in the ballad, he never talked of love. This might + be stupid, but the stupidity which springs from true modesty is + not to be classed with the stupidity which springs from want of + brains, even when, as is quite likely, the consequences are to + the full as disastrous. Now, how is a young lady to understand + or bring things to a bearing in a case like this? The Rose + could not go up to Edwin and tell him she was not a goddess; + neither could she say, "Although I have five thousand + pounds—and you know it, and I know that you know it, and + you know that I know that you know it—I am quite ready to + believe that you love me, and would love me if I hadn't a + farthing:" she could not say this, but she thought it, she + worried herself thinking over it, and, being a sensible girl + with a humble opinion of herself, she came to the conclusion + that she had been altogether mistaken—that Edwin did not + care for her, at least not as she cared for him, otherwise why + should he not say so? "If," she thought—"if I were in his + place and he in mine, neither money nor pride, nor anything + else, would keep me silent." And the roses in her face deepened + in color as she thought of her own silly folly in allowing her + feelings to be drawn in, and she determined her folly should + cease from that hour; which determination had the effect of + bringing sharp, short speeches about Edwin's ears tinged with + sarcasm that were meant to convey to him the conviction that + she did not care a pin about him; and they answered the purpose + admirably.</p> + + <div class="poem"> + <div class="stanza"> + <p>Love is a fickle game, which they</p> + + <p>Whose stakes are deepest worst can play,</p> + </div> + </div> + + <p>Edwin was at Cockhoolet that Christmas Day by the same + fatality that causes a moth to hover round a brilliant light; + and when her sister told Bessie that Edwin had come and was + putting his horse into the stable, she said, "Is Mr. Forrester + <span class="pagenum"><a name="page43" + id="page43"></a>[pg 43]</span> here again? He must surely be + dull at home." But of course she received him with friendly + civility.</p> + + <p>Edwin employed the forenoon out of doors with the boys and + two other visitors. A Mr. and Mrs. Parker arriving + unexpectedly, who were anxious to see the castle, the afternoon + was spent in going through every part of it from dungeon to + roof.</p> + + <p>Bessie carried the keys: she was châtelaine, seneschal + and cicerone, all rolled in one.</p> + + <p>Going up the narrow stairs, the party had to climb Indian + file: in the passages they could spread out a little, and in + some of the rooms in the uninhabited portion they had to walk + circumspectly, as if they were crossing water on + stepping-stones, for the flooring was wanting in some places, + leaving a stretch of bare rafters. Bessie tripped lightly over + them, and then turned to wait for the others. "Don't be + frightened," she said: "these rafters are as sound as the day + they were laid down. The flooring has not rotted: it must have + been taken up for some purpose. They did not know how to scamp + work in those days."</p> + + <p>"If we fall through, where shall we go?" inquired Mrs. + Parker, looking down into what seemed deep mysterious + darkness.</p> + + <p>"Oh, not very far; but don't fall: it won't be pleasant," + said Bessie: "you would alight on very hard stones."</p> + + <p>Mr. Forrester got on the roof first, and handed up the + ladies; and they all stood looking out over the country. It was + not a cold, bleak, snowy day, as Christmas in northern + latitudes has a right to be. The winter had been mild—one + of a series of mild winters, overturning the old traditions of + frosts and snow-storms that lasted for months, and to a great + extent stopped traffic and labor, and made traveling difficult + and wearisome. This Christmas was different. The year was dying + with calmness and dignity, and with a smile on its face, as you + might take the pale gleam of sunshine to be; and if you were a + little sad in mood you could suppose there was a wistfulness in + the smile that was spread over the still, soft face of Nature. + Cockhoolet stood high, and the country immediately round it was + flat, and much of it moorland.</p> + + <div class="poem"> + <div class="stanza"> + <p>If you climb to our castle's top,</p> + + <p>I don't see where your eye can stop;</p> + + <p>For when you've passed the corn-field country,</p> + + <p>Where vineyards leave off flocks are packed,</p> + + <p>And sheep-range leads to cattle-tract,</p> + + <p>And cattle-tract to open chase,</p> + + <p>And open chase to the very base</p> + + <p>O' the mountain.</p> + </div> + </div> + + <p>Strike out the vineyards and that description will apply + very well to Cockhoolet; and in addition you ought to have seen + from its roof Edinburgh and the sea; but on this day the sea + wore a garment of mist, and had wrapped the metropolis in it + also, as it not unfrequently does. You ought to have seen more + than one range of hills too, yet except by eyes well acquainted + with them their outlines could hardly be distinguished from the + leaden gray clouds lying in bands along the horizon.</p> + + <p>But as the party stood on the roof the clouds began to rise, + tower upon tower, against the sky, and the sun, who retires + early at this season, went behind them, when, instead of the + pale, wistful gleam he had been keeping up all day, he suddenly + threw a deep bright golden border on all the edges of the dark + misty battlements which had piled themselves like castles of + the Titans: a big rift appearing at their base, there poured + through it, filling up the space, a great belt of crimson rays + streaked with gray, as if from burning ashes falling into it, + and like the dense glow from a furnace, giving the idea that + the cloud-building was on fire, and that the flames from below, + shooting up inside the dark walls, were the cause of the + brilliant illumination that shone round every pinnacle and + coign of vantage. It was a grand and a curious sight. You could + fancy the sun looking across to the old Castle of Edinburgh + standing on its rock, and saying, "Can you do anything like + this with all the gas and paddelle you can lay your hands on?" + Precisely this idea struck Mrs. Parker, for she said, "I think + that is as good a sight as the castle the night the prince was + married."</p> + + <p>"That was a very good sight in its way," said Mr. Parker, + "but we can <span class="pagenum"><a name="page44" + id="page44"></a>[pg 44]</span> hardly hope to compete with + the sun, my dear: he has all his materials within himself, + and we have to pay for them."</p> + + <p>"Do you know, Miss Ormiston," said Mrs. Parker, "one of the + buildings they said had such a fine effect put me in mind of a + trunk studded with brass nails—the initials of the happy + pair in gas-jets looked like the name of the owner of the + trunk. All the time I was on the street I could not get that + notion out of my head; and I was sorry, for I am sure it cost a + great deal of money to light it up, and I really wished to + think it grand."</p> + + <p>"We were all in town that night," said John + Ormiston—"papa and mamma, and the whole of us, and Mr. + Forrester, who made eight."</p> + + <p>"I thought it a beautiful sight," said Bessie.</p> + + <p>"I never enjoyed anything more in my life," said Mr. + Forrester, who on that occasion had been Miss Ormiston's escort + through the streets, in which they lost their party, and had + the supreme bliss of wandering together in the crowd, when Mr. + Forrester almost forgot that Miss Ormiston was a goddess with + five thousand earthly charms, and Miss Ormiston had compared + his merits as a guide and protector with those of her brothers, + and found he was much more considerate, and made her wish law, + which they were often far from doing. In point of fact, a thaw + had been very imminent, but, alas! since then a sharp frost had + set in between them, as unaccountably as frosts frequently do + set in.</p> + + <p>"I think, now," said Mrs. Parker, "a fine old castle like + this ought to have had a grander name: don't you think so, Miss + Ormiston?"</p> + + <p>"Yes, I do, and it had, originally. There was a monastery + here at one time, over in that field with the trees in the + corner of it: it was called the abbey of Cakeholy, and when the + castle was built it got the name of Cakeholy Castle, after the + abbey. The name Cakeholy, tradition says, arose from the fact + that an extraordinary saint, whose wants had been relieved at + the monastery, blessed all the bread that should ever be baked + there, and the bread ever after had a great sustaining power in + it; so that pilgrims from Edinburgh and the North, going to the + southern shrines, all passed this way to get themselves + supplied with the holy cakes. At the Reformation the abbey was + destroyed, and became a ruin haunted by owls, so that, partly + in derision and partly as suiting the altered circumstances, + the common people corrupted the name into Cockhoolet; and in + process of time it was given to the castle also, and stuck to + it. That is the history of a name which is certainly neither + romantic, nor high-sounding."</p> + + <p>"How interesting!" said Mrs. Parker. "If I were you, I would + go back to the old name: there is a reverence about it there is + not about the other. Only think of bands of pilgrims coming + across the moor there!"</p> + + <p>"Yes, in their gowns and rope girdles, with wallets and + scallop-shells," said Bessie. "It must have been a curious old + world then: one could sit here and muse by the hour on all that + has come and gone. I often bring up my work or my book here in + summer and think of it."</p> + + <p>"I do like old things," said Mrs. Parker, "and old families + and old names. Our name, for instance, has no smack of age + about it, and it is so short and perky: it must have been given + to some one who had to do with parks."</p> + + <p>"But parks may be a very old institution," said Bessie, "if + we looked into the thing, though not so old as Forrester: that + is an ancient name," glancing at Edwin, who was leaning against + a sentry-box listening and watching the sun putting out the + lights in his bed-chamber; "yet not nearly so ancient as + Ormiston. I always feel it is fitting we should live in an old + castle, we are so ancient ourselves."</p> + + <p>"Are we?" said John: "I never knew that before."</p> + + <p>"Ormiston," she said, "is perhaps as pure a Saxon word as + now exists. It was during the Roman invasion our ancestor led + an army through a dense mist against the invaders: just as he + came up with them the sun shone out and the mist. The legions + were taken by surprise, for the advancing enemy had + <span class="pagenum"><a name="page45" + id="page45"></a>[pg 45]</span> been hidden by the mist, and + they were utterly routed. The Saxon king—"</p> + + <p>"What was his name?" asked John.</p> + + <p>"John," she said, "don't seek to be wise above what is + revealed. The king called our ancestor to the front and made + him earl of Ormiston on the spot—'Gold-Mist-on;' that is, + 'Be ever in the van;' and a proud race were the earls of + Ormiston, and well they answered to the name. But their + fortunes waned when the modern upstart, the Norman William, + laid his greedy hands on everything for himself and his mob of + pirates, and at present we are only middle-class people, but + our blood must be the bluest of the blue."</p> + + <p>"Mine must be as blue," said Edwin, "for the Forresters came + in with the trees, and the trees were early settlers."</p> + + <p>"But the mists were first by a very long time," answered + Bessie.</p> + + <p>"I don't believe that story," said John. "I have read about + the Cakeholy business somewhere, but you have made that + Or-Mist-on affair out of your own head: isn't that true, + Bessie?"</p> + + <p>"I am not bound to answer unbelievers, John."</p> + + <p>"Besides," said John, "Ormiston is far; liker French than + Saxon."</p> + + <p>"Mr. Parker," said Bessie, "there was an abbot John of + Cakeholy who flourished in the thirteenth century: his ghost is + said to revisit its old habitation, or rather the place where + it stood. I should like to meet it and have a talk over things; + it would be very interesting."</p> + + <p>"Would you not be terrified?" asked Mrs. Parker.</p> + + <p>"If I saw what I believed to be a ghost, I should die of + terror," said Bessie; "especially if I was alone and it was the + dead of night; but I have no faith whatever in ghosts."</p> + + <p>"It is getting rather chilly," said Mrs. Parker.</p> + + <p>"Perhaps we had better go down now, then," Miss Ormiston + said. "Mr. Forrester, would you come out of your brown study + and let us pass?"</p> + + <p>"Certainly. I'll see you all safe off the battlements. I + wasn't in a brown study: I was in a mist."</p> + + <p>"Then take care: people in a mist always think they are + going the right way when they are going directly wrong."</p> + + <p>"If I only knew the right way!" he said.</p> + + <p>"That's true, Mr. Forrester," said Mrs. Parker. "If we only + knew the right way; and people tell you to be guided by + Providence, but I say I never know when it is Providence and + when it is myself;" and she threaded her way down the narrow + stairs, followed by the rest of the party.</p> + + <h3>III.</h3> + + <p>The dining-room, with its low roof, its crimson walls, dark + furniture and handsome fire (the fires at Cockhoolet were + always handsome: Bessie was the architect and superintended the + building herself; they never looked harum-scarum nor + meaningless nor thoughtless, nor as if they were not meant to + burn; they combined taste, comfort, and, as a consequence, + economy; everything tasteful and comfortable is in the long run + economical), its table-cloth, glistening like the summit of the + Alps and laden with good things, looked a place where people + even not in love with each other might, unless naturally + perverse, be very happy.</p> + + <p>Mrs. Parker, being from town, was in raptures with every + country eatable, especially the scones, which she found were + manufactured by Miss Ormiston herself.</p> + + <p>"And have they," asked Mr. Parker, "the sustaining power + that the cakes made here of old had?"</p> + + <p>"If you eat enough of them you may get to Edinburgh to-night + before you are very hungry," said John.</p> + + <p>"The abbey cakes were unleavened," Bessie explained, "which + these are not, so that they are less substantial fare."</p> + + <p>"What do you raise them with?" asked Mrs. Parker.</p> + + <p>"Butter, milk and carbonate of soda," said Miss + Ormiston.</p> + + <p>"We call Bessie a doctor of the Carbon," said John: "she + makes very good scones, although you would hardly go from here + to Canterbury on the strength of one of + them."</p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page46" + id="page46"></a>[pg 46]</span> + + <p>"Mr. Forrester, are you dull?" asked Jessie: "you are not + saying anything."</p> + + <p>"I am too busy eating the holy cakes, Jessie," said Edwin: + "your sister is a master in her art."</p> + + <p>"I say," Jessie went on, "are you ever dull at home? When I + told Bessie that you had come she was surprised, and said that + you must surely be dull at home. I am sorry for you if you are: + you should come here oftener—we are never dull here."</p> + + <p>"Perhaps," said Edwin, "your sister thinks I come too often, + as it is."</p> + + <p>Bessie was so deeply engaged pressing Mr. Parker to eat + strawberry jam, with cheeks the color of the fruit, that of + course she could not have heard what her sister had been + saying.</p> + + <p>"Oh no, I don't think she thinks that at all," Jessie said: + "we never think any one can come too often. Bessie, can Mr. + Forrester come too often?"</p> + + <p>But still Miss Ormiston was so occupied with Mr. Parker that + she did not hear.</p> + + <p>And Mrs. Parker said, "It is a most intensely interesting + old place, this: do not people come to look at it?"</p> + + <p>"Oh yes," replied Bessie, "especially in summer: we + generally have several parties every week. One of the servants + takes them over the castle—grand people often, with + carriages and livery servants."</p> + + <p>"Do you not keep a book for them to write their names + in?"</p> + + <p>"No, we have never done that."</p> + + <p>"I would do it if I were you: it would be interesting to + know who comes and how many. Why, very remarkable people may + have been here without your knowing."</p> + + <p>"I doubt we are not sufficiently alive to our privileges," + Bessie said.</p> + + <p>"It's fine moonlight," said the boys, who, seeing that they + and every one had ceased eating, were impatient to be out + again. "Come, Mr. Parker, we'll show you the echo: Mr. + Forrester, come."</p> + + <p>"I'll go too," said Mrs. Parker; and they all went but the + Rose, who stayed behind for a little to direct about household + matters.</p> + + <p>The echo was a favorite with the boys, it gave such + unlimited scope to their powers of shouting: it was the + <i>sight</i> they most enjoyed exhibiting to strangers. And it + was an echo that could repeat every word of a sentence with + such perfection that it was difficult to believe that it was + not a human being shouting back from the other side of the + park, where stood some houses inhabited by the farm-servants + and their families.</p> + + <p>"Hallo, Abbot John! is that you?" shouted one of the boys, + and the other cried, "Yes, I'm taking a walk," so quickly that + the one sentence seemed the answer to the other, and both came + back loud and distinct on the still night-air.</p> + + <p>"Are the Ormistons ancient? It's all fudge," shouted + John.</p> + + <p>"Well," said Mr. Parker, "that's the most perfect echo I + ever heard. I've no doubt the holy fathers of the Middle Ages + knew of it, and used it in some shape to keep the superstitious + people in awe."</p> + + <p>"It is awesome," said his wife, "here in the moonlight, with + the old castle so near: if I were alone, positively I should + feel eerie."</p> + + <p>"Are you dull at home, Mr. Forrester?" was sent out from the + depths of Will's chest, and sent back again just as Bessie came + out and joined the party.</p> + + <p>"Boys! boys!" she said, "don't be foolish."</p> + + <p>"Why, it was what you said yourself," her sister + remarked.</p> + + <p>"<i>Are</i> you ever dull?" the lad shouted again.</p> + + <p>"Often," answered Edwin, and "Often" came back + instantly.</p> + + <p>"In that case, Mr. Forrester," said Mrs. Parker, "why don't + you get a wife? There's no company for a young man like a good + wife. Here's Miss Ormiston; I don't think you could do + better."</p> + + <p>Think of the delicate wound of these young people being thus + openly probed in broad moonlight in the presence of so many + people! What could Mrs. Parker be thinking of? Not of her own + love-passages surely, or, if she was, they must have been of a + blunter order than those of the Rose and her lover.</p> + + <p>"Oh no," said Bessie in cool, indifferent + <span class="pagenum"><a name="page47" + id="page47"></a>[pg 47]</span> tones: "Mr. Forrester knows + better than that."</p> + + <p>"There!" said Edwin, "you see, Mrs. Parker, I have been + refused."</p> + + <p>"'Faint heart never won fair lady,'" said Mrs. Parker.</p> + + <p>The boys hallooed this sentiment to the echo, and the echo + took it up and sent it back so vigorously that even a timid man + might have been inspired. "Mary Stuart," "Henry Darnley," + "James Bothwell," the lads went on calling to the echo + alternately—names which are not mere echoes even after + three hundred years, but live on by sheer force of tragic + romance. And it was possible that here, on this very spot, that + historical trio had stood and laughed and talked and amused + themselves as the young Ormistons and their visitors were + doing. What words had they used to rouse the echo? If only it + could be made to give them back now, what a wonderful echo it + would be! The world would come to listen to it. Would it tell + of the passions of love and ambition, grief and hatred, all + hurrying their victims to their doom? or was the place sacred + only to gentler memories and softer moods—the scene of + enjoyment and freedom from care for however short a time? Who + can tell?</p> + + <p>There was a woman in the village of Cockhoolet who was + ninety-eight years old, having all her faculties not perhaps + quite so fresh as when she was nineteen, but in wonderful + preservation after having been in daily use for little short of + a century. She was one of a long-lived race: her father had + been eighty-nine when he died, and her grandfather ninety-nine. + Now, it is perfectly possible—and, as the family had been + on the spot for centuries, it is even probable—that her + great-grandfather might have dug the hole in which Mary planted + her tree, or he may have saddled the queen's horse when she + went hunting, or stood by the roadside and lifted his bonnet as + she and her gay train swept by. Or he may have been despatched + upon royal errands through the subterranean passage which is + said to exist all the way between Cockhoolet Castle and + Edinburgh—the private telegraph of those days, when wires + in the air or under the sea by which to send messages would + have cost the inventors their lives as guilty of witchcraft. + While shaking hands with this old woman and speaking to her, + you lost sight of her and the present time and felt the air of + the sixteenth century blow in your face. Mary came up before + you in moving habit as she lived—the young Mary who + caught all hearts, not heartless herself, and laid hold of mere + straws to save herself as she drifted desperately with + circumstances; not the woman who has been painted as an actor + from first to last, as coming forth draped for effect at the + very closing scene,—not that woman, but the girlish queen + who laughed and called to the echo, and forgot the cares of a + kingdom while she could.</p> + + <h3>IV.</h3> + + <p>"They are a nice family, those Ormistons," said Mr. Parker + to his wife as they drove to the railway-station in the + moonlight.</p> + + <p>"Very," said Mrs. Parker; "and Mr. Forrester is a nice lad. + I hope he and Miss Ormiston will make it out: I did my best for + them."</p> + + <p>"They'll be quite able to do the best for themselves: it is + always better to let things of that kind alone."</p> + + <p>"I don't know that," said Mrs. Parker: "if a little shove is + all that is needed, it is a pity not to give it."</p> + + <p>"But what if your shove sends people separate? That's not + what you intended, I fancy?"</p> + + <p>"No fear: people are not so easily separated as all + that."</p> + + <p>"Well, we have had an uncommonly pleasant visit: I only wish + the heads of the house had been at home."</p> + + <p>Either the attachment of this pair must have been pretty + evident to ordinary capacities, or Mrs. Parker must have been + of a matchmaking turn of mind; probably the latter, for Bessie + at least was sure that no mortal guessed her secret; which was + a great comfort to her, seeing that Edwin was so indifferent. + Alas! there is no rose without a thorn, or if there is it is a + scentless, useless thing, + <span class="pagenum"><a name="page48" + id="page48"></a>[pg 48]</span> most likely incapable of + giving either pleasure or pain.</p> + + <p>The Parkers had left early. When the young people went + in-doors again it was only seven o'clock: the girls proposed a + game at hide-and-seek, and Bessie seconded the proposal; for + you see it would have been rather a formidable business to sit + down and entertain Mr. Forrester all the evening with + conversation, rational or otherwise; and although at the moment + she was in the dignified position of lady of the castle, she + could not the less enjoy a game amazingly.</p> + + <p>The theatre of operations was wisely restricted, because if + they had gone all over the castle they might have hidden + themselves so that the game would have been endless; therefore + they kept to the under part of the inhabited region. At length, + tiring of this, they changed their game to blindman's buff, and + went to the kitchen to play it, there being more room and fewer + obstacles there; besides that, it was empty of tenants at the + time, the servants having gone to see some of the + neighbors.</p> + + <p>It was a curious old kitchen, with a very low roof, and + having a fireplace in a big semicircular stone recess. Many a + boar's head had revolved there, and many a venison pasty had + sent forth its fragrance to greet the tired hunters returning + from the chase. The fire glowed in its deep recess like the eye + of an old-world monster in a cavern, till one of the boys + seized the poker and made it flame up, throwing its blaze out + as far as it could for its walls, and making the kitchen and + the group standing in it like a picture by Rembrandt.</p> + + <p>"Who's to be blind man first?" cried the girls.</p> + + <p>"Edwin: that will be the best fun," the boys said.</p> + + <p>"Very well, I sha'n't be long blind," said Edwin: "I shall + soon catch some of you. Who'll tie the handkerchief?"</p> + + <p>"Bessie: she always ties it. Go and kneel to her, and she'll + tie it so that you won't see."</p> + + <p>What must Mr. Forrester have felt while being blinded by the + Rose? Only, he had long been accustomed to be if not blinded, + at least dazed, by her. The boys led him into the middle of the + floor and dispersed themselves into corners. While he stood in + the attitude of listening intently, he was conscious of a very + gentle movement near him, and instantly closed his arms round + it, as he thought, and encountered empty air, while with a + shout of laughter the children cried, "Bessie was too quick for + you. There, quick! quick! Edwin!" He sprang to the corner the + voices came from, and the boys rushed along the wall to avoid + his arms spread out to catch them, when suddenly the doorbell + rang.</p> + + <p>At the sound Edwin put up his hand to take off the + handkerchief, but the boys cried, "Don't take it off: if it's + any one, Bessie can speak to them in the dining-room: we don't + need to stop our game."</p> + + <p>They were not aware that to Mr. Forrester the game without + Bessie was like <i>Hamlet</i> with the part of Hamlet left + out.</p> + + <p>"Yes," said Bessie, "just go on, and I'll see who is at the + door." As she left the kitchen she honored Mr. Forrester with a + good long look: people can feel so much at ease looking at a + blind person.</p> + + <p>The door was chained for greater security, and Bessie did + not take off the chain: she merely opened the door as far as it + would open, but seeing no one, she opened it fully and went out + on the steps; still she saw no person, although she thought + whoever rang the bell had not had time to get out of sight. + Waiting a little without result, she went back to the + kitchen.</p> + + <p>"Who was it?" cried the children.</p> + + <p>"No one," she said.</p> + + <p>"But the bell rang," said John.</p> + + <p>"Of course it did," Will corroborated.</p> + + <p>"And somebody must have rung it," John said.</p> + + <p>"Some one for a trick, I suppose," Bessie said, "although I + don't know how he disappeared so fast."</p> + + <p>Without further remark the game was resumed. Edwin had + caught John, and John had caught Bessie, and when he was + putting the handkerchief round her eyes Mr. Forrester said, + "You are making <span class="pagenum"><a name="page49" + id="page49"></a>[pg 49]</span> it far too tight, John: you + are hurting your sister."</p> + + <p>"No fear," said John: "none of us have soft heads here. Is + it too tight, Bessie?"</p> + + <p>"Rather, but I can bear it: go on."</p> + + <p>"I'll slacken it first," Edwin said.</p> + + <p>"Thank you, that will do. Now move off or I'll catch you." + She went very vigorously to work, and sent them all flying + round the kitchen, when the bell rang, and rang loudly, + again.</p> + + <p>John darted to the door and flung it wide, sure that he + would see the person who rang it, whether running away or not; + but there was no one, and the whole party followed him out, and + they surveyed round and round, but all was still and quiet and + vacant, the moonlight making it impossible that any figure + should be there without being seen.</p> + + <p>Now, if you lived in an ordinary house in an ordinary street + in an ordinary town, an incident like this would create no + surprise. It happens often: true, it is not a very new or + bright joke, still it is a joke that boys and girls enjoy, and + will continue to enjoy. But away in the country, at an old + castle, with no house within a quarter of a mile of it, the + case is very different. How was it to be accounted for?</p> + + <p>The Ormistons came in, the girls looking scared, and the + boys laughing and saying that Mary Stuart or Darnley or + Bothwell, whose names they had made so free with shouting to + the echo, must have heard themselves called and were ringing + the bell, although not allowed to show themselves; but even as + they said it the boys would fain have whistled to keep their + courage up.</p> + + <p>"I wish papa and mamma had been at home," said Bell.</p> + + <p>"Or if only the Parkers could have been persuaded to stay + all night," suggested Jessie.</p> + + <p>"Nonsense!" Bessie said. "Some one is playing us a trick, + but we don't need to let it spoil our game;" and she put the + handkerchief over her eyes. "Look here, Edwin: will you tie + this? You do it better than John."</p> + + <p>"He doesn't," said John. "I believe he leaves it so that you + can see. I'll do it. No, I won't make it too tight."</p> + + <p>"Don't you think, Jessie," Edwin asked, "that I could + protect you, in case of danger, as well as the Parkers?"</p> + + <p>"I don't know. Perhaps if you were like yourself, but you're + not like yourself."</p> + + <p>"He's as dull as ditch-water," said John.</p> + + <p>"But," said Jessie, taking his hand with a feeling of + security, "you're better than nothing—a great deal better + than nothing."</p> + + <p>"Thank you, Jessie, thank you! A man is the better for a + little encouragement, you know;" and he looked at the Rose, but + she was blind; which made her easier looked at, to be sure, but + there was less chance of an answer, encouraging or + otherwise.</p> + + <p>They had got up the spirit of the game again, and were going + on briskly, when they were all brought to a stand by the bell + ringing for the third time.</p> + + <p>"Don't stop," cried Bessie: "go on with the game and take no + notice unless it rings again;" and as a leader who must show no + fear she chased her sisters round the kitchen, making them flee + to avoid being caught, when, as if in answer to her remark, the + bell did ring again.</p> + + <p>This was too much. They all ran to the door, but neither + human being nor ghost was to be seen.</p> + + <p>"I say," said John to his brother, "you and I will go out + and watch. Edwin, you'll stay with the girls—they are + frightened—and if the bell rings again we'll see who does + it."</p> + + <p>"You have more need of Edwin than we have, John," Bessie + said: "it will take you all to catch a ghost."</p> + + <p>"Come away, then," cried John; and he posted his sentinels + at different angles, where each could have his eye on the door. + The girls shut themselves in the house, and outside and in they + awaited the result.</p> + + <p>There was no result.</p> + + <p>Ordinary sentinels can pace to and fro to make the moments + go more quickly, but Edwin and John and William were compelled + to stand without speech or + <span class="pagenum"><a name="page50" + id="page50"></a>[pg 50]</span> motion, as to betray their + presence would have been to defeat their purpose. At the end + of half an hour their patience was worn out, and they came + to the conclusion that whoever was playing the trick knew + that they were watching; so they went in, and hardly were + they in and the door shut when the bell rang again.</p> + + <p>John rushed from the kitchen, whither he had gone for + something, but the others, being in the dining-room and nearer + the door, reached it before him; and again nothing was to be + seen but the still calm night, in which hung the moon with all + her accustomed unimpassioned serenity. What cared she for + ghosts? Perhaps she is only a ghost herself, else why, with all + her pale quiet ways, does she never turn round and show herself + thoroughly? No doubt she has reasons of her own, whether they + are good or not: her sex is apt to be both capricious and + persistent—two qualities which she possesses in + perfection.</p> + + <p>The Ormistons and Edwin stood out on the broad walk before + the door, none of them feeling very comfortable, if the truth + must be told, but none of them showing their feelings except + Bell and Jessie, who openly declared that they were very much + frightened.</p> + + <p>"Nonsense!" said Bessie. "Who is going to be frightened at a + silly trick?"</p> + + <p>"But it may be somebody wanting to get in to do us + harm—kill us perhaps," suggested Bell.</p> + + <p>"People who want to get into a house for bad ends don't ring + the front doorbell, or any bell," said Bessie.</p> + + <p>At this junction two figures appeared in the distance + advancing along the road to the castle—soon made out to + be the servants, so that they at least were guiltless in the + affair.</p> + + <p>"It has not been them, you see," cried John.</p> + + <p>"No," Bessie said, "and you are not to say anything about it + to them when they come: if they know anything of it, it will + soon leak out; and if they don't tell, they will be quite + frightened: they are as easily frightened as Bell or Jessie + here."</p> + + <h3>V.</h3> + + <p>All this time Mr. Forrester was feeling—not frightened + certainly, but—perplexed; and while he could not but + admire Miss Ormiston's coolness and courage, he could not help + wishing that she had been just a little bit chicken-hearted: it + would have been so delightful to have to act as protector and + supporter. But there was no opening whatever for such a + position: she took the mysterious affair into her own hands and + pooh-poohed it entirely.</p> + + <p>They were accustomed to early hours at Cockhoolet, but when + the time came for going to bed the girls declared they were too + frightened to go up stairs alone. "It would be far better," + they both said, "for us to stay here all together in this room + till morning: we could sit up quite well."</p> + + <p>"Absurd!" said Bessie.</p> + + <p>"Well, we could not sleep even if we were in bed," they + protested.</p> + + <p>"No fear," said the châtelaine. "If you were to sit up + all night you would be like ghosts yourselves to-morrow + morning. Come, I'll go with you and sit beside you till you + sleep. But wait a minute till I come back."</p> + + <p>When they were bidding Mr. Forrester good-night he said to + the girls, "If anything happens let me know."</p> + + <p>"Nothing will happen," said Bessie: "the bell is quiet now + and the servants are sound asleep. I have just been looking at + them, and the sooner we follow their example the better."</p> + + <p>"What are we to do if we hear the bell ring again?" John + asked.</p> + + <p>"Nothing. Keep below the blankets, John," his sister said. + "It will ring a loud peal indeed if you hear it: I think a + cannon might be fired at your ear without disturbing you."</p> + + <p>"That's a mistake," said John, "I am a remarkably light + sleeper: a fly on my nose will make me turn round any + time."</p> + + <p>"I believe that, but it won't waken you. Good-night;" and + she took a hand of each of her sisters and went off with all + the dignity beseeming her position as head of the family and + governor of the <span class="pagenum"><a name="page51" + id="page51"></a>[pg 51]</span> castle. Her presence being + withdrawn, Edwin felt much as you do on a March day when the + sun goes under a cloud, although he had not enjoyed the sun + either, owing to the undercurrent of east wind that + continually chilled him. He almost determined to give it up. + Of what use was it? Evidently she did not care for him, and + the words, "Mr. Forrester here again! he must surely be dull + at home," sounded in his ears. Very east-windy they were; + still, he loved her with a great love, and he could not give + her up: he was in a mist, and could see neither to go back + nor forward.</p> + + <p>"I say, Edwin," said John confidentially, "what do you think + about this bell business? Of course one couldn't speak of it + before the girls, they are frightened enough + already—Bessie too, although she pretends not. What's + your own private opinion about it?"</p> + + <p>"Oh, it must be a ghost," said Edwin: "they do things of + that kind, you know—turn tables and rap and so on. I've + been thinking I must be an unconscious medium."</p> + + <p>"Well," said John, "I, for one, don't believe in that kind + of thing: if the spirits ever told anything worth hearing, or + did anything worth doing, it might be different; but would + Darnley or Bothwell or the abbot, or even any of the smaller + fry of monks, come back here to ring a bell? I know in their + place it's what I wouldn't do myself."</p> + + <p>"It would depend on where they are and how employed," said + Edwin: "like some other people, they may be dull at home."</p> + + <p>"Ah, that's what Bessie said that's sticking in your throat. + Man, it's no use minding what girls say: I never do.</p> + + <p>"The spirits must be deplorably dull if ringing a bell is a + diversion to them."</p> + + <p>"They may enjoy mystifying us," said Edwin. "Who knows but + they are listening just now, and laughing in whatever they may + have instead of sleeves?"</p> + + <p>"I'm not frightened," said Will, "but I don't like subjects + of this kind at bedtime, so I wish you wouldn't say any more + about it."</p> + + <p>"It seems, however, that the bell was rung by invisible + agency," said John.</p> + + <p>"Come, come, we'll stop talking and go to bed," Edwin + said.</p> + + <p>"But, Edwin," said Will with big eyes, out of which he could + not keep a frightened look, "do you think a spirit did it?"</p> + + <p>"No: it is a trick, and you'll find out who did it before + long."</p> + + <p>"Well," said John, "it was a stupid trick, but cleverly + done—very cleverly done, or whoever did it would not have + escaped me."</p> + + <p>"I should not like to sleep alone to-night," Will said to + his brother in confidence when they were in their own room, + "and I don't believe you would either, although you don't say + so. I wonder if Edwin likes it, away from every one too, in + that room with the hole in its roof? I wonder papa does not get + that hole mended?"</p> + + <p>"He has often spoken about it," said John, "but if I slept + in that room I should rather like the hole. It's uncommon: + every room hasn't a hole in its roof. If you couldn't sleep, + for instance, you'd have only to stare at the hole, and you + would doze off before you knew."</p> + + <p>"Staring at it would only keep me from sleeping," Will said: + "I should always think something was looking at me through + it."</p> + + <p>"What could look at you but light—moonlight or + daylight from the room above? In the dark you would the + hole."</p> + + <p>"Let's sleep," said Will; and, forgetting ghosts and bells + and all influences, the two boys were soon asleep.</p> + + <p>It is to be hoped the girls were asleep also; indeed, there + is little doubt the younger ones were. But Bessie, with the + cares of a castle on her head, the mysteries of the evening to + perplex her, and an unfortunate love-affair going more and more + awry, how was it with her?</p> + + <p>And Edwin, in his remote room with its hole in the roof, how + did he fare? He had gone up a stone staircase, through a long + passage and down a short flight of steps, into a room large, + somewhat low in ceiling, and, with the exception + <span class="pagenum"><a name="page52" + id="page52"></a>[pg 52]</span> of the hole, most comfortably + appointed. It felt warm, rather too warm, and he did not + replenish the fire, preferring to let it go out. The room + and the way to it were both very familiar to him, and, like + John, he enjoyed the hole: staring at it made you sleep, and + when not sleeping your fancy could play round it to any + extent. On this night the light of the moon, shining in at + the shutterless windows of the empty room above, fell across + its floor, and gleamed down through the opening.</p> + + <p>A superstitious person with a talent for being eerie would + have had nice scope for being frightened out of his senses in a + situation like this—alone in a distant room of an old + castle where bells rang mysteriously, and with borrowed + moonlight peering down from above like a ghost looking for + ghosts. But Mr. Forrester was not superstitious—not in + the least. He feared nothing material or immaterial + except—and it was a curious exception—except Bessie + Ormiston; yet it is true he loved her, perfectly as he thought, + but there was a flaw somewhere: it was not the perfect love + that casteth out fear. The turning of a straw, however, might + make it that, but who was to turn the straw? He feared to do + it, and she would not. Notwithstanding these perturbed and + cantankerous circumstances, these two people, being young and + naturally sleepy, slept.</p> + + <p>How long he had been sleeping Edwin did not know, when he + awoke suddenly, as if he had been startled by some noise. + However, he might have been dreaming: he did not know. The fire + was thoroughly out and black, there was no ray of light from + the roof, and the window-curtains being closely drawn, if there + was any light outside it was effectually shut out: the room was + as dark as midnight.</p> + + <p>He rose, and finding his way to the table groped for a box + of matches that he had noticed lying there, and lighted his + lamp, when, looking at his watch, he found the hour to be + half-past three. Before going to bed again he thought he would + see what night it was. Accordingly, he opened the curtains and + shutters and gazed forth. The moon had disappeared—which + was not remarkable, as it was past her hour for + retiring—and the night was very dark and hazy. But a + remarkable object met his eye. But from an angle of the house, + and toward the corner of the field which had been the site of + the ancient monastery, there stood a column five or six feet in + height of what through the haze appeared luminous vapor. It + seemed such an altogether unaccountable thing, standing there, + that Edwin pushed the window open and rubbed his eyes to get a + better sight of it. He expected it would disappear in some way + almost immediately, but it did not: there it stood, perfectly + still and perfectly distinct, at the corner of the field, where + there was absolutely nothing to cause it. He watched it for a + considerable time, and as his eye got accustomed to peering + into the darkness, he could see there was nothing near it, and + not a sound disturbed the stillness of the night.</p> + + <p>"That's not a trick," he thought: "no one would think it + worth while to play a trick, certain of being without an + audience either to see or hear it. I question even if it is the + abbot himself; or if he likes to air himself there in the + middle of a winter night, he must be too hot at home, if not + too dull."</p> + + <p>A filmy mantle of pale white vapor is surely a more likely + garment for a spirit to snatch up and wrap round him when about + to indulge in an earthly tour than the conventional and + traditionary white sheet: in point of fact, for the sheet he + must wait till he arrives in our world, and when he does arrive + he must of necessity help himself to it; which I, for one, + should be sorry to think any well-conditioned ghost would do; + but light, pale shadowy light, lying about everywhere for the + picking up, what so suitable as raiment for a being who has + nothing to wear?</p> + + <p>It could not but occur to Edwin, Had the abbot come back to + his old haunt on some errand? Had he a benevolent ghostly + interest in its present inhabitants? Here was a work in which + even a spirit of mark might engage without loss of + <span class="pagenum"><a name="page53" + id="page53"></a>[pg 53]</span> dignity and with perfect + propriety. He might turn tables on the perverse + circumstances that kept two young people separate; and if + marriages are made in heaven, an angel need not despise such + a mission as making two lovers happy.</p> + + <p>"Well" thought Edwin, "if you are Abbot John, how do you + like to see the dear old stones of your monastery built into + dykes? or would you have preferred seeing them applied to villa + purposes?" If it were the abbot, Edwin felt he would like to + have that familiar kind of intercourse with him which in our + country is known as twa-handed crack; and if it were not the + abbot, he had a wonderful curiosity to know what it + was—to have it accounted for. There it stood, apparently + as firm and sure as the first moment he had seen it; and a + cause it must have.</p> + + <p>Accordingly, he dressed himself with the intention of + proceeding to the spot to interview the abbot and see what kind + of stuff he was made of. Mr. Forrester took the lamp in his + hand and opened the room-door softly: not that he thought any + one would hear him, but soft sounds best become the stillness + of the night. As he went down the stairs he became conscious of + a cold air playing about, as if from an open door or window. He + set his lamp on the stone sill of the passage-window, and had + his hand on the key of the outer door to unlock it, when he + heard a quick, sudden scream, apparently from the oldest part + of the building. He listened intently for a second, but there + was no repetition of it, and everything was perfectly + quiet.</p> + + <p>"That was human," he said to himself; and seizing his lamp + he ran along till he came to the door of the ancient keep, + which was standing open: he took the way he and the rest of the + party had gone the previous afternoon, and found the doors that + were usually kept locked all open. Going on very hurriedly, he + came to the room where the bare rafters were the only flooring, + and at the other end of it he saw something like a white heap + gleaming. He strode across instantly, and stooping with the + light in hand discovered Bessie Ormiston lying in a dead faint + just at the edge of one of the rafters: the least movement + would have sent her down on the hard pavement below. He did not + stop to think how she came to be there: setting his lamp where + it would light him across the dangerous flooring, he lifted her + up and threaded the passages and stairs in the darkness till he + laid her safe on the dining-room sofa, still unconscious.</p> + + <p>Kneeling beside her in the darkness, he felt that her face + and hands were very cold. He did not know what to do. If she + had been any other person, he would have had his senses about + him, but, being who she was, they had scattered themselves, and + he felt dazed. The fire was not quite out, and he thought of + smashing up a chair to make it burn, but searching in the + coal-scuttle at the side, of the fireplace, he found both + sticks and coals, and heaped them on: then he lighted the lamp + that was still standing on the table. All this was the work of + a minute or two. A fainting-fit was quite beyond the range of + his experience, but he had some vague idea that in cases of the + kind water should be dashed in the face or a smelling-bottle + held to the nostrils or brandy poured down the throat; but none + of these things were at hand, and as he looked at Bessie, + hesitating what to do, he saw the color steal back to her face, + and she opened her eyes and suddenly shut them. When she opened + them again she took his presence as a matter of course, and + said, "I sometimes walk in my sleep, I know, but I am not in + the habit of fainting;" and she smiled, looking much more like + the lily than the rose.</p> + + <p>"I hope not," he said.</p> + + <p>"It was the fright I got when I woke and saw where I was. I + shouldn't have been frightened, for I knew the place as well as + I know this room, and could have found my way back in the + dark."</p> + + <p>"What can I get for you?—you must have something." It + is an awkward thing when a nurse has to seek directions from a + patient.</p> + + <p>"Nothing," she said: "I can take nothing, and I am quite + well. I can't think how I was so foolish as to scream, and I am + sorry for disturbing + you."</p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page54" + id="page54"></a>[pg 54]</span> + + <p>"You did not disturb me: if I had been asleep I should never + have heard you."</p> + + <p>"I wish you had been asleep."</p> + + <p>"You might have fallen through the rafters and been hurt or + perished of cold."</p> + + <p>"I shouldn't have fallen through the rafters: I should have + come to myself and have walked back quite well alone; but I am + not the less obliged to you."</p> + + <p>"I should say not," he said with a curl of sarcasm. "Then is + there nothing I can do for you?"</p> + + <p>"Nothing, unless, indeed, you could get hot water for me to + wash my feet in. Sleeping as I was, I had the good sense to put + on a thick shawl, but I made my excursion barefoot: they say + walking barefoot improves one's carriage."</p> + + <p>"Bessie, I never know what to make of you."</p> + + <p>"If you know what to make of yourself it's a great matter: + sometimes people don't know that," she said, rather + wearily.</p> + + <p>"I had better make myself scarce at present, probably?" he + said.</p> + + <p>"I think so."</p> + + <p>"Then good-night. You won't faint again?"</p> + + <p>"No: good-night."</p> + + <p>He left the room and shut the door gently, but when a few + paces away some impulse moved him to go back: she might faint + again, and he would ask if he should send one of the servants + to her.</p> + + <p>When he opened the door she was sitting with her face hidden + in her hands. At the sound of the door opening she glanced up, + and Edwin saw tears.</p> + + <p>She turned away instantly. He went up to her and said, "I + did not mean to intrude. I forgot to ask if I should tell one + of the servants to come."</p> + + <p>"No, you needn't."</p> + + <p>"Bessie," he said, "you are not well, and something is + vexing you. Could you not tell me about it. I mean nothing but + kindness."</p> + + <p>"I know you don't," she said almost fiercely, "and I hate + kindness: it's an insult."</p> + + <p>He stood in blank astonishment, "An insult?" he said.</p> + + <p>"Yes, an insult; and if you were not obtuse you would see + it. But you don't see and you don't feel, or you would never + have tried to make any one care for you for whom you did not + care a bit. But I won't care for you, and I don't."</p> + + <p>Off her guard, she had been stung into this. She was + standing away from him, her head erect and her eyes gleaming + through tears: Mary Stuart herself could not have been more + effective.</p> + + <p>"Care for you! not care for you!" he said in a voice he + could hardly control. "I have cared for you as I never cared + for a thing on earth: I have loved and shall love you as I have + never loved a human being."</p> + + <p>"How am I to believe it? Why did you not say it? Why did you + not say it without making me ashamed of myself?"</p> + + <p>"Ashamed! Oh, Bessie, I only feared to annoy you."</p> + + <p>"Annoy!"</p> + + <p>He gathered her to him and kissed her.</p> + + <p>A castle all to themselves at four o'clock in the morning is + a piece of fortune that rarely falls to lovers, and they need + not expect it; but those great thick walls were no way taken by + surprise: they had not been confidants of this kind of thing + off and on for four or five hundred years to be taken by + surprise now. Whether after such long familiarity with the old + story they felt it any way stale, you will readily believe they + did not say.</p> + + <h3>VI.</h3> + + <p>"I've forgotten the abbot entirely," said Edwin when he had + time to come to himself after the first draught of miraculous + champagne. "I was on my way to investigate his ghost when I + heard an unaccountable scream."</p> + + <p>"I never screamed before, and I don't think I shall ever + scream again: I don't know how I have been so weak + to-night."</p> + + <p>"Weakness always draws out kindness," said Edwin.</p> + + <p>"I would rather be weak than obtuse," said Bessie.</p> + + <p>"But it is better to be only obtuse than + <span class="pagenum"><a name="page55" + id="page55"></a>[pg 55]</span> both. I know someone who was + both."</p> + + <p>Well, what was I to think, and what could I do?"</p> + + <p>"Nothing better than you did—make a declar—"</p> + + <p>"What were you saying about the abbot's ghost?"</p> + + <p>"I was on my way to have an interview with it + when—"</p> + + <p>"What was it like, and where did you find it?"</p> + + <p>"It was like a column of light standing not far from the + house near the corner of the abbey-field."</p> + + <p>"And you did not think of any explanation of the + phenomenon?"</p> + + <p>"No, I did not: it seemed more mysterious even than the + ringing of the bell."</p> + + <p>"To obtuse people it does."</p> + + <p>"I thought the abbot might be feeling without a home, and + sympathized with him, I assure you, very heartily."</p> + + <p>"I can tell you what it is: the servants had to rise at + three this morning to work. It is the light shining out from + the laundry-window: I've seen it often enough."</p> + + <p>"Well, it was a providential ghost for you and Edwin."</p> + + <p>"[illegible]" said John when they were assembled at + breakfast next morning, looking no worse for the excitement of + the previous evening, having all slept well: if the bell had + rung it had disturbed no one at all. Mr. Forrester and Bessie + had not made any one the wiser of the well-timed appearance of + the abbot's ghost which had played such an effective part in + their previous night's drama,—"I say," he said looking at + Mr. Forrester and then at Bessie, "there is some understanding + between you two; you are always looking at each other, and when + you entered the room this morning you [illegible], and started + off [illegible] been caught. But I have [illegible] this + time."</p> + + <p>Bessie realized that her secret had become common property, + and blushed becomingly.</p> + + <p>Mr. Forrester said, "What have you suspected, John?"</p> + + <p>"That Bessie and you laid your heads together to make the + bell ring last night to frighten us. Remember, I'm not stupid + altogether."</p> + + <p>"I assure you, John, I had nothing to do with the ringing of + the bell," Bessie said.</p> + + <p>"Nor had I," said Edwin.</p> + + <p>"That's queer, then," said John; "but I'm sure there's + something of some kind between you two: you're planning + something, I know. What is it?"</p> + + <p>"Wise people don't reveal their plans to every one till near + the time for executing them, John," said Edwin.</p> + + <p>"Oh, very well," John answered: "you can keep them to + yourselves. I dare say it's nothing of consequence;" and having + finished his breakfast, John was off to his out-door business. + The shortest cut to his destination—and he always took + short cuts—was through the kitchen, and as he hastily + brushed along the wall toward the door he was brought up + suddenly by a loud peal of the bell, and he looked at one of + the servants, who was working at the table, as much as to say, + "Do you hear that?"</p> + + <p>She answered his look: "Yes, I ha'en, but there's naebody at + the door. It was yu that rang the bell: ye cam against that bag + of worsted clues for durning that I hung on the bell-wine + yesterday. When onybody happens to touch it the weight o' 't + gars the bell ring; I would hae to ta'en off."</p> + + <p>With this simple and inglorious explanation John rushed to + the dining-room where he found Mrs. Forrester and the + châtelaine in deep Conspiracy again; and to this hour the + ghost of Cockhoolet is a matter (if you can use that word in + connection with a ghost at all) of faith and not of sight.</p> + + <p>When Mrs. and Mrs. Ormiston returned they found that their + eldest daughter was engaged to be married, which surprised them + as little as it did the old woman but moved them a good deal + more.</p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page56" + id="page56"></a>[pg 56]</span> + + <h2>THE LEADEN ARROW.</h2> + + <p>A wondrous half-century was that which forms an isthmus + rather than a bridge between the Middle Ages and the times + termed Modern. Exit the Last of the Barons—enter the + printing-press. Exit Boabdil el Chico—enter Columbus and + Da Gama. The plot thickened as the <i>cinquecenti</i> hove in + view. The last years were the most pregnant. While the last + sigh of the Moor was dying into the murmurs of the Xenil, that + solitary shout that will ring while earth lasts went up from + the bows of the Pinta. Together came America and the sea-way to + India and—the rifle. For in 1498, when Buonarotti was at + his prime, Raphael, fifteen years old, had just taken his seat + at the paternal easel, and the scenes of the <i>Lusiad</i> were + in progress, "barrels were first grooved at Venice."</p> + + <p>Who grooved them we are not told. The name of that artist + has not survived, though we still remember his contemporary + townsman, Titian. Strictly, he is not entitled to the + immortality of an originator. That belongs to the unknown + savage who, in the miocene era probably, first gave a twist to + the feather of his arrow, thereby communicating to it a + revolving motion at right angles to the line of flight, and + making it an "arm of precision." But pre-historic artillery we + may dismiss or leave to Milton. The blind bard omits to inform + us whether the guns used in the great pounding-match between + Lucifer and Michael were smooth-bores or rifles. The strong + presumption is that they were exclusively the former, and that + a well-served battery of Parrotts would have silenced them in + fifteen minutes. By giving him a few pieces of the kind the + poet would have further brightened the feather he sets in + Satan's cap as the benefactor of mankind by inventing gunpowder + and shortening wars. The bow he presents to us as an old and + familiar weapon even at the date of that first and greatest of + pitched battles. Its claim, as the parent of projectile + implements, is recognized in the common etymology of <i>arcus, + arcualia</i>—artillery. Arblast, arquebuse, blunderbuss, + mark a humbler collateral descent in the same verbal family. + The ballista, or fifty-man-power bow, constituted the heavy, + and the individual article the light, artillery of twenty + centuries ago. Slings and javelins, being for hand-to-hand + fighting (David was near enough to hold an easy conversation + with Goliath before bringing him down), can hardly be brought + within the designation. The twang of either heavy or light was + but a thin contribution to the orchestra of battle compared to + "the diapason of the cannonade." How much we have lost in the + absence of this element of tremendous noise from the conflicts + of ancient days! What a tool it would have been in Homer's + hands! How trivial, to the author of the book of Job, would + have seemed the noise of the captains and the shouting! We + cannot, indeed, quite suppress the fancy that some mightier + counter-concussion must have filled the air at Thrasimene, when + "an earthquake reeled unheededly away:" <i>Nemo pugnantium + senserit</i>, avers Livy. But nothing is said of it. The old + heroes died in silence, like the wolf "biting hard among the + dying dogs."</p> + + <p>A well-known essay of a modern poet beautifully uses this + piece of the modern machinery of his craft. Dryden here makes + distance mellow the thunder of a naval fight into a musical + undertone. The great sea-fight between the duke of York and the + Dutch, fought within hearing of London, left "the town almost + empty" of its anxious citizens, whose "dreadful suspense would + not allow them to rest at home," but drew them into the eastern + fields and suburbs, "all seeking the noise in the depth of + silence." Dryden and three friends took a barge and descended + the river. Once clear of the crowded port above Greenwich, + "they ordered the watermen to let fall their + <span class="pagenum"><a name="page57" + id="page57"></a>[pg 57]</span> oars more gently; and then, + every one favoring his own curiosity with a strict silence, + it was not long ere they perceived the air to break about + them like the noise of distant thunder or of swallows in a + chimney; those little undulations of sound, though almost + vanishing before they reached them, yet still seeming to + retain somewhat of their first horror which they had between + the fleets. After they had attentively listened till such + time as the sound by little and little went from them, + Eugenius, lifting up his head and taking notice of it, was + the first who congratulated to the rest that happy omen of + our nation's victory."</p> + + <p>This, the eloquent eolian music of distant and unseen + battle, was unheard by the ancient cities and their chroniclers + and poets. It will grow again less familiar as rifled ordnance + is introduced, with its thinner and sharper style of + expression. Waterloo appears to have been heard farther than + Sedan or Metz, although its pieces were but popguns compared + with those that spoke the requiem of the Third Napoleon. And + perhaps, if we allow for smallness in number and calibre, those + employed by Robert the Bruce at the battle of Werewater in + 1327—said to be the first recorded occasion in + Europe—were more vociferous than their successors of + to-day. Few and cumbrous they must indeed have been, since + Edward III. could only bring four into the field at + Crécy; and they did far less service than the twanging + cloth-yard shaft in deciding the event of that conflict.</p> + + <p>It was not till centuries later that the rifle perceptibly + exerted its treble voice in the multitudinous debates of the + <i>ultima ratio</i>. Shrill as John Randolph's, its pipe, once + set up, was very attentively and respectfully listened to. Like + his, it spoke from the woods of America. "Stand your ground, my + brave fellows," shouted Colonel Washington under the sycamores + of the Monongahela on the 9th of July, 1755, "and draw your + sights for the honor of old Virginia!" The colonial rifle + covered the retreat of the British queen's-arm, if retreat such + a rout as Braddock's could be called.</p> + + <p>It is about the same time that we find a British writer, who + had witnessed the efficiency of the rifle as a companion + implement to the axe in pushing European settlement on this + continent, saying, "Whatever state shall thoroughly comprehend + the nature and advantages of rifle-pieces, and, having + facilitated and completed their construction, shall introduce + into its armies their general use, with a dexterity in the + management of them, will by this means acquire a superiority + which will almost equal anything that has been done at any time + by the particular excellence of any one kind of firearms, and + will perhaps fall but little short of the wonderful effects + which histories relate to have been formerly produced by the + first inventors of firearms."</p> + + <p>This was written in 1748, at which time the rifle was used + only by the hunters of the Alps and the hunters of the American + backwoods; the latter having doubtless derived it from the + former through German immigration. Bull's conservatism, + however, was in the way. The lessons of Fort Duquesne, of + Saratoga and of New Orleans were successively wasted on him. He + did arm one regiment, the Ninety-fifth, with this weapon toward + the close of the last century, but for a long time it stood + alone in the royal service. Austria had previously maintained + some corps of Tyrolese Jägers. The French fought through + all the wars of their Revolution without having recourse to the + rifle, save in the campaign of 1793. It is singular that the + keen eye of Napoleon failed to detect its value, especially + when we note the use he made of light troops. The fate of + Nelson justifies the idea that a large body of good riflemen + might have changed the issue of Trafalgar.</p> + + <p>Curiously enough, the French, who were the last to realize + the merits of the rifle, were the first to institute those + improvements which caused, within the present generation, its + universal substitution for the musket. The Gallic pioneer was + Delvigne, but his first improvements proved, as Pat might say, + no improvement at all. The inconvenience of slow + <span class="pagenum"><a name="page58" + id="page58"></a>[pg 58]</span> loading was the most obvious. + Delvigne's remedy was to give the ball increased windage; in + other words, to diminish its diameter comparatively with + that of the bore. The ball thus went easily down to the + shoulders of the chamber containing the charge. Arrived + there, a smart rap with the ramrod moulded it to the + grooves. But it also flattened the top, and forced the + bottom partly into the chamber. Thus misshapen at birth, the + bullet was cast upon the world to an erratic and fruitless + career.</p> + + <p>In 1828 a second Frenchman took the tube in hand. Colonel + Thouvenin abandoned the chamber, and filled up much of the + place it had occupied with a cylindrical steel pillar, or + <i>tige</i>, which projected from the breech-plug + longitudinally into the barrel. This formed a little anvil + whereon the bullet was to be beaten into the grooves. But the + bottom was flattened, and the powder acted only on the + periphery of the ball instead of the centre, tending thus to + give it an oblique direction.</p> + + <p>Here Delvigne picked up the weapon for another trial. He + accomplished far the most important advance yet seen—an + advance relatively as great as Watt's separate condenser in the + steam-engine. He retained the <i>tige</i>, but he <i>changed + the spherical ball into a cylinder with a conical point</i>, as + we now have it. In this he, in effect, reached the ultimatum of + progress as regards the general form of the projectile. He + assimilated it to Newton's solid of least resistance. That + primeval missile, the arrow, had for unnumbered centuries + presented to the eyes of men an illustration of a simple truth + which scientific formula succeeded, scarce a couple of + centuries since, in evolving. "The bridge was built," as the + old sapper told his commander, "before them picters" (the + engineer's designs) "came." The arrow-head describes, as it + whirls through the air, a solid varying from a cone only so far + as its edges vary from straight lines. This variation serves to + blend the cone with the cylinder formed by the revolution of + the arrow-head and the feather. The difference in length + between the ball and the arrow is due to the necessities of the + case. The least practicable length is best for both. The office + of the spirally-wound feather in communicating a rotary motion, + and thereby balancing, by an opposite force, the tendency of + the missile to swerve in any given direction, is fulfilled by + the spiral groove of the rifle. Of course, the ordinary smooth + musket is unfitted to the conico-cylindrical ball. Discharged + from such a barrel, there being nothing to keep the point in + the direction of its flight, it soon tumbles over, like an + arrow without a feather, and strikes wide of the mark.</p> + + <p>Delvigne's new gun came into use in 1840. The long + matchlocks of the Arabs had been very worrying to the French in + Algiers. It was a common pastime of the Ishmaelites to pick off + the Gauls at a distance which left Brown Bess helpless. + Protruded over an almost inaccessible crag, the former + primitive instrument would plump its ball into the ranks of the + Giaour in the dell below with a precision and an effect hardly + requited by victories in the open field or by the cave-smokings + of His Grace of Malakoff. Delvigne's arm was accordingly + supplied to the Chasseurs d'Orléans, and in their hands + served the desired purpose. The matchlock met its match.</p> + + <p>Under M. Delvigne's system, however, the ball was not always + well forced into the grooves. The <i>tige</i>, too, made + cleaning difficult: it often got crooked, and it sometimes + broke off. A M. Tamisier did something toward removing the + former difficulty by cutting very shallow grooves on the ball + itself. The other called forth the ingenuity of the now famous + Minié, who made his first appearance in 1847-1848, and + whose name has attained the same kind of lethal immortality + with the names of Shrapnell, Congreve and Rodman. M. + Minié abandoned the <i>tige</i> entirely. He scooped out + the base of the ball and inserted into it an iron cup. This cup + was driven into the ball by the explosion, and forced the soft + lead into the grooves. The leading objection to the + Minié ball in this form was that the device did its work + too thoroughly. The iron was often driven so deep into the lead + as to tear off the solid point and + <span class="pagenum"><a name="page59" + id="page59"></a>[pg 59]</span> scatter the whole projectile + into two or three pieces. This mitrailleuse-like + distribution of disrupted spheres or leaden asteroids was + obviated by the abandonment of the iron cup, the powder + being left to act on the lead itself. Two or three channels + cut around the neck of the bullet helped to keep the point + in line, and aided at the same time the fastening of the + cartridge. Thus came its final metamorphosis to the buzzing + little torment that has been at intervals for the last + twenty years flying over all the continents and perplexing + the nations.</p> + + <p>It was not till 1852 that the Enfield rifle was settled on + as the standard weapon of the British army. Machinery and + machinists were imported for its fabrication from the United + States, the appliances of our government armories being copied, + and Colonel Bruton, of the Harper's Ferry Works, employed to + set them going. Prior to that time all firearms of public or + private manufacture, in England, had been made by hand, the + interchangeability of all the parts of any given number of guns + being an end accomplished in this country alone. The advantage + of having every corresponding detail of each piece a fac simile + of the same part in all the firelocks of an army must have been + perceived from the time when such weapons were first invented; + and nothing but the most inveterate conservatism, or the + steadiest opposition of that stamp which mobbed + threshing-machines and the spinning-jenny, could have so long + staved off its practical adoption.</p> + + <p>Once awakened, however, England became, as she usually does, + active, innovating and experimental enough. Rifled cannon, + breech-loaders and armored ships—all the legitimate + offspring of the Venetian barrel and its American + employment—have kept her ever since in a ferment of + boards, commissions and target-firing. But these would carry us + beyond our prescribed limit into a boundless field of inquiry + and description. It would be like passing from a notice of the + tubular boiler of Stephenson's Rocket to a discussion of the + vast railway system it begot.</p> + + <p>The Crimean war afforded the first test, on a large scale, + in civilized warfare, of the issue between smooth and twist. + How the conoidal bullet and rifled barrel, opposed at Inkermann + to the antiquated Russian musket, tore through the dense + columns which had forced their way to the brow of the plateau, + driving the stolid Muscovites, "incapable of panic," back into + the ravine pell-mell—how, at many periods of the siege of + Sebastopol, the rifle-pits did more to cripple the defence than + did the mortars and battering-guns—we need not recount. + These pits, and the rope mantlets wherewith they obliged the + Russians to cover their embrasures, were pronounced by Captain + (since General) George B. McClellan, in his report of the + United States Military Commission, about the only marked + novelties of the siege. Of both, <i>mutatis mutandis</i>, he + and his opponents made effective use in our civil war.</p> + + <p>Nor shall we pick our perilous way among the Sniders, + Chassepots, Zündnadelgewehre, and + Zündnadelbüchsen whose various charms absorb the + military mind at this day. The debate among them is but as to + the best utilization of the old arrow-theory. The oblong + projectile, that goes singing on its winding way, is common to + them all. Slipped in at the back door or rammed home at the + front, delicately stirred up by the insinuating needle and its + titbit of fulminate or bluntly ordered off by the snappish + percussion-cap, it is the same obedient and faithful messenger, + and goes on its appointed errand in much the same style.</p> + + <p>Under the ancient régime of the musket it required + the soldier's weight in lead to kill him. Its point-blank range + was about sixty yards, but precision even at that short + distance it by no means possessed. At the battle of Fontenoy + the English and French Guards, drawn up in opposite lines, + conversed with each other prior to firing, like two groups of + friends across the street. "Gentlemen of the French Guards, + fire!" was the courteous invitation of the British commander. + "The French Guards never fire first," was the reply. And not + till then did punctilio come to an end. Such + <span class="pagenum"><a name="page60" + id="page60"></a>[pg 60]</span> a colloquy in our day would + need to be carried on with forty-horse power + speaking-trumpets, or with the thunderous articulation of + that between the bellowing Alps and echoing Jura. Even + smooth-bore field-pieces, with point-blank of three hundred + and twenty yards and service range of one thousand, have to + keep their distance. It is a rare thing now for cannon to be + captured by a charge of cavalry or the bayonet. The rifle + destroys <i>quantum suff.</i> of their horses, and, their + support overpowered, they remain a helpless prey.</p> + + <p>For this default of the blustering cannon in the trying of + conclusions with its quiet little cousin, the natural remedy is + to improve its interior in the same manner. This has been done, + and with marvelous effect in some respects. But the rifled + cannon, though extensively used both on sea and land, throwing + shot and shell five miles, and at close range through iron + plates a foot thick, cannot be yet styled a perfected weapon. + It may be in a very few years, thanks to the ardent anxiety, on + the part of the several peoples composing "the parliament of + man, the federation of the world," to excel each other in the + "brain-spattering, windpipe-slitting art." At present it is + maintained by very good American authority that for use under + some conditions, at short or moderate range, the smooth gun of + large calibre is more effective than a rifled gun throwing a + missile of the same weight. Our monitors continue to be armed + with the fifteen-inch Rodman, very recent experiments being + cited to prove its penetrating effect on iron plates greater + than that of the European rifled guns. This, of course, at very + close range.</p> + + <p>The rifle is, in its simplest form, a more complex + instrument than the smooth-bored piece, and will always require + superior intelligence to manage it. The army which naturally + possesses this requisite in the highest degree will best handle + this decisive weapon, and be, other things equal, the strongest + army. This consideration operates in favor of our people, among + whom the rifle has always been in so much more constant and + familiar use than with those of other countries. Our broad + forests will have to be cleared and our mountain-chains, east + and west, more densely settled than Switzerland, before the + distinction of a nation of marksmen can be lost to us. So far, + there is little evidence of this change. The deer and the + wild-turkey are nearly as abundant on the Atlantic slope of the + Alleghanies as they ever were. Probably there are more of both + in Virginia than at the time of the settlement of Jamestown. + Like the quail and the bee, they are favored by a certain + advance of population and cultivation.</p> + + <p>Another species of aborigine does not similarly thrive in + the path of the rifle. The Indian of the Plains is still + troublesome occasionally, but far less so than when blue-coats + and blunderbusses joined forces against him. The odds then were + often on his side, for many of the red men were armed with the + rifle, while the troops had but the musket and carbine. The + appearance of the breech-loading rifle in the hands of the + United States dragoons on the frontier just fifteen years ago + let in new light upon the Camanche and Apache mind. Up to that + period the badgering of a detachment of "heavies" was a + favorite pastime with these gentry. They got up their "spring + fights" with as much coolness and regularity as the early + patriarchs of Texas are related to have done, and not merely, + as in the case of the latter, in utter contempt, but directly + at the expense, of the constituted authorities. Tying a bag of + dried mule-meat and pounded corn to the peak of his saddle, + fashioning a small supply of arrows, or balls if he boasted the + spectre of a gun, coloring the inferior half of his + frontispiece a rich vermilion and the upper a delicate green, + with ramifications of lampblack coursing tastefully along the + cheek-bones and the bridge of the nose, twisting a crane's + feather into the tail of his horse, and giving his affectionate + squaw a farewell kick, the cavalier of the prairie was ready + for a raid on the Long-knives. Making a rapid night-march or + two, he would carry the "latest intelligence from the Indian + country" to the <span class="pagenum"><a name="page61" + id="page61"></a>[pg 61]</span> border ranches of Texas or + New Mexico. Stampeding all the horses and mules that stood + or ranged convenient, and under favorable circumstances some + cattle and sheep, and "gobbling" on occasion some incautious + Cyrion or Phyllis of the Western Arcadia, the marauder made + for the mountains. By the time he had well passed the last + outpost the hue-and-cry was at his heels, followed, after an + easy-going delay, by the lumbering dragoon. The soldier, + armed with ineffectual sabre and carbine, encumbered with a + variety of traps about as useful as they, usually managed, + if not forced to put back by stress of provisions, to come + up with him in the gates of the hills. There an idle + interchange of arrow and round ball between hollow and cliff + wound up the eventful history of the chase. As a rule, no + marked chastisement was inflicted on the Indian: he realized + in peace the proceeds of his little speculation.</p> + + <p>Now, Minié, like the Harpagon of his countryman, has + "changed all that." The retreating heathen flies to his hills + in vain. They do not cover him, but the rifle does. Cantering + to the summit of a knoll, he waves his compliments to the + distant dragoon with a gesture of derision, more expressive + than elegant, he has acquired from the white. Turning calmly to + depart, as he sinks below the crest of the hill a sagittiform + bullet, fired at five hundred yards' distance with all the + science and talent purchasable with thirteen dollars a month + and rations, plumps into the rump of his unhappy pony, and the + Stoic of the woods is unhorsed. Reared on horseback, and weak + in the legs from long addiction to that mode of locomotion, + this is a <i>casus omissus</i> in Lo's tactics. Scant time, + however, has he for reflection. He gathers up himself and his + drapery as well as circumstances will allow, and scuttles + hurriedly off, a fluttering chaos of rags and feathers. It is + too late. Heaven is on the side of the best artillery. A few + minutes and the Philistines are upon him. Burnside's or + Remington's last patent again lifts up its voice, and the + triumph of civilization is complete.</p> + + <p>The prairie Indian, unlike his congener of the woods, has as + yet been but partially able to substitute gunpowder for the + bow. The advantage he has in the protection afforded him by the + desolation of his waterless <i>mesas</i> and sage-covered hills + is thus in great measure neutralized. What, when he does + possess the modern firearm, he is capable of doing with it, the + achievements of the Modocs in their volcanic stronghold will + attest. But these were few, and soon went down. The extinction + of the tribes west and south of the Rio Grande and the Humboldt + cannot be many years postponed. The red rover of that region + will disappear as a combatant in the same way, and before the + same weapon, as his brother nomad of Algeria, the earliest + victim of the conoidal bullet. The spherical ball has done its + appointed part in disposing of the aborigines east of the + Mississippi, where forests covered the land and trees generally + intercepted the sight at a hundred or a hundred and fifty + yards. With the extension of Caucasian empire to the Plains + came an extension of the range of vision, which necessitated an + advance in the range of the rifle. The weapon of Sharpe figured + for the first time in the van when the woods of Missouri were + passed and the open plains of Kansas reached. There its office + was, unfortunately, the strife of white against white. The + largest possible range, the greatest possible number of shots + in a given time, were demanded in a war wherein the opposing + armies were seldom within five miles of each other, or more + than one man hurt to five hundred charges of powder burned. How + the Lenni Lenape must have opened their eyes at this + reproduction of the drama of a century ago when the whites, + English and French, were fighting each other for the possession + of the Delawares' lands in Pennsylvania! The feeble remnant of + the compatriots of Logan had "moved on," under pressure of a + very urgent police, a thousand miles westward to a reservation + not a great deal larger, when portioned out, than that last + reservation allotted to all men; and the pale-faces who had + hung upon his track he now saw fighting for + that.</p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page62" + id="page62"></a>[pg 62]</span> + + <p>From its warlike aspect it is pleasant to turn to the + contributions of the rifle to peaceful amusement, if not + peaceful industry. Contemptuously giving the go-by to its + minutest phase in this field—the "parlor rifle," with a + target against the chimney-piece or meandering, in feline form, + along our neighbor's roof-tree—we go forth, with Snider + and sunrise, to the forest fastness. Our companions throng, + tall, bronzed, close-knit and sinewy, true children of the + four-grooved, from frosty Caucasus, the Hartz, the Alps, the + Dovrafjeld, the Grampians, the Himmalaya, the Adirondack, the + Alleghany, the Nevada. The chamois, the ibex, the red deer, the + Virginia deer, the wapiti, the gour, or the royal tiger may be + the game in hand. The tiger we are accustomed to associate + exclusively with the dank jungles of Lower India, but he + climbs, each summer, the great passes of Central Asia, "the + roof of the world," and makes his way to the frontier of + Siberia, beyond 50° north.</p> + + <p>The equipment of the mountain-rifleman is characterized by + simplicity and a strict attention to business. The nature of + the ground over which he works inexorably prescribes this. The + superfluities of the fox-hunter or the partridge-shooter with + his dog-cart cannot be his. Hatchet, pouch, knife and knapsack, + with alpenstock on occasion, about comprise his kit. He may be + attended by a hound or two, but not a pack. He wants no + yelling. He hears but</p> + + <div class="poem"> + <div class="stanza"> + <p class="i10">the Spirit of the Mist,</p> + + <p>And it speaks to the Spirit of the Fell.</p> + </div> + </div> + + <p>For little hollows and little hills Scott's dogs, that</p> + + <div class="poem"> + <div class="stanza"> + <p class="i6">raved through the hollow pass amain,</p> + + <p>Chiding the rocks that yelled again,</p> + </div> + </div> + + <p>may have been highly effective when his mediæval + sportsmen, who carried no guns, could keep within a furlong of + them. But in the depths of the great mountains, with + point-blank range of six hundred yards and long pops of nearly + twice that, they would be preposterous. Fancy the Quorndon or + the Pytchley on the flanks of the Matterhorn!</p> + + <p>Chamois-hunting, the sporting specialty of the Swiss and the + Tyrolese, appears to be dying out. The hunter of our day keeps + it up rather as a tradition than as a practical pursuit. He + rarely bags a "goat," for goats are very few to bag, and those + few even more supernaturally fleet and sure of foot and keen of + nose than their less-hunted ancestors. Still, somewhere in that + upper world of lilac-white that melts into the clouds in vast + but distance-softened chasms of viscid ice and rifts of gray + gneiss, there is an object for him. In some nook or on some + crag of the square leagues of desert that swell around him a + troop of the desiderated ruminants is grazing, if grazing it + can be called where grass is none. He is very sure of that. + Even from the door of his chalet he scans the slopes in the + half hope of detecting a flock or a single goat. His father and + his grandfather before him had looked forth from the same door + on the same scene, snuffed the same "caller air," mentally + shaped the same pretext for yielding to the same spirit of + adventure begotten of the peaks and by going forth to battle + with the solitude, and hunted patiently, sometimes with + success, oftener without, the progenitors of the same quarry. + So he prepares himself anew for the wild and perilous tramp. A + day—two or three days—may pass without the + compassing of a shot, or even hearing the whistle of the + sentinel goat as he shrills the alarm far out of range and + leads his fellows in twenty minutes to crags the hunter cannot + reach in as many hours. Death crouches in the treacherous + snow-crust beneath or the poised avalanche above. A false step + or an inch's miscalculation of leap may make him a waif for the + lämmergeier or land him among the buried villages of the + last century. He toils on until success or starvation sends him + home. In the former case he out-generals his shy game after a + series of manoeuvres to which the deepest stratagems of our + Indians are straightforwardness personified. He gets a long + shot at a distance that would make the musket or buckshot as + useless as a sabre. The certainty may be apparent that the + animal, if hit mortally, must fall some hundreds of feet, + perhaps into an inaccessible + <span class="pagenum"><a name="page63" + id="page63"></a>[pg 63]</span> chasm. There is no help for + that. Now or never! The short rifle, assisted by a portable + rest, is called on for its best. The concentrated energy of + the whole chase is thrown into the long and carefully + calculated aim. A thin spurt of white smoke jets forth; a + sharp report echoes "from peak to peak the rattling crags + among;" half a dozen chamois whisk around the next + rock-buttress, and "one more unfortunate" tumbles from the + verge into vacancy. The labor of days is rewarded. Securing + the scanty venison if he can, the hunter is off for his + hillside burrow, advertising his approach by an exultant + jodel of extra nerve-splitting power.</p> + + <p>In Great Britain the rifle, ancient or modern, like, indeed, + any other firearm, has yet to establish itself as a democratic + "institution." Her forests are not forests in our sense, and + her mountain-dwellers know little of the rifle. In the duke of + Athol's seventy-mile forest, with scarce a tree save planted + larches, the stag roams by thousands, but of course the + game-laws interpose, as they did eight hundred years ago, + between him and the (biped) hind. He is still the reserved + luxury of the Norman. So with the leagues of upland where His + Grace of Sutherland has made the Highlander give place to the + hart, the "lassie wi' the lint-white locks" to the Cheviot + ewe—where, in short, the white Celt has been improved out + of existence as remorselessly as the red man in America, and + that in favor not of a superior race of men, but of + <i>feræ naturæ</i>. Into these and similar + districts, at stated seasons, sundry squads of gentlemen are + turned loose. They either "pay their shot," as <i>Punch</i> has + it, in the shape of rent, or are the guests of the noble + proprietors. Their devices for circumventing the antlered + monarch of the waste are amply detailed by Scrope, Hawker, + Herbert and also by the late Edwin Landseer doing the pictorial + department with a success attributable chiefly to his + management of landscape effect, for his dogs, deer and other + animals from his Æsop's fable-like groups to his four + duplicated lions in Trafalgar Square, belong—heretic that + we are to say it!—properly to still life, their want of + action and <i>verve</i> placing them beneath comparison with + the works of either one of a score of Flemish and French + painters, from Rubens and Snyders down to Bonheur and Vernet. + That his unsold pictures have brought, since his death, + something like half a million proves nothing. Time was when the + worthless canvases of West and Morland were equally + transmutable into gold.</p> + + <p>Like other forms of British field-sports, deer-stalking is + sufficiently intricate and artificial. It is obviously the + occupation of men whose primary object is more to kill time + than to kill deer. According to print, from type and plate, the + stag, a reduced edition of the American wapiti, is, in the + heart of a little kingdom of some hundreds of souls to the + square mile, as little accustomed to the sight of man and as + hard to approach as he would be on the head-waters of the + Yellowstone. If five or six hours' worming, <i>ventre à + terre</i>, up the bed of a mountain-torrent, with not even a + rowan-bush to aid concealment, succeed in bringing the + sports-man within two hundred yards of his unconscious game, it + is a good day's performance. How, the dun deer's hide once + perforated, the "tail" of game-keepers, beaters and volunteer + hangers-on is gathered up, the comforting toothfu' of + usquebaugh absorbed by the toilers of the brae, the victim + "gralloched" and suspended across the inevitable gray Highland + pony that makes such a capital "first light" for the + foreground, and the line of triumphant march taken up for + hunting-box, clachan or castle, have we not been told to + repletion? The tool used on these occasions is up to the latest + requirements of modern science. Whitworth and Lancaster, thanks + to their projectile's being wedged in so tight as to cause an + occasional misunderstanding it and the breech-plug as to which + was expected to move, have grown unpopular. The style and the + patentee vary every year or two or oftener, breech-loading and + the elongated bullet being the only persistent features.</p> + + <p>Among the commonalty of Britain, + <span class="pagenum"><a name="page64" + id="page64"></a>[pg 64]</span> within a very few years past, + rifle-clubs and matches have been brought greatly into vogue + under government encouragement. Austria, <i>tu infelix</i> + this time, having served unwillingly as an experimental + target, with the most distinguished and gratifying success + to the experimenters, at Solferino and Sadowa, gave a new + impetus to the rifle movement in England, as France, a + trifle later, did to the Battle-of-Dorking school of + prophetic literature. Thus it happens that the rifle is + taking its place gradually by the side of fat Durhams, + gooseberries, lop eared rabbits and the Derby as a popular + sensation. Johnny sends over a "team," evidently in his + judgment a whole one, to "shoot the American continent." His + next deputation ought to be sent, after vanquishing the + "blarsted" Gothamites, to the recesses of the Alleghany, and + pitted there against the woodsman with his ancient weapon + carrying a round ball of seventy-five to the pound, five + feet long and decorated with tin sights, double trigger and + mayhap flint-lock. The adventurers would beat in the long + run, but they would go home not wholly unlearned. Should + they stay to a turkey-shoot, they would see in it the + Occidental analogue of their own public matches—more + picturesque, if not quite so prim and scientific. Strictly, + it presupposes conditions non-existent in England—a + community, for instance, first of hunters, and second of + hunters with the rifle.</p> + + <p>This recreation, primarily belonging to localities where + large game, such as deer and wild-turkeys, is found, has spread + down to the cities, where it breaks out in a sporadic form + about Christmas. But the hills are its home—the + foot-hills, notably, of the Appalachian range, the domestic + turkey not being very common higher up, nor its wild original + ("original," we insist, <i>pace</i> the <i>Agricultural + Report</i> ornithologist, who finds an ineffaceable distinction + in the fact that the tail-ring of the one is sometimes, and + that of the other never, white!) lower down.</p> + + <p>We mind us of an ancient town in the Valley of Virginia, + settled nearly a century and a half ago by riflemen, sheltered + by them through a stormy infancy, and still steeped in the + traditions of the implement in question. Spitted by the + railway, the hub of many turnpikes, and surrounded by a + thickly-peopled country, it is yet near enough to the mountains + to receive from them each winter quite a delegation of their + inhabitants. Last year wild-turkeys were shot within the + corporate limits, a deer was chased within half a mile of them, + and a fine specimen of <i>Felis Canadensis</i> was killed in an + orchard still nearer.</p> + + <p>Four miles west of the town the fertile limestone + <i>carse</i> swells into the shady hills, clad largely with + pine, that form the long glacis of the Alleghanies. These hills + are peopled principally by a hardy race not unlike the German + woodsmen, whose blood, indeed, a great many of them share, as + their surnames, though sadly thinned down into English spelling + and pronunciation, denote. They inherit, likewise, their fancy + for the rifle. Allied with the axe, which, like Talleyrand's + supposititious frontiersman, they have not forgotten, it + supplies them materially with sport and subsistence. Their + land, where arable at all, being unproductive as a rule, + wood-chopping is their most profitable branch of farming. A + score or two of them drive into town daily, each with his + four-, three- or two-horse cargo of wood. The pile is + frequently topped off with a brace or two of ruffed grouse, + there called pheasant, or a wild-turkey, less often a deer, and + more often hares; which last multiply along the narrow + intervales in extraordinary numbers. We have seen three + sledge-loads of hares—say two thousand in all—on + the street of a winter's day.</p> + + <p>This sappy and sapid contribution to its comfort and luxury + the town often repays with a jug of whisky as an addendum to + the cash receipts; although it must not be inferred from this + that the hillmen are noted for a weakness in that direction. + Generally, they are as sober as they are hard-working, + independent and honest. The few who do take kindly to strong + waters are so hardened by a life of toil and exposure that the + enemy is a lifetime in bringing them down.. One little old + hook-nosed fellow was an <span class="pagenum"><a name="page65" + id="page65"></a>[pg 65]</span> every-day feature of the road + for fifteen or twenty years. In that entire period he was + rarely, if once, seen to go out sober. He drove but two + horses, which were apparently coeval with himself. Long + practice had taught them perfectly how to accommodate + themselves to their master's failing. The saddle-horse + adapted his movements with vigilant dexterity to the rolling + and pitching aloft. On more than one occasion the woodman + was found lying in the road by the side or under the feet of + his faithful and motionless team. Poor old Jack! thou hast + "gone under," deeper than that, at last, leaving behind thee + the savor of an honest name, slightly modified by that of + corn whisky.</p> + + <p>The Hayfield Inn, a little hostelrie on the Northern "pike," + is the scene of many a turkey-shoot. Between the hill and the + road, at the foot of a ravine that runs down at right angles, + room enough has been scooped out, partly by the rains and + partly by the pick, for the house, offices and microscopic yard + decorated with hollyhocks and larkspurs. Across the highway + stands a capacious barn, with open space for wagons, and + between it and the brook beyond stretches a narrow meadow, + whence a vivid imagination has extracted the name of the + caravanserai. The open space flanking the house and road is the + rifle-course, so to speak. When occupied of a mellow October + afternoon by a party of the autochthones, in their pea-jackets + of blue or hickory homespun, it presents a gay and cheery + spectacle. Festooning fence and tree around them, the Virginia + creeper, or <i>Ampelopsis</i>, shames vermilion against the + mass of pines that glooms skyward beyond. Other tints of + vegetable decay fringe the brook where it winds from side to + side of the long strip of grass, green from the autumnal rain. + Little reck the assembled marksmen of Nature's + stage-decorations. One group will be mentally weighing the + turkeys, another discussing the distance—too long or too + short for the peculiar powers of this or the other individual + or his weapon. Around the rude target kneel two or three, + scoring on it each man his "centre," above or below, to the + right or left, of the true centre, to counteract the + ascertained obliquity of his eye or his gun. Here a six-foot + Stoic, the Nestor of the glen, is very formally going through + the ceremony of loading. Another is slowly, and with the + precision of an astronomer, adjusting the tin slides which + protect his barrel from the glitter of the sun. The chatter of + a bevy of country maidens ripples from over the way. The horses + whinny under their square-skirted saddles, or stand "hard by + their chariots champing golden corn," like the horses of + Nestor, Agamemnon, Homer and Gladstone before Dr. Schliemann's + Troy; the yearlings in the meadow alternately gaze and graze; + the guinea-fowl now and then honors the shout over a good shot + with its harsh but well-meant rattle; the rifle speaks at + measured intervals; the prizes thin off to the remainder + gobbler; and so, with the quiet characteristic of + rifle-matches, the evening draws toward the dew. The + smoke-whitened guns are carefully swabbed with tow and prepared + for their rest as tenderly as infants. Dobbin is rescued from + the (fence) stake to hie hill-ward with his master, cantering + exultant or jogging grumly according to the result of the + "event;" and the metropolis of Petticoat Gap—for such, in + the vernacular and on the maps, is its unfortunate + designation—relapses into virtuous repose.</p> + + <p>The implement employed at these rural reunions is rarely the + breech-loader, or even the short gun. It promises to hold its + ground for years yet, gradually yielding to the little modern + tool. The essential characteristics of this we have described + as they exist and will probably remain. Variations in the + rifling and—where muzzle-loading is abandoned—in + the appliances of the chamber will continue to be made, as they + have heretofore been made without number numberless. The + patterns now fashionable will give place to others, in their + turn to be dropped like a last year's coat. Remington, + Winchester and the rest will retire in favor of new contrivers, + devoted, like them, to the simple task of facilitating the + flight of the leaden arrow with its grooved feather in steel or + iron. With <span class="pagenum"><a name="page66" + id="page66"></a>[pg 66]</span> them will rise and fall a + parallel series of names on a broader and more sonorous + field—the field of heavy artillery, the ponderous + Wiard being full brother to the liliputian Sharpe. Rifled + cannon certainly present problems far more complicated than + the small-arm. They can by no means be considered, as yet, + so near perfection. It is boldly maintained by many experts, + both here and in England, that the "smashing" power at + point-blank range of such smooth-bores as the Rodman 12-inch + and 15-inch is greater than that of the rifle of the same + weight. The question is so closely involved with that of + armor-plates for ships and ports, and that with buoyancy and + other naval requirements, and economy and stability on land, + that a long period must elapse ere the reaching of fixed + conclusions. Within the present generation wooden + line-of-battle ships, with sails alone, have ruled the wave. + These have given place to the steam-liners that began and + closed their brief career at Sebastopol and Bomarsund; and + the prize-belt is now borne, among the bruisers of the main, + by the mob of iron-clads, infinitely diverse of aspect and + some of them shapeless, like the geologic monsters that + weltered in the primal deep. Which of these is to triumph + ultimately and devour its misshapen kindred, or whether they + are not all to go down before the torpedo, that carries no + gun and fires no shot, is a "survival-of-the-fittest" + question to be solved by Darwins yet to come. But it is + tolerably safe to say that where the best shooting is to be + done it will continue to be done with the conico-cylindrical + missile, spirally revolving around the line of flight; that + is, with the arrow-rifle.</p> + + <p class="author">EDWARD C. BRUCE.</p> + + <h2>TWO MIRRORS.</h2> + + <div class="poem"> + <div class="stanza"> + <p>My love but breathed upon the glass,</p> + + <p class="i2">And, lo! upon the crystal sheen</p> + + <p>A tender mist did straightway pass,</p> + + <p class="i2">And raised its jealous veil between.</p> + </div> + + <div class="stanza"> + <p>But quick, as when Aurora's face</p> + + <p class="i2">Is hid behind some transient shroud,</p> + + <p>The sun strikes through with golden grace,</p> + + <p class="i2">And she emerges from the cloud;</p> + </div> + + <div class="stanza"> + <p>So from her eyes celestial light</p> + + <p class="i2">Shines on the mirror's cloudy plain,</p> + + <p>And swift the envious mist takes flight,</p> + + <p class="i2">And shows her lovely face again.</p> + </div> + + <div class="stanza"> + <p>When o'er the mirror of my heart,</p> + + <p class="i2">Wherein her image true endures,</p> + + <p>Some misty doubt doth sudden start,</p> + + <p class="i2">And all the sweet reflex obscures,</p> + </div> + + <div class="stanza"> + <p>There beams such glow from her clear eyes</p> + + <p class="i2">That swift the rising mists are laid;</p> + + <p>And, fixed again, her image lies,</p> + + <p class="i2">All lovelier for the passing shade.</p> + </div> + </div> + + <p class="author">F.A. + HILLARD.</p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page67" + id="page67"></a>[pg 67]</span> + + <h2>MALCOLM.</h2> + + <h3>BY GEORGE MACDONALD, AUTHOR OF "ANNALS OF A QUIET + NEIGHBORHOOD," "ROBERT FALCONER," ETC.</h3> + + <h3>CHAPTER LXIV.</h3> + + <h3>THE LAIRD AND HIS MOTHER.</h3> + + <p>When Malcolm and Joseph set out from Duff Harbor to find the + laird, they could hardly be said to have gone in search of him: + all in their power was to seek the parts where he was + occasionally seen, in the hope of chancing upon him; and they + wandered in vain about the woods of Fife House all that week, + returning disconsolate every evening to the little inn on the + banks of the Wan Water. Sunday came and went without yielding a + trace of him; and, almost in despair, they resolved, if + unsuccessful the next day, to get assistance and organize a + search for him. Monday passed like the days that had preceded + it, and they were returning dejectedly down the left bank of + the Wan Water in the gloaming, and nearing a part where it is + hemmed in by precipitous rocks and is very narrow and deep, + crawling slow and black under the lofty arch of an ancient + bridge that spans it at one leap, when suddenly they caught + sight of a head peering at them over the parapet. They dared + not run for fear of terrifying him if it should be the laird, + and hurried quietly to the spot. But when they reached the end + of the bridge its round back was bare from end to end. On the + other side of the river the trees came close up, and pursuit + was hopeless in the gathering darkness.</p> + + <p>"Laird, laird! they've ta'en awa' Phemy, an' we dinna ken + whaur to luik for her," cried the poor father aloud.</p> + + <p>Almost the same instant, and as if he had issued from the + ground, the laird stood before them. The men started back with + astonishment—soon changed into pity, for there was light + enough to see how miserable the poor fellow looked. Neither + exposure nor privation had thus weighed upon him: he was simply + dying of fear. Having greeted Joseph with embarrassment, he + kept glancing doubtfully at Malcolm, as if ready to run on his + least movement. In few words Joseph explained their + quest—with trembling voice and tears that would not be + denied enforcing the tale. Ere he had done the laird's jaw had + fallen and further speech was impossible to him. But by + gestures sad and plain enough he indicated that he knew nothing + of her, and had supposed her safe at home with her parents. In + vain they tried to persuade him to go back with them, promising + every protection: for sole answer he shook his head + mournfully.</p> + + <p>There came a sudden gust of wind among the branches. Joseph, + little used to trees and their ways with the wind, turned + toward the sound, and Malcolm unconsciously followed his + movement. When they turned again the laird had vanished, and + they took their way homeward in sadness.</p> + + <p>What passed next with the laird can be but conjectured. It + came to be well enough known afterward where he had been + hiding; and had it not been dusk as they came down the + river-bank the two men might, looking up to the bridge from + below, have had it suggested to them. For in the half-spandrel + wall between the first arch and the bank they might have spied + a small window looking down on the sullen, silent gloom, + foam-flecked with past commotion, that crept languidly away + from beneath. It belonged to a little vaulted chamber in the + bridge, devised by some vanished lord as a kind of + summer-house—long neglected, but having in it yet a + mouldering table, a broken chair or two and a rough bench. A + little path led steep from the end of the parapet down to its + hidden door. It was now used only by the game-keepers for traps + and fishing-gear and odds and ends of things, and was generally + <span class="pagenum"><a name="page68" id="page68"></a>[pg 68]</span> + supposed to be locked up. The laird had, however, found it + open, and his refuge in it had been connived at by one of the + men, who, as they heard afterward, had given him the key and + assisted him in carrying out a plan he had devised for + barricading the door. It was from this place he had so suddenly + risen at the call of Blue Peter, and to it he had as suddenly + withdrawn again—to pass in silence and loneliness through + his last purgatorial pain.<a id="footnotetag2" + name="footnotetag2"></a><a href="#footnote2"><sup>2</sup></a></p> + + <p>Mrs. Stewart was sitting in her drawing-room alone: she + seldom had visitors at Kirkbyres—not that she liked being + alone, or indeed being there at all, for she would have lived + on the Continent, but that her son's trustees, partly to + indulge their own aversion to her, taking upon them a larger + discretionary power than rightly belonged to them, kept her too + straitened, which no doubt in the recoil had its share in poor + Stephen's misery. It was only after scraping for a whole year + that she could escape to Paris or Homburg, where she was at + home. There her sojourn was determined by her good or ill + fortune at faro.</p> + + <p>What she meditated over her knitting by the + firelight—she had put out her candles—it would be + hard to say, perhaps unwholesome to think: there are souls to + look into which is, to our dim eyes, like gazing down from the + verge of one of the Swedenborgian pits.</p> + + <p>But much of the evil done by human beings is as the evil of + evil beasts: they know not what they do—an excuse which, + except in regard to the past, no man can make for himself, + seeing the very making of it must testify its falsehood.</p> + + <p>She looked up, gave a cry and started to her feet: Stephen + stood before her, halfway between her and the door. Revealed in + a flicker of flame from the fire, he vanished in the following + shade, and for a moment she stood in doubt of her seeing sense. + But when the coal flashed again there was her son, regarding + her out of great eyes that looked as if they had seen death. A + ghastly air hung about him, as if he had just come back from + Hades, but in his silent bearing there was a sanity, even + dignity, which strangely impressed her. He came forward a pace + or two, stopped, and said, "Dinna be frichtit, mem. I'm come. + Sen' the lassie hame an' du wi' me as ye like. I canna haud aff + o' me. But I think I'm deein', an' ye needna misguide me."</p> + + <p>His voice, although it trembled a little, was clear and + unimpeded, and, though weak in its modulation, manly.</p> + + <p>Something in the woman's heart responded. Was it motherhood + or the deeper godhead? Was it pity for the dignity housed in + the crumbling clay, or repentance for the son of her womb? Or + was it that sickness gave hope, and she could afford to be + kind?</p> + + <p>"I don't know what you mean, Stephen," she said, more gently + than he had ever heard her speak.</p> + + <p>Was it an agony of mind or of body, or was it but a + flickering of the shadows upon his face? A moment, and he gave + a half-choked shriek and fell on the floor. His mother turned + from him with disgust and rang the bell. "Send Tom here," she + said.</p> + + <p>An elderly, hard-featured man came.</p> + + <p>"Stephen is in one of his fits," she said.</p> + + <p>The man looked about him: he could see no one in the room + but his mistress.</p> + + <p>"There he is," she continued, pointing to the floor. "Take + him away. Get him up to the loft and lay him in the hay."</p> + + <p>The man lifted his master like an unwieldy log and carried + him, convulsed, from the room.</p> + + <p>Stephen's mother sat down again by the fire and resumed her + knitting.</p> + + <h3>CHAPTER LXV.</h3> + + <h3>THE LAIRD'S VISION.</h3> + + <p>Malcolm had just seen his master set out for his solitary + ride when one of the maids informed him that a man from + Kirkbyres wanted him. Hiding his + <span class="pagenum"><a name="page69" + id="page69"></a>[pg 69]</span> reluctance, he went with her + and found Tom, who was Mrs. Stewart's grieve and had been + about the place all his days.</p> + + <p>"Mr. Stephen's come hame, sir," he said, touching his + bonnet, a civility for which Malcolm was not grateful.</p> + + <p>"It's no possible," returned Malcolm. "I saw him last + nicht."</p> + + <p>"He cam aboot ten o'clock, sir, an' hed a turn o' the fa'in' + sickness o' the spot. He's verra ill the noo, an' the mistress + sent me ower to speir gien ye wad obleege her by gaein' to see + him."</p> + + <p>"Has he ta'en till's bed?" asked Malcolm.</p> + + <p>"We pat him infill 't, sir. He's ravin' mad, an' I'm + thinkin' he's no far frae his hin'er en'."</p> + + <p>"I'll gang wi' ye direckly," said Malcolm.</p> + + <p>In a few minutes they were riding fast along the road to + Kirkbyres, neither with much to say to the other, for Malcolm + distrusted every one about the place, and Tom was by nature + taciturn.</p> + + <p>"What garred them sen' for me, div ye ken?" asked Malcolm at + length when they had gone about halfway.</p> + + <p>"He cried oot upo' ye i' the nicht," answered Tom.</p> + + <p>When they arrived Malcolm was shown into the drawing-room, + where Mrs. Stewart met him with red eyes. "Will you come and + see my poor boy?" she said.</p> + + <p>"I wull du that, mem. Is he verra ill?"</p> + + <p>"Very. I'm afraid he is in a bad way."</p> + + <p>She led him to a dark, old-fashioned chamber, rich and + gloomy. There, sunk in the down of a huge bed with carved ebony + posts, lay the laird, far too ill to be incommoded by the + luxury to which he was unaccustomed. His head kept tossing from + side to side and his eyes seemed searching in vacancy.</p> + + <p>"Has the doctor been to see 'im, mem?" asked Malcolm.</p> + + <p>"Yes, but he says he can't do anything for him."</p> + + <p>"Wha waits upon 'im, mem?"</p> + + <p>"One of the maids and myself."</p> + + <p>"I'll jist bide wi' 'im."</p> + + <p>"That will be very kind of you."</p> + + <p>"I s' bide wi' 'im till I see 'im oot o' this, ae w'y or + ither,", added Malcolm, and sat down by the bedside of his poor + distrustful friend. There Mrs. Stewart left him.</p> + + <p>The laird was wandering in the thorny thickets and slimy + marshes which, haunted by the thousand misshapen horrors of + delirium, beset the gates of life. That one so near the light + and slowly drifting into it should lie tossing in hopeless + darkness! Is it that the delirium falls, a veil of love, to + hide other and more real terrors?</p> + + <p>His eyes would now and then meet those of Malcolm as they + gazed tenderly upon him, but the living thing that looked out + of the windows was darkened and saw him not. Occasionally a + word would fall from him, or a murmur of half-articulation + float up like the sound of a river of souls; but whether + Malcolm heard, or only seemed to hear, something like this, he + could not tell, for he could not be certain that he had not + himself shaped the words by receiving the babble into the + moulds of the laird's customary thought and speech: "I dinna + ken whaur I cam frae—I kenna whaur I'm gaein' + till.—Eh, gien He wad but come oot an' shaw + Himsel'!—O Lord! tak the deevil aff o' my puir + back.—O Father o' lichts! gar him tak the hump wi' him. I + hae no fawvor for't, though it's been my constant compainion + this mony a lang."</p> + + <p>But in general he only moaned, and after the words thus + heard or fashioned by Malcolm lay silent and nearly still for + an hour.</p> + + <p>All the waning afternoon Malcolm sat by his side, and + neither mother, maid nor doctor came near them.</p> + + <p>"Dark wa's an' no a breath!" he murmured or seemed to murmur + again. "Nae gerse nor flooers nor bees! I hae na room for my + hump, an' I canna lie upo' 't, for that wad kill me. Wull I + <i>ever</i> ken whaur I cam frae? The wine's unco guid. Gie me + a drap mair, gien ye please, Lady Horn.—I thought the + grave was a better place. I hae lain safter afore I + dee'd.—Phemy! Phemy! Rin, Phemy, rin! I s' bide wi' them + this time. Ye rin, + Phemy!"</p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page70" + id="page70"></a>[pg 70]</span> + + <p>As it grew dark the air turned very chill, and snow began to + fall thick and fast. Malcolm laid a few sticks on the + smouldering peat-fire, but they were damp and did not catch. + All at once the laird gave a shriek, and crying out, "Mither! + mither!" fell into a fit so violent that the heavy bed shook + with his convulsions. Malcolm held his wrists and called aloud. + No one came, and, bethinking himself that none could help, he + waited in silence for what would soon follow.</p> + + <p>The fit passed quickly, and he lay quiet. The sticks had + meantime dried, and suddenly they caught fire and blazed up. + The laird turned his face toward the flame; a smile came over + it; his eyes opened wide, and with such an expression of seeing + gazed beyond Malcolm that he turned his in the same + direction.</p> + + <p>"Eh, the bonny man! The bonny man!" murmured the laird.</p> + + <p>But Malcolm saw nothing, and turned again to the laird: his + jaw had fallen, and the light was fading out of his face like + the last of a sunset. He was dead.</p> + + <p>Malcolm rang the bell, told the woman who answered it what + had taken place, and hurried from the house, glad at heart that + his friend was at rest.</p> + + <p>He had ridden but a short distance when he was overtaken by + a boy on a fast pony, who pulled up as he neared him.</p> + + <p>"Whaur are ye for?" asked Malcolm. "I'm gaein' for Mistress + Cat'nach," answered the boy.</p> + + <p>"Gang yer w'ys than, an' dinna haud the deid waitin'," said + Malcolm with a shudder.</p> + + <p>The boy cast a look of dismay behind him and galloped + off.</p> + + <p>The snow still fell and the night was dark. Malcolm spent + nearly two hours on the way, and met the boy returning, who + told him that Mrs. Catanach was not to be found.</p> + + <p>His road lay down the glen, past Duncan's cottage, at whose + door he dismounted, but he did not find him. Taking the bridle + on his arm, he walked by his horse the rest of the way. It was + about nine o'clock, and the night very dark. As he neared the + house, he heard Duncan's voice. "Malcolm, my son! Will it pe + your ownself?" it said.</p> + + <p>"It wull that, daddy," answered Malcolm.</p> + + <p>The piper was sitting on a fallen tree, with the snow + settling softly upon him.</p> + + <p>"But it's ower cauld for ye to be sittin' there i' the snaw, + an' the mirk tu," added Malcolm.</p> + + <p>"Ta tarkness will not be ketting to ta inside of her," + returned the seer. "Ah, my poy! where ta light kets in, ta + tarkness will pe ketting in too. This now, your whole pody will + pe full of tarkness, as ta Piple will say, and Tuncan's pody + tat will pe full of ta light." Then with suddenly changed tone + he said, "Listen, Malcolm, my son! Shell pe ferry uneasy till + you'll wass pe come home."</p> + + <p>"What's the maitter noo, daddy?" returned Malcolm. "Onything + wrang aboot the hoose?"</p> + + <p>"Something will pe wrong, yes, put she'll not can tell + where. No, her pody will not pe full of light! For town here, + in ta curset Lowlands, ta sight has peen almost cone from her, + my son. It will now pe no more as a co creeping troo' her, and + shell nefer see plain no more till she'll pe come pack to her + own mountains."</p> + + <p>"The puir laird's gane back to his," said Malcolm. "I won'er + gien he kens yet, or gien he gangs speirin' at ilk ane he meets + gien he can tell him whaur he cam frae. He's mad nae mair, ony + gait."</p> + + <p>"How? Will he pe not tead? Ta poor lairt! Ta poor maad + lairt!"</p> + + <p>"Ay, he's deid: maybe that's what'll be troublin' yer sicht, + daddy."</p> + + <p>"No, my son. Ta maad lairt was not ferry maad, and if he was + maad he was not paad, and it was not ta plame of him: he was + coot always, howefer."</p> + + <p>"He wass that, daddy."</p> + + <p>"But it will pe something ferry paad, and it will pe efer + troubling her speerit. When she'll pe take ta pipes to pe + amusing herself, and will plow 'Till an crodh a' Dhonnaehaidh' + ('Turn the Cows, Duncan'), out will pe come' Cumhadh an fhir + <span class="pagenum"><a name="page71" + id="page71"></a>[pg 71]</span> mhoir' ('The Lament of the + Big Man'). Aal is not well, my son."</p> + + <p>"Weel, dinna distress yersel', daddy. Lat come what wull + come. Foreseein' 's no forefen'in'. Ye ken yersel' at mony 's + the time the seer has broucht the thing on by tryin' to haud it + aff."</p> + + <p>"It will be true, my son. Put it would aalways haf + come."</p> + + <p>"Nae doubt. Sae ye jist come in wi' me, daddy, an' sit doon + by the ha' fire, an' I'll come to ye as sune's I've been to see + 'at the maister disna want me. But ye'll better come up wi' me + to my room first," he went on, "for the maister disna like to + see me in onything but the kilt."</p> + + <p>"And why will he not pe in ta kilts aal as now?"</p> + + <p>"I hae been ridin', ye ken, daddy, an' the trews fits the + saiddle better nor the kilts."</p> + + <p>"She'll not pe knowing tat. Old Allister, your + creat—her own crandfather, was ta pest horseman ta worlt + efer saw, and he'll nefer pe hafing ta trews to his own lecks + nor ta saddle to his horse's pack. He'll chust make his men pe + strap on an old plaid, and he'll be kive a chump, and away they + wass, horse and man, one peast, aal two of tem poth + together."</p> + + <p>Thus chatting, they went to the stable, and from the stable + to the house, where they met no one, and went straight up to + Malcolm's room, the old man making as little of the long ascent + as Malcolm himself.</p> + + <h3>CHAPTER LXVI.</h3> + + <h3>THE CRY FROM THE CHAMBER.</h3> + + <p>Brooding—if a man of his temperament may ever be said + to brood—over the sad history of his young wife and the + prospects of his daughter, the marquis rode over fields and + through gates—he never had been one to jump a fence in + cold blood—till the darkness began to fall; and the + bearings of his perplexed position came plainly before him.</p> + + <p>First of all, Malcolm acknowledged and the date of his + mother's death known, what would Florimel be in the eyes of the + world? Supposing the world deceived by the statement that his + mother died when he was born, where yet was the future he had + marked out for her? He had no money to leave her, and she must + be helplessly dependent on her brother.</p> + + <p>Malcolm, on the other hand, might make a good match, or, + with the advantages he could secure him in the army, still + better in the navy, well enough push his way in the world.</p> + + <p>Miss Horn could produce no testimony, and Mrs. Catanach had + asserted him to be the son of Mrs. Stewart. He had seen enough, + however, to make him dread certain possible results if Malcolm + were acknowledged as the laird of Kirkbyres. No: there was but + one hopeful measure, one which he had even already approached + in a tentative way—an appeal, namely, to Malcolm himself, + in which, while acknowledging his probable rights, but + representing in the strongest manner the difficulty of proving + them, he would set forth in their full dismay the consequences + to Florimel of their public recognition, and offer, upon the + pledge of his word to a certain line of conduct, to start him + in any path he chose to follow.</p> + + <p>Having thought the thing out pretty thoroughly, as he + fancied, and resolved at the same time to feel his way toward + negotiations with Mistress Catanach, he turned and rode + home.</p> + + <p>After a tolerable dinner he was sitting over a bottle of the + port which he prized beyond anything else his succession had + brought him, when the door of the dining-room opened suddenly + and the butler appeared, pale with terror. "My lord! my lord!" + he stammered as he closed the door behind him.</p> + + <p>"Well? What the devil's the matter now? Whose cow's + dead?"</p> + + <p>"Your lordship didn't hear it, then?" faltered the + butler.</p> + + <p>"You've been drinking, Bings," said the marquis, lifting his + seventh glass of port.</p> + + <p>"<i>I</i> didn't say I heard it, my lord."</p> + + <p>"Heard what, in the name of + Beelzebub?"</p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page72" + id="page72"></a>[pg 72]</span> + + <p>"The ghost, my lord."</p> + + <p>"The what?" shouted the marquis.</p> + + <p>"That's what they call it, my lord. It's all along of having + that wizard's chamber in the house, my lord."</p> + + <p>"You're a set of fools," said the marquis—"the whole + kit of you!"</p> + + <p>"That's what I say, my lord. I don't know what to do with + them, stericking and screaming. Mrs. Courthope is trying her + best with them, but it's my belief she's about as bad + herself."</p> + + <p>The marquis finished his glass of wine, poured out and drank + another, then walked to the door. When the butler opened it a + strange sight met his eyes. All the servants in the house, men + and women, Duncan and Malcolm alone excepted, had crowded after + the butler, every one afraid of being left behind; and there + gleamed the crowd of ghastly faces in the light of the great + hall-fire. Demon stood in front, his mane bristling and his + eyes flaming. Such was the silence that the marquis heard the + low howl of the waking wind, and the snow like the patting of + soft hands against the windows. He stood for a moment, more + than half enjoying their terror, when from somewhere in the + building a far-off shriek, shrill and piercing, rang in every + ear. Some of the men drew in their breath with a gasping sob, + but most of the women screamed outright; and that set the + marquis cursing.</p> + + <p>Duncan and Malcolm had but just entered the bed-room of the + latter when the shriek rent the air close beside, and for a + moment deafened them. So agonized, so shrill, so full of dismal + terror was it, that Malcolm stood aghast, and Duncan started to + his feet with responsive outcry. But Malcolm at once recovered + himself. "Bide here till I come back," he whispered, and + hurried noiselessly out.</p> + + <p>In a few minutes he returned, during which all had been + still. "Noo, daddy," he said, "I'm gaein' to drive in the door + o' the neist room. There's some deevilry at wark there. Stan' + ye i' the door, an' ghaist or deevil 'at wad win by ye, grip + it, an' haud on like Demon the dog."</p> + + <p>"She will so, she will so," muttered Duncan in a strange + tone. "Ochone! that she'll not pe hafing her turk with her! + Ochone! ochone!"</p> + + <p>Malcolm took the key of the wizard's chamber from his chest + and his candle from the table, which he set down in the + passage. In a moment he had unlocked the door, put his shoulder + to it and burst it open. A light was extinguished, and a + shapeless figure went gliding away through the gloom. It was no + shadow, however, for, dashing itself against a door at the + other side of the chamber, it staggered back with an + imprecation of fury and fear, pressed two hands to its head, + and, turning at bay, revealed the face of Mrs. Catanach.</p> + + <p>In the door stood the blind piper with outstretched arms and + hands ready to clutch, the fingers curved like claws, his knees + and haunches bent, leaning forward like a rampant beast + prepared to spring. In his face was wrath, hatred, vengeance, + disgust—an enmity of all mingled kinds.</p> + + <p>Malcolm was busied with something in the bed, and when she + turned Mrs, Catanach saw only Duncan's white face of hatred + gleaming through the darkness. "Ye auld donnert deevil!" she + cried, with an addition too coarse to be set down, and threw + herself upon him.</p> + + <p>The old man said never a word, but with indrawn breath + hissing through his clenched teeth clutched her, and down they + went together in the passage, the piper undermost. He had her + by the throat, it is true, but she had her fingers in his eyes, + and, kneeling on his chest, kept him down with a vigor of + hostile effort that drew the very picture of murder. It lasted + but a moment, however, for the old man, spurred by torture as + well as hate, gathered what survived of a most sinewy strength + into one huge heave, threw her back into the room, and rose + with the blood streaming from his eyes, just as the marquis + came round the near end of the passage, followed by Mrs. + Courthope, the butler, Stoat and two of the footmen. Heartily + enjoying a row, he stopped instantly, and, signing a halt to + his followers, stood listening to the + <span class="pagenum"><a name="page73" + id="page73"></a>[pg 73]</span> mud-geyser that now burst + from Mrs. Catanach's throat.</p> + + <p>"Ye blin' abortion o' Sawtan's soo!" she cried, "didna I tak + ye to du wi' ye as I likit? An' that deil's tripe ye ca' yer + oye (<i>grandson</i>)—He! he! <i>him</i> yer gran'son! + He's naething but ane o' yer hatit Cawm'ells!"</p> + + <p>"A teanga a' diabhuil mhoir, tha thu ag dènamh breug + (O tongue of the great devil! thou art making a lie)," screamed + Duncan, speaking for the first time.</p> + + <p>"God lay me deid i' my sins gien he be onything but a + bastard Cawm'ell!" she asseverated with a laugh of demoniacal + scorn. "Yer dautit (<i>petted</i>) Ma'colm's naething but the + dyke-side brat o' the late Grizel Cawm'ell, 'at the fowk tuik + for a sant 'cause she grat an' said naething. I laid the + Cawm'ell pup i' yer boody (<i>scarecrow</i>) airms wi' my ain + han's, upo' the tap o' yer curst scraighin' bagpipes 'at sae + aften drave the sleep frae my een. Na, ye wad nane o' me! But I + ga'e ye a Cawm'ell bairn to yer hert for a' that, ye auld, + hungert, weyver (<i>spider</i>)-leggit, worm-aten idiot!"</p> + + <p>A torrent of Gaelic broke from Duncan, into the midst of + which rushed another from Mrs. Catanach, similar, but coarse in + vowel and harsh in consonant sounds. The marquis stepped into + the room. "What is the meaning of all this?" he said with + dignity.</p> + + <p>The tumult of Celtic altercation ceased. The old piper drew + himself up to his full height and stood silent. Mrs. Catanach, + red as fire with exertion and wrath, turned ashy pale. The + marquis cast on her a searching and significant look.</p> + + <p>"See here, my lord," said Malcolm.</p> + + <p>Candle in hand, his lordship approached the bed. At the same + moment Mrs. Catanach glided out with her usual downy step, gave + a wink as of mutual intelligence to the group at the door, and + vanished.</p> + + <p>On Malcolm's arm lay the head of a young girl. Her thin, + worn countenance was stained with tears and livid with + suffocation. She was recovering, but her eyes rolled stupid and + visionless.</p> + + <p>"It's Phemy, my lord—Blue Peter's lassie, 'at was + tint," said Malcolm.</p> + + <p>"It begins to look serious," said the marquis.—"Mrs. + Catanach! Mrs. Courthope!"</p> + + <p>He turned toward the door. Mrs. Courthope entered, and a + head or two peeped in after her. Duncan stood as before, drawn + up and stately, his visage working, but his body motionless as + the statue of a sentinel.</p> + + <p>"Where is the Catanach woman gone?" cried the marquis.</p> + + <p>"Cone!" shouted the piper. "Cone! and her huspant will be + waiting to pe killing her! Och nan ochan!"</p> + + <p>"Her husband!" echoed the marquis.</p> + + <p>"Ach! she'll not can pe helping it, my lort—no more + till one will pe tead; and tat should pe ta woman, for she'll + pe a paad woman—ta worstest woman efer was married, my + lort."</p> + + <p>"That's saying a good deal," returned the marquis.</p> + + <p>"Not one wort more as enough, my lort," said Duncan. "She + was only pe her next wife, put, ochone! ochone! why did she'll + pe marry her? You would haf stapt her long aco, my lort, if + she'll was your wife and you was knowing ta tamned fox and + padger she was pe. Ochone! and she tidn't pe have her turk at + her hench nor her sgian in her hose."</p> + + <p>He shook his hands like a despairing child, then stamped and + wept in the agony of frustrated rage.</p> + + <p>Mrs. Courthope took Phemy in her arms and carried her to her + own room, where she opened the window and let the snowy wind + blow full upon her. As soon as she came quite to herself, + Malcolm set out to bear the good tidings to her father and + mother.</p> + + <p>Only a few nights before had Phemy been taken to the room + where they found her. She had been carried from place to place, + and had been some time, she believed, in Mrs. Catanach's own + house. They had always kept her in the dark, and removed her at + night blindfolded. When asked if she had never cried out + before, she said she had been too frightened; and when + questioned as to what had made her do so then, she knew nothing + of it: she remembered only that a horrible creature appeared by + the bedside, <span class="pagenum"><a name="page74" + id="page74"></a>[pg 74]</span> after which all was blank. On + the floor they found a hideous death-mask, doubtless the + cause of the screams which Mrs. Catanach had sought to + stifle with the pillows and bed-clothes.</p> + + <p>When Malcolm returned he went at once to the piper's + cottage, where he found him in bed, utterly exhausted and as + utterly restless. "Weel, daddy," he said, "I doobt I daurna + come near ye noo."</p> + + <p>"Come to her arms, my poor poy," faltered Duncan. "She'll pe + sorry in her sore heart for her poy. Nefer you pe minding, my + son: you couldn't help ta Cam'ell mother, and you'll pe her own + poy however. Ochone! it will pe a plot upon you aal your tays, + my son, and she'll not can help you, and it'll pe preaking her + old heart."</p> + + <p>"Gien God thoucht the Cam'ells worth makin', daddy, I dinna + see 'at I hae ony richt to compleen 'at I cam' o' them."</p> + + <p>"She hopes you'll pe forgifing ta plind old man, however. + She couldn't see, or she would haf known at once petter."</p> + + <p>"I dinna ken what ye're efter noo, daddy," said Malcolm.</p> + + <p>"That she'll do you a creat wrong, and she'll be ferry sorry + for it, my son."</p> + + <p>"What wrang did ye ever du me, daddy?"</p> + + <p>"That she was let you crow up a Cam'ell, my poy. If she tid + put know ta paad blood was pe in you, she wouldn't pe tone you + ta wrong as pring you up."</p> + + <p>"That's a wrang no ill to forgi'e, daddy. But it's a pity ye + didna lat me lie, for maybe syne Mistress Catanach wad hae + broucht me up hersel', an' I micht hae come to something."</p> + + <p>"Ta duvil mhor (<i>great</i>) would pe in your heart and + prain and poosom, my son."</p> + + <p>"Weel, ye see what ye hae saved me frae."</p> + + <p>"Yes; put ta duvil will be to pay, for she couldn't safe you + from ta Cam'ell plood, my son. Malcolm, my poy," he added after + a pause, and with the solemnity of a mighty hate, "ta efil + woman herself will pe a Cam'ell—ta woman Catanach will pe + a Cam'ell, and her nainsel' she'll not know it pefore she'll be + in ta ped with ta worstest Cam'ell tat ever God made; and she + pecks his pardon, for she'll not pelieve He wass making ta + Cam'ells."</p> + + <p>"Divna ye think God made me, daddy?" asked Malcolm.</p> + + <p>The old man thought for a little. "Tat will tepend on who + was pe your father, my son," he replied. "If he too will be a + Cam'ell—ochone! ochone! Put tere may pe some coot plood + co into you—more as enough to say God will pe make you, + my son. Put don't pe asking, Malcolm—ton't you'll pe + asking."</p> + + <p>"What am I no to ask, daddy?"</p> + + <p>"Ton't pe asking who made you, who was ta father to you, my + poy. She would rather not pe knowing, for ta man might pe a + Cam'ell poth. And if she couldn't pe lofing you no more, my + son, she would pe tie before her time, and her tays would pe + long in ta land under ta crass, my son."</p> + + <p>But the remembrance of the sweet face whose cold loveliness + he had once kissed was enough to outweigh with Malcolm all the + prejudices of Duncan's instillation, and he was proud to take + up even her shame. To pass from Mrs. Stewart to her was to + escape from the clutches of a vampire demon to the arms of a + sweet mother-angel.</p> + + <p>Deeply concerned for the newly-discovered misfortunes of the + old man to whom he was indebted for this world's life at least, + he anxiously sought to soothe him; but he had far more and far + worse to torment him than Malcolm even yet knew, and with + burning cheeks and bloodshot eyes he lay tossing from side to + side, now uttering terrible curses in Gaelic and now weeping + bitterly. Malcolm took his loved pipes, and with the gentlest + notes he could draw from them tried to charm to rest the + ruffled waters of his spirit; but his efforts were all in vain, + and believing at length that he would be quieter without him, + he went to the House and to his own room.</p> + + <p>The door of the adjoining chamber stood open, and the + long-forbidden room lay exposed to any eye. Little did Malcolm + think as he gazed around it that it was the room in which he + had first breathed <span class="pagenum"><a name="page75" + id="page75"></a>[pg 75]</span> the air of the world; in + which his mother had wept over her own false position and + his reported death; and from which he had been carried, by + Duncan's wicked wife, down the ruinous stair and away to the + lip of the sea, to find a home in the arms of the man whom + he had just left on his lonely couch torn between the + conflicting emotions of a gracious love for him and the + frightful hate of her.</p> + + <h3>CHAPTER LXVII.</h3> + + <h3>FEET OF WOOL.</h3> + + <p>The next day, Miss Horn, punctual as Fate, presented herself + at Lossie House, and was shown at once into the marquis's + study, as it was called. When his lordship entered she took the + lead the moment the door was shut. "By this time, my lord, + ye'll doobtless hae made up yer min' to du what's richt?" she + said.</p> + + <p>"That's what I have always wanted to do," returned the + marquis.</p> + + <p>"Hm!" remarked Miss Horn as plainly as inarticulately.</p> + + <p>"In this affair," he supplemented; adding, "It's not always + so easy to tell what <i>is</i> right."</p> + + <p>"It's no aye easy to luik for 't wi' baith yer een," said + Miss Horn.</p> + + <p>"This woman Catanach—we must get her to give credible + testimony. Whatever the fact may be, we must have strong + evidence. And there comes the difficulty, that she has already + made an altogether different statement."</p> + + <p>"It gangs for naething, my lord. It was never made afore a + justice o' the peace."</p> + + <p>"I wish you would go to her and see how she is + inclined."</p> + + <p>"Me gang to Bawbie Catanach!" exclaimed Miss Horn. "I wad as + sune gang an' kittle Sawtan's nose wi' the p'int o' 's tail. + Na, na, my lord. Gien onybody gang till her wi' my wull, it s' + be a limb o' the law. I s' hae nae cognostin' wi' her."</p> + + <p>"You would have no objection, however; to my seeing her, I + presume—just to let her know that we have an inkling of + the truth?" said the marquis.</p> + + <p>Now, all this was the merest talk, for of course Miss Horn + could not long remain in ignorance of the declaration her fury + had, the night previous, forced from Mrs. Catanach; but he + must, he thought, put her off and keep her quiet, if possible, + until he had come to an understanding with Malcolm, after which + he would no doubt have his trouble with her.</p> + + <p>"Ye can du as yer lordship likes," answered Miss Horn, "but + I wadna hae 't said o' me 'at I had ony dealin's wi' her. Wha + kens but she micht say ye tried to bribe her? There's naething + she wad bogle at gien she thoucht it worth her while. No 'at I + 'm feart at her. Lat her lee! I'm no sae blate but—Only + dinna lippen till a word she says, my lord."</p> + + <p>The marquis hesitated. "I wonder whether the real source of + my perplexity occurs to you, Miss Horn," he said at length. + "You know I have a daughter?"</p> + + <p>"Weel eneuch that, my lord."</p> + + <p>"By my second marriage."</p> + + <p>"Nae merridge ava', my lord."</p> + + <p>"True, if I confess to the first."</p> + + <p>"A' the same whether or no, my lord."</p> + + <p>"Then you see," the marquis went on, refusing offence, "what + the admission of your story would make of my daughter?"</p> + + <p>"That's plain eneuch, my lord."</p> + + <p>"Now, if I have read Malcolm right he has too much regard + for his—mistress—to put her in such a false + position."</p> + + <p>"That is, my lord, ye wad hae yer lawfu' son beir the + lawless name."</p> + + <p>"No, no: it need never come out what he is. I will provide + for him—as a gentleman, of course."</p> + + <p>"It canna be, my lord. Ye can du naething for him, wi' that + face o' his, but oot comes the trouth as to the father o' 'im; + an' it wadna be lang afore the tale was ekit oot wi' the name + o' his mither—Mistress Catanach wad see to that, gien + 'twas only to spite me—an' I wunna hae my Grizel ca'd + what she is not for ony lord's dauchter i' the three + kynriks."</p> + + <p>"What <i>does</i> it matter, now she's dead and gone?" said + the marquis, false to the dead in his love for the + living.</p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page76" + id="page76"></a>[pg 76]</span> + + <p>"Deid an' gane, my lord? What ca' ye deid an' gane? Maybe + the great anes o' the yerth get sic a forlethie + (<i>surfeit</i>) o' grand'ur 'at they're for nae mair, an' wad + perish like the brute beast. For onything I ken, they may hae + their wuss, but for mysel', I wad warstle to haud my sowl + waukin' (<i>awake</i>) i' the verra article o' deith, for the + bare chance o' seein' my bonny Grizel again. It's a mercy I hae + nae feelin's," she added, arresting her handkerchief on its way + to her eyes, and refusing to acknowledge the single tear that + ran down her cheek.</p> + + <p>Plainly she was not like any of the women whose characters + the marquis had accepted as typical of womankind.</p> + + <p>"Then you won't leave the matter to her husband and son?" he + said reproachfully.</p> + + <p>"I tellt ye, my lord, I wad du naething but what I saw to be + richt. Lat this affair oot o' my han's I daurna. That laad ye + micht work to onything 'at made agane himsel'. He's jist like + his puir mither there."</p> + + <p>"If Miss Campbell <i>was</i> his mother," said the + marquis.</p> + + <p>"Miss Cam'ell!" cried Miss Horn. "I'll thank yer lordship to + ca' her by her ain, an' that's Lady Lossie."</p> + + <p>What of the something ruinous heart of the marquis was + habitable was occupied by his daughter, and had no + accommodation at present either for his dead wife or his living + son. Once more he sat thinking in silence for a while. "I'll + make Malcolm a post-captain in the navy and give you a thousand + pounds," he said at length, hardly knowing that he spoke.</p> + + <p>Miss Horn rose to her full height and stood like an angel of + rebuke before him. Not a word did she speak, only looked at him + for a moment and turned to leave the room. The marquis saw his + danger, and striding to the door stood with his back against + it.</p> + + <p>"Think ye to scare <i>me</i>, my lord?" she asked with a + scornful laugh. "Gang an' scare the stane lion-beast at yer + ha'-door. Haud oot o' the gait an' lat me gang."</p> + + <p>"Not until I know what you are going to do," said the + marquis very seriously.</p> + + <p>"I hae naething mair to transac' wi' yer lordship. You an' + me 's strangers, my lord."</p> + + <p>"Tut! tut! I was but trying you."</p> + + <p>"An' gien I had ta'en the disgrace ye offert me, ye wad hae + drawn back?"</p> + + <p>"No, certainly."</p> + + <p>"Ye wasna tryin' me, then: ye was duin' yer best to corrup' + me."</p> + + <p>"I'm no splitter of hairs."</p> + + <p>"My lord, it's nane but the corrup'ible wad seek to + corrup'."</p> + + <p>The marquis gnawed a nail or two in silence. Miss Horn + dragged an easy-chair within a couple of yards of him.</p> + + <p>"We'll see wha tires o' this ghem first, my lord," she said + as she sank into its hospitable embrace.</p> + + <p>The marquis turned to lock the door, but there was no key in + it. Neither was there any chair within reach, and he was not + fond of standing. Clearly, his enemy had the advantage.</p> + + <p>"Hae ye h'ard o' puir Sandy Graham—hoo they're + misguidin' him, my lord?" she asked with composure.</p> + + <p>The marquis was first astounded, and then tickled by her + assurance. "No," he answered.</p> + + <p>"They hae turnt him oot o' hoose an' ha'—schuil, at + least, an' hame," she rejoined. "I may say they hae turnt him + oot o' Scotlan', for what presbytery wad hae him efter he had + been fun' guilty o' no thinkin' like ither fowk? Ye maun stan' + his guid freen', my lord."</p> + + <p>"He shall be Malcolm's tutor," answered the marquis, not to + be outdone in coolness, "and go with him to Edinburgh—or + Oxford, if he prefers it."</p> + + <p>"Never yerl o' Colonsay had a better," said Miss Horn.</p> + + <p>"Softly, softly, ma'am," returned the marquis. "I did not + say he should go in that style."</p> + + <p>"He s' gang as my lord o' Colonsay or he s' no gang at + <i>your</i> expense, my lord," said his antagonist.</p> + + <p>"Really, ma'am, one would think you were my grandmother, to + hear you order my affairs for me."</p> + + <p>"I wuss I war, my lord: I sud gar ye hear risson upo' baith + sides o' yer heid, I s' warran'."</p> + + <p>The marquis laughed. "Well, I can't + <span class="pagenum"><a name="page77" + id="page77"></a>[pg 77]</span> stand here all day," he said, + impatiently swinging one leg.</p> + + <p>"I'm weel awaur o' that, my lord," answered Miss Horn, + rearranging her scanty skirt.</p> + + <p>"How long are you going to keep me, then?"</p> + + <p>"I wadna hae ye bide a meenute langer nor's agreeable to + yersel'. But <i>I</i>'m in nae hurry sae lang's ye're afore me. + Ye're nae ill to luik at, though ye maun hae been bonnier the + day ye wan the hert o' my Grizel."</p> + + <p>The marquis uttered an oath and left the door. Miss Horn + sprang to it, but there was the marquis again. "Miss Horn," he + said, "I beg you will give me another day to think of + this."</p> + + <p>"Whaur's the use? A' the thinkin' i' the warl' canna alter a + single fac'. Ye maun do richt by my laddie o' yer ainsel', or I + maun gar ye."</p> + + <p>"You would find a lawsuit heavy, Miss Horn."</p> + + <p>"An' ye wad fin' the scandal o' 't ill to bide, my lord. It + wad come sair upo' Miss—I kenna what name she has a richt + till, my lord."</p> + + <p>The marquis uttered a frightful imprecation, left the door, + and, sitting down, hid his face in his hands.</p> + + <p>Miss Horn rose, but instead of securing her retreat, + approached him gently and stood by his side. "My lord," she + said, "I canna thole to see a man in tribble. Women's born till + 't, an' they tak it an' are thankfu'; but a man never gies in + till 't, an' sae it comes harder upo' him nor upo' them. Hear + me, my lord: gien there be a man upo' this earth wha wad shield + a woman, that man's Ma'colm Colonsay."</p> + + <p>"If only she weren't his sister!" murmured the marquis.</p> + + <p>"An' jist bethink ye, my lord: wad it be onything less nor + an imposition to lat a man merry her ohn tellt him what she + was?"</p> + + <p>"You insolent old woman!" cried the marquis, losing his + temper, discretion and manners all together. "Go and do your + worst, and be damned to you!"</p> + + <p>So saying, he left the room, and Miss Horn found her way out + of the house in a temper quite as fierce as his—in + character, however, entirely different, inasmuch as it was + righteous.</p> + + <p>At that very moment Malcolm was in search of his master, and + seeing the back of him disappear in the library, to which he + had gone in a half-blind rage, he followed him. "My lord!" he + said.</p> + + <p>"What do you want?" returned his master in a rage. For some + time he had been hauling on the curb-rein, which had fretted + his temper the more, and when he let go the devil ran away with + him.</p> + + <p>"I thoucht yer lordship wad like to see an auld stair I cam + upo' the ither day, 'at gangs frae the wizard's + chaumer—"</p> + + <p>"Go to hell with your damned tomfoolery!" said the marquis. + "If ever you mention that cursed hole again I'll kick you out + of the house."</p> + + <p>Malcolm's eyes flashed and a fierce answer rose to his lips, + but he had seen that his master was in trouble, and sympathy + supplanted rage. He turned and left the room in silence.</p> + + <p>Lord Lossie paced up and down the library for a whole + hour—a long time for him to be in one mood. The mood + changed color pretty frequently during the hour, however, and + by degrees his wrath assuaged. But at the end of it he knew no + more what he was going to do than when he left Miss Horn in the + study. Then came the gnawing of his usual ennui and + restlessness: he must find something to do.</p> + + <p>The thing he always thought of first was a ride, but the + only animal of horse-kind about the place which he liked was + the bay mare, and her he had lamed. He would go and see what + the rascal had come bothering about—alone, though, for he + could not endure the sight of the fisher-fellow, damn him!</p> + + <p>In a few minutes he stood in the wizard's chamber, and + glanced around it with a feeling of discomfort rather than + sorrow—of annoyance at the trouble of which it had been + for him both fountain and storehouse, rather than regret for + the agony and contempt which his selfishness had brought upon + the woman he loved: then spying the door in the farthest + corner, he made for it, and in a + <span class="pagenum"><a name="page78" + id="page78"></a>[pg 78]</span> moment more, his curiosity + now thoroughly roused, was slowly gyrating down the steps of + the old screw-stair.</p> + + <p>But Malcolm had gone to his own room, and, hearing some one + in the next, half suspected who it was, and went in. Seeing the + closet-door open, he hurried to the stair, and shouted, "My + lord! my lord! or whaever ye are! tak care hoo ye gang or ye'll + get a terrible fa'."</p> + + <p>Down a single yard the stair was quite dark, and he dared + not follow fast for fear of himself falling and occasioning the + accident he feared. As he descended he kept repeating his + warnings, but either his master did not hear or heeded too + little, for presently Malcolm heard a rush, a dull fall and a + groan. Hurrying as fast as he dared with the risk of falling + upon him, he found the marquis lying amongst the stones in the + ground entrance, apparently unable to move, and white with + pain. Presently, however, he got up, swore a good deal and + limped swearing into the house.</p> + + <p>The doctor, who was sent for instantly, pronounced the + knee-cap injured, and applied leeches. Inflammation set in, and + another doctor and surgeon were sent for from Aberdeen. They + came, applied poultices, and again leeches, and enjoined the + strictest repose. The pain was severe, but to one of the + marquis's temperament the enforced quiet was worse.</p> + + <h3>CHAPTER LXVIII.</h3> + + <h3>HANDS OF IRON.</h3> + + <p>The marquis was loved by his domestics, and his accident, + with its consequences, although none more serious were + anticipated, cast a gloom over Lossie House. Far apart as was + his chamber from all the centres of domestic life, the pulses + of his suffering beat as it were through the house, and the + servants moved with hushed voice and gentle footfall.</p> + + <p>Outside, the course of events waited upon his recovery, for + Miss Horn, was too generous not to delay proceedings while her + adversary was ill. Besides, what she most of all desired was + the marquis's free acknowledgment of his son; and after such a + time of suffering and constrained reflection as he was now + passing through he could hardly fail, she thought, to be more + inclined to what was just and fair.</p> + + <p>Malcolm had of course hastened to the schoolmaster with the + joy of his deliverance from Mrs. Stewart, but Mr. Graham had + not acquainted him with the discovery Miss Horn had made, or + her belief concerning his large interest therein, to which + Malcolm's report of the wrath-born declaration of Mrs. Catanach + had now supplied the only testimony wanting, for the right of + disclosure was Miss Horn's. To her he had carried Malcolm's + narrative of late events, tenfold strengthening her position; + but she was anxious in her turn that the revelation concerning + his birth should come to him from his father. Hence, Malcolm + continued in ignorance of the strange dawn that had begun to + break on the darkness of his origin.</p> + + <p>Miss Horn had told Mr. Graham what the marquis had said + about the tutorship, but the schoolmaster only shook his head + with a smile, and went on with his preparations for + departure.</p> + + <p>The hours went by, the days lengthened into weeks, and the + marquis's condition did not improve. He had never known + sickness and pain before, and like most of the children of this + world counted them the greatest of evils; nor was there any + sign of their having as yet begun to open his eyes to what + those who have seen them call truths—those who have never + even boded their presence count absurdities.</p> + + <p>More and more, however, he desired the attendance of + Malcolm, who was consequently a great deal about him, serving + with a love to account for which those who knew his nature + would not have found it necessary to fall back on the instinct + of the relation between them. The marquis had soon satisfied + himself that that relation was as yet unknown to him, and was + all the better pleased with his devotion and + tenderness.</p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page79" + id="page79"></a>[pg 79]</span> + + <p>The inflammation continued, increased, spread, and at length + the doctors determined to amputate. But the marquis was + absolutely horrified at the idea—shrank from it with + invincible repugnance. The moment the first dawn of + comprehension vaguely illuminated their periphrastic approaches + he blazed out in a fury, cursed them frightfully, called them + all the contemptuous names in his rather limited vocabulary, + and swore he would see them—uncomfortable first.</p> + + <p>"We fear mortification, my lord," said the physician + calmly.</p> + + <p>"So do I. Keep it off," returned the marquis.</p> + + <p>"We fear we cannot, my lord." It had, in fact, already + commenced.</p> + + <p>"Let it mortify, then, and be damned," said his + lordship.</p> + + <p>"I trust, my lord, you will reconsider it," said the + surgeon. "We should not have dreamed of suggesting a measure of + such severity had we not had reason to dread that the further + prosecution of gentler means would but lessen your lordship's + chance of recovery."</p> + + <p>"You mean, then, that my life is in danger?"</p> + + <p>"We fear," said the physician, "that the amputation proposed + is the only thing that can save it."</p> + + <p>"What a brace of blasted bunglers you are!" cried the + marquis, and, turning away his face, lay silent.</p> + + <p>The two men looked at each other and said nothing.</p> + + <p>Malcolm was by, and a pang shot to his heart at the verdict. + The men retired to consult. Malcolm approached the bed. "My + lord!" he said gently.</p> + + <p>No reply came.</p> + + <p>"Dinna lea 's oor lanes, my lord—no yet," Malcolm + persisted. "What's to come o' my leddy?"</p> + + <p>The marquis gave a gasp. Still he made no reply.</p> + + <p>"She has naebody, ye ken, my lord, 'at ye wad like to lippen + her wi'."</p> + + <p>"You must take care of her when I am gone, Malcolm," + murmured the marquis; and his voice was now gentle with sadness + and broken with misery.</p> + + <p>"Me, my lord!" returned Malcolm. "Wha wad min' me? An' what + cud I du wi' her? I cudna even hand her ohn wat her feet. Her + leddy's maid cud du mair wi' her, though I wad lay doon my life + for her, as I tauld ye, my lord; an' she kens 't weel + eneuch."</p> + + <p>Silence followed. Both men were thinking.</p> + + <p>"Gie me a richt, my lord, an' I'll du my best," said + Malcolm, at length breaking the silence.</p> + + <p>"What do you mean?" growled the marquis, whose mood had + altered.</p> + + <p>"Gie me a legal richt, my lord, an' see gien I dinna."</p> + + <p>"See what?"</p> + + <p>"See gien I dinna luik weel efter my leddy."</p> + + <p>"How am I to see? I shall be dead and damned."</p> + + <p>"Please God, my lord, ye'll be alive an' weel—in a + better place, if no here to luik efter my leddy yersel'."</p> + + <p>"Oh, I dare say," muttered the marquis.</p> + + <p>"But ye'll hearken to the doctors, my lord," Malcolm went + on, "an' no dee wantin' time to consider o' 't."</p> + + <p>"Yes, yes: to-morrow I'll have another talk with them. We'll + see about it. There's time enough yet. They're all coxcombs, + every one of them. They never give a patient the least credit + for common sense."</p> + + <p>"I dinna ken, my lord," said Malcolm doubtfully.</p> + + <p>After a few minutes' silence, during which Malcolm thought + he had fallen asleep, the marquis resumed abruptly. "What do + you mean by giving you a legal right?" he said.</p> + + <p>"There's some w'y o' makin' ae body guairdian till anither, + sae 'at the law 'll uphaud him—isna there, my lord?"</p> + + <p>"Yes, surely. Well! Rather odd—wouldn't it be?—a + young fisher-lad guardian to a marchioness! Eh? They say + there's nothing new under the sun, but that sounds rather like + it, I think."</p> + + <p>Malcolm was overjoyed to hear him speak with something like + his old manner. He felt he could stand any amount of chaff from + him now, and so the proposition he had made in seriousness he + <span class="pagenum"><a name="page80" + id="page80"></a>[pg 80]</span> went on to defend in the hope + of giving amusement, yet with a secret wild delight in the + dream of such full devotion to the service of Lady + Florimel.</p> + + <p>"It wad soon' queer eneuch, my lord, nae doobt, but fowk + maunna min' the soon' o' a thing gien 't be a' straucht an' + fair, an' strong eneuch to stan'. They cudna lauch me oot o' my + richts, be they 'at they likit—Lady Bellair or ony o' + them—na, nor jaw me oot o' them aither."</p> + + <p>"They might do a good deal to render those rights of little + use," said the marquis.</p> + + <p>"That wad come till a trial o' brains, my lord," returned + Malcolm: "an' ye dinna think I wadna hae the wit to speir + advice; an', what's mair, to ken whan it was guid, an' tak it. + There's lawyers, my lord."</p> + + <p>"And their expenses?"</p> + + <p>"Ye cud lea' sae muckle to be waured (<i>spent</i>) upo' the + cairryin' oot o' yer lordship's wull."</p> + + <p>"Who would see that you applied it properly?"</p> + + <p>"My ain conscience, my lord, or Mr. Graham gien ye + likit."</p> + + <p>"And how would you live yourself?"</p> + + <p>"Ow! lea' ye that to me, my lord. Only dinna imagine I wad + be behauden to yer lordship. I houp I hae mair pride nor that. + Ilka poun'-not', shillin' an' bawbee sud be laid oot for + <i>her</i>, an' what was left hainet (<i>saved</i>) for + her."</p> + + <p>"By Jove! it's a daring proposal!" said the marquis; and, + which seemed strange to Malcolm, not a single thread of + ridicule ran through the tone in which he made the remark.</p> + + <p>The next day came, but brought neither strength of body nor + of mind with it. Again his professional attendants besought + him, and he heard them more quietly, but rejected their + proposition as positively as before. In a day or two he ceased + to oppose it, but would not hear of preparation. Hour glided + into hour, and days had gathered to a week, when they assailed + him with a solemn and last appeal.</p> + + <p>"Nonsense!" answered the marquis. "My leg is getting better. + I feel no pain—in fact, nothing but a little faintness. + Your damned medicines, I haven't a doubt."</p> + + <p>"You are in the greatest danger, my lord. It is all but too + late even now."</p> + + <p>"To-morrow, then, if it must be. To-day I could not endure + to have my hair cut, positively; and as to having my leg + off—pooh! the thing's preposterous."</p> + + <p>He turned white and shuddered, for all the nonchalance of + his speech.</p> + + <p>When to-morrow came there was not a surgeon in the land who + would have taken his leg off. He looked in their faces, and + seemed for the first time convinced of the necessity of the + measure.</p> + + <p>"You may do as you please," he said: "I am ready."</p> + + <p>"Not to-day, my lord," replied the doctor—"your + lordship is not equal to it to-day."</p> + + <p>"I understand," said the marquis, and paled frightfully and + turned his head aside.</p> + + <p>When Mrs. Courthope suggested that Lady Florimel should be + sent for, he flew into a frightful rage, and spoke as it is to + be hoped he had never spoken to a woman before. She took it + with perfect gentleness, but could not repress a tear. The + marquis saw it, and his heart was touched. "You mustn't mind a + dying man's temper," he said.</p> + + <p>"It's not for myself, my lord," she answered.</p> + + <p>"I know: you think I'm not fit to die; and, damn it! you are + right. Never one was less fit for heaven or less willing to go + to hell."</p> + + <p>"Wouldn't you like to see a clergyman, my lord?" she + suggested, sobbing.</p> + + <p>He was on the point of breaking out into a still worse + passion, but controlled himself. "A clergyman!" he cried: "I + would as soon see the undertaker. What could he do but tell me + I was going to be damned—a fact I know better than he + can? That is, if it's not all an invention of the cloth, as, in + my soul, I believe it is. I've said so any time these forty + years."</p> + + <p>"Oh, my lord! my lord! do not fling away your last + hope."</p> + + <p>"You imagine me to have a chance, then? Good soul! you don't + know any better."</p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page81" + id="page81"></a>[pg 81]</span> + + <p>"The Lord is merciful."</p> + + <p>The marquis laughed—that is, he tried, failed, and + grinned.</p> + + <p>"Mr. Cairns is in the dining-room, my lord."</p> + + <p>"Bah! A low pettifogger, with the soul of a bullock. Don't + let me hear the fellow's name. I've been bad enough, God knows, + but I haven't sunk to the level of <i>his</i> help yet. If he's + God Almighty's factor, and the saw holds, 'Like master, like + man,' well, I would rather have nothing to do with either."</p> + + <p>"That is, if you had the choice, my lord," said Mrs. + Courthope, her temper yielding somewhat, though in truth his + speech was not half so irreverent as it seemed to her.</p> + + <p>"Tell him to go to hell. No, don't: set him down to a bottle + of port and a great sponge-cake, and you needn't tell him to go + to heaven, for he'll be there already. Why, Mrs. Courthope, the + fellow isn't a gentleman. And yet all he cares for the cloth is + that he thinks it makes a gentleman of him—as if anything + in heaven, earth or hell could work that miracle!"</p> + + <p>In the middle of the night, as Malcolm sat by his bed, + thinking him asleep, the marquis spoke suddenly. "You must go + to Aberdeen to-morrow, Malcolm," he said.</p> + + <p>"Verra weel, my lord."</p> + + <p>"And bring Mr. Glennie, the lawyer, back with you."</p> + + <p>"Yes, my lord."</p> + + <p>"Go to bed, then."</p> + + <p>"I wad raither bide, my lord. I cudna sleep a wink for + wantin' to be back aside ye."</p> + + <p>The marquis yielded, and Malcolm sat by him all the night + through. He tossed about, would doze off and murmur strangely, + then wake up and ask for brandy and water, yet be content with + the lemonade Malcolm gave him.</p> + + <p>Next day he quarreled with every word that Mrs. Courthope + uttered, kept forgetting he had sent Malcolm away, and was + continually wanting him. His fits of pain were more severe, + alternated with drowsiness, which deepened at times to + stupor.</p> + + <p>It was late before Malcolm returned. He went instantly to + his bedside.</p> + + <p>"Is Mr. Glennie with you?" asked his master feebly.</p> + + <p>"Yes, my lord."</p> + + <p>"Tell him to come here at once."</p> + + <p>When Malcolm returned with the lawyer the marquis directed + him to place a table and chair by the bedside, light four + candles, provide everything necessary for writing and go to + bed.</p> + + <h3>CHAPTER LXIX.</h3> + + <h3>THE MARQUIS AND THE SCHOOLMASTER.</h3> + + <p>Before Malcolm was awake his lordship had sent for him. When + he re-entered the sick chamber Mr. Glennie had vanished, the + table had been removed, and, instead of the radiance of the + wax-lights, the cold gleam of a vapor-dimmed sun, with its + sickly blue-white reflex from the widespread snow, filled the + room. The marquis looked ghastly, but was sipping chocolate + with a spoon.</p> + + <p>"What w'y are ye the day, my lord?" asked Malcolm.</p> + + <p>"Nearly well," he answered; "but those cursed carrion-crows + are set upon killing me—damn their souls!"</p> + + <p>"We'll hae Leddy Florimel sweirin' awfu' gien ye gang on + that gait, my lord," said Malcolm.</p> + + <p>The marquis laughed feebly.</p> + + <p>"An' what's mair," Malcolm continued, "I doobt they're some + partic'lar aboot the turn o' their phrases up yonner, my + lord."</p> + + <p>The marquis looked at him keenly. "You don't anticipate that + inconvenience for me?" he said. "I'm pretty sure to have my + billet where they're not so precise."</p> + + <p>"Dinna brak my hert, my lord," cried Malcolm, the tears + rushing to his eyes.</p> + + <p>"I should be sorry to hurt you, Malcalm," rejoined the + marquis gently, almost tenderly. "I won't go there if I can + help it—I shouldn't like to break any more + hearts—but how the devil am I to keep out of it? Besides, + there are people up there I don't want to meet: I have no fancy + for being made ashamed <span class="pagenum"><a name="page82" + id="page82"></a>[pg 82]</span> of myself. The fact is, I'm + not fit for such company, and I don't believe there is any + such place. But if there be, I trust in God there isn't any + other, or it will go badly with your poor master, Malcolm. + It doesn't look <i>like</i> true—now does it? Only + such a multitude of things I thought I had done with for + ever keep coming up and grinning at me. It nearly drives me + mad, Malcolm; and I would fain die like a gentleman, with a + cool bow and a sharp face-about."</p> + + <p>"Wadna ye hae a word wi' somebody 'at kens, my lord?" said + Malcolm, scarcely able to reply.</p> + + <p>"No," answered the marquis fiercely. "That Cairns is a + fool."</p> + + <p>"He's a' that, an' mair, my lord. I didna mean + <i>him</i>."</p> + + <p>"They're all fools together."</p> + + <p>"Ow, na, my lord. There's a heap o' them no muckle better, + it may be; but there's guid men an' true amang them, or the + Kirk wad hae been wi' Sodom and Gomorrah by this time. But it's + no a minister I wad hae yer lordship confar wi'."</p> + + <p>"Who, then? Mrs. Courthope, eh?"</p> + + <p>"Ow na, my lord—no Mistress Courthoup. She's a guid + body, but she wadna believe her ain een gien onybody ca'd a + minister said contrar' to them."</p> + + <p>"Who the devil do you mean, then?"</p> + + <p>"Nae deevil, but an honest man 'at's been his warst enemy + sae lang 's I hae kent him—Maister Graham, the + schuil-maister."</p> + + <p>"Pooh!" said the marquis with a puff. "I'm too old to go to + school."</p> + + <p>"I dinna ken the man 'at isna a bairn till <i>him</i>, my + lord."</p> + + <p>"In Greek and Latin?"</p> + + <p>"I' richteousness an' trouth, my lord—in what's been + an' what is to be."</p> + + <p>"What! has he the second sight, like the piper?"</p> + + <p>"He <i>has</i> the second sicht, my lord, but ane 'at gangs + a sicht farther nor my auld daddy's."</p> + + <p>"He could tell me, then, what's going to become of me?"</p> + + <p>"As weel 's ony man, my lord."</p> + + <p>"That's not saying much, I fear."</p> + + <p>"Maybe mair nor ye think, my lord."</p> + + <p>"Well, take him my compliments and tell him I should like to + see him," said the marquis after a minute's silence.</p> + + <p>"He'll come direckly, my lord."</p> + + <p>"Of course he will," said the marquis.</p> + + <p>"Jist as readily, my lord, as he wad gang to ony tramp 'at + sent for 'im at sic a time," returned Malcolm, who did not + relish either the remark or its tone.</p> + + <p>"What do you mean by that? <i>You</i> don't think it such a + serious affair, do you?"</p> + + <p>"My lord, ye haena a chance."</p> + + <p>The marquis was dumb. He had actually begun once more to + buoy himself up with earthly hopes.</p> + + <p>Dreading a recall of his commission, Malcolm slipped from + the room, sent Mrs. Courthope to take his place, and sped to + the schoolmaster. The moment Mr. Graham heard the marquis's + message he rose without a word and led the way from the + cottage. Hardly a sentence passed between them as they went, + for they were on a solemn errand.</p> + + <p>"Mr. Graham's here, my lord," said Malcolm.</p> + + <p>"Where? Not in the room?" returned the marquis.</p> + + <p>"Waitin' at the door, my lord."</p> + + <p>"Bah! You needn't have been so ready. Have you told the + sexton to get a new spade? But you may let him in; and leave + him alone with me."</p> + + <p>Mr. Graham walked gently up to the bedside.</p> + + <p>"Sit down, sir," said the marquis courteously, pleased with + the calm, self-possessed, unobtrusive bearing of the man. "They + tell me I'm dying, Mr. Graham."</p> + + <p>"I'm sorry it seems to trouble you, my lord."</p> + + <p>"What! wouldn't it trouble you, then?"</p> + + <p>"I don't think so, my lord."</p> + + <p>"Ah! you're one of the elect, no doubt?"</p> + + <p>"That's a thing I never did think about, my lord."</p> + + <p>"What do you think about, then?"</p> + + <p>"About God."</p> + + <p>"And when you die you'll go straight to heaven, of + course?"</p> + + <p>"I don't know, my lord. That's + <span class="pagenum"><a name="page83" + id="page83"></a>[pg 83]</span> another thing I never trouble + my head about."</p> + + <p>"Ah! you're like me, then. <i>I</i> don't care much about + going to heaven. What do you care about?"</p> + + <p>"The will of God. I hope your lordship will say the + same."</p> + + <p>"No I won't: I want my own will."</p> + + <p>"Well, that is to be had, my lord."</p> + + <p>"How?"</p> + + <p>"By taking his for yours as the better of the two, which it + must be every way."</p> + + <p>"That's all moonshine."</p> + + <p>"It <i>is</i> light, my lord."</p> + + <p>"Well, I don't mind confessing, if I am to die, I should + prefer heaven to the other place, but I trust I have no chance + of either. Do you now honestly believe there are two such + places?"</p> + + <p>"I don't know, my lord."</p> + + <p>"You don't know? And you come here to comfort a dying + man!"</p> + + <p>"Your lordship must first tell me what you mean by 'two + <i>such</i> places.' And as to comfort, going by my notions, I + cannot tell which you would be more or less comfortable in; and + that, I presume, would be the main point with your + lordship."</p> + + <p>"And what, pray, sir, would be the main point with you?"</p> + + <p>"To get nearer to God."</p> + + <p>"Well, I can't say <i>I</i> want to get nearer to God. It's + little he's ever done for me."</p> + + <p>"It's a good deal he has tried to do for you, my lord."</p> + + <p>"Well, who interfered? Who stood in his way, then?"</p> + + <p>"Yourself, my lord."</p> + + <p>"I wasn't aware of it. When did he ever try to do anything + for me and I stood in his way?"</p> + + <p>"When he gave you one of the loveliest of women, my lord," + said Mr. Graham with solemn, faltering voice, "and you left her + to die in neglect and her child to be brought up by + strangers."</p> + + <p>The marquis gave a cry. The unexpected answer had roused the + slowly-gnawing death and made it bite deeper.</p> + + <p>"What have <i>you</i> to do," he almost screamed, "with my + affairs? It was for <i>me</i> to introduce what I chose of + them. You presume."</p> + + <p>"Pardon me, my lord: you led me to what I was bound to say. + Shall I leave you, my lord?"</p> + + <p>The marquis made no answer. "God knows I loved her," he said + after a while with a sigh.</p> + + <p>"You loved her, my lord?"</p> + + <p>"I did, by God!"</p> + + <p>"Love a woman like that and come to this?"</p> + + <p>"Come to this? We must all come to this, I fancy, sooner or + later. Come to what, in the name of Beelzebub?"</p> + + <p>"That, having loved a woman like her, you are content to + lose her. In the name of God, have you no desire to see her + again?"</p> + + <p>"It would be an awkward meeting," said the marquis.</p> + + <p>His was an old love, alas! He had not been capable of the + sort that defies change. It had faded from him until it seemed + one of the things that are not. Although his being had once + glowed in its light, he could now speak of a meeting as + awkward.</p> + + <p>"Because you wronged her?" suggested the schoolmaster.</p> + + <p>"Because they lied to me, by God!"</p> + + <p>"Which they dared not have done had you not lied to them + first."</p> + + <p>"Sir!" shouted the marquis, with all the voice he had + left.—"O God, have mercy! I <i>cannot</i> punish the + scoundrel."</p> + + <p>"The scoundrel is the man who lies, my lord."</p> + + <p>"Were I anywhere else—"</p> + + <p>"There would be no good in telling you the truth, my lord. + You showed her to the world as a woman over whom you had + prevailed, and not as the honest wife she was. What <i>kind</i> + of a lie was that, my lord? Not a white one, surely?"</p> + + <p>"You are a damned coward to speak so to a man who cannot + even turn on his side to curse you for a base hound. You would + not dare it but that you know I cannot defend myself."</p> + + <p>"You are right, my lord: your conduct is indefensible."</p> + + <p>"By Heaven! if I could but get this cursed leg under me, I + would throw you out of the window."</p> + + <p>"I shall go by the door, my lord. + <span class="pagenum"><a name="page84" + id="page84"></a>[pg 84]</span> While you hold by your sins, + your sins will hold by you. If you should want me again I + shall be at your lordship's command."</p> + + <p>He rose and left the room, but had not reached his cottage + before Malcolm overtook him with a second message from his + master. He turned at once, saying only, "I expected it."</p> + + <p>"Mr. Graham," said the marquis, looking ghastly, "you must + have patience with a dying man. I was very rude to you, but I + was in horrible pain."</p> + + <p>"Don't mention it, my lord. It would be a poor friendship + that gave way for a rough word."</p> + + <p>"How can you call yourself my friend?"</p> + + <p>"I should be your friend, my lord, if it were only for your + wife's sake. She died loving you. I want to send you to her, my + lord. You will allow that, as a gentleman, you at least owe her + an apology."</p> + + <p>"By Jove, you are right, sir! Then you really and positively + believe in the place they call heaven?"</p> + + <p>"My lord, I believe that those who open their hearts to the + truth shall see the light on their friends' faces again, and be + able to set right what was wrong between them."</p> + + <p>"It's a week too late to talk of setting right."</p> + + <p>"Go and tell her you are sorry, my lord—that will be + enough for her."</p> + + <p>"Ah! but there's more than her concerned."</p> + + <p>"You are right, my lord. There is another—One who + cannot be satisfied that the fairest works of his hands, or + rather the loveliest children of his heart, should be treated + as you have treated women."</p> + + <p>"But the Deity you talk of—"</p> + + <p>"I beg your pardon, my lord: I talked of no deity. I talked + of a living Love that gave us birth and calls us his children. + Your deity I know nothing of."</p> + + <p>"Call Him what you please: <i>He</i> won't be put off so + easily."</p> + + <p>"He won't be put off, one jot or one tittle. He will forgive + anything, but He will pass nothing. Will your wife forgive + you?"</p> + + <p>"She will, when I explain."</p> + + <p>"Then why should you think the forgiveness of God, which + created her forgiveness, should be less?"</p> + + <p>Whether the marquis could grasp the reasoning may be + doubtful.</p> + + <p>"Do you really suppose God cares whether a man comes to good + or ill?"</p> + + <p>"If He did not, He could not be good Himself."</p> + + <p>"Then you don't think a good God would care to punish poor + wretches like us?"</p> + + <p>"Your lordship has not been in the habit of regarding + himself as a poor wretch. And, remember, you can't call a child + a poor wretch without insulting the father of it."</p> + + <p>"That's quite another thing."</p> + + <p>"But on the wrong side for your argument, seeing the + relation between God and the poorest creature is infinitely + closer than that between any father and his child."</p> + + <p>"Then He can't be so hard on him as the parsons say."</p> + + <p>"He will give him absolute justice, which is the only good + thing. He will spare nothing to bring his children back to + Himself, their sole well-being. What would you do, my lord, if + you saw your son strike a woman?"</p> + + <p>"Knock him down and horsewhip him."</p> + + <p>It was Mr. Graham who broke the silence that followed: "Are + you satisfied with yourself, my lord?"</p> + + <p>"No, by God!"</p> + + <p>"You would like to be better?"</p> + + <p>"I would."</p> + + <p>"Then you are of the same mind with God."</p> + + <p>"Yes, but I'm not a fool. It won't do to say I should like + to be. I must be it, and that's not so easy. It's damned hard + to be good. I would have a fight for it, but there's no time. + How is a poor devil to get out of such an infernal scrape?"</p> + + <p>"Keep the commandments."</p> + + <p>"That's it, of course; but there's no time, I tell + you—no time; at least, so those cursed doctors will keep + telling me."</p> + + <p>"If there were but time to draw + <span class="pagenum"><a name="page85" + id="page85"></a>[pg 85]</span> another breath, there would + be time to begin."</p> + + <p>"How am I to begin? Which am I to begin with?"</p> + + <p>"There is one commandment which includes all the rest."</p> + + <p>"Which is that?"</p> + + <p>"To believe in the Lord Jesus Christ."</p> + + <p>"That's cant."</p> + + <p>"After thirty years' trial of it, it is to me the essence of + wisdom. It has given me a peace which makes life or death all + but indifferent to me, though I would choose the latter."</p> + + <p>"What am I to believe about Him, then?"</p> + + <p>"You are to believe <i>in</i> Him, not about Him."</p> + + <p>"I don't understand."</p> + + <p>"He is our Lord and Master, Elder Brother, King, Saviour, + the divine Man, the human God: to believe in Him is to give + ourselves up to Him in obedience—to search out his will + and do it."</p> + + <p>"But there's no time, I tell you again," the marquis almost + shrieked.</p> + + <p>"And I tell you there is all eternity to do it in. Take Him + for your master, and He will demand nothing of you which you + are not able to perform. This is the open door to bliss. With + your last breath you can cry to Him, and He will hear you as He + heard the thief on the cross, who cried to Him dying beside + him: 'Lord, remember me when Thou comest into Thy + kingdom.'—'To-day shalt thou be with me in paradise.' It + makes my heart swell to think of it, my lord. No + cross-questioning of the poor fellow, no preaching to him. He + just took him with Him where He was going, to make a man of + him."</p> + + <p>"Well, you know something of my history: what would you have + me do now?—at once, I mean. What would the Person you are + speaking of have me do?"</p> + + <p>"That is not for me to say, my lord."</p> + + <p>"You could give me a hint."</p> + + <p>"No. God is telling you Himself. For me to presume to tell + you would be to interfere with Him. What He would have a man do + He lets him know in his mind."</p> + + <p>"But what if I had not made up my mind before the last + came?"</p> + + <p>"Then I fear He would say to you, 'Depart from me, thou + worker of iniquity.'"</p> + + <p>"That would be hard when another minute might have done + it."</p> + + <p>"If another minute would have done it, you would have had + it."</p> + + <p>A paroxysm of pain followed, during which Mr. Graham + silently left him.</p> + + <h3>CHAPTER LXX.</h3> + + <h3>END OR BEGINNING?</h3> + + <p>When the fit was over and he found Mr. Graham was gone, he + asked Malcolm, who had resumed his watch, how long it would + take Lady Florimel to come from Edinburgh.</p> + + <p>"Mr. Crathie left wi' fower horses frae the Lossie Airms + last nicht, my lord," said Malcolm; "but the ro'ds are ill, an' + she winna be here afore some time the morn."</p> + + <p>The marquis stared aghast: they had sent for her without his + orders. "What <i>shall</i> I do?" he murmured. "If once I look + in her eyes, I shall be damned.—Malcolm!"</p> + + <p>"Yes, my lord."</p> + + <p>"Is there a lawyer in Portlossie?"</p> + + <p>"Yes, my lord: there's auld Maister Carmichael."</p> + + <p>"He won't do: he was my brother's rascal. Is there no one + besides?"</p> + + <p>"No in Portlossie, my lord. There can be nane nearer than + Duff Harbor, I doobt."</p> + + <p>"Take the chariot and bring him here directly. Tell them to + put four horses to: Stokes can ride one."</p> + + <p>"I'll ride the ither, my lord."</p> + + <p>"You'll do nothing of the kind: you're not used to the + pole."</p> + + <p>"I can tak the leader, my lord."</p> + + <p>"I tell you you're to do nothing of the kind," cried the + marquis angrily. "You're to ride inside, and bring + Mr.—what's his name?—back with you."</p> + + <p>"Soutar, my lord, gien ye please."</p> + + <p>"Be off, then. Don't wait to feed. The brutes have been + eating all day, and <span class="pagenum"><a name="page86" + id="page86"></a>[pg 86]</span> they can eat all night. You + must have him here in an hour."</p> + + <p>In an hour and a quarter Miss Horn's friend stood by the + marquis's bedside, Malcolm was dismissed, but was presently + summoned again to receive more orders.</p> + + <p>Fresh horses were put to the chariot, and he had to set out + once more—this time to fetch a justice of the peace, a + neighbor laird. The distance was greater than to Duff Harbor; + the roads were worse; the north wind, rising as they went, blew + against them as they returned, increasing to a violent gale; + and it was late before they reached Lossie House.</p> + + <p>When Malcolm entered he found the marquis alone.</p> + + <p>"Is Morrison here at last?" he cried, in a feeble, irritated + voice.</p> + + <p>"Yes, my lord."</p> + + <p>"What the devil kept you so long? The bay mare would have + carried me there and back in an hour and a half."</p> + + <p>"The roads war verra heavy, my lord. An' jist hear till the + win'."</p> + + <p>The marquis listened a moment, and a frightened expression + grew over his thin, pale, anxious face. "You don't know what + depends on it," he said, "or you would have driven better. + Where is Mr. Soutar?"</p> + + <p>"I dinna ken, my lord. I'm only jist come, an' I've seen + naebody."</p> + + <p>"Go and tell Mrs. Courthope I want Soutar. You'll find her + crying somewhere—the old chicken!—because I swore + at her. What harm could that do the old goose?"</p> + + <p>"It'll be mair for love o' yer lordship than fricht at the + sweirin', my lord."</p> + + <p>"You think so? Why should <i>she</i> care? Go and tell her + I'm sorry. But really she ought to be used to me by this time. + Tell her to send Soutar directly."</p> + + <p>Mr. Soutar was not to be found, the fact being that he had + gone to see Miss Horn. The marquis flew into an awful rage, and + began to curse and swear frightfully.</p> + + <p>"My lord! my lord!" said Malcolm, "for God's sake, dinna + gang on that gait. He canna like to hear that kin' o' speech; + an' frae ane o' his ain' tu!"</p> + + <p>The marquis stopped, aghast at his presumption and choking + with rage, but Malcolm's eyes filled with tears, and, instead + of breaking out again, his master turned his head away and was + silent.</p> + + <p>Mr. Soutar came.</p> + + <p>"Fetch Morrison," said the marquis, "and go to bed."</p> + + <p>The wind howled terribly as Malcolm ascended the stairs and + half felt his way, for he had no candle, through the long + passages leading to his room. As he entered the last a huge + vague form came down upon him like a deeper darkness through + the dark. Instinctively he stepped aside. It passed + noiselessly, with a long stride, and not even a rustle of its + garments—at least Malcolm heard nothing but the roar of + the wind. He turned and followed it. On and on it went, down + the stair, through a corridor, down the great stone turnpike + stair, and through passage after passage. When it came into the + more frequented and half-lighted thoroughfares of the house it + showed as a large figure in a long cloak, indistinct in + outline.</p> + + <p>It turned a corner close by the marquis's room. But when + Malcolm, close at its heels, turned also, he saw nothing but a + vacant lobby, the doors around which were all shut. One after + another he quickly opened them, all except the marquis's, but + nothing was to be seen. The conclusion was that it had entered + the marquis's room. He must not disturb the conclave in the + sick chamber with what might be but "a false creation + proceeding from the heat-oppressed brain," and turned back to + his own room, where he threw himself on his bed and fell + asleep.</p> + + <p>About twelve Mrs. Courthope called him: his master was + worse, and wanted to see him.</p> + + <p>The midnight was dark and still, for the wind had ceased. + But a hush and a cloud seemed gathering in the stillness and + darkness, and with them came the sense of a solemn celebration, + as if the gloom were canopy as well as pall—black, but + bordered and hearted with purple and gold; and the terrible + stillness seemed to tremble as with the + <span class="pagenum"><a name="page87" + id="page87"></a>[pg 87]</span> inaudible tones of a great + organ at the close or commencement of some mighty + symphony.</p> + + <p>With beating heart he walked softly toward the room where, + as on an altar, lay the vanishing form of his master, like the + fuel in whose dying flame was offered the late and ill-nurtured + sacrifice of his spirit.</p> + + <p>As he went through the last corridor leading thither, Mrs. + Catanach, type and embodiment of the horrors that haunt the + dignity of death, came walking toward him like one at home, her + great round body lighty upborne on her soft foot. It was no + time to challenge her presence, and yielding her the half of + the narrow way he passed without a greeting. She dropped him a + courtesy with an up-look and again a veiling of her wicked + eyes.</p> + + <p>The marquis would not have the doctors come near him, and + when Malcolm entered there was no one in the room but Mrs. + Courthope. The shadow had crept far along the dial. His face + had grown ghastly, the skin had sunk to the bones, and his eyes + stood out as if from much staring into the dark. They rested + very mournfully on Malcolm for a few moments, and then closed + softly.</p> + + <p>"Is she come yet?" he murmured, opening them wide with + sudden stare.</p> + + <p>"No, my lord."</p> + + <p>The lids fell again, softly, slowly.</p> + + <p>"Be good to her, Malcolm," he murmured.</p> + + <p>"I wull, my lord," said Malcolm solemnly.</p> + + <p>Then the eyes opened and looked at him: something grew in + them, a light as of love, and drew up after it a tear; but the + lips said nothing. The eyelids fell again, and in a minute more + Malcolm knew by his breathing that he slept.</p> + + <p>The slow night waned. He woke sometimes, but soon dozed off + again. The two watched by him till the dawn. It brought a still + gray morning, without a breath of wind and warm for the season. + The marquis appeared a little revived, but was hardly able to + speak. Mostly by signs he made Malcolm understand that he + wanted Mr. Graham, but that some one else must go for him. Mrs. + Courthope went.</p> + + <p>As soon as she was out of the room he lifted his hand with + effort, laid feeble hold on Malcolm's jacket, and, drawing him + down, kissed him on the forehead. Malcolm burst into tears and + sank weeping by the bedside.</p> + + <p>Mr. Graham, entering a little after, and seeing Malcolm on + his knees, knelt also and broke into a prayer.</p> + + <p>"O blessed Father!" he said, "who knowest this thing, so + strange to us, which we call death, breathe more life into the + heart of Thy dying son, that in the power of life he may front + death. O Lord Christ! who diedst Thyself, and in Thyself + knowest it all, heal this man in his sore need—heal him + with strength to die."</p> + + <p>A faint <i>Amen</i> came from the marquis.</p> + + <p>"Thou didst send him into the world: help him out of it. O + God! we belong to Thee utterly. We dying men are Thy children, + O living Father! Thou art such a father that Thou takest our + sins from us and throwest them behind Thy back. Thou cleansest + our souls as Thy Son did wash our feet. We hold our hearts up + to Thee: make them what they must be, O Love! O Life of men! O + Heart of hearts! Give Thy dying child courage and hope and + peace—the peace of Him who overcame all the terrors of + humanity, even death itself, and liveth for evermore, sitting + at Thy right hand, our God-brother, blessed to all ages. + Amen."</p> + + <p>"Amen!" murmured the marquis, and, slowly lifting his hand + from the coverlid, he laid it on the head of Malcolm, who did + not know it was the hand of his father blessing him ere he + died.</p> + + <p>"Be good to her," said the marquis once more.</p> + + <p>But Malcolm could not answer for weeping, and the marquis + was not satisfied. Gathering all his force, he said again, "Be + good to her."</p> + + <p>"I wull, I wull," burst from Malcolm in sobs; and he wailed + aloud.</p> + + <p>The day wore on, and the afternoon came. Still Lady Florimel + had not arrived, and still the marquis + lingered.</p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page88" + id="page88"></a>[pg 88]</span> + + <p>As the gloom of the twilight was deepening into the early + darkness of the winter night he opened wide his eyes, and was + evidently listening. Malcolm could hear nothing, but the light + in his master's face grew and the strain of his listening + diminished. At length Malcolm became aware of the sound of + wheels, which came rapidly nearer, till at last the carriage + swung up to the hall-door. A moment, and Lady Florimel was + flitting across the room.</p> + + <p>"Papa! papa!" she cried, and, throwing her arm over him, + laid her cheek to his.</p> + + <p>The marquis could not return her embrace: he could only + receive her into the depths of his shining, tearful eyes.</p> + + <p>"Flory!" he murmured, "I'm going away. I'm going—I've + got—to make an—apology. Malcolm, be + good—"</p> + + <p>The sentence remained unfinished. The light paled from his + countenance: he had to carry it with him. He was dead.</p> + + <p>Lady Florimel gave a loud cry. Mrs. Courthope ran to her + assistance. "My lady's in a dead faint," she whispered, and + left the room to get help.</p> + + <p>Malcolm lifted Lady Florimel in his great arms and bore her + tenderly to her own apartment. There he left her to the care of + her women and returned to the chamber of death.</p> + + <p>Meantime, Mr. Graham and Mr. Soutar had come. When Malcolm + re-entered the schoolmaster took him kindly by the arm and + said, "Malcolm, there can be neither place nor moment fitter + for the solemn communication I am commissioned to make to you: + I have, as in the presence of your dead father, to inform you + that you are now marquis of Lossie; and God forbid you should + be less worthy as marquis than you have been as fisherman!"</p> + + <p>Malcolm stood stupefied. For a while he seemed to himself to + be turning over in his mind something he had heard read from a + book, with a nebulous notion of being somehow concerned in it. + The thought of his father cleared his brain. He ran to the dead + body, kissed its lips as he had once kissed the forehead of + another, and falling on his knees wept, he knew not for what. + Presently, however, he recovered himself, rose, and, rejoining + the two men, said, "Gentlemen, hoo mony kens this turn o' + things?"</p> + + <p>"None but Mr. Morrison, Mrs. Catanach and ourselves—so + far as I know," answered Mr. Soutar.</p> + + <p>"And Miss Horn," added Mr. Graham, "She first brought out + the truth of it, and ought to be the first to know of your + recognition by your father."</p> + + <p>"I s' tell her mysel'," returned Malcolm. "But, gentlemen, I + beg o' ye, till I ken what I'm aboot an' gie ye leave, dinna + open yer moo' to leevin' cratur' aboot this. There's time + eneuch for the warl' to ken 't."</p> + + <p>"Your lordship commands me," said Mr. Soutar.</p> + + <p>"Yes, Malcolm, until you give me leave," said Mr. + Graham.</p> + + <p>"Whaur's Mr. Morrison?" asked Malcolm.</p> + + <p>"He is still in the house," said Mr. Soutar.</p> + + <p>"Gang till him, sir, an' gar him promise, on the word o' a + gentleman, to haud his tongue. I canna bide to hae't blaret a' + gait an' a' at ance. For Mistress Catanach, I s' deal wi' her + mysel'."</p> + + <p>The door opened, and, in all the conscious dignity conferred + by the immunities and prerogatives of her calling, Mrs. + Catanach walked into the room.</p> + + <p>"A word wi' ye, Mistress Catanach," said Malcolm.</p> + + <p>"Certainly, my lord," answered the howdy with mingled + presumption and respect, and followed him to the dining-room. + "Weel, my lord—" she began, before he had turned from + shutting the door behind them, in the tone and with the + air—or rather <i>airs</i>—of having conferred a + great benefit, and expecting its recognition.</p> + + <p>"Mistress Catanach," interrupted Malcolm, turning and facing + her, "gien I be un'er ony obligation to you, it's frae anither + tongue I maun hear't. But I hae an offer to mak ye: Sae lang as + it disna coom oot 'at I'm onything better nor a fisherman born, + ye s' hae yer twinty poun' i' the year, peyed ye quarterly. + <span class="pagenum"><a name="page89" + id="page89"></a>[pg 89]</span> But the moment fowk says wha + I am ye touch na a poun'-not' mair, an' I coont mysel' free + to pursue onything I can pruv agane ye."</p> + + <p>Mrs. Catanach attempted a laugh of scorn, but her face was + gray as putty and its muscles declined response.</p> + + <p>"<i>Ay</i> or <i>no</i>?" said Malcolm. "I winna gar ye + sweir, for I wad lippen to yer aith no a hair."</p> + + <p>"Ay, my lord," said the howdy, reassuming at least outward + composure, and with it her natural brass, for as she spoke she + held out her open palm.</p> + + <p>"Na, na," said Malcolm, "nae forhan' payments. Three months + o' tongue-haudin', an' there's yer five poun'; an' Maister + Soutar o' Duff Harbor 'ill pay 't intill yer ain han'. But + brack troth wi' me, an' ye s' hear o' 't; for gien ye war hangt + the warl' wad be a' the cleaner. Noo quit the hoose, an' never + lat me see ye aboot the place again. But afore ye gang I gie ye + fair warnin' 'at I mean to win at a' yer byganes."</p> + + <p>The blood of red wrath was seething in Mrs. Catanach's face: + she drew herself up and stood flaming before him, on the verge + of explosion.</p> + + <p>"Gang frae the hoose," said Malcolm, "or I'll set the muckle + hun' to shaw ye the gait."</p> + + <p>Her face turned the color of ashes, and with hanging cheeks + and scared but not the less wicked eyes she hurried from the + room. Malcolm watched her out of the house, then, following her + into the town, brought Miss Horn back with him to aid in the + last earthly services, and hastened to Duncan's cottage.</p> + + <p>But, to his amazement and distress, it was forsaken and the + hearth cold. In his attendance on his father he had not seen + the piper—he could not remember for how many days; and on + inquiry he found that, although he had not been missed, no one + could recall having seen him later than three or four days + agone. The last he could hear of him was that about a week + before a boy had spied him sitting on a rock in the Baillies' + Barn with his pipes in his lap. Searching the cottage, he found + that his broadsword and dirk, with all his poor finery, were + gone.</p> + + <p>That same night Mrs. Catanach also disappeared.</p> + + <p>A week after, what was left of Lord Lossie was buried. + Malcolm followed the hearse with the household. Miss Horn + walked immediately behind him, on the arm of the schoolmaster. + It was a great funeral, with a short road, for the body was + laid in the church—close to the wall, just under the + crusader with the Norman canopy.</p> + + <p>Lady Florimel wept incessantly for three days; on the fourth + she looked out on the sea and thought it very dreary; on the + fifth she found a certain gratification in hearing herself + called the marchioness; on the sixth she tried on her mourning + and was pleased; on the seventh she went with the funeral and + wept again; on the eighth came Lady Bellair, who on the ninth + carried her away.</p> + + <p>To Malcolm she had not spoken once.</p> + + <p>Mr. Graham left Portlossie.</p> + + <p>Miss Horn took to her bed for a week.</p> + + <p>Mr. Crathie removed his office to the House itself, took + upon him the function of steward as well as factor, had the + state-rooms dismantled, and was master of the place.</p> + + <p>Malcolm helped Stoat with the horses and did odd jobs for + Mr. Crathie. From his likeness to the old marquis, as he was + still called, the factor had a favor for him, firmly believing + the said marquis to be his father and Mrs. Stewart his mother; + and hence it came that he allowed him a key to the library.</p> + + <p>The story of Malcom's plans and what came of them requires + another book.</p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page90" + id="page90"></a>[pg 90]</span> + + <h2>THE STAGE IN ITALY.</h2> + + <p>The Italians are undoubtedly the most theatre-loving people + in the world. With them the play-house takes the place to a + great extent of drawing-room and evening lounge. Almost every + Italian family of any social position possesses a box at one of + the principal theatres, where visits are received and many a + scene from the <i>School for Scandal</i> is enacted whilst the + fair gossip-mongers flirt and sip ices. In winter the opera is + the standard amusement of the fashionable world, while the + favorite resort in summer is the <i>diurno</i> or open air + theatre, which is in the form of an amphitheatre, the stage + with its accessories facing an unroofed enclosure, with the + seats arranged in tiers one above another, and fenced off by an + iron balustrade from a terrace which serves the purpose of a + gallery. A vast covered corridor is nearly always to be found + adjacent to the <i>diurno</i>, beneath which the audience can + take refuge in case of a shower, walk between the acts and + indulge in <i>bebite</i>—cooling drinks, such as sherbets + and beer. The <i>abbonamento</i> (or subscription) to a diurno + costs from three to ten dollars for the season of thirty or + forty representations. When a dramatic company is about to + visit a city the manager first secures his <i>abbonati</i>, for + according to their number he is able to regulate his expenses, + as he counts little on chance spectators, and is sure to have + almost always to play before the same audience.</p> + + <p>The lyric stage in Italy takes precedence of the dramatic, + and in the large cities, Milan, Venice, Genoa, Florence, Rome + and Naples, the production of a new opera is considered a + national event, forming for many days previous to its + production the chief topic of conversation in salons and + <i>caffès</i>. No such enthusiasm is manifested in + regard to the first representation of a new play; and although + the house may be crowded and the author called before the + curtain, he may deem himself happy if his drama is played four + times during the season; whereas a popular opera will be given + night after night for two months. An opera, if it has any + merit, may be the means of carrying the fame of Italian genius + to the farthest limits of the earth, but it is a chance if the + comedy which pleases at Venice will be appreciated in the least + degree at Rome or Naples, such are the variations in manners + and customs, especially amongst the lower orders, between one + Italian province and another. Hence, opera is greatly fostered + and protected. There are a dozen musical <i>conservatori</i>, + public and private, in each of the principal cities, for the + training of singers, and prizes are accorded to them out of + funds especially set apart for the purpose by the government, + which also grants large annual subsidies to the leading lyric + theatres, such as the Scala at Milan, the San Carlo at Naples, + the Fenice at Venice, the Pergola at Florence, the Carlo Felice + at Genoa, the Communale at Bologna, and the Apollo at Rome. The + dramatic stage has none of these aids, the various companies + have to pay their own expenses, and, whatever may be the merits + of the artists who compose them, they scarcely ever obtain any + special recognition from the government. Although the smallest + Italian city possesses its theatre, and some of the + capitals—Milan and Naples, for instance—at least a + dozen, there is no training-school for the stage in any part of + the country. Nor is there such an institution as the English + Dramatic College, where decayed artists can retire when their + day of glory is past and they have become poor and lonely. Each + city has one theatre, the largest and most magnificent, + reserved exclusively for operatic performances, and where the + unmusical drama is scarcely ever tolerated. I once saw Ristori + act in Metastasio's <i>Dido</i> at the Scala for the benefit of + the wounded <span class="pagenum"><a name="page91" + id="page91"></a>[pg 91]</span> during the war for Italian + independence; but this was the only occasion in fifty years + on which an actress had declaimed in that enormous edifice, + and nothing but patriotic charity would have excused such an + infringement of time-honored etiquette. When, therefore, the + Italian opera-houses close for the season, they are never + reopened for the accommodation of wandering "stars." The + consequence of this is, that the drama is banished to the + inferior theatres, and whilst thousands of francs are spent + on the scenery of a new opera or ballet, the poor player has + to content himself with an indifferent stage and wretched + decorations. In short, to quote an observation made to me + recently by Signor Salvini, "Theatrical affairs are just the + opposite in Italy to what they are in America. In Italy the + opera-bill is never changed more than three times in as many + months: in America it varies almost every evening. In Italy + the play-bill is renewed nightly, while in this country and + in England a drama, if good, may have a run of over a + hundred representations." Nothing surprised Salvini more + during his stay in the United States than the splendor of + the <i>mise en scène</i> of some of the New York + plays, but he accounted for it easily enough. The managers + of most of the New York, Paris and London theatres do not + hesitate to lavish large sums of money upon their + decorations and scenery, because should the piece fail for + which they were painted they can be used in some other. The + Italian theatres are nearly always the property either of + some nobleman or of a company of speculators, whose + principal object is to make as much money out of them, and + spend as little upon them, as possible. They are rented out + for a month or so to one or other of the many troupes of + actors which are constantly wandering about the country, and + which bring their own scenery and dresses with them, + generally of the cheapest and most tawdry description.</p> + + <p>A Tuscan proverb says, "<i>Figlio d'attore, attore</i>" + ("The son of an actor is always an actor"); and this in Italy + is pretty sure to be the case. The three greatest living + actors, Salvini, Rossi and Majeroni, belong to families which + have long been popular on the stage, and so do the actresses + Ristori and Sedowsky. Signora Ristori made her début as + an infant in the cradle, and was for years a member of a troupe + the leading lady of which was her late mother, Signora + Maddalena Ristori, a woman of great talent and merit, whose + death at an advanced age has recently occasioned her celebrated + daughter poignant grief. There still exists in Italy a Venetian + troupe of comedians whose ancestors were the first interpreters + of the comedies of Goldoni, and several of them claim descent + from players who enacted the tragedies and comedies of serious + classical literature before the courts of Lucrezia Borgia and + Leonora d'Este. In glancing over an Italian play-bill one is + invariably struck by the fact that many of the artists bear the + same name, and are evidently connected by ties of consanguinity + or of marriage. In the Ristori troupe, for instance, there are + several actors calling themselves by the same name as that + great artist, and who are doubtless of her family. The Salvini + company embraces, besides the two brothers Tommaso and + Alessandro, several Piamontis, two or three Piccininis and two + Colonellos. I once knew in Italy a manager named Spada who + directed a little troupe of buffo actors consisting of his + grandfather and grandmother, father and mother, three or four + uncles and aunts, two brothers, and one or two sisters, in + addition to himself, his wife and children. Such facts are in + part accounted for by the social status—or rather want of + status—of the profession. Down to within a very recent + period ecclesiastical censures weighed heavily upon all actors, + and Christian burial was denied them unless during their final + illness they had formally declared their intention to abandon + the stage in case of recovery. So severe a condemnation on the + part of the clergy naturally produced a strong prejudice + against those who connected themselves in any way with the + stage; and it is only recently that in Italy, a land where + social changes are slow, the + <span class="pagenum"><a name="page92" + id="page92"></a>[pg 92]</span> doors of her somewhat formal + society have been opened to admit even persons so + distinguished in every sense of the word as are Ristori, + Piamonti, Salvini and Rossi. The social unfriendliness of + the audiences—who can applaud so enthusiastically that + a stranger witnessing for the first time their noisy + demonstrations would easily believe every man and woman in + the theatre ready to die for the sake of the admired + artist—is doubtless the cause of the patriarchal + system observable in the formation of Italian dramatic + companies. The members thereof prefer adopting their + fathers' profession rather than enter another where they + would be constantly mortified by being pointed at as the + children of actors.</p> + + <p>A little research into the history of the stage in Italy + will enlighten the reader as to the true cause both of the + harsh condemnation of the Church and of the prejudice of + society against this great profession. The plays of the old + Romans were proverbially loose both in their plots and + dialogues, and Juvenal has spoken of the actors of his time + with the bitterest contempt. During the Middle Ages the members + of the various religious confraternities monopolized the stage + with their sacred dramas and mysteries, and the "profane + stage," as an Italian writer calls it, was so degraded that + more than once both the Church and State had to use their + influence to put down performances which were too infamous to + be here described. When the Renaissance came the drama was + reinstated in the position it occupied during the days of Roman + civilization, but the plays of this period were merely + imitations of the Latin comedies; and if we may judge by the + most celebrated of them which still exists—the + <i>Mandragora</i> of Macchiavelli, for example—far + exceeded their models in obscenity. When Benedict XIV. ascended + the pontifical throne he established a severe censorship, and + inaugurated the harsh system to which I have already alluded, + with the effect of banishing immoral productions from the + stage, though without improving its intellectual tone. In the + eighteenth century Goldoni appeared and gave to the world his + graceful comedies, which were followed by the lyric dramas of + Metastasio and the lofty tragedies of Alfieri. Since then there + has been a succession of able dramatists—Monti, Gozzi, + Manzoni, Pellico, Ippolito d'Asti, etc.; and as the class of + plays acted was elevated, so the character of the performers + was also improved. From being dissolute they became generally + respectable; and at present it may be safely asserted that a + better-conducted, more frugal or industrious class of men and + woman can scarcely be found than are the Italian players. That + class of actresses with whom their profession is only a means + of displaying their beauty and splendid but often ill-gotten + robes and jewelry, is little known in Italy, Such persons would + be scarcely tolerated either by their comrades or by the + public. Indeed, although within the past few years, owing to + the unsettled state of affairs, a great many plays of + questionable morality have been acted, especially in Rome, + still the tone of the performances usually witnessed in an + Italian theatre is greatly above the average of what even + Americans applaud; and a French play has to go through more + careful pruning for the Italian stage than for ours.</p> + + <p>The Italian actors have always been in the habit of forming + themselves into troupes, or, as they call them, + <i>compagnie</i>, placed under the direction of one person, who + is both manager and principal performer. They divide these + troupes according to the various kinds of acting; thus, there + are companies of tragic, melodramatic and comic actors, but it + is very rare to find a combination of tragedy and comedy in the + same entertainment. There are at present about eighty different + troupes of actors in Italy, including those devoted to the + marionnette and dialect performances. The principal are the + "Salvini," "Ristori," "Majeroni," "Sedowsky," and "Rossi" for + tragedy, the "Bellotti Bon" for high comedy, and the "De + Mestri" for farce and vaudeville. The "Ristori," "Salvini" and + "Rossi" troupes have been the round of the world. + <span class="pagenum"><a name="page93" + id="page93"></a>[pg 93]</span> The "Bellotti Bon" has, I + believe, never quitted Italy. It is a remarkable combination + of well-trained actors, devoted exclusively to the + representation of modern society plays and dramas, mostly + translated or adapted from the French. Bellotti-Bon, the + director, is not excelled in his own line even on the stage + of the Théâtre Français. His company is + rich, and its scenery and dresses are tasteful. The late + Signora Cazzola, formerly the leading lady of this troupe, + was perhaps the best high-comedy and dramatic actress Italy + has produced. Signer Salvini informed me that Alexandre + Dumas <i>fils</i> told him he preferred this lady's + interpretation of the <i>rôle</i> of Marguerite + Gauthier (Camille) in <i>La Dame aux Camélias</i> to + that of Madame Doche, who created the part. She produced a + great effect when the dying Camille looks at herself in the + glass for the first time after her long illness. Instead of + screaming or fainting, as is usual with most actresses who + undertake the character, Signora Cazzola stood for a long + time gazing intently at the havoc disease had wrought upon + her lovely countenance. Then, with a deep sigh and an + expression of intense agony, she turned the mirror with its + back toward her, implying that she could never again endure + the pain of seeing herself reflected upon its truth-telling + surface. On the toilette-table was a vase full of + camellias—those beautiful but scentless flowers which + were emblematic of her brilliant but artificial life. Taking + one of these in her hand, she plucked it to pieces leaf by + leaf, and when the last petal fell to the ground went + quietly back to her bed, there hopelessly to await the + coming on of death. Her parting with Armand was very + pathetic, and her death, although harrowing and true to + Nature, was not revolting, its horrors being moderated by + artistic good sense and delicacy. This great artiste died + young, worn out by the strong emotions she not only + represented, but actually felt.</p> + + <p>Signora Cazzola, together with Virginia Marini and Isolina + Piamonti, was a pupil of Signor Salvini. Virginia Marini is + well considered in Italy, and used to be the leading lady in + the Salvini troupe. She now directs a company of her own, and + has been succeeded in her former position by the estimable + Signora Piamonti, whom Salvini declares to be one of the most + versatile artistes he has ever known, equally good in the + highest tragedy or the liveliest farce. Her Dalilla in + <i>Samson</i> was much admired in America, but her rendering of + the <i>rôle</i> of Francesca di Rimini in the tragedy of + that name is perhaps her greatest performance.</p> + + <p>Signora Sedowsky is undoubtedly the greatest tragic actress + of Italy. She is perhaps less stately and grand than Ristori, + but in fire and depth of feeling she greatly surpasses this + eminent tragédienne. Her Phèdre is pronounced by + excellent judges equal to that of Rachel. Signora Sedowsky was + born at Naples, and is the proprietress of three large theatres + in that city. She is the wife of a wealthy nobleman. + Notwithstanding her rank, she still keeps on the stage, but is + received with honor in the first society. She has never acted + out of Italy, and very rarely beyond the walls of Naples.</p> + + <p>The superlative merits of Signora Ristori are so well known + in America that the mere mention of her name is sure to recall + some of the most delightful evenings ever spent by many of my + readers. Her genius and beauty, her majesty and glorious method + of declamation, have won her a foremost rank in her profession, + and her virtues and nobility of conduct the esteem of all who + have ever known her. There are indeed few women more estimable + than Adelaide Ristori, Marchioness Capranica del Grillo. It may + be a matter of surprise to some who are not aware of the fact + when I tell them that in Italy Ristori is more famous in comedy + than in tragedy. She is inimitable in such parts as the hostess + in Goldoni's clever comedy of <i>La Locandiera</i>.</p> + + <p>Of all Italian actors, Gustavo Modena was the most renowned. + He is to the stage of his native land what Garrick was to that + of England, and his conception of the various parts in classic + drama, <span class="pagenum"><a name="page94" + id="page94"></a>[pg 94]</span> his "points," and even his + dress, have become traditional, and are almost invariably + retained by his followers. I never saw him act, but I once + heard him recite in a private <i>salon</i> his famous + <i>rôle</i> of Saul in Alfieri's tragedy of that name. + In person he was tall and largely built, His countenance was + not prepossessing, and, like Michael Angelo, he had a broken + nose. His eye could assume a terrific aspect, and his voice + was rich, powerful and varied in its tone. At times it + rolled like thunder, while at other moments it was as soft + and tender as the sweetest notes of a flute. Signor Modena + died some years ago. He was the master of Salvini, and to + him that illustrious actor does not hesitate to attribute + much of his fame.</p> + + <p>Rossi, the only living rival of Salvini, is still a young + man, and doubtless has great talents. I think him even more + impetuous and ardent than Salvini, but he is less intellectual, + and his elocution is decidedly inferior.</p> + + <p>Majeroni is an actor of the same school, but he is becoming + old, and has a tendency to rant.</p> + + <p>Tommaso Salvini, our late visitor, is of Milanese parentage, + and was born in the Lombard capital on January 1, 1830. His + father, as I have already said, was an able actor, and his + mother a popular actress named Guglielmina Zocchi. When quite a + boy he showed a rare talent for acting, and performed in + certain plays given during the Easter holidays in the school + where he was educated, with such rare ability that his father + determined to devote him to the stage. For this purpose he + placed him under the tuition of the great Modena, who conceived + much affection for him. The training received thus early from + such able hands soon bore fruits, and before he was thirteen + Salvini had already won a kind of renown in juvenile + characters. At fifteen he lost both his parents, and the + bereavement so preyed upon his spirits that he was obliged to + abandon his career for two years, and returned once more under + the tuition of Modena. When he again emerged from retirement he + joined the Ristori troupe, and shared with that great actress + many a triumph. In 1849, Salvini entered the army of Italian + independence, and fought valiantly for the defence of his + country, receiving in recognition of his services several + medals of honor. Peace being proclaimed, he again appeared upon + the stage in a company directed by Signer Cesare Dondini. He + played in the <i>Edipo</i> of Nicolini—a tragedy written + expressly for him—and achieved a great success. Next he + appeared in Alfieri's <i>Saul</i>, and then all Italy declared + that Modena's mantle had fallen on worthy shoulders. His fame + was now prodigious, and wherever he went he was received with + boundless enthusiasm. He visited Paris, where he played + Orasmane, Orestes, Saul and Othello. On his return to Florence + he was hospitably entertained by the marquis of Normanby, then + English ambassador to the court of Tuscany, and this + enlightened nobleman strongly encouraged him to extend his + repertory of Shakespearian characters. In 1865 occurred the + sixth centenary of Dante's birthday, and the four greatest + Italian actors were invited to perform in Silvio Pellico's + tragedy of <i>Francesca di Rimini</i>, which is founded on an + episode in the <i>Divina Commedia</i>. The cast originally + stood on the play-bills thus: Francesca, Signora Ristori; + Lancelotto, Signor Rossi; Paulo, Signor Salvini; and Guido, + Signor Majeroni. It happened, however, that Rossi, who was + unaccustomed to play the part of Lancelotto, felt timid at + appearing in a character so little suited to him. Hearing this, + Signor Salvini, with exquisite politeness and good-nature, + volunteered to take the insignificant part, relinquishing the + grand <i>rôle</i> of Paulo to his junior in the + profession. He created by the force of his genius an impression + in the minor part which is still vivid in the minds of all who + witnessed the performance. The government of Florence, grateful + for his urbanity, presented him with a statuette of Dante, and + King Victor Emmanuel rewarded him with the title of knight of + the Order of the Saints Maurice and Lazarus. Later he received + from the same monarch a diamond ring, with the rank of officer + in the Order of the Crown + <span class="pagenum"><a name="page95" + id="page95"></a>[pg 95]</span> of Italy. In 1868, Signer + Salvini visited Madrid, where his acting of the death of + Conrad in <i>La Morte Civile</i> produced such an impression + that the easily-excited Madrilese rushed upon the stage to + ascertain whether the death was actual or fictitious. The + queen, Isabella II., conferred upon the great actor many + marks of favor, and so shortly afterward did King Louis of + Portugal, who frequently entertained him at the royal palace + of Lisbon.</p> + + <p>Signor Salvini's recent visit to America I need scarcely + mention: its triumphs are still fresh in the memory of the + public, and the only drawback to its complete success was the + unhappy fact that the eminent artist did not appeal to his + audiences in their own language.</p> + + <p>I know of nothing more remarkable than the difference which + exists between the Salvini of the stage and the Salvini of + private life, the one so imposing, impetuous and fiery, the + other so gentle, urbane, and even retiring. He is a gentleman + possessing the manners of the good old school—courtly and + somewhat ceremonious, reminding one of those Italian nobles of + the sixteenth century of whom we lead in the novels of Giraldo + Cinthio and Fiorentino—<i>uomini illustri, e di civil + costumi</i>. His greeting is cordial and his conversation + delightful, full of anecdote and marked with enthusiasm for his + art. When I first became acquainted with him I was of opinion + that his interpretation of Hamlet was based only upon the + translated text, but in the course of a very long conversation + on the subject I discovered that he was well acquainted + (through literal translations) not only with the text, but also + with the notes and comments of our leading critics. In speaking + of the part in which he is altogether unrivaled he said, "I am + of opinion that Shakespeare intended Othello to be a Moor of + Barbary or some other part of Northern Africa, of whom there + were many in Italy during the sixteenth century. I have met + several, and think I imitate their ways and manners pretty + well. You are aware, however, that the historical Othello was + not a black at all. He was a white man, and a Venetian general + named Mora. His history resembles that of Shakespeare's hero in + many particulars. Giraldo Cinthio, probably for better effect, + made out of the name Mora, <i>moro</i>, a blackamoor; and + Shakespeare, unacquainted with the true story, followed this + old novelist's lead; and it was well he did so, for have we not + in consequence the most perfect delineation of the + peculiarities of Moorish temperament ever conceived?" The + costumes worn by Salvini in this play are copied from those + depicted in certain Venetian pictures of the fifteenth century + in which several Moorish officers appear. It took him many + years to master this <i>rôle</i>, and he assured me he + could not play it more than three times in succession without + experiencing terrible fatigue. "It is a matter of wonder to + me," he observed, "that English actors can play a great + character like this so many nights in succession; and, above + all, that they retain self-possession whilst the fidgety noise + of scene-shifting is going on behind them. To avoid this, I + have been obliged to cut <i>Othello</i> into six acts, and to + make many changes in <i>Hamlet</i>." The intensity of feeling + with which he throws himself into the part he is representing + was especially evident on the occasion of his playing Saul. + After the performance I was invited to go behind the scenes to + speak with him, and was surprised as well as pained to find him + utterly exhausted. I could not help saying, "How can you exert + yourself thus to please so few people?" There were scarcely + four hundred persons assembled to see this sublime performance. + He answered with honest simplicity, "They have paid their + money, and are entitled to the best I can do for them; besides + that, when I am on the stage I forget the world and all that is + in it, and live the character I represent." "You will," said I, + "make a grand Lear." "Yes," he replied, "I think I shall be + able to make something out of the old king. I have been reading + the tragedy for some time, but it will still take me two years + to study it thoroughly."</p> + + <p>Salvini related to me several anecdotes which show how quick + he is to master <span class="pagenum"><a name="page96" + id="page96"></a>[pg 96]</span> any difficulties accident + throws in his way. "Once I bought," he said, "a play of a + poor young writer which I thought I could make something of; + but when we came to rehearse it for the last time before + representation, it seemed to me utterly flat and + unprofitable. The piece was called <i>La Suonatrice + d'Arpa</i> ('The Harp-Girl'). The actors all said the last + act was so stupid that we should make a <i>fiasco</i>. I at + last hit upon an idea. We had, however, only a few hours to + execute it in. I changed the story: instead of the play + ending happily, I made the father kill his daughter + accidentally, and then die of grief. All the dialogue had to + be improvised by the leading actress and myself. I played + the father, and Signora Piamonti the daughter. Such was the + success of our invention that the piece was played eight + nights in succession, and a rival actor, hearing of the + triumph achieved by <i>The Harp-Girl</i>, bought from the + author for a handsome sum the privilege of acting it in + certain districts which were not included in my purchase of + the drama. Not being aware of the alterations we had made, + and performing it according to the letter of the text, he + made <i>un fiasco solenne</i>—a dead failure."</p> + + <p>After the first performance of <i>Zaïre</i> I took the + liberty of observing to Salvini that a superb piece of + "business" which marks his acting in the last act was not to be + found in the text. "Oh," he replied, "I will tell you the + origin of it. I was playing at Naples, and one night, when I + threw the body of my murdered wife upon the ottoman in the last + act, my burnouse fell off and fixed itself to my waist like a + tail. I saw at once that if I was not careful I should provoke + laughter, and instantly imagined that I would pretend to + believe the clinging drapery was the wounded Zaïre + grasping me behind. I appeared to dread even to look round, + lest I should encounter her pallid face. I hesitated, I + trembled, and when with a supreme effort I at last grasped the + burnouse and cast it from me, I still lacked the courage to + ascertain what it really was, and stood shivering before the + white heap it made upon the floor. Finally, just as I thought + public curiosity to know what I was going to do began to grow + weary, I stooped down and seizing the white mantle dashed it + from me with contempt, showing by the gesture that I had + discovered what it was, and felt anger that such a trifle + should thus alarm a bold man who had committed murder." This + pantomime obtained for Salvini at the New York Academy of Music + one of his greatest ovations.</p> + + <p>When asked why he did not learn English, "Ah!" he replied, + "I am too old; and even if I mastered it, I could not control + my knowledge of it. When excited I should be lapsing into + Italian, which would be very absurd. You asked me the other day + why I do not play Orestes. I should make a queer young Greek + with an Apollo-like figure now-a-days! The time was when I + looked the part and acted it well, and then I liked to play it. + I must leave it, with many other good things, to younger men." + Speaking about dramatic elocution, he said, "The best method is + obtained by close observation of Nature, and above all by + earnestness. If you can impress people with the conviction that + you feel what you say, they will pardon many shortcomings. And, + above all, study, study, study! All the genius in the world + will not help you along with any art unless you become a hard + student. It has taken me years to master a single part."</p> + + <p>Salvini's visit to America has been fruitful of a double + good. He has shown forth the splendor of Italian genius, even + revealing to us new marvels in that mine of wealth, the works + of the greatest Bard of the English-speaking race; and he has + gone back to Italy to tell her people of things he has seen in + the New World which his great compatriot discovered—as + wonderful in their way as any related by Othello to Desdemona's + willing ear.</p> + + <p class="author">R. + DAVEY.</p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page97" + id="page97"></a>[pg 97]</span> + + <h2>THREE FEATHERS.</h2> + + <h3>BY WILLIAM BLACK, AUTHOR OF "A PRINCESS OF THULE."</h3> + + <h3>CHAPTER XX.</h3> + + <h3>TINTAGEL'S WALLS.</h3> + + <p>What was the matter with Harry Trelyon? His mother could not + make out; and there never had been much confidence between + them, so that she did not care to ask. But she watched, and she + saw that he had, for the time at least, forsaken his accustomed + haunts and ways and become gloomy, silent and self-possessed. + Dick was left neglected in the stables: you no longer heard his + rapid clatter along the highway, with the not over-melodious + voice of his master singing "The Men of Merry, Merry England" + or "The Young Chevalier." The long and slender fishing-rod + remained on the pegs in the hall, although you could hear the + flop of the small burn-trout of an evening when the flies were + thick over the stream. The dogs were deprived of their + accustomed runs; the horses had to be taken out for exercise by + the groom; and the various and innumerable animals about the + place missed their doses of alternate petting and teasing, all + because Master Harry had chosen to shut himself up in his + study.</p> + + <p>The mother of the young man very soon discovered that her + son was not devoting his hours of seclusion in that + extraordinary museum of natural history to making trout-flies, + stuffing birds and arranging pinned butterflies in cases, as + was his custom. These were not the occupations which now kept + Master Harry up half the night. When she went in of a morning, + before he was up, she found that he had been covering whole + sheets of paper with careful copying out of passages taken at + random from the volumes beside him. A Latin grammar was + ordinarily on the table—a book which the young gentleman + had brought back from school free from thumb-marks. + Occasionally a fencing-foil lay among these evidences of study, + while the small aquaria, the cases of stuffed animals with + fancy backgrounds and the numerous bird-cages had been thrust + aside to give fair elbow-room.</p> + + <p>"Perhaps," said Mrs. Trelyon to herself with much + satisfaction—"perhaps, after all, that good little girl + has given him a hint about Parliament, and he is preparing + himself."</p> + + <p>A few days of this seclusion, however, began to make the + mother anxious; and so one morning she went into his room. He + hastily turned over the sheet of paper on which he had been + writing: then he looked up, not too well pleased.</p> + + <p>"Harry, why do you stay in-doors on such a beautiful + morning? It is quite like summer."</p> + + <p>"Yes, I know," he said. "I suppose we shall soon have a + batch of parsons here: summer always brings them. They come out + with the hot weather—like butterflies."</p> + + <p>Mrs. Trelyon was shocked and disappointed: she thought Wenna + Rosewarne had cured him of his insane dislike to + clergymen—indeed, for many a day gone by he had kept + respectfully silent on the subject.</p> + + <p>"But we shall not ask them to come if you'd rather not," she + said, wishing to do all she could to encourage the reformation + of his ways. "I think Mr. Barnes promised to visit us early in + May, but he is only one."</p> + + <p>"And one is worse than a dozen. When there's a lot you can + leave 'em to fight it out among themselves. But one!—to + have one stalking about an empty house, like a ghost dipped in + ink! Why can't you ask anybody but clergymen, mother? There are + whole lots of people would like to run down from London for a + fortnight before getting into the thick of the season: there's + the Pomeroy girls as good as offered to come."</p> + + <p>"But they can't come by themselves," Mrs. Trelyon said with + a feeble protest.</p> + + <p>"Oh yes, they can: they're ugly enough + <span class="pagenum"><a name="page98" + id="page98"></a>[pg 98]</span> to be safe anywhere. And why + don't you get Juliott up? She'll be glad to get away from + that old curmudgeon for a week. And you ought to ask the + Trewhellas, father and daughter, to dinner: that old fellow + is not half a bad sort of fellow, although he's a + clergyman."</p> + + <p>"Harry," said his mother, interrupting him, "I'll fill the + house if that will please you; and you shall ask just + whomsoever you please."</p> + + <p>"All right," said he: "the place wants waking up."</p> + + <p>"And then," said the mother, wishing to be still more + gracious, "you might ask Miss Rosewarne to dine with us: she + might come well enough, although Mr. Roscorla is not here."</p> + + <p>A sort of gloom fell over the young man's face again: "I + can't ask her—you may if you like."</p> + + <p>Mrs. Trelyon stared: "What is the matter, Harry? Have you + and she quarreled? Why, I was going to ask you, if you were + down in the village to-day, to say that I should like to see + her."</p> + + <p>"And how could I take such a message?" the young man said, + rather warmly, "I don't see why the girl should be ordered up + to see you as if you were conferring a favor on her by joining + in this scheme. She's very hard-worked; you have got plenty of + time; you ought to call on her and study her convenience, + instead of making her trot all the way up here whenever you + want to talk to her."</p> + + <p>The pale and gentle woman flushed a little, but she was + anxious not to give way to petulance just then: "Well, you are + quite right, Harry: it was thoughtless of me. I should like to + go down and see her this morning; but I have sent Jakes over to + the blacksmith's, and I am afraid of that new lad."</p> + + <p>"Oh, I will drive you down to the inn. I suppose among them + they can put the horses to the wagonette," the young man said, + not very graciously: and then Mrs. Trelyon went off to get + ready.</p> + + <p>It was a beautiful, fresh morning, the far-off line of the + sea still and blue, the sunlight lighting up the wonderful + masses of primroses along the tall banks, the air sweet with + the resinous odor of the gorse. Mrs. Trelyon looked with a + gentle and childlike pleasure on all these things, and was + fairly inclined to be very friendly with the young gentleman + beside her. But he was more than ordinarily silent and morose. + Mrs. Trelyon knew she had done nothing to offend him, and + thought it hard she should be punished for the sins of anybody + else.</p> + + <p>He spoke scarcely a word to her as the carriage rolled along + the silent highways. He drove rapidly and carelessly down the + steep thoroughfare of Eglosilyan, although there were plenty of + loose stones about. Then he pulled sharply up in front of the + inn, and George Rosewarne appeared.</p> + + <p>"Mr. Rosewarne, let me introduce you to my mother. She wants + to see Miss Wenna for a few moments, if she is not + engaged."</p> + + <p>Mr. Rosewarne took off his cap, assisted Mrs. Trelyon to + alight, and then showed her the way into the house.</p> + + <p>"Won't you come in, Harry?" his mother said.</p> + + <p>"No."</p> + + <p>A man had come out to the horses' heads.</p> + + <p>"You leave 'em alone," said the young gentleman: "I sha'n't + get down."</p> + + <p>Mabyn came out, her bright young face full of pleasure.</p> + + <p>"How do you do, Mabyn?" he said coldly, and without offering + to shake hands.</p> + + <p>"Won't you come in for a minute?" she said, rather + surprised.</p> + + <p>"No, thank you. Don't you stay out in the cold: you've got + nothing round your neck."</p> + + <p>Mabyn went away without saying a word, but thinking that the + coolness of the air was much less apparent than that of his + manner and speech.</p> + + <p>Being at length left to himself, he turned his attention to + the horses before him, and eventually, to pass the time, took + out his pocket-handkerchief and began to polish the silver on + the handle of the whip. He was disturbed in this peaceful + occupation by a very timid voice, which said, "Mr. Trelyon." He + <span class="pagenum"><a name="page99" + id="page99"></a>[pg 99]</span> turned round and found that + Wenna's wistful face was looking up to him, with a look in + it partly of friendly gladness and partly of anxiety and + entreaty. "Mr. Trelyon," she said, with her eyes cast down, + "I think you are offended with me. I am very sorry: I beg + your forgiveness."</p> + + <p>The reins were fastened up in a minute, and he was down in + the road beside her. "Now look here, Wenna," he said. "What + could you mean by treating me so unfairly? I don't mean in + being vexed with me, but in shunting me off, as it were, + instead of having it out at once. I don't think it was + fair."</p> + + <p>"I am very sorry," she said. "I think I was very wrong, but + you don't know what a girl feels about such things. Will you + come into the inn?"</p> + + <p>"And leave my horses? No," he said, good-naturedly. "But as + soon as I get that fellow out, I will; so you go in at once, + and I'll follow you directly. And mind, Wenna, don't you be so + silly again, or you and I may have a real quarrel; and I know + that would break your heart."</p> + + <p>The old pleased smile lit up her face again as she turned + and went in-doors: he meanwhile proceeded to summon a hostler + by shouting his name at the pitch of his voice.</p> + + <p>The small party of women assembled in the parlor were a + trifle embarrassed: it was the first time that the great lady + of the neighborhood had honored the inn with a visit. She + herself was merely quiet, gentle and pleased, but Mrs. + Rosewarne, with her fine eyes and her sensitive face all lit up + and quickened by, the novel excitement, was all anxiety to + amuse and interest and propitiate her distinguished guest. + Mabyn, too, was rather shy and embarrassed: she said things + hastily, and then seemed afraid of her interference. Wenna was + scarcely at her ease, because she saw that her mother and + sister were not; and she was very anxious, moreover, that these + two should think well of Mrs. Trelyon and be disposed to like + her.</p> + + <p>The sudden appearance of a man with a man's rough ways and + loud voice seemed to shake these feminine elements better + together, and to clear the air of timid apprehensions and + cautions. Harry Trelyon came into the room with quite a marked + freshness and good-nature on his face. His mother was + surprised: what had completely changed his manner in a couple + of minutes?</p> + + <p>"How are you, Mrs. Rosewarne?" he cried in his off-hand + fashion. "You oughtn't to be in-doors on such a morning, or we + shall never get you well, you know; and the doctor will be + sending you to Penzance or Devonport for a change. Well, Mabyn, + have you convinced anybody yet that your farm-laborers with + their twelve shillings a week are better off than the + slate-workers with their eighteen? You'd better take your + sister's opinion on that point, and don't squabble with me. + Mother, what's the use of sitting here? You bring Miss Wenna + with you into the wagonette, and talk to her there about all + your business-affairs, and I'll take you for a drive. Come + along. And of course I want somebody with me: will you come, + Mrs. Rosewarne, or will Mabyn? You can't?—then Mabyn + must. Go along, Mabyn, and put your best hat on, and make + yourself uncommonly smart, and you shall be allowed to sit next + the driver—that's me."</p> + + <p>And indeed he bundled the whole of them about until they + were seated in the wagonette just as he had indicated; and away + they went from the inn-door.</p> + + <p>"And you think you are coming back in half an hour?" he said + to his companion, who was much pleased and very proud to occupy + such a place. "Oh no, you're not. You're a young and simple + thing, Mabyn. These two behind us will go on talking now for + any time about yards of calico and crochet-needles and twopenny + subscriptions, while you and I, don't you see, are quietly + driving them over to Tintagel—"</p> + + <p>"Oh, Mr. Trelyon!" said Mabyn.</p> + + <p>"You keep quiet. That isn't the half of what's going to + befall you. I shall put up the horses at the inn, and I shall + take you all down to the beach for a scramble to improve your + appetite; and at the said inn you shall have luncheon with me, + if you're all very good and + <span class="pagenum"><a name="page100" + id="page100"></a>[pg 100]</span> behave yourselves. Then we + shall drive back just when we particularly please. Do you + like the picture?"</p> + + <p>"It is delightful: oh, I am sure Wenna will enjoy it," Mabyn + said. "But don't you think, Mr. Trelyon, that you might ask her + to sit here? One sees better here than sitting sideways in a + wagonette."</p> + + <p>"They have their business-affairs to settle."</p> + + <p>"Yes," said Mabyn petulantly, "that is what every one says: + nobody expects Wenna ever to have a moment's enjoyment to + herself. Oh, here is old Uncle Cornish—he's a great + friend of Wenna's: he will be dreadfully hurt if she passes him + without saying a word."</p> + + <p>"Then we shall pull up and address Uncle Cornish. I believe + he used to be the most thieving old ruffian of a poacher in + this county."</p> + + <p>There was a hale old man of seventy or so seated on a low + wall in front of one of the gardens, his face shaded from the + sunlight by a broad hat, his lean gray hands employed in + buckling up the leathern leggings that encased his spare + calves. He got up when the horses stopped, and looked in rather + a dazed fashion at the carriage.</p> + + <p>"How do you do this morning, Mr. Cornish?" Wenna said.</p> + + <p>"Why, now, to be sure!" the old man said, as if reproaching + his own imperfect vision. "'Tis a fine marnin', Miss Wenna, and + yü be agwoin' for a drive."</p> + + <p>"And how is your daughter-in-law, Mr. Cornish? Has she sold + the pig yet?"</p> + + <p>"Naw, she hasn't sold the peg. If yü be agwoin' + thrü Trevalga, Miss Wenna, just yü stop and have a + look at that peg: yü'll be 'mazed to see en. 'Tis many a + year agone sence there has been such a peg by me. And perhaps + yü'd take the laste bit o' refrashment, Miss Wenna, as + yü go by: Jane would get yü a coop o' tay to + once."</p> + + <p>"Thank you, Mr. Cornish, I'll look in and see the pig some + other time: to-day we sha'n't be going as far as Trevalga."</p> + + <p>"Oh, won't you?" said Master Harry in a low voice as he + drove on. "You'll be in Trevalga before you know where you + are."</p> + + <p>Which was literally the case. Wenna was so much engaged in + her talk with Mrs. Trelyon that she did not notice how far away + they were getting from Eglosilyan; but Mabyn and her companion + knew. They were now on the high uplands by the coast, driving + between the beautiful banks, which were starred with primroses + and stitchwort and red dead-nettle and a dozen other bright and + tender-hued firstlings of the year. The sun was warm on the + hedges and the fields, but a cool breeze blew about these lofty + heights, and stirred Mabyn's splendid masses of hair as they + drove rapidly along. Far over on their right, beyond the + majestic wall of cliff, lay the great blue plain of the sea; + and there stood the bold brown masses of the Sisters Rocks, + with a circle of white foam round their base. As they looked + down into the south the white light was so fierce that they + could but faintly discern objects through it; but here and + there they caught a glimpse of a square church-tower or of a + few rude cottages clustered on the high plain, and these seemed + to be of a transparent gray in the blinding glare of the + sun.</p> + + <p>Then suddenly in front of them they found a deep chasm, with + the white road leading down through its cool shadows. There was + the channel of a stream, with the rocks looking purple amid the + gray bushes; and here were rich meadows, with cattle standing + deep in the grass and the daisies; and over there, on the other + side, a strip of forest, with the sunlight shining along one + side of the tall and dark-green pines. As they drove down into + this place, which is called the Rocky Valley, a magpie rose + from one of the fields and flew up into the firs.</p> + + <p>"That is sorrow," said Mabyn.</p> + + <p>Another one rose and flew up to the same spot.</p> + + <p>"And that is joy," she said, with her face brightening.</p> + + <p>"Oh, but I saw another as we came to the brow of the hill, + and that means a marriage," her companion remarked to + her.</p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page101" + id="page101"></a>[pg 101]</span> + + <p>"Oh no," she said quite eagerly, "I am sure there was no + third one: I am certain there were only two. I am quite + positive we only saw two."</p> + + <p>"But why should you be so anxious?" Trelyon said, "You know + you ought to be looking forward to a marriage, and that is + always a happy thing. Are you envious, Mabyn?"</p> + + <p>The girl was silent for a moment or two. Then she said, with + a sudden bitterness in her tone, "Isn't it a fearful thing to + have to be civil to people whom you hate? Isn't it, when they + come and establish a claim on you through some one you care + for? You look at them—yes, you can look at them—and + you've got to see them kiss some one that you love; and you + wonder she doesn't rush away for a bit of caustic and cauterize + the place, as you do when a mad dog bites you."</p> + + <p>"Mabyn," said the young man beside her, "you are a most + unchristian sort of person this morning. Who is it you hate in + such a fashion? Will you take the reins while I walk up the + hill?"</p> + + <p>Mabyn's little burst of passion still burned in her cheeks + and gave a proud and angry look to her mouth, but she took the + reins all the same, and her companion leapt to the ground. The + banks on each side of the road going up this hill were tall and + steep: here and there great masses of wild flowers were + scattered among the grass and the gorse. From time to time he + stopped to pick up a handful, until, when they had got up to + the high and level country again, he had brought together a + very pretty bouquet of wild blossoms. When he got into his seat + and took the reins again he carelessly gave the bouquet to + Mabyn.</p> + + <p>"Oh, how pretty!" she said; and then she turned round: + "Wenna, are you very much engaged? Look at the pretty bouquet + Mr. Trelyon has gathered for you."</p> + + <p>Wenna's quiet face flushed with pleasure when she took the + flowers, and Mrs. Trelyon looked pleased and said they were + very pretty. She evidently thought that her son was greatly + improved in his manners when he condescended to gather flowers + to present to a girl. Nay, was he not at this moment devoting a + whole forenoon of his precious time to the unaccustomed task of + taking ladies for a drive? Mrs. Trelyon regarded Wenna with a + friendly look, and began to take a greater liking than ever to + that sensitive and expressive face and to the quiet and earnest + eyes.</p> + + <p>"But, Mr. Trelyon," said Wenna, looking round, "hadn't we + better turn? We shall be at Trevenna directly."</p> + + <p>"Yes, you are quite right," said Master Harry: "you will be + at Trevenna directly, and you are likely to be there for some + time. For Mabyn and I have resolved to have luncheon there, and + we are going down to Tintagel, and we shall most likely climb + to King Arthur's Castle. Have you any objections?"</p> + + <p>Wenna had none. The drive through the cool and bright day + had braced up her spirits. She was glad to know that everything + looked promising about this scheme of hers. So she willingly + surrendered herself to the holiday, and in due time they drove + into the odd and remote little village and pulled up in front + of the inn.</p> + + <p>So soon as the hostler had come to the horses' heads the + young gentleman who had been driving jumped down and assisted + his three companions to alight: then he led the way into the + inn. In the doorway stood a stranger, probably a commercial + traveler, who, with his hands in his pockets, his legs apart + and a cigar in his mouth, had been visiting those three ladies + with a very hearty stare as they got out of the carriage. + Moreover, when they came to the doorway he did not budge an + inch nor did he take his cigar from his mouth; and so, as it + had never been Mr. Trelyon's fashion to sidle past any one, + that young gentleman made straight for the middle of the + passage, keeping his shoulders very square. The consequence was + a collision. The imperturbable person with his hands in his + pockets was sent staggering against the wall, while his cigar + dropped on the stone. "What the devil—!" he was beginning + to say, when Trelyon got the three women past him and into the + small parlor. Then he went back: "Did you + <span class="pagenum"><a name="page102" + id="page102"></a>[pg 102]</span> wish to speak to me, sir? + No, you didn't: I perceive you are a prudent person. Next + time ladies pass you, you'd better take your cigar out of + your mouth or somebody'll destroy that two-pennyworth of + tobacco for you. Good-morning."</p> + + <p>Then he returned to the little parlor, to which a waitress + had been summoned: "Now, Jinny, pull yourself together and + let's have something nice for luncheon—in an hour's time, + sharp. You will, won't you? And how about that Sillery with the + blue star—not the stuff with the gold head that some + abandoned ruffian in Plymouth brews in his back garden. Well, + can't you speak?"</p> + + <p>"Yes, sir," said the bewildered maid.</p> + + <p>"That's a good thing—a very good thing," said he, + putting the shawls together on a sofa. "Don't you forget how to + speak until you get married. And don't let anybody come into + this room. And you can let my man have his dinner and a pint of + beer. Oh, I forgot: I'm my own man this morning, so you needn't + go asking for him. Now, will you remember all these + things?"</p> + + <p>"Yes, sir; but what would you like for luncheon?"</p> + + <p>"My good girl, we should like a thousand things such as + Tintagel never saw, but what you've got to do is to give us the + nicest things you've got: do you see? I leave it entirely in + your hands. Come along, young people."</p> + + <p>And so he bundled his charges out again into the main street + of the village; and somehow it happened that Mabyn addressed a + timid remark to Mrs. Trelyon, and that Mrs. Trelyon, in + answering it, stopped for a moment; so that Master Harry was + sent to Wenna's side, and these two led the way down the wide + thoroughfare. There were few people visible in the + old-fashioned place: here and there an aged crone came out to + the door of one of the rude stone cottages to look at the + strangers. Overhead the sky was veiled over with a thin fleece + of white cloud, but the light was intense for all that, and + indeed the colors of the objects around seemed all the more + clear and marked.</p> + + <p>"Well, Miss Wenna," said the young man gayly, "how long are + we to remain good friends? What is the next fault you will have + to find with me? Or have you discovered something wrong + already?"</p> + + <p>"Oh no," she said with a quiet smile, "I am very good + friends with you this morning. You have pleased your mother + very much by bringing her for this drive."</p> + + <p>"Oh, nonsense!" he said. "She might have as many drives as + she chose; but presently you'll find a lot of those parsons + back at the house, and she'll take to her white gowns again, + and the playing of the organ all the day long, and all that + sham stuff. I tell you what it is: she never seems alive, she + never seems to take any interest in anything, unless you're + with her. Now, you will see how the novelty of this + luncheon-party in an inn will amuse her; but do you think she + would care for it if she and I were here alone?"</p> + + <p>"Perhaps you never tried?" Miss Wenna said gently.</p> + + <p>"Perhaps I knew she wouldn't come. However, don't let's have + a fight, Wenna: I mean to be very civil to you to-day—I + do, really."</p> + + <p>"I am so much obliged to you," she said meekly. "But pray + don't give yourself unnecessary trouble."</p> + + <p>"Oh," said he, "I'd always be civil to you if you would + treat me decently. But you say far more rude things than I + do—in that soft way, you know, that looks as if it were + all silk and honey. I do think you've awfully little + consideration for human failings. If one goes wrong in the + least thing, even in one's spelling, you say something that + sounds as pleasant as possible, and all the same it transfixes + one just as you stick a pin through a beetle. You are very + hard, you are—mean with those who would like to be + friends with you. When it's mere strangers and cottagers and + people of that sort, who don't care a brass farthing about you, + then I believe you're all gentleness and kindness; but to your + real friends the edge of a saw is smooth compared to you."</p> + + <p>"Am I so very harsh to my friends?" the young lady said in a + resigned way.</p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page103" + id="page103"></a>[pg 103]</span> + + <p>"Oh, well," he said, with some compunction, "I don't quite + say that, but you could be much more pleasant if you liked, and + a little more charitable to their faults. You know there are + some who would give a great deal to win your approval; and + perhaps when you find fault they are so disappointed that they + think your words are sharper than you mean; and sometimes they + think you might give them credit for trying to please you, at + least."</p> + + <p>"And who are these persons?" Wenna said, with another smile + stealing over her face.</p> + + <p>"Oh," said he rather shamefacedly, "there's no need to + explain anything to you: you always see it before one need put + it in words."</p> + + <p>Well, perhaps it was in his manner or in the tone of his + voice that there was something which seemed at this moment to + touch her deeply, for she half turned and looked up at his face + with her honest and earnest eyes, and said to him kindly, "Yes, + I do know without you telling me; and it makes me happy to hear + you talk so; and if I am unjust to you, you must not think it + intentional. And I shall try not to be so in the future."</p> + + <p>Mrs. Trelyon was regarding with a kindly look the two young + people walking on in front of her. Whatever pleased her son + pleased her, and she was glad to see him enjoy himself in so + light-hearted a fashion. These two were chatting to each other + in the friendliest manner: sometimes they stopped to pick up + wild flowers: they were as two children together under the fair + and light summer skies.</p> + + <p>They went down and along a narrow valley, until they + suddenly stood in front of the sea, the green waters of which + were breaking in upon a small and lonely creek. What strange + light was this that fell from the white skies above, rendering + all the objects around them sharp its outline and intense in + color? The beach before them seemed of a pale lilac, where the + green waves broke in a semicircle of white. On their right some + masses of ruddy rock jutted out into the cold sea, and there + were huge black caverns into which the waves dashed and roared. + On their left and far above them towered a great and isolated + rock, its precipitous sides scored here and there with twisted + lines of red and yellow quartz; and on the summit of this bold + headland, amid the dark green of the sea-grass, they could see + the dusky ruins—the crumbling walls and doorways and + battlements—of the castle that is named in all the + stories of King Arthur and his knights. The bridge across to + the mainland has, in the course of centuries, fallen away, but + there, on the other side of the wide chasm, were the ruins of + the other portions of the castle, scarcely to be distinguished + in parts from the grass-grown rocks. How long ago was it since + Sir Tristram rode out here to the end of the world, to find the + beautiful Isoulde awaiting him—she whom he had brought + from Ireland as an unwilling bride to the old king Mark? And + what of the joyous company of knights and ladies who once held + high sport in the courtyard there? Trelyon, looking shyly at + his companion, could see that her eyes seemed centuries away + from him. She was quite unconscious of his covertly staring at + her, for she was absently looking at the high and bare + precipices, the deserted slopes of dark sea-grass and the + lonely and crumbling ruins. She was wondering whether the + ghosts of those vanished people ever came back to this lonely + headland, where they would find the world scarcely altered + since they had left it. Did they come at night, when the land + was dark, and when there was a light over the sea only coming + from the stars? If one were to come at night alone, and to sit + down here by the shore, might not one see strange things far + overhead or hear some sound other than the falling of the + waves?</p> + + <p>"Miss Wenna," he said—and she started + suddenly—"are you bold enough to climb with me up to the + castle? I know my mother would rather stay here."</p> + + <p>She went with him mechanically. She followed him up the rude + steps cut in the steep slopes of slate, holding his hand where + that was possible, but her head was so full of dreams that she + answered <span class="pagenum"><a name="page104" + id="page104"></a>[pg 104]</span> him when he spoke only with + a vague yes or no. When they descended again they found that + Mabyn had taken Mrs. Trelyon down to the beach, and had + inveigled her into entering a huge cavern, or rather a + natural tunnel, that went right through underneath the + promontory on which the castle is built. They were in a sort + of green-hued twilight, a scent of seaweed filling the damp + air, and their voices raising an echo in the great hall of + rock.</p> + + <p>"I hope the climbing has not made you giddy," Mrs. Trelyon + said in her kind way to Wenna, noticing that she was very + silent and distrait.</p> + + <p>"Oh no," Mabyn said promptly. "She has been seeing ghosts. + We always know when Wenna has been seeing ghosts: she remains + so for hours."</p> + + <p>And, indeed, at this time she was rather more reserved than + usual all during their walk back to luncheon and while they + were in the inn; and yet she was obviously very happy, and + sometimes even amused by the childlike pleasure which Mrs. + Trelyon seemed to obtain from these unwonted experiences.</p> + + <p>"Come, now, mother," Master Harry said, "what are you going + to do for me when I come of age next month? Fill the house with + guests—yes, you promised that—with not more than + one parson to the dozen? And when they're all feasting and + gabbling, and missing the targets with their arrows, you'll + slip quietly away, and I'll drive you and Miss Wenna over here, + and you'll go and get your feet wet again in that cavern, and + you'll come up here again and have an elegant luncheon, just + like this. Won't that do?"</p> + + <p>"I don't quite know about the elegance of the luncheon, but + I'm sure our little excursion has been very pleasant. Don't you + think so, Miss Rosewarne?" Mrs. Trelyon said.</p> + + <p>"Indeed I do," said Wenna, with her big, earnest eyes coming + back from their trance.</p> + + <p>"And here is another thing," remarked young Trelyon. + "There's a picture I've seen of the heir coming of + age—he's a horrid, self-sufficient young cad, but never + mind—and it seems to be a day of general jollification. + Can't I give a present to somebody? Well, I'm going to give it + to a young lady who never cares for anything but what she can + give away again to somebody else; and it is—well, it + is—Why don't you guess, Mabyn?"</p> + + <p>"I don't know what you mean to give Wenna," said Mabyn + naturally.</p> + + <p>"Why, you silly! I mean to give her a dozen + sewing-machines—a baker's dozen—thirteen. There! + Oh, I heard you as you came along. It was all, 'Three + sewing-machines will cost so much, and four sewing-machines + will cost so much, and five sewing-machines will cost so much. + And a penny a week from so many subscribers will be so much, + and twopence a week from so many will be so much;' and all this + as if my mother could tell you how much twice two was. My + arithmetic ain't very brilliant, but as for hers—And + these you shall have, Miss Wenna—one baker's dozen of + sewing-machines, as per order, duly delivered, carriage + free—empty casks and bottles to be returned."</p> + + <p>"That is very kind of you, Mr. Trelyon," Wenna + said—and all the dreams had gone straight out of her head + so soon as this was mentioned—"but we can't possibly + accept them. You know our scheme is to make the sewing club + quite self-supporting—no charity."</p> + + <p>"Oh, what stuff!" the young gentleman cried. "You know you + will give all your labor and supervision for nothing: isn't + that charity? And you know you will let off all sorts of people + owing you subscriptions the moment some blessed baby falls ill. + And you know you won't charge interest on all the outlay. But + if you insist on paying me back for my sewing-machines out of + the overwhelming profits at the end of next year, then I'll + take the money. I'm not proud."</p> + + <p>"Then we will take six sewing-machines from you, if you + please, Mr. Trelyon, on those conditions," said Wenna gravely. + And Master Harry—with a look toward Mabyn which was just + about as good as a wink—consented.</p> + + <p>As they drove quietly back again to Eglosilyan, Mabyn had + taken her former <span class="pagenum"><a name="page105" + id="page105"></a>[pg 105]</span> place by the driver, and + found him uncommonly thoughtful. He answered her questions, + but that was all; and it was so unusual to find Harry + Trelyon in this mood that she said to him, "Mr. Trelyon, + have you been seeing ghosts, too?"</p> + + <p>He turned to her and said, "I was thinking about something. + Look here, Mabyn: did you ever know any one, or do you know any + one, whose face is a sort of barometer to you? Suppose that you + see her look pale and tired or sad in any way, then down go + your spirits, and you almost wish you had never been born. When + you see her face brighten up and get full of healthy color, you + feel glad enough to burst out singing or go mad: anyhow, you + know that everything's all right. What the weather is, what + people may say about you, whatever else may happen to you, + that's nothing: all you want to see is just that one person's + face look perfectly bright and perfectly happy, and nothing can + touch you then. Did you ever know anybody like that?" he added + rather abruptly.</p> + + <p>"Oh yes," said Mabyn, in a low voice: "that is when you are + in love with some one. And there is only one face in all the + world that I look to for all these things, there is only one + person I know who tells you openly and simply in her face all + that affects her, and that is our Wenna. I suppose you have + noticed that, Mr. Trelyon?"</p> + + <p>But he did not make any answer.</p> + + <h3>CHAPTER XXI.</h3> + + <h3>CONFESSION.</h3> + + <p>The lad lay dreaming in the warm meadows by the side of a + small and rapid brook, the clear waters of which plashed and + bubbled in the sunlight as they hurried past the brown stones. + His fishing-rod lay beside him, hidden in the long grass and + the daisies. The sun was hot in the valley—shining on a + wall of gray rock behind him, and throwing purple shadows over + the clefts; shining on the dark bushes beside the stream and on + the lush green of the meadows; shining on the trees beyond, in + the shadow of which some dark red cattle were standing. Then + away on the other side of the valley rose gently-sloping woods, + gray and green in the haze of the heat, and over these again + was the pale blue sky with scarcely a cloud in it. It was a hot + day to be found in spring-time, but the waters of the brook + seemed cool and pleasant as they gurgled by, and occasionally a + breath of wind blew over from the woods. For the rest, he lay + so still on this fine, indolent, dreamy morning that the birds + around seemed to take no note of his presence, and one of the + large woodpeckers, with his scarlet head and green body + brilliant in the sun, flew close by him and disappeared into + the bushes opposite like a sudden gleam of color shot by a + diamond.</p> + + <p>"Next month," he was thinking to himself as he lay with his + hands behind his head, not caring to shade his handsome and + well-tanned face from the warm sun—"next month I shall be + twenty-one, and most folks will consider me a man. Anyhow, I + don't know the man whom I wouldn't fight or run or ride or + shoot against for any wager he liked. But of all the people who + know anything about me, just that one whose opinion I care for + will not consider me a man at all, but only a boy. And that + without saying anything. You can tell, somehow, by a mere look, + what her feelings are; and you know that what she thinks is + true. Of course it's true—I am only a boy. What's the + good of me to anybody? I could look after a farm—that is, + I could look after other people doing their work—but I + couldn't do any work myself. And that seems to me what she is + always looking at: 'What's the good of you, what are you doing, + what are you busy about?' It's all very well for her to be + busy, for she can do a hundred thousand things, and she is + always at them. What can I do?"</p> + + <p>Then his wandering day-dreamings took another turn: "It was + an odd thing for Mabyn to say—'<i>That is when you are in + love with some one</i>.' But those girls take everything for + love. They don't know how you can admire, almost + <span class="pagenum"><a name="page106" + id="page106"></a>[pg 106]</span> to worshiping, the goodness + of a woman, and how you are anxious that she should be well + and happy, and how you would do anything in the world to + please her, without fancying straight away that you are in + love with her, and want to marry her and drive about in the + same carriage with her. I shall be quite as fond of Wenna + Rosewarne when she is married, although I shall hate that + little brute with his rum and his treacle. The cheek of him, + in asking her to marry him, is astonishing. He is the most + hideous little beast that could have been picked out to + marry any woman, but I suppose he has appealed to her + compassion, and then she'll do anything. But if there was + anybody else in love with her, if she cared the least bit + about anybody else, wouldn't I go straight to her and insist + on her shunting that fellow aside? What claim has he on any + other feeling of hers but her compassion? Why, if that + fellow were to come and try to frighten her, and if I were + in the affair, and if she appealed to me even by a look, + then there would be short work with something or + somebody."</p> + + <p>He got up hastily, with something of a gloomy and angry look + on his face. He did not notice that he had startled all the + birds around from out of the bushes. He picked up his rod and + line in a morose fashion, not seeming to care about adding to + the half dozen small and red-speckled trout he had in his + basket.</p> + + <p>While he was thus irresolutely standing he caught sight of a + girl's figure coming rapidly along the valley under the shadow + of some ash trees growing by the stream. It was Wenna Rosewarne + herself, and she seemed to be hurrying toward him. She was + carrying some black object in her arms.</p> + + <p>"Oh, Mr. Trelyon," she said, "what am I to do with this + little dog? I saw him kicking in the road and foaming at the + mouth; and then he got up and ran, and I caught him—"</p> + + <p>Before she had time to say anything more the young man made + a sudden dive at the dog, caught hold of him and turned and + heaved him into the stream. He fell into a little pool of clear + brown water: he spluttered and paddled there for a second, then + he got his footing and scrambled across the stones up to the + opposite bank, where he began shaking the water from his coat + among the long grass.</p> + + <p>"Oh, how could you be so disgracefully cruel?" she said, + with her face full of indignation.</p> + + <p>"And how could you be so imprudent?"' he said quite as + vehemently. "Why, whose is the dog?"</p> + + <p>"I don't know."</p> + + <p>"And you catch up some mongrel little cur in the middle of + the highway—He might have been mad."</p> + + <p>"I knew he wasn't mad," she said: "it was only a fit; and + how could you be so cruel as to throw him into the river?"</p> + + <p>"Oh," said the young man, coolly, "a clash of cold water is + the best thing for a dog that has a fit. Besides, I don't care + what he had or what I did with him, so long as you are safe. + Your little finger is of more consequence than the necks of all + the curs in the country."</p> + + <p>"Oh, it is mean of you to say that," she retorted warmly. + "You have no pity for those wretched little things that are at + every one's mercy. If it were a handsome and beautiful dog, + now, you would care for that, or if it were a dog that was + skilled in getting game for you, you would care for that."</p> + + <p>"Yes, certainly," he said: "these are dogs that have + something to recommend them."</p> + + <p>"Yes, and every one is good to them: they are not in need of + your favor. But you don't think of the wretched little brutes + that have nothing to recommend them, that only live on + sufferance, that every one kicks and despises and starves."</p> + + <p>"Well," said he with some compunction, "look there! That new + friend of yours—he's no great beauty, you must + confess—is all right now. The bath has cured him. As soon + as he's done licking his paws he'll be off home, wherever that + may be. But I've always noticed that about you, Wenna: you're + always on the side of things that are ugly and + <span class="pagenum"><a name="page107" + id="page107"></a>[pg 107]</span> helpless and useless in the + world; and you're not very just to those who don't agree + with you. For after all, you know, one wants time to acquire + that notion of yours—that it is only weak and + ill-favored creatures that are worthy of the least + consideration."</p> + + <p>"Yes," she said rather sadly, "you want time to learn + that."</p> + + <p>He looked at her. Did she mean that her sympathy with those + who were weak and ill-favored arose from some strange + consciousness that she herself was both? His cheeks began to + burn red. He had often heard her hint something like that, and + yet he had never dared to reason with her or show her what he + thought of her. Should he do so now?</p> + + <p>"Wenna," he said, blushing hotly, "I can't make you out + sometimes. You speak as if no one cared for you. Now, if I were + to tell you—"</p> + + <p>"Oh, I am not so ungrateful," she said hastily. "I know that + two or three do; and—and, Mr. Trelyon, do you think you + could coax that little dog over the stream again? You see he + has come back again—he can't find his way home."</p> + + <p>Mr. Trelyon called to the dog: it came down to the river's + side, and whined and shivered on the brink.</p> + + <p>"Do you care a brass farthing about the little beast?" he + said to Wenna.</p> + + <p>"I must put him on his way home," she answered.</p> + + <p>Thereupon the young man went straight through the stream to + the other side, jumping the deeper portions of the channel: he + caught up the dog and brought it back to her; and when she was + very angry with him for this mad performance, he merely kicked + some of the water out of his trousers and laughed.</p> + + <p>Then a smile broke over her face also. "Is that an example + of what people would do for me?" she said shyly. "Mr. Trelyon, + you must keep walking through the warm grass till your feet are + dry; or will you come along to the inn, and I shall get you + some shoes and stockings? Pray do, and at once. I am rather in + a hurry."</p> + + <p>"I'll go along with you, anyway," he said, "and put this + little brute into the highway. But why are you in a hurry?"</p> + + <p>"Because," said Wenna, as they set out to walk down the + valley—"because my mother and I are going to Penzance the + day after to-morrow, and I have a lot of things to get + ready."</p> + + <p>"To Penzance?" said he with a sudden falling of the + face.</p> + + <p>"Yes. She has been dreadfully out of sorts lately, and she + has sunk into a kind of despondent state. The doctor says she + must have a change—a holiday, really—to take her + away from the cares of the house—"</p> + + <p>"Why, Wenna, it's you who want the holiday—it's you + who have the cares of the house," Trelyon said warmly.</p> + + <p>"And so I have persuaded her to go to Penzance for a week or + two, and I go with her to look after her. Mr. Trelyon, would + you be kind enough to keep Rock for me until we come back? I am + afraid of the servants neglecting him."</p> + + <p>"You needn't be afraid of that: he's not one of the + ill-favored—every one will attend to him," said Trelyon; + and then he added, after a minute or two of silence, "The fact + is, I think I shall be at Penzance also while you are there. My + cousin Juliott is coming here in about a fortnight to celebrate + the important event of my coming of age, and I promised to go + for her. I might as well go now."</p> + + <p>She said nothing.</p> + + <p>"I might as well go any time," he said rather impatiently. + "I haven't got anything to do. Do you know, before you came + along just now, I was thinking what a very useful person you + were in the world, and what a very useless person I + was—about as useless as this little cur. I think somebody + should take me up and heave me into a river. And I was + wondering, too"—here he became a little more embarrassed + and slow of speech—"I was wondering what you would say + if I spoke to you, and gave you a hint that + sometimes—that sometimes one might wish to cut this lazy + life if one only knew how, and whether so very busy a person as + yourself mightn't—don't you see?—give one some + notion—some sort of hint, in fact—"</p> + + <p>"Oh, but then, Mr. Trelyon," she said quite cheerfully, "you + would think it very <span class="pagenum"><a name="page108" + id="page108"></a>[pg 108]</span> strange if I asked you to + take any interest in the things that keep me busy. That is + not a man's work. I wouldn't accept you as a pupil."</p> + + <p>He burst out laughing. "Why," said he, "do you think I + offered to mend stockings and set sums on slates and coddle + babies?"</p> + + <p>"As for setting sums on slates," she remarked with a quiet + impertinence, "the working of them out might be of use to + you."</p> + + <p>"Yes, and a serious trouble too," he said candidly. "No, + no—that cottage business ain't in my line. I like to have + a joke with the old folks or a romp with the kids, but I can't + go in for cutting out pinafores. I shall leave my mother to do + my share of that for me; and hasn't she come out strong lately, + eh? It's quite a new amusement for her, and it's driven a deal + of that organ-grinding and stuff out of her head; and I've a + notion some o' those parsons—"</p> + + <p>He stopped short, remembering who his companion was; and at + this moment they came to a gate which opened out on the + highway, through which the small cur was passed to find his way + home.</p> + + <p>"Now, Miss Wenna," said the young man—"By the way, you + see how I remember to address you respectfully ever since you + got sulky with me about it the other day?"</p> + + <p>"I am sure I did not get sulky with you, and especially + about that," she remarked with much composure. "I suppose you + are not aware that you have dropped the 'Miss' several times + this morning already?"</p> + + <p>"Did I, really? Well, then, I'm awfully sorry; but then you + are so good-natured you tempt one to forget; and my mother she + always calls you Wenna Rosewarne now in speaking to me, as if + you were a little school-girl, instead of being the chief + support and pillar of all the public affairs of Eglosilyan. And + now, Miss Wenna, I sha'n't go down the road with you, because + my damp boots and garments would gather the dust; but perhaps + you wouldn't mind stopping two seconds here, and I'm going to + go a cracker and ask you a question: What should a fellow in my + position try to do? You see, I haven't had the least training + for any one of the professions, even if I had any sort of + capacity—"</p> + + <p>"But why should you wish to have a profession?" she said + simply. "You have more money than is good for you already."</p> + + <p>"Then you don't think it ignominious," he said, with his + face lighting up considerably, "to fish in summer and shoot in + autumn and hunt in winter, and make that the only business of + one's life?"</p> + + <p>"I should if it were the only business, but it needn't be, + and you don't make it so. My father speaks very highly of the + way you look after your property; and he knows what attending + to an estate is. And then you have so many opportunities of + being kind and useful to the people about you that you might do + more good that way than by working night and day at a + profession. Then you owe much to yourself, because if every one + began with himself, and educated himself, and became satisfied + and happy with doing his best, there would be no bad conduct + and wretchedness to call for interference. I don't see why you + should be ashamed of shooting and hunting and all that, and + doing them as well as anybody else, or far better, as I hear + people say. I don't think a man is bound to have ambition and + try to become famous: you might be of much greater use in the + world, even in such a little place as Eglosilyan, than if you + were in Parliament. I did say to Mrs. Trelyon that I should + like to see you in Parliament, because one has a natural pride + in any person one admires and likes very much, and one + wishes—"</p> + + <p>He saw the quick look of fear that sprang to her + eyes—not a sudden appearance of shy embarrassment, but of + absolute fear—and he was almost as startled by her + blunder as she herself was. He hastily came to her rescue. He + thanked her in a few rapid and formal words for her patience + and advice; and, as he saw she was trying to turn away and hide + the mortification visible on her face, he shook hands with her + and let her go.</p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page109" + id="page109"></a>[pg 109]</span> + + <p>Then he turned. He had been startled, it is true, and + grieved to see the pain her chance words had caused her. But + now a great glow of delight rose up within him, and he could + have called aloud to the blue skies and the silent woods + because of the joy that filled his heart. They were but chance + words, of course. They were uttered with no deliberate + intention: on the contrary, her quick look of pain showed how + bitterly she regretted the blunder. Moreover, he congratulated + himself on his rapid piece of acting, and assured himself that + she would believe that he had not noticed that admission of + hers. They were idle words: she would forget them. The + incident, so far as she was concerned, was gone.</p> + + <p>But not so far as he was concerned. For now he knew that the + person whom, above all other persons in the world, he was most + desirous to please, whose respect and esteem he was most + anxious to obtain, had not only condoned much of his idleness + out of the abundant charity of her heart, but had further, and + by chance, revealed to him that she gave him some little share + of that affection which she seemed to shed generously and + indiscriminately on so many folks and things around her. He, + too, was now in the charmed circle. He walked with a new pride + through the warm, green meadows, his rod over his shoulder: he + whistled as he went, or he sang snatches of "The Rose of + Allandale." He met two small boys out bird's-nesting: he gave + them a shilling apiece, and then inconsistently informed them + that if he caught them then or at any other time with a bird's + nest in their hands he would cuff their ears. Then he walked + hastily home, put by his fishing-rod, and shut himself up in + his study with half a dozen of those learned volumes which he + had brought back unsoiled from school.</p> + + <h3>CHAPTER XXII.</h3> + + <h3>ON WINGS OF HOPE.</h3> + + <p>When Trelyon arrived late one evening at Penzance he was + surprised to find his uncle's coachman awaiting him at the + station: "What's the matter, Tobias? Is the old gentleman going + to die? You don't mean to say you are here for me?"</p> + + <p>"Yaäs, zor, I be," said the little old man with no + great courtesy.</p> + + <p>"Then he is going to die if he sends out his horse at this + time o' night. Look here, Tobias: I'll put my portmanteau + inside and come on the box to have a talk with you—you're + such a jolly old card, you know—and you'll tell me all + that's happened since I last enjoyed my uncle's bountiful + hospitality."</p> + + <p>This the young man did: and then the brown-faced, wiry and + surly little person, having started his horse, proceeded to + tell his story in a series of grumbling and disconnected + sentences. He was not nearly so taciturn as he looked: "The + maäster he went sün to bed to-night: 'twere Miss + Juliott sent me to the station, without tellin' en. He's + gettin' worse and worse, that's sure: if yü be for giving + me half a crown, like, or any one that comes to the house, he + finds it out and stops it out o' my wages: yes, he does, zor, + the old fule!"</p> + + <p>"Tobias, be a little more respectful to my uncle, if you + please."</p> + + <p>"Why, zor, yü knaw en well enough," said the man in the + same surly fashion. "And I'll tell yü this, Maäster + Harry, if yü be after dinner with en, and he has a bottle + o' poort wine that he puts on the mantelpiece, and he says to + yü to let that aloän, vor 'tis a medicine-zart o' + wine, don't yü heed en, but have that wine. 'Tis the real + old poort wine, zor, that yür vather gied en—the + dahmned old pagan!"</p> + + <p>The young man burst out laughing, instead of reprimanding + Tobias, who maintained his sulky impassiveness of face.</p> + + <p>"Why, zor, I be gardener now, too: yaäs I be, to save + the wages. And he's gone clean mazed about that + garden—yaäs, I think. Would yü believe this, + Maäster Harry, that he killed every one o' the blessed + strawberries last year with a lot o' wrack from the bache, + because he said it wüd be as good for them as for the + 'sparagus?"</p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page110" + id="page110"></a>[pg 110]</span> + + <p>"Well, but the old chap finds amusement in pottering about + the garden—" said Master Harry.</p> + + <p>"The old fule!" repeated Tobias, in an under tone.</p> + + <p>"And the theory is sound about the seaweed and the + strawberries; just as his old notion of getting a green rose by + pouring sulphate of copper in at the roots."</p> + + <p>"Yaäs, that were another pretty thing, Maäster + Harry, and he had the tin labels all printed out in French, and + he waited and waited, and there bain't a fairly güde rose + left in the garden. And his violet glass for the cucumbers: he + burned en up to once, although 'twere fine to hear'n talk about + the sunlight and the rays and such nonsenses. He be a strange + mahn, zor, and a dahmned close'n with his penny-pieces, + Christian and all as he calls his-sen. There's Miss Juliott, + zor, she's go-in' to get married, I suppose; and when she goes + no one 'll dare spake to 'n. Be yü going to stop long this + time, Maäster Harry?"</p> + + <p>"Not at the Hollies, Tobias. I shall go down to the Queen's + to-morrow: I've got rooms there."</p> + + <p>"So much the better—so much the better," said the + frank but inhospitable retainer; and presently the jogtrot old + animal between the shafts was pulled up in front of a certain + square old-fashioned building of gray stone which was prettily + surrounded with trees. They had arrived at the Rev. Mr. + Penaluna's house, and there was a young lady standing in the + light of the hall, she having opened the door very softly as + she heard the carriage drive up.</p> + + <p>"So here you are, Harry; and you'll stay with us the whole + fortnight, won't you? Come in to the dining-room—I have + some supper ready for you. Papa's gone to bed, and he desired + me to give you his excuses, and he hopes you'll make yourself + quite at home, as you always do, Harry."</p> + + <p>He did make himself quite at home, for, having kissed his + cousin and flung his topcoat down in the hall, he went into the + dining-room and took possession of an easy-chair.</p> + + <p>"Sha'n't have any supper, Jue, thank you. You won't mind my + lighting a cigar—somebody's been smoking here already. + And what's the least poisonous claret you've got?"</p> + + <p>"Well, I declare!" she said, but she got him the wine all + the same, and watched him light his cigar: then she took the + easy-chair opposite.</p> + + <p>"Tell us about your young man, Jue," he said. "Girls always + like to talk about that."</p> + + <p>"Do they?" she said. "Not to boys."</p> + + <p>"I shall be twenty-one in a fortnight. I am thinking of + getting married."</p> + + <p>"So I hear," she remarked quietly.</p> + + <p>Now he had been talking nonsense at random, mostly intent on + getting his cigar well lit, but this little observation rather + startled him. "What have you heard?" he said abruptly.</p> + + <p>"Oh, nothing—the ordinary stupid gossip," she said, + though she was watching him rather closely. "Are you going to + stay with us for the next fortnight?"</p> + + <p>"No, I have got rooms at the Queen's."</p> + + <p>"I thought so. One might have expected you, however, to stay + with your relations when you came to Penzance."</p> + + <p>"Oh, that's all gammon, Jue," he said: "you know very well + your father doesn't care to have any one stay with + you—it's too much bother. You'll have quite enough of me + while I am in Penzance."</p> + + <p>"Shall we have anything of you?" she said with apparent + indifference. "I understood that Miss Rosewarne and her mamma + had already come here."</p> + + <p>"And what if they have?" he said with unnecessary + fierceness.</p> + + <p>"Well, Harry," she said, "you needn't get unto a temper + about it, but people will talk, you know; and they say that + your attentions to that young lady are rather marked, + considering that she is engaged to be married; and you have + induced your mother to make a pet of her. Shall I go on?"</p> + + <p>"No, you needn't," he said with a strong effort to overcome + his anger. "You're quite right—people do talk, but they + wouldn't talk so much if other people didn't carry tales. Why, + it isn't like you, Jue! I thought you were another + <span class="pagenum"><a name="page111" + id="page111"></a>[pg 111]</span> sort. And about this girl, + of all girls in the world!"</p> + + <p>He got up and began walking about the room, and talking with + considerable vehemence, but no more in anger. He would tell her + what cause there was for this silly gossip. He would tell her + who this girl was who had been lightly mentioned. And in his + blunt, frank, matter-of-fact way, which did not quite conceal + his emotion, he revealed to his cousin all that he thought of + Wenna Rosewarne, and what he hoped for her in the future, and + what their present relations were, and then plainly asked her + if she could condemn him.</p> + + <p>Miss Juliott was touched: "Sit down, Harry: I have wanted to + talk to you, and I don't mean to heed any gossip. Sit down, + please—you frighten me by walking up and down like that. + Now, I'm going to talk common sense to you, for I should like + to be your friend; and your mother is so easily led away by any + sort of sentiment that she isn't likely to have seen with my + eyes. Suppose that this Miss Rosewarne—"</p> + + <p>"No, hold hard a bit, Jue," he said imperatively. "You may + talk till the millennium, but just keep off her, I warn + you."</p> + + <p>"Will you hear me out, you silly boy? Suppose that Miss + Rosewarne is everything that you believe her to be. I'm going + to grant that, because I'm going to ask you a question. You + can't have such an opinion of any girl, and be constantly in + her society, and go following her about like this, without + falling in love with her. Now, in that case would you propose + to marry her?"</p> + + <p>"I marry her!" he said, his face becoming suddenly pale for + a moment. "Jue, you are mad! I am not fit to marry a girl like + that. You don't know her. Why—"</p> + + <p>"Let all that alone, Harry: when a man is in love with a + woman he always thinks he's good enough for her; and whether he + does or not he tries to get her for a wife. Don't let us + discuss your comparative merits: one might even put in a word + for you. But suppose you drifted into being in love with + her—and I consider that quite probable—and suppose + you forgot, as I know you would forget, the difference in your + social position, how would you like to go and ask her to break + her promise to the gentleman to whom she is engaged?"</p> + + <p>Master Harry laughed aloud in a somewhat nervous fashion: + "Him? Look here, Jue: leave me out of it—I haven't the + cheek to talk of myself in that connection—but if there + was a decent sort of fellow whom that girl really took a liking + to, do you think he would let that elderly and elegant swell + out in Jamaica stand in his way? He would be no such fool, I + can tell you. He would consider the girl first of all. He would + say to himself, 'I mean to make this girl happy; if any one + interferes, let him look out!' Why, Jue, you don't suppose any + man would be frightened by that sort of thing?"</p> + + <p>Miss Juliott did not seem quite convinced by this burst of + scornful oratory. She continued quietly, "You forget something, + Harry. Your heroic young man might find it easy to do something + wild—to fight with that gentleman in the West Indies, or + murder him, or anything like that, just as you see in a + story—but perhaps Miss Rosewarne might have something to + say."</p> + + <p>"I meant if she cared for him," Trelyon said, looking + down.</p> + + <p>"Granting that also, do you think it likely your hot-headed + gentleman would be able to get a young lady to disgrace herself + by breaking her plighted word and deceiving a man who went away + trusting in her? You say she has a very tender + conscience—that she is so anxious to consult every one's + happiness before her own, and all that. Probably it is true. I + say nothing against her. But to bring the matter back to + yourself—for I believe you're hot-headed enough to do + anything—what would you think of her if you or anybody + else persuaded her to do such a treacherous thing?"</p> + + <p>"She is not capable of treachery," he said somewhat stiffly. + "If you've got no more cheerful things to talk about, you'd + better go to bed, Jue. I shall finish my cigar by + myself."</p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page112" + id="page112"></a>[pg 112]</span> + + <p>"Very well, then, Harry. You know your room. Will you put + out the lamp when you have lit your candle?"</p> + + <p>So she went, and the young man was left alone in no very + enviable frame of mind. He sat and smoked while the clock on + the mantelpiece swung its gilded boy and struck the hours and + half hours with unheeded regularity. He lit a second cigar, and + a third; he forgot the wine. It seemed to him that he was + looking on all the roads of life that lay before him, and they + were lit up by as strange and new a light as that which was + beginning to shine over the world outside. New fancies seemed + to awake with the new dawn. For himself to ask Wenna Rosewarne + to be his wife! Could he but win the tender and shy regard of + her eyes he would fall at her feet and bathe them with his + tears. And if this wonderful thing were possible—if she + could put her hand in his and trust to him for safety in all + the coming years they might live together—what man of + woman born would dare to interfere? There was a blue light + coming in through the shutters. He went to the window: the + topmost leaves of the trees were quivering in the cold air far + up there in the clearing skies, where the stars were fading out + one by one, and he could hear the sound of the sea on the + distant beach, and he knew that across the gray plain of waters + the dawn was breaking, and that over the sleeping world another + day was rising that seemed to him the first day of a new and + tremulous life, full of joy and courage and hope.</p> + + <p>[TO BE CONTINUED.]</p> + + <h2>ON THE VIA SAN BASILIO.</h2> + + <p>In Rome, 1851; a cold, dreary day in December—one of + those days in which a man's ambition seems to desert him + entirely, leaving only its grinning skeleton to mock him. + Depressing as was the weather to a man who had cheerfulness as + a companion by which to repel its blustering attacks, and raise + his mind above the despondency it was calculated to produce, + how much more so to one whose hope had gone out as a flickering + lamp in a sudden gust of wind, and the sharp steel of whose + ambition had turned to pierce his own heart!</p> + + <p>Such a man, on the day mentioned, was walking along the Via + San Basilio. He was small in stature, poorly clad, and so thin, + and even cadaverous, that the casual observer might have been + under apprehension lest a gust of wind a little stronger than + the average might blow him entirely away; yet his air and + manner were proud and haughty, and what little evidences of + feeling peered through the signs of dissipation too apparent on + his naturally attractive face were those of genuine refinement. + He was accompanied by a cicerone, or servant, as + villainous-looking a fellow as one often meets, even in Italy, + where an evil expression is so often seen stamped on handsome + features.</p> + + <p>Along the Via San Basilio the two men walked until they + stood opposite the door of No. 51. Sacred ground this, and + historical as well. Art had her votaries here, as the tourist + of to-day will find she still has, at whose shrines pilgrims + from afar and from near worshiped, and grew better and stronger + for their ministrations. Crawford, then at the acme of his + fame, had his constantly-thronged studio in the immediate + vicinity, while those at No. 51 embraced, among others, that of + Tenerani, the famous Italian sculptor, whose work is always in + such fine dramatic taste, although he never sacrifices his love + and deep feeling of reverence for Nature, combining that with + the most delightful charms of Greek art. Among this + <span class="pagenum"><a name="page113" + id="page113"></a>[pg 113]</span> artist's most noted works + will be remembered his "Descent from the Cross," which + tourists visiting the Torlonia chapel in the Lateran never + gaze upon without a thrill. The house was owned and also + occupied by Bienaimé, a French sculptor who afterward + became famous.</p> + + <p>In the immediate vicinity stands the famous Palazzo + Barberini, begun by Urban VIII. (Maffeo Barberini), who sat in + the pontifical chair from 1623 to 1644, and finished by Bernini + in 1640. This palace contains many paintings of historical + interest by Raphael, Titian, Guido, Claude and others. The one + by the first-mentioned artist is a Fornarina, and bears the + autograph of the painter on the armlet. But the picture that + attracts the most attention here is one of world-wide + reputation, copies, engravings and photographs of which are + everywhere to be met with—Guido's Beatrice Cenci. A great + divergence of opinion, as is well known, exists in regard to + the portrait. It bears the pillar and crown of the Colonnas, to + which family it probably belonged. According to the family + tradition, it was taken on the night before her execution. + Other accounts state that it was painted by Guido from memory + after he had seen her on the scaffold. Judging from the + position in which the poor girl's head is represented, one + would more readily give credence to the latter story, and think + the artist's memory had preserved her look and position as she + turned her head for a last look at the brutal, bellowing crowd + behind.</p> + + <p>In the piazza of the palace is a very beautiful fountain, + utilized by one of the oldest Roman statues, representing a + faun blowing water from a conch-shell.</p> + + <p>But we must return to the Via San Basilio, and the two + wayfarers we left standing in front of No. 51. After gazing a + moment at the number to assure themselves that they were right, + they entered, and knocked at the first door, which was opened + by the occupant of the apartment. He was an artist and a man of + very marked characteristics. Seven years later Hawthorne wrote + as follows of him: "He is a plain, homely Yankee, quite + unpolished by his many years' residence in Italy. He talks + ungrammatically; walks with a strange, awkward gait and + stooping shoulders; is altogether unpicturesque, but wins one's + confidence by his very lack of grace. It is not often that we + see an artist so entirely free from affectation in his aspect + and deportment. His pictures were views of Swiss and Italian + scenery, and were most beautiful and true. One of them, a + moonlight picture, was really magical—the moon shining so + brightly that it seemed to throw a light even beyond the limits + of the picture; and yet his sunrises and sunsets, and noontides + too, were nowise inferior to this, although their excellence + required somewhat longer study to be fully appreciated."</p> + + <p>After this introduction by our sweet and quaint romancer, + the reader will hardly need be told that the two strangers + stood in the presence of America's now illustrious artist, + George L. Brown. But one seeing him then, as he stood almost + scowling at the two strangers, would hardly have idealized him + into the artist whose pencil has done so much of late years to + give American art a distinctive name through his poetical + delineations of the rare, sun-tinted atmosphere that hovers + over Italian landscapes. However, our apology for him must be + that the day was raw and blustering, and that he had no sooner + caught sight of the men through his window, as they + hesitatingly entered the door, than his suspicions were + aroused.</p> + + <p>The Italian acted as spokesman, and inquired if there were + any rooms to let in the building. Brown, thinking this the + easiest way of ridding himself of the visitors, went in search + of the landlord, who came, and after a moment's conversation + the whole party entered the studio, much to its owner's + displeasure.</p> + + <p>The cicerone did most of the talking, though now and then + the other made a remark or two in broken Italian. But this was + only for the first few moments. He soon became oblivious of all + save art, of which one could see at a glance he was + passionately fond. One of Mr. Brown's pictures—a large + one he was then engaged on—particularly attracted + <span class="pagenum"><a name="page114" + id="page114"></a>[pg 114]</span> his attention. He drew + closer and closer to the canvas, examining it with a + minuteness that showed the connoisseur, and finally + remarked: "It is very fine in color, sir, and the atmosphere + is delicious. Why have I not heard of you before?" examining + the corner of the canvas for the artist's name, but speaking + in a tone and with an air that gave Brown the impression he + was indulging in the random flattery so current in studios. + So, ignoring the question, he asked with a slight shrug of + the shoulders, "Are you an artist?"</p> + + <p>"I paint a little," was the reply, with an air of modesty + which Brown mistook for the bashful half-assertion of some + daubing amateur.</p> + + <p>Just then the cicerone came forward and announced that the + bargain was completed and the room ready for occupancy.</p> + + <p>"I shall be happy—no, <i>happy</i> is not a good word + for me—I shall be glad to see you in my studio when I + have moved in, and perhaps you may see some things to please + you."</p> + + <p>So saying, the stranger departed, leaving Brown not a whit + better impressed with him than at first.</p> + + <p>The next morning the two called again, when the gentleman + made an examination of the room selected the day before, having + met Mr. Brown in the hall-way and invited him in. On entering, + the new occupant took from his pocket a piece of chalk and a + compass and made a number of circles and figures on the floor + to determine when the sun would shine in the room. Brown + watched him with a certain degree of curiosity and amusement, + and finally, concluding he was half crazy, returned to his own + studio.</p> + + <p>The next day the cicerone called alone to see about some + repairs, when Brown hailed him: "<i>Buono giorno. Che è + questo</i>?" ("Good-day. Who is that?")</p> + + <p>"<i>Non sapete</i>?" ("Don't you know?"), was the Italian's + response. "Why, that is the celebrated Brullof."</p> + + <p>Brown started as though shot. First there flashed through + his brain the remembrance of how cavalierly he had treated the + distinguished artist, and then a quick panorama of his recent + history, which had been the gossip of studios and art-circles + for some time back. "I must go to him," he said, "and apologize + for not treating him with more deference."</p> + + <p>"<i>Non, signore</i>," was the cicerone's response. "Never + mind: let it rest. He is a man of the world, and pays little + heed to such things. Besides, he is so overwhelmed with his + private griefs that he has probably noticed no slight."</p> + + <p>However, when the great Russian artist took possession of + his studio his American brother of the pencil made his apology, + and received this response; "Don't waste words on so trivial a + matter. Do I not court the contempt of a world that I despise + to my heart's core? Say no more about it. Run in and see me + when agreeable; and if you have no better callers than such a + plaything of fate as I, maybe you will not refuse me occasional + admittance."</p> + + <p>The Russian artist now shunned notoriety as he had formerly + courted it. Little is known of his history beyond mere rumor, + and that only in artistic circles. He was born at St. + Petersburg in 1799 or 1800, and gave himself to the study of + art at an early age, becoming an especial proficient in color + and composition. One of his most widely-known works is "The + Last Days of Pompeii," which created great enthusiasm a quarter + of a century ago. This, however, was painted during his career + of dissipation, and its vivid coloring seemed to have been + drawn from a soul morbid with secret woes and craving a + nepenthe which never came.</p> + + <p>The young artist was petted and idolized by the wealth and + nobility of St. Petersburg, where he married a beautiful woman, + and became court-painter to the czar Nicholas about the year + 1830. For some years no couple lived more happily, and no + artist swayed a greater multitude of fashion and wealth than + he; but scandal began to whisper that the czar was as fond of + the handsome, brilliant wife of the young court-painter as the + cultivated people of St. Petersburg were of the husband's + marvelously colored works; and when at last the fact became + <span class="pagenum"><a name="page115" + id="page115"></a>[pg 115]</span> known to Brullof that the + monarch who had honored him through an intelligent + appreciation of art had dishonored him through a guilty + passion for his wife, he left St. Petersburg, swore never + again to set foot on Russian soil or be recognized as a + Russian subject, and, plunging headlong into a wild career + of dissipation, was thenceforth a wanderer up and down the + continent of Europe.</p> + + <p>It was when this career had borne its inevitable fruit, and + he was but a mere wreck of the polished gentleman of a few + years previous, that Brullof came to the Via San Basilio, + where, as soon as the fact became known, visitors began to + call. Among the first were the Russian ambassador and suite, + who were driven up in a splendid carriage, with liveried + attendants; but after the burly Italian had announced to his + master who was in waiting, the door was closed, and with no + message in return the representatives of the mightiest empire + on the globe were left to withdraw with the best grace they + could muster for the occasion. Similar scenes were repeated + often during the entire Roman season. He saw but few of his + callers—Russians, never.</p> + + <p>The Russian and the American artists became quite intimate + during the few months they were thrown together, and Mr. Brown + has acknowledged that he owes much of the success of his later + efforts to hints received from the self-exiled, dying + Russian.</p> + + <p>"Mr. Brown," he said on one occasion, while examining the + picture on the artist's easel, "no one since Claude has painted + atmosphere as you do. But you must follow Calamé's + example, and make drawing more of a study. Draw from Nature, + and do it faithfully, and with your atmosphere I will back you + against the world. That is bad," pointing to the huge limb of a + tree in the foreground: "it bulges both ways, you see. Now, + Nature is never so. Look at my arm," speaking with increased + animation, and suddenly throwing off his coat and rolling up + his shirt-sleeve. "When you see a convexity, you will see + concavity opposite. Just so in Nature, especially in the trunks + and limbs of trees."</p> + + <p>This criticism made such an impression on Brown that it + decided him to go into more laborious work, and was the + foundation of his habit of getting up at daybreak and going out + to sketch rocks, trees and cattle, until he stands where he now + does as a draughtsman.</p> + + <p>The painting which Brullof had first admired, and which had + induced him to compare Brown to Claude in atmospheric effects, + was a view of the Pontine Marshes, painted for Crawford the + sculptor, and now in possession, of his widow, Mrs. Terry, at + Rome.</p> + + <p>During this entire season the penuriousness exhibited by + Brullof is one of the hardest phases of his character to + explain. Though he was worth at least half a million of + dollars, his meals were generally of the scantiest kind, + purchased by the Italian cicerone, and cooked and eaten in his + room. Yet a kindness would touch the hidden springs of his + generosity as the staff of Moses did the rock of Horeb.</p> + + <p>Toward the close of the Roman season, Brullof, growing more + and more moody, and becoming still more of a recluse, painted + his last picture, which showed how diseased and morbid his mind + had become. He called it "The End of All Things," and made it + sensational to the verge of that flexible characteristic. It + represented popes and emperors tumbling headlong into a + terrible abyss, while the world's benefactors were ascending in + a sort of theatrical transformation-scene. A representation of + Christ holding a cross aloft was given, and winged angels were + hovering here and there, much in the same manner as + <i>coryphées</i> and lesser auxiliaries of the ballet. A + capital portrait of George Washington was painted in the mass + of rubbish, perhaps as a compliment to Brown. In + contradistinction to the portrait of Washington were seen + prominently those of the czar Nicholas and the emperor + Napoleon; the former put in on account of the artist's own + private wrong, and the latter because at that time, just after + the <i>coup d'ètat</i>, he was the execration of the + liberty-loving world.</p> + + <p>In the spring the Russian artist gave up + <span class="pagenum"><a name="page116" + id="page116"></a>[pg 116]</span> his studio, and went down + to some baths possessing a local reputation situated on the + road to Florence, where he died very suddenly. Much mystery + overhangs his last days, and absolutely no knowledge exists + as to what became of his vast property. His cicerone robbed + him of his gold watch and all his personal effects and + disappeared. His remains lie buried in the Protestant + burying-ground outside the walls of Rome, near the Porto di + Sebastiano. His tomb is near that of Shelley and Keats, and + the monument erected to his memory is very simple, his head + being sculptured upon it in <i>alto relievo</i>, and on the + opposite side an artist's palette and brushes.</p> + + <p class="author">EARL MARBLE.</p> + + <h2>A CHRISTMAS HYMN.</h2> + + <div class="poem"> + <div class="stanza"> + <p>The air was still o'er Bethlehem's plain,</p> + + <p class="i2">As if the great Night held its + breath,</p> + + <p>When Life Eternal came to reign</p> + + <p class="i2">Over a world of Death.</p> + </div> + + <div class="stanza"> + <p>The pagan at his midnight board</p> + + <p class="i2">Let fall his brimming cup of gold:</p> + + <p>He felt the presence of his Lord</p> + + <p class="i2">Before His birth was told.</p> + </div> + + <div class="stanza"> + <p>The temples trembled to their base,</p> + + <p class="i2">The idols shuddered as in pain:</p> + + <p>A priesthood in its power of place</p> + + <p class="i2">Knelt to its gods in vain.</p> + </div> + + <div class="stanza"> + <p>All Nature felt a thrill divine</p> + + <p class="i2">When burst that meteor on the night,</p> + + <p>Which, pointing to the Saviour's shrine,</p> + + <p class="i2">Proclaimed the new-born light—</p> + </div> + + <div class="stanza"> + <p>Light to the shepherds! and the star</p> + + <p class="i2">Gilded their silent midnight + fold—</p> + + <p>Light to the Wise Men from afar,</p> + + <p class="i2">Bearing their gifts of gold—</p> + </div> + + <div class="stanza"> + <p>Light to a realm of Sin and Grief—</p> + + <p class="i2">Light to a world in all its + needs—</p> + + <p>The Light of life—a new belief</p> + + <p class="i2">Rising o'er fallen creeds—</p> + </div> + + <div class="stanza"> + <p>Light on a tangled path of thorns,</p> + + <p class="i2">Though leading to a martyr's + throne—</p> + + <p>Light to guide till Christ returns</p> + + <p class="i2">In glory to His own.</p> + </div> + + <div class="stanza"> + <p>There still it shines, while far abroad</p> + + <p class="i2">The Christmas choir sings now, as + then,</p> + + <p>"Glory, glory unto God!</p> + + <p class="i2">Peace and good-will to men!"</p> + </div> + </div> + + <p>ROME, Christmas, 1871.</p> + + <p class="author">T. BUCHANAN + READ.</p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page117" + id="page117"></a>[pg 117]</span> + + <h2>THE PARSEES.</h2> + + <p>Hanging in my study is a noteworthy portrait, generally the + first object observed by those who enter. It is an exquisite + painting on glass, the work of Làng Quà, the best + artist China has produced in our day, and it delineates the + form and features of a singularly handsome young man. But it is + the quaint Parsee garb that first attracts attention; and the + weird romance that attaches to the history of the + Fire-worshipers gives this work of art its real value, rather + than its lines of beauty or the celebrity of the painter's + name. This delicately-featured portrait <i>may</i> depict the + countenance of Musaljee Jamsetjee Jejeebhoy, the first-born son + and heir of the late Sir Jamsetjee Jejeebhoy, baronet, of + Bombay, India. That he really sat for this portrait I cannot, + however, positively assert, since I obtained the painting from + an English officer, who bought it of the artist, but had + "forgotten the strange, outlandish name of the Indian nabob," + as he said. It is certainly the portrait of a + <i>Parsee</i>—true to the life in features and garb, and + it bears a striking resemblance to the young Musaljee when + about eighteen years of age. He was not then a personage of any + great celebrity, though the worthy son of a most remarkable + sire, the latter long known and honored in Europe for his + liberal and enlightened charities, and especially for his + munificent donations, that saved the lives of thousands of + British subjects, during the terrible famines that occurred in + India between the years 1840 and 1846. It was in grateful + recognition of this noble philanthropy that Queen Victoria + conferred upon him the honor of a baronetcy, sending out a + nobleman to act as her proxy in the presentation of a sword + which had been handled by more than one British monarch. Sir + Jamsetjee was the first East Indian who ever received a title + from a European sovereign. During the terrible famines alluded + to he not only distributed daily from his own palace a + plentiful supply of food to all who came, but he made also + large donations of provisions to the English governor of Bombay + for the supply of his starving troops. When, subsequently, + pestilence followed in the footsteps of famine, this + true-hearted philanthropist, overstepping all prejudices of + creed and clan, built and endowed at his own expense a free + hospital for the sick of all nations and religions. Temporary + bamboo cottages at first received the sick till there was time + for the erection of the present elegant structure, which is + built in the Gothic style, and is capable of accommodating some + six or eight hundred patients, besides nurses and attendants. + The physicians have been from the beginning of the enterprise + all English, as are many of the nurses, and the supplies in + every department are the very best the country can furnish. + Since the death of the noble founder, the son, who inherits his + name and title, has continued to foster with loving devotion + the institution which stands as a lasting monument of the fame + and virtues of his illustrious sire. The conception of such a + charity tells not only of a generous heart, but of far-reaching + intelligence, while the energy and perseverance of both father + and son in carrying on, year after year, so vast a system of + benefactions, challenge our warmest admiration.</p> + + <p>The name of the late Sir Jamsetjee stood for more than a + score of years at the very head of the list of merchant-princes + and ship-owners in Bombay, where he was born, and where his + ancestors for many generations resided. He came of an old and + wealthy family, who trace their genealogy back to the Parsee + exodus of the eighth century; and it is said that the "sacred + fire" has never once during all that time burned out upon their + altar. Sir Jamsetjee himself, though probably faithful in the + observance of the actual requirements of his + <span class="pagenum"><a name="page118" + id="page118"></a>[pg 118]</span> creed, was assuredly less + strict than the majority, and being a man of large + intellect, cultivated mind and great independence of + character, he did not hesitate to borrow from other nations + any customs, institutions or inventions that might tend to + the improvement of his own people. His stately mansion was + built and furnished in European style; his children, even + his daughters, were carefully educated in foreign as well as + native lore; and his own associations were with refined and + cultivated people, without any regard to their nation or + creed. It was while visiting at his house, in familiar + intercourse with his family, and with other Parsees of + similar position, that I gleaned many items of interest + concerning the history and practices of the Fire-worshipers. + Other facts were added from time to time during several + years of frequent association with these singular people, in + whose glorious though unsuccessful struggles for home and + liberty it is impossible not to feel an interest.</p> + + <p>As a race, the Parsees are intelligent, active and + energetic. With business capacities far above the average, they + are usually successful in amassing wealth, while they are + extremely benevolent in dispensing their gains for both public + and private charities. For private benefactions they have, + however, little call among themselves, since a Parsee pauper + would be an unheard-of anomaly. Their style of living is + princely but peculiar. In the reception-rooms of the + wealthy—and most of the Parsees in the city of Bombay are + wealthy—one finds a rather quaint mingling of Oriental + luxury and European elegance—brightly-tinted Persian + carpets placed in Eastern fashion over divans strewn with + embroidered cushions and jewel-studded pillows, among which + recline, with genuine Oriental indolence, some of the members + of the family; while in another part of the same room half a + dozen more may be grouped about a table of marble and rosewood, + occupying velvet chairs that have traveled unmistakably from + London or Paris. French mirrors and Italian statuettes may have + for their <i>vis-à-vis</i> the exquisite mosaics, the + massive gold vases and the costly bijouterie of the Orient, + strewn so profusely around as to startle unaccustomed eyes; and + a genuine Meissonier will be just as likely to be placed side + by side with a Persian houri as anywhere else. The Parsees + drive the finest Arab steeds, but on their equipages there is a + more lavish display of ornament than we should deem quite in + accordance with good taste. The same is true in regard to + personal decoration. They wear immense quantities of costly + jewelry, and nearly all their garments are of silk, generally + richly embroidered in gold, and often with the addition of + precious stones. Even little children wear only silk, infants + from the very first being wrapped in long, loose robes of plain + white silk that are gradually displaced by others more + elaborate and costly; while the toilette of a Parsee lady in + full evening-dress is often of the value of a hundred thousand + rupees (or forty-five thousand dollars). The female costume + consists of silk or cotton skirts gathered full round the + waist, and long, loose robes of silk, lace or muslin, all more + or less decorated according to the wealth of the wearer. The + dress of the men is composed of trousers and shirts of white or + colored silk and long caftans of muslin, with the addition of a + fanciful little scarf fringed at the ends, and worn jauntily + across one shoulder and under the other arm. Their caps are + made of pasteboard covered with gay-colored silk, embroidered + and studded with precious stones or pearls. The form of a + Parsee's shirt is a matter of vital importance, both in regard + to respectability and religion. It must have five seams, + neither more nor less, and be made to lap on the breast exactly + in a certain way. Both sexes wear around the body a double + string, which they loosen when at prayer, and which a Parsee is + never, under any circumstances, permitted to dispense with. No + engagement or business transaction is legally binding if by any + chance this talismanic cord was left off by either party when + the contract was made. The cord is first placed on children + when they have completed their + <span class="pagenum"><a name="page119" + id="page119"></a>[pg 119]</span> ninth year, and this serves + to mark the most important epoch of their lives. Before the + investiture the eating of food with Christians or heathen + does not defile the juvenile Parsee, and girls may even go + about in public with their fathers; but after the bestowal + of the sacred cord the girls must be kept in seclusion and + the boys eat only with their own people.</p> + + <p>Only the most liberal Parsees will permit those of other + creeds to eat under the same roof with themselves, and even + these never eat at the table with their guests. The table is + first covered for the visitors, and they are waited on with the + utmost assiduity, often by the members of the family in + addition to the servants. When the guests leave the board not + only is the cloth changed, but the table itself is washed + before being recovered: salts, castors and other similar + articles are all emptied and washed, and the table newly laid + in every particular. Small flat cakes are distributed round the + board to do service as plates, and the various dishes arranged + in the centre within reach of all. The family then wash hands + and faces and the father says a short prayer, after which all + take their seats and the meal begins. Neither knives nor forks + are used, but the meat is torn from the bones with the fingers + only, and with the left hand each one dips, from time to time, + bread, meat or vegetables into the broth or gravy as he wishes, + and then tosses it into his mouth, without allowing his fingers + to touch his lips. This requires some dexterity, and children + are not permitted at the family board till they have learned + thus to acquit themselves. If, however, the fingers of any one, + child or adult, should chance to come in contact with the lips, + though ever so slightly, he is required to leave the table + instantly and perform his ablutions over again, or else to take + the dish from which he was eating to himself, and touch no + other during the meal. In drinking they exercise the same + caution, adroitly throwing the liquid into the mouth or throat + without touching the lips with the cup or glass. The left hand + is the one with which food is always taken; and the reason + assigned is, that the right, having of necessity to perform + most labor, is more frequently brought in contact with things + unclean.</p> + + <p>I once made a voyage with an American lady and gentleman in + a Bombay ship that was owned and commanded by a wealthy Parsee + merchant, though the real sailing-master and mate were + Englishmen. Our party ate at one table, and the Parsee nabob + had his own in solitary state. I was then quite a youthful + wife, and, as my husband was not of the party, the Parsee + supposed me unmarried, and overwhelmed me with the most gallant + attentions, among which were frequent invitations to our party + to dine in his cabin. But, though he would stand at my side all + the time I was eating, fill my cup or glass with his own hands, + and urge me to partake of certain dishes that were favorites of + his own, nothing could induce him to eat or drink in our + presence, even after we had left the table. And I learned + afterward that the costly service of rare china, silver and + glass from which we had eaten and drunk at his table, though + carefully laid aside, was never again used by the owner. One + evening, as we sat on the upper deck inhaling the balmy air, he + invited me to smoke. Of course I declined, and when he insisted + I told him that it was contrary to the customs of good society + in our country for ladies to use tobacco in any form. He + laughed heartily, and said, "Did you suppose I would ask a lady + to pollute her fragrant breath and dewy lips with so foul a + thing as vile tobacco? Taste and see." He brought his splendid + hookah, which I found filled with the "fragrant spices of + Araby" perfumed with attar of roses, while a long slender tube + rested in a vessel of rose-water at my feet; and the fumes were + certainly as agreeable as harmless. But this, my first + experiment in smoking, cost my Parsee friend three hundred + dollars, the estimated value of his gold-mounted hookah, with + its complicated array of tubes and vessels of the same precious + metal, none of which he durst ever use + again.</p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page120" + id="page120"></a>[pg 120]</span> + + <p>As we sat chatting together in the bright moonlight our ears + were suddenly greeted by the sound of sweet music—wild, + unearthly melody that seemed to rise from the very depths of + the ocean just below our feet. At first it was only a soft + trill or a subdued hum, as of a single voice: then followed + what seemed a full chorus of voices of enchanting sweetness. + Presently the melody died away in the distance, only, however, + to burst forth anew after a brief interval. All the time we + were being regaled with the music we could see nothing to + enlighten us as to its source, and were inclined to pronounce + it a trick played by our fun-loving sailing-master. He, + however, denied all agency in the matter, but counseled us to + "keep a close look-out on the lee bow" if we wanted to see a + mermaid. We had noticed a sort of thrilling motion on the lower + deck, not unlike the sensation produced by the charge of an + electro-galvanic battery; and this, the Parsee captain gravely + assured us, was the mermaids' dance, and their efforts to drag + down our ship. "But I'll catch one of them yet—see if I + don't," he said energetically as he caught up something from + the deck and ran forward, and was presently, with two of the + Lascars, leaning over the bow. Half an hour afterward he + returned, and with a merry laugh laid in my lap two little + brown fish, informing me that they were singing-fish, and that + the music we had heard had been produced by shoals of these + tiny vocalists then clinging to the bottom of our ship. Our + Parsee friend told me that the Arabs and Persians always speak + of the singing-fish as "tiny women of the sea;" but he had + never heard our version of their long hair, and their twining + it about hapless sailors to drag them down to their coral + caverns beneath the ocean's wave. He showed me how to preserve + the fish by drying in the sun after repeated anointings with an + aromatic oil, which he gave me for the purpose; and I have + still in my cabinet these two specimens as a reminder of the + incident.</p> + + <p>The manner in which the Parsees dispose of their dead seems + to us too shocking to be tolerated by a people so gentle and + refined. But they have grown familiar with a custom that, + generation after generation, has been observed by their race + till it has ceased to be repugnant. They call it "consigning + the dead to the element of air." For this purpose they have + roofless enclosures, the walls of which are twenty-five or + thirty feet high, and within are three biers—one each for + men, women and children. Upon these the bodies of the dead are + laid, and fastened down with chains or iron bands. Presently + birds of prey, so numerous within the tropics and always + waiting to devour, pounce upon the corpse and quickly tear the + flesh from the bones, while the skeleton remains intact. This + is afterward deposited in a pit dug within the same enclosure, + and which remains open till completely filled up with bones; + after which another is dug, and when the enclosure can + conveniently contain no more pits a new one is selected and + prepared. None but priests and bearers of the dead may enter, + or even look into, these walled cemeteries. The priests, by + virtue of their holy office, are preserved from defilement, but + the bearers are men set apart for this express purpose, and + they are considered so unclean that they may not enter under + the roof of any other Parsee or salute him on the street. If in + passing a bearer do but touch one's clothes accidentally, he is + subject to a heavy fine, while he who has been thus + contaminated must bathe his entire person and burn every + article of raiment he wore at the time of his defilement.</p> + + <p>I was anxious to visit one of their temples, but this, Sir + Jamsetjee assured me, was impossible, as none but the initiated + are allowed even to approach the entrance, still less to get a + glimpse of what is passing within. He, however, volunteered the + information that, so far as the sanctuary itself was concerned, + there was little to be seen, only naked walls, bare floors, and + an altar upon which burns the sacred fire brought with the + Parsees from Persia, and which, he said, had never been + extinguished since it was kindled by Zoroaster from the sun + four thousand years ago. Of the form of service I could + <span class="pagenum"><a name="page121" + id="page121"></a>[pg 121]</span> not induce the baronet to + speak, but I learned afterward from my ship-friend that the + altar is enclosed by gratings, within which none but the + priest may enter. He goes in every day to tend "the eternal + fire," when he must remain for the space of an hour, + repeating certain invocations, with a bundle of rods in his + hand to repel any unclean spirits that should venture to + approach the sacred fire. Meanwhile, the assembled + multitudes prostrate themselves without and offer up their + silent adoration. "Yet, after all," musingly said the + Parsee, "the universe is the throne of the invisible God, of + whom fire is but the emblem, and we worship Him most + acceptably with our eyes fixed on the east when the sun + rides forth at morning in his celestial chariot of fire." + This form of worship those curious in such matters may see + on any bright morning at Bombay, where whole crowds of + Parsee men, women and children rush out at sunrise to greet + the king of day and offer up their morning oblations. I was + not surprised at the avowed preference of my Parsee friends + for out-door worship, since it is well known that the + ancient Persians not only permitted few temples to be + erected to their gods, and held in abhorrence all painted + and graven images, but they laid it to the charge of the + Greeks, as a daring impiety, that "they shut up their gods + in shrines and temples, like puppets in a cabinet, when all + created things were open to them and the wide world was + their dwelling-place." It was probably religious zeal, even + more than revenge against the Greeks, that induced the + burning of the temple at Athens by Xerxes, led on, as he may + have been, by the fanatical zeal of the Magi who accompanied + him.</p> + + <p>Plutarch speaks of the Persians, in common with the + Chaldeans and Egyptians, as worshipers of the sun under the + name of Mithra, whom they regarded as standing between Ormuzd, + "the author of good," and Ahriman, "the author of evil," + occupied alternately in aiding the former and subduing the + latter. So do the Parsees of our own day regard him; and their + only hope for the ultimate triumph of Ormuzd is in constant + sacrifices and prayers and propitiatory offerings to the sun as + the fire that is to burn out and utterly consume all evil from + our earth. Fire is to the Parsees now, as it has ever been, the + holiest of all holy things, carried about by princes and great + men for safety; by warriors, as that which is to give them the + victory over their foes; and by all, as their sole and + ever-present deity. Sir Jamsetjee assured me that the + <i>intelligent</i> Parsees regard the sun and fire as only the + symbols that are to remind them of the God they worship. But + there can be no doubt that the mass of the Parsees literally + worship the sun and the "sacred fire;" and hence arise the + utter repugnance many of them have to celebrating their + religious rites within closed walls, and the decided preference + ever shown for out-door worship. I have often heard them say + that the Fire-god shows his aversion to confinement by drooping + when he is shut up, and growing vigorous just in proportion as + free scope is given him. The sun appears everywhere on the + shields and armor of the ancient Persians, as on some of the + old-time monuments that have come down to us; while + occasionally Mithra is depicted as a youthful hero, with high + Persian cap, his knee on a prostrate bull, into whose heart he + seems plunging a dagger—symbolically, "the power of evil" + in complete subjection to the victorious sun, and about to be + for ever annihilated.</p> + + <p>Zoroaster (called by the Persians <i>Zerduscht</i>) was not, + the Parsees say, the <i>founder</i> of their sect, but only the + reviser and perfecter of the system as it now exists among + them. Living in the reign of Darius Hystaspes, he was the + contemporary, probably an associate, of the prophet Daniel. + Before the advent of this reformer the Magi acknowledged two + great First Causes—i.e., the light and the darkness, the + former the author of all good, the latter of every evil, moral + and physical—and these they believed were at perpetual + war with each other. Zoroaster taught, as he may have learned + from Daniel, that there was One + <span class="pagenum"><a name="page122" + id="page122"></a>[pg 122]</span> greater still, who created + both the light and the darkness, making both to subserve His + own will. He also inculcated the duty of building temples + for the preservation of the sacred fire from storm and + tempest, when "by sudden extinction of the light the powers + of darkness do gain often a signal victory." The Parsees + hold in supreme veneration the name of Zoroaster as the most + noted of all their Magi for wisdom and virtue. They believe + that the sacred fire was lighted by him miraculously from + the sun—that it has burned steadily ever since, and + can never go out till it has consumed all evil from the + earth and the good has become universally triumphant. They + claim also that from the reforms wrought by Zoroaster there + was never the slightest change in any of their observances + until about twelve centuries ago, when Persia was overrun + and conquered by the Mohammedan Arabs. But not the fiercest + persecution could induce the Fire-worshipers to change their + religion for that of the Koran. Preferring liberty and their + altars in a foreign land to the alternative of apostasy or + persecution at home, the aboriginal Persian inhabitants fled + to other lands, settling immense colonies in Surat and + Bombay, where their descendants form in our day a large and + valuable element of the population. Their integrity, + industry and enterprise are proverbial all over the East; + and while they live strictly apart from all other races, the + Parsees are never wanting in sympathy and help for those who + need them. Dwelling amid nations who are almost universally + destitute of veracity, the Parsees are eminently truthful; + surrounded by polygamists and sensualists, they maintain + habits of purity and virtue; and accustomed to every-day + association with those who make a boast of cheating, my + memory fails to recall the case of a single Fire-worshiper + who was not strictly upright and honorable in his + dealings.</p> + + <p>Commencing with the worship of the sun, and of fire as his + emblem, the Parsee grew into a sort of reverence for the + elements of air, earth and water. The air must not be + contaminated by foul odors, and of necessity no filth could be + tolerated anywhere in house, street or suburb; and to this + reverence for the purity of the atmosphere may be traced the + absolute cleanliness for which Fire-worshipers are everywhere + noted. As the earth must receive no defilement, the Parsees + would deem it sacrilege to deposit therein their dead for + corruption and decay; and hence have doubtless originated their + strange rites of sepulture, as they believe that the body is + thus more readily and rapidly reduced to its original elements. + Streams of water, even the tiniest rivulets, are deemed too + holy to be desecrated by washing or spitting in them, and still + less would they make the water the receptacle of offal of any + sort. To each of these elements, as well as to the fire, the + Parsees still make oblations on their high-days. It is true + that their ceremonies now are less imposing than those + described by Xenophon, when a thousand head of cattle were + immolated at a single festival, four beautiful bulls presented + to Jupiter, or the sky, and a magnificent chariot, drawn by + white horses crowned with flowers and wearing a golden yoke, + was offered to the sun; while the king in his chariot was + escorted by princes and great nobles, two thousand spearmen + marching on either side, and three hundred sceptre-bearers, + armed with javelins and mounted on splendidly-caparisoned + horses, bringing up the rear. But those jubilant days have + passed: the Fire-worshipers are in exile, and have no king to + lead them, either in battle against their foes or in triumphal + processions in honor of their gods. Yet is Parseeism not dead, + nor even on the decrease. Sacrifices, numerous and costly, are + still piled upon their altars, the finest cattle are dedicated + to their gods, the flesh being cut up and roasted for the + people, while the Magi cast the caul and a portion of the fat + into the fire as emblematic of the souls of the victims being + imbibed by the gods, while the grosser portions are + rejected.</p> + + <p>The sacrifices and those who offer them are always crowned + with flowers, but the pontifical robes of the Magi, though of + pure white silk, are severely + <span class="pagenum"><a name="page123" + id="page123"></a>[pg 123]</span> plain in style and utterly + devoid of ornament. In their lives the Magi claim to + practice a rigid asceticism, making the earth their bed and + subsisting wholly on fruit, vegetables and bread, besides + submitting to frequent painful penances from fasting, + scourging and the endurance of fatiguing exercises. "Wine, + women and flesh" they are commanded to eschew as "special + abominations to those who aspire to minister before the + gods." The most remarkable feast of the ancient Parsees was + one called by them the "sack-feast." On the appointed day a + condemned malefactor was clothed in royal robes, seated on a + kingly throne and the sceptre of regal power placed in his + hand. Princes and people bowed the knee in mock homage + before this king of a day, and he was suffered to glut his + appetite with all manner of sensual delights till the sun + went down, and then he was cruelly beaten with rods, and + forthwith executed. (Were the crown and sceptre, the purple + robe and mock reverence, that were the antecedents of the + Redeemer's crucifixion, a reproduction of this barbarous + custom?) The modern Parsees, though recognizing this feast + as a legitimate part of their worship, say that they have + not observed it since their flight from Persia in the eighth + century, because since then, being under a foreign yoke, + they have had no jurisdiction over human life, and durst not + sacrifice even those who chanced to be in their power. This + may be one reason for the renunciation of this barbarous + practice of the olden time, but there has been wonderful + progress in civilization during the last twelve hundred + years; and certain it is that scenes of cruelty that suited + the ferocious tastes of the eighth century could not + possibly be repeated in the nineteenth.</p> + + <p class="author">FANNIE ROPER FEUDGE.</p> + + <h2>OUR MONTHLY GOSSIP.</h2> + + <h3>A SWEDISH PROVINCIAL THEATRE.</h3> + + <p>It is not so magnificent as the Scala and San Carlo, and + still, after seeing both those famous theatres, I must confess + I preferred that of Carlstad to either. It is small and + different in form from the generality: it reminded me, in fact, + of a hall in a certain New England town where I used to go to + the panorama as a child. There was a gallery like that in which + the men and boys sat who tramped the loudest and kissed their + hands, to the confusion of their neighbors, when the lights + were turned down to enhance the effect of the burning of + Moscow; only, at my panorama the gallery was unfashionable on + account of the noisy male element, whereas at Carlstad it was + the dress-circle. We—a party of Americans, the only + foreigners in the house that night—occupied + orchestra-stalls, as I presume the two or three front benches + in the parquet may be called. There was a white cape in our + vicinity, as well as one in the balcony; so our seats were + probably as fashionable as those in the first and only circle; + but behind us, stretching out to the doors and in under the + gallery, was a dense mass unrelieved by opera-cloaks of any + description; and that was the region of the + unpretending—-of those who came simply to enjoy, to see + and not to be seen.</p> + + <p>As we spent a good part of a day at Carlstad, I should, + perhaps, relate something more of the place than merely how we + went to the theatre there; but that delightful evening effaced + all other impressions, and after the interval that has since + elapsed <i>Fleur de Thé</i> and our commissioner are the + only things that have retained somewhat of their original + savor.</p> + + <p>The railway from Stockholm to Christiania ceased at Carlstad + on Lake <span class="pagenum"><a name="page124" + id="page124"></a>[pg 124]</span> Wener, which gave us a + day's drive to Arvika to strike the track again; and while + we stood consulting where we were to get carriages, and + whether we should go directly on, there came up a + flourishing specimen of the genus <i>valet de place</i>, who + took possession of us and laid out a plan that he had + apparently prepared over night for our especial benefit. It + is a way those persons have, and one that gives them a + tremendous advantage over travelers weakened by a long + journey, that they act as if they were there by appointment + to meet you, or as if you had telegraphed precisely what you + wished to do, and they were merely carrying out your + intentions. "You want to go to the Black Eagle Hotel: I take + you there. You would like to dine: you can have dinner at + the hotel, or I shall show you a nice restaurant." We had + not expected to find a member of the great European + brotherhood just there in a little town in the heart of + Sweden, and, taken unawares, fell an easy prey. However, + they do not invariably succeed in that way: sometimes, if + their officiousness is excessive, their English very + exasperating and the traveler a little fractious as well as + tired, they get the tables turned on them. A lady just + arrived at Genoa, when halfway to the hotel with one of + these persuasive personages snatched her bag out of his hand + and walked into the rival albergo because he said with an + aggravating accent, "I sall get you a ticket for de + steam-er." "No you sha'n't, either: I have got it myself," + she said; and so they parted company, to his infinite + amazement. My friend—it was a friend of + mine—turned back, on second thoughts, to offer the man + something for having carried her belongings, but he put on + offended dignity and declared that he didn't want her money. + She was rather sorry afterward that he didn't do violence to + his feelings and take it; and so, no doubt, was he.</p> + + <p>Our Carlstad commissioner beguiled the length of the way to + the inn, at which we were a little inclined to grumble, by + pointing out everything of note in our walk through the town. + We had been reading up in the train, and knew that Carlstad was + the capital of a district, had five thousand inhabitants, and + was nearly destroyed by fire in 1865; but he, a son of the + place, and seeing in his mind's eye its rising glory when the + railroad should be completed, did not let us off with that. We + had to look and admire just where he told us. "Wide streets," + he would say in his finely-chopped English. "Houses all very + high—new since the fire. See here! there's the + telegraph-office."</p> + + <p>At which, to answer in the style he understood best, we must + have responded, "Oh, I say! Well. Very good! All right!"</p> + + <p>"You shall go to the theatre if you want to," he remarked at + last, in that sweet, protecting way peculiar to his class from + the habitual confounding of <i>can, shall</i> and <i>will</i>, + and that put us into good humor directly. To go to the theatre + would be just the thing.</p> + + <p>"Oh yes, everybody goes," he said. It was a Danish + company—very good actors—very pretty piece; but we + rather expected to care more for the <i>everybody</i> than + either the piece or the actors; and so it proved.</p> + + <p>We went early, and established ourselves in the + orchestra-stalls, as already stated, while our guardian + accepted an unpretending seat for himself, where he remained in + readiness to tow us home after the performance. And then the + spectators began to come in, and positively some of the very + people who used to be at the panorama. I know there was a lady + in front of me, in Mechanic Hall, who wore her hair in just + such a little knot—<i>pug</i> is, I think, the classic + name for that coiffure—and her dress cut as low in the + throat and adorned with precisely such a self-embroidered + collar as the lady rejoiced in who occupied the seat before me + at the theatre. That she was one of the fashionables of + Carlstad could be seen in the lofty pose of that pug, and in + the curious structure of ribbon and lace that sat astride of it + and hung down at each side. Her husband, a small, rather + dried-up gentleman, had the look of a town oracle who was + oppressed at home, and her daughter + <span class="pagenum"><a name="page125" + id="page125"></a>[pg 125]</span> was one of the prettiest + girls in the house. The overgrown boy, the son and heir, was + not pretty: he sat beside his sister and kept nudging her. I + could not exactly understand what he said in Swedish, but I + know it must have been of this nature: "There's Jim Davis + over there. Look, sister, look!"</p> + + <p>Sister only glanced at him with a reproving air of "Don't + push me so," and then gazed steadfastly in the other direction; + but she was not left long in peace. Tom's elbow began again in + a minute: "He's looking right at you, all the time. You'd + better turn round and bow to him." And the color would creep up + in her cheeks, do all she could to prevent it, so that she had + to lean across mamma and say something to her father, just so + as not to bow to Mr. Davis, which would have been such a simple + thing to do, after all.</p> + + <p>Everybody who came in nodded and spoke to everybody else, + and then shook hands across the seats; and we felt quite out of + our element under the inquiring but superior glances that fell + to our lot. It was all very well for us to make our little + observations and smile at each other on the sly: we had the + consciousness all the while of not belonging to the first + society in Carlstad, and of being viewed as intruders in that + select circle.</p> + + <p>We had been studying one family party after another as the + seats filled around us, for the audience collected by families, + when, with a little rustle and stir attending her progress, and + a whispering behind her as she advanced, the Bride appeared, + for she had arrived from Stockholm by our train. It was the + first time any one had seen her since she started on the + wedding-tour, and the bows and smiles she dealt out on every + side were not to be numbered. Our pretty girl got + one—they were school-friends—and the horrid boy + another, which he barely answered with a solemn nod of his + head, being as shy of her, apparently, in her blue silk and + white cape, as his sister was of Mr. Davis. It was really a + very pretty dress of the Bride's, and one that made our + traveling costumes look uncommonly shabby: it was taken up + behind in the approved style, and only needed a bustle to have + been truly effective. Doubtless she had seen plenty of those + articles in Stockholm, only her husband said, "I hope, dear, + you will never put on one of those horrid things;" and she told + him certainly not if he did not like them; but I think she + found afterward she needed one for that blue dress, and sent + for it at the first opportunity. The young husband was not got + up for show, knowing very well that no one would mind him, but + he looked beamingly happy; and if he was not in a dress-coat + with a flower in his buttonhole, like the + <i>habitués</i> of the Comédie Française + or the Italiens, he understood how they use an opera-glass + there. The glass was a new acquisition that he had brought home + with him, and after practicing with it at the Royal Theatre in + the capital, he was fully prepared to stand up between the + acts, with his arm behind him in a negligently graceful + attitude, and study the balcony. His acquaintances there must + have found it rather embarrassing, for it was not a usual thing + in Carlstad to look at one's friends through an opera-glass: he + was the only person who did it, and they probably all talked + about it when they went home.</p> + + <p>We were so occupied with our surroundings that we hardly + thought of the piece, though it was given with considerable + spirit, if I remember rightly. The sailors were fine, jolly + tars, and the Chinese ladies and gentlemen toddled about in + flowered dressing-gowns and talked with their thumbs, as it + would appear the inhabitants of the Celestial Empire usually + do; but the house did not allow itself to be betrayed into + unseemly enthusiasm. There was an involuntary laugh now and + then, and once somebody said <i>bravo</i>, but as a general + thing a discreet reticence prevailed, and the actors might have + gone through the piece on their heads in an extravagant desire + to elicit signs of approval: they would only have received a + cool little round of applause when the curtain fell.</p> + + <p>We, at all events, had no hesitation in telling the + commissioner that we had enjoyed ourselves immensely; and so, + <span class="pagenum"><a name="page126" + id="page126"></a>[pg 126]</span> it appeared, had he. He was + even bold enough to call it a very fine company, and as we + walked back to the hotel at half-past nine in broad + daylight, he told us what they were going to play the next + evening, possibly in the hope that we should stay for it and + he should get another seat. That was out of the question, + however, sorry as we were to disappoint him. He had to tuck + us into the carriage the following day, and let us drive + away and leave him bereft of his charges. "You shall have a + good ride," were his parting words, kind and fatherly as he + was to the last; and so we had. But we found no one again to + care for us so tenderly as our old friend, nor did any one + take us to the theatre throughout the remainder of the + journey. G.H.</p> + + <h3>VENETIAN CAFFÈS.</h3> + + <p>It is years since so lovely an autumn as that of 1874 has + been seen in Europe: people say not since the last great comet + year, and they credit the erratic visitor of last summer with + the exceptional beauty of the weather. As in the case of other + marked comet years, the vintages of which still bring + extraordinary prices, Italy has had exceptionally fine harvests + of all kinds this year. The grain has been abundant, the + vintage has been superb, the olives have escaped the danger of + unseasonable frosts, and the still more important crop of + foreigners seems to be pretty well assured. The charming + weather in October and November made the interesting blossoms + sprout plentifully; and boat-loads and train-loads came in with + an abundance promising an unusually fine winter for <i>la bella + Italia</i>. Venice, indeed, may be said to have pretty well + housed her crop in this kind already. It has been a magnificent + one, and the Queen of the Adriatic admits that due homage has + been done to her. The <i>forestieri</i> season sets in earlier + in her case than in her sister cities. The real "Carnival de + Venice" is in August, September and October now-a-days, let the + calendar say what it may. Some flaunting of gaudy-colored + calico, some dancing on the Piazza of St. Mark, there may be on + the eve of Lent in obedience to old usages, but the dancing + that really glads the Italian heart is the dancing for which + the <i>forestiere</i> pays the piper, and the true Lenten time + is that when his beneficent presence is wanting.</p> + + <p>Venice, then, has already brought her Carnival to a + conclusion; and it has been a splendid one. English, Americans, + Germans, all came in shoals—all thronged the galleries, + the churches and the palaces in the morning, sauntered or + bathed on the outer shore of the Lido in the afternoon, and met + at Florian's in the evening. "What is Florian's?" will be asked + by those who have never been at Venice—by some such, at + least. For probably the fame of the celebrated + <i>caffè</i> may have traveled across the Atlantic, just + as many who have never crossed it westward are no strangers to + the name of Delmonico. Florian's, however, in any case, + deserves a word of recognition. It is the principal, largest + and most fashionable caffè on the Piazza di San Marco. + But the singular and curious specialty of the place is that it + has never been closed—no, not for five minutes—day + or night, for a period of more than a hundred and thirty years! + Probably it is the only human habitation of any sort on the + face of the globe of which that could be said.</p> + + <p>But the caffè in itself is in many respects a + specialty of Venetian life, and has been so since the days of + Goldoni. The readers of his comedies, so abundantly rich in + local coloring, will not have failed to observe that the + caffè plays a larger part in the life of Venice than is + the case in any other city. Probably no Venetian passes a + single day without visiting once at least, if not oftener, his + accustomed caffè. Men of business write their letters + and arrange their meetings there. Men of pleasure know that + they shall find their peers there. Mere loafers take their + seats there, and gaze at the stream of life, as it flows past + them, for hours together. And, most marked specialty of all, + Venice is the only city in Italy where the native female + aristocracy frequents the caffè. Indeed, I know no place + in all the Peninsula where so large an amount of Italian beauty + may be seen <span class="pagenum"><a name="page127" + id="page127"></a>[pg 127]</span> as among the fashionable + crowd at Florian's on a brilliant midsummer moonlight + night.</p> + + <p>Venice is of all the cities in the world the one which those + who have never seen it know best. The peculiarities of it are + so marked and so unlike anything else in the world, and the + graphic representations of every part of the city are so + numerous and so admirably accurate, that every traveler finds + it to be exactly what he was prepared to see, and can hardly + fancy that he sees the Queen of the Adriatic for the first + time. I may therefore assume, perhaps, that my readers are + acquainted with the appearance of that most matchless of city + spaces, the Piazza di San Marco. They will readily call to mind + the long series of arcades that form the two long sides of the + parallellogram which has the gorgeous front of St. Mark's + church occupying the entirety of one of the shorter sides. + Well, about halfway up the length of the piazza six of the + arches on the right hand of one facing St. Mark's church are + occupied by the celebrated caffè. The six never-closed + rooms, corresponding each with one of the arches of the arcade, + are very small, and would not suffice to accommodate a + twentieth part of the throng which finds itself at Florian's + quite as a matter of course every fine summer's night. But + nobody thinks of entering these smartly-furnished little + cabinets save for breakfast or during the hours of the day. + Some take their evening ice or coffee on the seats under the + arcade, either immediately in front of the cabinets or around + the pillars which support the arches, and thus have an + opportunity of observing the never-ceasing and ever-varying + stream of life that flows by them under the arcade. But the + vast majority of the crowd place themselves on chairs arranged + around little tables set out on the flags of the piazza. A + hundred or so of these little tables are placed in long rows + extending far out into the piazza, and far on either side + beyond the extent of the six arches which are occupied by the + caffè itself. A London or New York policeman would have + his very soul revolted, and conclude that there must be + something very rotten indeed in the state of a city in which + the public way could be thus encumbered and no cry of "move on" + ever heard. Assuredly, it is public ground which Florian, in + the person of his nineteenth-century representative, thus + occupies with his tables and chairs. Probably, if a Venetian + were asked by what right he does so, the question would seem to + him much as if one asked by what right the tide covers the + shallows of the lagoon. It always has been so. It is in the + natural order of things. And how could Venice live without + Florian's?</p> + + <p>But it is not Florian's alone which is thus a trespasser on + the domain of the public. The other less celebrated + caffès do the same thing. One immediately opposite to + Florian's, on the other side of the + piazza—Quadri's—has almost as large a spread of + chairs and tables as Florian himself. But it is a curious + instance of the permanence of habits at Venice, that though at + Quadri's the articles supplied are quite as good, and the + prices exactly the same, the fashionable world never deserts + Florian's. The only difference between the two establishments, + except this one of their customers, that is perceptible to the + naked eye, is that at Quadri's beer is served, while Florian + ignores the existence of that plebeian beverage, which + assuredly was never heard of in Venice in the days when he + began his career and formed his habitudes.</p> + + <p>I am tempted to endeavor to give the reader some picture of + the scene on the piazza on a night when (as is the case almost + every other evening) a military band is playing in the middle + of the open space, and the cosmopolitan crowd is assembled in + force—to describe the wonderful surroundings of the + scene, the charm of the quietude broken by no sound of hoof or + of wheel, the soft and tempered light, the gay clatter, athwart + which comes every fifteen minutes the solemn mellow tone of the + great clock of St. Mark with importunate warning that another + pleasant quarter of an hour has drifted away down the stream of + time. It is a scene that tempts the pen. But the well-dressed + portion of mankind <span class="pagenum"><a name="page128" + id="page128"></a>[pg 128]</span> is very similar in all + countries and under all circumstances, and perhaps my + readers may be more interested in a few traits of the + popular life of Venice, which the magnificent Piazza of St. + Mark is not the best place for studying, for some of the + most characteristic phases of it are absolutely banished + thence. The strolling musician or singer, who may be heard + every night in other parts of the city, never plies his + trade on the piazza. Mendicancy, which is more rife at + Venice, I am sorry to say, than in any other Italian city, + except perhaps Naples, is not tolerated on the piazza.</p> + + <p>But if we wish for a good specimen of the truly popular life + of Venice, it will not be necessary to wander far from the + great centre of the piazza. Coming down the Piazzetta, or + Little Piazza, which opens out of the great square at one end, + and abuts on the open lagoon opposite the island of St. George + at the other, and turning round the corner of the ducal palace, + we cross the bridge over the canal, which above our heads is + bridged by the "Bridge of Sighs," with its "palace and a prison + on each hand," as Byron sings, and find ourselves on the "Riva + dei Schiavoni"—the quay at which the Slavonic vessels + arrived, and arrive still. The quay is a very broad one, by far + the broadest in Venice, paved with flagstones, and teeming with + every characteristic form of Venetian life from early morning + till late into the night. There are two or three hotels + frequented by foreigners on the Riva, for the situation facing + the open lagoon is an exceptionally good one; and there are + three or four caffès at which the cosmopolitan and not + too aristocratic visitor may get an excellent cup of coffee + (for the Venetians, thanks to their long connection with the + East, know what coffee is, and will not take chiccory or other + such detestable substitutes in lieu of it) for the modest + charge of thirteen centimes—just over two cents—and + study as he drinks it the moving and ever-amusing scenes + enacted before his eyes. His neighbor perhaps will be an old + gentleman, the very type of the old "pantaloon" whose mask was + in the old comedy supposed to be the impersonation of Venice. + There are the long, slender and rather delicately-cut features + terminating in a long, narrow and somewhat protruding chin; the + high cheek-bones, the lank and sombre cheeks, the high nose, + the dark bright eye under its bushy brow. He is very thin, very + seedy, and evidently <i>very</i> poor. But he salutes you, as + you take your seat beside him, with the air of an ex-member of + "The Ten;" his ancient hat and napless coat are carefully + brushed; his outrageously high shirt-collar and voluminous + unstarched neckcloth, after the fashion of a former generation, + though as yellow as saffron, are clean; and his poor old boots + as irreproachable as blacking—which can do much, but, + alas! not all things—can make them. His expenditure of a + penny will entitle him not only to a cup of coffee, as + aforesaid, but also to a glass of fresh water, which has been + turned to an opaline color by the shaking into it of a few + drops of something which the waiter drops from a bottle with + some contrivance at its mouth, the effect of which is to cause + only a drop or two of the liquor, whatever it may be, to come + out at each shake. Our old friend is also entitled, in virtue + of his expenditure, to occupy the chair he sits on for as many + hours as he shall see fit to remain in it. And after the + coffee, which must be drunk while hot, has been despatched, the + sippings of the opaline mixture aforesaid may be protracted + indefinitely while he enjoys the cool evening-breezes from the + lagoon, the perfection of <i>dolce far niente</i>, and the + amusement the life of the Riva never fails to afford him. An + itinerant vender of little models of gondolas and bracelets and + toys made out of shells comes by, seeking a customer among the + folk assembled at the caffè. He does not address + Pantaloon, for of course he knows that there is nothing to be + done in that line with him. But spying with a hawk's glance a + <i>forestiere</i> among the crowd, he strolls up to him, + holding up one of his gimcrack bracelets daintily—and he + thinks temptingly, poor fellow!—between his finger and + thumb. "Un franco! Un sol franco! è una beleza per una + contesa!" ("One franc! <span class="pagenum"><a name="page129" + id="page129"></a>[pg 129]</span> only one franc! It would be + beautiful on the arm of a countess!") he murmurs in his soft + lisping Venetian, which abolishes all double consonants, and + supplies their place by prolonging the soft liquid sound of + the preceding vowel. One franc! It is wonderful how the + thing, worthless as it is, can be made even by the most + starving fingers for such a price. Yet after dangling his + toy for a minute, and gazing, oh, so wistfully! the while + out of his big haggard eyes, he says, "Seventy-five + centimes! half a franc!" and still lingers ere he turns away + with a sigh, a weary movement of his emaciated figure and a + longing look on his poor hollow face that make one feel that + the drama we are witnessing is not all comedy. But it is all + supremely interesting to our neighbor, Si'or Pantaleone. He + has been keenly watching the attempted deal, and no doubt + wished that his countryman might succeed. But there was no + element of tragedy in the matter for him, a condition of + semi-starvation is too much an ordinary, every-day and + normal spectacle. He looked on more as a retired merchant + might look on at the progress of a bargain for the delivery + of a shipload of grain. Presently, a middle-aged woman and a + girl of some fourteen years station themselves in front of + the audience seated outside the caffè. The elder + woman has a guitar, and the girl a violin and some sheets of + music in her hand. The woman has her wonderful wealth of + black hair grandly dressed and as shining as oil can make + it. She has large gilt earrings in her ears, a heavy coral + necklace, and a gaudy-colored shawl in good condition. + Whatever might be beneath and below this is in dark + shadow—"et sic melius situm." She is not starved, + however, for, as she prepares to finger her guitar, she + shows a well-nourished and not ill-formed arm. The young + girl has one of those pale, delicate, oval faces so common + in Venice: she also has a good shawl—an amber-colored + one—which so sets off the olive-colored complexion of + her face as to make her a perfect picture. This couple do + not in any degree assume an attitude of appealing <i>ad + misericordiam</i>. They pose themselves <i>en artistes</i>. + The girl sets about arranging her music in a business-like + way, and then they play the well-known air of "La Stella + Confidente," the little violinist really playing remarkably + well. Then the elder woman comes round with a little tin + saucer for our contributions. No slightest word or look of + disappointment or displeasure follows the refusal of those + who give nothing. The saucer is presented to each in turn. I + supposed that the application to Si'or Pantaleone was an + empty form. But no. That retired gentleman could still find + wherewithal to patronize the fine arts, and dropped a + centime—the fifth part of a cent—into the dish + with the air of a prince bestowing the grand cross of the + Golden Fleece. Then comes a dealer in ready-made trousers, + which Pantaloon examines curiously and cheapens. Then a body + of men singing part-songs, not badly, but to some + disadvantage, as they utterly ignore the braying of half a + dozen trumpets which are coming along the Riva in advance of + a body of soldiers returning to some neighboring barracks. + Then there are fruit-sellers and fish-sellers and + hot-chestnut dealers, and, most vociferous of all, the + cryers of "Acqua! acqua! acqua fresca!" There, making its + way among the numerous small vessels from Dalmatia, Greece, + etc. moored to the quay of the Schiavoni, comes a boat from + the Peninsular and Oriental steamer, which arrived this + morning from Alexandria, with four or five Orientals on + board. They come on shore, and proceed to saunter along the + Riva toward the Grand Piazza, while their dark faces and + brightly-colored garments add an element to the motley scene + which is perfectly in keeping with old Venetian + reminiscences.</p> + + <p class="author">T.A.T.</p> + + <h3>A NEW MEXICAN CHRISTMAS EVE.</h3> + + <p>It is Christmas Eve in Albuquerque. Blazing fagots of + mesquite-roots placed on the surrounding adobe walls illuminate + the old church on the plaza. There is a grand <i>baile</i> at + the fonda, to which we and our "family are most respectfully + invited." The sounds of music + <span class="pagenum"><a name="page130" + id="page130"></a>[pg 130]</span> already invite us to the + ball-room. We enter. The floor is full; a hundred couples + are gliding through the graceful "Spanish dance," or "slow + waltz," as it is termed here. Not a few blue-and-gold United + States uniforms are to be seen in the throng. A + full-uniformed major-general of volunteers adds the + éclat of his epaulettes to the occasion. The ranchos + have poured in their señoras and señoritas, + and three rows of the dark-eyed creatures sit ranged around + the room.</p> + + <p>The Mexican women look their best in a ball-room. Their + black eyes, black hair and white teeth glisten in the light; + they are dressed in the gayest of gay colors; ponderous + ornaments of gold, strongly relieved by their dusk complexions, + shed around them a rich barbaric lustre. Not that they eschew + adventitious means to blanch their sun-shadowed tints. For days + some of the señoras and señoritas have worn a + mask of a white clayey mixture to give them an ephemeral + whiteness for this occasion. Those who could procure nothing + else have worn a pasty vizard kneaded of common clay, to effect + in some degree a like result by protecting their faces from the + sun and wind. Should you visit New Mexico, and as you ride + along slowly in the heat of midday meet a señorita who + gazes at you with a pair of jet black eyes through a hideous, + ghastly mask of mud or mortar, do not be frightened from your + accustomed propriety. The señorita is preparing her + <i>toilette de bal</i>.</p> + + <p>The New Mexican women cannot be considered pretty, generally + speaking. In artistic symmetry of feature, in purity of + complexion, they are not to be compared with our countrywomen. + These can bear the searching light of day, when delicacy of + detail can be distinguished and appreciated. Those look their + best in the artificial light of the ball-room. There the + blue-black hair, the brilliant black eyes, the well-traced + eyebrows, the magnificently white and regular teeth, the + richly-developed forms, produce a general effect before which + our blond and delicate beauties seem pale and <i>fades</i>. But + the Mexican's coarser skin—her <i>teint + basané</i>—is too plainly visible in the light of + the sun: you should see her only by the lamps. It is doubtless + rather from an instinct of coquetry than from any other feeling + that in the day-time the Mexican women shroud their dusky + traits in the folds of their <i>rebosas</i>, leaving only one + pilot eye to look upon the outer world.</p> + + <p>No introductions are necessary at the public bailes. Saunter + around the room, inspect the show of expectant partners, and + when you see one who suits your fancy ask her to dance, without + more ado. If she be not engaged she will at once accept your + proffered arm. She will not say anything. Ten to one she will + not breathe a syllable during your evolutions. Conversation is + not the forte of the señoritas. But she will smile and + smile, and you will have no reason to complain of her waltzing. + The Mexican <i>caballero</i>, when he seeks a partner, will not + put himself out so far as to have any words about it. He merely + beckons the chosen one, as the sultan might throw the + handkerchief, and she comes to him at once.</p> + + <p>Each dance concluded, you lead your partner to a sort of bar + where refreshments are furnished, and ask her whether she will + take <i>vino</i> or <i>dulces</i>—wine or candies? She + will take <i>dulces</i>—"Gracias, señor!" This is + <i>de rigueur</i>. You pay for them of course, and conduct her + to her seat. She pours the <i>dulces</i> into the awaiting + pocket-handkerchiefs of the old people, her <i>comadres</i>, + and of her younger brothers and sisters.</p> + + <p>In a little room adjoining the ball-room, with door + invitingly open, is the shrine of <i>monte</i>. The revelry of + the ball-room is unheeded by the preoccupied votaries of the + changeful deity as they sit around the green table watching the + dealer as he turns the cards, and nervously fingering their + little piles of red or white "chips." We have no business and + no pleasure here. Let us merely look in and pass on.</p> + + <p>Waltzes, "round" and "slow," are the <i>pièces de + résistance</i> of a Mexican baile: quadrilles are not + relished by the <span class="pagenum"><a name="page131" + id="page131"></a>[pg 131]</span> dusky danseuses. There are + some New Mexican dances which do not lack prettiness. Of + these, the Cuna is the most popular. It commences with a + see-saw movement suggestive of its name—cuna- or + cradle-dance. For the rest, the waltz enters much into its + composition.</p> + + <p>The orchestra generally consists of one or more violins and + a guitar or two. The New Mexican guitar is strung conversely: + the base-string is where we put the treble, and <i>vice + versâ</i>. The strings are generally struck with the + thumb-nail or with a piece of horn or wood like the ancient + <i>plectrum</i>. This produces a harsh metallic sound, without + any rotundity. Few New Mexican fiddlers or guitar-players are + capable of playing in any time except dancing time, and the + character of the baile, funeral and sacred music is the same. + The only distinction is the addition of a continuous + <i>tremolo</i> to the latter two, which produces the same + unpleasant effect on the nerves as a comic song chanted by the + shaky, cracked, piping and quavering voice of senility. As the + fiddles invariably play their parts in funerals as well as on + festive processions, it requires some familiarity with the + customs of the country to distinguish one from the other. The + music to-night is much better than the ordinary baile music. A + native harpist adds the music of his many strings; and not bad + music either, though he does not know a quaver from a + semibreve, and his harp is of his own manufacture. The + sameness, however, caused by playing always and everything in + the same key is perceptible. But dancing critics are not + disposed to be very severe.</p> + + <p>The enjoyment of the evening is at high pressure. The + dancers are swinging, surging, spinning through the Spanish + dance. Everybody who can find a partner and a place on the + floor—there are many who cannot find the latter—is + dancing. It is a gay, a brilliant scene. All is going as + merrily as a whole chime of marriage-bells when a deep and + solemn peal from the church close by breaks in over the music, + the laughter and the dancing. It is midnight! It is the + <i>Noche Buena</i>, and the bell summons the faithful to the + midnight mass. The effect is electric. The last twirl of the + waltz is suspended, half executed. The dancers stop as suddenly + as if they were puppets moved and stilled by the cunning of + some wire-pulling hand. A general rush is made for the church: + in a moment the ball-room is empty. The church is filled as + instantaneously, and the wildly gay dancers of a moment ago are + now kneeling, hushed and down-bent, in devotional + attitudes.</p> + + <p>The scene is impressive: the bright ball-toilettes + contrasted in a "dim religious light," the sudden change of + place and mood, from gay to grave, from ball-room to sanctuary, + strikes a stranger's eye with thrilling effect. At the + conclusion of the service the dancers return to the ball-room, + to change from grave to gay, and dance <i>ad libitum</i> till + daylight.</p> + + <p class="author">J.T.</p> + + <h3>ENGLISH BIBLE TRANSLATIONS.</h3> + + <p>The first complete translation of the Bible into our + language was made about the year 1380 by John de Wycliffe, or + Wickliffe. There are several manuscript copies of it in the + Bodleian and other European libraries. This great work unlocked + the Scriptures to the multitude, or, as one of his antagonists, + bewailing such an enterprise, worded it, "the gospel pearl was + cast abroad and trodden under foot." Long before the appearance + of this translation various versions of portions of the Bible + had appeared, specimens of which, of every century from the + reign of Alfred to Chaucer's time, are preserved in the British + Museum and elsewhere. Sir Thomas More says: "The Holy Byble was + longe before Wycliffis daies by virtuose and well-learned men + translated into the English tongue, and by good and godly + people with devotion and soberness well and reverently read." + This statement is further corroborated by Foxe, the + martyrologist, who remarks: "If histories be well examined, we + shall find both before and after the Conquest, as well before + John Wickliffe was borne as since, the whole body of the + Scriptures by sundry men translated into this our country + tongue." Wycliffe's Bible was first printed at + <span class="pagenum"><a name="page132" + id="page132"></a>[pg 132]</span> Oxford in 1850, previous to + which the New Testament appeared in 1721 and was reprinted + in 1810.</p> + + <p>In 1526, William Tyndale completed and published in English + his translation of the New Testament. He also translated and + printed the Pentateuch and the book of Jonah, and was preparing + them for publication when he was put to death in Flanders, + being strangled and burnt for heresy. Tyndale's translation, + with his latest revisions (1534), was republished in the + English Hexapla in 1841. A copy of his translation of the + Pentateuch which had belonged to Bishop Heber was sold in 1854 + for $795. Four years later another copy sold for within twenty + dollars of that amount.</p> + + <p>The first English translation of the entire Bible was made + by Miles Coverdale, who afterward became bishop of Exeter, and + was printed in folio in the year 1535. In 1538 a second edition + of Coverdale's Bible was printed at Paris, but the Inquisition + interfered and committed the whole edition of twenty-five + hundred copies to the flames. No perfect copy of Coverdale's + version is known to exist, but one lacking the original + title-page and first leaf was sold in 1854 for $1725. Another, + at the Perkins' sale, in June, 1873, brought $2000.</p> + + <p>Two years after the appearance of the first edition of + Coverdale's Bible, John Rogers, the first martyr in Queen + Mary's reign, published his version of the Scriptures. He made + some emendations, but the text is chiefly that of Tyndale and + Coverdale. It was printed by Grafton and Whitchurch in 1537, + and the title runs: "The Byble, which is all the holy + Scripture: in which are contayned the Olde and Newe Testament + truely and purely translated into Englysh by Thomas Matthew." + For safety, Rogers assumed the name of Matthew, whence it is + known as Matthew's Bible. Seven hundred and fifty dollars have + been paid for a copy.</p> + + <p>The third version of the Bible, known as Taverner's, was + published in 1539. Richard Taverner was a learned man who + published many translations during the sixteenth century. Horne + says of his translation, "This is neither a bare revisal of + Cranmer's Bible nor a new version, but a kind of intermediate + work, being a correction of what is called 'Matthew's + Bible.'"</p> + + <p>The first edition of Cranmer's Bible, the printing of which + was begun in Paris in 1538 and completed in London in + 1540—the Inquisition having interposed by imprisoning the + printers and burning the greater part of the + impression—is excessively rare. Cranmer's Bible—or + the Great Bible, as it was called—is Tyndale's, + Coverdale's and Rogers's translations most carefully revised + throughout. This was the first sound and authorized English + version; and as soon as it was perfected a proclamation was + issued ordering it to be provided for every parish church, + under a penalty of forty shillings a month. A second edition of + Cranmer's Bible appeared in 1560, a copy of which brought, at a + recent sale in England, the sum of $610.</p> + + <p>The Genevan version of the Bible was made by several English + exiles at Geneva in Queen Mary's reign—viz., Cole, + Coverdale, Gilby, Knox, Sampson, Whittingham and + Woodman—and was first printed in 1560. It went through + fifty editions in the course of thirty years. This translation + was very popular with the Puritan party. In this version the + first division into verses was made. It is commonly known as + the "Breeches Bible," from the peculiar rendering of Genesis + iii. 7—" breeches of fig-leaves." To the Geneva Bible we + owe the beautiful phraseology of the admired passage in + Jeremiah viii. 22. Coverdale, Matthew and Taverner render it, + "For there is no more treacle at Gilead?" Cranmer, "Is there no + treason at Gilead?" The Genevan first gave the poetic + rendering, "Is there no balm in Gilead?"</p> + + <p>In the year 1568 another translation appeared, which is + indiscriminately known as "Matthew Parker's Bible," the + "Bishops' Bible" and the "Great English Bible." This version + was undertaken and carried on under the inspection of Matthew + Parker, second Protestant archbishop of Canterbury. Of the + fifteen <span class="pagenum"><a name="page133" + id="page133"></a>[pg 133]</span> translators, six were + bishops, hence this edition is often called the Bishops' + Bible, though it is sometimes designated the Great English + Bible, from its being a huge folio volume. In 1569 it was + published in octavo form. There is a well-preserved copy of + the first edition of Matthew Parker's Bible in the + possession of a gentleman residing in New York City. This + was the authorized version of the Scriptures for forty + years, when it was superseded by our present English + Bible.</p> + + <p>The English Roman Catholic College at Rheims issued in the + year 1582 a translation of the New Testament, known as the + "Rhemish New Testament." It was condemned by the queen of + England, and copies imported into that country were seized and + destroyed. In 1609 the first volume of the Old Testament, and + in the following year the second volume, were published at + Douay, hence ever since known as the Douay Bible. Some years + since Cardinal Wiseman remarked that the names Rhemish and + Douay, as applied to the current editions, are absolute + misnomers. The publishers of the edition chiefly used in this + country state that it is translated from the Latin Vulgate, + "being the edition published by the English College at Rheims + A.D. 1582, and at Douay in 1609, as revised and corrected in + 1750, according to the Clementine edition of the Scriptures, by + the Rt. Rev. Richard Challoner, bishop of Debra, with his + annotations for clearing up the principal difficulties of Holy + Writ."</p> + + <p>Theodore Beza translated the New Testament out of the Greek + into the Latin. This was first published in England in 1574, + and afterward frequently. In 1576 it was "Engelished" by + Leonard Tomson, under-secretary to Sir Francis Walsingham, and + was afterward frequently annexed to the Genevan Old Testament. + The following is a copy of the title-page of the New Testament, + <i>verbatim et literatim</i>: "The New Testament of our Lord + Jesus Christ, translated out of Greeke by Theod Beza: with + brief summaries and expositions upon the hard places by the + said authour, <i>Ioach Amer and P Loseler Vallerius</i>. + Engelished by L Tomson. Together with the Annotations of <i>Fr + Junius</i> upon the Revelation of S. John. Imprinted at London + by the Deputies of Christopher Barker, Printer to the Queene's + Most Excellent Majestie—1599." The volume opens with a + primitive version of the Psalms in verse, then follow the Old + Testament, the Apocrypha and the New Testament, as in Bibles of + the present day.</p> + + <p>The version of the Scriptures now in use among Protestants + was translated by the authority of King James I., and published + in 1611. Fifty-four learned men were appointed to accomplish + the work of revision, but from death or other causes seven of + the number failed to enter upon it. The remaining forty-seven + were ranged under six divisions, different portions of the + Bible being assigned to each division. They entered upon their + task in 1607, and after three years of diligent labor the work + was completed. This version was generally adopted, and the + former translations soon fell into disuse. The authors of King + James's version of the Bible included the most learned divines + of the day; one of whom was master of Latin, Greek, Hebrew, + Chaldee, Syriac and fifteen modern languages.</p> + + <p>Among other rare and highly-coveted editions of the Bible is + one printed in England in the seventeenth century, in which the + important word <i>not</i> was omitted in the seventh + commandment, from which circumstance it has ever since been + known as "The Adulterer's Bible." Another edition, known as the + Pearl Bible, appeared about the same time, filled with errata, + a single specimen of which will suffice: "Know ye not the + ungodly <i>shall inherit</i> the kingdom of God?" Bibles were + once printed which affirmed that "all Scripture was profitable + for <i>de</i>struction;" while still another edition of the + sacred volume is known as the "Vinegar Bible," from the erratum + in the title to the twentieth chapter of St. Luke, in which + "Parable of the Vineyard" is printed "Parable of the + Vinegar."</p> + + <p class="author"> + J.G.W.</p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page134" + id="page134"></a>[pg 134]</span> + + <h3>LITERATURE OF THE DAY.</h3> + + <p>Life and Labours of Mr. Brassey, 1805-1870. By Sir Arthur + Helps, K.C.B. Boston: Roberts Brothers.</p> + + <p>The "captains of industry," who constitute in our day so + distinct and notable a class of worthies, are doubtless as well + entitled to have their achievements recorded and their fame + sounded throughout the lands as were the doughty men of war who + of old were deemed the only fitting heroes of chronicle and + epic. Few of them, however, can hope to have their deeds + commemorated by a "veray parfit, gentle knight"—of the + quill, not of the sword, albeit the letters which he writes + after his name would once have indicated the possession of + military rank and distinction. Sir Arthur Helps is not a man of + few words or of a very stern or passionate temperament. It is + the graces of chivalry, not its fiery ardor, that he cultivates + and reflects, and though "arms and the man" have often been his + theme, the soft and delicate strain was ever more suggestive of + the pastoral pipe than of the bardic lyre. Essayist, historian, + biographer, novelist, he is always intent to smooth away the + asperities of his subject, and, like some stately grandame + enthroned in high-backed chair, he remembers that his simple + auditors are to be not merely entertained by the matter of his + discourse, but impressed by the suave tones and high-bred + prolixity of the speaker. With a dignified courtesy unknown in + these latter times—when biographers and historians do not + scruple to take liberties with their heroes to the extent even + of designating them by nicknames—the subject of the + present memoir is introduced to us as <i>Mr</i>. Brassey, a + form not only adopted on the title-page, but preserved in the + body of the work, where we read that "Mr. Brassey was born + November 7, 1805," that "Mr. Brassey, at twelve years of age, + went to a school at Chester," and that, being afterward + articled to a surveyor, "Mr. Brassey was permitted by his + master" to assist in making certain surveys. It is only from a + side whisper to the American public, which is honored with a + preface all to itself, that we are permitted to learn that the + great contractor owned to the Christian name of Thomas. Besides + the two prefaces there is a dedication to the queen, an + introduction telling how Sir Arthur Helps made the acquaintance + of Mr. Brassey and what impressions he received from the + interview, and a preliminary chapter containing a brief outline + of Mr. Brassey's character as "a man of business;" so that we + get at the substance of the book by a process like that which + in a well-conducted household precedes the carving and + distribution of a Christmas cake, any eagerness we might feel + to "put in a thumb and pull out a plum" being kept in check by + a proper amount of ceremony and tissue-paper.</p> + + <p>Plums, however, there are, though not perhaps in full + proportion to the frosted coating, or of just the kind that are + best agglutinated by the biographical dough. Of anecdote or + gossip, glimpses of "life and manners" or personal details, + there is nothing. Nor can we justly take exception to this. On + the contrary, it gives a unity to the subject by excluding + whatever had no relation to the enterprises with which Mr. + Brassey's name is connected, and which absorbed his time and + thoughts to a degree that can have left him but little + opportunity for intercourse with mankind except in a business + capacity. It is these enterprises—not in their entirety + or with reference to the objects with which they were designed, + but as evidences and illustrations of the working force, mental + and physical, demanded for their execution—that form the + real subject of the book, the matter of which has been chiefly + furnished by the various agents entrusted with the immediate + supervision of the labor and outlay of the capital employed. + The details thus brought together afford perhaps a more vivid + idea of the industrial energy and activity of the nineteenth + century, and of the resources they have called into play, than + could have been obtained from a survey of any other field in + which the like qualities have been displayed. It was chiefly + with railway enterprises, and this almost from their inception, + and to an extent far beyond the rivalry of any other + constructor, that Mr. Brassey was engaged; and the railway + system, not only by its own immense demands on capital, labor + and inventive skill, but still more by the stimulus and aid it + has given to industrial enterprises of every kind, must be + regarded <span class="pagenum"><a name="page135" + id="page135"></a>[pg 135]</span> as the main lever of a + material progress that has outstripped the conceptions and + possibilities of all previous ages. With the development of + a system so different in its nature from the great + undertakings of any former period came the need of the + contractor, entrusted with the direction and laden with the + full responsibility of works which no government "boards" or + similar machinery would have been competent to carry through + under the conditions imposed by the novel circumstances of + the movement and the exacting spirit by which it was + impelled. To attain the foremost place in the new career + thus created demanded, obviously, no ordinary + powers—special knowledge of various kinds, equal + facility in mastering details and grasping a general plan, + tact in the choice and management of subordinates, courage + and promptness in encountering unforeseen obstacles and + disasters, and skill and clearheadedness in the general + control of enormous and intricate financial interests. To + these qualities must be added in the present case what is + not so invariably associated with the names of succesful + contractors—a faithfulness and integrity which merited + and received the fullest confidence. Whether working at a + gain or at a loss, Mr. Brassey was ever resolute to execute + his engagements to the letter, and he declined to make + demands for extra compensation when his contracts proved + unprofitable, though it was customary with him to make good + the losses of his sub-contractors. He amassed a colossal + fortune, not through excessive gains, but by a small + profit—"as nearly as possible three per + cent."—which accrued to him from all his enterprises + taken as a whole, and the accumulations consequent on an + inexpensive mode of life.</p> + + <p>The railways constructed by Mr. Brassey, generally in + partnership with some other contractor, between the years 1834 + and 1870, comprised between six and seven thousand miles in all + parts of the globe, including Australia and in almost every + civilized country except Russia and the United States. "There + were periods in his career during which he and his partners + were giving employment to 80,000 persons, upon works requiring + £ 17,000,000 of capital for their completion." Yet a + large part of his time and of the time of his agents was spent + in the investigation of schemes which he either decided not to + undertake or for which he tendered unsuccessfully. It was + necessary at times to transport materials, a large staff of + employés and an army of laborers from one country to + another. In some cases works were prosecuted in regions + occupied or threatened by hostile armies, in others under all + the embarrassments and gloom of a great financial revulsion. In + countries where commercial transactions were usually very + limited the great difficulty was to obtain coin for the payment + of wages, while in others there was the danger of the supply of + labor failing through the enticements of superabundant capital + or the more dazzling temptations of gold-digging. It is + needless to mention the usual accidents and impediments to + which all such undertakings are liable, and which the skill and + ingenuity of the modern engineer never fail to overcome; but it + is certainly not a little remarkable, when the multiplicity of + Mr. Brassey's contracts is remembered, as well as the early + period from which they date, to find that they were invariably + completed within the specified time.</p> + + <p>Personal Reminiscences of Barham, Harness and Hodder. + (Bric-à-Brac Series, edited by Richard Henry Stoddard.) + New York: Scribner, Armstrong & Co.</p> + + <p>Why we should love so dearly a fresh anecdote of a literary + celebrity, a new quip by Talleyrand, a new stutter of Lamb's, a + new impertinence of Sheridan's, may be not hard to understand, + but it is rather hard to defend, any regard being paid to our + dignity. The best stories about that particular line of authors + who have possessed <i>bonhomie</i> and become classic for it + are long since told. What remains is the dregs. Yet the other + day we found ourselves smiling with real delight over a new + "bit" of Cowper. It was merely that his barber, being late with + the poet's wig, said, "Twill soon be here, it is upon the + road;" and that Cowper had smiled, with a "Very well, William," + or a "Very fair, Thomas." The <i>mot</i>, like most of the + stories that crop up now, was not good; it did not exhibit the + author of "John Gilpin" in a brilliant light; it was not even + uttered by the poet—he had merely smiled at it; yet it + had the effect of rekindling the vapid embers about the dear + old hearthstone of Olney, and the shy, gentle creatures that + used to disport there among the hares when nobody was looking + became for a moment more real from the citation. Now, the + question is, What is the superiority of a new piece of gossip + like this, which involves + <span class="pagenum"><a name="page136" + id="page136"></a>[pg 136]</span> no witticism and confers no + wisdom, over the next bit of history that will be exchanged + between the heroines of the alley-gate? When Mrs. Jones + tells Mrs. Baker that Mrs. Briggs has delivered a daughter, + and that Mr. Briggs said he had rather she had given him a + wooden leg, the epigram is quite as good as a + <i>Bric-à-Brac</i> anecdote, the people are quite as + worthy as Cowper's barber, and the effect upon the history + of letters quite as close and important. With this demurrer, + we will apply ourselves for a moment to Mr. Stoddard's last + collection, which of course we relish as much as anybody. We + could wish that, after discharging his very well-executed + duty of writing the preface, he could find some further time + for elucidating the text. The present book being about three + people, whose memoirs are taken from three volumes, it is + confusing to the reader to find on a page headed "Rogers" or + "Scott" a foot-note about what "my father" said or what "my + friend" remembered, without anything to point out that the + authority is other than Mr. Stoddard's father or friend. + Other peculiarities, too, suggest that the pretty little + volume is clipped instead of edited: on page 134 we find + that "William, who had lived many years with Hook, grew rich + and saucy. The latter used to assert of him that for the + first three years he was as good a servant as ever came into + a house; for the next two a kind and considerate friend; and + afterward an abominably bad master." And on page 240, that + when <i>Rogers</i> was condoled with about the death of an + old servant, he exclaimed, "Well, I don't know that I feel + his loss so much, after all. For the first <i>seven</i> + years he was an obliging servant; for the second + <i>seven</i> years an agreeable companion; but for the last + seven years he was a tyrannical master." This duality of + epigrams seems to show a discrepancy somewhere; or are we to + believe that the wits of the Regency used to drive their + jokes as hired hacks, like the livery carriages employed by + faded dowagers in Hampton Court? The rest of the little book + is perhaps free from duplicates. It is a good one to turn + over for an hour in the cars, which is perhaps all it claims + to be. The anecdotes are good old familiar anecdotes, but it + is pleasant to have them strung on a thread. We are reminded + that the original Bride of Lammermoor was a Miss Dalrymple; + that the "laughing Tom" of Thackeray's "Ballad of + Bouillabaise" was Thomas Frazer, Paris correspondent of the + <i>Morning Chronicle</i>; that the dramatist of <i>Nicholas + Nickleby</i>, so savagely assaulted by Dickens in the course + of the work, was a Mr. Moncrief, who would never have + prepared the story for the stage if Dickens had intimated + his objection.</p> + + <h4><i>Books Received.</i></h4> + + <p>The American Educational Annual: A Reference Book for all + matters pertaining to Education. Vol. I., 1875. New York: J.W. + Schermerhorn & Co.</p> + + <p>The Song-Fountain: A Vocal Music-book. By Wm. Tillinghast + & D.P. Horton. New York: J.W. Schermerhorn & Co.</p> + + <p>My. Sister Jennie: A Novel. By George Sand. Translated by + T.S. Crocker. Boston: Roberts Brothers.</p> + + <p>Democracy and Monarchy in France. By Charles Kendall Adams. + New York: Henry Holt & Co.</p> + + <p>Egypt and Iceland in the year 1874. By Bayard Taylor. New + York: G.P. Putnam's Sons.</p> + + <p>Elements of Geometry. By W.H.H. Phillips, Ph. D. New York: + J.W. Schermerhorn & Co.</p> + + <p>The Old Woman who Lived in a Shoe. By Amanda M. Duglas. + Boston: William F. Gill & Co.</p> + + <p>The Lily and the Cross: A Tale of Acadia. By Prof. James De + Mille. Boston: Lee & Shepard.</p> + + <p>Alleged Discrepancies of the Bible. By John W. Haley, M.A. + Andover: Warren F. Draper.</p> + + <p>History of the United States. By George Bancroft. Vol. X. + Boston: Little, Brown & Co.</p> + + <p>Roddy's Romance. By Helen Kendrick Johnson. New York: G.P. + Putnam's Sons.</p> + + <p>My Life on the Plains. By Gen. G.A. Custer, U.S.A. New York: + Sheldon & Co.</p> + + <p>American Wild-Fowl Shooting. By Joseph W. Long. New York: + J.B. Ford & Co.</p> + + <p>Hazel-Blossoms. By John Greenleaf Whittier. Boston: James R. + Osgood & Co.</p> + + <p>Losing to Win: A Novel. By Theodore Davies. New York: + Sheldon & Co.</p> + + <p>Linley Rochford: A Novel. By Justin McCarthy. New York: + Sheldon & Co.</p> + + <p>A First Book in German. By Dr. Emil Otto. New York: Henry + Holt & Co.</p> + + <p>What of the Churches and Clergy? Springfield, Mass: D.E. + Fisk & Co.</p> + <hr class="full" /> + + <blockquote class="footnote"> + <a id="footnote1" + name="footnote1"></a><b>Footnote 1:</b> + <a href="#footnotetag1">(return)</a> + + <p><i>The Pilgrimage of the Tiber</i>, by Wm. Davies.</p> + </blockquote> + + <blockquote class="footnote"> + <a id="footnote2" + name="footnote2"></a><b>Footnote 2:</b> + <a href="#footnotetag2">(return)</a> + + <div class="poem"> + <div class="stanza"> + <p>Com' io fui dentro, in un bogliente vetro</p> + + <p>Gittato mi sarei per rinfrescarmi,</p> + + <p>Tant' era ivi lo'ncendio senza metro.</p> + </div> + </div> + + <p><i>Del Purgatorio</i>, xxvii. 49.</p> + </blockquote> + <hr class="full" /> + +<div>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 13440 ***</div> +</body> +</html> diff --git a/13440-h/images/009.png b/13440-h/images/009.png Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..afba376 --- /dev/null +++ b/13440-h/images/009.png diff --git a/13440-h/images/010.png b/13440-h/images/010.png Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..8a4adfe --- /dev/null +++ b/13440-h/images/010.png diff --git a/13440-h/images/011.png b/13440-h/images/011.png Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..5e87b15 --- 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markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..7d24ab6 --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #13440 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/13440) diff --git a/old/13440-8.txt b/old/13440-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..2441ad6 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/13440-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,9523 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature +and Science Vol. XV., No. 85. January, 1875., by Various + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Vol. XV., No. 85. January, 1875. + +Author: Various + +Release Date: September 11, 2004 [EBook #13440] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LIPPINCOTT'S MAGAZINE *** + + + + +Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Sandra Brown and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team. + + + + + +LIPPINCOTT'S MAGAZINE + +OF + +_POPULAR LITERATURE AND SCIENCE_. + +VOLUME XV., No. 85. + +PHILADELPHIA: + +J. B. LIPPINCOTT AND CO. + + + +January, 1875. + + + +CONTENTS + +THE NEW HYPERION. + FROM PARIS TO MARLY BY WAY OF THE RHINE. + XIX.--TYING UP THE CLEWS. + +FOLLOWING THE TIBER + TWO PAPERS.--1. + +THE PARADOX by CHARLOTTE F. BATES. + +THE LEADEN ARROW by EDWARD C. BRUCE. + +TWO MIRRORS by F.A. HILLARD. + +MALCOLM. + CHAPTER LXIV. THE LAIRD AND HIS MOTHER. + CHAPTER LXV. THE LAIRD'S VISION. + CHAPTER LXVI. THE CRY FROM THE CHAMBER. + CHAPTER LXVII. FEET OF WOOL. + CHAPTER LXVIII. HANDS OF IRON. + CHAPTER LXIX. THE MARQUIS AND THE SCHOOLMASTER. + CHAPTER LXX. END OR BEGINNING? + +THE STAGE IN ITALY by R. DAVEY. + +THREE FEATHERS BY WILLIAM BLACK. + CHAPTER XX. TINTAGEL'S WALLS. + CHAPTER XXI. CONFESSION. + CHAPTER XXII. ON WINGS OF HOPE. + +ON THE VIA SAN BASILIO by EARL MARBLE. + +A CHRISTMAS HYMN by T. BUCHANAN READ. + +THE PARSEES by FANNIE ROPER FEUDGE. + +OUR MONTHLY GOSSIP + A SWEDISH PROVINCIAL THEATRE. + VENETIAN CAFFÈS. + A NEW MEXICAN CHRISTMAS EVE. + ENGLISH BIBLE TRANSLATIONS. + +LITERATURE OF THE DAY. + _Books Received._ + + + + +ILLUSTRATIONS + + CÆSAR'S PENNY. + THE THRONED CORPSE. + THE SKELETON IN ARMOR. + BRUSSELS. + FATHER JOLIET. + THE CATECHISM. + FRAU KRANICH. + "TO MY ARMS." + THE FUTURE OF FFARINA. + HOHENFELS' FAILURE. + READING THE CONTRACT. + INTERRUPTED REPOSE. + COALS vs. COATS + THE JESTER AT THE FEAST. + ST. GUDOLE, BRUSSELS. + SQUARE OF THE HÔTEL DE VILLE, BRUSSELS. + DIVERS DIVERSIONS. + THE MIMIC HUNT. + HOMEWARD BOUND. + CHARLES AND JOSEPHINE. + ARGUS AND ULYSSES. + "HAND IT OVER TO ART." + NEAR THE SOURCE OF THE TIBER. + CAPRESE. + LAKE THRASIMENE. + THE TIBER NEAR PERUGIA. + TODI. + CHURCH AND CONVENT OF SAINT FRANCIS, AT ASSISI. + + + + +THE NEW HYPERION. + +FROM PARIS TO MARLY BY WAY OF THE RHINE. + + +XIX.--TYING UP THE CLEWS. + + +[Illustration: CÆSAR'S PENNY.] + +In leaving Cologne for Aix-la-Chapelle you turn your back to the +river--a particular which suited my mood well enough. The railway bore +us away from the Rhine-shore at an abrupt angle, and in my notion the +noble Germanic goddess or image seemed at this point to recede with +grand theatric strides, like a divinity of the stage backing away +from her admirers over the billowy whirlpool of her own skirts. As +I dreamed we penetrated the tunnel of Königsdorf, which is fifteen +hundred yards long, and which seemed to me sufficiently protracted to +contain the slumber of Barbarossa. The thought gave me a useful hint, +and I fell into a light sleep, while Charles and Hohenfels pervaded +the darkness merely by their perfumes--the former with whiffs at a +concealed bottle of Farina, the latter with a pastille counterfeiting +the incense of the cathedral. In a couple of hours from the Hôtel de +Hollande we reached Aachen, as the fond natives call the burgh so dear +to Charlemagne. Deprived of that magnificent mirror, the Rhine, the +pretty towns throughout this part of Germany seem but like country +belles. We should hardly have paused at Aix but for the sake of +affording a rest to Charles, who grew worse whenever lunch-time +competed with railway-time. As for the dull little city, for us it was +a wilderness, with the blank cleanliness of the desert, except in so +far as it was informed and populated by the memory of Charlemagne. + +[Illustration: THE THRONED CORPSE.] + +Here he died, and entered his tomb in the church himself had founded. +Into this sepulchre the emperor Otho III. dared to penetrate in the +year 997, impelled by a motive of vile and varlet-like curiosity. They +say the dead monarch confronted his living visitor in the great marble +chair in which he had been seated at his own command, haughty and +inflexible as in life, the ivory sceptre in his ivory fingers, his +white skull crowned with the diadem of gold. The peeping emperor +looked upon him with awe, half afraid of the mysterious and +penetrating shadows that reached forth out of his rayless eyes. Before +he left, however, he peered about, touched the sceptre and the throne, +fingered this and that, and having, as it were, trimmed the nails and +combed the beard of the great spectre, retired with a valet's bow. +Observing that Charlemagne had lost most of his nose, he caused it +to be replaced in gold very delicately chiseled and enchased. The +sacrilege was repeated by Frederick Barbarossa in 1165, who went +farther and forced Charlemagne to get up from his chair before him. +The corpse, in rising, fell in pieces, which have been dispersed +through Europe as relics. We saw such of them as remain here at the +Chapelle. I was allowed, for about the equivalent of an American +dollar, to measure the Occidental emperor's leg--they call it his arm. +And then, as a makeweight in the bargain, the venal sacristan placed +in my hands the head of Charlemagne. + +I thought Hohenfels would have sunk to the ground with disgust. He +colored deeply and dragged me into the air. "I am ashamed of every +drop of German blood in my veins," he cried. "What are we to think of +the commerce of these wretches, for whom the very wounds of Cæsar are +the lips of a money-box?" + +I had given back the skull, as Hamlet returns the skull of Yorick to +the grave-digger, and was dusting my fingers with a handkerchief, +as hundreds of Hamlets have dusted theirs. I said, "'Thrift, thrift, +Horatio.'" + +"At Kreutzberg there are twenty monks on the counter! This morning, at +St. Ursula's, it was the eleven thousand virgins, their skulls ranged +like Dutch cheeses above our heads or in rows around the walls, with +a battery-full of them in the neighboring apartment, like a +cheesemonger's reserved magazine. Here, the very leader of modern +ideas, the creator of our form of civilization, is shown for so +many pennies to any grocer who wants to weigh the head of a king! +Profanation! Barbarians! Philistines!" + +[Illustration: THE SKELETON IN ARMOR.] + +I turned rather hastily, while my hands were yet clammy with the +skull, thinking that this accusation of Philistinism was aimed at me. +But Hohenfels thought of nothing less than of a personality, being +in his cloudiest mood of generalization. So I only concealed the +handkerchief, while I said, as easily as I might, "You need not accuse +your German blood, for I have lived long enough in my American's +Paradise to know that civilized Paris is considerably worse in this +particular respect, with the addition of a certain goblin levity +particularly French. How often have I seen babies frightened by the +skulls in the dentists' windows, with their cynical chewing action! +It is said that a child sat next a dentist's apprentice once in an +omnibus, and was observed to turn rigid, fixed and white, but unable +to speak: he had sat on one of these skulls, and it had bitten him. +Silver-mounted skulls set as goblets, in imitation of Byron, are to +be seen at any of the china-shops rubbing against the chaste cheeks +of the old maid's teacup. Skeletons are sold, bleached and with gilded +hinges, to the medical students, who buy the pale horrors as openly +as meerschaum pipes. Have I not often found young Grandstone +supping among his doctors' apprentices of the Ober restaurant after +theatre-hours, a skeleton in the corner filled with umbrellas like +a hall-rack, and crowned with the triple or quintuple tiara of the +girls' best bonnets? Ay, Mimi Pinson's cap has known what it is to +perch on the bony head of Death. The juxtaposition is but an emblem. +The sewing-girl, like Hood's shirtmaker, scarcely fears the +'phantom of grisly bone.' Poor Francine! where have you taken _your_ +artisanne's cap to, I wonder? Are you left alone, all alone again, and +thinking of the pretty solitude you have left behind you at Carlsruhe? +Who uses those polished keys now?" + +Hohenfels interrupted me, complaining that my monologue was +uninteresting and diffuse, and was interfering with the railway +time-table. But I finished it in the car: "And the railway! What has +a person of fixed and independent habits to do with railways but +to growl at them? Before I was tempted upon the railway by that +impertinent engineer at Noisy, I got up and sat down when I liked, ate +wholesome food at my own hours, and was contented at home. Confusion +to him who made me the victim of his engineering calculations! +Confusion to Grandstone and his nest of serpents at Épernay! Did they +not introduce me to Fortnoye, who has doubly destroyed my peace? Where +are the conspirators, that I may pulverize them with my maledictions?" + +[Illustration: BRUSSELS.] + +This question--which Hohenfels called peevish as he buried himself in +his book--was not answered until we had passed Verviers, Chaudfontaine +and Liège. I was aroused from a sulky slumber in the station at +Brussels by Hohenfels, who said, in his musical scolding way, like the +busy wheeze of a clicking music-box, "You may say what you like, with +your left-handed flatteries, in regard to Fortnoye, and you may praise +Ariadnes and widows to the end of the chapter. You are sorry at +this moment not to be at Épernay to see the destroyer of your peace +married: you had rather assist at the making of a wife than at the +making of a widow." + +I was just sending Fortnoye to the gloomiest shades of Acheron when a +strong hand entered the carriage-door, helped me handsomely down the +steps, and then began warmly to shake my own. Fortnoye!--Fortnoye +in flesh and blood was before me. While my mouth was yet filled with +maledictions he began to pour out a storm of thanks with all his own +particular warmth, expressing the most effusive gratitude for the +trouble I had taken in forsaking my route to be his wife's bridesmaid. +That is what he called it. "She has but one other," said Fortnoye. +At the same time I began to recognize other faces not unknown to me, +crudely illuminated by the raw colors of the railway-lights. They +all had black wedding-suits and enormous buttonhole nosegays of +orange-flowers. I picked them out, with a particular recognition for +each: 'twas the civil engineer of Noisy; the short gentleman named +Somerard; James Athanasius Grandstone, with his saintly aureole upon +him in the shape of a Yankee wide-awake; the nameless mutes, or rather +chorus, of the champagne-crypt; in short, my nest of serpents in +all its integrity. Still entangled with my slumbers, I hesitated +to respond to the friendly hands that were everywhere thrust +centripetally toward me. + +I looked blackly at Hohenfels. He was chuckling. + +At Heidelberg, making the acquaintance of M. Fortnoye +contemporaneously with my departure, he had become more enthralled +than he ever confessed to this radiant traveler--whom he called a +packman, but regarded as a Mercury--and his pretty scheme of matrimony +in motion. Even now, if I can believe my eyes, he goes up to the +"vintner" and "peddler" of his objurgations, and meekly whispers into +his ear with the air of a conspirator reporting a plot to his chief. +Having engaged to produce me at the wedding of Fortnoye, and finding +me unexpectedly recusant, he had adopted a little stratagem for +bringing me to the scene while thinking to escape from it. + +"Thou too, Brutus!" I said, and gave it up. It only remained for me +to return all round, after five minutes of petrified stupidity, +the hand-grasps that had been offered from every quarter of the +compass-box. + +Next morning, at an early hour, I was interrupted by a knock, just +as Charles had buttoned my gaiters and the young man from the +perruquier's (who had stolen in with that air of delicacy and of +almost literary refinement which belongs to his gentle profession) had +lathered me. A nick he gave my chin at the shock made my countenance +all argent and gules, and the visitor entering saw me thus emblazoned, +while the barber and Charles, "like two wild men supporters of a +shield," could only stare at the untimely apparition. + +"Do you know him, Charles?" I asked, not recognizing my guest, and +putting over my painted face a mask of wet toweling. + +"I know him intimately," replied my jester-in-ordinary: "I would thank +Monsieur Paul just to tell me his name. Do you remember, monsieur, a +sort of beggar, with a wagon and a stylish horse and a pretty wife, +who limped a bit with his right hand, or perhaps his left hand? Does +monsieur know what I mean? He used to come and see us at Passy; and +monsieur even had some traffic with him in a little matter of two +chickens." + +"Father Joliet!" I cried. + +"Present!" shouted the personage thus designated at my appeal to his +name. I turned round, toweled, and he grasped my hands. The unusual +hour, appropriate as I supposed only to some porter or other +stipendiary visitor of my hotel, caused to shine out with startling +refulgence the morning splendors in which Papa Joliet had arrayed +himself. He wore a courtly dress, appropriate to the most formal +possible ceremony; his black suit was glossy; his hat was glossy; +his varnished pumps were more than glossy--they were phosphorescent. +Gloves only were wanting to his honest hands. + +[Illustration: PERRUQUIER.] + +Soaped, napkined and generally extinguished, I could only stammer, +"You here in Brussels? What a droll meeting!" + +"Wherefore droll?" asked Joliet, with a huge surprise, which lasted +him all through his next sentence. "I come here to marry my daughter. +Everything is ready; we count on your presence at the wedding; the +lawyer has drawn up the contract; and the breakfast is now cooking at +the best restaurant in the place." + +"Francine's wedding, my dear Joliet!" I exclaimed. And, going back to +my apprehensions at her furtive disappearance from Carlsruhe, and +to my conjectures of some amorous mystery between her and her Yankee +traducer, Kraaniff, I added gravely, "It is very creditable!" + +"How, creditable--and droll?" repeated the honest man, evidently much +surprised at my own accumulating surprises. "Did not you hear?" + +[Illustration: FATHER JOLIET.] + +"Not the faintest word," I said, "but I am none the less gratified to +find this affair ending, as it should, in the presence of a lawyer. As +for your wedding-invitation, my good friend, you are a little tardy in +delivering it, for it is exactly to-day that I am obliged to attend at +the marriage of one of my friends, M. Fortnoye." + +"Ah, that is a good joke!" cried Joliet, breaking into an explosion of +laughter and clapping me pleasantly on the shoulder--an action which +caused a slight frown on the part of Charles. "You always would have +your jest, Monsieur the American! Tease me and scare me as much as +you like: I like these hoaxes better before a wedding than after. +Hold that," he added, extending his hand as if it were a piece of +merchandise. + +I "held" it, and he went on, dwelling slowly on his words: "If you are +at Henri Fortnoye's wedding you will be at Francine Joliet's also, for +both of these persons are to be married at one church." + +"Impossible!" I exclaimed, dropping the hand and stepping back. + +"What! again?" said Joliet, his manly face visibly darkening. "Droll! +and creditable! and impossible! Why impossible?" Then he dropped his +head and looked angrily at the floor. "Ah, yes, even you," he said, +his eyes still fixed on the boards, "believed that a French girl, +trained as French girls are trained, would flirt and expose herself to +remark; and all on account of such a man as your compatriot, the other +American! Well! well! you ought to know your countrymen best." + +"I know of no harm," I interposed hastily. "I should always have +thought Kraaniff hard to swallow as a mere matter of taste. I can but +recollect, Father Joliet," I went on more seriously, "that the last +time I met you you begged me not to talk of Francine if I would not +break your heart. I have to add to this the news brought me from +Heidelberg, that this Kraaniff was a serpent who had fascinated some +young girl for an approaching meal.--How dare you, Charles," I cried +suddenly, recalled to the consciousness of his presence by this +souvenir of his oratory, "stand here staring? Show the young man out +directly, and pay him." + +I will not answer for Charles's having got much farther away than the +door. Joliet continued: "But his aunt knows him now for what he is. +Kraaniff, say you? I call him Kranich, though he had better change his +baptismal record than disgrace one of the best names in Brussels." + +[Illustration: THE CATECHISM.] + +"Frau Kranich, then, my old friend, is really his aunt?" + +"Madame Kranich, whom I have known in your parlor, is really +Francine's godmother. Did you never know of all her secret kindness? +That rigid lady would commit a perjury to deny one of her own good +actions. Young Kranich has written her a letter confessing his lies. +Don't you know? The very same day when you were determined to fight +him in a duel--" + +"Certainly, certainly," I said, a little confused. "We will change the +subject and leave my ferocity alone. Let us understand one another. +In regard to Fortnoye's marriage, was there not some talk of a Madame +Ashburleigh?" + +"I believe you. Madame Ashburleigh is the very key of the manoeuvre. +Madame Ashburleigh--don't you perceive?--lost a child." + +"For that matter, she has lost four. I know the lady confidentially, +and she told me their histories and present address. Lucia lies in +Glasgow, Hannibal at Nice, and Waterloo sleeps somewhere hereabout, as +well as another nameless little dear." + +"She is a good woman. She has collected all her proofs, and has come +hither with them voluntarily--has perhaps already arrived. Brussels, +where two of her marmots rest, is one of her most frequent stations. +That censorious Madame Kranich made a scene, but she had to yield to +conviction." + +"A censorious Madame Kranich! Is the young duelist married?" + +"What? No, no! It is Francine's guardian I speak of. Of late years she +has become a sort of Puritan abbess, seeking the Protestant society +which abounds in Belgium, and lamenting her husband, whom they say she +used to drug with opium." + +"Then is she not Kranich's aunt?" + +"Oh yes, an aunt by marriage; but he is not her nephew: I will die +before I call him so." + +"Listen," said I, "Father Joliet. You are as full of information as an +oracle, but you are not coherent. This month past I have been hunting +down a chimaera, a hydra with a dozen heads: each head shows me by +turn the portrait of Fortnoye, or Francine, or yourself, or Kranich, +or Mrs. Ashburleigh. Ever since Noisy I have been meandering through +the folds of a mystery. My head is turning with it. If you want to +save me from distraction, sit down in this chair and answer me a long +catechism, without saying a word but in reply to my questions." + +[Illustration: FRAU KRANICH.] + +"I am sure I talk as plain as a professor. Look! You frightened me at +first with your doubts and your impossibilities. You have only to make +Kranich's aunt agree with Francine's guardian, and at the same time +forgive Francine's husband for having assumed the undertaker's bill +for Madame Ashburleigh's baby." + +"Yes, yes, my dear Joliet, you are clearer than Euclid." And I +administered a category of questions. Joliet, with his fatherly joy +bursting out of him in the longest of parentheses, kept quiet in his +refulgent shoes and answered as well as he could. + +[Illustration: "TO MY ARMS."] + +Francine, he protested, had never been a flirt (I have met no +Frenchmen who were ignorant of that one English word, to which they +give a new value by pronouncing it in a very orotund manner, as +_flort_). When she came to be ten or twelve, Frau Kranich--until then +a well-preserved lioness with an appetite for society--ceased to give +her dolls and promised to give her an education. At the same time, the +banker's widow left Paris, and repaired with her charge to Brussels, +where the little girl received some good half-Jesuitical, half-English +schooling, of the kind suggested in the Brontë novels. Her diploma +attained, Francine begged to accompany her English teacher back to +London: she wished to become a _meess_, she said, and be competent to +teach like a new Hypatia. She had hardly bidden her kind protectress +adieu when Frau Kranich's nephew arrived at Brussels, exceedingly +dissatisfied with his American business in the bar-rooms of the grand +duke of Mississippi. A sordid jealousy of Mademoiselle Joliet's claims +upon his aunt took possession of this prudent spirit. He took up a +watch-post at a university town on the Rhine. He began to whisper +vague exaggerations of her coquetries and liveliness, which the +Protestant circle that revolved about Madame Kranich did not fail to +bear in to her. This lady admired her nephew, sure that his want of +manners was the sign of a noble frankness. She wrote to Francine, +bidding her come immediately from London. The girl not replying, the +hopeful nephew was put upon her track. He went away. His letters from +England reported that Francine was no longer in that country, but was +probably come back to Belgium, "I know not in what suburb of Brussels +our very independent miss may this instant be hiding," he wrote. + +About the same time, in the circle of French exiles at Brussels, +a young _romantique_ named Fortnoye was reported as weeping and +lavishing statues over the grave of an unknown infant in the +churchyard at Laaken. It was a delicious mystery. Kind meddlers +approached the sexton, who said that all he knew of the babe's mother +was that she was a beautiful lady from London. Kranich carried the +story dutifully to his aunt, adding his own ingenious surmise: "Can +Francine have become sufficiently Anglicised to contract secret +marriages with roving revolutionists, and scamper about the country +with ardent young Frenchmen in the style of Gretna Green?" In fact, it +was really from London that Mrs. Ashburleigh was proceeding, for the +purpose of taking care, in the Rhenish city where he was dying, of +her handsome, dissipated, worthless husband. Taken suddenly ill at +Brussels, she left her infant to the unequaled chill of a strange, +unknown cemetery, hastening thence with tears and despair to the +bedside where duty called her. + +Has my reader forgotten the dim, tear-swollen story which I heard--not +at all improved in the telling--from my generous young friend +Grandstone--how an impulsive Frenchman had laid to rest, in flowers +and evergreens, the unnamed baby of a woman he had never seen? Jealous +as I was of Fortnoye, I never could think without tenderness of this +singular action. To make the tomb of this helpless Innocence the young +man braved the curiosity of his comrades--despised the rumor, the +obloquy, and, hardest of all, the jests. Well has the wise dramatist +decided that Ophelia must needs be laid in Yorick's bed! + +Poor Francine, gay, frivolous, innocently vain of her little travesty +of English behavior, found her accomplishments and graces received +by her guardian's circle with incomprehensible coldness. Hurt and +humiliated, she asked to pay a visit to her father. The honest rustic +received her with a miserable confusion of doubt and severity, for +her escapade to England had never pleased him, and her return from her +godmother's home wore to him the air of a repudiation. At her father's +house, however, she was discovered by Fortnoye, who had never heard +the ingenious Kranich's theory of his own private wedding with +Francine, and who thought to find in her the veiled unknown of the +cemetery. He saw for the first time, in the flowery home at Noisy, +that fresh ingenuous beauty, a little over-cast with disappointment. +His generous nature was touched; and, with his talent for +administration and planning, he conceived the idea of establishing +Francine in the pretty bird's nest at Carlsruhe, distant alike from +the strongholds of her calumniators, Belgium and France. + +Fortnoye now had an object in life. "There is a very young person in +the cemetery of Laaken who is much in need of a chaperone," he said. +The frank proofs of his own relations with this churchyard would +not only do credit to his own reputation, but would gratify the best +friends of Mademoiselle Joliet and at least one other lady. To attain +these proofs he had to step over the coiling, writhing bodies of +a whole nest of rumors. When he seized by the throat the especial +slander that he himself was the husband of the babe's mother, he found +written on its crest the signature of John Kranich. He sought the +aunt. This lady gave him several interviews, the Lutheran prayer-book +for ever in her hand. "Why does the dear girl not come to me?" +she would say, weeping, but she refused to hear a word against her +precious nephew, the personification of bluff frankness. As if to make +crushing him impossible, young Kranich had now withdrawn to America, +leaving his reputation in that best possible protection, the chivalry +that is extended toward the absent. Fortnoye was baffled. "I will ask +the baby at its tomb for its mother's and father's name," he cried. +In the pretty God's Acre he found a fresh harvest of flowers and a +new statue over the well-known grave. It was a pretty miniature of +Thorwaldsen's Psyche, on which the proud copyist had inscribed his +name. A respectful correspondence with Mrs. Ashburleigh, to whom +he was guided by the sculptor, and who was now taking the waters at +Wildbad, soon put the whole tangled story to rights. Fortnoye had the +happiness of conducting Francine, by this time his affianced wife, to +the good Frau Kranich, who, convinced that she had wrongly judged +her, threw her arms ardently around her recovered jewel, letting the +eternal little book fly from her hand like a projectile. + +[Illustration: THE FUTURE OF FFARINA.] + +"But the most singular part of the story," concluded Father Joliet, +"is the letter which Fortnoye, after two or three quarrels, forced +out of young Kranich when the latter had returned to Europe, full of +triumph and debts, to take possession of his aunt for the rest of his +life. Here it is," added the good man, opening a pocket-book. "The +hand-writing is drunken, but the sense is clear as Seltzer-water. +The scholars tell me _in vino veritas est_, but it appears to me that +truth really comes out in the repentance and headache that follow." + +[Illustration: HOHENFELS' FAILURE.] + +"MY DEAR AUNT" (ran the letter which Charles had seen forced from the +alligator after his unlucky game of dominoes): "You have known me as +the soul of candor. It is this happy quality which compels me to state +(for I am something of a Rousseau) that if I ever playfully accused +your pretty pet Francine of being a flirt, I knew nothing about it. +The best proof is that she absolutely refused to join her expectations +with mine, though I am something of an Adonis. If you believed that +she and the wine-peddler had made a match, I pity your credulity and +ignorance of human nature. I am certain that neither the peddler nor +myself would touch the enterprise until you had shown exactly what you +would (pecuniarily) do. For my part, I have acted throughout on the +most exact and advanced scientific principles. Intending to modify +the spirit-trade in America, and especially to introduce the exclusive +agency of the Farina essences, I found that the sinew particularly +needed for this leap was capital. Desiring to absorb your bounties +toward Francine, I at first proposed matrimony. This offer was made +without any enmity toward the girl, as my next move was without +affection, though it seems to be resulting to her benefit. I became +her accuser as coolly as I had been her lover. Passion has nothing +to do with the combinations of strategic genius: I am something of a +Washington. My theory of her clandestine marriage was one of the most +masterly fictions of the age--a plot worthy of Thackeray. If I could +have succeeded in mutilating the statue in the graveyard, I might have +carried it, while you would have admired my act of iconoclasm with all +your Puritan nature. In the momentary abandonment of my plans, owing +to the machinations of my enemies, you will conceive that I am not +very rich. My college-debts and other expenses I am obliged to leave +for your kind attention. The main point of this letter, which M. +Fortnoye has persuaded me to set down as distinctly as in my present +feeble state I can, is that Francine is a pretty little maid who has +never passed by Gretna Green. There! that is my _credo_, and I will +subscribe to it, + +"Your loving nephew, JOHN. + +"P. S. Address, with such an enclosure as your generosity will prompt, +JEAN K. FFARINA, sole representative and cosmetical chemist in America +on behalf of the Farinas of Cologne, at New Orleans where I am going +to beat my adversaries like Old HIC--" + +At this point the tipsy scrawl became illegible. + +"This is not a very handsome apology. Did Fortnoye accept it?" I +asked, turning over the clammy and malodorous epistle. At this inquiry +the crack of the door widened and Charles appeared, on fire with +enthusiasm, and so possessed with self-importance that he forgot the +betrayal of his indiscretion. + +"I can reply to that question," said Charles. "When M. Fortnoye +received the paper from the duelist he read it over and said, 'You +have meant to impose on me, monsieur, with an incomplete confession. +But, in return for your imperfect restoration of Mademoiselle Joliet's +portrait, you have unconsciously set down such a masterpiece of +yourself that I am certain your aunt will see you as she never did +before.'" + +Charles, having thus added himself to our cabal without rebuke, took +a lively interest in what followed. The proud father continued: "My +son-in-law, after some business preliminaries, wrote me a handsome +letter demanding what he had already effectively possessed himself of. +I wrote to Francine, already returned to her duties, to be a good girl +and make her husband obey her in all things." + +"That may have been," said I, "what made Francine take to laughing +all day and all night, as I heard she did some little time after my +departure from her house. The next news of her," I pursued, "was +that she had been spirited away by some sly old kidnapper. I almost +suspected Kranich." + +"The old kidnapper," said Joliet, laughing heartily at the compliment, +"is the man now talking to you. I wanted to take Francine to her +godmother. I turned the key in the door at Carlsruhe, set the +geographers all upon their travels to explore new worlds, and we have +been living ever since quite close to Madame Kranich, who treats me +like an emperor." + +It was easy now to understand why the young Kranich, as soon as he +could identify me as a protector of Francine, had been thrown off his +guard and tempted to attack me with his clumsy abuse. It was not very +mysterious, even, why he had wished all handsome girls to be drowned +in the Rhine. For him a pretty damsel was simply a rival in trade. + +[Illustration: READING THE CONTRACT.] + +Had I stopped at Wildbad with the party of orpheonists, I should have +encountered rather sooner the fatal beauties of Mary Ashburleigh. It +was to meet her that Fortnoye had paused at that resort, considering +her introduction to Frau Kranich almost indispensable to the success +of his scheme. She had no hesitation in following the protecting angel +of her lost child. "My object in this journey is a happy marriage," +she had told me when to my unworthy care her guardianship had been +transferred. If I timorously suspected the marriage to be her own, +whose fault was it but mine? My heart leaped up at the successive +stages of this recital, its hopes confirmed by every additional fact: +the Dark Ladye's hand was certainly free. Fortnoye, I should surmise, +was not too desirous to abandon this magnificent companion at +Schwetzingen; but the serpent, he knew, was left behind, in company +with two or three of his and my friends: it was necessary to take +the youth by the ear, as it were, and dismiss him from the country, +without loss of time, to his future of counter-jumping. His dueling +experience may be of some use to him among the bowie-knives of +Louisiana. If his subsequent path is not strewn with roses, let him +rejoice that it is at least lubricated with cologne-water. + +[Illustration: INTERRUPTED REPOSE.] + +An hour had passed, and into my room from his own adjoining one now +ambled amicably my friend the baron. He greeted Joliet as an old +friend. Many a smoking-match had they had in my garden at Marly. But +Hohenfels this morning was in robes of state, with shoes that shone +even beside old Father Joliet's, and as a concession to elegance he +had abandoned his cavernous pipes in favor of cigarettes. A scroll of +this description, flavored with his Cologne pastille and very badly +rolled, was trying to exhale itself between his lips. + +"What a genius for conversation you have to-day, my Flemming! This +hour I have rocked back and forth in bed, trying to understand your +observations or to cover my ears and go to rest. Your tongue has been +like the tongue of a monastery-bell summoning all hands to penance." +But I had hardly spoken ten consecutive words. The ears of the baron +were this morning quite muffled, I think, with the abundance of his +hair, which he had evidently been dressing with an avalanche of soap +and water, for the topknot was as harsh and tight as a felt. He had +lemon-blossoms on his lappel and lemon kids on his fists. + +It was then I remembered that my bags were all in the steamer, where +I had left them when surprised by Charles's indisposition. My tin box +would possibly yield me a button-nosegay, but otherwise I might beat +my breast, like the wedding-guest in the _Ancient Mariner_, for I +heard the summons and was unable to attend in right attire. "We two +must take you out in the street and dress you," said Hohenfels. + +Although I had never been dressed in the street, I yielded. It was a +grand public holiday, and the sounds of festivity, which had floated +into my chamber with the entrance of Hohenfels, were in full cadence +outside. Everybody was pouring out to the city-gate, or returning from +thence, where, in honor of some visit from the king of the Belgians +and count and countess of Flanders, a festival was going on in +imitation or rehearsal of the grand annual _kermesse_. These +festivals, retained in Belgium with a delightful fidelity to the +customs of antique Brabant, would fit the brush of Teniers better +than the pen of a mere bewildered tourist. Still, I will try, copying +principally from the reports of Charles (who contrives to peep at +everything, with an interest whose amount is in ratio with the square +of his distance from his master), to give a few features of the scene, +which he spread in detail before the attentive Josephine during many +an evening after. + +[Illustration: COALS vs. COATS] + +The principal fair-ground--though the occasion crammed the whole city +with revelers--was just outside the gate. It was a veritable town in +miniature, with a pattern of checker-board streets--Columbine street, +Polichinelle street, Avenue des Parades, Place des Parades, Street of +the Chanson, and the like. There were more than five hundred booths, +all numbered--shops and restaurants. There were the Salon Curtius, +the Ménagerie Bidel, the Bal Mabille, the Café Bataclan, the American +Tavern. From one of the little costumers' shops, Charles--with +a higher evincement of antiquarian taste than I should have +expected--managed to bear away a pattern of wall-paper, which I +afterward conferred on Mary Ashburleigh with great applause: it was +Parisian of 1824, the epoch of Charles Dix, and was entirely covered +with giraffes in honor of that puissant and elegant monarch. The above +establishments were near the entrance, to the right. + +At the left were more attractions: another menagerie, a heap of +ostensible gold representing the five milliards paid by France, a +gallery of astonished wax soldiers representing the Franco-Prussian +war, a cook-shop with "mythologic" confectionery. Farther on, in the +Théâtre Casti, was exposed the "renowned buffoon Peppino," breveted by +His Majesty the "king of Egypt;" then came the Chiarini Theatre; then +the Théâtre Adrien Delille, an enchantingly pretty structure, where +receptions were given by a little creature who should have sat under +a microscope: she was "the Princess Felicia, aged thirteen, born at +Clotat, near Marseilles, weighing three kilogrammes and measuring +forty-six centimètres--a ravishing figure, admirably proportioned in +her littleness and _tout à fait sympathique!"_ + +The announcements were heard, it was thought by Charles, to the very +centre of the city. A low-browed animal with rasped hair was shouting, +"Messieurs and ladies, come and see--come and see the theatre of the +galleys! The only one in the world! This is the place to view the real +instruments of torture used on the prisoners---chains four yards long +and balls of thirty-five pounds. All authentic, gentlemen and ladies. +You will see the poisoners of Marseilles, Grosjon who killed his +father, Madame Cottin who ate her baby. Come in, come in, gentlemen +and ladies! Fifteen centimes! 'Tis given away! You enter and go out +when you like. Come in! It is educational: you see vice and crime +depicted on the faces of the criminals!" + +[Illustration: THE JESTER AT THE FEAST.] + +In another place a malicious Flemish Figaro explained the analogy +betwen _een spinnekop_ and _eene meisie_, the perspiration streaming +over his face; and my ancient minnesinger's blood stirred within me at +the report of the pleasantries which were improvised by this Rabelais +of the people, and I remembered that I too was a Flemming. + +The bands belonging to the different booths tried to play each other +down, forming a stupefying charivari, with tributary processions that +quite overflowed the city. The house of "confections" yielded me no +broadcloth of a cut or dimension suitable to my figure. But my two +friends chose me a hat, a light pale-tot (my second purchase in that +sort on this eventful journey), a scented cambric handkerchief, a +rosebud, and a snowy waistcoat, in which, as in a whited sepulchre, +I concealed the decay of my toilet. These changes were judged to be +sufficient for my accoutrement. They might have done very well, but on +my way back I paused at a lace-shop window to inspect some present for +Francine. A band, with many banners and figures in masquerade, swept +past, followed by a shouting crowd. My friends lost me in a moment, +and I lost my way. I turned into a street which I was sure led to the +hotel, gave it up for another, lost that in a blind alley, and finally +brought up in a steep, narrow cañon, where I was forced to ask a +direction. The passer-by who obliged me was a man bearing a bag of +charcoal. He answered with a ready intelligence that did honor to his +heart and his sense of Progressive Geography. But he left on my white +waistcoat, alas! a charcoal sketch, full of chiaroscuro and _coloris_, +representing his index-finger surrounded with a sort of cloud-effect. +My waistcoat had to be given over in favor of the elder garment +buttoned up in the all-concealing overcoat. + +[Illustration: ST. GUDOLE, BRUSSELS.] + +The ceremonies of the day, I soon found, were to consist in an early +and informal breakfast at the house of Frau Kranich; then the civil +wedding at the mayor's office, followed by the usual church-service, +from which the Protestant godmother of Francine begged to be excused; +the day to wind up with a general dinner at a place of resort outside +the city at four o'clock, the usual dining-hour in old Brabant. + +The early breakfast gave a renewal of my friendship with good Frau +Kranich and a glimpse of the bride, with her sweet, patient, dewy face +shadowed like a honey-drop in the gauzy calyx of her artisanne cap; +for she was in the simplest of morning dresses--something gray, with +a clean white apron. The quaint, old-fashioned house where we met was +decorated with exquisite trifles, the memorials of the mistress's old +fashionable taste, but scattered over the tables also were lecture +programmes, hospital reports and photographs of eminent philosophers. +As I took up for a plaything a gold pen-case, well used, which rested +on a magnificent old fan, the Kranich said, with just a reminiscence +of her former vivacity, "You find me much changed, Mr. Flemming. I +used to be the grasshopper in the fable--now I am the ant." + +"I bless any change, ma'am," said I, "which increases your kindness +toward this charming girl." + +"Dear Mr. Flemming," said pretty Francine, "how nice and shabby you +look! You will do admirably to stand by a poor girl--so poor that she +has hardly a bridesmaid. I hope you are as indigent as you were at +Carlsruhe." Upon this I felt very fatherly, and clasped her waist from +behind as I kissed her forehead. + +The lawyer, a professionally bland old man, with a porous bald head +like an emu's egg, said as he was introduced, "Ah, I have heard of you +before, monsieur. You are the man of the two chickens." + +Joliet was so enchanted with this rare joke, laughing and clapping +all his nearer neighbors on the back, that I could not but accept it +graciously. For this exceptional day, at least, I must bear my eternal +nickname. Was not the maid now present whose dower had been hatched +by those well-omened fowls? and was not the dower now coming to +use? Hohenfels paired off with the notary, and discussed with that +parchment person the music of Mozart, and, what would have been absurd +and incredible in any Anglo-Saxon country, the scribe understood it! + +Our party had to wait but ten minutes for the groom and his men. +Fortnoye, in a grand blue suit, with a wondrous dazzle of frilling +on his broad chest, looked a noble husband, but was preoccupied and +silent. His chorus supported him--Grandstone, Somerard, my engineer +and the others--in dignified black clothes, official boutonnières +and ceremonial cravats: they greeted Frau Kranich with awe, and +bowed before the polished head of the lawyer with the parallelism of +ninepins. My little group of fellow-travelers was almost complete. +The young duelist, of course, was not expected or wanted. The Scotch +doctor, Somerard told me, had been obliged to fly to London, where a +mammoth meeting of the homoeopathic faith was in progress. + +The great feature of the breakfast came on when every crumb of +breakfast had been eaten. Charles and the maid cleared away the table, +and the notary stood up to read the marriage contract. The reading, +ordinarily a dull affair, was in this instance vivified by curious +incidents. In the first place, Frau Kranich. amending the injustice +her over-credulity had caused, gave her _protègée_ a wedding-present +of twenty thousand francs, accompanying the gift with some singularly +tart remarks about her nephew: this sum was increased by the groom to +sixty thousand. The second incident was when Joliet, amid the almost +incredulous surprise of the whole table, raised the gift, by the +addition of ten thousand, to seventy thousand francs: the money was +the product of his former house and garden--that house of shreds and +patches which had cost him ten francs. When it came to affixing the +signatures, the notary appealed to Joliet for his name. He could +not sign it, being gouty and half forgetful of pen-practice, but he +responded to the question as bold as a lion: "John Thomas Joliet, +baron de Rouvière," throwing to the lawyer a fine bunch of papers +bearing witness to the validity of the title; after which he added, no +less proudly, "wine-merchant, wholesale and retail, at the sign of the +Golden Chickens, Noisy." + +[Illustration: SQUARE OF THE HÔTEL DE VILLE, BRUSSELS.] + +In truth, Joliet's father had rightfully borne the title of baron de +Rouvière, but, ruined by '48, had abandoned the practice of signing +it. Joliet resumed it for this special occasion, having every warrant +for the act, but whispered to me that he should never so call himself +in future, greatly preferring the enumeration of his qualities on his +business-card. + +Poor Francine meanwhile had looked so timid and blushed so that Frau +Kranich nodded to her permission of absence. She gave one glance at +Fortnoye, buried her face in her hands, laughed a sweet little gurgle, +and fled. When her presence was again necessary, she reappeared, +drowned in white. We went to the mayor's office, where she lost a +pretty little surname that had always seemed to fit her like a +glove; then to the church, an obscure one in the neighborhood of Frau +Kranich's house. But at the door of the sacred edifice the elder lady +said, with much conciliatory grace in her manner, "I claim exemption +from witnessing this part of the ceremony; and you, Mr. Flemming, must +resume or discover your Protestantism and enter the carriage with +me. I must show you a little of the city while these young birds are +pairing." + +No objection was made to this rather strange proposal. The bride, +between her father and husband, forgot that she had no friend of her +own sex to stand near her. We arranged for a general meeting at the +dinner. + +In the carriage she said, "I brought you away because I am devoured +with uneasiness. Mrs. Ashburleigh wrote me that she would certainly +be here for at least the principal part of the ceremony. I do not know +what to make of it. It may be of no use, but we will scour the city. +These throngs, this noise, make me uneasy. I fear some accident, +having," she added with a smile, "one lone woman's sympathy for +another lone woman." + +[Illustration: DIVERS DIVERSIONS.] + +I peered through the crowds at this, right and left, with +inexpressible emotion. Perhaps this accidental sort of quest was that +which destiny had arranged for the solution of my life-problem. To +light upon Mary Ashburleigh in these festal throngs, perhaps wanting +assistance, perhaps calling upon my name even now through her velvet +lips, was a chance the mere notion of which made my blood leap. + +When Brussels gives herself over to holiday-making, she does it in +a whole-souled and self-consistent way that has plenty of +attractiveness. The houses seemed to have turned themselves inside +out to replenish the streets. People in their best clothes, equipages, +processions, bands, troops of children, filled the avenues. Some +conjecture that there might have been a mistake about the church took +us to the cathedral of St. Gudule. Here, amid the superb spectrums of +the stained windows, we searched through the vari-colored throngs that +covered the floor, but no familiar face looked upon us. Strange to +us as the old, impassive monumental dukes of Brabant who occupy the +niches, the people made way to let us pass from the doorway between +the lofty brace of towers to the high altar, which is a juggler's +apparatus, and has concealed machinery causing the sacred wafer to +come down seemingly of its own accord at the moment when the priest is +about to lift the Host. All was unfamiliar and splendid, and we came +away, feeling as if our own little wedding-group would have been lost +in so magnificent a tabernacle. The Grande Place, on which lay the +wedge-like shadow of the high-towered Hôtel de Ville, was perhaps as +thronged a honeycomb of buzzing populace as when Alva looked out upon +it to see the execution of Egmont and Horn. Among all the good-natured +Netherlandish countenances that paved the square there was none that +responded to my own. + +We drove vaguely through the principal streets, and then, baffled, +made our way to the faubourg in which is situated the zoological +garden, toward which a considerable portion of the inhabitants was +going even as ourselves. At the entrance our carriage encountered +that of the bride and groom, and soon the whole party of the +breakfast-table assembled by the gate, for the great coffee-rooms at +which our meal was laid were close by the garden, and a promenade +in this famous living museum was a premeditated part of the day's +enjoyment. We entered the grounds in character, frankly putting +forward our claims as a wedding-procession. That is the delightful +French custom among those who are brought up as Francine had been: +her father would have been heartbroken to have been denied the proud +exhibition of his joy, and Fortnoye was too great a traveler, too +cosmopolitan, to object to a little family pageant that he had seen +equaled or exceeded in publicity in most of the Catholic countries +on the globe. Francine, her artisanne cap for ever lost, her +gleaming dark hair set, like a Milky Way, with a half wreath of +orange-blossoms, the silvery gauzes of her protecting veil floating +back from her forehead, strayed on at the head of the little parade. +She was wrapped in the delicious reverie of the wedding-day. She was +not yellow nor meagre, nor uglier than herself, as so many brides +contrive to be. Her air of delicacy and tenderness was a blossom of +character, not a canker of ill-health. Her color was hardly raised, +though her head was perpetually bent. Fortnoye, holding her on his +firm arm, seemed like a man walking through enchantments. Just behind, +protecting Madame Kranich with an action of effusive gallantry that +must have been seen to be conceived, walked the baron de Rouvière, +his brave knotted hands, for which he had not found any gloves, busily +occupied in pointing out the animated rarities that to him seemed most +worthy of selection. The hilarious hyenas, the seals, the polar bears +plunging from their lofty rocks, all attracted his commendation; and +we, who walked behind in such order as our friendships or familiarity +taught us, were perpetually tripping upon his honest figure brought to +a halt before some object more than usually interesting. Exclamations +of delight at the bride's beauty, politely wrapped in whispers, arose +on all sides as we penetrated the throng: it was a proud thing to be +a part of a procession so distinguished. My good Joliet beamed with +complacency, and drove his little herd up and down and across and +about till the greater part of the garden was explored. The zoological +garden of Brussels has the beauty of not showing too obviously the +character of a prison. It is extensive, umbrageous, and the poor +captives within its borders have enough air and space around their +eyes to give them a semblance of liberty. For the special feast-day +on which we visited it the place had been arranged with particular +adaptation to the character of the time. There were elephant-races and +rides upon the camels free to all ladies who would make the venture. +In addition to the zebras, gnus and Shetlands, there was that species +of race-horse which never wins and never spoils a course, being +of wood and constructed to go round in a tent, and never to arrive +anywhere or lose any prizes. The pelicans were in high excitement, for +all along their beautiful little river, where it winds through bowery +trees, a profusion of living fish had been emptied and confined here +and there by grated dams, so that the awkward birds had opportunity +to angle in perfect freedom and to their hearts' content. In the +more wooded part of the garden a mimic hunt had been arranged, and +sportsmen in correct suits of green, with curly brass horns and baying +hounds, coursed through the grounds, following a stag which, though +mangy and asthmatic, may yet have been a descendant of the fawn that +fed Genevieve of Brabant. We had re-entered one of the grand alleys, +and were receiving again the little tribute of encomiums which the +greater privacy of the groves had pretermitted--we were parading +happily along, conscious of nothing to be ashamed of, our +orange-blossoms glistening, our veil flying, our broadcloth and +wedding-favors gleaming--when we met another group, which, though more +furtively, bore that matrimonial character which distinguished our +own. + +[ILLUSTRATION: THE MIMIC HUNT.] + +At the head walked Mr. Cookson & Jenkinson. He still wore that species +of shooting-costume which he had made his uniform, but it was decked +with roses, and his hands were encased in milk-white gloves: on his +hands, besides the gloves, he had the two grammatical ladies from +the Rhine steamboat in guise of bridesmaids. Behind him walked Mary +Ashburleigh. And emerging from the skirts of Mary Ashburleigh's dress, +with the embarrassed happiness of a middle-aged bridegroom, was--no? +yes! no, no! but yes--was Sylvester Berkley. I will not expose what I +suffered to the curiosity of imperfectly sympathetic strangers. I did +not faint, and I believe men in genuine despair never do so. But +I felt that weakness and unmanageableness of knee which comes with +strong mental anguish, and I sank back impotent upon the baron, whose +lingering legs repudiated the pressure, so that we both accumulated +miserably upon Grandstone. My eyes closed, and I did not hear the Dark +Ladye's salutations to Frau Kranich. But I awoke to see with anguish a +sight that drew involuntary applause from all that careless crowd. + +It was the salute of the two brides. Imagine, if you can, two +great purple pansies, flushed with all the perfumed sap of an Eden +spring-time, threaded with diamonds of myriad-faceted dew,--imagine +them leaning forward on their elastic stems until both their soft +velvet countenances cling together and exchange mutually their +caparisons of honeyed gems; then let them sway gently back, and +balance once more in their morning splendor. Such was the effect when +these two imperial creatures approached each other and imprinted with +lips and palms a sister's salute. Mary Ashburleigh, whom the throng +recognized as a natural empress, was arrayed this morning as brides +are seldom arrayed, but with a sense of artistic obedience to her own +sumptuous nature and personality. The royal purple of her velvets +was cut, on skirt and bodice, into one continuous fretwork of heavy +scrolls and leafage, and through the crevices of this textile carving +shone the robe she carried beneath: it was tawny yellow, for she wore +under her outward dress a complete robe of ancient lace, whose cobweb +softness was more than half sacrificed--only perceived as the slashes +of her velvets made it evident. It was such dressing as queens alone +should indulge in perhaps, but Mary Ashburleigh chose for once to do +justice to her style and her magnificence. + +I was leaning against a tree, stunned in the sick sunshine. I heard, +while my eyes were closed, a sort of voluminous cloudy roll, and the +Dark Ladye was beside me. She whispered quickly and volubly in my +ear, "I tried to confide in you, but I could not get it spoken. Yet +I managed to confess that my heart had been touched. It was only this +summer--at the Molkencur over Heidelberg--he lectured about the ruins. +'Twas information--'twas rapture! I found at once he was the Magician. +We were quietly united at the embassy this morning. And now he can +leave that dreadful consulate and has got his promotion, for he is +to be _chargé_ here in Brussels. It is sudden, but we were positively +afraid to do it in any other way, I am such a timid creature. When I +saw the travelers' agent on the steamboat, I was at first struck with +his manly British bearing and his resemblance to Sylvester. Then I +found he had the matrimonial prospectus, and perceived he might be a +link. He has managed everything beautifully. I had no idea--With his +assistance you need no more mind being married than going into a shop +for a plate of pudding. You must come up and be presented, to show you +bear no malice." + +I cannot tell how I did it, but I allowed Sylvester and the agent to +grasp my hands, one on either side. Berkley, as to his collar, his +cravat, his face and his white gloves, presented one general surface +of mat silver. He clasped me with some affection, but his intellect +had quite gone, and he said it was a fine day. + +I did not rally in the least until after my fourth glass of champagne +at the dinner. We made one party: indeed, Mrs. Ashburleigh had brought +her husband hither in that expectation. Fortnoye vanished a minute +to arrange the banquet-room; and as his wife rushed in to find him, +followed by the rest of us, he snatched a great damask cloth from +the table, and there was such a set-out of flowers and viands as has +seldom been seen in Belgium or elsewhere. The table, instead of a +cloth, was entirely laid with; young emerald vine-leaves: our places +were marked, and at each plate was a gift for the bride, ostensibly +coming from the person who sat there, but really provided by the +forethought of Fortnoye. In front of my own cover two pretty downy +chicks were pecking in a cottage made of crystal slats and heavily +thatched with spun glass--the prettiest birdcage in the world. On the +eaves was an inscription: "The Man of the Two Chickens." It happened +that the little keepsake I had found for Francine consisted of +wheat-ears in pearls and gold, adapted for brooch and eardrops; so +I only had to drop them in beside the chickens and the present was +appropriate and complete. + +I cannot tell of the effect as Mary Ashburleigh swept into that +splendid banqueting-room, one long pyramid of velvet pierced with +webbed interstices of light. If the largest window of St. Ursula's +church had come down and entered the room, the spectacle could not +have been so superb. One item struck me: the younger bride, of course, +wore orange buds; but for the Englishwoman, a beauty ripe with many +summers, buds and blossoms were inappropriate; she wore fruits: in +the grand coronal of plaits that massed itself upon her head were +set, like gems, three or four small, delicious, amber-scented mandarin +oranges. With this piece of exquisite apropos did the infallible Mary +Ashburleigh crown the edifice of her good taste. The two brides sat +opposite each other. A small watch, which I had happened to buy at +Coblenz, I managed to detach and lay on the Dark Ladye's plate as my +offering. On a card beside it I merely wrote, "ANOTHER TIME!" + +Who knows? Perhaps Sylvester may fill and founder as the other has +done. He looks miserably bilious and frightened. + +I had rather partake of a rare dinner than describe one. The wines +alone represented all the cellars of the Rhine and the whole champagne +country. Fortnoye, who gave the feast, entertained both Sylvester's +party and his own with regal good cheer. Think not that Henri Fortnoye +was the ordinary obfuscated, superfluous, bewildered bridegroom. On +the contrary, assuming immediately the head of his own table, he took +the responsibility of the party's merriment, and made the good humor +flow like the wine. I know not how it was, but ere the meal was over +I found myself joining in one of his choruses; Frau Kranich forgot +her asceticism and exhumed all her youthful air of gayety; James +Athanasius Grandstone promised the host to set his wines running in +every State of America. But the prettiest moment was when the two +brides rose and touched glasses, mutually and to the health of the +company, apropos of a little wedding-song which Fortnoye had composed +and was trolling at the head our willing chorus. + +[ILLUSTRATION: HOMEWARD BOUND.] + + + + +CONCLUSION. + + +I have arrived at Marly, and, with the ssistance of much sarcasm from +Hohenfels, am getting on with considerable spirit at my Progressive +Geography. When man's Hope ceases temporarily to take a merely Human +aspect, may it not suffer a fresh avatar and begin in a new and +Geographical form its beneficent career? The Dark Ladye has sunk +beneath my horizon, but speculations over the Atlantean and Lunar +Mountains are still succulent and vivifying. + +[ILLUSTRATION: CHARLES AND JOSEPHINE.] + +I fled, lashed by a hundred despairs and by many symptoms of headache +and dyspepsia, from the wedding-feast at Brussels. Charles and the +baron of Hohenfels accompanied me. It was a night-train. The spectacle +of so much wedded happiness was too much for me, too much for +Hohenfels. The effect was, contrarily, rather stimulating to Charles, +who has made a match with Josephine, and with her assistance is +now listening, the tear of sensibility in his eye, to Mendelssohn's +"Wedding March" as executed by the village organ! + +We passed Valenciennes, Somain, Donai, Arras, Amiens, Clermont, Criel, +Pontoise--the last points of merely bodily travel that I shall ever +make: here-after my itineracy shall be entirely theoretical. We took +a carriage at Pontoise, and traversed the woods of Saint-Germain. As I +neared home I bowed right and left to amicable and smiling neighbors, +who waved me good-day from their doors. So did my Newfoundland, +who broke his chain and leaped upon my shoulders, flourishing his +tail--overjoyed to salute the returning Ulysses. + +[ILLUSTRATION: ARGUS AND ULYSSES.] + +In the British Museum, among the Elgin Marbles, Phidias has carved +a pile of heaped-up marble waves, and out of them rise the arms of +Hyperion--the most beautiful arms in the world. Homesick for heaven, +those weary arms try to free themselves of the clinging foam. Another +minute and surely the triumphant god will leap from his watery couch +and guide with unerring hands the coursers of the Dawn! But that +reluctant minute is eternal, and the divinity still remains incapable, +clogged and wrapped in the embrace of marble waves. Yet the real +sun every morning succeeds in equipping himself for his journey, and +arrives, glad, at his welcome bath in the western sea. + +The inference I draw is: If you want a career to be eternal instead of +transitory, hand it over to Art. + +[ILLUSTRATION: "HAND IT OVER TO ART."] + +The true moral of it all is, that we are all savage myths of the +Course of the Sun. We disappear any number of times, but we rise and +trail new clouds of glory, and our readers or our audiences perceive +that it is the same old Hyperion back again. The youth who by the +faithful hound, half buried in the snow, is found far up on the most +inaccessible peaks of imagination, is perceived to grasp still in his +hand of ice that Germanesque and strange device--_Auf Wiedersehen_. + +[ILLUSTRATION] + + + + +FOLLOWING THE TIBER. + + +TWO PAPERS.--1. + + +[Illustration: NEAR THE SOURCE OF THE TIBER.] + +"Ecce Tiberum!" cried the Roman legions when they first beheld the +Scottish Tay. What power of association could have made them see in +the clear and shallow stream the likeless of their tawny Tiber, +with his full-flowing waters sweeping down to the sea? Perhaps those +soldiers under whose mailed and rugged breasts lay so tender a thought +of home came from the northerly region among the Apennines, where a +little bubbling mountain-brook is the first form in which the storied +Tiber greets the light of day. One who has made a pilgrimage from its +mouth to its source thus describes the spot: "An old man undertook to +be our guide. By the side of the little stream, which here constitutes +the first vein of the Tiber, we penetrated the wood. It was an immense +beech-forest.... The trees were almost all great gnarled veterans +who had borne the snows of many winters: now they stood basking above +their blackened shadows in the blazing sunshine. The little stream +tumbled from ledge to ledge of splintered rock, sometimes creeping +into a hazel thicket, green with long ferns and soft moss, and then +leaping once more merrily into the sunlight. Presently it split into +numerous little rills. We followed the longest of these. It led us +to a carpet of smooth green turf amidst an opening in the trees; +and there, bubbling out of the green sod, embroidered with white +strawberry-blossoms, the delicate blue of the crane's bill and dwarf +willow-herb, a copious little stream arose. Here the old man paused, +and resting upon his staff, raised his age-dimmed eyes, and pointing +to the gushing water, said, _'E questo si chiama il Tevere a Roma!'_ +('And this is called the Tiber at Rome!') ... We followed the stream +from the spot where it issued out of the beech-forest, over barren +spurs of the mountains crested with fringes of dark pine, down to a +lonely and desolate valley, shut in by dim and misty blue peaks. Then +we entered the portals of a solemn wood, with gray trunks of trees +everywhere around us and impenetrable foliage above our heads, the +deep silence only broken by fitful songs of birds. To this succeeded +a blank district of barren shale cleft into great gullies by many a +wintry torrent. Presently we found ourselves at an enormous height +above the river, on the ledge of a precipice which shot down almost +perpendicularly on one side to the bed of the stream.... A little past +this place we came upon a very singular and picturesque spot. It was +an elevated rock shut within a deep dim gorge, about which the river +twisted, almost running round it. Upon this rock were built a few +gloomy-looking houses and a quaint, old-world mill. It was reached +from the hither side by a widely-spanning one-arched bridge. It was +called Val Savignone."[1] Beyond this, at a small village called +Balsciano, the hills begin to subside into gentler slopes, which +gradually merge in the plain at the little town of Pieve San Stefano. + +[Illustration: CAPRESE.] + +Thus far the infant stream has no history: its legends and chronicles +do not begin so early. But a few miles farther, on a tiny branch +called the Singerna, are the vestiges of what was once a place of +some importance--Caprese, where Michael Angelo was born exactly four +hundred years ago. His father was for a twelvemonth governor of this +place and Chiusi, five miles off (not Lars Porsenna's Clusium, which +is to the south, but Clusium Novum), and brought his wife with him to +inhabit the _palazzo communale_. During his regency the painter of the +"Last Judgment," the sculptor of "Night and Morning," the architect of +St. Peter's cupola, first saw the light. Here the history of the Tiber +begins--here men first mingled blood with its unsullied waves. On +another little tributary is Anghiara, where in 1440 a terrible battle +was fought between the Milanese troops, under command of the gallant +free-lance Piccinino, and the Floren-tines, led by Giovanni Paolo +(commonly called Giampaolo) Orsini; and a little farther, on the main +stream, Città di Castello recalls the story of a long siege which it +valiantly sustained against Braccio da Montone, surnamed Fortebraccio +(Strongarm), another renowned soldier of fortune of the fifteenth +century. + +[Footnote 1: _The Pilgrimage of the Tiber_, by Wm. Davies.] + +[Illustration: LAKE THRASIMENE.] + +As the widening flood winds on through the beautiful plain, a broad +sheet of water on the right spreads for miles to the foot of the +mountains, whose jutting spurs form many a bay, cove and estuary. It +was in the small hours of a night of misty moonlight that our eyes, +stretched wide with the new wonder of beholding classic ground, first +caught sight of this smooth expanse gleaming pallidly amid the dark, +blurred outlines of the landscape and trees. The monotonous noise and +motion of the train had put our fellow-travelers to sleep, and when it +gradually ceased they did not stir. There was no bustle at the little +station where we stopped; a few drowsy figures stole silently by in +the dim light, like ghosts on the spectral shore of Acheron; the whole +scene was strangely unreal, phantasmal. "What can it be?" we asked +each other under our breaths. "There is but one thing that it can +be--Lake Thrasimene." And so it was. Often since, both by starlight +and daylight, we have seen that watery sheet of fatal memories, but +it never wore the same shadowy yet impressive aspect as on our first +night-journey from Florence to Rome. + +Not far from here one leaves the train for Perugia, seated high on +a bluff amid walls and towers. We had been told a good deal of the +terrors of the way--how so steep was the approach that at a certain +point horses give out and carriages must be dragged up by oxen. It was +with some surprise, therefore, that we saw ordinary hotel omnibuses +and carriages waiting at the station. But we did not allow ourselves +to feel any false security: by and by we knew the tug must come. We +set off by a wide, winding road, uphill undoubtedly, but smooth and +easy: however, this was only the beginning; and as it grew steeper and +steeper, we waited in trepidation for the moment when the heavy beasts +should be hitched on to haul us up the acclivity. We crawled up safely +and slowly between orchards of olive trees, which will grow wherever +a goat can set its foot: beneath us the great fertile vale of Umbria +spread like a lake, the encircling mountains, which had looked like +a close chain from below, unlinking themselves to reveal gorges and +glimpses of other valleys. Thus by successive zigzags we mounted +the broad turnpike-road, now directly under the fortifications, now +farther off, until we saw them close above us, with the old citadel +and the new palace. And now surely the worst had come, but the carnage +turned a sharp corner, showing two more zigzags, forming a long acute +angle which carried us smoothly to the rocky plateau on which the city +stands, and we bowled in through the old gate-way at a round trot, +with the usual cracking of whips and rattling and jingling of harness +which announces the arrival of travelers at minor places on the +Continent. + +We were not comfortable at Perugia--and let no one think to be so +until there is a new hotel on a new principle--but it is a place where +one can afford to forego creature comforts. Of all the towns on the +Tiber, so rich in heirlooms of antiquity and art, none can boast such +various wealth as this. The moment one leaves the centre of the town, +which is built on a table of rock, the narrow streets plunge down on +every side like dangerous broken flights of stairs: they disappear +under deep cavernous arches, so that if you are below they seem to +lead straight up through the darkness to the soft blue heaven, while +from above they seem to go straight down into deep cellars, but +cellars full of slanting sunshine. And whether you look up or down, +there is always a picture in the dark frame against the bright +background--a woman in a scarlet kerchief with a water-vessel of +antique form, or a ragged brown boy leading a ragged brown donkey, or +a soldier in gay uniform striking a light for his pipe. As soon as +you leave the live part of the town, with the few little _caffès_ and +shops, and the esplanades whence the thrice-lovely landscape unfolds +beneath your gaze, you wander among quiet little paved _piazzas_ with +a bit of daisied grass in their midst, surrounded by great silent +buildings, whence through some opening you descry a street which is a +ravine, and the opposite cliff rising high above you piled close with +gray houses overhung with shrubs and creepers, and little gardens in +their crevices like weeds between the stones of a wall; or you come +out upon a secluded gallery with tall, deserted-looking mansions on +one hand--except that at some sunny window there is always to be seen +a girl's head beside a pot of carnations or nasturtiums--and on the +other a parapet over which you lean to see the town scrambling up the +hillside, while a great breadth of valley and hill and snow-covered +mountain stretches away below. + +Then what historical associations, straggling away across three +thousand years to when Perugia was one of the thirty cities of +Etruria, and kept her independence through every vicissitude until +Augustus starved her out in 40 B.C.! Portions of the wall, huge smooth +blocks of travertine stone, are the work of the vanished Etruscans, +and fragments of several gateways, with Roman alterations. One +is perfect, imbedded in the outer wall of the castle: it has a +round-headed arch, with six pilasters, in the intervals of which are +three half-length human figures and two horses' heads. On the southern +slope of the hill, three miles beyond the walls, a number of Etruscan +tombs were accidentally discovered by a peasant a few years ago. The +outer entrance alone had suffered, buried under the rubbish of two +millenniums: the burial-place of the Volumnii has been restored +externally after ancient Etruscan models, but within it has been left +untouched. Descending a long flight of stone steps, which led into the +heart of the hill, we passed through a low door formerly closed by a +single slab of travertine, too ponderous for modern hinges. At first +we could distinguish nothing in the darkness, but by the uncertain +flaring of two candles, which the guide waved about incessantly, we +saw a chamber hewn in the rock, with a roof in imitation of beams and +rafters, all of solid tufa stone. A low stone seat against the wall +on each hand and a small hanging lamp were all the furniture of this +apartment, awful in its emptiness and mystery. On every side there +were dark openings into cells whence came gleams of white, indefinite +forms: a great Gorgon's head gazed at us from the ceiling, and from +the walls in every direction started the crested heads and necks of +sculptured serpents. We entered one by one the nine small grotto-like +compartments which surround the central cavern: the white shapes +turned out to be cinerary urns, enclosing the ashes of the three +thousand years dead Volumnii. Urns, as we understand the word, they +are not, but large caskets, some of them alabaster, on whose lids +recline male figures draped and garlanded as for a feast: the faces +differ so much in feature and expression that one can hardly doubt +their being likenesses: the figures, if erect, would be nearly two +feet in height. The sides of these little sarcophagi are covered +with _bassi-rilievi_, many of them finely executed: the subjects are +combats and that favorite theme the boar-hunt of Kalydon; there was +one which represented the sacrifice of a child. The Medusa's head, +as it is thought to be, recurs constantly, treated with extraordinary +power: we were divided among ourselves whether it was Medusa or an +Erinnys with winged head. The sphinx appears several times: there +are four on the corners of an alabaster urn in the shape of a +temple, exquisite in form and features, and exceedingly delicate in +workmanship. Bulls' heads, with garlands drooping between them, a +well-known ornament of antique altars, are among the decorations. But +far the most beautiful objects were the little hanging figures, which +seemed to have been lamps of a green bronze color, though we were +assured that they are _terra-cotta_: they are male figures of +exquisite grace and beauty, with a lightness and airiness commonly +given to Mercury; but these had large angel pinions on the shoulders, +and none on the head or feet. There was not a scholar in the party, +so we all returned unenlightened, but profoundly interested and +impressed, and with that delightful sense of stimulated curiosity +which is worth more than all Eurekas. With the exception of a few +weapons and trinkets, which we saw at the museum, this is all that +remains of the mighty Etruscans, save the shapes of the common red +pottery which is spread out wholesale in the open space opposite the +cathedral on market-days--the most graceful and useful which could +be devised, and which have not changed their model since earlier days +than the occupants of those tombs could remember. + +[Illustration: THE TIBER NEAR PERUGIA.] + +The conquering Roman has left his sign-manual everywhere, but one +is so used to him in Italy that the scantier records of later ages +interest us more here. Like every other old Italian town, Perugia +had its great family, the Baglioni, who lorded it over the place, +sometimes harshly and cruelly enough, sometimes generously and +splendidly--protectors of popular rights and patrons of art and +letters. Their mediaeval history is full of picturesque incident and +dramatic catastrophe: it would make a most romantic volume, but +a thick one. At length the Perugians, master and men, grew too +turbulent, and Pope Paul III. put them down, and sat upon them, so to +speak, by building the citadel. + +But time would fail us to tell of the Baglioni, or Pope Paul the +Borghese, or Fortebraccio, the chivalric _condottiere_ who led the +Perugians to war against their neighbors of Todi, or even the still +burning memories of the sack of Perugia by command of the present +pope. We can no longer turn our thoughts from the treasures of art +which make Perugia rich above all cities of the Tiber, save Rome +alone. We cannot tarry before the cathedral, noble despite its +incompleteness and the unsightly alterations of later times, and full +of fine paintings and matchless wood-carving and wrought metal and +precious sculptures; nor before the Palazzo Communale, another grand +Gothic wreck, equally dignified and degraded; nor even beside the +great fountain erected six hundred years ago by Nicolo and Giovanni da +Pisa, the chiefs and founders of the Tuscan school of sculpture; nor +beneath the statue of Pope Julius III., which Hawthorne has made known +to all; for there are a score of churches and palaces, each with its +priceless Perugino, and drawings and designs by his pupil Raphael +in his lovely "first manner," which has so much of the Eden-like +innocence of his master; and the Academy of Fine Arts, where one may +study the Umbrian school at leisure; and last, but not least, the Sala +del Cambio, or Hall of Exchange, where Perugino may be seen in his +glory. It is not a hall of imposing size, so that nothing interferes +with the impression of the frescoes which gaze upon you from every +side as you enter. Or no; they do not gaze upon you nor return your +glance, but look sweetly and serenely forth, as if with eyes never +bent on earthly things. The right-hand wall is dedicated to the sibyls +and prophets, the left to the greatest sages and heroes of antiquity. +There is something capricious or else enigmatical in the mode of +presenting many of them--the dress, attitude and general appearance +often suggest a very different person from the one intended--but the +grace and loveliness of some, the dignity and elevation of others, the +expression of wisdom in this face, of celestial courage in that, the +calm and purity and beauty of all, give them an indescribable charm +and potency. At the end of the room facing the door are the "Nativity" +and "Transfiguration," the latter, infinitely beautiful and religious, +full of quiet concentrated feeling. We were none of us critics: none +of us had got beyond the stage when the sentiment of a work of art is +what most affects our enjoyment of it; and we all confessed how much +more impressive to us was this Transfiguration, with its three quiet +spectators, than the world-famous one at the Vatican. Although +there are masterpieces of Perugino's in nearly every great European +collection, I cannot but think one must go to Perugia to appreciate +fully the limpid clearness, the pensive, tranquil suavity, which +reigns throughout his pictures in the countenances, the landscape, the +atmosphere. + +[Illustration: TODI.] + +We found it hard to rob Perugia even of a day for a pilgrimage to the +tomb of Saint Francis at Assisi, yet could not leave the neighborhood +without making it. We took the morning-train for the little excursion, +meaning to drive back, and crossed the Tiber for the first time on the +downward journey at Ponte San Giovanni. We got out at the station of +Santa Maria degli Angeli, so named from the immense church built over +the cell where Saint Francis lived and died and the little chapel +where he prayed. The Porzionuncula it was called, or "little share," +being all that he deemed needful for man's abode on earth, and more +than needful. It was hither that he came in the heyday of youth, +forsaking the house of his wealthy father, the love of his mother, +a life of pleasure with his gay companions, and dedicated himself to +poverty and preaching the word of God. One of our party had said that +she considered Saint Francis the author of much evil, and as having +done irreparable harm to the Italian people in sanctifying dirt and +idleness. But apostles are not to be judged by the abuse of their +doctrine; and although it cannot be denied that Saint Francis +encouraged beggary by forbidding his followers to possess aught of +their own, he enjoined that they should labor with their hands for +several hours daily. And to me it seemed as if out of Palestine +there could be no spot of greater significance and sacredness to any +Christian than this, where in a sanguinary and licentious age a young +man suddenly broke all the bonds of self, and taught in his own person +humility, renunciation and brotherly love as they had hardly been +taught since his Master's death. The sternness of his personal +self-denial is only equaled by his sweetness toward all living things: +not men alone, but animals, birds, fishes, the frogs, the crickets, +shared his love, and were called brother and sister by him. The great +and instantaneous movement which he produced in his own time was no +short-lived blaze of fanaticism, for its results have lasted from the +twelfth century to our own; and although we may well believe that the +day is past for serving Christ by going barefoot and living on +alms, the spirit of Saint Francis's doctrine, charity, purity, +self-abnegation, might do as much for modern men as for those of six +hundred years ago. Believing all this, we were not sorry that our +uncompromising friend had stayed behind, and it was in a reverent +mood that we left the little stone chamber--which shrinks to lowlier +proportions by contrast with the enormous dome above it--and turned +to climb the long hill which leads to the magnificent monument which +enthusiasm raised over him who in life had coveted so humble a home. + +[Illustration: CHURCH AND CONVENT OF SAINT FRANCIS, AT ASSISI.] + +The cliff on which Assisi stands rises abruptly on the side toward +the Tiber: long lines of triple arches, which look as if hewn in +the living stone, stretch along its face, one above another, like +galleries, the great mass of the church and convent, with its towers +and gables and spire-like cypress trees, crowning all. It is this +marriage of the building to the rock, these lower arcades which rise +halfway between the valley and the plateau seeking the help of +the solid crag to sustain the upper ones and the vast superimposed +structure, that makes the distant sight of Assisi so striking, and +almost overwhelms you with a sense of its greatness as the winding +road brings you close below on your way up to the town. It is a triple +church. The uppermost one, begun two years after the saint's death, +has a magnificent Gothic west front and high steps leading from the +piazza, and a rich side-portal with a still higher flight leading from +a court on a lower level. As we entered, the early afternoon sun was +streaming in through the immense rose-window and flooding the vast +nave, illumining the blue star-studded vault of the lofty roof and the +grand, simple frescoes of Cimabue and Giotto on the walls. Thence we +descended to the second church, in whose darkness our vision groped, +half blind from the sudden change; but gradually through the dusk we +began to discern low vaults stretching heavily across pillars which +look like stunted giants, so short are they and so tremendously +thick-set, the high altar enclosed by an elaborate grating, the little +side-chapels like so many black cells, and through the gloom a twinkle +and glimmer of gold and color and motes floating in furtive sunbeams +that had strayed in through the superb stained glass of the infrequent +windows. The frescoes of Giotto and his school enrich every spandril +and interspace with their simple, serious forms--no other such place +to study the art of that early day--but a Virgin enthroned among +saints by Lo Spagna, a disciple of Perugino's, made a pure light in +the obscurity: it had all the master's golden transparency, like clear +shining after the rain. From this most solemn and venerable place we +went down to the lowest church, the real sepulchre: it was darker than +the one we had left, totally dark it seemed to me, and contracted, +although--it is in the form of a Greek cross--each arm is sixty feet: +in fact, it is only a crypt of unusual size; and although here +were the saint's bones in an urn of bronze, we were conscious of a +weakening of the impression made by the place we had just left. No +doubt it is because the crypt is of this century, while the other two +churches are of the thirteenth. + +There are other things to be seen at Assisi; and after dining at the +little Albergo del Leone, which, like every part of the town except +the churches, is remarkably clean, my companion set out to climb up to +the castle, and I wandered back to the great church. As I sat idly +on the steps a monk accosted me, and finding that I had not seen the +convent, carried me through labyrinthine corridors and galleries, down +long flights of subterranean stone steps, one after another, until +I thought we could not be far from the centre of the earth, when he +suddenly turned aside into a vast cloister with high arched openings +and led me to one of them. Oh, the beauty, the glory, the wonder of +the sight! We were halfway down the mountain-side, hanging between the +blue heaven and the billowy Umbrian plain, with its verdure and its +azure fusing into tints of dreamy softness as they vanished in the +deep violet shadows of thick-crowding mountains, on whose surfaces +and gorges lay changing colors of the superbest intensity. Poplars and +willows showed silvery among the tender green of other deciduous trees +in their fresh spring foliage and the deep velvet of the immortal +cypresses and the blossoming shrubs, which looked like little puffs +of pink and white cloud resting on the bosom of the valley. A small, +clear mountain-stream wound round the headland to join the Tiber, +which divides the landscape with its bare, pebbly bed. It was almost +the same view that one has from twenty places in Perugia, but coming +out upon it as from the bowels of the earth, framed in its huge stone +arch, it was like opening a window from this world into Paradise. + +Slowly and lingeringly I left the cloister, and panted up the many +steps back to the piazza to await my companion and the carriage which +was to take us back to Perugia. The former was already there, and in a +few minutes a small omnibus came clattering down the stony street, and +stopping beside us the driver informed us that he had come for us. Our +surprise and wrath broke forth. Hours before we had bespoken a little +open carriage, and it was this heavy, jarring, jolting vehicle which +they had sent to drive us ten miles across the hills. The driver +declared, with truly Italian volubility and command of language and +gesture, that there was no other means of conveyance to be had; that +it was excellent, swift, admirable; that it was what the signori +always went from Assisi to Perugia in; that, in fine, we had engaged +it, and _must_ take it. My companion hesitated, but I had the +advantage here, being the one who could speak Italian; so I promptly +replied that we would not go in the omnibus under any circumstances. +The whole story was then repeated with more adjectives and +superlatives, and gestures of a form and pathos to make the fortune +of a tragic actor. I repeated my refusal. He began a third time: I +sat down on the steps, rested my head on my hand and looked at the +carvings of the portal. This drove him to frenzy: so long as you +answer an Italian he gets the better of you; entrench yourself in +silence and he is impotent. The driver's impotence first exploded +in fury and threats: at least we should pay for the omnibus, for his +time, for his trouble; yes, pay the whole way to Perugia and back, and +his _buon' mano_ besides. All the beggars who haunt the sanctuary of +their patron had gathered about us, and from playing Greek chorus +now began to give us advice: "Yes, we would do well to go: the only +carriage in Assisi, and excellent, admirable!" The numbers of these +vagrants, their officiousness, their fluency, were bewildering. "But +what are we to do?" asked my anxious companion. "Why, if it comes to +the worst, walk down to the station and take the night-train back." He +walked away whistling, and I composed myself to a visage of stone +and turned my eyes to the sculptures once more. Suddenly the driver +stopped short: there was a minute's pause, and then I heard a voice +in the softest accents asking for something to buy a drink. I turned +round--beside me stood the driver hat in hand: "Yes, the signora is +right, quite right: I go, but she will give me something to get a +drink?" I nearly laughed, but, biting my lips, I said firmly, "A +drink? Yes, if it be poison." The effect was astounding: the man +uttered an ejaculation, crossed himself, mounted his box and drove +off; the beggars shrank away, stood aloof and exchanged awestruck +whispers; only a few liquid-eyed little ragamuffins continued to turn +somersets and stand on their heads undismayed. + +Half an hour elapsed: the sun was beginning to descend, when the sound +of wheels was again heard, and a light wagon with four places and a +brisk little horse came rattling down the street. A pleasant-looking +fellow jumped down, took off his hat and said he had come to drive +us to Perugia. We jumped up joyfully, but I asked the price. "Fifty +francs"--a sum about equivalent to fifty dollars in those regions. I +smiled and shook my head: he eagerly assured me that this included +his _buon mano_ and the cost of the oxen which we should be obliged +to hire to drag us up some of the hills. I shook my head again: he +shrugged and turned as if to go. My unhappy fellow-traveler started +forward: "Give him whatever he asks and let us get away." I sat down +again on the steps, saying in Italian, as if in soliloquy, that +we should have to go by the train, after all. Then the new-comer +cheerfully came back: "Well, signora, whatever you please to give." +I named half his price--an exorbitant sum, as I well knew--and in +a moment more we were skimming along over the hard, smooth +mountain-roads: we heard no more of those mythical beasts the oxen, +and in two hours were safe in Perugia. + + + + +THE PARADOX. + + + I wish that the day were over, + The week, the month and the year; + Yet life is not such a burden + That I wish the end were near. + + And my birthdays come so swiftly + That I meet them grudgingly: + Would it be so were I longing + For the life that is to be? + + Nay: the soul, though ever reaching + For that which is out of sight, + Yet soars with reluctant motion, + Since there is no backward flight. + +CHARLOTTE F. BATES. + + + + +A NIGHT AT COCKHOOLET CASTLE. + +I. + + +Cockhoolet was the name of the place: it was a farm of which the +Ormistons were and had been tenants for several generations. A father, +mother and five olive-branches made up the family. A healthy, happy, +united, thriving family they were, and as such much respected. There +were two sons and three daughters, the eldest of whom was Bessie, +the "Rose of Cockhoolet," as she was called; for that she had all the +beauty and sweetness of the rose was generally allowed, although +there were people who could not be made to see this--people who were +probably idiopts; not idiots--although they might have a streak +of idiocy in them, too, perhaps--but idiopts, or persons who were +color-blind. None of the young men of the district were color-blind. + +The clergyman of the parish in which Cockhoolet was situated, and at +whose church the Ormistons attended, was an old man comparatively, +whose sermons were old-fashioned, and not given forth with the fire +of youth: he was not one you would have expected to be very popular, +especially with the young; yet various young men from considerable +distances were attracted to his church, and, generally speaking, they +settled themselves in pews opposite the gallery in front of which +sat Mr. Ormiston and his family. Any person who chanced to be in the +vicinity, if of discerning powers, might have been conscious of the +electricity in the air. Dull people neither saw nor felt it. + +Bessie Ormiston was not dull, but, being a modest girl, she would +rather not have been stared at; and, being a good girl, she thought +people might be better employed in church: still, she was only a girl, +and it would not be the truth to say she was mortally offended. Did +the person ever exist who was offended at an honest compliment? If +he ever did, he ought to have been fed on sarcasm for the rest of his +days. + +Not only was Bessie pretty--she was also rich. A grand-uncle had left +her five thousand pounds, her brothers and sisters getting only one +thousand each. There is no use in asking reasons for this: simply, the +Rose was born with a silver spoon in her mouth. Perhaps, indeed, the +old man did not know he had so much money, for it was as residuary +legatee that Bessie got the five thousand pounds, and it was not +thought she would get anything like that: people remarked, in the +language of the district, which was apt occasionally to be strong and +graphic rather than elegant,--people remarked that "old Ormiston +had cut up well." Five thousand charms added to those Bessie already +possessed--not to mention that her father was a rich man--made her +most miraculously charming: like Tibby Fowler of the Glen, whose +perplexities of this kind have been embalmed in song, she had wealth +of wooers, and wealth, it is well known, makes wit waver. + +It is a saying that an Englishman's house is his castle, but the +phrase is understood to be figurative: Mr. Ormiston's house was his +castle without a figure. Cockhoolet Castle is very old, at least one +part of it is, having been built probably about the year 1400. A more +modern part was built in 1527, while the most modern part of all was +added in 1726: this last division of it is used as the farm-house. +The rooms have been painted and papered in the present style of house +decoration, and in the sitting-rooms, in addition to the little old +windows, the thick walls have been pierced and a large bow-window put +in with fine effect. There are three narrow stone staircases leading +up the three divisions of the castle; there are long passages; there +are sudden short flights of steps taking you up or down into all +manner of cornered rooms; there is a hall which might hold the +population of the county. Keeping up one of the spiral staircases, +you come out on the roof, round which there is a walk guarded by a low +stone coping: should you want to fling yourself over, you have ample +opportunity. There are stone sentry-boxes where you can sit hidden +from the wind and everything else, and look far and wide over the +country, and down into the garden if you can do so without growing +giddy. There is also a dungeon tenanted by nothing more subject +to suffering than potatoes and other roots, for which it is a most +favorable receptable, the walls being so thick and the roof so low +that cold cannot get in in winter nor heat in summer: there is only a +single narrow slit in the wall for the admission of light, but it is +comforting to know that the doomed wretches who inhabited it in past +ages had at least a temperate climate. + +There is the room Queen Mary Stuart slept in when she occasionally +visited in the vicinity. The reader is perhaps not familiar with Queen +Mary's name in connection with Cockhoolet Castle, but there may be +other facts about her of which he is also ignorant. Does he know, for +instance, that she had a daughter by her third marriage, whom, as an +infant, she despatched to France to be reared in a nunnery, "that she +may not," said the unhappy queen, "run the risk of having such a lot +as I have"? Does he know that John Knox was possessed by a mad passion +of love for Mary Stuart? It has always been thought otherwise--that +in point of fact he held her in contempt; but as it is proverbial that +"nippin' and scartin' (figurative of course) is Scotch folks' wooin'," +there may be truth in the new discovery. But true or not true, it +is enough to make the bold Reformer blush standing on the top of his +pillar in the necropolis of Glasgow: perhaps he _is_ blushing, if he +were near enough to see. + +Be that as it may, there is no manner of doubt that Mary Stuart +honored Cockhoolet Castle by abiding under its roof when it suited her +to do so. Have not I, the present writer, stood in the room she slept +in--looked from the small windows set in the ten-foot thick wall from +which she looked? Have I not gazed over the same country, up to the +same skies, into the same moon at which she gazed? Could her face be +more fair than that of the present Rose of Cockhoolet, her thoughts +more innocent, her reveries more sweet, than those of Bessie Ormiston, +who in the course of time had succeeded to the room which had been +consecrated by royal slumbers? + +It is a matter of certainty that Mary Stuart planted a tree fast by +Cockhoolet Castle--she would not have been herself if she had not done +that--and a magnificent tree it is, very old and quite big enough +for its age. The queen must have been fond of planting trees, and, +considering the number she planted, it is astonishing how she found +time for so many less innocent employments: she must have improved +each shining hour, and, poor woman! she had not too many of these. + +There is a walk also, called the Lady's Walk, leading away from +the castle up a bosky dell, where a burn amuses itself playing at +hide-and-seek, but, like a little child, betrays its hiding-places by +its voice, and comes out into the light again and laughs at its own +joke. Did the queen ever wander here? did she ever "paidle in the burn +when summer days were fine"? did its murmur ever soothe her ear? +did she ever see her fair face in its pools, or drop bitter tears to +mingle and; flow on with its waters? + +The burn has kept trotting through the dell for six thousand years, +singing its song all the time, and its speed is as good and its voice +as clear and musical as when the morning stars sang together and all +the sons of God shouted for joy. Many a wild story it could tell if +its murmur could be understood; but it is a murmur only--a murmur +which crept into the ears of Cæsar's legions, of Queen Mary, of Bessie +Ormiston, and will creep into yours, O reader! if you like to go +and explore the Lady's Walk, when you can interpret the murmur for +yourself, as all your predecessors no doubt did. In days of old it +fed the moat, traces of which are to be seen round the castle still, +although it has long since been filled up and covered, like the park +of which it forms part, with rich natural pasture, soft, thick and +velvety. In short, Cockhoolet had everything that a castle ought to +have, and wanted nothing that a castle ought not to want, not even a +ghost. + +It was not the ghost of Mary Stuart: that would have been too +shocking--a ghost without a head, or having a head and a broad vivid +ray of red encircling its neck. Such a ghost would have made every one +who saw it lose his senses. Cockhoolet Castle had a ghost: so much was +certain, but hitherto no one had ever either seen or heard it. How, +then, was it certain? Why ask a question like that? Is it reasonable +to pin a human being down to prove a ghost? Will not presumptive +evidence do? Strange things had happened, must have happened, at +the castle: is it for a moment to be supposed that these things had +happened and all gone scot free?--in other words, that not one of them +had left a ghost? It is not to be supposed. + + + + +II. + + +It was Christmas Day. Christmas Day is not solemnized and festivalized +in Scotland as it is in England; still, the observance of it in some +shape is creeping in more and more. It was Christmas, and Mr. and Mrs. +Ormiston had gone to be present at a feast from which they were not +expected to return till the following day. There were left at home the +Rose, as head of the family for the time being; her sisters, Bell and +Jessie, supposed to be little girls still, although the supposition +made them very indignant; and her two brothers, John and William. A +guest aad two servants made up the known inhabitants of the house. + +The guest was a young man who had arrived before the heads of the +house left, and had been laughingly charged by them to see that the +children did not work mischief. He was an old friend of the family; at +least as old a friend as he was a man, and she had been in the world +a quarter of a century. We shall call him Edwin: that name will do as +well as another; indeed, better, for he might not like his own made +public. It need hardly be said that among the rest young Edwin loved, +and, like his namesake in the ballad, he never talked of love. This +might be stupid, but the stupidity which springs from true modesty +is not to be classed with the stupidity which springs from want of +brains, even when, as is quite likely, the consequences are to the +full as disastrous. Now, how is a young lady to understand or bring +things to a bearing in a case like this? The Rose could not go up +to Edwin and tell him she was not a goddess; neither could she say, +"Although I have five thousand pounds--and you know it, and I know +that you know it, and you know that I know that you know it--I am +quite ready to believe that you love me, and would love me if I hadn't +a farthing:" she could not say this, but she thought it, she worried +herself thinking over it, and, being a sensible girl with a humble +opinion of herself, she came to the conclusion that she had been +altogether mistaken--that Edwin did not care for her, at least not +as she cared for him, otherwise why should he not say so? "If," she +thought--"if I were in his place and he in mine, neither money nor +pride, nor anything else, would keep me silent." And the roses in +her face deepened in color as she thought of her own silly folly in +allowing her feelings to be drawn in, and she determined her folly +should cease from that hour; which determination had the effect of +bringing sharp, short speeches about Edwin's ears tinged with sarcasm +that were meant to convey to him the conviction that she did not care +a pin about him; and they answered the purpose admirably. + + Love is a fickle game, which they + Whose stakes are deepest worst can play, + +Edwin was at Cockhoolet that Christmas Day by the same fatality that +causes a moth to hover round a brilliant light; and when her sister +told Bessie that Edwin had come and was putting his horse into the +stable, she said, "Is Mr. Forrester here again? He must surely be dull +at home." But of course she received him with friendly civility. + +Edwin employed the forenoon out of doors with the boys and two other +visitors. A Mr. and Mrs. Parker arriving unexpectedly, who were +anxious to see the castle, the afternoon was spent in going through +every part of it from dungeon to roof. + +Bessie carried the keys: she was châtelaine, seneschal and cicerone, +all rolled in one. + +Going up the narrow stairs, the party had to climb Indian file: in the +passages they could spread out a little, and in some of the rooms in +the uninhabited portion they had to walk circumspectly, as if they +were crossing water on stepping-stones, for the flooring was wanting +in some places, leaving a stretch of bare rafters. Bessie tripped +lightly over them, and then turned to wait for the others. "Don't be +frightened," she said: "these rafters are as sound as the day they +were laid down. The flooring has not rotted: it must have been taken +up for some purpose. They did not know how to scamp work in those +days." + +"If we fall through, where shall we go?" inquired Mrs. Parker, looking +down into what seemed deep mysterious darkness. + +"Oh, not very far; but don't fall: it won't be pleasant," said Bessie: +"you would alight on very hard stones." + +Mr. Forrester got on the roof first, and handed up the ladies; and +they all stood looking out over the country. It was not a cold, bleak, +snowy day, as Christmas in northern latitudes has a right to be. The +winter had been mild--one of a series of mild winters, overturning the +old traditions of frosts and snow-storms that lasted for months, +and to a great extent stopped traffic and labor, and made traveling +difficult and wearisome. This Christmas was different. The year was +dying with calmness and dignity, and with a smile on its face, as you +might take the pale gleam of sunshine to be; and if you were a little +sad in mood you could suppose there was a wistfulness in the smile +that was spread over the still, soft face of Nature. Cockhoolet stood +high, and the country immediately round it was flat, and much of it +moorland. + + If you climb to our castle's top, + I don't see where your eye can stop; + For when you've passed the corn-field country, + Where vineyards leave off flocks are packed, + And sheep-range leads to cattle-tract, + And cattle-tract to open chase, + And open chase to the very base + O' the mountain. + +Strike out the vineyards and that description will apply very well +to Cockhoolet; and in addition you ought to have seen from its roof +Edinburgh and the sea; but on this day the sea wore a garment of mist, +and had wrapped the metropolis in it also, as it not unfrequently +does. You ought to have seen more than one range of hills too, yet +except by eyes well acquainted with them their outlines could hardly +be distinguished from the leaden gray clouds lying in bands along the +horizon. + +But as the party stood on the roof the clouds began to rise, tower +upon tower, against the sky, and the sun, who retires early at this +season, went behind them, when, instead of the pale, wistful gleam he +had been keeping up all day, he suddenly threw a deep bright golden +border on all the edges of the dark misty battlements which had piled +themselves like castles of the Titans: a big rift appearing at their +base, there poured through it, filling up the space, a great belt of +crimson rays streaked with gray, as if from burning ashes falling into +it, and like the dense glow from a furnace, giving the idea that the +cloud-building was on fire, and that the flames from below, shooting +up inside the dark walls, were the cause of the brilliant illumination +that shone round every pinnacle and coign of vantage. It was a grand +and a curious sight. You could fancy the sun looking across to the +old Castle of Edinburgh standing on its rock, and saying, "Can you +do anything like this with all the gas and paddelle you can lay your +hands on?" Precisely this idea struck Mrs. Parker, for she said, "I +think that is as good a sight as the castle the night the prince was +married." + +"That was a very good sight in its way," said Mr. Parker, "but we can +hardly hope to compete with the sun, my dear: he has all his materials +within himself, and we have to pay for them." + +"Do you know, Miss Ormiston," said Mrs. Parker, "one of the buildings +they said had such a fine effect put me in mind of a trunk studded +with brass nails--the initials of the happy pair in gas-jets looked +like the name of the owner of the trunk. All the time I was on the +street I could not get that notion out of my head; and I was sorry, +for I am sure it cost a great deal of money to light it up, and I +really wished to think it grand." + +"We were all in town that night," said John Ormiston--"papa and mamma, +and the whole of us, and Mr. Forrester, who made eight." + +"I thought it a beautiful sight," said Bessie. + +"I never enjoyed anything more in my life," said Mr. Forrester, who on +that occasion had been Miss Ormiston's escort through the streets, in +which they lost their party, and had the supreme bliss of wandering +together in the crowd, when Mr. Forrester almost forgot that Miss +Ormiston was a goddess with five thousand earthly charms, and Miss +Ormiston had compared his merits as a guide and protector with those +of her brothers, and found he was much more considerate, and made her +wish law, which they were often far from doing. In point of fact, a +thaw had been very imminent, but, alas! since then a sharp frost had +set in between them, as unaccountably as frosts frequently do set in. + +"I think, now," said Mrs. Parker, "a fine old castle like this ought +to have had a grander name: don't you think so, Miss Ormiston?" + +"Yes, I do, and it had, originally. There was a monastery here at one +time, over in that field with the trees in the corner of it: it was +called the abbey of Cakeholy, and when the castle was built it got the +name of Cakeholy Castle, after the abbey. The name Cakeholy, tradition +says, arose from the fact that an extraordinary saint, whose wants had +been relieved at the monastery, blessed all the bread that should ever +be baked there, and the bread ever after had a great sustaining power +in it; so that pilgrims from Edinburgh and the North, going to the +southern shrines, all passed this way to get themselves supplied with +the holy cakes. At the Reformation the abbey was destroyed, and became +a ruin haunted by owls, so that, partly in derision and partly as +suiting the altered circumstances, the common people corrupted the +name into Cockhoolet; and in process of time it was given to the +castle also, and stuck to it. That is the history of a name which is +certainly neither romantic, nor high-sounding." + +"How interesting!" said Mrs. Parker. "If I were you, I would go back +to the old name: there is a reverence about it there is not about the +other. Only think of bands of pilgrims coming across the moor there!" + +"Yes, in their gowns and rope girdles, with wallets and +scallop-shells," said Bessie. "It must have been a curious old world +then: one could sit here and muse by the hour on all that has come and +gone. I often bring up my work or my book here in summer and think of +it." + +"I do like old things," said Mrs. Parker, "and old families and old +names. Our name, for instance, has no smack of age about it, and it is +so short and perky: it must have been given to some one who had to do +with parks." + +"But parks may be a very old institution," said Bessie, "if we looked +into the thing, though not so old as Forrester: that is an ancient +name," glancing at Edwin, who was leaning against a sentry-box +listening and watching the sun putting out the lights in his +bed-chamber; "yet not nearly so ancient as Ormiston. I always feel +it is fitting we should live in an old castle, we are so ancient +ourselves." + +"Are we?" said John: "I never knew that before." + +"Ormiston," she said, "is perhaps as pure a Saxon word as now exists. +It was during the Roman invasion our ancestor led an army through a +dense mist against the invaders: just as he came up with them the sun +shone out and the mist. The legions were taken by surprise, for the +advancing enemy had been hidden by the mist, and they were utterly +routed. The Saxon king--" + +"What was his name?" asked John. + +"John," she said, "don't seek to be wise above what is revealed. The +king called our ancestor to the front and made him earl of Ormiston on +the spot--'Gold-Mist-on;' that is, 'Be ever in the van;' and a proud +race were the earls of Ormiston, and well they answered to the name. +But their fortunes waned when the modern upstart, the Norman William, +laid his greedy hands on everything for himself and his mob of +pirates, and at present we are only middle-class people, but our blood +must be the bluest of the blue." + +"Mine must be as blue," said Edwin, "for the Forresters came in with +the trees, and the trees were early settlers." + +"But the mists were first by a very long time," answered Bessie. + +"I don't believe that story," said John. "I have read about the +Cakeholy business somewhere, but you have made that Or-Mist-on affair +out of your own head: isn't that true, Bessie?" + +"I am not bound to answer unbelievers, John." + +"Besides," said John, "Ormiston is far; liker French than Saxon." + +"Mr. Parker," said Bessie, "there was an abbot John of Cakeholy who +flourished in the thirteenth century: his ghost is said to revisit its +old habitation, or rather the place where it stood. I should like to +meet it and have a talk over things; it would be very interesting." + +"Would you not be terrified?" asked Mrs. Parker. + +"If I saw what I believed to be a ghost, I should die of terror," said +Bessie; "especially if I was alone and it was the dead of night; but I +have no faith whatever in ghosts." + +"It is getting rather chilly," said Mrs. Parker. + +"Perhaps we had better go down now, then," Miss Ormiston said. "Mr. +Forrester, would you come out of your brown study and let us pass?" + +"Certainly. I'll see you all safe off the battlements. I wasn't in a +brown study: I was in a mist." + +"Then take care: people in a mist always think they are going the +right way when they are going directly wrong." + +"If I only knew the right way!" he said. + +"That's true, Mr. Forrester," said Mrs. Parker. "If we only knew the +right way; and people tell you to be guided by Providence, but I say +I never know when it is Providence and when it is myself;" and she +threaded her way down the narrow stairs, followed by the rest of the +party. + + + + +III. + + +The dining-room, with its low roof, its crimson walls, dark furniture +and handsome fire (the fires at Cockhoolet were always handsome: +Bessie was the architect and superintended the building herself; they +never looked harum-scarum nor meaningless nor thoughtless, nor as if +they were not meant to burn; they combined taste, comfort, and, as a +consequence, economy; everything tasteful and comfortable is in the +long run economical), its table-cloth, glistening like the summit of +the Alps and laden with good things, looked a place where people even +not in love with each other might, unless naturally perverse, be very +happy. + +Mrs. Parker, being from town, was in raptures with every country +eatable, especially the scones, which she found were manufactured by +Miss Ormiston herself. + +"And have they," asked Mr. Parker, "the sustaining power that the +cakes made here of old had?" + +"If you eat enough of them you may get to Edinburgh to-night before +you are very hungry," said John. + +"The abbey cakes were unleavened," Bessie explained, "which these are +not, so that they are less substantial fare." + +"What do you raise them with?" asked Mrs. Parker. + +"Butter, milk and carbonate of soda," said Miss Ormiston. + +"We call Bessie a doctor of the Carbon," said John: "she makes very +good scones, although you would hardly go from here to Canterbury on +the strength of one of them." + +"Mr. Forrester, are you dull?" asked Jessie: "you are not saying +anything." + +"I am too busy eating the holy cakes, Jessie," said Edwin: "your +sister is a master in her art." + +"I say," Jessie went on, "are you ever dull at home? When I told +Bessie that you had come she was surprised, and said that you must +surely be dull at home. I am sorry for you if you are: you should come +here oftener--we are never dull here." + +"Perhaps," said Edwin, "your sister thinks I come too often, as it +is." + +Bessie was so deeply engaged pressing Mr. Parker to eat strawberry +jam, with cheeks the color of the fruit, that of course she could not +have heard what her sister had been saying. + +"Oh no, I don't think she thinks that at all," Jessie said: "we never +think any one can come too often. Bessie, can Mr. Forrester come too +often?" + +But still Miss Ormiston was so occupied with Mr. Parker that she did +not hear. + +And Mrs. Parker said, "It is a most intensely interesting old place, +this: do not people come to look at it?" + +"Oh yes," replied Bessie, "especially in summer: we generally have +several parties every week. One of the servants takes them over the +castle--grand people often, with carriages and livery servants." + +"Do you not keep a book for them to write their names in?" + +"No, we have never done that." + +"I would do it if I were you: it would be interesting to know who +comes and how many. Why, very remarkable people may have been here +without your knowing." + +"I doubt we are not sufficiently alive to our privileges," Bessie +said. + +"It's fine moonlight," said the boys, who, seeing that they and every +one had ceased eating, were impatient to be out again. "Come, Mr. +Parker, we'll show you the echo: Mr. Forrester, come." + +"I'll go too," said Mrs. Parker; and they all went but the Rose, who +stayed behind for a little to direct about household matters. + +The echo was a favorite with the boys, it gave such unlimited scope +to their powers of shouting: it was the _sight_ they most enjoyed +exhibiting to strangers. And it was an echo that could repeat every +word of a sentence with such perfection that it was difficult to +believe that it was not a human being shouting back from the +other side of the park, where stood some houses inhabited by the +farm-servants and their families. + +"Hallo, Abbot John! is that you?" shouted one of the boys, and +the other cried, "Yes, I'm taking a walk," so quickly that the one +sentence seemed the answer to the other, and both came back loud and +distinct on the still night-air. + +"Are the Ormistons ancient? It's all fudge," shouted John. + +"Well," said Mr. Parker, "that's the most perfect echo I ever heard. +I've no doubt the holy fathers of the Middle Ages knew of it, and used +it in some shape to keep the superstitious people in awe." + +"It is awesome," said his wife, "here in the moonlight, with the old +castle so near: if I were alone, positively I should feel eerie." + +"Are you dull at home, Mr. Forrester?" was sent out from the depths of +Will's chest, and sent back again just as Bessie came out and joined +the party. + +"Boys! boys!" she said, "don't be foolish." + +"Why, it was what you said yourself," her sister remarked. + +"_Are_ you ever dull?" the lad shouted again. + +"Often," answered Edwin, and "Often" came back instantly. + +"In that case, Mr. Forrester," said Mrs. Parker, "why don't you get a +wife? There's no company for a young man like a good wife. Here's Miss +Ormiston; I don't think you could do better." + +Think of the delicate wound of these young people being thus openly +probed in broad moonlight in the presence of so many people! What +could Mrs. Parker be thinking of? Not of her own love-passages surely, +or, if she was, they must have been of a blunter order than those of +the Rose and her lover. + +"Oh no," said Bessie in cool, indifferent tones: "Mr. Forrester knows +better than that." + +"There!" said Edwin, "you see, Mrs. Parker, I have been refused." + +"'Faint heart never won fair lady,'" said Mrs. Parker. + +The boys hallooed this sentiment to the echo, and the echo took it up +and sent it back so vigorously that even a timid man might have been +inspired. "Mary Stuart," "Henry Darnley," "James Bothwell," the lads +went on calling to the echo alternately--names which are not mere +echoes even after three hundred years, but live on by sheer force of +tragic romance. And it was possible that here, on this very spot, that +historical trio had stood and laughed and talked and amused themselves +as the young Ormistons and their visitors were doing. What words had +they used to rouse the echo? If only it could be made to give them +back now, what a wonderful echo it would be! The world would come +to listen to it. Would it tell of the passions of love and ambition, +grief and hatred, all hurrying their victims to their doom? or was the +place sacred only to gentler memories and softer moods--the scene +of enjoyment and freedom from care for however short a time? Who can +tell? + +There was a woman in the village of Cockhoolet who was ninety-eight +years old, having all her faculties not perhaps quite so fresh as when +she was nineteen, but in wonderful preservation after having been in +daily use for little short of a century. She was one of a long-lived +race: her father had been eighty-nine when he died, and her +grandfather ninety-nine. Now, it is perfectly possible--and, as the +family had been on the spot for centuries, it is even probable--that +her great-grandfather might have dug the hole in which Mary planted +her tree, or he may have saddled the queen's horse when she went +hunting, or stood by the roadside and lifted his bonnet as she and her +gay train swept by. Or he may have been despatched upon royal errands +through the subterranean passage which is said to exist all the way +between Cockhoolet Castle and Edinburgh--the private telegraph of +those days, when wires in the air or under the sea by which to send +messages would have cost the inventors their lives as guilty of +witchcraft. While shaking hands with this old woman and speaking to +her, you lost sight of her and the present time and felt the air of +the sixteenth century blow in your face. Mary came up before you in +moving habit as she lived--the young Mary who caught all hearts, not +heartless herself, and laid hold of mere straws to save herself as +she drifted desperately with circumstances; not the woman who has been +painted as an actor from first to last, as coming forth draped for +effect at the very closing scene,--not that woman, but the girlish +queen who laughed and called to the echo, and forgot the cares of a +kingdom while she could. + + + + +IV. + + +"They are a nice family, those Ormistons," said Mr. Parker to his wife +as they drove to the railway-station in the moonlight. + +"Very," said Mrs. Parker; "and Mr. Forrester is a nice lad. I hope he +and Miss Ormiston will make it out: I did my best for them." + +"They'll be quite able to do the best for themselves: it is always +better to let things of that kind alone." + +"I don't know that," said Mrs. Parker: "if a little shove is all that +is needed, it is a pity not to give it." + +"But what if your shove sends people separate? That's not what you +intended, I fancy?" + +"No fear: people are not so easily separated as all that." + +"Well, we have had an uncommonly pleasant visit: I only wish the heads +of the house had been at home." + +Either the attachment of this pair must have been pretty evident to +ordinary capacities, or Mrs. Parker must have been of a matchmaking +turn of mind; probably the latter, for Bessie at least was sure that +no mortal guessed her secret; which was a great comfort to her, seeing +that Edwin was so indifferent. Alas! there is no rose without a thorn, +or if there is it is a scentless, useless thing, most likely incapable +of giving either pleasure or pain. + +The Parkers had left early. When the young people went in-doors again +it was only seven o'clock: the girls proposed a game at hide-and-seek, +and Bessie seconded the proposal; for you see it would have been +rather a formidable business to sit down and entertain Mr. Forrester +all the evening with conversation, rational or otherwise; and although +at the moment she was in the dignified position of lady of the castle, +she could not the less enjoy a game amazingly. + +The theatre of operations was wisely restricted, because if they had +gone all over the castle they might have hidden themselves so that the +game would have been endless; therefore they kept to the under part +of the inhabited region. At length, tiring of this, they changed their +game to blindman's buff, and went to the kitchen to play it, there +being more room and fewer obstacles there; besides that, it was empty +of tenants at the time, the servants having gone to see some of the +neighbors. + +It was a curious old kitchen, with a very low roof, and having a +fireplace in a big semicircular stone recess. Many a boar's head had +revolved there, and many a venison pasty had sent forth its fragrance +to greet the tired hunters returning from the chase. The fire glowed +in its deep recess like the eye of an old-world monster in a cavern, +till one of the boys seized the poker and made it flame up, throwing +its blaze out as far as it could for its walls, and making the kitchen +and the group standing in it like a picture by Rembrandt. + +"Who's to be blind man first?" cried the girls. + +"Edwin: that will be the best fun," the boys said. + +"Very well, I sha'n't be long blind," said Edwin: "I shall soon catch +some of you. Who'll tie the handkerchief?" + +"Bessie: she always ties it. Go and kneel to her, and she'll tie it so +that you won't see." + +What must Mr. Forrester have felt while being blinded by the Rose? +Only, he had long been accustomed to be if not blinded, at least +dazed, by her. The boys led him into the middle of the floor and +dispersed themselves into corners. While he stood in the attitude of +listening intently, he was conscious of a very gentle movement near +him, and instantly closed his arms round it, as he thought, and +encountered empty air, while with a shout of laughter the children +cried, "Bessie was too quick for you. There, quick! quick! Edwin!" He +sprang to the corner the voices came from, and the boys rushed along +the wall to avoid his arms spread out to catch them, when suddenly the +doorbell rang. + +At the sound Edwin put up his hand to take off the handkerchief, but +the boys cried, "Don't take it off: if it's any one, Bessie can speak +to them in the dining-room: we don't need to stop our game." + +They were not aware that to Mr. Forrester the game without Bessie was +like _Hamlet_ with the part of Hamlet left out. + +"Yes," said Bessie, "just go on, and I'll see who is at the door." As +she left the kitchen she honored Mr. Forrester with a good long look: +people can feel so much at ease looking at a blind person. + +The door was chained for greater security, and Bessie did not take +off the chain: she merely opened the door as far as it would open, but +seeing no one, she opened it fully and went out on the steps; still +she saw no person, although she thought whoever rang the bell had not +had time to get out of sight. Waiting a little without result, she +went back to the kitchen. + +"Who was it?" cried the children. + +"No one," she said. + +"But the bell rang," said John. + +"Of course it did," Will corroborated. + +"And somebody must have rung it," John said. + +"Some one for a trick, I suppose," Bessie said, "although I don't know +how he disappeared so fast." + +Without further remark the game was resumed. Edwin had caught John, +and John had caught Bessie, and when he was putting the handkerchief +round her eyes Mr. Forrester said, "You are making it far too tight, +John: you are hurting your sister." + +"No fear," said John: "none of us have soft heads here. Is it too +tight, Bessie?" + +"Rather, but I can bear it: go on." + +"I'll slacken it first," Edwin said. + +"Thank you, that will do. Now move off or I'll catch you." She went +very vigorously to work, and sent them all flying round the kitchen, +when the bell rang, and rang loudly, again. + +John darted to the door and flung it wide, sure that he would see the +person who rang it, whether running away or not; but there was no +one, and the whole party followed him out, and they surveyed round and +round, but all was still and quiet and vacant, the moonlight making it +impossible that any figure should be there without being seen. + +Now, if you lived in an ordinary house in an ordinary street in an +ordinary town, an incident like this would create no surprise. It +happens often: true, it is not a very new or bright joke, still it is +a joke that boys and girls enjoy, and will continue to enjoy. But away +in the country, at an old castle, with no house within a quarter of +a mile of it, the case is very different. How was it to be accounted +for? + +The Ormistons came in, the girls looking scared, and the boys laughing +and saying that Mary Stuart or Darnley or Bothwell, whose names they +had made so free with shouting to the echo, must have heard themselves +called and were ringing the bell, although not allowed to show +themselves; but even as they said it the boys would fain have whistled +to keep their courage up. + +"I wish papa and mamma had been at home," said Bell. + +"Or if only the Parkers could have been persuaded to stay all night," +suggested Jessie. + +"Nonsense!" Bessie said. "Some one is playing us a trick, but we don't +need to let it spoil our game;" and she put the handkerchief over +her eyes. "Look here, Edwin: will you tie this? You do it better than +John." + +"He doesn't," said John. "I believe he leaves it so that you can see. +I'll do it. No, I won't make it too tight." + +"Don't you think, Jessie," Edwin asked, "that I could protect you, in +case of danger, as well as the Parkers?" + +"I don't know. Perhaps if you were like yourself, but you're not like +yourself." + +"He's as dull as ditch-water," said John. + +"But," said Jessie, taking his hand with a feeling of security, +"you're better than nothing--a great deal better than nothing." + +"Thank you, Jessie, thank you! A man is the better for a little +encouragement, you know;" and he looked at the Rose, but she was +blind; which made her easier looked at, to be sure, but there was less +chance of an answer, encouraging or otherwise. + +They had got up the spirit of the game again, and were going on +briskly, when they were all brought to a stand by the bell ringing for +the third time. + +"Don't stop," cried Bessie: "go on with the game and take no notice +unless it rings again;" and as a leader who must show no fear she +chased her sisters round the kitchen, making them flee to avoid being +caught, when, as if in answer to her remark, the bell did ring again. + +This was too much. They all ran to the door, but neither human being +nor ghost was to be seen. + +"I say," said John to his brother, "you and I will go out and watch. +Edwin, you'll stay with the girls--they are frightened--and if the +bell rings again we'll see who does it." + +"You have more need of Edwin than we have, John," Bessie said: "it +will take you all to catch a ghost." + +"Come away, then," cried John; and he posted his sentinels at +different angles, where each could have his eye on the door. The girls +shut themselves in the house, and outside and in they awaited the +result. + +There was no result. + +Ordinary sentinels can pace to and fro to make the moments go more +quickly, but Edwin and John and William were compelled to stand +without speech or motion, as to betray their presence would have been +to defeat their purpose. At the end of half an hour their patience was +worn out, and they came to the conclusion that whoever was playing the +trick knew that they were watching; so they went in, and hardly were +they in and the door shut when the bell rang again. + +John rushed from the kitchen, whither he had gone for something, but +the others, being in the dining-room and nearer the door, reached it +before him; and again nothing was to be seen but the still calm night, +in which hung the moon with all her accustomed unimpassioned serenity. +What cared she for ghosts? Perhaps she is only a ghost herself, else +why, with all her pale quiet ways, does she never turn round and show +herself thoroughly? No doubt she has reasons of her own, whether +they are good or not: her sex is apt to be both capricious and +persistent--two qualities which she possesses in perfection. + +The Ormistons and Edwin stood out on the broad walk before the door, +none of them feeling very comfortable, if the truth must be told, but +none of them showing their feelings except Bell and Jessie, who openly +declared that they were very much frightened. + +"Nonsense!" said Bessie. "Who is going to be frightened at a silly +trick?" + +"But it may be somebody wanting to get in to do us harm--kill us +perhaps," suggested Bell. + +"People who want to get into a house for bad ends don't ring the front +doorbell, or any bell," said Bessie. + +At this junction two figures appeared in the distance advancing along +the road to the castle--soon made out to be the servants, so that they +at least were guiltless in the affair. + +"It has not been them, you see," cried John. + +"No," Bessie said, "and you are not to say anything about it to them +when they come: if they know anything of it, it will soon leak out; +and if they don't tell, they will be quite frightened: they are as +easily frightened as Bell or Jessie here." + + + + +V. + + +All this time Mr. Forrester was feeling--not frightened certainly, +but--perplexed; and while he could not but admire Miss Ormiston's +coolness and courage, he could not help wishing that she had been just +a little bit chicken-hearted: it would have been so delightful to have +to act as protector and supporter. But there was no opening whatever +for such a position: she took the mysterious affair into her own hands +and pooh-poohed it entirely. + +They were accustomed to early hours at Cockhoolet, but when the time +came for going to bed the girls declared they were too frightened to +go up stairs alone. "It would be far better," they both said, "for us +to stay here all together in this room till morning: we could sit up +quite well." + +"Absurd!" said Bessie. + +"Well, we could not sleep even if we were in bed," they protested. + +"No fear," said the châtelaine. "If you were to sit up all night you +would be like ghosts yourselves to-morrow morning. Come, I'll go with +you and sit beside you till you sleep. But wait a minute till I come +back." + +When they were bidding Mr. Forrester good-night he said to the girls, +"If anything happens let me know." + +"Nothing will happen," said Bessie: "the bell is quiet now and the +servants are sound asleep. I have just been looking at them, and the +sooner we follow their example the better." + +"What are we to do if we hear the bell ring again?" John asked. + +"Nothing. Keep below the blankets, John," his sister said. "It will +ring a loud peal indeed if you hear it: I think a cannon might be +fired at your ear without disturbing you." + +"That's a mistake," said John, "I am a remarkably light sleeper: a fly +on my nose will make me turn round any time." + +"I believe that, but it won't waken you. Good-night;" and she took +a hand of each of her sisters and went off with all the dignity +beseeming her position as head of the family and governor of the +castle. Her presence being withdrawn, Edwin felt much as you do on a +March day when the sun goes under a cloud, although he had not +enjoyed the sun either, owing to the undercurrent of east wind that +continually chilled him. He almost determined to give it up. Of what +use was it? Evidently she did not care for him, and the words, "Mr. +Forrester here again! he must surely be dull at home," sounded in +his ears. Very east-windy they were; still, he loved her with a great +love, and he could not give her up: he was in a mist, and could see +neither to go back nor forward. + +"I say, Edwin," said John confidentially, "what do you think about +this bell business? Of course one couldn't speak of it before the +girls, they are frightened enough already--Bessie too, although she +pretends not. What's your own private opinion about it?" + +"Oh, it must be a ghost," said Edwin: "they do things of that kind, +you know--turn tables and rap and so on. I've been thinking I must be +an unconscious medium." + +"Well," said John, "I, for one, don't believe in that kind of thing: +if the spirits ever told anything worth hearing, or did anything worth +doing, it might be different; but would Darnley or Bothwell or the +abbot, or even any of the smaller fry of monks, come back here to ring +a bell? I know in their place it's what I wouldn't do myself." + +"It would depend on where they are and how employed," said Edwin: +"like some other people, they may be dull at home." + +"Ah, that's what Bessie said that's sticking in your throat. Man, it's +no use minding what girls say: I never do. + +"The spirits must be deplorably dull if ringing a bell is a diversion +to them." + +"They may enjoy mystifying us," said Edwin. "Who knows but they are +listening just now, and laughing in whatever they may have instead of +sleeves?" + +"I'm not frightened," said Will, "but I don't like subjects of this +kind at bedtime, so I wish you wouldn't say any more about it." + +"It seems, however, that the bell was rung by invisible agency," said +John. + +"Come, come, we'll stop talking and go to bed," Edwin said. + +"But, Edwin," said Will with big eyes, out of which he could not keep +a frightened look, "do you think a spirit did it?" + +"No: it is a trick, and you'll find out who did it before long." + +"Well," said John, "it was a stupid trick, but cleverly done--very +cleverly done, or whoever did it would not have escaped me." + +"I should not like to sleep alone to-night," Will said to his brother +in confidence when they were in their own room, "and I don't believe +you would either, although you don't say so. I wonder if Edwin likes +it, away from every one too, in that room with the hole in its roof? I +wonder papa does not get that hole mended?" + +"He has often spoken about it," said John, "but if I slept in that +room I should rather like the hole. It's uncommon: every room hasn't a +hole in its roof. If you couldn't sleep, for instance, you'd have only +to stare at the hole, and you would doze off before you knew." + +"Staring at it would only keep me from sleeping," Will said: "I should +always think something was looking at me through it." + +"What could look at you but light--moonlight or daylight from the room +above? In the dark you would the hole." + +"Let's sleep," said Will; and, forgetting ghosts and bells and all +influences, the two boys were soon asleep. + +It is to be hoped the girls were asleep also; indeed, there is little +doubt the younger ones were. But Bessie, with the cares of a castle +on her head, the mysteries of the evening to perplex her, and an +unfortunate love-affair going more and more awry, how was it with her? + +And Edwin, in his remote room with its hole in the roof, how did he +fare? He had gone up a stone staircase, through a long passage and +down a short flight of steps, into a room large, somewhat low in +ceiling, and, with the exception of the hole, most comfortably +appointed. It felt warm, rather too warm, and he did not replenish +the fire, preferring to let it go out. The room and the way to it +were both very familiar to him, and, like John, he enjoyed the hole: +staring at it made you sleep, and when not sleeping your fancy could +play round it to any extent. On this night the light of the moon, +shining in at the shutterless windows of the empty room above, fell +across its floor, and gleamed down through the opening. + +A superstitious person with a talent for being eerie would have had +nice scope for being frightened out of his senses in a situation +like this--alone in a distant room of an old castle where bells rang +mysteriously, and with borrowed moonlight peering down from above +like a ghost looking for ghosts. But Mr. Forrester was not +superstitious--not in the least. He feared nothing material or +immaterial except--and it was a curious exception--except Bessie +Ormiston; yet it is true he loved her, perfectly as he thought, but +there was a flaw somewhere: it was not the perfect love that casteth +out fear. The turning of a straw, however, might make it that, but +who was to turn the straw? He feared to do it, and she would not. +Notwithstanding these perturbed and cantankerous circumstances, these +two people, being young and naturally sleepy, slept. + +How long he had been sleeping Edwin did not know, when he awoke +suddenly, as if he had been startled by some noise. However, he might +have been dreaming: he did not know. The fire was thoroughly out +and black, there was no ray of light from the roof, and the +window-curtains being closely drawn, if there was any light outside it +was effectually shut out: the room was as dark as midnight. + +He rose, and finding his way to the table groped for a box of matches +that he had noticed lying there, and lighted his lamp, when, looking +at his watch, he found the hour to be half-past three. Before going to +bed again he thought he would see what night it was. Accordingly, +he opened the curtains and shutters and gazed forth. The moon had +disappeared--which was not remarkable, as it was past her hour for +retiring--and the night was very dark and hazy. But a remarkable +object met his eye. But from an angle of the house, and toward the +corner of the field which had been the site of the ancient monastery, +there stood a column five or six feet in height of what through +the haze appeared luminous vapor. It seemed such an altogether +unaccountable thing, standing there, that Edwin pushed the window open +and rubbed his eyes to get a better sight of it. He expected it would +disappear in some way almost immediately, but it did not: there it +stood, perfectly still and perfectly distinct, at the corner of the +field, where there was absolutely nothing to cause it. He watched it +for a considerable time, and as his eye got accustomed to peering into +the darkness, he could see there was nothing near it, and not a sound +disturbed the stillness of the night. + +"That's not a trick," he thought: "no one would think it worth while +to play a trick, certain of being without an audience either to see or +hear it. I question even if it is the abbot himself; or if he likes to +air himself there in the middle of a winter night, he must be too hot +at home, if not too dull." + +A filmy mantle of pale white vapor is surely a more likely garment for +a spirit to snatch up and wrap round him when about to indulge in an +earthly tour than the conventional and traditionary white sheet: +in point of fact, for the sheet he must wait till he arrives in our +world, and when he does arrive he must of necessity help himself to +it; which I, for one, should be sorry to think any well-conditioned +ghost would do; but light, pale shadowy light, lying about everywhere +for the picking up, what so suitable as raiment for a being who has +nothing to wear? + +It could not but occur to Edwin, Had the abbot come back to his old +haunt on some errand? Had he a benevolent ghostly interest in its +present inhabitants? Here was a work in which even a spirit of mark +might engage without loss of dignity and with perfect propriety. He +might turn tables on the perverse circumstances that kept two young +people separate; and if marriages are made in heaven, an angel need +not despise such a mission as making two lovers happy. + +"Well" thought Edwin, "if you are Abbot John, how do you like to see +the dear old stones of your monastery built into dykes? or would you +have preferred seeing them applied to villa purposes?" If it were +the abbot, Edwin felt he would like to have that familiar kind of +intercourse with him which in our country is known as twa-handed +crack; and if it were not the abbot, he had a wonderful curiosity to +know what it was--to have it accounted for. There it stood, apparently +as firm and sure as the first moment he had seen it; and a cause it +must have. + +Accordingly, he dressed himself with the intention of proceeding to +the spot to interview the abbot and see what kind of stuff he was made +of. Mr. Forrester took the lamp in his hand and opened the room-door +softly: not that he thought any one would hear him, but soft sounds +best become the stillness of the night. As he went down the stairs he +became conscious of a cold air playing about, as if from an open door +or window. He set his lamp on the stone sill of the passage-window, +and had his hand on the key of the outer door to unlock it, when he +heard a quick, sudden scream, apparently from the oldest part of +the building. He listened intently for a second, but there was no +repetition of it, and everything was perfectly quiet. + +"That was human," he said to himself; and seizing his lamp he ran +along till he came to the door of the ancient keep, which was standing +open: he took the way he and the rest of the party had gone the +previous afternoon, and found the doors that were usually kept locked +all open. Going on very hurriedly, he came to the room where the bare +rafters were the only flooring, and at the other end of it he saw +something like a white heap gleaming. He strode across instantly, and +stooping with the light in hand discovered Bessie Ormiston lying in a +dead faint just at the edge of one of the rafters: the least movement +would have sent her down on the hard pavement below. He did not stop +to think how she came to be there: setting his lamp where it would +light him across the dangerous flooring, he lifted her up and threaded +the passages and stairs in the darkness till he laid her safe on the +dining-room sofa, still unconscious. + +Kneeling beside her in the darkness, he felt that her face and hands +were very cold. He did not know what to do. If she had been any other +person, he would have had his senses about him, but, being who she +was, they had scattered themselves, and he felt dazed. The fire was +not quite out, and he thought of smashing up a chair to make it burn, +but searching in the coal-scuttle at the side, of the fireplace, he +found both sticks and coals, and heaped them on: then he lighted the +lamp that was still standing on the table. All this was the work of +a minute or two. A fainting-fit was quite beyond the range of his +experience, but he had some vague idea that in cases of the kind water +should be dashed in the face or a smelling-bottle held to the nostrils +or brandy poured down the throat; but none of these things were at +hand, and as he looked at Bessie, hesitating what to do, he saw the +color steal back to her face, and she opened her eyes and suddenly +shut them. When she opened them again she took his presence as a +matter of course, and said, "I sometimes walk in my sleep, I know, but +I am not in the habit of fainting;" and she smiled, looking much more +like the lily than the rose. + +"I hope not," he said. + +"It was the fright I got when I woke and saw where I was. I shouldn't +have been frightened, for I knew the place as well as I know this +room, and could have found my way back in the dark." + +"What can I get for you?--you must have something." It is an awkward +thing when a nurse has to seek directions from a patient. + +"Nothing," she said: "I can take nothing, and I am quite well. I can't +think how I was so foolish as to scream, and I am sorry for disturbing +you." + +"You did not disturb me: if I had been asleep I should never have +heard you." + +"I wish you had been asleep." + +"You might have fallen through the rafters and been hurt or perished +of cold." + +"I shouldn't have fallen through the rafters: I should have come to +myself and have walked back quite well alone; but I am not the less +obliged to you." + +"I should say not," he said with a curl of sarcasm. "Then is there +nothing I can do for you?" + +"Nothing, unless, indeed, you could get hot water for me to wash my +feet in. Sleeping as I was, I had the good sense to put on a thick +shawl, but I made my excursion barefoot: they say walking barefoot +improves one's carriage." + +"Bessie, I never know what to make of you." + +"If you know what to make of yourself it's a great matter: sometimes +people don't know that," she said, rather wearily. + +"I had better make myself scarce at present, probably?" he said. + +"I think so." + +"Then good-night. You won't faint again?" + +"No: good-night." + +He left the room and shut the door gently, but when a few paces away +some impulse moved him to go back: she might faint again, and he would +ask if he should send one of the servants to her. + +When he opened the door she was sitting with her face hidden in her +hands. At the sound of the door opening she glanced up, and Edwin saw +tears. + +She turned away instantly. He went up to her and said, "I did not mean +to intrude. I forgot to ask if I should tell one of the servants to +come." + +"No, you needn't." + +"Bessie," he said, "you are not well, and something is vexing you. +Could you not tell me about it. I mean nothing but kindness." + +"I know you don't," she said almost fiercely, "and I hate kindness: +it's an insult." + +He stood in blank astonishment, "An insult?" he said. + +"Yes, an insult; and if you were not obtuse you would see it. But you +don't see and you don't feel, or you would never have tried to make +any one care for you for whom you did not care a bit. But I won't care +for you, and I don't." + +Off her guard, she had been stung into this. She was standing away +from him, her head erect and her eyes gleaming through tears: Mary +Stuart herself could not have been more effective. + +"Care for you! not care for you!" he said in a voice he could hardly +control. "I have cared for you as I never cared for a thing on earth: +I have loved and shall love you as I have never loved a human being." + +"How am I to believe it? Why did you not say it? Why did you not say +it without making me ashamed of myself?" + +"Ashamed! Oh, Bessie, I only feared to annoy you." + +"Annoy!" + +He gathered her to him and kissed her. + +A castle all to themselves at four o'clock in the morning is a piece +of fortune that rarely falls to lovers, and they need not expect it; +but those great thick walls were no way taken by surprise: they had +not been confidants of this kind of thing off and on for four or five +hundred years to be taken by surprise now. Whether after such long +familiarity with the old story they felt it any way stale, you will +readily believe they did not say. + + + + +VI. + + +"I've forgotten the abbot entirely," said Edwin when he had time to +come to himself after the first draught of miraculous champagne. "I +was on my way to investigate his ghost when I heard an unaccountable +scream." + +"I never screamed before, and I don't think I shall ever scream again: +I don't know how I have been so weak to-night." + +"Weakness always draws out kindness," said Edwin. + +"I would rather be weak than obtuse," said Bessie. + +"But it is better to be only obtuse than both. I know someone who was +both." + +"Well, what was I to think, and what could I do?" + +"Nothing better than you did--make a declar--" + +"What were you saying about the abbot's ghost?" + +"I was on my way to have an interview with it when--" + +"What was it like, and where did you find it?" + +"It was like a column of light standing not far from the house near the +corner of the abbey-field." + +"And you did not think of any explanation of the phenomenon?" + +"No, I did not: it seemed more mysterious even than the ringing of the +bell." + +"To obtuse people it does." + +"I thought the abbot might be feeling without a home, and sympathized +with him, I assure you, very heartily." + +"I can tell you what it is: the servants had to rise at three this +morning to work. It is the light shining out from the laundry-window: +I've seen it often enough." + +"Well, it was a providential ghost for you and Edwin." + +"[illegible]" said John when they were assembled at breakfast next +morning, looking no worse for the excitement of the previous evening, +having all slept well: if the bell had rung it had disturbed no one +at all. Mr. Forrester and Bessie had not made any one the wiser of the +well-timed appearance of the abbot's ghost which had played such an +effective part in their previous night's drama,--"I say," he +said looking at Mr. Forrester and then at Bessie, "there is some +understanding between you two; you are always looking at each other, +and when you entered the room this morning you [illegible], and +started off [illegible] been caught. But I have [illegible] this +time." + +Bessie realized that her secret had become common property, and +blushed becomingly. + +Mr. Forrester said, "What have you suspected, John?" + +"That Bessie and you laid your heads together to make the bell ring +last night to frighten us. Remember, I'm not stupid altogether." + +"I assure you, John, I had nothing to do with the ringing of the +bell," Bessie said. + +"Nor had I," said Edwin. + +"That's queer, then," said John; "but I'm sure there's something of +some kind between you two: you're planning something, I know. What is +it?" + +"Wise people don't reveal their plans to every one till near the time +for executing them, John," said Edwin. + +"Oh, very well," John answered: "you can keep them to yourselves. +I dare say it's nothing of consequence;" and having finished his +breakfast, John was off to his out-door business. The shortest cut +to his destination--and he always took short cuts--was through the +kitchen, and as he hastily brushed along the wall toward the door he +was brought up suddenly by a loud peal of the bell, and he looked at +one of the servants, who was working at the table, as much as to say, +"Do you hear that?" + +She answered his look: "Yes, I ha'en, but there's naebody at the door. +It was yu that rang the bell: ye cam against that bag of worsted +clues for durning that I hung on the bell-wine yesterday. When onybody +happens to touch it the weight o' 't gars the bell ring; I would hae +to ta'en off." + +With this simple and inglorious explanation John rushed to the +dining-room where he found Mrs. Forrester and the châtelaine in deep +Conspiracy again; and to this hour the ghost of Cockhoolet is a matter +(if you can use that word in connection with a ghost at all) of faith +and not of sight. + +When Mrs. and Mrs Ormiston returned they found that their eldest +daughter was engaged to be married, which surprised them as little as +it did the old woman but moved them a good deal more. + + + + +THE LEADEN ARROW. + + +A wondrous half-century was that which forms an isthmus rather than a +bridge between the Middle Ages and the times termed Modern. Exit +the Last of the Barons--enter the printing-press. Exit Boabdil +el Chico--enter Columbus and Da Gama. The plot thickened as the +_cinquecenti_ hove in view. The last years were the most pregnant. +While the last sigh of the Moor was dying into the murmurs of the +Xenil, that solitary shout that will ring while earth lasts went up +from the bows of the Pinta. Together came America and the sea-way to +India and--the rifle. For in 1498, when Buonarotti was at his prime, +Raphael, fifteen years old, had just taken his seat at the paternal +easel, and the scenes of the _Lusiad_ were in progress, "barrels were +first grooved at Venice." + +Who grooved them we are not told. The name of that artist has not +survived, though we still remember his contemporary townsman, Titian. +Strictly, he is not entitled to the immortality of an originator. That +belongs to the unknown savage who, in the miocene era probably, first +gave a twist to the feather of his arrow, thereby communicating to it +a revolving motion at right angles to the line of flight, and making +it an "arm of precision." But pre-historic artillery we may dismiss +or leave to Milton. The blind bard omits to inform us whether the +guns used in the great pounding-match between Lucifer and Michael +were smooth-bores or rifles. The strong presumption is that they were +exclusively the former, and that a well-served battery of Parrotts +would have silenced them in fifteen minutes. By giving him a few +pieces of the kind the poet would have further brightened the feather +he sets in Satan's cap as the benefactor of mankind by inventing +gunpowder and shortening wars. The bow he presents to us as an old and +familiar weapon even at the date of that first and greatest of +pitched battles. Its claim, as the parent of projectile implements, +is recognized in the common etymology of _arcus, arcualia_--artillery. +Arblast, arquebuse, blunderbuss, mark a humbler collateral descent +in the same verbal family. The ballista, or fifty-man-power bow, +constituted the heavy, and the individual article the light, artillery +of twenty centuries ago. Slings and javelins, being for hand-to-hand +fighting (David was near enough to hold an easy conversation with +Goliath before bringing him down), can hardly be brought within +the designation. The twang of either heavy or light was but a thin +contribution to the orchestra of battle compared to "the diapason of +the cannonade." How much we have lost in the absence of this element +of tremendous noise from the conflicts of ancient days! What a tool +it would have been in Homer's hands! How trivial, to the author of +the book of Job, would have seemed the noise of the captains and +the shouting! We cannot, indeed, quite suppress the fancy that some +mightier counter-concussion must have filled the air at Thrasimene, +when "an earthquake reeled unheededly away:" _Nemo pugnantium +senserit_, avers Livy. But nothing is said of it. The old heroes died +in silence, like the wolf "biting hard among the dying dogs." + +A well-known essay of a modern poet beautifully uses this piece of the +modern machinery of his craft. Dryden here makes distance mellow the +thunder of a naval fight into a musical undertone. The great sea-fight +between the duke of York and the Dutch, fought within hearing of +London, left "the town almost empty" of its anxious citizens, whose +"dreadful suspense would not allow them to rest at home," but drew +them into the eastern fields and suburbs, "all seeking the noise +in the depth of silence." Dryden and three friends took a barge and +descended the river. Once clear of the crowded port above Greenwich, +"they ordered the watermen to let fall their oars more gently; and +then, every one favoring his own curiosity with a strict silence, it +was not long ere they perceived the air to break about them like the +noise of distant thunder or of swallows in a chimney; those little +undulations of sound, though almost vanishing before they reached +them, yet still seeming to retain somewhat of their first horror which +they had between the fleets. After they had attentively listened till +such time as the sound by little and little went from them, Eugenius, +lifting up his head and taking notice of it, was the first who +congratulated to the rest that happy omen of our nation's victory." + +This, the eloquent eolian music of distant and unseen battle, was +unheard by the ancient cities and their chroniclers and poets. It will +grow again less familiar as rifled ordnance is introduced, with its +thinner and sharper style of expression. Waterloo appears to have been +heard farther than Sedan or Metz, although its pieces were but popguns +compared with those that spoke the requiem of the Third Napoleon. +And perhaps, if we allow for smallness in number and calibre, those +employed by Robert the Bruce at the battle of Werewater in 1327--said +to be the first recorded occasion in Europe--were more vociferous than +their successors of to-day. Few and cumbrous they must indeed have +been, since Edward III. could only bring four into the field at Crécy; +and they did far less service than the twanging cloth-yard shaft in +deciding the event of that conflict. + +It was not till centuries later that the rifle perceptibly exerted +its treble voice in the multitudinous debates of the _ultima ratio_. +Shrill as John Randolph's, its pipe, once set up, was very attentively +and respectfully listened to. Like his, it spoke from the woods +of America. "Stand your ground, my brave fellows," shouted Colonel +Washington under the sycamores of the Monongahela on the 9th of +July, 1755, "and draw your sights for the honor of old Virginia!" +The colonial rifle covered the retreat of the British queen's-arm, if +retreat such a rout as Braddock's could be called. + +It is about the same time that we find a British writer, who had +witnessed the efficiency of the rifle as a companion implement to +the axe in pushing European settlement on this continent, saying, +"Whatever state shall thoroughly comprehend the nature and advantages +of rifle-pieces, and, having facilitated and completed their +construction, shall introduce into its armies their general use, with +a dexterity in the management of them, will by this means acquire a +superiority which will almost equal anything that has been done at +any time by the particular excellence of any one kind of firearms, +and will perhaps fall but little short of the wonderful effects which +histories relate to have been formerly produced by the first inventors +of firearms." + +This was written in 1748, at which time the rifle was used only by +the hunters of the Alps and the hunters of the American backwoods; +the latter having doubtless derived it from the former through German +immigration. Bull's conservatism, however, was in the way. The lessons +of Fort Duquesne, of Saratoga and of New Orleans were successively +wasted on him. He did arm one regiment, the Ninety-fifth, with this +weapon toward the close of the last century, but for a long time it +stood alone in the royal service. Austria had previously maintained +some corps of Tyrolese Jägers. The French fought through all the wars +of their Revolution without having recourse to the rifle, save in the +campaign of 1793. It is singular that the keen eye of Napoleon failed +to detect its value, especially when we note the use he made of light +troops. The fate of Nelson justifies the idea that a large body of +good riflemen might have changed the issue of Trafalgar. + +Curiously enough, the French, who were the last to realize the merits +of the rifle, were the first to institute those improvements which +caused, within the present generation, its universal substitution +for the musket. The Gallic pioneer was Delvigne, but his first +improvements proved, as Pat might say, no improvement at all. The +inconvenience of slow loading was the most obvious. Delvigne's remedy +was to give the ball increased windage; in other words, to diminish +its diameter comparatively with that of the bore. The ball thus went +easily down to the shoulders of the chamber containing the charge. +Arrived there, a smart rap with the ramrod moulded it to the grooves. +But it also flattened the top, and forced the bottom partly into the +chamber. Thus misshapen at birth, the bullet was cast upon the world +to an erratic and fruitless career. + +In 1828 a second Frenchman took the tube in hand. Colonel Thouvenin +abandoned the chamber, and filled up much of the place it had occupied +with a cylindrical steel pillar, or _tige_, which projected from the +breech-plug longitudinally into the barrel. This formed a little anvil +whereon the bullet was to be beaten into the grooves. But the bottom +was flattened, and the powder acted only on the periphery of the ball +instead of the centre, tending thus to give it an oblique direction. + +Here Delvigne picked up the weapon for another trial. He accomplished +far the most important advance yet seen--an advance relatively as +great as Watt's separate condenser in the steam-engine. He retained +the _tige_, but he _changed the spherical ball into a cylinder with a +conical point_, as we now have it. In this he, in effect, reached the +ultimatum of progress as regards the general form of the projectile. +He assimilated it to Newton's solid of least resistance. That primeval +missile, the arrow, had for unnumbered centuries presented to the +eyes of men an illustration of a simple truth which scientific formula +succeeded, scarce a couple of centuries since, in evolving. "The +bridge was built," as the old sapper told his commander, "before them +picters" (the engineer's designs) "came." The arrow-head describes, as +it whirls through the air, a solid varying from a cone only so far as +its edges vary from straight lines. This variation serves to blend the +cone with the cylinder formed by the revolution of the arrow-head and +the feather. The difference in length between the ball and the arrow +is due to the necessities of the case. The least practicable length +is best for both. The office of the spirally-wound feather in +communicating a rotary motion, and thereby balancing, by an opposite +force, the tendency of the missile to swerve in any given direction, +is fulfilled by the spiral groove of the rifle. Of course, the +ordinary smooth musket is unfitted to the conico-cylindrical ball. +Discharged from such a barrel, there being nothing to keep the point +in the direction of its flight, it soon tumbles over, like an arrow +without a feather, and strikes wide of the mark. + +Delvigne's new gun came into use in 1840. The long matchlocks of the +Arabs had been very worrying to the French in Algiers. It was a common +pastime of the Ishmaelites to pick off the Gauls at a distance which +left Brown Bess helpless. Protruded over an almost inaccessible crag, +the former primitive instrument would plump its ball into the ranks +of the Giaour in the dell below with a precision and an effect hardly +requited by victories in the open field or by the cave-smokings of +His Grace of Malakoff. Delvigne's arm was accordingly supplied to the +Chasseurs d'Orléans, and in their hands served the desired purpose. +The matchlock met its match. + +Under M. Delvigne's system, however, the ball was not always well +forced into the grooves. The _tige_, too, made cleaning difficult: +it often got crooked, and it sometimes broke off. A M. Tamisier +did something toward removing the former difficulty by cutting +very shallow grooves on the ball itself. The other called forth the +ingenuity of the now famous Minié, who made his first appearance +in 1847-1848, and whose name has attained the same kind of lethal +immortality with the names of Shrapnell, Congreve and Rodman. M. Minié +abandoned the _tige_ entirely. He scooped out the base of the ball and +inserted into it an iron cup. This cup was driven into the ball by +the explosion, and forced the soft lead into the grooves. The leading +objection to the Minié ball in this form was that the device did its +work too thoroughly. The iron was often driven so deep into the lead +as to tear off the solid point and scatter the whole projectile into +two or three pieces. This mitrailleuse-like distribution of disrupted +spheres or leaden asteroids was obviated by the abandonment of the +iron cup, the powder being left to act on the lead itself. Two or +three channels cut around the neck of the bullet helped to keep +the point in line, and aided at the same time the fastening of the +cartridge. Thus came its final metamorphosis to the buzzing little +torment that has been at intervals for the last twenty years flying +over all the continents and perplexing the nations. + +It was not till 1852 that the Enfield rifle was settled on as the +standard weapon of the British army. Machinery and machinists were +imported for its fabrication from the United States, the appliances +of our government armories being copied, and Colonel Bruton, of the +Harper's Ferry Works, employed to set them going. Prior to that time +all firearms of public or private manufacture, in England, had been +made by hand, the interchangeability of all the parts of any given +number of guns being an end accomplished in this country alone. The +advantage of having every corresponding detail of each piece a fac +simile of the same part in all the firelocks of an army must have been +perceived from the time when such weapons were first invented; +and nothing but the most inveterate conservatism, or the steadiest +opposition of that stamp which mobbed threshing-machines and the +spinning-jenny, could have so long staved off its practical adoption. + +Once awakened, however, England became, as she usually does, active, +innovating and experimental enough. Rifled cannon, breech-loaders and +armored ships--all the legitimate offspring of the Venetian barrel +and its American employment--have kept her ever since in a ferment of +boards, commissions and target-firing. But these would carry us +beyond our prescribed limit into a boundless field of inquiry and +description. It would be like passing from a notice of the tubular +boiler of Stephenson's Rocket to a discussion of the vast railway +system it begot. + +The Crimean war afforded the first test, on a large scale, in +civilized warfare, of the issue between smooth and twist. How the +conoidal bullet and rifled barrel, opposed at Inkermann to the +antiquated Russian musket, tore through the dense columns which +had forced their way to the brow of the plateau, driving the stolid +Muscovites, "incapable of panic," back into the ravine pell-mell--how, +at many periods of the siege of Sebastopol, the rifle-pits did more to +cripple the defence than did the mortars and battering-guns--we need +not recount. These pits, and the rope mantlets wherewith they obliged +the Russians to cover their embrasures, were pronounced by Captain +(since General) George B. McClellan, in his report of the United +States Military Commission, about the only marked novelties of +the siege. Of both, _mutatis mutandis_, he and his opponents made +effective use in our civil war. + +Nor shall we pick our perilous way among the Sniders, Chassepots, +Zündnadelgewehre, and Zündnadelbüchsen whose various charms absorb the +military mind at this day. The debate among them is but as to the best +utilization of the old arrow-theory. The oblong projectile, that goes +singing on its winding way, is common to them all. Slipped in at the +back door or rammed home at the front, delicately stirred up by the +insinuating needle and its titbit of fulminate or bluntly ordered off +by the snappish percussion-cap, it is the same obedient and faithful +messenger, and goes on its appointed errand in much the same style. + +Under the ancient régime of the musket it required the soldier's +weight in lead to kill him. Its point-blank range was about sixty +yards, but precision even at that short distance it by no means +possessed. At the battle of Fontenoy the English and French Guards, +drawn up in opposite lines, conversed with each other prior to firing, +like two groups of friends across the street. "Gentlemen of the French +Guards, fire!" was the courteous invitation of the British commander. +"The French Guards never fire first," was the reply. And not till then +did punctilio come to an end. Such a colloquy in our day would need +to be carried on with forty-horse power speaking-trumpets, or with the +thunderous articulation of that between the bellowing Alps and echoing +Jura. Even smooth-bore field-pieces, with point-blank of three hundred +and twenty yards and service range of one thousand, have to keep their +distance. It is a rare thing now for cannon to be captured by a charge +of cavalry or the bayonet. The rifle destroys _quantum suff._ of their +horses, and, their support overpowered, they remain a helpless prey. + +For this default of the blustering cannon in the trying of conclusions +with its quiet little cousin, the natural remedy is to improve its +interior in the same manner. This has been done, and with marvelous +effect in some respects. But the rifled cannon, though extensively +used both on sea and land, throwing shot and shell five miles, and at +close range through iron plates a foot thick, cannot be yet styled a +perfected weapon. It may be in a very few years, thanks to the ardent +anxiety, on the part of the several peoples composing "the parliament +of man, the federation of the world," to excel each other in the +"brain-spattering, windpipe-slitting art." At present it is maintained +by very good American authority that for use under some conditions, +at short or moderate range, the smooth gun of large calibre is more +effective than a rifled gun throwing a missile of the same weight. +Our monitors continue to be armed with the fifteen-inch Rodman, very +recent experiments being cited to prove its penetrating effect on iron +plates greater than that of the European rifled guns. This, of course, +at very close range. + +The rifle is, in its simplest form, a more complex instrument than the +smooth-bored piece, and will always require superior intelligence to +manage it. The army which naturally possesses this requisite in the +highest degree will best handle this decisive weapon, and be, other +things equal, the strongest army. This consideration operates in favor +of our people, among whom the rifle has always been in so much more +constant and familiar use than with those of other countries. Our +broad forests will have to be cleared and our mountain-chains, +east and west, more densely settled than Switzerland, before the +distinction of a nation of marksmen can be lost to us. So far, there +is little evidence of this change. The deer and the wild-turkey are +nearly as abundant on the Atlantic slope of the Alleghanies as they +ever were. Probably there are more of both in Virginia than at the +time of the settlement of Jamestown. Like the quail and the bee, they +are favored by a certain advance of population and cultivation. + +Another species of aborigine does not similarly thrive in the path of +the rifle. The Indian of the Plains is still troublesome occasionally, +but far less so than when blue-coats and blunderbusses joined forces +against him. The odds then were often on his side, for many of the red +men were armed with the rifle, while the troops had but the musket and +carbine. The appearance of the breech-loading rifle in the hands of +the United States dragoons on the frontier just fifteen years ago let +in new light upon the Camanche and Apache mind. Up to that period the +badgering of a detachment of "heavies" was a favorite pastime with +these gentry. They got up their "spring fights" with as much coolness +and regularity as the early patriarchs of Texas are related to have +done, and not merely, as in the case of the latter, in utter contempt, +but directly at the expense, of the constituted authorities. Tying +a bag of dried mule-meat and pounded corn to the peak of his saddle, +fashioning a small supply of arrows, or balls if he boasted the +spectre of a gun, coloring the inferior half of his frontispiece a +rich vermilion and the upper a delicate green, with ramifications of +lampblack coursing tastefully along the cheek-bones and the bridge of +the nose, twisting a crane's feather into the tail of his horse, and +giving his affectionate squaw a farewell kick, the cavalier of the +prairie was ready for a raid on the Long-knives. Making a rapid +night-march or two, he would carry the "latest intelligence from +the Indian country" to the border ranches of Texas or New Mexico. +Stampeding all the horses and mules that stood or ranged convenient, +and under favorable circumstances some cattle and sheep, and +"gobbling" on occasion some incautious Cyrion or Phyllis of the +Western Arcadia, the marauder made for the mountains. By the time he +had well passed the last outpost the hue-and-cry was at his heels, +followed, after an easy-going delay, by the lumbering dragoon. The +soldier, armed with ineffectual sabre and carbine, encumbered with +a variety of traps about as useful as they, usually managed, if not +forced to put back by stress of provisions, to come up with him in the +gates of the hills. There an idle interchange of arrow and round ball +between hollow and cliff wound up the eventful history of the chase. +As a rule, no marked chastisement was inflicted on the Indian: he +realized in peace the proceeds of his little speculation. + +Now, Minié, like the Harpagon of his countryman, has "changed all +that." The retreating heathen flies to his hills in vain. They do not +cover him, but the rifle does. Cantering to the summit of a knoll, +he waves his compliments to the distant dragoon with a gesture of +derision, more expressive than elegant, he has acquired from the +white. Turning calmly to depart, as he sinks below the crest of the +hill a sagittiform bullet, fired at five hundred yards' distance with +all the science and talent purchasable with thirteen dollars a month +and rations, plumps into the rump of his unhappy pony, and the Stoic +of the woods is unhorsed. Reared on horseback, and weak in the legs +from long addiction to that mode of locomotion, this is a _casus +omissus_ in Lo's tactics. Scant time, however, has he for reflection. +He gathers up himself and his drapery as well as circumstances will +allow, and scuttles hurriedly off, a fluttering chaos of rags and +feathers. It is too late. Heaven is on the side of the best artillery. +A few minutes and the Philistines are upon him. Burnside's or +Remington's last patent again lifts up its voice, and the triumph of +civilization is complete. + +The prairie Indian, unlike his congener of the woods, has as yet been +but partially able to substitute gunpowder for the bow. The advantage +he has in the protection afforded him by the desolation of his +waterless _mesas_ and sage-covered hills is thus in great measure +neutralized. What, when he does possess the modern firearm, he is +capable of doing with it, the achievements of the Modocs in their +volcanic stronghold will attest. But these were few, and soon went +down. The extinction of the tribes west and south of the Rio Grande +and the Humboldt cannot be many years postponed. The red rover of that +region will disappear as a combatant in the same way, and before the +same weapon, as his brother nomad of Algeria, the earliest victim of +the conoidal bullet. The spherical ball has done its appointed part +in disposing of the aborigines east of the Mississippi, where forests +covered the land and trees generally intercepted the sight at a +hundred or a hundred and fifty yards. With the extension of Caucasian +empire to the Plains came an extension of the range of vision, which +necessitated an advance in the range of the rifle. The weapon of +Sharpe figured for the first time in the van when the woods of +Missouri were passed and the open plains of Kansas reached. There +its office was, unfortunately, the strife of white against white. The +largest possible range, the greatest possible number of shots in a +given time, were demanded in a war wherein the opposing armies were +seldom within five miles of each other, or more than one man hurt to +five hundred charges of powder burned. How the Lenni Lenape must have +opened their eyes at this reproduction of the drama of a century ago +when the whites, English and French, were fighting each other for the +possession of the Delawares' lands in Pennsylvania! The feeble remnant +of the compatriots of Logan had "moved on," under pressure of a very +urgent police, a thousand miles westward to a reservation not a great +deal larger, when portioned out, than that last reservation allotted +to all men; and the pale-faces who had hung upon his track he now saw +fighting for that. + +From its warlike aspect it is pleasant to turn to the contributions +of the rifle to peaceful amusement, if not peaceful industry. +Contemptuously giving the go-by to its minutest phase in this +field--the "parlor rifle," with a target against the chimney-piece +or meandering, in feline form, along our neighbor's roof-tree--we go +forth, with Snider and sunrise, to the forest fastness. Our companions +throng, tall, bronzed, close-knit and sinewy, true children of +the four-grooved, from frosty Caucasus, the Hartz, the Alps, the +Dovrafjeld, the Grampians, the Himmalaya, the Adirondack, the +Alleghany, the Nevada. The chamois, the ibex, the red deer, the +Virginia deer, the wapiti, the gour, or the royal tiger may be the +game in hand. The tiger we are accustomed to associate exclusively +with the dank jungles of Lower India, but he climbs, each summer, the +great passes of Central Asia, "the roof of the world," and makes his +way to the frontier of Siberia, beyond 50° north. + +The equipment of the mountain-rifleman is characterized by simplicity +and a strict attention to business. The nature of the ground over +which he works inexorably prescribes this. The superfluities of the +fox-hunter or the partridge-shooter with his dog-cart cannot be his. +Hatchet, pouch, knife and knapsack, with alpenstock on occasion, about +comprise his kit. He may be attended by a hound or two, but not a +pack. He wants no yelling. He hears but + + the Spirit of the Mist, + And it speaks to the Spirit of the Fell. + +For little hollows and little hills Scott's dogs, that + + raved through the hollow pass amain, + Chiding the rocks that yelled again, + +may have been highly effective when his mediæval sportsmen, who +carried no guns, could keep within a furlong of them. But in the +depths of the great mountains, with point-blank range of six hundred +yards and long pops of nearly twice that, they would be preposterous. +Fancy the Quorndon or the Pytchley on the flanks of the Matterhorn! + +Chamois-hunting, the sporting specialty of the Swiss and the Tyrolese, +appears to be dying out. The hunter of our day keeps it up rather as +a tradition than as a practical pursuit. He rarely bags a "goat," +for goats are very few to bag, and those few even more supernaturally +fleet and sure of foot and keen of nose than their less-hunted +ancestors. Still, somewhere in that upper world of lilac-white that +melts into the clouds in vast but distance-softened chasms of viscid +ice and rifts of gray gneiss, there is an object for him. In some nook +or on some crag of the square leagues of desert that swell around him +a troop of the desiderated ruminants is grazing, if grazing it can +be called where grass is none. He is very sure of that. Even from the +door of his chalet he scans the slopes in the half hope of detecting a +flock or a single goat. His father and his grandfather before him had +looked forth from the same door on the same scene, snuffed the same +"caller air," mentally shaped the same pretext for yielding to the +same spirit of adventure begotten of the peaks and by going forth +to battle with the solitude, and hunted patiently, sometimes with +success, oftener without, the progenitors of the same quarry. So he +prepares himself anew for the wild and perilous tramp. A day--two or +three days--may pass without the compassing of a shot, or even hearing +the whistle of the sentinel goat as he shrills the alarm far out of +range and leads his fellows in twenty minutes to crags the hunter +cannot reach in as many hours. Death crouches in the treacherous +snow-crust beneath or the poised avalanche above. A false step or an +inch's miscalculation of leap may make him a waif for the lämmergeier +or land him among the buried villages of the last century. He toils +on until success or starvation sends him home. In the former case he +out-generals his shy game after a series of manoeuvres to which the +deepest stratagems of our Indians are straightforwardness personified. +He gets a long shot at a distance that would make the musket or +buckshot as useless as a sabre. The certainty may be apparent that the +animal, if hit mortally, must fall some hundreds of feet, perhaps into +an inaccessible chasm. There is no help for that. Now or never! The +short rifle, assisted by a portable rest, is called on for its best. +The concentrated energy of the whole chase is thrown into the long and +carefully calculated aim. A thin spurt of white smoke jets forth; a +sharp report echoes "from peak to peak the rattling crags among;" half +a dozen chamois whisk around the next rock-buttress, and "one more +unfortunate" tumbles from the verge into vacancy. The labor of days is +rewarded. Securing the scanty venison if he can, the hunter is off for +his hillside burrow, advertising his approach by an exultant jodel of +extra nerve-splitting power. + +In Great Britain the rifle, ancient or modern, like, indeed, any other +firearm, has yet to establish itself as a democratic "institution." +Her forests are not forests in our sense, and her mountain-dwellers +know little of the rifle. In the duke of Athol's seventy-mile forest, +with scarce a tree save planted larches, the stag roams by thousands, +but of course the game-laws interpose, as they did eight hundred years +ago, between him and the (biped) hind. He is still the reserved +luxury of the Norman. So with the leagues of upland where His Grace of +Sutherland has made the Highlander give place to the hart, the "lassie +wi' the lint-white locks" to the Cheviot ewe--where, in short, the +white Celt has been improved out of existence as remorselessly as the +red man in America, and that in favor not of a superior race of men, +but of _feræ naturæ_. Into these and similar districts, at stated +seasons, sundry squads of gentlemen are turned loose. They either +"pay their shot," as _Punch_ has it, in the shape of rent, or are the +guests of the noble proprietors. Their devices for circumventing the +antlered monarch of the waste are amply detailed by Scrope, Hawker, +Herbert and also by the late Edwin Landseer doing the pictorial +department with a success attributable chiefly to his management of +landscape effect, for his dogs, deer and other animals from his Æsop's +fable-like groups to his four duplicated lions in Trafalgar Square, +belong--heretic that we are to say it!--properly to still life, their +want of action and _verve_ placing them beneath comparison with the +works of either one of a score of Flemish and French painters, +from Rubens and Snyders down to Bonheur and Vernet. That his unsold +pictures have brought, since his death, something like half a million +proves nothing. Time was when the worthless canvases of West and +Morland were equally transmutable into gold. + +Like other forms of British field-sports, deer-stalking is +sufficiently intricate and artificial. It is obviously the occupation +of men whose primary object is more to kill time than to kill deer. +According to print, from type and plate, the stag, a reduced edition +of the American wapiti, is, in the heart of a little kingdom of some +hundreds of souls to the square mile, as little accustomed to the +sight of man and as hard to approach as he would be on the head-waters +of the Yellowstone. If five or six hours' worming, _ventre à terre_, +up the bed of a mountain-torrent, with not even a rowan-bush to aid +concealment, succeed in bringing the sports-man within two hundred +yards of his unconscious game, it is a good day's performance. How, +the dun deer's hide once perforated, the "tail" of game-keepers, +beaters and volunteer hangers-on is gathered up, the comforting +toothfu' of usquebaugh absorbed by the toilers of the brae, the victim +"gralloched" and suspended across the inevitable gray Highland pony +that makes such a capital "first light" for the foreground, and the +line of triumphant march taken up for hunting-box, clachan or castle, +have we not been told to repletion? The tool used on these occasions +is up to the latest requirements of modern science. Whitworth and +Lancaster, thanks to their projectile's being wedged in so tight as +to cause an occasional misunderstanding it and the breech-plug as to +which was expected to move, have grown unpopular. The style and the +patentee vary every year or two or oftener, breech-loading and the +elongated bullet being the only persistent features. + +Among the commonalty of Britain, within a very few years past, +rifle-clubs and matches have been brought greatly into vogue under +government encouragement. Austria, _tu infelix_ this time, having +served unwillingly as an experimental target, with the most +distinguished and gratifying success to the experimenters, at +Solferino and Sadowa, gave a new impetus to the rifle movement in +England, as France, a trifle later, did to the Battle-of-Dorking +school of prophetic literature. Thus it happens that the rifle is +taking its place gradually by the side of fat Durhams, gooseberries, +lop eared rabbits and the Derby as a popular sensation. Johnny sends +over a "team," evidently in his judgment a whole one, to "shoot the +American continent." His next deputation ought to be sent, after +vanquishing the "blarsted" Gothamites, to the recesses of the +Alleghany, and pitted there against the woodsman with his ancient +weapon carrying a round ball of seventy-five to the pound, five +feet long and decorated with tin sights, double trigger and mayhap +flint-lock. The adventurers would beat in the long run, but they would +go home not wholly unlearned. Should they stay to a turkey-shoot, +they would see in it the Occidental analogue of their own public +matches--more picturesque, if not quite so prim and scientific. +Strictly, it presupposes conditions non-existent in England--a +community, for instance, first of hunters, and second of hunters with +the rifle. + +This recreation, primarily belonging to localities where large game, +such as deer and wild-turkeys, is found, has spread down to the +cities, where it breaks out in a sporadic form about Christmas. But +the hills are its home--the foot-hills, notably, of the Appalachian +range, the domestic turkey not being very common higher up, nor its +wild original ("original," we insist, _pace_ the _Agricultural Report_ +ornithologist, who finds an ineffaceable distinction in the fact that +the tail-ring of the one is sometimes, and that of the other never, +white!) lower down. + +We mind us of an ancient town in the Valley of Virginia, settled +nearly a century and a half ago by riflemen, sheltered by them through +a stormy infancy, and still steeped in the traditions of the implement +in question. Spitted by the railway, the hub of many turnpikes, and +surrounded by a thickly-peopled country, it is yet near enough to the +mountains to receive from them each winter quite a delegation of their +inhabitants. Last year wild-turkeys were shot within the corporate +limits, a deer was chased within half a mile of them, and a fine +specimen of _Felis Canadensis_ was killed in an orchard still nearer. + +Four miles west of the town the fertile limestone _carse_ swells into +the shady hills, clad largely with pine, that form the long glacis of +the Alleghanies. These hills are peopled principally by a hardy race +not unlike the German woodsmen, whose blood, indeed, a great many of +them share, as their surnames, though sadly thinned down into English +spelling and pronunciation, denote. They inherit, likewise, their +fancy for the rifle. Allied with the axe, which, like Talleyrand's +supposititious frontiersman, they have not forgotten, it supplies them +materially with sport and subsistence. Their land, where arable +at all, being unproductive as a rule, wood-chopping is their most +profitable branch of farming. A score or two of them drive into town +daily, each with his four-, three- or two-horse cargo of wood. The +pile is frequently topped off with a brace or two of ruffed grouse, +there called pheasant, or a wild-turkey, less often a deer, and +more often hares; which last multiply along the narrow intervales in +extraordinary numbers. We have seen three sledge-loads of hares--say +two thousand in all--on the street of a winter's day. + +This sappy and sapid contribution to its comfort and luxury the town +often repays with a jug of whisky as an addendum to the cash receipts; +although it must not be inferred from this that the hillmen are noted +for a weakness in that direction. Generally, they are as sober as they +are hard-working, independent and honest. The few who do take kindly +to strong waters are so hardened by a life of toil and exposure +that the enemy is a lifetime in bringing them down.. One little old +hook-nosed fellow was an every-day feature of the road for fifteen or +twenty years. In that entire period he was rarely, if once, seen to go +out sober. He drove but two horses, which were apparently coeval with +himself. Long practice had taught them perfectly how to accommodate +themselves to their master's failing. The saddle-horse adapted his +movements with vigilant dexterity to the rolling and pitching aloft. +On more than one occasion the woodman was found lying in the road by +the side or under the feet of his faithful and motionless team. Poor +old Jack! thou hast "gone under," deeper than that, at last, leaving +behind thee the savor of an honest name, slightly modified by that of +corn whisky. + +The Hayfield Inn, a little hostelrie on the Northern "pike," is the +scene of many a turkey-shoot. Between the hill and the road, at the +foot of a ravine that runs down at right angles, room enough has +been scooped out, partly by the rains and partly by the pick, for +the house, offices and microscopic yard decorated with hollyhocks and +larkspurs. Across the highway stands a capacious barn, with open space +for wagons, and between it and the brook beyond stretches a narrow +meadow, whence a vivid imagination has extracted the name of the +caravanserai. The open space flanking the house and road is the +rifle-course, so to speak. When occupied of a mellow October afternoon +by a party of the autochthones, in their pea-jackets of blue or +hickory homespun, it presents a gay and cheery spectacle. Festooning +fence and tree around them, the Virginia creeper, or _Ampelopsis_, +shames vermilion against the mass of pines that glooms skyward beyond. +Other tints of vegetable decay fringe the brook where it winds from +side to side of the long strip of grass, green from the autumnal rain. +Little reck the assembled marksmen of Nature's stage-decorations. One +group will be mentally weighing the turkeys, another discussing the +distance--too long or too short for the peculiar powers of this or the +other individual or his weapon. Around the rude target kneel two or +three, scoring on it each man his "centre," above or below, to the +right or left, of the true centre, to counteract the ascertained +obliquity of his eye or his gun. Here a six-foot Stoic, the Nestor +of the glen, is very formally going through the ceremony of loading. +Another is slowly, and with the precision of an astronomer, adjusting +the tin slides which protect his barrel from the glitter of the sun. +The chatter of a bevy of country maidens ripples from over the way. +The horses whinny under their square-skirted saddles, or stand "hard +by their chariots champing golden corn," like the horses of Nestor, +Agamemnon, Homer and Gladstone before Dr. Schliemann's Troy; the +yearlings in the meadow alternately gaze and graze; the guinea-fowl +now and then honors the shout over a good shot with its harsh but +well-meant rattle; the rifle speaks at measured intervals; the +prizes thin off to the remainder gobbler; and so, with the quiet +characteristic of rifle-matches, the evening draws toward the dew. The +smoke-whitened guns are carefully swabbed with tow and prepared for +their rest as tenderly as infants. Dobbin is rescued from the (fence) +stake to hie hill-ward with his master, cantering exultant or jogging +grumly according to the result of the "event;" and the metropolis of +Petticoat Gap--for such, in the vernacular and on the maps, is its +unfortunate designation--relapses into virtuous repose. + +The implement employed at these rural reunions is rarely the +breech-loader, or even the short gun. It promises to hold its ground +for years yet, gradually yielding to the little modern tool. The +essential characteristics of this we have described as they exist +and will probably remain. Variations in the rifling and--where +muzzle-loading is abandoned--in the appliances of the chamber will +continue to be made, as they have heretofore been made without number +numberless. The patterns now fashionable will give place to others, +in their turn to be dropped like a last year's coat. Remington, +Winchester and the rest will retire in favor of new contrivers, +devoted, like them, to the simple task of facilitating the flight of +the leaden arrow with its grooved feather in steel or iron. With them +will rise and fall a parallel series of names on a broader and more +sonorous field--the field of heavy artillery, the ponderous Wiard +being full brother to the liliputian Sharpe. Rifled cannon certainly +present problems far more complicated than the small-arm. They can +by no means be considered, as yet, so near perfection. It is boldly +maintained by many experts, both here and in England, that the +"smashing" power at point-blank range of such smooth-bores as the +Rodman 12-inch and 15-inch is greater than that of the rifle of +the same weight. The question is so closely involved with that of +armor-plates for ships and ports, and that with buoyancy and other +naval requirements, and economy and stability on land, that a long +period must elapse ere the reaching of fixed conclusions. Within the +present generation wooden line-of-battle ships, with sails alone, have +ruled the wave. These have given place to the steam-liners that began +and closed their brief career at Sebastopol and Bomarsund; and the +prize-belt is now borne, among the bruisers of the main, by the mob of +iron-clads, infinitely diverse of aspect and some of them shapeless, +like the geologic monsters that weltered in the primal deep. Which of +these is to triumph ultimately and devour its misshapen kindred, or +whether they are not all to go down before the torpedo, that carries +no gun and fires no shot, is a "survival-of-the-fittest" question to +be solved by Darwins yet to come. But it is tolerably safe to say that +where the best shooting is to be done it will continue to be done with +the conico-cylindrical missile, spirally revolving around the line of +flight; that is, with the arrow-rifle. + +EDWARD C. BRUCE. + + + + +TWO MIRRORS. + + My love but breathed upon the glass, + And, lo! upon the crystal sheen + A tender mist did straightway pass, + And raised its jealous veil between. + + But quick, as when Aurora's face + Is hid behind some transient shroud, + The sun strikes through with golden grace, + And she emerges from the cloud; + + So from her eyes celestial light + Shines on the mirror's cloudy plain, + And swift the envious mist takes flight, + And shows her lovely face again. + + When o'er the mirror of my heart, + Wherein her image true endures, + Some misty doubt doth sudden start, + And all the sweet reflex obscures, + + There beams such glow from her clear eyes + That swift the rising mists are laid; + And, fixed again, her image lies, + All lovelier for the passing shade. + +F.A. HILLARD. + + + + +MALCOLM. + +BY GEORGE MACDONALD, AUTHOR OF "ANNALS OF A QUIET NEIGHBORHOOD," +"ROBERT FALCONER," ETC. CHAPTER LXIV. + +THE LAIRD AND HIS MOTHER. + + +When Malcolm and Joseph set out from Duff Harbor to find the laird, +they could hardly be said to have gone in search of him: all in their +power was to seek the parts where he was occasionally seen, in the +hope of chancing upon him; and they wandered in vain about the woods +of Fife House all that week, returning disconsolate every evening to +the little inn on the banks of the Wan Water. Sunday came and +went without yielding a trace of him; and, almost in despair, they +resolved, if unsuccessful the next day, to get assistance and organize +a search for him. Monday passed like the days that had preceded it, +and they were returning dejectedly down the left bank of the Wan +Water in the gloaming, and nearing a part where it is hemmed in by +precipitous rocks and is very narrow and deep, crawling slow and black +under the lofty arch of an ancient bridge that spans it at one leap, +when suddenly they caught sight of a head peering at them over the +parapet. They dared not run for fear of terrifying him if it should be +the laird, and hurried quietly to the spot. But when they reached +the end of the bridge its round back was bare from end to end. On +the other side of the river the trees came close up, and pursuit was +hopeless in the gathering darkness. + +"Laird, laird! they've ta'en awa' Phemy, an' we dinna ken whaur to +luik for her," cried the poor father aloud. + +Almost the same instant, and as if he had issued from the ground, the +laird stood before them. The men started back with astonishment--soon +changed into pity, for there was light enough to see how miserable the +poor fellow looked. Neither exposure nor privation had thus weighed +upon him: he was simply dying of fear. Having greeted Joseph with +embarrassment, he kept glancing doubtfully at Malcolm, as if ready +to run on his least movement. In few words Joseph explained their +quest--with trembling voice and tears that would not be denied +enforcing the tale. Ere he had done the laird's jaw had fallen and +further speech was impossible to him. But by gestures sad and plain +enough he indicated that he knew nothing of her, and had supposed her +safe at home with her parents. In vain they tried to persuade him +to go back with them, promising every protection: for sole answer he +shook his head mournfully. + +There came a sudden gust of wind among the branches. Joseph, little +used to trees and their ways with the wind, turned toward the sound, +and Malcolm unconsciously followed his movement. When they turned +again the laird had vanished, and they took their way homeward in +sadness. + +What passed next with the laird can be but conjectured. It came to be +well enough known afterward where he had been hiding; and had it not +been dusk as they came down the river-bank the two men might, looking +up to the bridge from below, have had it suggested to them. For in the +half-spandrel wall between the first arch and the bank they might +have spied a small window looking down on the sullen, silent gloom, +foam-flecked with past commotion, that crept languidly away from +beneath. It belonged to a little vaulted chamber in the bridge, +devised by some vanished lord as a kind of summer-house--long +neglected, but having in it yet a mouldering table, a broken chair +or two and a rough bench. A little path led steep from the end of +the parapet down to its hidden door. It was now used only by the +game-keepers for traps and fishing-gear and odds and ends of things, +and was generally supposed to be locked up. The laird had, however, +found it open, and his refuge in it had been connived at by one of the +men, who, as they heard afterward, had given him the key and assisted +him in carrying out a plan he had devised for barricading the door. +It was from this place he had so suddenly risen at the call of Blue +Peter, and to it he had as suddenly withdrawn again--to pass in +silence and loneliness through his last purgatorial pain.[1] + +[Footnote 1: + Com' io fui dentro, in un bogliente vetro + Gittato mi sarei per rinfrescarmi, + Tant' era ivi lo'ncendio senza metro. + +_Del Purgatorio_, xxvii. 49.] + +Mrs. Stewart was sitting in her drawing-room alone: she seldom had +visitors at Kirkbyres--not that she liked being alone, or indeed being +there at all, for she would have lived on the Continent, but that her +son's trustees, partly to indulge their own aversion to her, taking +upon them a larger discretionary power than rightly belonged to them, +kept her too straitened, which no doubt in the recoil had its share +in poor Stephen's misery. It was only after scraping for a whole year +that she could escape to Paris or Homburg, where she was at home. +There her sojourn was determined by her good or ill fortune at faro. + +What she meditated over her knitting by the firelight--she had put out +her candles--it would be hard to say, perhaps unwholesome to think: +there are souls to look into which is, to our dim eyes, like gazing +down from the verge of one of the Swedenborgian pits. + +But much of the evil done by human beings is as the evil of evil +beasts: they know not what they do--an excuse which, except in regard +to the past, no man can make for himself, seeing the very making of it +must testify its falsehood. + +She looked up, gave a cry and started to her feet: Stephen stood +before her, halfway between her and the door. Revealed in a flicker +of flame from the fire, he vanished in the following shade, and for +a moment she stood in doubt of her seeing sense. But when the coal +flashed again there was her son, regarding her out of great eyes that +looked as if they had seen death. A ghastly air hung about him, as if +he had just come back from Hades, but in his silent bearing there was +a sanity, even dignity, which strangely impressed her. He came forward +a pace or two, stopped, and said, "Dinna be frichtit, mem. I'm come. +Sen' the lassie hame an' du wi' me as ye like. I canna haud aff o' me. +But I think I'm deein', an' ye needna misguide me." + +His voice, although it trembled a little, was clear and unimpeded, +and, though weak in its modulation, manly. + +Something in the woman's heart responded. Was it motherhood or the +deeper godhead? Was it pity for the dignity housed in the crumbling +clay, or repentance for the son of her womb? Or was it that sickness +gave hope, and she could afford to be kind? + +"I don't know what you mean, Stephen," she said, more gently than he +had ever heard her speak. + +Was it an agony of mind or of body, or was it but a flickering of the +shadows upon his face? A moment, and he gave a half-choked shriek and +fell on the floor. His mother turned from him with disgust and rang +the bell. "Send Tom here," she said. + +An elderly, hard-featured man came. + +"Stephen is in one of his fits," she said. + +The man looked about him: he could see no one in the room but his +mistress. + +"There he is," she continued, pointing to the floor. "Take him away. +Get him up to the loft and lay him in the hay." + +The man lifted his master like an unwieldy log and carried him, +convulsed, from the room. + +Stephen's mother sat down again by the fire and resumed her knitting. + + + + +CHAPTER LXV. + +THE LAIRD'S VISION. + + +Malcolm had just seen his master set out for his solitary ride when +one of the maids informed him that a man from Kirkbyres wanted him. +Hiding his reluctance, he went with her and found Tom, who was Mrs. +Stewart's grieve and had been about the place all his days. + +"Mr. Stephen's come hame, sir," he said, touching his bonnet, a +civility for which Malcolm was not grateful. + +"It's no possible," returned Malcolm. "I saw him last nicht." + +"He cam aboot ten o'clock, sir, an' hed a turn o' the fa'in' sickness +o' the spot. He's verra ill the noo, an' the mistress sent me ower to +speir gien ye wad obleege her by gaein' to see him." + +"Has he ta'en till's bed?" asked Malcolm. + +"We pat him infill 't, sir. He's ravin' mad, an' I'm thinkin' he's no +far frae his hin'er en'." + +"I'll gang wi' ye direckly," said Malcolm. + +In a few minutes they were riding fast along the road to Kirkbyres, +neither with much to say to the other, for Malcolm distrusted every +one about the place, and Tom was by nature taciturn. + +"What garred them sen' for me, div ye ken?" asked Malcolm at length +when they had gone about halfway. + +"He cried oot upo' ye i' the nicht," answered Tom. + +When they arrived Malcolm was shown into the drawing-room, where Mrs. +Stewart met him with red eyes. "Will you come and see my poor boy?" +she said. + +"I wull du that, mem. Is he verra ill?" + +"Very. I'm afraid he is in a bad way." + +She led him to a dark, old-fashioned chamber, rich and gloomy. There, +sunk in the down of a huge bed with carved ebony posts, lay the +laird, far too ill to be incommoded by the luxury to which he was +unaccustomed. His head kept tossing from side to side and his eyes +seemed searching in vacancy. + +"Has the doctor been to see 'im, mem?" asked Malcolm. + +"Yes, but he says he can't do anything for him." + +"Wha waits upon 'im, mem?" + +"One of the maids and myself." + +"I'll jist bide wi' 'im." + +"That will be very kind of you." + +"I s' bide wi' 'im till I see 'im oot o' this, ae w'y or ither,", +added Malcolm, and sat down by the bedside of his poor distrustful +friend. There Mrs. Stewart left him. + +The laird was wandering in the thorny thickets and slimy marshes +which, haunted by the thousand misshapen horrors of delirium, beset +the gates of life. That one so near the light and slowly drifting into +it should lie tossing in hopeless darkness! Is it that the delirium +falls, a veil of love, to hide other and more real terrors? + +His eyes would now and then meet those of Malcolm as they gazed +tenderly upon him, but the living thing that looked out of the windows +was darkened and saw him not. Occasionally a word would fall from him, +or a murmur of half-articulation float up like the sound of a river +of souls; but whether Malcolm heard, or only seemed to hear, something +like this, he could not tell, for he could not be certain that he had +not himself shaped the words by receiving the babble into the moulds +of the laird's customary thought and speech: "I dinna ken whaur I cam +frae--I kenna whaur I'm gaein' till.--Eh, gien He wad but come oot an' +shaw Himsel'!--O Lord! tak the deevil aff o' my puir back.--O Father +o' lichts! gar him tak the hump wi' him. I hae no fawvor for't, though +it's been my constant compainion this mony a lang." + +But in general he only moaned, and after the words thus heard or +fashioned by Malcolm lay silent and nearly still for an hour. + +All the waning afternoon Malcolm sat by his side, and neither mother, +maid nor doctor came near them. + +"Dark wa's an' no a breath!" he murmured or seemed to murmur again. +"Nae gerse nor flooers nor bees! I hae na room for my hump, an' I +canna lie upo' 't, for that wad kill me. Wull I _ever_ ken whaur I cam +frae? The wine's unco guid. Gie me a drap mair, gien ye please, Lady +Horn.--I thought the grave was a better place. I hae lain safter afore +I dee'd.--Phemy! Phemy! Rin, Phemy, rin! I s' bide wi' them this time. +Ye rin, Phemy!" + +As it grew dark the air turned very chill, and snow began to +fall thick and fast. Malcolm laid a few sticks on the smouldering +peat-fire, but they were damp and did not catch. All at once the laird +gave a shriek, and crying out, "Mither! mither!" fell into a fit so +violent that the heavy bed shook with his convulsions. Malcolm held +his wrists and called aloud. No one came, and, bethinking himself that +none could help, he waited in silence for what would soon follow. + +The fit passed quickly, and he lay quiet. The sticks had meantime +dried, and suddenly they caught fire and blazed up. The laird turned +his face toward the flame; a smile came over it; his eyes opened wide, +and with such an expression of seeing gazed beyond Malcolm that he +turned his in the same direction. + +"Eh, the bonny man! The bonny man!" murmured the laird. + +But Malcolm saw nothing, and turned again to the laird: his jaw had +fallen, and the light was fading out of his face like the last of a +sunset. He was dead. + +Malcolm rang the bell, told the woman who answered it what had taken +place, and hurried from the house, glad at heart that his friend was +at rest. + +He had ridden but a short distance when he was overtaken by a boy on a +fast pony, who pulled up as he neared him. + +"Whaur are ye for?" asked Malcolm. "I'm gaein' for Mistress Cat'nach," +answered the boy. + +"Gang yer w'ys than, an' dinna haud the deid waitin'," said Malcolm +with a shudder. + +The boy cast a look of dismay behind him and galloped off. + +The snow still fell and the night was dark. Malcolm spent nearly two +hours on the way, and met the boy returning, who told him that Mrs. +Catanach was not to be found. + +His road lay down the glen, past Duncan's cottage, at whose door he +dismounted, but he did not find him. Taking the bridle on his arm, he +walked by his horse the rest of the way. It was about nine o'clock, +and the night very dark. As he neared the house, he heard Duncan's +voice. "Malcolm, my son! Will it pe your ownself?" it said. + +"It wull that, daddy," answered Malcolm. + +The piper was sitting on a fallen tree, with the snow settling softly +upon him. + +"But it's ower cauld for ye to be sittin' there i' the snaw, an' the +mirk tu," added Malcolm. + +"Ta tarkness will not be ketting to ta inside of her," returned the +seer. "Ah, my poy! where ta light kets in, ta tarkness will pe ketting +in too. This now, your whole pody will pe full of tarkness, as ta +Piple will say, and Tuncan's pody tat will pe full of ta light." Then +with suddenly changed tone he said, "Listen, Malcolm, my son! Shell pe +ferry uneasy till you'll wass pe come home." + +"What's the maitter noo, daddy?" returned Malcolm. "Onything wrang +aboot the hoose?" + +"Something will pe wrong, yes, put she'll not can tell where. No, her +pody will not pe full of light! For town here, in ta curset Lowlands, +ta sight has peen almost cone from her, my son. It will now pe no more +as a co creeping troo' her, and shell nefer see plain no more till +she'll pe come pack to her own mountains." + +"The puir laird's gane back to his," said Malcolm. "I won'er gien he +kens yet, or gien he gangs speirin' at ilk ane he meets gien he can +tell him whaur he cam frae. He's mad nae mair, ony gait." + +"How? Will he pe not tead? Ta poor lairt! Ta poor maad lairt!" + +"Ay, he's deid: maybe that's what'll be troublin' yer sicht, daddy." + +"No, my son. Ta maad lairt was not ferry maad, and if he was maad +he was not paad, and it was not ta plame of him: he was coot always, +howefer." + +"He wass that, daddy." + +"But it will pe something ferry paad, and it will pe efer troubling +her speerit. When she'll pe take ta pipes to pe amusing herself, and +will plow 'Till an crodh a' Dhonnaehaidh' ('Turn the Cows, Duncan'), +out will pe come' Cumhadh an fhir mhoir' ('The Lament of the Big +Man'). Aal is not well, my son." + +"Weel, dinna distress yersel', daddy. Lat come what wull come. +Foreseein' 's no forefen'in'. Ye ken yersel' at mony 's the time the +seer has broucht the thing on by tryin' to haud it aff." + +"It will be true, my son. Put it would aalways haf come." + +"Nae doubt. Sae ye jist come in wi' me, daddy, an' sit doon by the ha' +fire, an' I'll come to ye as sune's I've been to see 'at the maister +disna want me. But ye'll better come up wi' me to my room first," he +went on, "for the maister disna like to see me in onything but the +kilt." + +"And why will he not pe in ta kilts aal as now?" + +"I hae been ridin', ye ken, daddy, an' the trews fits the saiddle +better nor the kilts." + +"She'll not pe knowing tat. Old Allister, your creat--her own +crandfather, was ta pest horseman ta worlt efer saw, and he'll nefer +pe hafing ta trews to his own lecks nor ta saddle to his horse's pack. +He'll chust make his men pe strap on an old plaid, and he'll be kive +a chump, and away they wass, horse and man, one peast, aal two of tem +poth together." + +Thus chatting, they went to the stable, and from the stable to the +house, where they met no one, and went straight up to Malcolm's room, +the old man making as little of the long ascent as Malcolm himself. + + + + +CHAPTER LXVI. + +THE CRY FROM THE CHAMBER. + + +Brooding--if a man of his temperament may ever be said to brood--over +the sad history of his young wife and the prospects of his daughter, +the marquis rode over fields and through gates--he never had been one +to jump a fence in cold blood--till the darkness began to fall; and +the bearings of his perplexed position came plainly before him. + +First of all, Malcolm acknowledged and the date of his mother's death +known, what would Florimel be in the eyes of the world? Supposing the +world deceived by the statement that his mother died when he was born, +where yet was the future he had marked out for her? He had no money to +leave her, and she must be helplessly dependent on her brother. + +Malcolm, on the other hand, might make a good match, or, with the +advantages he could secure him in the army, still better in the navy, +well enough push his way in the world. + +Miss Horn could produce no testimony, and Mrs. Catanach had asserted +him to be the son of Mrs. Stewart. He had seen enough, however, to +make him dread certain possible results if Malcolm were acknowledged +as the laird of Kirkbyres. No: there was but one hopeful measure, one +which he had even already approached in a tentative way--an appeal, +namely, to Malcolm himself, in which, while acknowledging his probable +rights, but representing in the strongest manner the difficulty of +proving them, he would set forth in their full dismay the consequences +to Florimel of their public recognition, and offer, upon the pledge +of his word to a certain line of conduct, to start him in any path he +chose to follow. + +Having thought the thing out pretty thoroughly, as he fancied, and +resolved at the same time to feel his way toward negotiations with +Mistress Catanach, he turned and rode home. + +After a tolerable dinner he was sitting over a bottle of the port +which he prized beyond anything else his succession had brought +him, when the door of the dining-room opened suddenly and the butler +appeared, pale with terror. "My lord! my lord!" he stammered as he +closed the door behind him. + +"Well? What the devil's the matter now? Whose cow's dead?" + +"Your lordship didn't hear it, then?" faltered the butler. + +"You've been drinking, Bings," said the marquis, lifting his seventh +glass of port. + +"_I_ didn't say I heard it, my lord." + +"Heard what, in the name of Beelzebub?" + +"The ghost, my lord." + +"The what?" shouted the marquis. + +"That's what they call it, my lord. It's all along of having that +wizard's chamber in the house, my lord." + +"You're a set of fools," said the marquis--"the whole kit of you!" + +"That's what I say, my lord. I don't know what to do with them, +stericking and screaming. Mrs. Courthope is trying her best with them, +but it's my belief she's about as bad herself." + +The marquis finished his glass of wine, poured out and drank another, +then walked to the door. When the butler opened it a strange sight +met his eyes. All the servants in the house, men and women, Duncan and +Malcolm alone excepted, had crowded after the butler, every one afraid +of being left behind; and there gleamed the crowd of ghastly faces +in the light of the great hall-fire. Demon stood in front, his mane +bristling and his eyes flaming. Such was the silence that the marquis +heard the low howl of the waking wind, and the snow like the patting +of soft hands against the windows. He stood for a moment, more than +half enjoying their terror, when from somewhere in the building a +far-off shriek, shrill and piercing, rang in every ear. Some of the +men drew in their breath with a gasping sob, but most of the women +screamed outright; and that set the marquis cursing. + +Duncan and Malcolm had but just entered the bed-room of the latter +when the shriek rent the air close beside, and for a moment deafened +them. So agonized, so shrill, so full of dismal terror was it, that +Malcolm stood aghast, and Duncan started to his feet with responsive +outcry. But Malcolm at once recovered himself. "Bide here till I come +back," he whispered, and hurried noiselessly out. + +In a few minutes he returned, during which all had been still. "Noo, +daddy," he said, "I'm gaein' to drive in the door o' the neist room. +There's some deevilry at wark there. Stan' ye i' the door, an' ghaist +or deevil 'at wad win by ye, grip it, an' haud on like Demon the dog." + +"She will so, she will so," muttered Duncan in a strange tone. +"Ochone! that she'll not pe hafing her turk with her! Ochone! ochone!" + +Malcolm took the key of the wizard's chamber from his chest and his +candle from the table, which he set down in the passage. In a moment +he had unlocked the door, put his shoulder to it and burst it open. +A light was extinguished, and a shapeless figure went gliding away +through the gloom. It was no shadow, however, for, dashing itself +against a door at the other side of the chamber, it staggered back +with an imprecation of fury and fear, pressed two hands to its head, +and, turning at bay, revealed the face of Mrs. Catanach. + +In the door stood the blind piper with outstretched arms and hands +ready to clutch, the fingers curved like claws, his knees and haunches +bent, leaning forward like a rampant beast prepared to spring. In his +face was wrath, hatred, vengeance, disgust--an enmity of all mingled +kinds. + +Malcolm was busied with something in the bed, and when she turned Mrs, +Catanach saw only Duncan's white face of hatred gleaming through the +darkness. "Ye auld donnert deevil!" she cried, with an addition too +coarse to be set down, and threw herself upon him. + +The old man said never a word, but with indrawn breath hissing through +his clenched teeth clutched her, and down they went together in the +passage, the piper undermost. He had her by the throat, it is true, +but she had her fingers in his eyes, and, kneeling on his chest, kept +him down with a vigor of hostile effort that drew the very picture of +murder. It lasted but a moment, however, for the old man, spurred +by torture as well as hate, gathered what survived of a most sinewy +strength into one huge heave, threw her back into the room, and rose +with the blood streaming from his eyes, just as the marquis came round +the near end of the passage, followed by Mrs. Courthope, the butler, +Stoat and two of the footmen. Heartily enjoying a row, he stopped +instantly, and, signing a halt to his followers, stood listening to +the mud-geyser that now burst from Mrs. Catanach's throat. + +"Ye blin' abortion o' Sawtan's soo!" she cried, "didna I tak ye to +du wi' ye as I likit? An' that deil's tripe ye ca' yer oye +(_grandson_)--He! he! _him_ yer gran'son! He's naething but ane o' yer +hatit Cawm'ells!" + +"A teanga a' diabhuil mhoir, tha thu ag dènamh breug (O tongue of the +great devil! thou art making a lie)," screamed Duncan, speaking for +the first time. + +"God lay me deid i' my sins gien he be onything but a bastard +Cawm'ell!" she asseverated with a laugh of demoniacal scorn. "Yer +dautit (_petted_) Ma'colm's naething but the dyke-side brat o' the +late Grizel Cawm'ell, 'at the fowk tuik for a sant 'cause she grat +an' said naething. I laid the Cawm'ell pup i' yer boody (_scarecrow_) +airms wi' my ain han's, upo' the tap o' yer curst scraighin' bagpipes +'at sae aften drave the sleep frae my een. Na, ye wad nane o' me! But +I ga'e ye a Cawm'ell bairn to yer hert for a' that, ye auld, hungert, +weyver (_spider_)-leggit, worm-aten idiot!" + +A torrent of Gaelic broke from Duncan, into the midst of which rushed +another from Mrs. Catanach, similar, but coarse in vowel and harsh +in consonant sounds. The marquis stepped into the room. "What is the +meaning of all this?" he said with dignity. + +The tumult of Celtic altercation ceased. The old piper drew himself up +to his full height and stood silent. Mrs. Catanach, red as fire +with exertion and wrath, turned ashy pale. The marquis cast on her a +searching and significant look. + +"See here, my lord," said Malcolm. + +Candle in hand, his lordship approached the bed. At the same moment +Mrs. Catanach glided out with her usual downy step, gave a wink as of +mutual intelligence to the group at the door, and vanished. + +On Malcolm's arm lay the head of a young girl. Her thin, worn +countenance was stained with tears and livid with suffocation. She was +recovering, but her eyes rolled stupid and visionless. + +"It's Phemy, my lord--Blue Peter's lassie, 'at was tint," said +Malcolm. + +"It begins to look serious," said the marquis.--"Mrs. Catanach! Mrs. +Courthope!" + +He turned toward the door. Mrs. Courthope entered, and a head or two +peeped in after her. Duncan stood as before, drawn up and stately, his +visage working, but his body motionless as the statue of a sentinel. + +"Where is the Catanach woman gone?" cried the marquis. + +"Cone!" shouted the piper. "Cone! and her huspant will be waiting to +pe killing her! Och nan ochan!" + +"Her husband!" echoed the marquis. + +"Ach! she'll not can pe helping it, my lort--no more till one will +pe tead; and tat should pe ta woman, for she'll pe a paad woman--ta +worstest woman efer was married, my lort." + +"That's saying a good deal," returned the marquis. + +"Not one wort more as enough, my lort," said Duncan. "She was only pe +her next wife, put, ochone! ochone! why did she'll pe marry her? You +would haf stapt her long aco, my lort, if she'll was your wife and +you was knowing ta tamned fox and padger she was pe. Ochone! and she +tidn't pe have her turk at her hench nor her sgian in her hose." + +He shook his hands like a despairing child, then stamped and wept in +the agony of frustrated rage. + +Mrs. Courthope took Phemy in her arms and carried her to her own room, +where she opened the window and let the snowy wind blow full upon her. +As soon as she came quite to herself, Malcolm set out to bear the good +tidings to her father and mother. + +Only a few nights before had Phemy been taken to the room where they +found her. She had been carried from place to place, and had been some +time, she believed, in Mrs. Catanach's own house. They had always kept +her in the dark, and removed her at night blindfolded. When asked if +she had never cried out before, she said she had been too frightened; +and when questioned as to what had made her do so then, she knew +nothing of it: she remembered only that a horrible creature appeared +by the bedside, after which all was blank. On the floor they found +a hideous death-mask, doubtless the cause of the screams which Mrs. +Catanach had sought to stifle with the pillows and bed-clothes. + +When Malcolm returned he went at once to the piper's cottage, where +he found him in bed, utterly exhausted and as utterly restless. "Weel, +daddy," he said, "I doobt I daurna come near ye noo." + +"Come to her arms, my poor poy," faltered Duncan. "She'll pe sorry in +her sore heart for her poy. Nefer you pe minding, my son: you couldn't +help ta Cam'ell mother, and you'll pe her own poy however. Ochone! it +will pe a plot upon you aal your tays, my son, and she'll not can help +you, and it'll pe preaking her old heart." + +"Gien God thoucht the Cam'ells worth makin', daddy, I dinna see 'at I +hae ony richt to compleen 'at I cam' o' them." + +"She hopes you'll pe forgifing ta plind old man, however. She couldn't +see, or she would haf known at once petter." + +"I dinna ken what ye're efter noo, daddy," said Malcolm. + +"That she'll do you a creat wrong, and she'll be ferry sorry for it, +my son." + +"What wrang did ye ever du me, daddy?" + +"That she was let you crow up a Cam'ell, my poy. If she tid put know +ta paad blood was pe in you, she wouldn't pe tone you ta wrong as +pring you up." + +"That's a wrang no ill to forgi'e, daddy. But it's a pity ye didna +lat me lie, for maybe syne Mistress Catanach wad hae broucht me up +hersel', an' I micht hae come to something." + +"Ta duvil mhor (_great_) would pe in your heart and prain and poosom, +my son." + +"Weel, ye see what ye hae saved me frae." + +"Yes; put ta duvil will be to pay, for she couldn't safe you from ta +Cam'ell plood, my son. Malcolm, my poy," he added after a pause, and +with the solemnity of a mighty hate, "ta efil woman herself will pe a +Cam'ell--ta woman Catanach will pe a Cam'ell, and her nainsel' she'll +not know it pefore she'll be in ta ped with ta worstest Cam'ell tat +ever God made; and she pecks his pardon, for she'll not pelieve He +wass making ta Cam'ells." + +"Divna ye think God made me, daddy?" asked Malcolm. + +The old man thought for a little. "Tat will tepend on who was pe your +father, my son," he replied. "If he too will be a Cam'ell--ochone! +ochone! Put tere may pe some coot plood co into you--more as enough to +say God will pe make you, my son. Put don't pe asking, Malcolm--ton't +you'll pe asking." + +"What am I no to ask, daddy?" + +"Ton't pe asking who made you, who was ta father to you, my poy. She +would rather not pe knowing, for ta man might pe a Cam'ell poth. And +if she couldn't pe lofing you no more, my son, she would pe tie before +her time, and her tays would pe long in ta land under ta crass, my +son." + +But the remembrance of the sweet face whose cold loveliness he had +once kissed was enough to outweigh with Malcolm all the prejudices of +Duncan's instillation, and he was proud to take up even her shame. +To pass from Mrs. Stewart to her was to escape from the clutches of a +vampire demon to the arms of a sweet mother-angel. + +Deeply concerned for the newly-discovered misfortunes of the old man +to whom he was indebted for this world's life at least, he anxiously +sought to soothe him; but he had far more and far worse to torment him +than Malcolm even yet knew, and with burning cheeks and bloodshot +eyes he lay tossing from side to side, now uttering terrible curses +in Gaelic and now weeping bitterly. Malcolm took his loved pipes, and +with the gentlest notes he could draw from them tried to charm to rest +the ruffled waters of his spirit; but his efforts were all in vain, +and believing at length that he would be quieter without him, he went +to the House and to his own room. + +The door of the adjoining chamber stood open, and the long-forbidden +room lay exposed to any eye. Little did Malcolm think as he gazed +around it that it was the room in which he had first breathed the air +of the world; in which his mother had wept over her own false position +and his reported death; and from which he had been carried, by +Duncan's wicked wife, down the ruinous stair and away to the lip of +the sea, to find a home in the arms of the man whom he had just +left on his lonely couch torn between the conflicting emotions of a +gracious love for him and the frightful hate of her. + + + + +CHAPTER LXVII. + +FEET OF WOOL. + + +The next day, Miss Horn, punctual as Fate, presented herself at Lossie +House, and was shown at once into the marquis's study, as it was +called. When his lordship entered she took the lead the moment the +door was shut. "By this time, my lord, ye'll doobtless hae made up yer +min' to du what's richt?" she said. + +"That's what I have always wanted to do," returned the marquis. + +"Hm!" remarked Miss Horn as plainly as inarticulately. + +"In this affair," he supplemented; adding, "It's not always so easy to +tell what _is_ right." + +"It's no aye easy to luik for 't wi' baith yer een," said Miss Horn. + +"This woman Catanach--we must get her to give credible testimony. +Whatever the fact may be, we must have strong evidence. And there +comes the difficulty, that she has already made an altogether +different statement." + +"It gangs for naething, my lord. It was never made afore a justice o' +the peace." + +"I wish you would go to her and see how she is inclined." + +"Me gang to Bawbie Catanach!" exclaimed Miss Horn. "I wad as sune gang +an' kittle Sawtan's nose wi' the p'int o' 's tail. Na, na, my lord. +Gien onybody gang till her wi' my wull, it s' be a limb o' the law. I +s' hae nae cognostin' wi' her." + +"You would have no objection, however; to my seeing her, I +presume--just to let her know that we have an inkling of the truth?" +said the marquis. + +Now, all this was the merest talk, for of course Miss Horn could not +long remain in ignorance of the declaration her fury had, the night +previous, forced from Mrs. Catanach; but he must, he thought, put +her off and keep her quiet, if possible, until he had come to an +understanding with Malcolm, after which he would no doubt have his +trouble with her. + +"Ye can du as yer lordship likes," answered Miss Horn, "but I wadna +hae 't said o' me 'at I had ony dealin's wi' her. Wha kens but she +micht say ye tried to bribe her? There's naething she wad bogle at +gien she thoucht it worth her while. No 'at I 'm feart at her. Lat her +lee! I'm no sae blate but--Only dinna lippen till a word she says, my +lord." + +The marquis hesitated. "I wonder whether the real source of my +perplexity occurs to you, Miss Horn," he said at length. "You know I +have a daughter?" + +"Weel eneuch that, my lord." + +"By my second marriage." + +"Nae merridge ava', my lord." + +"True, if I confess to the first." + +"A' the same whether or no, my lord." + +"Then you see," the marquis went on, refusing offence, "what the +admission of your story would make of my daughter?" + +"That's plain eneuch, my lord." + +"Now, if I have read Malcolm right he has too much regard for +his--mistress--to put her in such a false position." + +"That is, my lord, ye wad hae yer lawfu' son beir the lawless name." + +"No, no: it need never come out what he is. I will provide for him--as +a gentleman, of course." + +"It canna be, my lord. Ye can du naething for him, wi' that face o' +his, but oot comes the trouth as to the father o' 'im; an' it wadna be +lang afore the tale was ekit oot wi' the name o' his mither--Mistress +Catanach wad see to that, gien 'twas only to spite me--an' I wunna hae +my Grizel ca'd what she is not for ony lord's dauchter i' the three +kynriks." + +"What _does_ it matter, now she's dead and gone?" said the marquis, +false to the dead in his love for the living. + +"Deid an' gane, my lord? What ca' ye deid an' gane? Maybe the great +anes o' the yerth get sic a forlethie (_surfeit_) o' grand'ur 'at +they're for nae mair, an' wad perish like the brute beast. For +onything I ken, they may hae their wuss, but for mysel', I wad warstle +to haud my sowl waukin' (_awake_) i' the verra article o' deith, for +the bare chance o' seein' my bonny Grizel again. It's a mercy I hae +nae feelin's," she added, arresting her handkerchief on its way to her +eyes, and refusing to acknowledge the single tear that ran down her +cheek. + +Plainly she was not like any of the women whose characters the marquis +had accepted as typical of womankind. + +"Then you won't leave the matter to her husband and son?" he said +reproachfully. + +"I tellt ye, my lord, I wad du naething but what I saw to be richt. +Lat this affair oot o' my han's I daurna. That laad ye micht work +to onything 'at made agane himsel'. He's jist like his puir mither +there." + +"If Miss Campbell _was_ his mother," said the marquis. + +"Miss Cam'ell!" cried Miss Horn. "I'll thank yer lordship to ca' her +by her ain, an' that's Lady Lossie." + +What of the something ruinous heart of the marquis was habitable was +occupied by his daughter, and had no accommodation at present either +for his dead wife or his living son. Once more he sat thinking in +silence for a while. "I'll make Malcolm a post-captain in the navy and +give you a thousand pounds," he said at length, hardly knowing that he +spoke. + +Miss Horn rose to her full height and stood like an angel of rebuke +before him. Not a word did she speak, only looked at him for a moment +and turned to leave the room. The marquis saw his danger, and striding +to the door stood with his back against it. + +"Think ye to scare _me_, my lord?" she asked with a scornful laugh. +"Gang an' scare the stane lion-beast at yer ha'-door. Haud oot o' the +gait an' lat me gang." + +"Not until I know what you are going to do," said the marquis very +seriously. + +"I hae naething mair to transac' wi' yer lordship. You an' me 's +strangers, my lord." + +"Tut! tut! I was but trying you." + +"An' gien I had ta'en the disgrace ye offert me, ye wad hae drawn +back?" + +"No, certainly." + +"Ye wasna tryin' me, then: ye was duin' yer best to corrup' me." + +"I'm no splitter of hairs." + +"My lord, it's nane but the corrup'ible wad seek to corrup'." + +The marquis gnawed a nail or two in silence. Miss Horn dragged an +easy-chair within a couple of yards of him. + +"We'll see wha tires o' this ghem first, my lord," she said as she +sank into its hospitable embrace. + +The marquis turned to lock the door, but there was no key in it. +Neither was there any chair within reach, and he was not fond of +standing. Clearly, his enemy had the advantage. + +"Hae ye h'ard o' puir Sandy Graham--hoo they're misguidin' him, my +lord?" she asked with composure. + +The marquis was first astounded, and then tickled by her assurance. +"No," he answered. + +"They hae turnt him oot o' hoose an' ha'--schuil, at least, an' hame," +she rejoined. "I may say they hae turnt him oot o' Scotlan', for what +presbytery wad hae him efter he had been fun' guilty o' no thinkin' +like ither fowk? Ye maun stan' his guid freen', my lord." + +"He shall be Malcolm's tutor," answered the marquis, not to be outdone +in coolness, "and go with him to Edinburgh--or Oxford, if he prefers +it." + +"Never yerl o' Colonsay had a better," said Miss Horn. + +"Softly, softly, ma'am," returned the marquis. "I did not say he +should go in that style." + +"He s' gang as my lord o' Colonsay or he s' no gang at _your_ expense, +my lord," said his antagonist. + +"Really, ma'am, one would think you were my grandmother, to hear you +order my affairs for me." + +"I wuss I war, my lord: I sud gar ye hear risson upo' baith sides o' +yer heid, I s' warran'." + +The marquis laughed. "Well, I can't stand here all day," he said, +impatiently swinging one leg. + +"I'm weel awaur o' that, my lord," answered Miss Horn, rearranging her +scanty skirt. + +"How long are you going to keep me, then?" + +"I wadna hae ye bide a meenute langer nor's agreeable to yersel'. But +_I_'m in nae hurry sae lang's ye're afore me. Ye're nae ill to luik +at, though ye maun hae been bonnier the day ye wan the hert o' my +Grizel." + +The marquis uttered an oath and left the door. Miss Horn sprang to it, +but there was the marquis again. "Miss Horn," he said, "I beg you will +give me another day to think of this." + +"Whaur's the use? A' the thinkin' i' the warl' canna alter a single +fac'. Ye maun do richt by my laddie o' yer ainsel', or I maun gar ye." + +"You would find a lawsuit heavy, Miss Horn." + +"An' ye wad fin' the scandal o' 't ill to bide, my lord. It wad come +sair upo' Miss--I kenna what name she has a richt till, my lord." + +The marquis uttered a frightful imprecation, left the door, and, +sitting down, hid his face in his hands. + +Miss Horn rose, but instead of securing her retreat, approached him +gently and stood by his side. "My lord," she said, "I canna thole to +see a man in tribble. Women's born till 't, an' they tak it an' are +thankfu'; but a man never gies in till 't, an' sae it comes harder +upo' him nor upo' them. Hear me, my lord: gien there be a man upo' +this earth wha wad shield a woman, that man's Ma'colm Colonsay." + +"If only she weren't his sister!" murmured the marquis. + +"An' jist bethink ye, my lord: wad it be onything less nor an +imposition to lat a man merry her ohn tellt him what she was?" + +"You insolent old woman!" cried the marquis, losing his temper, +discretion and manners all together. "Go and do your worst, and be +damned to you!" + +So saying, he left the room, and Miss Horn found her way out of the +house in a temper quite as fierce as his--in character, however, +entirely different, inasmuch as it was righteous. + +At that very moment Malcolm was in search of his master, and seeing +the back of him disappear in the library, to which he had gone in a +half-blind rage, he followed him. "My lord!" he said. + +"What do you want?" returned his master in a rage. For some time he +had been hauling on the curb-rein, which had fretted his temper the +more, and when he let go the devil ran away with him. + +"I thoucht yer lordship wad like to see an auld stair I cam upo' the +ither day, 'at gangs frae the wizard's chaumer--" + +"Go to hell with your damned tomfoolery!" said the marquis. "If ever +you mention that cursed hole again I'll kick you out of the house." + +Malcolm's eyes flashed and a fierce answer rose to his lips, but he +had seen that his master was in trouble, and sympathy supplanted rage. +He turned and left the room in silence. + +Lord Lossie paced up and down the library for a whole hour--a +long time for him to be in one mood. The mood changed color pretty +frequently during the hour, however, and by degrees his wrath +assuaged. But at the end of it he knew no more what he was going to do +than when he left Miss Horn in the study. Then came the gnawing of his +usual ennui and restlessness: he must find something to do. + +The thing he always thought of first was a ride, but the only animal +of horse-kind about the place which he liked was the bay mare, and her +he had lamed. He would go and see what the rascal had come bothering +about--alone, though, for he could not endure the sight of the +fisher-fellow, damn him! + +In a few minutes he stood in the wizard's chamber, and glanced around +it with a feeling of discomfort rather than sorrow--of annoyance at +the trouble of which it had been for him both fountain and storehouse, +rather than regret for the agony and contempt which his selfishness +had brought upon the woman he loved: then spying the door in the +farthest corner, he made for it, and in a moment more, his curiosity +now thoroughly roused, was slowly gyrating down the steps of the old +screw-stair. + +But Malcolm had gone to his own room, and, hearing some one in the +next, half suspected who it was, and went in. Seeing the closet-door +open, he hurried to the stair, and shouted, "My lord! my lord! or +whaever ye are! tak care hoo ye gang or ye'll get a terrible fa'." + +Down a single yard the stair was quite dark, and he dared not follow +fast for fear of himself falling and occasioning the accident he +feared. As he descended he kept repeating his warnings, but either his +master did not hear or heeded too little, for presently Malcolm heard +a rush, a dull fall and a groan. Hurrying as fast as he dared with +the risk of falling upon him, he found the marquis lying amongst the +stones in the ground entrance, apparently unable to move, and white +with pain. Presently, however, he got up, swore a good deal and limped +swearing into the house. + +The doctor, who was sent for instantly, pronounced the knee-cap +injured, and applied leeches. Inflammation set in, and another doctor +and surgeon were sent for from Aberdeen. They came, applied poultices, +and again leeches, and enjoined the strictest repose. The pain was +severe, but to one of the marquis's temperament the enforced quiet was +worse. + + + + +CHAPTER LXVIII. + +HANDS OF IRON. + + +The marquis was loved by his domestics, and his accident, with its +consequences, although none more serious were anticipated, cast a +gloom over Lossie House. Far apart as was his chamber from all the +centres of domestic life, the pulses of his suffering beat as it were +through the house, and the servants moved with hushed voice and gentle +footfall. + +Outside, the course of events waited upon his recovery, for Miss Horn, +was too generous not to delay proceedings while her adversary was +ill. Besides, what she most of all desired was the marquis's free +acknowledgment of his son; and after such a time of suffering and +constrained reflection as he was now passing through he could hardly +fail, she thought, to be more inclined to what was just and fair. + +Malcolm had of course hastened to the schoolmaster with the joy of his +deliverance from Mrs. Stewart, but Mr. Graham had not acquainted him +with the discovery Miss Horn had made, or her belief concerning his +large interest therein, to which Malcolm's report of the wrath-born +declaration of Mrs. Catanach had now supplied the only testimony +wanting, for the right of disclosure was Miss Horn's. To her he had +carried Malcolm's narrative of late events, tenfold strengthening +her position; but she was anxious in her turn that the revelation +concerning his birth should come to him from his father. Hence, +Malcolm continued in ignorance of the strange dawn that had begun to +break on the darkness of his origin. + +Miss Horn had told Mr. Graham what the marquis had said about the +tutorship, but the schoolmaster only shook his head with a smile, and +went on with his preparations for departure. + +The hours went by, the days lengthened into weeks, and the marquis's +condition did not improve. He had never known sickness and pain +before, and like most of the children of this world counted them the +greatest of evils; nor was there any sign of their having as yet begun +to open his eyes to what those who have seen them call truths--those +who have never even boded their presence count absurdities. + +More and more, however, he desired the attendance of Malcolm, who was +consequently a great deal about him, serving with a love to account +for which those who knew his nature would not have found it necessary +to fall back on the instinct of the relation between them. The marquis +had soon satisfied himself that that relation was as yet unknown to +him, and was all the better pleased with his devotion and tenderness. + +The inflammation continued, increased, spread, and at length the +doctors determined to amputate. But the marquis was absolutely +horrified at the idea--shrank from it with invincible repugnance. +The moment the first dawn of comprehension vaguely illuminated +their periphrastic approaches he blazed out in a fury, cursed them +frightfully, called them all the contemptuous names in his rather +limited vocabulary, and swore he would see them--uncomfortable first. + +"We fear mortification, my lord," said the physician calmly. + +"So do I. Keep it off," returned the marquis. + +"We fear we cannot, my lord." It had, in fact, already commenced. + +"Let it mortify, then, and be damned," said his lordship. + +"I trust, my lord, you will reconsider it," said the surgeon. "We +should not have dreamed of suggesting a measure of such severity had +we not had reason to dread that the further prosecution of gentler +means would but lessen your lordship's chance of recovery." + +"You mean, then, that my life is in danger?" + +"We fear," said the physician, "that the amputation proposed is the +only thing that can save it." + +"What a brace of blasted bunglers you are!" cried the marquis, and, +turning away his face, lay silent. + +The two men looked at each other and said nothing. + +Malcolm was by, and a pang shot to his heart at the verdict. The men +retired to consult. Malcolm approached the bed. "My lord!" he said +gently. + +No reply came. + +"Dinna lea 's oor lanes, my lord--no yet," Malcolm persisted. "What's +to come o' my leddy?" + +The marquis gave a gasp. Still he made no reply. + +"She has naebody, ye ken, my lord, 'at ye wad like to lippen her wi'." + +"You must take care of her when I am gone, Malcolm," murmured the +marquis; and his voice was now gentle with sadness and broken with +misery. + +"Me, my lord!" returned Malcolm. "Wha wad min' me? An' what cud I du +wi' her? I cudna even hand her ohn wat her feet. Her leddy's maid cud +du mair wi' her, though I wad lay doon my life for her, as I tauld ye, +my lord; an' she kens 't weel eneuch." + +Silence followed. Both men were thinking. + +"Gie me a richt, my lord, an' I'll du my best," said Malcolm, at +length breaking the silence. + +"What do you mean?" growled the marquis, whose mood had altered. + +"Gie me a legal richt, my lord, an' see gien I dinna." + +"See what?" + +"See gien I dinna luik weel efter my leddy." + +"How am I to see? I shall be dead and damned." + +"Please God, my lord, ye'll be alive an' weel--in a better place, if +no here to luik efter my leddy yersel'." + +"Oh, I dare say," muttered the marquis. + +"But ye'll hearken to the doctors, my lord," Malcolm went on, "an' no +dee wantin' time to consider o' 't." + +"Yes, yes: to-morrow I'll have another talk with them. We'll see about +it. There's time enough yet. They're all coxcombs, every one of them. +They never give a patient the least credit for common sense." + +"I dinna ken, my lord," said Malcolm doubtfully. + +After a few minutes' silence, during which Malcolm thought he had +fallen asleep, the marquis resumed abruptly. "What do you mean by +giving you a legal right?" he said. + +"There's some w'y o' makin' ae body guairdian till anither, sae 'at +the law 'll uphaud him--isna there, my lord?" + +"Yes, surely. Well! Rather odd--wouldn't it be?--a young fisher-lad +guardian to a marchioness! Eh? They say there's nothing new under the +sun, but that sounds rather like it, I think." + +Malcolm was overjoyed to hear him speak with something like his old +manner. He felt he could stand any amount of chaff from him now, and +so the proposition he had made in seriousness he went on to defend in +the hope of giving amusement, yet with a secret wild delight in the +dream of such full devotion to the service of Lady Florimel. + +"It wad soon' queer eneuch, my lord, nae doobt, but fowk maunna min' +the soon' o' a thing gien 't be a' straucht an' fair, an' strong +eneuch to stan'. They cudna lauch me oot o' my richts, be they 'at +they likit--Lady Bellair or ony o' them--na, nor jaw me oot o' them +aither." + +"They might do a good deal to render those rights of little use," said +the marquis. + +"That wad come till a trial o' brains, my lord," returned Malcolm: +"an' ye dinna think I wadna hae the wit to speir advice; an', what's +mair, to ken whan it was guid, an' tak it. There's lawyers, my lord." + +"And their expenses?" + +"Ye cud lea' sae muckle to be waured (_spent_) upo' the cairryin' oot +o' yer lordship's wull." + +"Who would see that you applied it properly?" + +"My ain conscience, my lord, or Mr. Graham gien ye likit." + +"And how would you live yourself?" + +"Ow! lea' ye that to me, my lord. Only dinna imagine I wad be behauden +to yer lordship. I houp I hae mair pride nor that. Ilka poun'-not', +shillin' an' bawbee sud be laid oot for _her_, an' what was left +hainet (_saved_) for her." + +"By Jove! it's a daring proposal!" said the marquis; and, which seemed +strange to Malcolm, not a single thread of ridicule ran through the +tone in which he made the remark. + +The next day came, but brought neither strength of body nor of mind +with it. Again his professional attendants besought him, and he heard +them more quietly, but rejected their proposition as positively as +before. In a day or two he ceased to oppose it, but would not hear of +preparation. Hour glided into hour, and days had gathered to a week, +when they assailed him with a solemn and last appeal. + +"Nonsense!" answered the marquis. "My leg is getting better. I feel no +pain--in fact, nothing but a little faintness. Your damned medicines, +I haven't a doubt." + +"You are in the greatest danger, my lord. It is all but too late even +now." + +"To-morrow, then, if it must be. To-day I could not endure to have my +hair cut, positively; and as to having my leg off--pooh! the thing's +preposterous." + +He turned white and shuddered, for all the nonchalance of his speech. + +When to-morrow came there was not a surgeon in the land who would have +taken his leg off. He looked in their faces, and seemed for the first +time convinced of the necessity of the measure. + +"You may do as you please," he said: "I am ready." + +"Not to-day, my lord," replied the doctor--"your lordship is not equal +to it to-day." + +"I understand," said the marquis, and paled frightfully and turned his +head aside. + +When Mrs. Courthope suggested that Lady Florimel should be sent for, +he flew into a frightful rage, and spoke as it is to be hoped he had +never spoken to a woman before. She took it with perfect gentleness, +but could not repress a tear. The marquis saw it, and his heart was +touched. "You mustn't mind a dying man's temper," he said. + +"It's not for myself, my lord," she answered. + +"I know: you think I'm not fit to die; and, damn it! you are right. +Never one was less fit for heaven or less willing to go to hell." + +"Wouldn't you like to see a clergyman, my lord?" she suggested, +sobbing. + +He was on the point of breaking out into a still worse passion, but +controlled himself. "A clergyman!" he cried: "I would as soon see the +undertaker. What could he do but tell me I was going to be damned--a +fact I know better than he can? That is, if it's not all an invention +of the cloth, as, in my soul, I believe it is. I've said so any time +these forty years." + +"Oh, my lord! my lord! do not fling away your last hope." + +"You imagine me to have a chance, then? Good soul! you don't know any +better." + +"The Lord is merciful." + +The marquis laughed--that is, he tried, failed, and grinned. + +"Mr. Cairns is in the dining-room, my lord." + +"Bah! A low pettifogger, with the soul of a bullock. Don't let me hear +the fellow's name. I've been bad enough, God knows, but I haven't sunk +to the level of _his_ help yet. If he's God Almighty's factor, and the +saw holds, 'Like master, like man,' well, I would rather have nothing +to do with either." + +"That is, if you had the choice, my lord," said Mrs. Courthope, her +temper yielding somewhat, though in truth his speech was not half so +irreverent as it seemed to her. + +"Tell him to go to hell. No, don't: set him down to a bottle of port +and a great sponge-cake, and you needn't tell him to go to heaven, +for he'll be there already. Why, Mrs. Courthope, the fellow isn't a +gentleman. And yet all he cares for the cloth is that he thinks it +makes a gentleman of him--as if anything in heaven, earth or hell +could work that miracle!" + +In the middle of the night, as Malcolm sat by his bed, thinking +him asleep, the marquis spoke suddenly. "You must go to Aberdeen +to-morrow, Malcolm," he said. + +"Verra weel, my lord." + +"And bring Mr. Glennie, the lawyer, back with you." + +"Yes, my lord." + +"Go to bed, then." + +"I wad raither bide, my lord. I cudna sleep a wink for wantin' to be +back aside ye." + +The marquis yielded, and Malcolm sat by him all the night through. He +tossed about, would doze off and murmur strangely, then wake up and +ask for brandy and water, yet be content with the lemonade Malcolm +gave him. + +Next day he quarreled with every word that Mrs. Courthope uttered, +kept forgetting he had sent Malcolm away, and was continually wanting +him. His fits of pain were more severe, alternated with drowsiness, +which deepened at times to stupor. + +It was late before Malcolm returned. He went instantly to his bedside. + +"Is Mr. Glennie with you?" asked his master feebly. + +"Yes, my lord." + +"Tell him to come here at once." + +When Malcolm returned with the lawyer the marquis directed him to +place a table and chair by the bedside, light four candles, provide +everything necessary for writing and go to bed. + + + + +CHAPTER LXIX. + +THE MARQUIS AND THE SCHOOLMASTER. + + +Before Malcolm was awake his lordship had sent for him. When he +re-entered the sick chamber Mr. Glennie had vanished, the table had +been removed, and, instead of the radiance of the wax-lights, the cold +gleam of a vapor-dimmed sun, with its sickly blue-white reflex from +the widespread snow, filled the room. The marquis looked ghastly, but +was sipping chocolate with a spoon. + +"What w'y are ye the day, my lord?" asked Malcolm. + +"Nearly well," he answered; "but those cursed carrion-crows are set +upon killing me--damn their souls!" + +"We'll hae Leddy Florimel sweirin' awfu' gien ye gang on that gait, my +lord," said Malcolm. + +The marquis laughed feebly. + +"An' what's mair," Malcolm continued, "I doobt they're some partic'lar +aboot the turn o' their phrases up yonner, my lord." + +The marquis looked at him keenly. "You don't anticipate that +inconvenience for me?" he said. "I'm pretty sure to have my billet +where they're not so precise." + +"Dinna brak my hert, my lord," cried Malcolm, the tears rushing to his +eyes. + +"I should be sorry to hurt you, Malcalm," rejoined the marquis gently, +almost tenderly. "I won't go there if I can help it--I shouldn't like +to break any more hearts--but how the devil am I to keep out of it? +Besides, there are people up there I don't want to meet: I have no +fancy for being made ashamed of myself. The fact is, I'm not fit for +such company, and I don't believe there is any such place. But if +there be, I trust in God there isn't any other, or it will go badly +with your poor master, Malcolm. It doesn't look _like_ true--now does +it? Only such a multitude of things I thought I had done with for ever +keep coming up and grinning at me. It nearly drives me mad, Malcolm; +and I would fain die like a gentleman, with a cool bow and a sharp +face-about." + +"Wadna ye hae a word wi' somebody 'at kens, my lord?" said Malcolm, +scarcely able to reply. + +"No," answered the marquis fiercely. "That Cairns is a fool." + +"He's a' that, an' mair, my lord. I didna mean _him_." + +"They're all fools together." + +"Ow, na, my lord. There's a heap o' them no muckle better, it may be; +but there's guid men an' true amang them, or the Kirk wad hae been wi' +Sodom and Gomorrah by this time. But it's no a minister I wad hae yer +lordship confar wi'." + +"Who, then? Mrs. Courthope, eh?" + +"Ow na, my lord--no Mistress Courthoup. She's a guid body, but she +wadna believe her ain een gien onybody ca'd a minister said contrar' +to them." + +"Who the devil do you mean, then?" + +"Nae deevil, but an honest man 'at's been his warst enemy sae lang 's +I hae kent him--Maister Graham, the schuil-maister." + +"Pooh!" said the marquis with a puff. "I'm too old to go to school." + +"I dinna ken the man 'at isna a bairn till _him_, my lord." + +"In Greek and Latin?" + +"I' richteousness an' trouth, my lord--in what's been an' what is to +be." + +"What! has he the second sight, like the piper?" + +"He _has_ the second sicht, my lord, but ane 'at gangs a sicht farther +nor my auld daddy's." + +"He could tell me, then, what's going to become of me?" + +"As weel 's ony man, my lord." + +"That's not saying much, I fear." + +"Maybe mair nor ye think, my lord." + +"Well, take him my compliments and tell him I should like to see him," +said the marquis after a minute's silence. + +"He'll come direckly, my lord." + +"Of course he will," said the marquis. + +"Jist as readily, my lord, as he wad gang to ony tramp 'at sent for +'im at sic a time," returned Malcolm, who did not relish either the +remark or its tone. + +"What do you mean by that? _You_ don't think it such a serious affair, +do you?" + +"My lord, ye haena a chance." + +The marquis was dumb. He had actually begun once more to buoy himself +up with earthly hopes. + +Dreading a recall of his commission, Malcolm slipped from the room, +sent Mrs. Courthope to take his place, and sped to the schoolmaster. +The moment Mr. Graham heard the marquis's message he rose without +a word and led the way from the cottage. Hardly a sentence passed +between them as they went, for they were on a solemn errand. + +"Mr. Graham's here, my lord," said Malcolm. + +"Where? Not in the room?" returned the marquis. + +"Waitin' at the door, my lord." + +"Bah! You needn't have been so ready. Have you told the sexton to get +a new spade? But you may let him in; and leave him alone with me." + +Mr. Graham walked gently up to the bedside. + +"Sit down, sir," said the marquis courteously, pleased with the calm, +self-possessed, unobtrusive bearing of the man. "They tell me I'm +dying, Mr. Graham." + +"I'm sorry it seems to trouble you, my lord." + +"What! wouldn't it trouble you, then?" + +"I don't think so, my lord." + +"Ah! you're one of the elect, no doubt?" + +"That's a thing I never did think about, my lord." + +"What do you think about, then?" + +"About God." + +"And when you die you'll go straight to heaven, of course?" + +"I don't know, my lord. That's another thing I never trouble my head +about." + +"Ah! you're like me, then. _I_ don't care much about going to heaven. +What do you care about?" + +"The will of God. I hope your lordship will say the same." + +"No I won't: I want my own will." + +"Well, that is to be had, my lord." + +"How?" + +"By taking his for yours as the better of the two, which it must be +every way." + +"That's all moonshine." + +"It _is_ light, my lord." + +"Well, I don't mind confessing, if I am to die, I should prefer heaven +to the other place, but I trust I have no chance of either. Do you now +honestly believe there are two such places?" + +"I don't know, my lord." + +"You don't know? And you come here to comfort a dying man!" + +"Your lordship must first tell me what you mean by 'two _such_ +places.' And as to comfort, going by my notions, I cannot tell which +you would be more or less comfortable in; and that, I presume, would +be the main point with your lordship." + +"And what, pray, sir, would be the main point with you?" + +"To get nearer to God." + +"Well, I can't say _I_ want to get nearer to God. It's little he's +ever done for me." + +"It's a good deal he has tried to do for you, my lord." + +"Well, who interfered? Who stood in his way, then?" + +"Yourself, my lord." + +"I wasn't aware of it. When did he ever try to do anything for me and +I stood in his way?" + +"When he gave you one of the loveliest of women, my lord," said Mr. +Graham with solemn, faltering voice, "and you left her to die in +neglect and her child to be brought up by strangers." + +The marquis gave a cry. The unexpected answer had roused the +slowly-gnawing death and made it bite deeper. + +"What have _you_ to do," he almost screamed, "with my affairs? It was +for _me_ to introduce what I chose of them. You presume." + +"Pardon me, my lord: you led me to what I was bound to say. Shall I +leave you, my lord?" + +The marquis made no answer. "God knows I loved her," he said after a +while with a sigh. + +"You loved her, my lord?" + +"I did, by God!" + +"Love a woman like that and come to this?" + +"Come to this? We must all come to this, I fancy, sooner or later. +Come to what, in the name of Beelzebub?" + +"That, having loved a woman like her, you are content to lose her. In +the name of God, have you no desire to see her again?" + +"It would be an awkward meeting," said the marquis. + +His was an old love, alas! He had not been capable of the sort that +defies change. It had faded from him until it seemed one of the things +that are not. Although his being had once glowed in its light, he +could now speak of a meeting as awkward. + +"Because you wronged her?" suggested the schoolmaster. + +"Because they lied to me, by God!" + +"Which they dared not have done had you not lied to them first." + +"Sir!" shouted the marquis, with all the voice he had left.--"O God, +have mercy! I _cannot_ punish the scoundrel." + +"The scoundrel is the man who lies, my lord." + +"Were I anywhere else--" + +"There would be no good in telling you the truth, my lord. You showed +her to the world as a woman over whom you had prevailed, and not as +the honest wife she was. What _kind_ of a lie was that, my lord? Not a +white one, surely?" + +"You are a damned coward to speak so to a man who cannot even turn on +his side to curse you for a base hound. You would not dare it but that +you know I cannot defend myself." + +"You are right, my lord: your conduct is indefensible." + +"By Heaven! if I could but get this cursed leg under me, I would throw +you out of the window." + +"I shall go by the door, my lord. While you hold by your sins, your +sins will hold by you. If you should want me again I shall be at your +lordship's command." + +He rose and left the room, but had not reached his cottage before +Malcolm overtook him with a second message from his master. He turned +at once, saying only, "I expected it." + +"Mr. Graham," said the marquis, looking ghastly, "you must have +patience with a dying man. I was very rude to you, but I was in +horrible pain." + +"Don't mention it, my lord. It would be a poor friendship that gave +way for a rough word." + +"How can you call yourself my friend?" + +"I should be your friend, my lord, if it were only for your wife's +sake. She died loving you. I want to send you to her, my lord. You +will allow that, as a gentleman, you at least owe her an apology." + +"By Jove, you are right, sir! Then you really and positively believe +in the place they call heaven?" + +"My lord, I believe that those who open their hearts to the truth +shall see the light on their friends' faces again, and be able to set +right what was wrong between them." + +"It's a week too late to talk of setting right." + +"Go and tell her you are sorry, my lord--that will be enough for her." + +"Ah! but there's more than her concerned." + +"You are right, my lord. There is another--One who cannot be satisfied +that the fairest works of his hands, or rather the loveliest children +of his heart, should be treated as you have treated women." + +"But the Deity you talk of--" + +"I beg your pardon, my lord: I talked of no deity. I talked of a +living Love that gave us birth and calls us his children. Your deity I +know nothing of." + +"Call Him what you please: _He_ won't be put off so easily." + +"He won't be put off, one jot or one tittle. He will forgive anything, +but He will pass nothing. Will your wife forgive you?" + +"She will, when I explain." + +"Then why should you think the forgiveness of God, which created her +forgiveness, should be less?" + +Whether the marquis could grasp the reasoning may be doubtful. + +"Do you really suppose God cares whether a man comes to good or ill?" + +"If He did not, He could not be good Himself." + +"Then you don't think a good God would care to punish poor wretches +like us?" + +"Your lordship has not been in the habit of regarding himself as +a poor wretch. And, remember, you can't call a child a poor wretch +without insulting the father of it." + +"That's quite another thing." + +"But on the wrong side for your argument, seeing the relation between +God and the poorest creature is infinitely closer than that between +any father and his child." + +"Then He can't be so hard on him as the parsons say." + +"He will give him absolute justice, which is the only good thing. He +will spare nothing to bring his children back to Himself, their sole +well-being. What would you do, my lord, if you saw your son strike a +woman?" + +"Knock him down and horsewhip him." + +It was Mr. Graham who broke the silence that followed: "Are you +satisfied with yourself, my lord?" + +"No, by God!" + +"You would like to be better?" + +"I would." + +"Then you are of the same mind with God." + +"Yes, but I'm not a fool. It won't do to say I should like to be. I +must be it, and that's not so easy. It's damned hard to be good. I +would have a fight for it, but there's no time. How is a poor devil to +get out of such an infernal scrape?" + +"Keep the commandments." + +"That's it, of course; but there's no time, I tell you--no time; at +least, so those cursed doctors will keep telling me." + +"If there were but time to draw another breath, there would be time to +begin." + +"How am I to begin? Which am I to begin with?" + +"There is one commandment which includes all the rest." + +"Which is that?" + +"To believe in the Lord Jesus Christ." + +"That's cant." + +"After thirty years' trial of it, it is to me the essence of wisdom. +It has given me a peace which makes life or death all but indifferent +to me, though I would choose the latter." + +"What am I to believe about Him, then?" + +"You are to believe _in_ Him, not about Him." + +"I don't understand." + +"He is our Lord and Master, Elder Brother, King, Saviour, the divine +Man, the human God: to believe in Him is to give ourselves up to Him +in obedience--to search out his will and do it." + +"But there's no time, I tell you again," the marquis almost shrieked. + +"And I tell you there is all eternity to do it in. Take Him for your +master, and He will demand nothing of you which you are not able to +perform. This is the open door to bliss. With your last breath you can +cry to Him, and He will hear you as He heard the thief on the cross, +who cried to Him dying beside him: 'Lord, remember me when Thou comest +into Thy kingdom.'--'To-day shalt thou be with me in paradise.' It +makes my heart swell to think of it, my lord. No cross-questioning of +the poor fellow, no preaching to him. He just took him with Him where +He was going, to make a man of him." + +"Well, you know something of my history: what would you have me do +now?--at once, I mean. What would the Person you are speaking of have +me do?" + +"That is not for me to say, my lord." + +"You could give me a hint." + +"No. God is telling you Himself. For me to presume to tell you would +be to interfere with Him. What He would have a man do He lets him know +in his mind." + +"But what if I had not made up my mind before the last came?" + +"Then I fear He would say to you, 'Depart from me, thou worker of +iniquity.'" + +"That would be hard when another minute might have done it." + +"If another minute would have done it, you would have had it." + +A paroxysm of pain followed, during which Mr. Graham silently left +him. + + + + +CHAPTER LXX. + +END OR BEGINNING? + + +When the fit was over and he found Mr. Graham was gone, he asked +Malcolm, who had resumed his watch, how long it would take Lady +Florimel to come from Edinburgh. + +"Mr. Crathie left wi' fower horses frae the Lossie Airms last nicht, +my lord," said Malcolm; "but the ro'ds are ill, an' she winna be here +afore some time the morn." + +The marquis stared aghast: they had sent for her without his orders. +"What _shall_ I do?" he murmured. "If once I look in her eyes, I shall +be damned.--Malcolm!" + +"Yes, my lord." + +"Is there a lawyer in Portlossie?" + +"Yes, my lord: there's auld Maister Carmichael." + +"He won't do: he was my brother's rascal. Is there no one besides?" + +"No in Portlossie, my lord. There can be nane nearer than Duff Harbor, +I doobt." + +"Take the chariot and bring him here directly. Tell them to put four +horses to: Stokes can ride one." + +"I'll ride the ither, my lord." + +"You'll do nothing of the kind: you're not used to the pole." + +"I can tak the leader, my lord." + +"I tell you you're to do nothing of the kind," cried the marquis +angrily. "You're to ride inside, and bring Mr.--what's his name?--back +with you." + +"Soutar, my lord, gien ye please." + +"Be off, then. Don't wait to feed. The brutes have been eating all +day, and they can eat all night. You must have him here in an hour." + +In an hour and a quarter Miss Horn's friend stood by the marquis's +bedside, Malcolm was dismissed, but was presently summoned again to +receive more orders. + +Fresh horses were put to the chariot, and he had to set out once +more--this time to fetch a justice of the peace, a neighbor laird. The +distance was greater than to Duff Harbor; the roads were worse; the +north wind, rising as they went, blew against them as they returned, +increasing to a violent gale; and it was late before they reached +Lossie House. + +When Malcolm entered he found the marquis alone. + +"Is Morrison here at last?" he cried, in a feeble, irritated voice. + +"Yes, my lord." + +"What the devil kept you so long? The bay mare would have carried me +there and back in an hour and a half." + +"The roads war verra heavy, my lord. An' jist hear till the win'." + +The marquis listened a moment, and a frightened expression grew over +his thin, pale, anxious face. "You don't know what depends on it," he +said, "or you would have driven better. Where is Mr. Soutar?" + +"I dinna ken, my lord. I'm only jist come, an' I've seen naebody." + +"Go and tell Mrs. Courthope I want Soutar. You'll find her crying +somewhere--the old chicken!--because I swore at her. What harm could +that do the old goose?" + +"It'll be mair for love o' yer lordship than fricht at the sweirin', +my lord." + +"You think so? Why should _she_ care? Go and tell her I'm sorry. +But really she ought to be used to me by this time. Tell her to send +Soutar directly." + +Mr. Soutar was not to be found, the fact being that he had gone to see +Miss Horn. The marquis flew into an awful rage, and began to curse and +swear frightfully. + +"My lord! my lord!" said Malcolm, "for God's sake, dinna gang on that +gait. He canna like to hear that kin' o' speech; an' frae ane o' his +ain' tu!" + +The marquis stopped, aghast at his presumption and choking with rage, +but Malcolm's eyes filled with tears, and, instead of breaking out +again, his master turned his head away and was silent. + +Mr. Soutar came. + +"Fetch Morrison," said the marquis, "and go to bed." + +The wind howled terribly as Malcolm ascended the stairs and half felt +his way, for he had no candle, through the long passages leading to +his room. As he entered the last a huge vague form came down upon +him like a deeper darkness through the dark. Instinctively he stepped +aside. It passed noiselessly, with a long stride, and not even a +rustle of its garments--at least Malcolm heard nothing but the roar +of the wind. He turned and followed it. On and on it went, down the +stair, through a corridor, down the great stone turnpike stair, and +through passage after passage. When it came into the more frequented +and half-lighted thoroughfares of the house it showed as a large +figure in a long cloak, indistinct in outline. + +It turned a corner close by the marquis's room. But when Malcolm, +close at its heels, turned also, he saw nothing but a vacant lobby, +the doors around which were all shut. One after another he quickly +opened them, all except the marquis's, but nothing was to be seen. +The conclusion was that it had entered the marquis's room. He must +not disturb the conclave in the sick chamber with what might be but "a +false creation proceeding from the heat-oppressed brain," and turned +back to his own room, where he threw himself on his bed and fell +asleep. + +About twelve Mrs. Courthope called him: his master was worse, and +wanted to see him. + +The midnight was dark and still, for the wind had ceased. But a hush +and a cloud seemed gathering in the stillness and darkness, and with +them came the sense of a solemn celebration, as if the gloom were +canopy as well as pall--black, but bordered and hearted with purple +and gold; and the terrible stillness seemed to tremble as with the +inaudible tones of a great organ at the close or commencement of some +mighty symphony. + +With beating heart he walked softly toward the room where, as on an +altar, lay the vanishing form of his master, like the fuel in whose +dying flame was offered the late and ill-nurtured sacrifice of his +spirit. + +As he went through the last corridor leading thither, Mrs. Catanach, +type and embodiment of the horrors that haunt the dignity of death, +came walking toward him like one at home, her great round body lighty +upborne on her soft foot. It was no time to challenge her presence, +and yielding her the half of the narrow way he passed without a +greeting. She dropped him a courtesy with an up-look and again a +veiling of her wicked eyes. + +The marquis would not have the doctors come near him, and when Malcolm +entered there was no one in the room but Mrs. Courthope. The shadow +had crept far along the dial. His face had grown ghastly, the skin had +sunk to the bones, and his eyes stood out as if from much staring into +the dark. They rested very mournfully on Malcolm for a few moments, +and then closed softly. + +"Is she come yet?" he murmured, opening them wide with sudden stare. + +"No, my lord." + +The lids fell again, softly, slowly. + +"Be good to her, Malcolm," he murmured. + +"I wull, my lord," said Malcolm solemnly. + +Then the eyes opened and looked at him: something grew in them, a +light as of love, and drew up after it a tear; but the lips said +nothing. The eyelids fell again, and in a minute more Malcolm knew by +his breathing that he slept. + +The slow night waned. He woke sometimes, but soon dozed off again. +The two watched by him till the dawn. It brought a still gray morning, +without a breath of wind and warm for the season. The marquis appeared +a little revived, but was hardly able to speak. Mostly by signs he +made Malcolm understand that he wanted Mr. Graham, but that some one +else must go for him. Mrs. Courthope went. + +As soon as she was out of the room he lifted his hand with effort, +laid feeble hold on Malcolm's jacket, and, drawing him down, kissed +him on the forehead. Malcolm burst into tears and sank weeping by the +bedside. + +Mr. Graham, entering a little after, and seeing Malcolm on his knees, +knelt also and broke into a prayer. + +"O blessed Father!" he said, "who knowest this thing, so strange to +us, which we call death, breathe more life into the heart of Thy dying +son, that in the power of life he may front death. O Lord Christ! who +diedst Thyself, and in Thyself knowest it all, heal this man in his +sore need--heal him with strength to die." + +A faint _Amen_ came from the marquis. + +"Thou didst send him into the world: help him out of it. O God! +we belong to Thee utterly. We dying men are Thy children, O living +Father! Thou art such a father that Thou takest our sins from us and +throwest them behind Thy back. Thou cleansest our souls as Thy Son did +wash our feet. We hold our hearts up to Thee: make them what they must +be, O Love! O Life of men! O Heart of hearts! Give Thy dying child +courage and hope and peace--the peace of Him who overcame all the +terrors of humanity, even death itself, and liveth for evermore, +sitting at Thy right hand, our God-brother, blessed to all ages. +Amen." + +"Amen!" murmured the marquis, and, slowly lifting his hand from the +coverlid, he laid it on the head of Malcolm, who did not know it was +the hand of his father blessing him ere he died. + +"Be good to her," said the marquis once more. + +But Malcolm could not answer for weeping, and the marquis was not +satisfied. Gathering all his force, he said again, "Be good to her." + +"I wull, I wull," burst from Malcolm in sobs; and he wailed aloud. + +The day wore on, and the afternoon came. Still Lady Florimel had not +arrived, and still the marquis lingered. + +As the gloom of the twilight was deepening into the early darkness of +the winter night he opened wide his eyes, and was evidently listening. +Malcolm could hear nothing, but the light in his master's face grew +and the strain of his listening diminished. At length Malcolm became +aware of the sound of wheels, which came rapidly nearer, till at last +the carriage swung up to the hall-door. A moment, and Lady Florimel +was flitting across the room. + +"Papa! papa!" she cried, and, throwing her arm over him, laid her +cheek to his. + +The marquis could not return her embrace: he could only receive her +into the depths of his shining, tearful eyes. + +"Flory!" he murmured, "I'm going away. I'm going--I've got--to make +an--apology. Malcolm, be good--" + +The sentence remained unfinished. The light paled from his +countenance: he had to carry it with him. He was dead. + +Lady Florimel gave a loud cry. Mrs. Courthope ran to her assistance. +"My lady's in a dead faint," she whispered, and left the room to get +help. + +Malcolm lifted Lady Florimel in his great arms and bore her tenderly +to her own apartment. There he left her to the care of her women and +returned to the chamber of death. + +Meantime, Mr. Graham and Mr. Soutar had come. When Malcolm re-entered +the schoolmaster took him kindly by the arm and said, "Malcolm, there +can be neither place nor moment fitter for the solemn communication +I am commissioned to make to you: I have, as in the presence of your +dead father, to inform you that you are now marquis of Lossie; and +God forbid you should be less worthy as marquis than you have been as +fisherman!" + +Malcolm stood stupefied. For a while he seemed to himself to be +turning over in his mind something he had heard read from a book, with +a nebulous notion of being somehow concerned in it. The thought of his +father cleared his brain. He ran to the dead body, kissed its lips as +he had once kissed the forehead of another, and falling on his knees +wept, he knew not for what. Presently, however, he recovered himself, +rose, and, rejoining the two men, said, "Gentlemen, hoo mony kens this +turn o' things?" + +"None but Mr. Morrison, Mrs. Catanach and ourselves--so far as I +know," answered Mr. Soutar. + +"And Miss Horn," added Mr. Graham, "She first brought out the truth +of it, and ought to be the first to know of your recognition by your +father." + +"I s' tell her mysel'," returned Malcolm. "But, gentlemen, I beg o' +ye, till I ken what I'm aboot an' gie ye leave, dinna open yer moo' to +leevin' cratur' aboot this. There's time eneuch for the warl' to ken +'t." + +"Your lordship commands me," said Mr. Soutar. + +"Yes, Malcolm, until you give me leave," said Mr. Graham. + +"Whaur's Mr. Morrison?" asked Malcolm. + +"He is still in the house," said Mr. Soutar. + +"Gang till him, sir, an' gar him promise, on the word o' a gentleman, +to haud his tongue. I canna bide to hae't blaret a' gait an' a' at +ance. For Mistress Catanach, I s' deal wi' her mysel'." + +The door opened, and, in all the conscious dignity conferred by the +immunities and prerogatives of her calling, Mrs. Catanach walked into +the room. + +"A word wi' ye, Mistress Catanach," said Malcolm. + +"Certainly, my lord," answered the howdy with mingled presumption and +respect, and followed him to the dining-room. "Weel, my lord--" she +began, before he had turned from shutting the door behind them, in the +tone and with the air--or rather _airs_--of having conferred a great +benefit, and expecting its recognition. + +"Mistress Catanach," interrupted Malcolm, turning and facing her, +"gien I be un'er ony obligation to you, it's frae anither tongue I +maun hear't. But I hae an offer to mak ye: Sae lang as it disna coom +oot 'at I'm onything better nor a fisherman born, ye s' hae yer twinty +poun' i' the year, peyed ye quarterly. But the moment fowk says wha +I am ye touch na a poun'-not' mair, an' I coont mysel' free to pursue +onything I can pruv agane ye." + +Mrs. Catanach attempted a laugh of scorn, but her face was gray as +putty and its muscles declined response. + +"_Ay_ or _no_?" said Malcolm. "I winna gar ye sweir, for I wad lippen +to yer aith no a hair." + +"Ay, my lord," said the howdy, reassuming at least outward composure, +and with it her natural brass, for as she spoke she held out her open +palm. + +"Na, na," said Malcolm, "nae forhan' payments. Three months o' +tongue-haudin', an' there's yer five poun'; an' Maister Soutar o' Duff +Harbor 'ill pay 't intill yer ain han'. But brack troth wi' me, an' ye +s' hear o' 't; for gien ye war hangt the warl' wad be a' the cleaner. +Noo quit the hoose, an' never lat me see ye aboot the place again. +But afore ye gang I gie ye fair warnin' 'at I mean to win at a' yer +byganes." + +The blood of red wrath was seething in Mrs. Catanach's face: she drew +herself up and stood flaming before him, on the verge of explosion. + +"Gang frae the hoose," said Malcolm, "or I'll set the muckle hun' to +shaw ye the gait." + +Her face turned the color of ashes, and with hanging cheeks and +scared but not the less wicked eyes she hurried from the room. Malcolm +watched her out of the house, then, following her into the town, +brought Miss Horn back with him to aid in the last earthly services, +and hastened to Duncan's cottage. + +But, to his amazement and distress, it was forsaken and the hearth +cold. In his attendance on his father he had not seen the piper--he +could not remember for how many days; and on inquiry he found that, +although he had not been missed, no one could recall having seen him +later than three or four days agone. The last he could hear of him was +that about a week before a boy had spied him sitting on a rock in the +Baillies' Barn with his pipes in his lap. Searching the cottage, he +found that his broadsword and dirk, with all his poor finery, were +gone. + +That same night Mrs. Catanach also disappeared. + +A week after, what was left of Lord Lossie was buried. Malcolm +followed the hearse with the household. Miss Horn walked immediately +behind him, on the arm of the schoolmaster. It was a great funeral, +with a short road, for the body was laid in the church--close to the +wall, just under the crusader with the Norman canopy. + +Lady Florimel wept incessantly for three days; on the fourth she +looked out on the sea and thought it very dreary; on the fifth +she found a certain gratification in hearing herself called the +marchioness; on the sixth she tried on her mourning and was pleased; +on the seventh she went with the funeral and wept again; on the eighth +came Lady Bellair, who on the ninth carried her away. + +To Malcolm she had not spoken once. + +Mr. Graham left Portlossie. + +Miss Horn took to her bed for a week. + +Mr. Crathie removed his office to the House itself, took upon him the +function of steward as well as factor, had the state-rooms dismantled, +and was master of the place. + +Malcolm helped Stoat with the horses and did odd jobs for Mr. Crathie. +From his likeness to the old marquis, as he was still called, the +factor had a favor for him, firmly believing the said marquis to be +his father and Mrs. Stewart his mother; and hence it came that he +allowed him a key to the library. + +The story of Malcom's plans and what came of them requires another +book. + + + + + +THE STAGE IN ITALY. + + +The Italians are undoubtedly the most theatre-loving people in the +world. With them the play-house takes the place to a great extent of +drawing-room and evening lounge. Almost every Italian family of any +social position possesses a box at one of the principal theatres, +where visits are received and many a scene from the _School for +Scandal_ is enacted whilst the fair gossip-mongers flirt and sip +ices. In winter the opera is the standard amusement of the fashionable +world, while the favorite resort in summer is the _diurno_ or open air +theatre, which is in the form of an amphitheatre, the stage with its +accessories facing an unroofed enclosure, with the seats arranged in +tiers one above another, and fenced off by an iron balustrade from a +terrace which serves the purpose of a gallery. A vast covered corridor +is nearly always to be found adjacent to the _diurno_, beneath which +the audience can take refuge in case of a shower, walk between the +acts and indulge in _bebite_--cooling drinks, such as sherbets and +beer. The _abbonamento_ (or subscription) to a diurno costs from three +to ten dollars for the season of thirty or forty representations. When +a dramatic company is about to visit a city the manager first secures +his _abbonati_, for according to their number he is able to regulate +his expenses, as he counts little on chance spectators, and is sure to +have almost always to play before the same audience. + +The lyric stage in Italy takes precedence of the dramatic, and in the +large cities, Milan, Venice, Genoa, Florence, Rome and Naples, the +production of a new opera is considered a national event, forming for +many days previous to its production the chief topic of conversation +in salons and _caffès_. No such enthusiasm is manifested in regard to +the first representation of a new play; and although the house may be +crowded and the author called before the curtain, he may deem himself +happy if his drama is played four times during the season; whereas +a popular opera will be given night after night for two months. An +opera, if it has any merit, may be the means of carrying the fame of +Italian genius to the farthest limits of the earth, but it is a chance +if the comedy which pleases at Venice will be appreciated in the +least degree at Rome or Naples, such are the variations in manners +and customs, especially amongst the lower orders, between one Italian +province and another. Hence, opera is greatly fostered and protected. +There are a dozen musical _conservatori_, public and private, in each +of the principal cities, for the training of singers, and prizes are +accorded to them out of funds especially set apart for the purpose +by the government, which also grants large annual subsidies to the +leading lyric theatres, such as the Scala at Milan, the San Carlo +at Naples, the Fenice at Venice, the Pergola at Florence, the Carlo +Felice at Genoa, the Communale at Bologna, and the Apollo at Rome. The +dramatic stage has none of these aids, the various companies have to +pay their own expenses, and, whatever may be the merits of the artists +who compose them, they scarcely ever obtain any special recognition +from the government. Although the smallest Italian city possesses its +theatre, and some of the capitals--Milan and Naples, for instance--at +least a dozen, there is no training-school for the stage in any +part of the country. Nor is there such an institution as the English +Dramatic College, where decayed artists can retire when their day of +glory is past and they have become poor and lonely. Each city has one +theatre, the largest and most magnificent, reserved exclusively for +operatic performances, and where the unmusical drama is scarcely ever +tolerated. I once saw Ristori act in Metastasio's _Dido_ at the +Scala for the benefit of the wounded during the war for Italian +independence; but this was the only occasion in fifty years on which +an actress had declaimed in that enormous edifice, and nothing +but patriotic charity would have excused such an infringement of +time-honored etiquette. When, therefore, the Italian opera-houses +close for the season, they are never reopened for the accommodation +of wandering "stars." The consequence of this is, that the drama is +banished to the inferior theatres, and whilst thousands of francs are +spent on the scenery of a new opera or ballet, the poor player has to +content himself with an indifferent stage and wretched decorations. In +short, to quote an observation made to me recently by Signor Salvini, +"Theatrical affairs are just the opposite in Italy to what they are +in America. In Italy the opera-bill is never changed more than three +times in as many months: in America it varies almost every evening. In +Italy the play-bill is renewed nightly, while in this country and +in England a drama, if good, may have a run of over a hundred +representations." Nothing surprised Salvini more during his stay in +the United States than the splendor of the _mise en scène_ of some +of the New York plays, but he accounted for it easily enough. The +managers of most of the New York, Paris and London theatres do not +hesitate to lavish large sums of money upon their decorations and +scenery, because should the piece fail for which they were painted +they can be used in some other. The Italian theatres are nearly always +the property either of some nobleman or of a company of speculators, +whose principal object is to make as much money out of them, and spend +as little upon them, as possible. They are rented out for a month or +so to one or other of the many troupes of actors which are constantly +wandering about the country, and which bring their own scenery +and dresses with them, generally of the cheapest and most tawdry +description. + +A Tuscan proverb says, "_Figlio d'attore, attore_" ("The son of an +actor is always an actor"); and this in Italy is pretty sure to be the +case. The three greatest living actors, Salvini, Rossi and Majeroni, +belong to families which have long been popular on the stage, and so +do the actresses Ristori and Sedowsky. Signora Ristori made her début +as an infant in the cradle, and was for years a member of a troupe the +leading lady of which was her late mother, Signora Maddalena Ristori, +a woman of great talent and merit, whose death at an advanced age +has recently occasioned her celebrated daughter poignant grief. There +still exists in Italy a Venetian troupe of comedians whose ancestors +were the first interpreters of the comedies of Goldoni, and several of +them claim descent from players who enacted the tragedies and comedies +of serious classical literature before the courts of Lucrezia Borgia +and Leonora d'Este. In glancing over an Italian play-bill one is +invariably struck by the fact that many of the artists bear the same +name, and are evidently connected by ties of consanguinity or of +marriage. In the Ristori troupe, for instance, there are several +actors calling themselves by the same name as that great artist, and +who are doubtless of her family. The Salvini company embraces, besides +the two brothers Tommaso and Alessandro, several Piamontis, two or +three Piccininis and two Colonellos. I once knew in Italy a manager +named Spada who directed a little troupe of buffo actors consisting +of his grandfather and grandmother, father and mother, three or four +uncles and aunts, two brothers, and one or two sisters, in addition to +himself, his wife and children. Such facts are in part accounted for +by the social status--or rather want of status--of the profession. +Down to within a very recent period ecclesiastical censures weighed +heavily upon all actors, and Christian burial was denied them unless +during their final illness they had formally declared their intention +to abandon the stage in case of recovery. So severe a condemnation on +the part of the clergy naturally produced a strong prejudice against +those who connected themselves in any way with the stage; and it is +only recently that in Italy, a land where social changes are slow, the +doors of her somewhat formal society have been opened to admit even +persons so distinguished in every sense of the word as are Ristori, +Piamonti, Salvini and Rossi. The social unfriendliness of the +audiences--who can applaud so enthusiastically that a stranger +witnessing for the first time their noisy demonstrations would easily +believe every man and woman in the theatre ready to die for the sake +of the admired artist--is doubtless the cause of the patriarchal +system observable in the formation of Italian dramatic companies. The +members thereof prefer adopting their fathers' profession rather +than enter another where they would be constantly mortified by being +pointed at as the children of actors. + +A little research into the history of the stage in Italy will +enlighten the reader as to the true cause both of the harsh +condemnation of the Church and of the prejudice of society against +this great profession. The plays of the old Romans were proverbially +loose both in their plots and dialogues, and Juvenal has spoken of the +actors of his time with the bitterest contempt. During the Middle Ages +the members of the various religious confraternities monopolized the +stage with their sacred dramas and mysteries, and the "profane stage," +as an Italian writer calls it, was so degraded that more than once +both the Church and State had to use their influence to put down +performances which were too infamous to be here described. When the +Renaissance came the drama was reinstated in the position it occupied +during the days of Roman civilization, but the plays of this period +were merely imitations of the Latin comedies; and if we may judge by +the most celebrated of them which still exists--the _Mandragora_ of +Macchiavelli, for example--far exceeded their models in obscenity. +When Benedict XIV. ascended the pontifical throne he established a +severe censorship, and inaugurated the harsh system to which I have +already alluded, with the effect of banishing immoral productions +from the stage, though without improving its intellectual tone. In the +eighteenth century Goldoni appeared and gave to the world his graceful +comedies, which were followed by the lyric dramas of Metastasio and +the lofty tragedies of Alfieri. Since then there has been a succession +of able dramatists--Monti, Gozzi, Manzoni, Pellico, Ippolito d'Asti, +etc.; and as the class of plays acted was elevated, so the character +of the performers was also improved. From being dissolute they became +generally respectable; and at present it may be safely asserted that +a better-conducted, more frugal or industrious class of men and woman +can scarcely be found than are the Italian players. That class of +actresses with whom their profession is only a means of displaying +their beauty and splendid but often ill-gotten robes and jewelry, is +little known in Italy, Such persons would be scarcely tolerated either +by their comrades or by the public. Indeed, although within the past +few years, owing to the unsettled state of affairs, a great many plays +of questionable morality have been acted, especially in Rome, still +the tone of the performances usually witnessed in an Italian theatre +is greatly above the average of what even Americans applaud; and a +French play has to go through more careful pruning for the Italian +stage than for ours. + +The Italian actors have always been in the habit of forming themselves +into troupes, or, as they call them, _compagnie_, placed under the +direction of one person, who is both manager and principal performer. +They divide these troupes according to the various kinds of acting; +thus, there are companies of tragic, melodramatic and comic actors, +but it is very rare to find a combination of tragedy and comedy in +the same entertainment. There are at present about eighty different +troupes of actors in Italy, including those devoted to the marionnette +and dialect performances. The principal are the "Salvini," "Ristori," +"Majeroni," "Sedowsky," and "Rossi" for tragedy, the "Bellotti Bon" +for high comedy, and the "De Mestri" for farce and vaudeville. The +"Ristori," "Salvini" and "Rossi" troupes have been the round of the +world. The "Bellotti Bon" has, I believe, never quitted Italy. It is a +remarkable combination of well-trained actors, devoted exclusively +to the representation of modern society plays and dramas, mostly +translated or adapted from the French. Bellotti-Bon, the director, +is not excelled in his own line even on the stage of the Théâtre +Français. His company is rich, and its scenery and dresses are +tasteful. The late Signora Cazzola, formerly the leading lady of this +troupe, was perhaps the best high-comedy and dramatic actress Italy +has produced. Signer Salvini informed me that Alexandre Dumas _fils_ +told him he preferred this lady's interpretation of the _rôle_ of +Marguerite Gauthier (Camille) in _La Dame aux Camélias_ to that of +Madame Doche, who created the part. She produced a great effect when +the dying Camille looks at herself in the glass for the first time +after her long illness. Instead of screaming or fainting, as is usual +with most actresses who undertake the character, Signora Cazzola stood +for a long time gazing intently at the havoc disease had wrought upon +her lovely countenance. Then, with a deep sigh and an expression +of intense agony, she turned the mirror with its back toward her, +implying that she could never again endure the pain of seeing herself +reflected upon its truth-telling surface. On the toilette-table was +a vase full of camellias--those beautiful but scentless flowers which +were emblematic of her brilliant but artificial life. Taking one of +these in her hand, she plucked it to pieces leaf by leaf, and when +the last petal fell to the ground went quietly back to her bed, there +hopelessly to await the coming on of death. Her parting with Armand +was very pathetic, and her death, although harrowing and true to +Nature, was not revolting, its horrors being moderated by artistic +good sense and delicacy. This great artiste died young, worn out by +the strong emotions she not only represented, but actually felt. + +Signora Cazzola, together with Virginia Marini and Isolina Piamonti, +was a pupil of Signor Salvini. Virginia Marini is well considered in +Italy, and used to be the leading lady in the Salvini troupe. She now +directs a company of her own, and has been succeeded in her former +position by the estimable Signora Piamonti, whom Salvini declares to +be one of the most versatile artistes he has ever known, equally good +in the highest tragedy or the liveliest farce. Her Dalilla in _Samson_ +was much admired in America, but her rendering of the _rôle_ of +Francesca di Rimini in the tragedy of that name is perhaps her +greatest performance. + +Signora Sedowsky is undoubtedly the greatest tragic actress of Italy. +She is perhaps less stately and grand than Ristori, but in fire and +depth of feeling she greatly surpasses this eminent tragédienne. Her +Phèdre is pronounced by excellent judges equal to that of Rachel. +Signora Sedowsky was born at Naples, and is the proprietress of three +large theatres in that city. She is the wife of a wealthy nobleman. +Notwithstanding her rank, she still keeps on the stage, but is +received with honor in the first society. She has never acted out of +Italy, and very rarely beyond the walls of Naples. + +The superlative merits of Signora Ristori are so well known in America +that the mere mention of her name is sure to recall some of the most +delightful evenings ever spent by many of my readers. Her genius and +beauty, her majesty and glorious method of declamation, have won her +a foremost rank in her profession, and her virtues and nobility of +conduct the esteem of all who have ever known her. There are indeed +few women more estimable than Adelaide Ristori, Marchioness Capranica +del Grillo. It may be a matter of surprise to some who are not aware +of the fact when I tell them that in Italy Ristori is more famous in +comedy than in tragedy. She is inimitable in such parts as the hostess +in Goldoni's clever comedy of _La Locandiera_. + +Of all Italian actors, Gustavo Modena was the most renowned. He is to +the stage of his native land what Garrick was to that of England, and +his conception of the various parts in classic drama, his "points," +and even his dress, have become traditional, and are almost invariably +retained by his followers. I never saw him act, but I once heard him +recite in a private _salon_ his famous _rôle_ of Saul in Alfieri's +tragedy of that name. In person he was tall and largely built, His +countenance was not prepossessing, and, like Michael Angelo, he had a +broken nose. His eye could assume a terrific aspect, and his voice +was rich, powerful and varied in its tone. At times it rolled like +thunder, while at other moments it was as soft and tender as the +sweetest notes of a flute. Signor Modena died some years ago. He was +the master of Salvini, and to him that illustrious actor does not +hesitate to attribute much of his fame. + +Rossi, the only living rival of Salvini, is still a young man, and +doubtless has great talents. I think him even more impetuous and +ardent than Salvini, but he is less intellectual, and his elocution is +decidedly inferior. + +Majeroni is an actor of the same school, but he is becoming old, and +has a tendency to rant. + +Tommaso Salvini, our late visitor, is of Milanese parentage, and was +born in the Lombard capital on January 1, 1830. His father, as I have +already said, was an able actor, and his mother a popular actress +named Guglielmina Zocchi. When quite a boy he showed a rare talent +for acting, and performed in certain plays given during the Easter +holidays in the school where he was educated, with such rare ability +that his father determined to devote him to the stage. For this +purpose he placed him under the tuition of the great Modena, who +conceived much affection for him. The training received thus early +from such able hands soon bore fruits, and before he was thirteen +Salvini had already won a kind of renown in juvenile characters. At +fifteen he lost both his parents, and the bereavement so preyed upon +his spirits that he was obliged to abandon his career for two years, +and returned once more under the tuition of Modena. When he again +emerged from retirement he joined the Ristori troupe, and shared with +that great actress many a triumph. In 1849, Salvini entered the army +of Italian independence, and fought valiantly for the defence of his +country, receiving in recognition of his services several medals of +honor. Peace being proclaimed, he again appeared upon the stage in a +company directed by Signer Cesare Dondini. He played in the _Edipo_ +of Nicolini--a tragedy written expressly for him--and achieved a great +success. Next he appeared in Alfieri's _Saul_, and then all Italy +declared that Modena's mantle had fallen on worthy shoulders. His +fame was now prodigious, and wherever he went he was received with +boundless enthusiasm. He visited Paris, where he played Orasmane, +Orestes, Saul and Othello. On his return to Florence he was hospitably +entertained by the marquis of Normanby, then English ambassador to the +court of Tuscany, and this enlightened nobleman strongly encouraged +him to extend his repertory of Shakespearian characters. In 1865 +occurred the sixth centenary of Dante's birthday, and the four +greatest Italian actors were invited to perform in Silvio Pellico's +tragedy of _Francesca di Rimini_, which is founded on an episode in +the _Divina Commedia_. The cast originally stood on the play-bills +thus: Francesca, Signora Ristori; Lancelotto, Signor Rossi; Paulo, +Signor Salvini; and Guido, Signor Majeroni. It happened, however, that +Rossi, who was unaccustomed to play the part of Lancelotto, felt timid +at appearing in a character so little suited to him. Hearing this, +Signor Salvini, with exquisite politeness and good-nature, volunteered +to take the insignificant part, relinquishing the grand _rôle_ of +Paulo to his junior in the profession. He created by the force of his +genius an impression in the minor part which is still vivid in +the minds of all who witnessed the performance. The government of +Florence, grateful for his urbanity, presented him with a statuette of +Dante, and King Victor Emmanuel rewarded him with the title of knight +of the Order of the Saints Maurice and Lazarus. Later he received from +the same monarch a diamond ring, with the rank of officer in the Order +of the Crown of Italy. In 1868, Signer Salvini visited Madrid, where +his acting of the death of Conrad in _La Morte Civile_ produced such +an impression that the easily-excited Madrilese rushed upon the stage +to ascertain whether the death was actual or fictitious. The queen, +Isabella II., conferred upon the great actor many marks of favor, +and so shortly afterward did King Louis of Portugal, who frequently +entertained him at the royal palace of Lisbon. + +Signor Salvini's recent visit to America I need scarcely mention: its +triumphs are still fresh in the memory of the public, and the only +drawback to its complete success was the unhappy fact that the eminent +artist did not appeal to his audiences in their own language. + +I know of nothing more remarkable than the difference which exists +between the Salvini of the stage and the Salvini of private life, the +one so imposing, impetuous and fiery, the other so gentle, urbane, and +even retiring. He is a gentleman possessing the manners of the good +old school--courtly and somewhat ceremonious, reminding one of those +Italian nobles of the sixteenth century of whom we lead in the novels +of Giraldo Cinthio and Fiorentino--_uomini illustri, e di civil +costumi_. His greeting is cordial and his conversation delightful, +full of anecdote and marked with enthusiasm for his art. When I first +became acquainted with him I was of opinion that his interpretation of +Hamlet was based only upon the translated text, but in the course of +a very long conversation on the subject I discovered that he was well +acquainted (through literal translations) not only with the text, but +also with the notes and comments of our leading critics. In speaking +of the part in which he is altogether unrivaled he said, "I am of +opinion that Shakespeare intended Othello to be a Moor of Barbary or +some other part of Northern Africa, of whom there were many in Italy +during the sixteenth century. I have met several, and think I imitate +their ways and manners pretty well. You are aware, however, that the +historical Othello was not a black at all. He was a white man, and +a Venetian general named Mora. His history resembles that of +Shakespeare's hero in many particulars. Giraldo Cinthio, probably for +better effect, made out of the name Mora, _moro_, a blackamoor; and +Shakespeare, unacquainted with the true story, followed this old +novelist's lead; and it was well he did so, for have we not in +consequence the most perfect delineation of the peculiarities of +Moorish temperament ever conceived?" The costumes worn by Salvini in +this play are copied from those depicted in certain Venetian pictures +of the fifteenth century in which several Moorish officers appear. It +took him many years to master this _rôle_, and he assured me he could +not play it more than three times in succession without experiencing +terrible fatigue. "It is a matter of wonder to me," he observed, "that +English actors can play a great character like this so many nights in +succession; and, above all, that they retain self-possession whilst +the fidgety noise of scene-shifting is going on behind them. To avoid +this, I have been obliged to cut _Othello_ into six acts, and to make +many changes in _Hamlet_." The intensity of feeling with which he +throws himself into the part he is representing was especially evident +on the occasion of his playing Saul. After the performance I was +invited to go behind the scenes to speak with him, and was surprised +as well as pained to find him utterly exhausted. I could not help +saying, "How can you exert yourself thus to please so few people?" +There were scarcely four hundred persons assembled to see this sublime +performance. He answered with honest simplicity, "They have paid their +money, and are entitled to the best I can do for them; besides that, +when I am on the stage I forget the world and all that is in it, and +live the character I represent." "You will," said I, "make a grand +Lear." "Yes," he replied, "I think I shall be able to make something +out of the old king. I have been reading the tragedy for some time, +but it will still take me two years to study it thoroughly." + +Salvini related to me several anecdotes which show how quick he is to +master any difficulties accident throws in his way. "Once I bought," +he said, "a play of a poor young writer which I thought I could make +something of; but when we came to rehearse it for the last time before +representation, it seemed to me utterly flat and unprofitable. The +piece was called _La Suonatrice d'Arpa_ ('The Harp-Girl'). The actors +all said the last act was so stupid that we should make a _fiasco_. I +at last hit upon an idea. We had, however, only a few hours to execute +it in. I changed the story: instead of the play ending happily, I made +the father kill his daughter accidentally, and then die of grief. All +the dialogue had to be improvised by the leading actress and myself. +I played the father, and Signora Piamonti the daughter. Such was the +success of our invention that the piece was played eight nights in +succession, and a rival actor, hearing of the triumph achieved by _The +Harp-Girl_, bought from the author for a handsome sum the privilege of +acting it in certain districts which were not included in my purchase +of the drama. Not being aware of the alterations we had made, and +performing it according to the letter of the text, he made _un fiasco +solenne_--a dead failure." + +After the first performance of _Zaïre_ I took the liberty of observing +to Salvini that a superb piece of "business" which marks his acting +in the last act was not to be found in the text. "Oh," he replied, +"I will tell you the origin of it. I was playing at Naples, and one +night, when I threw the body of my murdered wife upon the ottoman in +the last act, my burnouse fell off and fixed itself to my waist like +a tail. I saw at once that if I was not careful I should provoke +laughter, and instantly imagined that I would pretend to believe the +clinging drapery was the wounded Zaïre grasping me behind. I appeared +to dread even to look round, lest I should encounter her pallid face. +I hesitated, I trembled, and when with a supreme effort I at last +grasped the burnouse and cast it from me, I still lacked the courage +to ascertain what it really was, and stood shivering before the +white heap it made upon the floor. Finally, just as I thought public +curiosity to know what I was going to do began to grow weary, I +stooped down and seizing the white mantle dashed it from me with +contempt, showing by the gesture that I had discovered what it was, +and felt anger that such a trifle should thus alarm a bold man who had +committed murder." This pantomime obtained for Salvini at the New York +Academy of Music one of his greatest ovations. + +When asked why he did not learn English, "Ah!" he replied, "I am too +old; and even if I mastered it, I could not control my knowledge of +it. When excited I should be lapsing into Italian, which would be very +absurd. You asked me the other day why I do not play Orestes. I should +make a queer young Greek with an Apollo-like figure now-a-days! The +time was when I looked the part and acted it well, and then I liked +to play it. I must leave it, with many other good things, to younger +men." Speaking about dramatic elocution, he said, "The best method is +obtained by close observation of Nature, and above all by earnestness. +If you can impress people with the conviction that you feel what you +say, they will pardon many shortcomings. And, above all, study, study, +study! All the genius in the world will not help you along with any +art unless you become a hard student. It has taken me years to master +a single part." + +Salvini's visit to America has been fruitful of a double good. He has +shown forth the splendor of Italian genius, even revealing to us new +marvels in that mine of wealth, the works of the greatest Bard of +the English-speaking race; and he has gone back to Italy to tell +her people of things he has seen in the New World which his great +compatriot discovered--as wonderful in their way as any related by +Othello to Desdemona's willing ear. + +R. DAVEY. + + + + +THREE FEATHERS. + +BY WILLIAM BLACK, AUTHOR OF "A PRINCESS OF THULE." + +CHAPTER XX. + +TINTAGEL'S WALLS. + + +What was the matter with Harry Trelyon? His mother could not make out; +and there never had been much confidence between them, so that she +did not care to ask. But she watched, and she saw that he had, for +the time at least, forsaken his accustomed haunts and ways and become +gloomy, silent and self-possessed. Dick was left neglected in the +stables: you no longer heard his rapid clatter along the highway, with +the not over-melodious voice of his master singing "The Men of +Merry, Merry England" or "The Young Chevalier." The long and slender +fishing-rod remained on the pegs in the hall, although you could hear +the flop of the small burn-trout of an evening when the flies were +thick over the stream. The dogs were deprived of their accustomed +runs; the horses had to be taken out for exercise by the groom; and +the various and innumerable animals about the place missed their doses +of alternate petting and teasing, all because Master Harry had chosen +to shut himself up in his study. + +The mother of the young man very soon discovered that her son was +not devoting his hours of seclusion in that extraordinary museum of +natural history to making trout-flies, stuffing birds and arranging +pinned butterflies in cases, as was his custom. These were not the +occupations which now kept Master Harry up half the night. When she +went in of a morning, before he was up, she found that he had been +covering whole sheets of paper with careful copying out of passages +taken at random from the volumes beside him. A Latin grammar was +ordinarily on the table--a book which the young gentleman had brought +back from school free from thumb-marks. Occasionally a fencing-foil +lay among these evidences of study, while the small aquaria, the cases +of stuffed animals with fancy backgrounds and the numerous bird-cages +had been thrust aside to give fair elbow-room. + +"Perhaps," said Mrs. Trelyon to herself with much +satisfaction--"perhaps, after all, that good little girl has given him +a hint about Parliament, and he is preparing himself." + +A few days of this seclusion, however, began to make the mother +anxious; and so one morning she went into his room. He hastily turned +over the sheet of paper on which he had been writing: then he looked +up, not too well pleased. + +"Harry, why do you stay in-doors on such a beautiful morning? It is +quite like summer." + +"Yes, I know," he said. "I suppose we shall soon have a batch of +parsons here: summer always brings them. They come out with the hot +weather--like butterflies." + +Mrs. Trelyon was shocked and disappointed: she thought Wenna Rosewarne +had cured him of his insane dislike to clergymen--indeed, for many a +day gone by he had kept respectfully silent on the subject. + +"But we shall not ask them to come if you'd rather not," she said, +wishing to do all she could to encourage the reformation of his ways. +"I think Mr. Barnes promised to visit us early in May, but he is only +one." + +"And one is worse than a dozen. When there's a lot you can leave 'em +to fight it out among themselves. But one!--to have one stalking about +an empty house, like a ghost dipped in ink! Why can't you ask anybody +but clergymen, mother? There are whole lots of people would like to +run down from London for a fortnight before getting into the thick of +the season: there's the Pomeroy girls as good as offered to come." + +"But they can't come by themselves," Mrs. Trelyon said with a feeble +protest. + +"Oh yes, they can: they're ugly enough to be safe anywhere. And why +don't you get Juliott up? She'll be glad to get away from that old +curmudgeon for a week. And you ought to ask the Trewhellas, father and +daughter, to dinner: that old fellow is not half a bad sort of fellow, +although he's a clergyman." + +"Harry," said his mother, interrupting him, "I'll fill the house if +that will please you; and you shall ask just whomsoever you please." + +"All right," said he: "the place wants waking up." + +"And then," said the mother, wishing to be still more gracious, "you +might ask Miss Rosewarne to dine with us: she might come well enough, +although Mr. Roscorla is not here." + +A sort of gloom fell over the young man's face again: "I can't ask +her--you may if you like." + +Mrs. Trelyon stared: "What is the matter, Harry? Have you and she +quarreled? Why, I was going to ask you, if you were down in the +village to-day, to say that I should like to see her." + +"And how could I take such a message?" the young man said, rather +warmly, "I don't see why the girl should be ordered up to see you as +if you were conferring a favor on her by joining in this scheme. She's +very hard-worked; you have got plenty of time; you ought to call on +her and study her convenience, instead of making her trot all the way +up here whenever you want to talk to her." + +The pale and gentle woman flushed a little, but she was anxious not to +give way to petulance just then: "Well, you are quite right, Harry: +it was thoughtless of me. I should like to go down and see her this +morning; but I have sent Jakes over to the blacksmith's, and I am +afraid of that new lad." + +"Oh, I will drive you down to the inn. I suppose among them they +can put the horses to the wagonette," the young man said, not very +graciously: and then Mrs. Trelyon went off to get ready. + +It was a beautiful, fresh morning, the far-off line of the sea still +and blue, the sunlight lighting up the wonderful masses of primroses +along the tall banks, the air sweet with the resinous odor of the +gorse. Mrs. Trelyon looked with a gentle and childlike pleasure on +all these things, and was fairly inclined to be very friendly with the +young gentleman beside her. But he was more than ordinarily silent +and morose. Mrs. Trelyon knew she had done nothing to offend him, and +thought it hard she should be punished for the sins of anybody else. + +He spoke scarcely a word to her as the carriage rolled along the +silent highways. He drove rapidly and carelessly down the steep +thoroughfare of Eglosilyan, although there were plenty of loose stones +about. Then he pulled sharply up in front of the inn, and George +Rosewarne appeared. + +"Mr. Rosewarne, let me introduce you to my mother. She wants to see +Miss Wenna for a few moments, if she is not engaged." + +Mr. Rosewarne took off his cap, assisted Mrs. Trelyon to alight, and +then showed her the way into the house. + +"Won't you come in, Harry?" his mother said. + +"No." + +A man had come out to the horses' heads. + +"You leave 'em alone," said the young gentleman: "I sha'n't get down." + +Mabyn came out, her bright young face full of pleasure. + +"How do you do, Mabyn?" he said coldly, and without offering to shake +hands. + +"Won't you come in for a minute?" she said, rather surprised. + +"No, thank you. Don't you stay out in the cold: you've got nothing +round your neck." + +Mabyn went away without saying a word, but thinking that the coolness +of the air was much less apparent than that of his manner and speech. + +Being at length left to himself, he turned his attention to the +horses before him, and eventually, to pass the time, took out his +pocket-handkerchief and began to polish the silver on the handle of +the whip. He was disturbed in this peaceful occupation by a very +timid voice, which said, "Mr. Trelyon." He turned round and found that +Wenna's wistful face was looking up to him, with a look in it +partly of friendly gladness and partly of anxiety and entreaty. "Mr. +Trelyon," she said, with her eyes cast down, "I think you are offended +with me. I am very sorry: I beg your forgiveness." + +The reins were fastened up in a minute, and he was down in the road +beside her. "Now look here, Wenna," he said. "What could you mean by +treating me so unfairly? I don't mean in being vexed with me, but in +shunting me off, as it were, instead of having it out at once. I don't +think it was fair." + +"I am very sorry," she said. "I think I was very wrong, but you don't +know what a girl feels about such things. Will you come into the inn?" + +"And leave my horses? No," he said, good-naturedly. "But as soon as I +get that fellow out, I will; so you go in at once, and I'll follow you +directly. And mind, Wenna, don't you be so silly again, or you and I +may have a real quarrel; and I know that would break your heart." + +The old pleased smile lit up her face again as she turned and went +in-doors: he meanwhile proceeded to summon a hostler by shouting his +name at the pitch of his voice. + +The small party of women assembled in the parlor were a trifle +embarrassed: it was the first time that the great lady of the +neighborhood had honored the inn with a visit. She herself was merely +quiet, gentle and pleased, but Mrs. Rosewarne, with her fine eyes and +her sensitive face all lit up and quickened by, the novel excitement, +was all anxiety to amuse and interest and propitiate her distinguished +guest. Mabyn, too, was rather shy and embarrassed: she said things +hastily, and then seemed afraid of her interference. Wenna was +scarcely at her ease, because she saw that her mother and sister were +not; and she was very anxious, moreover, that these two should think +well of Mrs. Trelyon and be disposed to like her. + +The sudden appearance of a man with a man's rough ways and loud voice +seemed to shake these feminine elements better together, and to clear +the air of timid apprehensions and cautions. Harry Trelyon came into +the room with quite a marked freshness and good-nature on his face. +His mother was surprised: what had completely changed his manner in a +couple of minutes? + +"How are you, Mrs. Rosewarne?" he cried in his off-hand fashion. "You +oughtn't to be in-doors on such a morning, or we shall never get you +well, you know; and the doctor will be sending you to Penzance or +Devonport for a change. Well, Mabyn, have you convinced anybody yet +that your farm-laborers with their twelve shillings a week are better +off than the slate-workers with their eighteen? You'd better take your +sister's opinion on that point, and don't squabble with me. Mother, +what's the use of sitting here? You bring Miss Wenna with you into the +wagonette, and talk to her there about all your business-affairs, and +I'll take you for a drive. Come along. And of course I want +somebody with me: will you come, Mrs. Rosewarne, or will Mabyn? You +can't?--then Mabyn must. Go along, Mabyn, and put your best hat on, +and make yourself uncommonly smart, and you shall be allowed to sit +next the driver--that's me." + +And indeed he bundled the whole of them about until they were seated +in the wagonette just as he had indicated; and away they went from the +inn-door. + +"And you think you are coming back in half an hour?" he said to his +companion, who was much pleased and very proud to occupy such a place. +"Oh no, you're not. You're a young and simple thing, Mabyn. These two +behind us will go on talking now for any time about yards of calico +and crochet-needles and twopenny subscriptions, while you and I, don't +you see, are quietly driving them over to Tintagel--" + +"Oh, Mr. Trelyon!" said Mabyn. + +"You keep quiet. That isn't the half of what's going to befall you. I +shall put up the horses at the inn, and I shall take you all down to +the beach for a scramble to improve your appetite; and at the said inn +you shall have luncheon with me, if you're all very good and behave +yourselves. Then we shall drive back just when we particularly please. +Do you like the picture?" + +"It is delightful: oh, I am sure Wenna will enjoy it," Mabyn said. +"But don't you think, Mr. Trelyon, that you might ask her to sit here? +One sees better here than sitting sideways in a wagonette." + +"They have their business-affairs to settle." + +"Yes," said Mabyn petulantly, "that is what every one says: nobody +expects Wenna ever to have a moment's enjoyment to herself. Oh, here +is old Uncle Cornish--he's a great friend of Wenna's: he will be +dreadfully hurt if she passes him without saying a word." + +"Then we shall pull up and address Uncle Cornish. I believe he used to +be the most thieving old ruffian of a poacher in this county." + +There was a hale old man of seventy or so seated on a low wall in +front of one of the gardens, his face shaded from the sunlight by a +broad hat, his lean gray hands employed in buckling up the leathern +leggings that encased his spare calves. He got up when the horses +stopped, and looked in rather a dazed fashion at the carriage. + +"How do you do this morning, Mr. Cornish?" Wenna said. + +"Why, now, to be sure!" the old man said, as if reproaching his own +imperfect vision. "'Tis a fine marnin', Miss Wenna, and yü be agwoin' +for a drive." + +"And how is your daughter-in-law, Mr. Cornish? Has she sold the pig +yet?" + +"Naw, she hasn't sold the peg. If yü be agwoin' thrü Trevalga, Miss +Wenna, just yü stop and have a look at that peg: yü'll be 'mazed to +see en. 'Tis many a year agone sence there has been such a peg by me. +And perhaps yü'd take the laste bit o' refrashment, Miss Wenna, as yü +go by: Jane would get yü a coop o' tay to once." + +"Thank you, Mr. Cornish, I'll look in and see the pig some other time: +to-day we sha'n't be going as far as Trevalga." + +"Oh, won't you?" said Master Harry in a low voice as he drove on. +"You'll be in Trevalga before you know where you are." + +Which was literally the case. Wenna was so much engaged in her talk +with Mrs. Trelyon that she did not notice how far away they were +getting from Eglosilyan; but Mabyn and her companion knew. They were +now on the high uplands by the coast, driving between the beautiful +banks, which were starred with primroses and stitchwort and red +dead-nettle and a dozen other bright and tender-hued firstlings of the +year. The sun was warm on the hedges and the fields, but a cool breeze +blew about these lofty heights, and stirred Mabyn's splendid masses of +hair as they drove rapidly along. Far over on their right, beyond the +majestic wall of cliff, lay the great blue plain of the sea; and there +stood the bold brown masses of the Sisters Rocks, with a circle of +white foam round their base. As they looked down into the south the +white light was so fierce that they could but faintly discern objects +through it; but here and there they caught a glimpse of a square +church-tower or of a few rude cottages clustered on the high plain, +and these seemed to be of a transparent gray in the blinding glare of +the sun. + +Then suddenly in front of them they found a deep chasm, with the white +road leading down through its cool shadows. There was the channel of +a stream, with the rocks looking purple amid the gray bushes; and +here were rich meadows, with cattle standing deep in the grass and the +daisies; and over there, on the other side, a strip of forest, with +the sunlight shining along one side of the tall and dark-green pines. +As they drove down into this place, which is called the Rocky Valley, +a magpie rose from one of the fields and flew up into the firs. + +"That is sorrow," said Mabyn. + +Another one rose and flew up to the same spot. + +"And that is joy," she said, with her face brightening. + +"Oh, but I saw another as we came to the brow of the hill, and that +means a marriage," her companion remarked to her. + +"Oh no," she said quite eagerly, "I am sure there was no third one: I +am certain there were only two. I am quite positive we only saw two." + +"But why should you be so anxious?" Trelyon said, "You know you ought +to be looking forward to a marriage, and that is always a happy thing. +Are you envious, Mabyn?" + +The girl was silent for a moment or two. Then she said, with a sudden +bitterness in her tone, "Isn't it a fearful thing to have to be civil +to people whom you hate? Isn't it, when they come and establish a +claim on you through some one you care for? You look at them--yes, you +can look at them--and you've got to see them kiss some one that you +love; and you wonder she doesn't rush away for a bit of caustic and +cauterize the place, as you do when a mad dog bites you." + +"Mabyn," said the young man beside her, "you are a most unchristian +sort of person this morning. Who is it you hate in such a fashion? +Will you take the reins while I walk up the hill?" + +Mabyn's little burst of passion still burned in her cheeks and gave +a proud and angry look to her mouth, but she took the reins all the +same, and her companion leapt to the ground. The banks on each side of +the road going up this hill were tall and steep: here and there great +masses of wild flowers were scattered among the grass and the gorse. +From time to time he stopped to pick up a handful, until, when +they had got up to the high and level country again, he had brought +together a very pretty bouquet of wild blossoms. When he got into his +seat and took the reins again he carelessly gave the bouquet to Mabyn. + +"Oh, how pretty!" she said; and then she turned round: "Wenna, are you +very much engaged? Look at the pretty bouquet Mr. Trelyon has gathered +for you." + +Wenna's quiet face flushed with pleasure when she took the flowers, +and Mrs. Trelyon looked pleased and said they were very pretty. She +evidently thought that her son was greatly improved in his manners +when he condescended to gather flowers to present to a girl. Nay, was +he not at this moment devoting a whole forenoon of his precious time +to the unaccustomed task of taking ladies for a drive? Mrs. Trelyon +regarded Wenna with a friendly look, and began to take a greater +liking than ever to that sensitive and expressive face and to the +quiet and earnest eyes. + +"But, Mr. Trelyon," said Wenna, looking round, "hadn't we better turn? +We shall be at Trevenna directly." + +"Yes, you are quite right," said Master Harry: "you will be at +Trevenna directly, and you are likely to be there for some time. For +Mabyn and I have resolved to have luncheon there, and we are going +down to Tintagel, and we shall most likely climb to King Arthur's +Castle. Have you any objections?" + +Wenna had none. The drive through the cool and bright day had braced +up her spirits. She was glad to know that everything looked promising +about this scheme of hers. So she willingly surrendered herself to +the holiday, and in due time they drove into the odd and remote little +village and pulled up in front of the inn. + +So soon as the hostler had come to the horses' heads the young +gentleman who had been driving jumped down and assisted his three +companions to alight: then he led the way into the inn. In the doorway +stood a stranger, probably a commercial traveler, who, with his hands +in his pockets, his legs apart and a cigar in his mouth, had been +visiting those three ladies with a very hearty stare as they got out +of the carriage. Moreover, when they came to the doorway he did not +budge an inch nor did he take his cigar from his mouth; and so, as it +had never been Mr. Trelyon's fashion to sidle past any one, that young +gentleman made straight for the middle of the passage, keeping +his shoulders very square. The consequence was a collision. The +imperturbable person with his hands in his pockets was sent staggering +against the wall, while his cigar dropped on the stone. "What the +devil--!" he was beginning to say, when Trelyon got the three women +past him and into the small parlor. Then he went back: "Did you wish +to speak to me, sir? No, you didn't: I perceive you are a prudent +person. Next time ladies pass you, you'd better take your cigar out of +your mouth or somebody'll destroy that two-pennyworth of tobacco for +you. Good-morning." + +Then he returned to the little parlor, to which a waitress had been +summoned: "Now, Jinny, pull yourself together and let's have something +nice for luncheon--in an hour's time, sharp. You will, won't you? And +how about that Sillery with the blue star--not the stuff with the gold +head that some abandoned ruffian in Plymouth brews in his back garden. +Well, can't you speak?" + +"Yes, sir," said the bewildered maid. + +"That's a good thing--a very good thing," said he, putting the shawls +together on a sofa. "Don't you forget how to speak until you get +married. And don't let anybody come into this room. And you can let my +man have his dinner and a pint of beer. Oh, I forgot: I'm my own man +this morning, so you needn't go asking for him. Now, will you remember +all these things?" + +"Yes, sir; but what would you like for luncheon?" + +"My good girl, we should like a thousand things such as Tintagel never +saw, but what you've got to do is to give us the nicest things you've +got: do you see? I leave it entirely in your hands. Come along, young +people." + +And so he bundled his charges out again into the main street of the +village; and somehow it happened that Mabyn addressed a timid remark +to Mrs. Trelyon, and that Mrs. Trelyon, in answering it, stopped for +a moment; so that Master Harry was sent to Wenna's side, and these two +led the way down the wide thoroughfare. There were few people visible +in the old-fashioned place: here and there an aged crone came out to +the door of one of the rude stone cottages to look at the strangers. +Overhead the sky was veiled over with a thin fleece of white cloud, +but the light was intense for all that, and indeed the colors of the +objects around seemed all the more clear and marked. + +"Well, Miss Wenna," said the young man gayly, "how long are we to +remain good friends? What is the next fault you will have to find with +me? Or have you discovered something wrong already?" + +"Oh no," she said with a quiet smile, "I am very good friends with you +this morning. You have pleased your mother very much by bringing her +for this drive." + +"Oh, nonsense!" he said. "She might have as many drives as she chose; +but presently you'll find a lot of those parsons back at the house, +and she'll take to her white gowns again, and the playing of the organ +all the day long, and all that sham stuff. I tell you what it is: she +never seems alive, she never seems to take any interest in anything, +unless you're with her. Now, you will see how the novelty of this +luncheon-party in an inn will amuse her; but do you think she would +care for it if she and I were here alone?" + +"Perhaps you never tried?" Miss Wenna said gently. + +"Perhaps I knew she wouldn't come. However, don't let's have a fight, +Wenna: I mean to be very civil to you to-day--I do, really." + +"I am so much obliged to you," she said meekly. "But pray don't give +yourself unnecessary trouble." + +"Oh," said he, "I'd always be civil to you if you would treat me +decently. But you say far more rude things than I do--in that soft +way, you know, that looks as if it were all silk and honey. I do think +you've awfully little consideration for human failings. If one goes +wrong in the least thing, even in one's spelling, you say something +that sounds as pleasant as possible, and all the same it transfixes +one just as you stick a pin through a beetle. You are very hard, you +are--mean with those who would like to be friends with you. When it's +mere strangers and cottagers and people of that sort, who don't care +a brass farthing about you, then I believe you're all gentleness +and kindness; but to your real friends the edge of a saw is smooth +compared to you." + +"Am I so very harsh to my friends?" the young lady said in a resigned +way. + +"Oh, well," he said, with some compunction, "I don't quite say that, +but you could be much more pleasant if you liked, and a little more +charitable to their faults. You know there are some who would give a +great deal to win your approval; and perhaps when you find fault they +are so disappointed that they think your words are sharper than you +mean; and sometimes they think you might give them credit for trying +to please you, at least." + +"And who are these persons?" Wenna said, with another smile stealing +over her face. + +"Oh," said he rather shamefacedly, "there's no need to explain +anything to you: you always see it before one need put it in words." + +Well, perhaps it was in his manner or in the tone of his voice that +there was something which seemed at this moment to touch her deeply, +for she half turned and looked up at his face with her honest and +earnest eyes, and said to him kindly, "Yes, I do know without you +telling me; and it makes me happy to hear you talk so; and if I am +unjust to you, you must not think it intentional. And I shall try not +to be so in the future." + +Mrs. Trelyon was regarding with a kindly look the two young people +walking on in front of her. Whatever pleased her son pleased her, and +she was glad to see him enjoy himself in so light-hearted a fashion. +These two were chatting to each other in the friendliest manner: +sometimes they stopped to pick up wild flowers: they were as two +children together under the fair and light summer skies. + +They went down and along a narrow valley, until they suddenly stood +in front of the sea, the green waters of which were breaking in upon a +small and lonely creek. What strange light was this that fell from +the white skies above, rendering all the objects around them sharp its +outline and intense in color? The beach before them seemed of a pale +lilac, where the green waves broke in a semicircle of white. On their +right some masses of ruddy rock jutted out into the cold sea, and +there were huge black caverns into which the waves dashed and roared. +On their left and far above them towered a great and isolated rock, +its precipitous sides scored here and there with twisted lines of red +and yellow quartz; and on the summit of this bold headland, amid +the dark green of the sea-grass, they could see the dusky ruins--the +crumbling walls and doorways and battlements--of the castle that is +named in all the stories of King Arthur and his knights. The bridge +across to the mainland has, in the course of centuries, fallen away, +but there, on the other side of the wide chasm, were the ruins of the +other portions of the castle, scarcely to be distinguished in parts +from the grass-grown rocks. How long ago was it since Sir Tristram +rode out here to the end of the world, to find the beautiful Isoulde +awaiting him--she whom he had brought from Ireland as an unwilling +bride to the old king Mark? And what of the joyous company of knights +and ladies who once held high sport in the courtyard there? Trelyon, +looking shyly at his companion, could see that her eyes seemed +centuries away from him. She was quite unconscious of his covertly +staring at her, for she was absently looking at the high and bare +precipices, the deserted slopes of dark sea-grass and the lonely +and crumbling ruins. She was wondering whether the ghosts of those +vanished people ever came back to this lonely headland, where they +would find the world scarcely altered since they had left it. Did they +come at night, when the land was dark, and when there was a light +over the sea only coming from the stars? If one were to come at night +alone, and to sit down here by the shore, might not one see strange +things far overhead or hear some sound other than the falling of the +waves? + +"Miss Wenna," he said--and she started suddenly--"are you bold enough +to climb with me up to the castle? I know my mother would rather stay +here." + +She went with him mechanically. She followed him up the rude steps +cut in the steep slopes of slate, holding his hand where that was +possible, but her head was so full of dreams that she answered him +when he spoke only with a vague yes or no. When they descended again +they found that Mabyn had taken Mrs. Trelyon down to the beach, and +had inveigled her into entering a huge cavern, or rather a natural +tunnel, that went right through underneath the promontory on which the +castle is built. They were in a sort of green-hued twilight, a scent +of seaweed filling the damp air, and their voices raising an echo in +the great hall of rock. + +"I hope the climbing has not made you giddy," Mrs. Trelyon said in her +kind way to Wenna, noticing that she was very silent and distrait. + +"Oh no," Mabyn said promptly. "She has been seeing ghosts. We always +know when Wenna has been seeing ghosts: she remains so for hours." + +And, indeed, at this time she was rather more reserved than usual all +during their walk back to luncheon and while they were in the inn; +and yet she was obviously very happy, and sometimes even amused by +the childlike pleasure which Mrs. Trelyon seemed to obtain from these +unwonted experiences. + +"Come, now, mother," Master Harry said, "what are you going to do for +me when I come of age next month? Fill the house with guests--yes, you +promised that--with not more than one parson to the dozen? And when +they're all feasting and gabbling, and missing the targets with their +arrows, you'll slip quietly away, and I'll drive you and Miss Wenna +over here, and you'll go and get your feet wet again in that cavern, +and you'll come up here again and have an elegant luncheon, just like +this. Won't that do?" + +"I don't quite know about the elegance of the luncheon, but I'm sure +our little excursion has been very pleasant. Don't you think so, Miss +Rosewarne?" Mrs. Trelyon said. + +"Indeed I do," said Wenna, with her big, earnest eyes coming back from +their trance. + +"And here is another thing," remarked young Trelyon. "There's +a picture I've seen of the heir coming of age--he's a horrid, +self-sufficient young cad, but never mind--and it seems to be a day of +general jollification. Can't I give a present to somebody? Well, I'm +going to give it to a young lady who never cares for anything but what +she can give away again to somebody else; and it is--well, it is--Why +don't you guess, Mabyn?" + +"I don't know what you mean to give Wenna," said Mabyn naturally. + +"Why, you silly! I mean to give her a dozen sewing-machines--a baker's +dozen--thirteen. There! Oh, I heard you as you came along. It was all, +'Three sewing-machines will cost so much, and four sewing-machines +will cost so much, and five sewing-machines will cost so much. And a +penny a week from so many subscribers will be so much, and twopence a +week from so many will be so much;' and all this as if my mother could +tell you how much twice two was. My arithmetic ain't very brilliant, +but as for hers--And these you shall have, Miss Wenna--one baker's +dozen of sewing-machines, as per order, duly delivered, carriage +free--empty casks and bottles to be returned." + +"That is very kind of you, Mr. Trelyon," Wenna said--and all +the dreams had gone straight out of her head so soon as this was +mentioned--"but we can't possibly accept them. You know our scheme is +to make the sewing club quite self-supporting--no charity." + +"Oh, what stuff!" the young gentleman cried. "You know you will give +all your labor and supervision for nothing: isn't that charity? And +you know you will let off all sorts of people owing you subscriptions +the moment some blessed baby falls ill. And you know you won't charge +interest on all the outlay. But if you insist on paying me back for +my sewing-machines out of the overwhelming profits at the end of next +year, then I'll take the money. I'm not proud." + +"Then we will take six sewing-machines from you, if you please, +Mr. Trelyon, on those conditions," said Wenna gravely. And Master +Harry--with a look toward Mabyn which was just about as good as a +wink--consented. + +As they drove quietly back again to Eglosilyan, Mabyn had taken her +former place by the driver, and found him uncommonly thoughtful. He +answered her questions, but that was all; and it was so unusual to +find Harry Trelyon in this mood that she said to him, "Mr. Trelyon, +have you been seeing ghosts, too?" + +He turned to her and said, "I was thinking about something. Look here, +Mabyn: did you ever know any one, or do you know any one, whose face +is a sort of barometer to you? Suppose that you see her look pale and +tired or sad in any way, then down go your spirits, and you almost +wish you had never been born. When you see her face brighten up and +get full of healthy color, you feel glad enough to burst out singing +or go mad: anyhow, you know that everything's all right. What the +weather is, what people may say about you, whatever else may happen +to you, that's nothing: all you want to see is just that one person's +face look perfectly bright and perfectly happy, and nothing can +touch you then. Did you ever know anybody like that?" he added rather +abruptly. + +"Oh yes," said Mabyn, in a low voice: "that is when you are in love +with some one. And there is only one face in all the world that I look +to for all these things, there is only one person I know who tells you +openly and simply in her face all that affects her, and that is our +Wenna. I suppose you have noticed that, Mr. Trelyon?" + +But he did not make any answer. + + + + +CHAPTER XXI. + +CONFESSION. + + +The lad lay dreaming in the warm meadows by the side of a small and +rapid brook, the clear waters of which plashed and bubbled in the +sunlight as they hurried past the brown stones. His fishing-rod lay +beside him, hidden in the long grass and the daisies. The sun was hot +in the valley--shining on a wall of gray rock behind him, and throwing +purple shadows over the clefts; shining on the dark bushes beside +the stream and on the lush green of the meadows; shining on the trees +beyond, in the shadow of which some dark red cattle were standing. +Then away on the other side of the valley rose gently-sloping woods, +gray and green in the haze of the heat, and over these again was the +pale blue sky with scarcely a cloud in it. It was a hot day to be +found in spring-time, but the waters of the brook seemed cool and +pleasant as they gurgled by, and occasionally a breath of wind blew +over from the woods. For the rest, he lay so still on this fine, +indolent, dreamy morning that the birds around seemed to take no note +of his presence, and one of the large woodpeckers, with his scarlet +head and green body brilliant in the sun, flew close by him and +disappeared into the bushes opposite like a sudden gleam of color shot +by a diamond. + +"Next month," he was thinking to himself as he lay with his hands +behind his head, not caring to shade his handsome and well-tanned face +from the warm sun--"next month I shall be twenty-one, and most folks +will consider me a man. Anyhow, I don't know the man whom I wouldn't +fight or run or ride or shoot against for any wager he liked. But of +all the people who know anything about me, just that one whose opinion +I care for will not consider me a man at all, but only a boy. And that +without saying anything. You can tell, somehow, by a mere look, what +her feelings are; and you know that what she thinks is true. Of course +it's true--I am only a boy. What's the good of me to anybody? I could +look after a farm--that is, I could look after other people doing +their work--but I couldn't do any work myself. And that seems to me +what she is always looking at: 'What's the good of you, what are you +doing, what are you busy about?' It's all very well for her to be +busy, for she can do a hundred thousand things, and she is always at +them. What can I do?" + +Then his wandering day-dreamings took another turn: "It was an odd +thing for Mabyn to say--'_That is when you are in love with some +one_.' But those girls take everything for love. They don't know how +you can admire, almost to worshiping, the goodness of a woman, and how +you are anxious that she should be well and happy, and how you would +do anything in the world to please her, without fancying straight away +that you are in love with her, and want to marry her and drive about +in the same carriage with her. I shall be quite as fond of Wenna +Rosewarne when she is married, although I shall hate that little brute +with his rum and his treacle. The cheek of him, in asking her to marry +him, is astonishing. He is the most hideous little beast that could +have been picked out to marry any woman, but I suppose he has appealed +to her compassion, and then she'll do anything. But if there was +anybody else in love with her, if she cared the least bit about +anybody else, wouldn't I go straight to her and insist on her shunting +that fellow aside? What claim has he on any other feeling of hers but +her compassion? Why, if that fellow were to come and try to frighten +her, and if I were in the affair, and if she appealed to me even by a +look, then there would be short work with something or somebody." + +He got up hastily, with something of a gloomy and angry look on his +face. He did not notice that he had startled all the birds around from +out of the bushes. He picked up his rod and line in a morose +fashion, not seeming to care about adding to the half dozen small and +red-speckled trout he had in his basket. + +While he was thus irresolutely standing he caught sight of a girl's +figure coming rapidly along the valley under the shadow of some ash +trees growing by the stream. It was Wenna Rosewarne herself, and she +seemed to be hurrying toward him. She was carrying some black object +in her arms. + +"Oh, Mr. Trelyon," she said, "what am I to do with this little dog? I +saw him kicking in the road and foaming at the mouth; and then he got +up and ran, and I caught him--" + +Before she had time to say anything more the young man made a sudden +dive at the dog, caught hold of him and turned and heaved him into the +stream. He fell into a little pool of clear brown water: he spluttered +and paddled there for a second, then he got his footing and scrambled +across the stones up to the opposite bank, where he began shaking the +water from his coat among the long grass. + +"Oh, how could you be so disgracefully cruel?" she said, with her face +full of indignation. + +"And how could you be so imprudent?"' he said quite as vehemently. +"Why, whose is the dog?" + +"I don't know." + +"And you catch up some mongrel little cur in the middle of the +highway--He might have been mad." + +"I knew he wasn't mad," she said: "it was only a fit; and how could +you be so cruel as to throw him into the river?" + +"Oh," said the young man, coolly, "a clash of cold water is the best +thing for a dog that has a fit. Besides, I don't care what he had or +what I did with him, so long as you are safe. Your little finger is of +more consequence than the necks of all the curs in the country." + +"Oh, it is mean of you to say that," she retorted warmly. "You have no +pity for those wretched little things that are at every one's mercy. +If it were a handsome and beautiful dog, now, you would care for that, +or if it were a dog that was skilled in getting game for you, you +would care for that." + +"Yes, certainly," he said: "these are dogs that have something to +recommend them." + +"Yes, and every one is good to them: they are not in need of your +favor. But you don't think of the wretched little brutes that have +nothing to recommend them, that only live on sufferance, that every +one kicks and despises and starves." + +"Well," said he with some compunction, "look there! That new friend of +yours--he's no great beauty, you must confess--is all right now. The +bath has cured him. As soon as he's done licking his paws he'll be off +home, wherever that may be. But I've always noticed that about you, +Wenna: you're always on the side of things that are ugly and helpless +and useless in the world; and you're not very just to those who don't +agree with you. For after all, you know, one wants time to acquire +that notion of yours--that it is only weak and ill-favored creatures +that are worthy of the least consideration." + +"Yes," she said rather sadly, "you want time to learn that." + +He looked at her. Did she mean that her sympathy with those who were +weak and ill-favored arose from some strange consciousness that she +herself was both? His cheeks began to burn red. He had often heard her +hint something like that, and yet he had never dared to reason with +her or show her what he thought of her. Should he do so now? + +"Wenna," he said, blushing hotly, "I can't make you out sometimes. You +speak as if no one cared for you. Now, if I were to tell you--" + +"Oh, I am not so ungrateful," she said hastily. "I know that two or +three do; and--and, Mr. Trelyon, do you think you could coax that +little dog over the stream again? You see he has come back again--he +can't find his way home." + +Mr. Trelyon called to the dog: it came down to the river's side, and +whined and shivered on the brink. + +"Do you care a brass farthing about the little beast?" he said to +Wenna. + +"I must put him on his way home," she answered. + +Thereupon the young man went straight through the stream to the other +side, jumping the deeper portions of the channel: he caught up the dog +and brought it back to her; and when she was very angry with him for +this mad performance, he merely kicked some of the water out of his +trousers and laughed. + +Then a smile broke over her face also. "Is that an example of what +people would do for me?" she said shyly. "Mr. Trelyon, you must keep +walking through the warm grass till your feet are dry; or will you +come along to the inn, and I shall get you some shoes and stockings? +Pray do, and at once. I am rather in a hurry." + +"I'll go along with you, anyway," he said, "and put this little brute +into the highway. But why are you in a hurry?" + +"Because," said Wenna, as they set out to walk down the +valley--"because my mother and I are going to Penzance the day after +to-morrow, and I have a lot of things to get ready." + +"To Penzance?" said he with a sudden falling of the face. + +"Yes. She has been dreadfully out of sorts lately, and she has sunk +into a kind of despondent state. The doctor says she must have a +change--a holiday, really--to take her away from the cares of the +house--" + +"Why, Wenna, it's you who want the holiday--it's you who have the +cares of the house," Trelyon said warmly. + +"And so I have persuaded her to go to Penzance for a week or two, and +I go with her to look after her. Mr. Trelyon, would you be kind enough +to keep Rock for me until we come back? I am afraid of the servants +neglecting him." + +"You needn't be afraid of that: he's not one of the ill-favored--every +one will attend to him," said Trelyon; and then he added, after a +minute or two of silence, "The fact is, I think I shall be at Penzance +also while you are there. My cousin Juliott is coming here in about a +fortnight to celebrate the important event of my coming of age, and I +promised to go for her. I might as well go now." + +She said nothing. + +"I might as well go any time," he said rather impatiently. "I haven't +got anything to do. Do you know, before you came along just now, I was +thinking what a very useful person you were in the world, and what +a very useless person I was--about as useless as this little cur. I +think somebody should take me up and heave me into a river. And I was +wondering, too"--here he became a little more embarrassed and slow of +speech--"I was wondering what you would say if I spoke to you, and +gave you a hint that sometimes--that sometimes one might wish to cut +this lazy life if one only knew how, and whether so very busy a person +as yourself mightn't--don't you see?--give one some notion--some sort +of hint, in fact--" + +"Oh, but then, Mr. Trelyon," she said quite cheerfully, "you would +think it very strange if I asked you to take any interest in the +things that keep me busy. That is not a man's work. I wouldn't accept +you as a pupil." + +He burst out laughing. "Why," said he, "do you think I offered to mend +stockings and set sums on slates and coddle babies?" + +"As for setting sums on slates," she remarked with a quiet +impertinence, "the working of them out might be of use to you." + +"Yes, and a serious trouble too," he said candidly. "No, no--that +cottage business ain't in my line. I like to have a joke with the +old folks or a romp with the kids, but I can't go in for cutting out +pinafores. I shall leave my mother to do my share of that for me; and +hasn't she come out strong lately, eh? It's quite a new amusement for +her, and it's driven a deal of that organ-grinding and stuff out of +her head; and I've a notion some o' those parsons--" + +He stopped short, remembering who his companion was; and at this +moment they came to a gate which opened out on the highway, through +which the small cur was passed to find his way home. + +"Now, Miss Wenna," said the young man--"By the way, you see how I +remember to address you respectfully ever since you got sulky with me +about it the other day?" + +"I am sure I did not get sulky with you, and especially about that," +she remarked with much composure. "I suppose you are not aware that +you have dropped the 'Miss' several times this morning already?" + +"Did I, really? Well, then, I'm awfully sorry; but then you are so +good-natured you tempt one to forget; and my mother she always calls +you Wenna Rosewarne now in speaking to me, as if you were a little +school-girl, instead of being the chief support and pillar of all the +public affairs of Eglosilyan. And now, Miss Wenna, I sha'n't go down +the road with you, because my damp boots and garments would gather the +dust; but perhaps you wouldn't mind stopping two seconds here, and I'm +going to go a cracker and ask you a question: What should a fellow in +my position try to do? You see, I haven't had the least training for +any one of the professions, even if I had any sort of capacity--" + +"But why should you wish to have a profession?" she said simply. "You +have more money than is good for you already." + +"Then you don't think it ignominious," he said, with his face lighting +up considerably, "to fish in summer and shoot in autumn and hunt in +winter, and make that the only business of one's life?" + +"I should if it were the only business, but it needn't be, and you +don't make it so. My father speaks very highly of the way you look +after your property; and he knows what attending to an estate is. And +then you have so many opportunities of being kind and useful to the +people about you that you might do more good that way than by working +night and day at a profession. Then you owe much to yourself, because +if every one began with himself, and educated himself, and became +satisfied and happy with doing his best, there would be no bad conduct +and wretchedness to call for interference. I don't see why you should +be ashamed of shooting and hunting and all that, and doing them as +well as anybody else, or far better, as I hear people say. I don't +think a man is bound to have ambition and try to become famous: you +might be of much greater use in the world, even in such a little +place as Eglosilyan, than if you were in Parliament. I did say to Mrs. +Trelyon that I should like to see you in Parliament, because one has +a natural pride in any person one admires and likes very much, and one +wishes--" + +He saw the quick look of fear that sprang to her eyes--not a sudden +appearance of shy embarrassment, but of absolute fear--and he was +almost as startled by her blunder as she herself was. He hastily came +to her rescue. He thanked her in a few rapid and formal words for her +patience and advice; and, as he saw she was trying to turn away and +hide the mortification visible on her face, he shook hands with her +and let her go. + +Then he turned. He had been startled, it is true, and grieved to see +the pain her chance words had caused her. But now a great glow of +delight rose up within him, and he could have called aloud to the blue +skies and the silent woods because of the joy that filled his heart. +They were but chance words, of course. They were uttered with no +deliberate intention: on the contrary, her quick look of pain showed +how bitterly she regretted the blunder. Moreover, he congratulated +himself on his rapid piece of acting, and assured himself that she +would believe that he had not noticed that admission of hers. They +were idle words: she would forget them. The incident, so far as she +was concerned, was gone. + +But not so far as he was concerned. For now he knew that the person +whom, above all other persons in the world, he was most desirous to +please, whose respect and esteem he was most anxious to obtain, had +not only condoned much of his idleness out of the abundant charity of +her heart, but had further, and by chance, revealed to him that she +gave him some little share of that affection which she seemed to shed +generously and indiscriminately on so many folks and things around +her. He, too, was now in the charmed circle. He walked with a new +pride through the warm, green meadows, his rod over his shoulder: he +whistled as he went, or he sang snatches of "The Rose of Allandale." +He met two small boys out bird's-nesting: he gave them a shilling +apiece, and then inconsistently informed them that if he caught them +then or at any other time with a bird's nest in their hands he would +cuff their ears. Then he walked hastily home, put by his fishing-rod, +and shut himself up in his study with half a dozen of those learned +volumes which he had brought back unsoiled from school. + + + + +CHAPTER XXII. + +ON WINGS OF HOPE. + + +When Trelyon arrived late one evening at Penzance he was surprised +to find his uncle's coachman awaiting him at the station: "What's the +matter, Tobias? Is the old gentleman going to die? You don't mean to +say you are here for me?" + +"Yaäs, zor, I be," said the little old man with no great courtesy. + +"Then he is going to die if he sends out his horse at this time o' +night. Look here, Tobias: I'll put my portmanteau inside and come on +the box to have a talk with you--you're such a jolly old card, you +know--and you'll tell me all that's happened since I last enjoyed my +uncle's bountiful hospitality." + +This the young man did: and then the brown-faced, wiry and surly +little person, having started his horse, proceeded to tell his story +in a series of grumbling and disconnected sentences. He was not nearly +so taciturn as he looked: "The maäster he went sün to bed to-night: +'twere Miss Juliott sent me to the station, without tellin' en. He's +gettin' worse and worse, that's sure: if yü be for giving me half a +crown, like, or any one that comes to the house, he finds it out and +stops it out o' my wages: yes, he does, zor, the old fule!" + +"Tobias, be a little more respectful to my uncle, if you please." + +"Why, zor, yü knaw en well enough," said the man in the same surly +fashion. "And I'll tell yü this, Maäster Harry, if yü be after +dinner with en, and he has a bottle o' poort wine that he puts on +the mantelpiece, and he says to yü to let that aloän, vor 'tis a +medicine-zart o' wine, don't yü heed en, but have that wine. 'Tis the +real old poort wine, zor, that yür vather gied en--the dahmned old +pagan!" + +The young man burst out laughing, instead of reprimanding Tobias, who +maintained his sulky impassiveness of face. + +"Why, zor, I be gardener now, too: yaäs I be, to save the wages. +And he's gone clean mazed about that garden--yaäs, I think. Would yü +believe this, Maäster Harry, that he killed every one o' the blessed +strawberries last year with a lot o' wrack from the bache, because he +said it wüd be as good for them as for the 'sparagus?" + +"Well, but the old chap finds amusement in pottering about the +garden--" said Master Harry. + +"The old fule!" repeated Tobias, in an under tone. + +"And the theory is sound about the seaweed and the strawberries; +just as his old notion of getting a green rose by pouring sulphate of +copper in at the roots." + +"Yaäs, that were another pretty thing, Maäster Harry, and he had the +tin labels all printed out in French, and he waited and waited, and +there bain't a fairly güde rose left in the garden. And his violet +glass for the cucumbers: he burned en up to once, although 'twere fine +to hear'n talk about the sunlight and the rays and such nonsenses. He +be a strange mahn, zor, and a dahmned close'n with his penny-pieces, +Christian and all as he calls his-sen. There's Miss Juliott, zor, +she's go-in' to get married, I suppose; and when she goes no one 'll +dare spake to 'n. Be yü going to stop long this time, Maäster Harry?" + +"Not at the Hollies, Tobias. I shall go down to the Queen's to-morrow: +I've got rooms there." + +"So much the better--so much the better," said the frank but +inhospitable retainer; and presently the jogtrot old animal between +the shafts was pulled up in front of a certain square old-fashioned +building of gray stone which was prettily surrounded with trees. They +had arrived at the Rev. Mr. Penaluna's house, and there was a young +lady standing in the light of the hall, she having opened the door +very softly as she heard the carriage drive up. + +"So here you are, Harry; and you'll stay with us the whole fortnight, +won't you? Come in to the dining-room--I have some supper ready for +you. Papa's gone to bed, and he desired me to give you his excuses, +and he hopes you'll make yourself quite at home, as you always do, +Harry." + +He did make himself quite at home, for, having kissed his cousin and +flung his topcoat down in the hall, he went into the dining-room and +took possession of an easy-chair. + +"Sha'n't have any supper, Jue, thank you. You won't mind my lighting +a cigar--somebody's been smoking here already. And what's the least +poisonous claret you've got?" + +"Well, I declare!" she said, but she got him the wine all the +same, and watched him light his cigar: then she took the easy-chair +opposite. + +"Tell us about your young man, Jue," he said. "Girls always like to +talk about that." + +"Do they?" she said. "Not to boys." + +"I shall be twenty-one in a fortnight. I am thinking of getting +married." + +"So I hear," she remarked quietly. + +Now he had been talking nonsense at random, mostly intent on getting +his cigar well lit, but this little observation rather startled him. +"What have you heard?" he said abruptly. + +"Oh, nothing--the ordinary stupid gossip," she said, though she was +watching him rather closely. "Are you going to stay with us for the +next fortnight?" + +"No, I have got rooms at the Queen's." + +"I thought so. One might have expected you, however, to stay with your +relations when you came to Penzance." + +"Oh, that's all gammon, Jue," he said: "you know very well your father +doesn't care to have any one stay with you--it's too much bother. +You'll have quite enough of me while I am in Penzance." + +"Shall we have anything of you?" she said with apparent indifference. +"I understood that Miss Rosewarne and her mamma had already come +here." + +"And what if they have?" he said with unnecessary fierceness. + +"Well, Harry," she said, "you needn't get unto a temper about it, but +people will talk, you know; and they say that your attentions to that +young lady are rather marked, considering that she is engaged to be +married; and you have induced your mother to make a pet of her. Shall +I go on?" + +"No, you needn't," he said with a strong effort to overcome his anger. +"You're quite right--people do talk, but they wouldn't talk so much +if other people didn't carry tales. Why, it isn't like you, Jue! I +thought you were another sort. And about this girl, of all girls in +the world!" + +He got up and began walking about the room, and talking with +considerable vehemence, but no more in anger. He would tell her what +cause there was for this silly gossip. He would tell her who this +girl was who had been lightly mentioned. And in his blunt, frank, +matter-of-fact way, which did not quite conceal his emotion, he +revealed to his cousin all that he thought of Wenna Rosewarne, and +what he hoped for her in the future, and what their present relations +were, and then plainly asked her if she could condemn him. + +Miss Juliott was touched: "Sit down, Harry: I have wanted to talk +to you, and I don't mean to heed any gossip. Sit down, please--you +frighten me by walking up and down like that. Now, I'm going to talk +common sense to you, for I should like to be your friend; and your +mother is so easily led away by any sort of sentiment that she isn't +likely to have seen with my eyes. Suppose that this Miss Rosewarne--" + +"No, hold hard a bit, Jue," he said imperatively. "You may talk till +the millennium, but just keep off her, I warn you." + +"Will you hear me out, you silly boy? Suppose that Miss Rosewarne +is everything that you believe her to be. I'm going to grant that, +because I'm going to ask you a question. You can't have such an +opinion of any girl, and be constantly in her society, and go +following her about like this, without falling in love with her. Now, +in that case would you propose to marry her?" + +"I marry her!" he said, his face becoming suddenly pale for a moment. +"Jue, you are mad! I am not fit to marry a girl like that. You don't +know her. Why--" + +"Let all that alone, Harry: when a man is in love with a woman he +always thinks he's good enough for her; and whether he does or not +he tries to get her for a wife. Don't let us discuss your comparative +merits: one might even put in a word for you. But suppose you drifted +into being in love with her--and I consider that quite probable--and +suppose you forgot, as I know you would forget, the difference in your +social position, how would you like to go and ask her to break her +promise to the gentleman to whom she is engaged?" + +Master Harry laughed aloud in a somewhat nervous fashion: "Him? Look +here, Jue: leave me out of it--I haven't the cheek to talk of myself +in that connection--but if there was a decent sort of fellow whom that +girl really took a liking to, do you think he would let that elderly +and elegant swell out in Jamaica stand in his way? He would be no +such fool, I can tell you. He would consider the girl first of all. +He would say to himself, 'I mean to make this girl happy; if any one +interferes, let him look out!' Why, Jue, you don't suppose any man +would be frightened by that sort of thing?" + +Miss Juliott did not seem quite convinced by this burst of scornful +oratory. She continued quietly, "You forget something, Harry. Your +heroic young man might find it easy to do something wild--to fight +with that gentleman in the West Indies, or murder him, or anything +like that, just as you see in a story--but perhaps Miss Rosewarne +might have something to say." + +"I meant if she cared for him," Trelyon said, looking down. + +"Granting that also, do you think it likely your hot-headed gentleman +would be able to get a young lady to disgrace herself by breaking her +plighted word and deceiving a man who went away trusting in her? +You say she has a very tender conscience--that she is so anxious to +consult every one's happiness before her own, and all that. Probably +it is true. I say nothing against her. But to bring the matter back to +yourself--for I believe you're hot-headed enough to do anything--what +would you think of her if you or anybody else persuaded her to do such +a treacherous thing?" + +"She is not capable of treachery," he said somewhat stiffly. "If +you've got no more cheerful things to talk about, you'd better go to +bed, Jue. I shall finish my cigar by myself." + +"Very well, then, Harry. You know your room. Will you put out the lamp +when you have lit your candle?" + +So she went, and the young man was left alone in no very enviable +frame of mind. He sat and smoked while the clock on the mantelpiece +swung its gilded boy and struck the hours and half hours with unheeded +regularity. He lit a second cigar, and a third; he forgot the wine. +It seemed to him that he was looking on all the roads of life that lay +before him, and they were lit up by as strange and new a light as +that which was beginning to shine over the world outside. New fancies +seemed to awake with the new dawn. For himself to ask Wenna Rosewarne +to be his wife! Could he but win the tender and shy regard of her eyes +he would fall at her feet and bathe them with his tears. And if this +wonderful thing were possible--if she could put her hand in his +and trust to him for safety in all the coming years they might live +together--what man of woman born would dare to interfere? There was a +blue light coming in through the shutters. He went to the window: +the topmost leaves of the trees were quivering in the cold air far up +there in the clearing skies, where the stars were fading out one by +one, and he could hear the sound of the sea on the distant beach, and +he knew that across the gray plain of waters the dawn was breaking, +and that over the sleeping world another day was rising that seemed to +him the first day of a new and tremulous life, full of joy and courage +and hope. + +[TO BE CONTINUED.] + + + + +ON THE VIA SAN BASILIO. + + +In Rome, 1851; a cold, dreary day in December--one of those days in +which a man's ambition seems to desert him entirely, leaving only its +grinning skeleton to mock him. Depressing as was the weather to a man +who had cheerfulness as a companion by which to repel its blustering +attacks, and raise his mind above the despondency it was calculated +to produce, how much more so to one whose hope had gone out as a +flickering lamp in a sudden gust of wind, and the sharp steel of whose +ambition had turned to pierce his own heart! + +Such a man, on the day mentioned, was walking along the Via San +Basilio. He was small in stature, poorly clad, and so thin, and +even cadaverous, that the casual observer might have been under +apprehension lest a gust of wind a little stronger than the average +might blow him entirely away; yet his air and manner were proud and +haughty, and what little evidences of feeling peered through the signs +of dissipation too apparent on his naturally attractive face were +those of genuine refinement. He was accompanied by a cicerone, or +servant, as villainous-looking a fellow as one often meets, even in +Italy, where an evil expression is so often seen stamped on handsome +features. + +Along the Via San Basilio the two men walked until they stood opposite +the door of No. 51. Sacred ground this, and historical as well. Art +had her votaries here, as the tourist of to-day will find she still +has, at whose shrines pilgrims from afar and from near worshiped, and +grew better and stronger for their ministrations. Crawford, then +at the acme of his fame, had his constantly-thronged studio in the +immediate vicinity, while those at No. 51 embraced, among others, that +of Tenerani, the famous Italian sculptor, whose work is always in such +fine dramatic taste, although he never sacrifices his love and +deep feeling of reverence for Nature, combining that with the most +delightful charms of Greek art. Among this artist's most noted works +will be remembered his "Descent from the Cross," which tourists +visiting the Torlonia chapel in the Lateran never gaze upon without +a thrill. The house was owned and also occupied by Bienaimé, a French +sculptor who afterward became famous. + +In the immediate vicinity stands the famous Palazzo Barberini, begun +by Urban VIII. (Maffeo Barberini), who sat in the pontifical chair +from 1623 to 1644, and finished by Bernini in 1640. This palace +contains many paintings of historical interest by Raphael, Titian, +Guido, Claude and others. The one by the first-mentioned artist is a +Fornarina, and bears the autograph of the painter on the armlet. But +the picture that attracts the most attention here is one of world-wide +reputation, copies, engravings and photographs of which are everywhere +to be met with--Guido's Beatrice Cenci. A great divergence of opinion, +as is well known, exists in regard to the portrait. It bears the +pillar and crown of the Colonnas, to which family it probably +belonged. According to the family tradition, it was taken on the night +before her execution. Other accounts state that it was painted by +Guido from memory after he had seen her on the scaffold. Judging from +the position in which the poor girl's head is represented, one would +more readily give credence to the latter story, and think the artist's +memory had preserved her look and position as she turned her head for +a last look at the brutal, bellowing crowd behind. + +In the piazza of the palace is a very beautiful fountain, utilized +by one of the oldest Roman statues, representing a faun blowing water +from a conch-shell. + +But we must return to the Via San Basilio, and the two wayfarers we +left standing in front of No. 51. After gazing a moment at the number +to assure themselves that they were right, they entered, and knocked +at the first door, which was opened by the occupant of the apartment. +He was an artist and a man of very marked characteristics. Seven +years later Hawthorne wrote as follows of him: "He is a plain, homely +Yankee, quite unpolished by his many years' residence in Italy. He +talks ungrammatically; walks with a strange, awkward gait and stooping +shoulders; is altogether unpicturesque, but wins one's confidence +by his very lack of grace. It is not often that we see an artist +so entirely free from affectation in his aspect and deportment. +His pictures were views of Swiss and Italian scenery, and were most +beautiful and true. One of them, a moonlight picture, was really +magical--the moon shining so brightly that it seemed to throw a +light even beyond the limits of the picture; and yet his sunrises and +sunsets, and noontides too, were nowise inferior to this, although +their excellence required somewhat longer study to be fully +appreciated." + +After this introduction by our sweet and quaint romancer, the reader +will hardly need be told that the two strangers stood in the presence +of America's now illustrious artist, George L. Brown. But one seeing +him then, as he stood almost scowling at the two strangers, would +hardly have idealized him into the artist whose pencil has done so +much of late years to give American art a distinctive name through his +poetical delineations of the rare, sun-tinted atmosphere that hovers +over Italian landscapes. However, our apology for him must be that the +day was raw and blustering, and that he had no sooner caught sight +of the men through his window, as they hesitatingly entered the door, +than his suspicions were aroused. + +The Italian acted as spokesman, and inquired if there were any rooms +to let in the building. Brown, thinking this the easiest way of +ridding himself of the visitors, went in search of the landlord, who +came, and after a moment's conversation the whole party entered the +studio, much to its owner's displeasure. + +The cicerone did most of the talking, though now and then the other +made a remark or two in broken Italian. But this was only for the +first few moments. He soon became oblivious of all save art, of which +one could see at a glance he was passionately fond. One of Mr. Brown's +pictures--a large one he was then engaged on--particularly attracted +his attention. He drew closer and closer to the canvas, examining it +with a minuteness that showed the connoisseur, and finally remarked: +"It is very fine in color, sir, and the atmosphere is delicious. Why +have I not heard of you before?" examining the corner of the canvas +for the artist's name, but speaking in a tone and with an air that +gave Brown the impression he was indulging in the random flattery so +current in studios. So, ignoring the question, he asked with a slight +shrug of the shoulders, "Are you an artist?" + +"I paint a little," was the reply, with an air of modesty which Brown +mistook for the bashful half-assertion of some daubing amateur. + +Just then the cicerone came forward and announced that the bargain was +completed and the room ready for occupancy. + +"I shall be happy--no, _happy_ is not a good word for me--I shall be +glad to see you in my studio when I have moved in, and perhaps you may +see some things to please you." + +So saying, the stranger departed, leaving Brown not a whit better +impressed with him than at first. + +The next morning the two called again, when the gentleman made an +examination of the room selected the day before, having met Mr. Brown +in the hall-way and invited him in. On entering, the new occupant took +from his pocket a piece of chalk and a compass and made a number of +circles and figures on the floor to determine when the sun would shine +in the room. Brown watched him with a certain degree of curiosity and +amusement, and finally, concluding he was half crazy, returned to his +own studio. + +The next day the cicerone called alone to see about some repairs, when +Brown hailed him: "_Buono giorno. Che è questo_?" ("Good-day. Who is +that?") + +"_Non sapete_?" ("Don't you know?"), was the Italian's response. "Why, +that is the celebrated Brullof." + +Brown started as though shot. First there flashed through his brain +the remembrance of how cavalierly he had treated the distinguished +artist, and then a quick panorama of his recent history, which had +been the gossip of studios and art-circles for some time back. "I must +go to him," he said, "and apologize for not treating him with more +deference." + +"_Non, signore_," was the cicerone's response. "Never mind: let it +rest. He is a man of the world, and pays little heed to such things. +Besides, he is so overwhelmed with his private griefs that he has +probably noticed no slight." + +However, when the great Russian artist took possession of his studio +his American brother of the pencil made his apology, and received this +response; "Don't waste words on so trivial a matter. Do I not court +the contempt of a world that I despise to my heart's core? Say no more +about it. Run in and see me when agreeable; and if you have no better +callers than such a plaything of fate as I, maybe you will not refuse +me occasional admittance." + +The Russian artist now shunned notoriety as he had formerly courted +it. Little is known of his history beyond mere rumor, and that only in +artistic circles. He was born at St. Petersburg in 1799 or 1800, and +gave himself to the study of art at an early age, becoming an especial +proficient in color and composition. One of his most widely-known +works is "The Last Days of Pompeii," which created great enthusiasm a +quarter of a century ago. This, however, was painted during his career +of dissipation, and its vivid coloring seemed to have been drawn from +a soul morbid with secret woes and craving a nepenthe which never +came. + +The young artist was petted and idolized by the wealth and nobility +of St. Petersburg, where he married a beautiful woman, and became +court-painter to the czar Nicholas about the year 1830. For some years +no couple lived more happily, and no artist swayed a greater multitude +of fashion and wealth than he; but scandal began to whisper that +the czar was as fond of the handsome, brilliant wife of the young +court-painter as the cultivated people of St. Petersburg were of the +husband's marvelously colored works; and when at last the fact became +known to Brullof that the monarch who had honored him through an +intelligent appreciation of art had dishonored him through a guilty +passion for his wife, he left St. Petersburg, swore never again to +set foot on Russian soil or be recognized as a Russian subject, and, +plunging headlong into a wild career of dissipation, was thenceforth a +wanderer up and down the continent of Europe. + +It was when this career had borne its inevitable fruit, and he was but +a mere wreck of the polished gentleman of a few years previous, that +Brullof came to the Via San Basilio, where, as soon as the fact +became known, visitors began to call. Among the first were the Russian +ambassador and suite, who were driven up in a splendid carriage, with +liveried attendants; but after the burly Italian had announced to his +master who was in waiting, the door was closed, and with no message in +return the representatives of the mightiest empire on the globe +were left to withdraw with the best grace they could muster for the +occasion. Similar scenes were repeated often during the entire Roman +season. He saw but few of his callers--Russians, never. + +The Russian and the American artists became quite intimate during the +few months they were thrown together, and Mr. Brown has acknowledged +that he owes much of the success of his later efforts to hints +received from the self-exiled, dying Russian. + +"Mr. Brown," he said on one occasion, while examining the picture on +the artist's easel, "no one since Claude has painted atmosphere as you +do. But you must follow Calamé's example, and make drawing more of +a study. Draw from Nature, and do it faithfully, and with your +atmosphere I will back you against the world. That is bad," pointing +to the huge limb of a tree in the foreground: "it bulges both ways, +you see. Now, Nature is never so. Look at my arm," speaking with +increased animation, and suddenly throwing off his coat and rolling +up his shirt-sleeve. "When you see a convexity, you will see concavity +opposite. Just so in Nature, especially in the trunks and limbs of +trees." + +This criticism made such an impression on Brown that it decided him +to go into more laborious work, and was the foundation of his habit +of getting up at daybreak and going out to sketch rocks, trees and +cattle, until he stands where he now does as a draughtsman. + +The painting which Brullof had first admired, and which had induced +him to compare Brown to Claude in atmospheric effects, was a view of +the Pontine Marshes, painted for Crawford the sculptor, and now in +possession, of his widow, Mrs. Terry, at Rome. + +During this entire season the penuriousness exhibited by Brullof is +one of the hardest phases of his character to explain. Though he was +worth at least half a million of dollars, his meals were generally of +the scantiest kind, purchased by the Italian cicerone, and cooked and +eaten in his room. Yet a kindness would touch the hidden springs of +his generosity as the staff of Moses did the rock of Horeb. + +Toward the close of the Roman season, Brullof, growing more and more +moody, and becoming still more of a recluse, painted his last picture, +which showed how diseased and morbid his mind had become. He called it +"The End of All Things," and made it sensational to the verge of that +flexible characteristic. It represented popes and emperors tumbling +headlong into a terrible abyss, while the world's benefactors +were ascending in a sort of theatrical transformation-scene. A +representation of Christ holding a cross aloft was given, and winged +angels were hovering here and there, much in the same manner as +_coryphées_ and lesser auxiliaries of the ballet. A capital portrait +of George Washington was painted in the mass of rubbish, perhaps as +a compliment to Brown. In contradistinction to the portrait of +Washington were seen prominently those of the czar Nicholas and the +emperor Napoleon; the former put in on account of the artist's own +private wrong, and the latter because at that time, just after the +_coup d'ètat_, he was the execration of the liberty-loving world. + +In the spring the Russian artist gave up his studio, and went down +to some baths possessing a local reputation situated on the road to +Florence, where he died very suddenly. Much mystery overhangs his last +days, and absolutely no knowledge exists as to what became of his +vast property. His cicerone robbed him of his gold watch and all +his personal effects and disappeared. His remains lie buried in the +Protestant burying-ground outside the walls of Rome, near the Porto +di Sebastiano. His tomb is near that of Shelley and Keats, and +the monument erected to his memory is very simple, his head being +sculptured upon it in _alto relievo_, and on the opposite side an +artist's palette and brushes. + +EARL MARBLE. + + + + +A CHRISTMAS HYMN. + + The air was still o'er Bethlehem's plain, + As if the great Night held its breath, + When Life Eternal came to reign + Over a world of Death. + + The pagan at his midnight board + Let fall his brimming cup of gold: + He felt the presence of his Lord + Before His birth was told. + + The temples trembled to their base, + The idols shuddered as in pain: + A priesthood in its power of place + Knelt to its gods in vain. + + All Nature felt a thrill divine + When burst that meteor on the night, + Which, pointing to the Saviour's shrine, + Proclaimed the new-born light-- + + Light to the shepherds! and the star + Gilded their silent midnight fold-- + Light to the Wise Men from afar, + Bearing their gifts of gold-- + + Light to a realm of Sin and Grief-- + Light to a world in all its needs-- + The Light of life--a new belief + Rising o'er fallen creeds-- + + Light on a tangled path of thorns, + Though leading to a martyr's throne-- + Light to guide till Christ returns + In glory to His own. + + There still it shines, while far abroad + The Christmas choir sings now, as then, + "Glory, glory unto God! + Peace and good-will to men!" + +ROME, Christmas, 1871. + +T. BUCHANAN READ. + + + + +THE PARSEES. + + +Hanging in my study is a noteworthy portrait, generally the first +object observed by those who enter. It is an exquisite painting on +glass, the work of Làng Quà, the best artist China has produced in our +day, and it delineates the form and features of a singularly handsome +young man. But it is the quaint Parsee garb that first attracts +attention; and the weird romance that attaches to the history of the +Fire-worshipers gives this work of art its real value, rather than +its lines of beauty or the celebrity of the painter's name. This +delicately-featured portrait _may_ depict the countenance of Musaljee +Jamsetjee Jejeebhoy, the first-born son and heir of the late Sir +Jamsetjee Jejeebhoy, baronet, of Bombay, India. That he really sat for +this portrait I cannot, however, positively assert, since I obtained +the painting from an English officer, who bought it of the artist, but +had "forgotten the strange, outlandish name of the Indian nabob," as +he said. It is certainly the portrait of a _Parsee_--true to the life +in features and garb, and it bears a striking resemblance to the young +Musaljee when about eighteen years of age. He was not then a personage +of any great celebrity, though the worthy son of a most remarkable +sire, the latter long known and honored in Europe for his liberal and +enlightened charities, and especially for his munificent donations, +that saved the lives of thousands of British subjects, during the +terrible famines that occurred in India between the years 1840 and +1846. It was in grateful recognition of this noble philanthropy that +Queen Victoria conferred upon him the honor of a baronetcy, sending +out a nobleman to act as her proxy in the presentation of a sword +which had been handled by more than one British monarch. Sir Jamsetjee +was the first East Indian who ever received a title from a European +sovereign. During the terrible famines alluded to he not only +distributed daily from his own palace a plentiful supply of food to +all who came, but he made also large donations of provisions to the +English governor of Bombay for the supply of his starving troops. +When, subsequently, pestilence followed in the footsteps of famine, +this true-hearted philanthropist, overstepping all prejudices of creed +and clan, built and endowed at his own expense a free hospital for the +sick of all nations and religions. Temporary bamboo cottages at first +received the sick till there was time for the erection of the present +elegant structure, which is built in the Gothic style, and is capable +of accommodating some six or eight hundred patients, besides nurses +and attendants. The physicians have been from the beginning of the +enterprise all English, as are many of the nurses, and the supplies in +every department are the very best the country can furnish. Since the +death of the noble founder, the son, who inherits his name and title, +has continued to foster with loving devotion the institution +which stands as a lasting monument of the fame and virtues of his +illustrious sire. The conception of such a charity tells not only of a +generous heart, but of far-reaching intelligence, while the energy and +perseverance of both father and son in carrying on, year after year, +so vast a system of benefactions, challenge our warmest admiration. + +The name of the late Sir Jamsetjee stood for more than a score of +years at the very head of the list of merchant-princes and ship-owners +in Bombay, where he was born, and where his ancestors for many +generations resided. He came of an old and wealthy family, who trace +their genealogy back to the Parsee exodus of the eighth century; and +it is said that the "sacred fire" has never once during all that time +burned out upon their altar. Sir Jamsetjee himself, though probably +faithful in the observance of the actual requirements of his creed, +was assuredly less strict than the majority, and being a man of large +intellect, cultivated mind and great independence of character, he did +not hesitate to borrow from other nations any customs, institutions or +inventions that might tend to the improvement of his own people. +His stately mansion was built and furnished in European style; his +children, even his daughters, were carefully educated in foreign as +well as native lore; and his own associations were with refined and +cultivated people, without any regard to their nation or creed. It was +while visiting at his house, in familiar intercourse with his family, +and with other Parsees of similar position, that I gleaned many +items of interest concerning the history and practices of the +Fire-worshipers. Other facts were added from time to time during +several years of frequent association with these singular people, in +whose glorious though unsuccessful struggles for home and liberty it +is impossible not to feel an interest. + +As a race, the Parsees are intelligent, active and energetic. With +business capacities far above the average, they are usually successful +in amassing wealth, while they are extremely benevolent in dispensing +their gains for both public and private charities. For private +benefactions they have, however, little call among themselves, since a +Parsee pauper would be an unheard-of anomaly. Their style of living is +princely but peculiar. In the reception-rooms of the wealthy--and most +of the Parsees in the city of Bombay are wealthy--one finds a +rather quaint mingling of Oriental luxury and European +elegance--brightly-tinted Persian carpets placed in Eastern fashion +over divans strewn with embroidered cushions and jewel-studded +pillows, among which recline, with genuine Oriental indolence, some of +the members of the family; while in another part of the same room +half a dozen more may be grouped about a table of marble and rosewood, +occupying velvet chairs that have traveled unmistakably from London +or Paris. French mirrors and Italian statuettes may have for their +_vis-à-vis_ the exquisite mosaics, the massive gold vases and the +costly bijouterie of the Orient, strewn so profusely around as to +startle unaccustomed eyes; and a genuine Meissonier will be just as +likely to be placed side by side with a Persian houri as anywhere +else. The Parsees drive the finest Arab steeds, but on their equipages +there is a more lavish display of ornament than we should deem quite +in accordance with good taste. The same is true in regard to personal +decoration. They wear immense quantities of costly jewelry, and nearly +all their garments are of silk, generally richly embroidered in gold, +and often with the addition of precious stones. Even little children +wear only silk, infants from the very first being wrapped in long, +loose robes of plain white silk that are gradually displaced by others +more elaborate and costly; while the toilette of a Parsee lady in full +evening-dress is often of the value of a hundred thousand rupees (or +forty-five thousand dollars). The female costume consists of silk or +cotton skirts gathered full round the waist, and long, loose robes +of silk, lace or muslin, all more or less decorated according to the +wealth of the wearer. The dress of the men is composed of trousers and +shirts of white or colored silk and long caftans of muslin, with the +addition of a fanciful little scarf fringed at the ends, and worn +jauntily across one shoulder and under the other arm. Their caps are +made of pasteboard covered with gay-colored silk, embroidered and +studded with precious stones or pearls. The form of a Parsee's shirt +is a matter of vital importance, both in regard to respectability and +religion. It must have five seams, neither more nor less, and be made +to lap on the breast exactly in a certain way. Both sexes wear around +the body a double string, which they loosen when at prayer, and which +a Parsee is never, under any circumstances, permitted to dispense +with. No engagement or business transaction is legally binding if by +any chance this talismanic cord was left off by either party when the +contract was made. The cord is first placed on children when they have +completed their ninth year, and this serves to mark the most important +epoch of their lives. Before the investiture the eating of food with +Christians or heathen does not defile the juvenile Parsee, and girls +may even go about in public with their fathers; but after the bestowal +of the sacred cord the girls must be kept in seclusion and the boys +eat only with their own people. + +Only the most liberal Parsees will permit those of other creeds to eat +under the same roof with themselves, and even these never eat at the +table with their guests. The table is first covered for the visitors, +and they are waited on with the utmost assiduity, often by the members +of the family in addition to the servants. When the guests leave the +board not only is the cloth changed, but the table itself is washed +before being recovered: salts, castors and other similar articles are +all emptied and washed, and the table newly laid in every particular. +Small flat cakes are distributed round the board to do service as +plates, and the various dishes arranged in the centre within reach of +all. The family then wash hands and faces and the father says a short +prayer, after which all take their seats and the meal begins. Neither +knives nor forks are used, but the meat is torn from the bones with +the fingers only, and with the left hand each one dips, from time to +time, bread, meat or vegetables into the broth or gravy as he wishes, +and then tosses it into his mouth, without allowing his fingers to +touch his lips. This requires some dexterity, and children are not +permitted at the family board till they have learned thus to acquit +themselves. If, however, the fingers of any one, child or adult, +should chance to come in contact with the lips, though ever so +slightly, he is required to leave the table instantly and perform +his ablutions over again, or else to take the dish from which he was +eating to himself, and touch no other during the meal. In drinking +they exercise the same caution, adroitly throwing the liquid into the +mouth or throat without touching the lips with the cup or glass. The +left hand is the one with which food is always taken; and the reason +assigned is, that the right, having of necessity to perform most +labor, is more frequently brought in contact with things unclean. + +I once made a voyage with an American lady and gentleman in a Bombay +ship that was owned and commanded by a wealthy Parsee merchant, though +the real sailing-master and mate were Englishmen. Our party ate at one +table, and the Parsee nabob had his own in solitary state. I was then +quite a youthful wife, and, as my husband was not of the party, the +Parsee supposed me unmarried, and overwhelmed me with the most gallant +attentions, among which were frequent invitations to our party to dine +in his cabin. But, though he would stand at my side all the time I +was eating, fill my cup or glass with his own hands, and urge me to +partake of certain dishes that were favorites of his own, nothing +could induce him to eat or drink in our presence, even after we had +left the table. And I learned afterward that the costly service of +rare china, silver and glass from which we had eaten and drunk at his +table, though carefully laid aside, was never again used by the owner. +One evening, as we sat on the upper deck inhaling the balmy air, he +invited me to smoke. Of course I declined, and when he insisted I told +him that it was contrary to the customs of good society in our country +for ladies to use tobacco in any form. He laughed heartily, and said, +"Did you suppose I would ask a lady to pollute her fragrant breath +and dewy lips with so foul a thing as vile tobacco? Taste and see." He +brought his splendid hookah, which I found filled with the "fragrant +spices of Araby" perfumed with attar of roses, while a long slender +tube rested in a vessel of rose-water at my feet; and the fumes were +certainly as agreeable as harmless. But this, my first experiment in +smoking, cost my Parsee friend three hundred dollars, the estimated +value of his gold-mounted hookah, with its complicated array of tubes +and vessels of the same precious metal, none of which he durst ever +use again. + +As we sat chatting together in the bright moonlight our ears were +suddenly greeted by the sound of sweet music--wild, unearthly melody +that seemed to rise from the very depths of the ocean just below our +feet. At first it was only a soft trill or a subdued hum, as of a +single voice: then followed what seemed a full chorus of voices of +enchanting sweetness. Presently the melody died away in the distance, +only, however, to burst forth anew after a brief interval. All the +time we were being regaled with the music we could see nothing to +enlighten us as to its source, and were inclined to pronounce it a +trick played by our fun-loving sailing-master. He, however, denied all +agency in the matter, but counseled us to "keep a close look-out on +the lee bow" if we wanted to see a mermaid. We had noticed a sort of +thrilling motion on the lower deck, not unlike the sensation produced +by the charge of an electro-galvanic battery; and this, the Parsee +captain gravely assured us, was the mermaids' dance, and their efforts +to drag down our ship. "But I'll catch one of them yet--see if I +don't," he said energetically as he caught up something from the deck +and ran forward, and was presently, with two of the Lascars, leaning +over the bow. Half an hour afterward he returned, and with a merry +laugh laid in my lap two little brown fish, informing me that they +were singing-fish, and that the music we had heard had been produced +by shoals of these tiny vocalists then clinging to the bottom of our +ship. Our Parsee friend told me that the Arabs and Persians always +speak of the singing-fish as "tiny women of the sea;" but he had +never heard our version of their long hair, and their twining it about +hapless sailors to drag them down to their coral caverns beneath the +ocean's wave. He showed me how to preserve the fish by drying in the +sun after repeated anointings with an aromatic oil, which he gave me +for the purpose; and I have still in my cabinet these two specimens as +a reminder of the incident. + +The manner in which the Parsees dispose of their dead seems to us too +shocking to be tolerated by a people so gentle and refined. But they +have grown familiar with a custom that, generation after generation, +has been observed by their race till it has ceased to be repugnant. +They call it "consigning the dead to the element of air." For +this purpose they have roofless enclosures, the walls of which are +twenty-five or thirty feet high, and within are three biers--one each +for men, women and children. Upon these the bodies of the dead are +laid, and fastened down with chains or iron bands. Presently birds +of prey, so numerous within the tropics and always waiting to devour, +pounce upon the corpse and quickly tear the flesh from the bones, +while the skeleton remains intact. This is afterward deposited in +a pit dug within the same enclosure, and which remains open till +completely filled up with bones; after which another is dug, and +when the enclosure can conveniently contain no more pits a new one is +selected and prepared. None but priests and bearers of the dead may +enter, or even look into, these walled cemeteries. The priests, by +virtue of their holy office, are preserved from defilement, but the +bearers are men set apart for this express purpose, and they are +considered so unclean that they may not enter under the roof of any +other Parsee or salute him on the street. If in passing a bearer do +but touch one's clothes accidentally, he is subject to a heavy fine, +while he who has been thus contaminated must bathe his entire +person and burn every article of raiment he wore at the time of his +defilement. + +I was anxious to visit one of their temples, but this, Sir Jamsetjee +assured me, was impossible, as none but the initiated are allowed +even to approach the entrance, still less to get a glimpse of what is +passing within. He, however, volunteered the information that, so far +as the sanctuary itself was concerned, there was little to be seen, +only naked walls, bare floors, and an altar upon which burns the +sacred fire brought with the Parsees from Persia, and which, he said, +had never been extinguished since it was kindled by Zoroaster from the +sun four thousand years ago. Of the form of service I could not induce +the baronet to speak, but I learned afterward from my ship-friend that +the altar is enclosed by gratings, within which none but the priest +may enter. He goes in every day to tend "the eternal fire," when he +must remain for the space of an hour, repeating certain invocations, +with a bundle of rods in his hand to repel any unclean spirits that +should venture to approach the sacred fire. Meanwhile, the assembled +multitudes prostrate themselves without and offer up their silent +adoration. "Yet, after all," musingly said the Parsee, "the universe +is the throne of the invisible God, of whom fire is but the emblem, +and we worship Him most acceptably with our eyes fixed on the east +when the sun rides forth at morning in his celestial chariot of fire." +This form of worship those curious in such matters may see on any +bright morning at Bombay, where whole crowds of Parsee men, women and +children rush out at sunrise to greet the king of day and offer up +their morning oblations. I was not surprised at the avowed preference +of my Parsee friends for out-door worship, since it is well known that +the ancient Persians not only permitted few temples to be erected to +their gods, and held in abhorrence all painted and graven images, but +they laid it to the charge of the Greeks, as a daring impiety, that +"they shut up their gods in shrines and temples, like puppets in a +cabinet, when all created things were open to them and the wide world +was their dwelling-place." It was probably religious zeal, even more +than revenge against the Greeks, that induced the burning of the +temple at Athens by Xerxes, led on, as he may have been, by the +fanatical zeal of the Magi who accompanied him. + +Plutarch speaks of the Persians, in common with the Chaldeans and +Egyptians, as worshipers of the sun under the name of Mithra, whom +they regarded as standing between Ormuzd, "the author of good," and +Ahriman, "the author of evil," occupied alternately in aiding the +former and subduing the latter. So do the Parsees of our own day +regard him; and their only hope for the ultimate triumph of Ormuzd is +in constant sacrifices and prayers and propitiatory offerings to the +sun as the fire that is to burn out and utterly consume all evil +from our earth. Fire is to the Parsees now, as it has ever been, the +holiest of all holy things, carried about by princes and great men for +safety; by warriors, as that which is to give them the victory over +their foes; and by all, as their sole and ever-present deity. Sir +Jamsetjee assured me that the _intelligent_ Parsees regard the sun +and fire as only the symbols that are to remind them of the God +they worship. But there can be no doubt that the mass of the Parsees +literally worship the sun and the "sacred fire;" and hence arise the +utter repugnance many of them have to celebrating their religious +rites within closed walls, and the decided preference ever shown for +out-door worship. I have often heard them say that the Fire-god +shows his aversion to confinement by drooping when he is shut up, and +growing vigorous just in proportion as free scope is given him. +The sun appears everywhere on the shields and armor of the ancient +Persians, as on some of the old-time monuments that have come down +to us; while occasionally Mithra is depicted as a youthful hero, with +high Persian cap, his knee on a prostrate bull, into whose heart he +seems plunging a dagger--symbolically, "the power of evil" in +complete subjection to the victorious sun, and about to be for ever +annihilated. + +Zoroaster (called by the Persians _Zerduscht_) was not, the Parsees +say, the _founder_ of their sect, but only the reviser and perfecter +of the system as it now exists among them. Living in the reign of +Darius Hystaspes, he was the contemporary, probably an associate, +of the prophet Daniel. Before the advent of this reformer the Magi +acknowledged two great First Causes--i.e., the light and the darkness, +the former the author of all good, the latter of every evil, moral +and physical--and these they believed were at perpetual war with each +other. Zoroaster taught, as he may have learned from Daniel, that +there was One greater still, who created both the light and the +darkness, making both to subserve His own will. He also inculcated the +duty of building temples for the preservation of the sacred fire from +storm and tempest, when "by sudden extinction of the light the powers +of darkness do gain often a signal victory." The Parsees hold in +supreme veneration the name of Zoroaster as the most noted of all +their Magi for wisdom and virtue. They believe that the sacred fire +was lighted by him miraculously from the sun--that it has burned +steadily ever since, and can never go out till it has consumed all +evil from the earth and the good has become universally triumphant. +They claim also that from the reforms wrought by Zoroaster there was +never the slightest change in any of their observances until about +twelve centuries ago, when Persia was overrun and conquered by the +Mohammedan Arabs. But not the fiercest persecution could induce +the Fire-worshipers to change their religion for that of the +Koran. Preferring liberty and their altars in a foreign land to the +alternative of apostasy or persecution at home, the aboriginal Persian +inhabitants fled to other lands, settling immense colonies in Surat +and Bombay, where their descendants form in our day a large and +valuable element of the population. Their integrity, industry and +enterprise are proverbial all over the East; and while they live +strictly apart from all other races, the Parsees are never wanting in +sympathy and help for those who need them. Dwelling amid nations +who are almost universally destitute of veracity, the Parsees are +eminently truthful; surrounded by polygamists and sensualists, they +maintain habits of purity and virtue; and accustomed to every-day +association with those who make a boast of cheating, my memory fails +to recall the case of a single Fire-worshiper who was not strictly +upright and honorable in his dealings. + +Commencing with the worship of the sun, and of fire as his emblem, the +Parsee grew into a sort of reverence for the elements of air, earth +and water. The air must not be contaminated by foul odors, and of +necessity no filth could be tolerated anywhere in house, street or +suburb; and to this reverence for the purity of the atmosphere may +be traced the absolute cleanliness for which Fire-worshipers are +everywhere noted. As the earth must receive no defilement, the Parsees +would deem it sacrilege to deposit therein their dead for corruption +and decay; and hence have doubtless originated their strange rites +of sepulture, as they believe that the body is thus more readily and +rapidly reduced to its original elements. Streams of water, even the +tiniest rivulets, are deemed too holy to be desecrated by washing +or spitting in them, and still less would they make the water the +receptacle of offal of any sort. To each of these elements, as well as +to the fire, the Parsees still make oblations on their high-days. +It is true that their ceremonies now are less imposing than those +described by Xenophon, when a thousand head of cattle were immolated +at a single festival, four beautiful bulls presented to Jupiter, or +the sky, and a magnificent chariot, drawn by white horses crowned with +flowers and wearing a golden yoke, was offered to the sun; while the +king in his chariot was escorted by princes and great nobles, +two thousand spearmen marching on either side, and three +hundred sceptre-bearers, armed with javelins and mounted on +splendidly-caparisoned horses, bringing up the rear. But those +jubilant days have passed: the Fire-worshipers are in exile, and +have no king to lead them, either in battle against their foes or in +triumphal processions in honor of their gods. Yet is Parseeism not +dead, nor even on the decrease. Sacrifices, numerous and costly, are +still piled upon their altars, the finest cattle are dedicated to +their gods, the flesh being cut up and roasted for the people, while +the Magi cast the caul and a portion of the fat into the fire as +emblematic of the souls of the victims being imbibed by the gods, +while the grosser portions are rejected. + +The sacrifices and those who offer them are always crowned with +flowers, but the pontifical robes of the Magi, though of pure white +silk, are severely plain in style and utterly devoid of ornament. In +their lives the Magi claim to practice a rigid asceticism, making the +earth their bed and subsisting wholly on fruit, vegetables and +bread, besides submitting to frequent painful penances from fasting, +scourging and the endurance of fatiguing exercises. "Wine, women and +flesh" they are commanded to eschew as "special abominations to those +who aspire to minister before the gods." The most remarkable feast of +the ancient Parsees was one called by them the "sack-feast." On the +appointed day a condemned malefactor was clothed in royal robes, +seated on a kingly throne and the sceptre of regal power placed in +his hand. Princes and people bowed the knee in mock homage before +this king of a day, and he was suffered to glut his appetite with all +manner of sensual delights till the sun went down, and then he was +cruelly beaten with rods, and forthwith executed. (Were the crown and +sceptre, the purple robe and mock reverence, that were the antecedents +of the Redeemer's crucifixion, a reproduction of this barbarous +custom?) The modern Parsees, though recognizing this feast as a +legitimate part of their worship, say that they have not observed it +since their flight from Persia in the eighth century, because since +then, being under a foreign yoke, they have had no jurisdiction over +human life, and durst not sacrifice even those who chanced to be +in their power. This may be one reason for the renunciation of this +barbarous practice of the olden time, but there has been wonderful +progress in civilization during the last twelve hundred years; and +certain it is that scenes of cruelty that suited the ferocious +tastes of the eighth century could not possibly be repeated in the +nineteenth. + +FANNIE ROPER FEUDGE. + + + + +OUR MONTHLY GOSSIP. + +A SWEDISH PROVINCIAL THEATRE. + + +It is not so magnificent as the Scala and San Carlo, and still, after +seeing both those famous theatres, I must confess I preferred that +of Carlstad to either. It is small and different in form from the +generality: it reminded me, in fact, of a hall in a certain New +England town where I used to go to the panorama as a child. There +was a gallery like that in which the men and boys sat who tramped the +loudest and kissed their hands, to the confusion of their neighbors, +when the lights were turned down to enhance the effect of the burning +of Moscow; only, at my panorama the gallery was unfashionable on +account of the noisy male element, whereas at Carlstad it was the +dress-circle. We--a party of Americans, the only foreigners in the +house that night--occupied orchestra-stalls, as I presume the two or +three front benches in the parquet may be called. There was a white +cape in our vicinity, as well as one in the balcony; so our seats were +probably as fashionable as those in the first and only circle; but +behind us, stretching out to the doors and in under the gallery, was a +dense mass unrelieved by opera-cloaks of any description; and that was +the region of the unpretending---of those who came simply to enjoy, to +see and not to be seen. + +As we spent a good part of a day at Carlstad, I should, perhaps, +relate something more of the place than merely how we went to +the theatre there; but that delightful evening effaced all other +impressions, and after the interval that has since elapsed _Fleur +de Thé_ and our commissioner are the only things that have retained +somewhat of their original savor. + +The railway from Stockholm to Christiania ceased at Carlstad on Lake +Wener, which gave us a day's drive to Arvika to strike the track +again; and while we stood consulting where we were to get carriages, +and whether we should go directly on, there came up a flourishing +specimen of the genus _valet de place_, who took possession of us and +laid out a plan that he had apparently prepared over night for our +especial benefit. It is a way those persons have, and one that gives +them a tremendous advantage over travelers weakened by a long journey, +that they act as if they were there by appointment to meet you, or as +if you had telegraphed precisely what you wished to do, and they were +merely carrying out your intentions. "You want to go to the Black +Eagle Hotel: I take you there. You would like to dine: you can have +dinner at the hotel, or I shall show you a nice restaurant." We had +not expected to find a member of the great European brotherhood just +there in a little town in the heart of Sweden, and, taken unawares, +fell an easy prey. However, they do not invariably succeed in that +way: sometimes, if their officiousness is excessive, their English +very exasperating and the traveler a little fractious as well as +tired, they get the tables turned on them. A lady just arrived +at Genoa, when halfway to the hotel with one of these persuasive +personages snatched her bag out of his hand and walked into the rival +albergo because he said with an aggravating accent, "I sall get you +a ticket for de steam-er." "No you sha'n't, either: I have got +it myself," she said; and so they parted company, to his infinite +amazement. My friend--it was a friend of mine--turned back, on +second thoughts, to offer the man something for having carried her +belongings, but he put on offended dignity and declared that he didn't +want her money. She was rather sorry afterward that he didn't do +violence to his feelings and take it; and so, no doubt, was he. + +Our Carlstad commissioner beguiled the length of the way to the +inn, at which we were a little inclined to grumble, by pointing out +everything of note in our walk through the town. We had been reading +up in the train, and knew that Carlstad was the capital of a district, +had five thousand inhabitants, and was nearly destroyed by fire in +1865; but he, a son of the place, and seeing in his mind's eye its +rising glory when the railroad should be completed, did not let us +off with that. We had to look and admire just where he told us. "Wide +streets," he would say in his finely-chopped English. "Houses all very +high--new since the fire. See here! there's the telegraph-office." + +At which, to answer in the style he understood best, we must have +responded, "Oh, I say! Well. Very good! All right!" + +"You shall go to the theatre if you want to," he remarked at last, +in that sweet, protecting way peculiar to his class from the habitual +confounding of _can, shall_ and _will_, and that put us into good +humor directly. To go to the theatre would be just the thing. + +"Oh yes, everybody goes," he said. It was a Danish company--very good +actors--very pretty piece; but we rather expected to care more for the +_everybody_ than either the piece or the actors; and so it proved. + +We went early, and established ourselves in the orchestra-stalls, as +already stated, while our guardian accepted an unpretending seat +for himself, where he remained in readiness to tow us home after the +performance. And then the spectators began to come in, and positively +some of the very people who used to be at the panorama. I know there +was a lady in front of me, in Mechanic Hall, who wore her hair in +just such a little knot--_pug_ is, I think, the classic name for that +coiffure--and her dress cut as low in the throat and adorned with +precisely such a self-embroidered collar as the lady rejoiced in who +occupied the seat before me at the theatre. That she was one of the +fashionables of Carlstad could be seen in the lofty pose of that pug, +and in the curious structure of ribbon and lace that sat astride of +it and hung down at each side. Her husband, a small, rather dried-up +gentleman, had the look of a town oracle who was oppressed at home, +and her daughter was one of the prettiest girls in the house. The +overgrown boy, the son and heir, was not pretty: he sat beside his +sister and kept nudging her. I could not exactly understand what he +said in Swedish, but I know it must have been of this nature: "There's +Jim Davis over there. Look, sister, look!" + +Sister only glanced at him with a reproving air of "Don't push me so," +and then gazed steadfastly in the other direction; but she was not +left long in peace. Tom's elbow began again in a minute: "He's looking +right at you, all the time. You'd better turn round and bow to him." +And the color would creep up in her cheeks, do all she could to +prevent it, so that she had to lean across mamma and say something to +her father, just so as not to bow to Mr. Davis, which would have been +such a simple thing to do, after all. + +Everybody who came in nodded and spoke to everybody else, and then +shook hands across the seats; and we felt quite out of our element +under the inquiring but superior glances that fell to our lot. It was +all very well for us to make our little observations and smile at +each other on the sly: we had the consciousness all the while of not +belonging to the first society in Carlstad, and of being viewed as +intruders in that select circle. + +We had been studying one family party after another as the seats +filled around us, for the audience collected by families, when, with a +little rustle and stir attending her progress, and a whispering behind +her as she advanced, the Bride appeared, for she had arrived from +Stockholm by our train. It was the first time any one had seen her +since she started on the wedding-tour, and the bows and smiles she +dealt out on every side were not to be numbered. Our pretty girl got +one--they were school-friends--and the horrid boy another, which he +barely answered with a solemn nod of his head, being as shy of her, +apparently, in her blue silk and white cape, as his sister was of Mr. +Davis. It was really a very pretty dress of the Bride's, and one that +made our traveling costumes look uncommonly shabby: it was taken up +behind in the approved style, and only needed a bustle to have been +truly effective. Doubtless she had seen plenty of those articles in +Stockholm, only her husband said, "I hope, dear, you will never put on +one of those horrid things;" and she told him certainly not if he did +not like them; but I think she found afterward she needed one for +that blue dress, and sent for it at the first opportunity. The young +husband was not got up for show, knowing very well that no one would +mind him, but he looked beamingly happy; and if he was not in a +dress-coat with a flower in his buttonhole, like the _habitués_ of +the Comédie Française or the Italiens, he understood how they use an +opera-glass there. The glass was a new acquisition that he had brought +home with him, and after practicing with it at the Royal Theatre in +the capital, he was fully prepared to stand up between the acts, with +his arm behind him in a negligently graceful attitude, and study +the balcony. His acquaintances there must have found it rather +embarrassing, for it was not a usual thing in Carlstad to look at +one's friends through an opera-glass: he was the only person who did +it, and they probably all talked about it when they went home. + +We were so occupied with our surroundings that we hardly thought of +the piece, though it was given with considerable spirit, if I remember +rightly. The sailors were fine, jolly tars, and the Chinese ladies +and gentlemen toddled about in flowered dressing-gowns and talked +with their thumbs, as it would appear the inhabitants of the Celestial +Empire usually do; but the house did not allow itself to be betrayed +into unseemly enthusiasm. There was an involuntary laugh now and then, +and once somebody said _bravo_, but as a general thing a discreet +reticence prevailed, and the actors might have gone through the piece +on their heads in an extravagant desire to elicit signs of approval: +they would only have received a cool little round of applause when the +curtain fell. + +We, at all events, had no hesitation in telling the commissioner that +we had enjoyed ourselves immensely; and so, it appeared, had he. He +was even bold enough to call it a very fine company, and as we walked +back to the hotel at half-past nine in broad daylight, he told us what +they were going to play the next evening, possibly in the hope that we +should stay for it and he should get another seat. That was out of the +question, however, sorry as we were to disappoint him. He had to tuck +us into the carriage the following day, and let us drive away and +leave him bereft of his charges. "You shall have a good ride," were +his parting words, kind and fatherly as he was to the last; and so we +had. But we found no one again to care for us so tenderly as our +old friend, nor did any one take us to the theatre throughout the +remainder of the journey. G.H. + + + + +VENETIAN CAFFÈS. + + +It is years since so lovely an autumn as that of 1874 has been seen +in Europe: people say not since the last great comet year, and they +credit the erratic visitor of last summer with the exceptional beauty +of the weather. As in the case of other marked comet years, the +vintages of which still bring extraordinary prices, Italy has had +exceptionally fine harvests of all kinds this year. The grain has been +abundant, the vintage has been superb, the olives have escaped the +danger of unseasonable frosts, and the still more important crop of +foreigners seems to be pretty well assured. The charming weather in +October and November made the interesting blossoms sprout plentifully; +and boat-loads and train-loads came in with an abundance promising an +unusually fine winter for _la bella Italia_. Venice, indeed, may be +said to have pretty well housed her crop in this kind already. It has +been a magnificent one, and the Queen of the Adriatic admits that due +homage has been done to her. The _forestieri_ season sets in earlier +in her case than in her sister cities. The real "Carnival de Venice" +is in August, September and October now-a-days, let the calendar say +what it may. Some flaunting of gaudy-colored calico, some dancing on +the Piazza of St. Mark, there may be on the eve of Lent in obedience +to old usages, but the dancing that really glads the Italian heart is +the dancing for which the _forestiere_ pays the piper, and the true +Lenten time is that when his beneficent presence is wanting. + +Venice, then, has already brought her Carnival to a conclusion; and +it has been a splendid one. English, Americans, Germans, all came in +shoals--all thronged the galleries, the churches and the palaces in +the morning, sauntered or bathed on the outer shore of the Lido in the +afternoon, and met at Florian's in the evening. "What is Florian's?" +will be asked by those who have never been at Venice--by some such, +at least. For probably the fame of the celebrated _caffè_ may have +traveled across the Atlantic, just as many who have never crossed +it westward are no strangers to the name of Delmonico. Florian's, +however, in any case, deserves a word of recognition. It is the +principal, largest and most fashionable caffè on the Piazza di San +Marco. But the singular and curious specialty of the place is that it +has never been closed--no, not for five minutes--day or night, for +a period of more than a hundred and thirty years! Probably it is the +only human habitation of any sort on the face of the globe of which +that could be said. + +But the caffè in itself is in many respects a specialty of Venetian +life, and has been so since the days of Goldoni. The readers of his +comedies, so abundantly rich in local coloring, will not have failed +to observe that the caffè plays a larger part in the life of Venice +than is the case in any other city. Probably no Venetian passes +a single day without visiting once at least, if not oftener, his +accustomed caffè. Men of business write their letters and arrange +their meetings there. Men of pleasure know that they shall find their +peers there. Mere loafers take their seats there, and gaze at the +stream of life, as it flows past them, for hours together. And, most +marked specialty of all, Venice is the only city in Italy where the +native female aristocracy frequents the caffè. Indeed, I know no place +in all the Peninsula where so large an amount of Italian beauty may +be seen as among the fashionable crowd at Florian's on a brilliant +midsummer moonlight night. + +Venice is of all the cities in the world the one which those who have +never seen it know best. The peculiarities of it are so marked and so +unlike anything else in the world, and the graphic representations of +every part of the city are so numerous and so admirably accurate, that +every traveler finds it to be exactly what he was prepared to see, and +can hardly fancy that he sees the Queen of the Adriatic for the first +time. I may therefore assume, perhaps, that my readers are acquainted +with the appearance of that most matchless of city spaces, the Piazza +di San Marco. They will readily call to mind the long series of +arcades that form the two long sides of the parallellogram which has +the gorgeous front of St. Mark's church occupying the entirety of one +of the shorter sides. Well, about halfway up the length of the piazza +six of the arches on the right hand of one facing St. Mark's church +are occupied by the celebrated caffè. The six never-closed rooms, +corresponding each with one of the arches of the arcade, are very +small, and would not suffice to accommodate a twentieth part of the +throng which finds itself at Florian's quite as a matter of course +every fine summer's night. But nobody thinks of entering these +smartly-furnished little cabinets save for breakfast or during the +hours of the day. Some take their evening ice or coffee on the seats +under the arcade, either immediately in front of the cabinets +or around the pillars which support the arches, and thus have an +opportunity of observing the never-ceasing and ever-varying stream of +life that flows by them under the arcade. But the vast majority of the +crowd place themselves on chairs arranged around little tables set out +on the flags of the piazza. A hundred or so of these little tables +are placed in long rows extending far out into the piazza, and far on +either side beyond the extent of the six arches which are occupied by +the caffè itself. A London or New York policeman would have his very +soul revolted, and conclude that there must be something very rotten +indeed in the state of a city in which the public way could be thus +encumbered and no cry of "move on" ever heard. Assuredly, it is +public ground which Florian, in the person of his nineteenth-century +representative, thus occupies with his tables and chairs. Probably, +if a Venetian were asked by what right he does so, the question would +seem to him much as if one asked by what right the tide covers the +shallows of the lagoon. It always has been so. It is in the natural +order of things. And how could Venice live without Florian's? + +But it is not Florian's alone which is thus a trespasser on the domain +of the public. The other less celebrated caffès do the same thing. +One immediately opposite to Florian's, on the other side of the +piazza--Quadri's--has almost as large a spread of chairs and tables +as Florian himself. But it is a curious instance of the permanence of +habits at Venice, that though at Quadri's the articles supplied are +quite as good, and the prices exactly the same, the fashionable +world never deserts Florian's. The only difference between the +two establishments, except this one of their customers, that is +perceptible to the naked eye, is that at Quadri's beer is served, +while Florian ignores the existence of that plebeian beverage, which +assuredly was never heard of in Venice in the days when he began his +career and formed his habitudes. + +I am tempted to endeavor to give the reader some picture of the scene +on the piazza on a night when (as is the case almost every other +evening) a military band is playing in the middle of the open space, +and the cosmopolitan crowd is assembled in force--to describe the +wonderful surroundings of the scene, the charm of the quietude broken +by no sound of hoof or of wheel, the soft and tempered light, the gay +clatter, athwart which comes every fifteen minutes the solemn mellow +tone of the great clock of St. Mark with importunate warning that +another pleasant quarter of an hour has drifted away down the stream +of time. It is a scene that tempts the pen. But the well-dressed +portion of mankind is very similar in all countries and under all +circumstances, and perhaps my readers may be more interested in a few +traits of the popular life of Venice, which the magnificent Piazza +of St. Mark is not the best place for studying, for some of the +most characteristic phases of it are absolutely banished thence. The +strolling musician or singer, who may be heard every night in other +parts of the city, never plies his trade on the piazza. Mendicancy, +which is more rife at Venice, I am sorry to say, than in any other +Italian city, except perhaps Naples, is not tolerated on the piazza. + +But if we wish for a good specimen of the truly popular life of +Venice, it will not be necessary to wander far from the great centre +of the piazza. Coming down the Piazzetta, or Little Piazza, which +opens out of the great square at one end, and abuts on the open lagoon +opposite the island of St. George at the other, and turning round the +corner of the ducal palace, we cross the bridge over the canal, which +above our heads is bridged by the "Bridge of Sighs," with its "palace +and a prison on each hand," as Byron sings, and find ourselves on the +"Riva dei Schiavoni"--the quay at which the Slavonic vessels arrived, +and arrive still. The quay is a very broad one, by far the broadest in +Venice, paved with flagstones, and teeming with every characteristic +form of Venetian life from early morning till late into the night. +There are two or three hotels frequented by foreigners on the Riva, +for the situation facing the open lagoon is an exceptionally good one; +and there are three or four caffès at which the cosmopolitan and not +too aristocratic visitor may get an excellent cup of coffee (for the +Venetians, thanks to their long connection with the East, know +what coffee is, and will not take chiccory or other such detestable +substitutes in lieu of it) for the modest charge of thirteen +centimes--just over two cents--and study as he drinks it the moving +and ever-amusing scenes enacted before his eyes. His neighbor perhaps +will be an old gentleman, the very type of the old "pantaloon" whose +mask was in the old comedy supposed to be the impersonation of +Venice. There are the long, slender and rather delicately-cut features +terminating in a long, narrow and somewhat protruding chin; the high +cheek-bones, the lank and sombre cheeks, the high nose, the dark +bright eye under its bushy brow. He is very thin, very seedy, and +evidently _very_ poor. But he salutes you, as you take your seat +beside him, with the air of an ex-member of "The Ten;" his ancient +hat and napless coat are carefully brushed; his outrageously high +shirt-collar and voluminous unstarched neckcloth, after the fashion of +a former generation, though as yellow as saffron, are clean; and his +poor old boots as irreproachable as blacking--which can do much, but, +alas! not all things--can make them. His expenditure of a penny will +entitle him not only to a cup of coffee, as aforesaid, but also to a +glass of fresh water, which has been turned to an opaline color by +the shaking into it of a few drops of something which the waiter drops +from a bottle with some contrivance at its mouth, the effect of which +is to cause only a drop or two of the liquor, whatever it may be, to +come out at each shake. Our old friend is also entitled, in virtue of +his expenditure, to occupy the chair he sits on for as many hours as +he shall see fit to remain in it. And after the coffee, which must +be drunk while hot, has been despatched, the sippings of the opaline +mixture aforesaid may be protracted indefinitely while he enjoys the +cool evening-breezes from the lagoon, the perfection of _dolce far +niente_, and the amusement the life of the Riva never fails to afford +him. An itinerant vender of little models of gondolas and bracelets +and toys made out of shells comes by, seeking a customer among the +folk assembled at the caffè. He does not address Pantaloon, for of +course he knows that there is nothing to be done in that line with +him. But spying with a hawk's glance a _forestiere_ among the crowd, +he strolls up to him, holding up one of his gimcrack bracelets +daintily--and he thinks temptingly, poor fellow!--between his finger +and thumb. "Un franco! Un sol franco! è una beleza per una contesa!" +("One franc! only one franc! It would be beautiful on the arm of a +countess!") he murmurs in his soft lisping Venetian, which abolishes +all double consonants, and supplies their place by prolonging the soft +liquid sound of the preceding vowel. One franc! It is wonderful how +the thing, worthless as it is, can be made even by the most starving +fingers for such a price. Yet after dangling his toy for a minute, and +gazing, oh, so wistfully! the while out of his big haggard eyes, he +says, "Seventy-five centimes! half a franc!" and still lingers ere he +turns away with a sigh, a weary movement of his emaciated figure and a +longing look on his poor hollow face that make one feel that the +drama we are witnessing is not all comedy. But it is all supremely +interesting to our neighbor, Si'or Pantaleone. He has been keenly +watching the attempted deal, and no doubt wished that his countryman +might succeed. But there was no element of tragedy in the matter for +him, a condition of semi-starvation is too much an ordinary, every-day +and normal spectacle. He looked on more as a retired merchant might +look on at the progress of a bargain for the delivery of a shipload +of grain. Presently, a middle-aged woman and a girl of some fourteen +years station themselves in front of the audience seated outside the +caffè. The elder woman has a guitar, and the girl a violin and some +sheets of music in her hand. The woman has her wonderful wealth of +black hair grandly dressed and as shining as oil can make it. She +has large gilt earrings in her ears, a heavy coral necklace, and a +gaudy-colored shawl in good condition. Whatever might be beneath +and below this is in dark shadow--"et sic melius situm." She is not +starved, however, for, as she prepares to finger her guitar, she shows +a well-nourished and not ill-formed arm. The young girl has one of +those pale, delicate, oval faces so common in Venice: she also has a +good shawl--an amber-colored one--which so sets off the olive-colored +complexion of her face as to make her a perfect picture. This +couple do not in any degree assume an attitude of appealing _ad +misericordiam_. They pose themselves _en artistes_. The girl sets +about arranging her music in a business-like way, and then they play +the well-known air of "La Stella Confidente," the little violinist +really playing remarkably well. Then the elder woman comes round with +a little tin saucer for our contributions. No slightest word or look +of disappointment or displeasure follows the refusal of those who give +nothing. The saucer is presented to each in turn. I supposed that +the application to Si'or Pantaleone was an empty form. But no. That +retired gentleman could still find wherewithal to patronize the fine +arts, and dropped a centime--the fifth part of a cent--into the dish +with the air of a prince bestowing the grand cross of the Golden +Fleece. Then comes a dealer in ready-made trousers, which Pantaloon +examines curiously and cheapens. Then a body of men singing +part-songs, not badly, but to some disadvantage, as they utterly +ignore the braying of half a dozen trumpets which are coming along the +Riva in advance of a body of soldiers returning to some neighboring +barracks. Then there are fruit-sellers and fish-sellers and +hot-chestnut dealers, and, most vociferous of all, the cryers of +"Acqua! acqua! acqua fresca!" There, making its way among the numerous +small vessels from Dalmatia, Greece, etc. moored to the quay of the +Schiavoni, comes a boat from the Peninsular and Oriental steamer, +which arrived this morning from Alexandria, with four or five +Orientals on board. They come on shore, and proceed to saunter +along the Riva toward the Grand Piazza, while their dark faces and +brightly-colored garments add an element to the motley scene which is +perfectly in keeping with old Venetian reminiscences. + +T.A.T. + + + + +A NEW MEXICAN CHRISTMAS EVE. + + +It is Christmas Eve in Albuquerque. Blazing fagots of mesquite-roots +placed on the surrounding adobe walls illuminate the old church on +the plaza. There is a grand _baile_ at the fonda, to which we and our +"family are most respectfully invited." The sounds of music already +invite us to the ball-room. We enter. The floor is full; a hundred +couples are gliding through the graceful "Spanish dance," or "slow +waltz," as it is termed here. Not a few blue-and-gold United States +uniforms are to be seen in the throng. A full-uniformed major-general +of volunteers adds the éclat of his epaulettes to the occasion. The +ranchos have poured in their señoras and señoritas, and three rows of +the dark-eyed creatures sit ranged around the room. + +The Mexican women look their best in a ball-room. Their black eyes, +black hair and white teeth glisten in the light; they are dressed +in the gayest of gay colors; ponderous ornaments of gold, strongly +relieved by their dusk complexions, shed around them a rich barbaric +lustre. Not that they eschew adventitious means to blanch their +sun-shadowed tints. For days some of the señoras and señoritas have +worn a mask of a white clayey mixture to give them an ephemeral +whiteness for this occasion. Those who could procure nothing else have +worn a pasty vizard kneaded of common clay, to effect in some degree +a like result by protecting their faces from the sun and wind. Should +you visit New Mexico, and as you ride along slowly in the heat of +midday meet a señorita who gazes at you with a pair of jet black eyes +through a hideous, ghastly mask of mud or mortar, do not be frightened +from your accustomed propriety. The señorita is preparing her +_toilette de bal_. + +The New Mexican women cannot be considered pretty, generally speaking. +In artistic symmetry of feature, in purity of complexion, they are +not to be compared with our countrywomen. These can bear the searching +light of day, when delicacy of detail can be distinguished and +appreciated. Those look their best in the artificial light of the +ball-room. There the blue-black hair, the brilliant black eyes, the +well-traced eyebrows, the magnificently white and regular teeth, the +richly-developed forms, produce a general effect before which our +blond and delicate beauties seem pale and _fades_. But the Mexican's +coarser skin--her _teint basané_--is too plainly visible in the light +of the sun: you should see her only by the lamps. It is doubtless +rather from an instinct of coquetry than from any other feeling that +in the day-time the Mexican women shroud their dusky traits in the +folds of their _rebosas_, leaving only one pilot eye to look upon the +outer world. + +No introductions are necessary at the public bailes. Saunter around +the room, inspect the show of expectant partners, and when you see one +who suits your fancy ask her to dance, without more ado. If she be not +engaged she will at once accept your proffered arm. She will not +say anything. Ten to one she will not breathe a syllable during your +evolutions. Conversation is not the forte of the señoritas. But she +will smile and smile, and you will have no reason to complain of her +waltzing. The Mexican _caballero_, when he seeks a partner, will +not put himself out so far as to have any words about it. He merely +beckons the chosen one, as the sultan might throw the handkerchief, +and she comes to him at once. + +Each dance concluded, you lead your partner to a sort of bar where +refreshments are furnished, and ask her whether she will take _vino_ +or _dulces_--wine or candies? She will take _dulces_--"Gracias, +señor!" This is _de rigueur_. You pay for them of course, and +conduct her to her seat. She pours the _dulces_ into the awaiting +pocket-handkerchiefs of the old people, her _comadres_, and of her +younger brothers and sisters. + +In a little room adjoining the ball-room, with door invitingly open, +is the shrine of _monte_. The revelry of the ball-room is unheeded by +the preoccupied votaries of the changeful deity as they sit around the +green table watching the dealer as he turns the cards, and nervously +fingering their little piles of red or white "chips." We have no +business and no pleasure here. Let us merely look in and pass on. + +Waltzes, "round" and "slow," are the _pièces de résistance_ of a +Mexican baile: quadrilles are not relished by the dusky danseuses. +There are some New Mexican dances which do not lack prettiness. Of +these, the Cuna is the most popular. It commences with a see-saw +movement suggestive of its name--cuna- or cradle-dance. For the rest, +the waltz enters much into its composition. + +The orchestra generally consists of one or more violins and a guitar +or two. The New Mexican guitar is strung conversely: the base-string +is where we put the treble, and _vice versâ_. The strings are +generally struck with the thumb-nail or with a piece of horn or wood +like the ancient _plectrum_. This produces a harsh metallic sound, +without any rotundity. Few New Mexican fiddlers or guitar-players are +capable of playing in any time except dancing time, and the character +of the baile, funeral and sacred music is the same. The only +distinction is the addition of a continuous _tremolo_ to the latter +two, which produces the same unpleasant effect on the nerves as a +comic song chanted by the shaky, cracked, piping and quavering voice +of senility. As the fiddles invariably play their parts in funerals as +well as on festive processions, it requires some familiarity with the +customs of the country to distinguish one from the other. The music +to-night is much better than the ordinary baile music. A native +harpist adds the music of his many strings; and not bad music either, +though he does not know a quaver from a semibreve, and his harp is of +his own manufacture. The sameness, however, caused by playing always +and everything in the same key is perceptible. But dancing critics are +not disposed to be very severe. + +The enjoyment of the evening is at high pressure. The dancers are +swinging, surging, spinning through the Spanish dance. Everybody who +can find a partner and a place on the floor--there are many who cannot +find the latter--is dancing. It is a gay, a brilliant scene. All is +going as merrily as a whole chime of marriage-bells when a deep and +solemn peal from the church close by breaks in over the music, the +laughter and the dancing. It is midnight! It is the _Noche Buena_, +and the bell summons the faithful to the midnight mass. The effect is +electric. The last twirl of the waltz is suspended, half executed. The +dancers stop as suddenly as if they were puppets moved and stilled by +the cunning of some wire-pulling hand. A general rush is made for the +church: in a moment the ball-room is empty. The church is filled as +instantaneously, and the wildly gay dancers of a moment ago are now +kneeling, hushed and down-bent, in devotional attitudes. + +The scene is impressive: the bright ball-toilettes contrasted in a +"dim religious light," the sudden change of place and mood, from gay +to grave, from ball-room to sanctuary, strikes a stranger's eye with +thrilling effect. At the conclusion of the service the dancers return +to the ball-room, to change from grave to gay, and dance _ad libitum_ +till daylight. + +J.T. + + + + +ENGLISH BIBLE TRANSLATIONS. + + +The first complete translation of the Bible into our language was +made about the year 1380 by John de Wycliffe, or Wickliffe. There are +several manuscript copies of it in the Bodleian and other European +libraries. This great work unlocked the Scriptures to the multitude, +or, as one of his antagonists, bewailing such an enterprise, worded +it, "the gospel pearl was cast abroad and trodden under foot." Long +before the appearance of this translation various versions of portions +of the Bible had appeared, specimens of which, of every century from +the reign of Alfred to Chaucer's time, are preserved in the British +Museum and elsewhere. Sir Thomas More says: "The Holy Byble was longe +before Wycliffis daies by virtuose and well-learned men translated +into the English tongue, and by good and godly people with devotion +and soberness well and reverently read." This statement is further +corroborated by Foxe, the martyrologist, who remarks: "If histories +be well examined, we shall find both before and after the Conquest, as +well before John Wickliffe was borne as since, the whole body of the +Scriptures by sundry men translated into this our country tongue." +Wycliffe's Bible was first printed at Oxford in 1850, previous to +which the New Testament appeared in 1721 and was reprinted in 1810. + +In 1526, William Tyndale completed and published in English his +translation of the New Testament. He also translated and printed +the Pentateuch and the book of Jonah, and was preparing them for +publication when he was put to death in Flanders, being strangled and +burnt for heresy. Tyndale's translation, with his latest revisions +(1534), was republished in the English Hexapla in 1841. A copy of his +translation of the Pentateuch which had belonged to Bishop Heber was +sold in 1854 for $795. Four years later another copy sold for within +twenty dollars of that amount. + +The first English translation of the entire Bible was made by Miles +Coverdale, who afterward became bishop of Exeter, and was printed in +folio in the year 1535. In 1538 a second edition of Coverdale's Bible +was printed at Paris, but the Inquisition interfered and committed the +whole edition of twenty-five hundred copies to the flames. No perfect +copy of Coverdale's version is known to exist, but one lacking +the original title-page and first leaf was sold in 1854 for $1725. +Another, at the Perkins' sale, in June, 1873, brought $2000. + +Two years after the appearance of the first edition of Coverdale's +Bible, John Rogers, the first martyr in Queen Mary's reign, published +his version of the Scriptures. He made some emendations, but the text +is chiefly that of Tyndale and Coverdale. It was printed by Grafton +and Whitchurch in 1537, and the title runs: "The Byble, which is all +the holy Scripture: in which are contayned the Olde and Newe Testament +truely and purely translated into Englysh by Thomas Matthew." For +safety, Rogers assumed the name of Matthew, whence it is known as +Matthew's Bible. Seven hundred and fifty dollars have been paid for a +copy. + +The third version of the Bible, known as Taverner's, was published +in 1539. Richard Taverner was a learned man who published many +translations during the sixteenth century. Horne says of his +translation, "This is neither a bare revisal of Cranmer's Bible nor +a new version, but a kind of intermediate work, being a correction of +what is called 'Matthew's Bible.'" + +The first edition of Cranmer's Bible, the printing of which was begun +in Paris in 1538 and completed in London in 1540--the Inquisition +having interposed by imprisoning the printers and burning the greater +part of the impression--is excessively rare. Cranmer's Bible--or the +Great Bible, as it was called--is Tyndale's, Coverdale's and Rogers's +translations most carefully revised throughout. This was the first +sound and authorized English version; and as soon as it was perfected +a proclamation was issued ordering it to be provided for every parish +church, under a penalty of forty shillings a month. A second edition +of Cranmer's Bible appeared in 1560, a copy of which brought, at a +recent sale in England, the sum of $610. + +The Genevan version of the Bible was made by several English exiles +at Geneva in Queen Mary's reign--viz., Cole, Coverdale, Gilby, Knox, +Sampson, Whittingham and Woodman--and was first printed in 1560. +It went through fifty editions in the course of thirty years. This +translation was very popular with the Puritan party. In this version +the first division into verses was made. It is commonly known as the +"Breeches Bible," from the peculiar rendering of Genesis iii. 7--" +breeches of fig-leaves." To the Geneva Bible we owe the beautiful +phraseology of the admired passage in Jeremiah viii. 22. Coverdale, +Matthew and Taverner render it, "For there is no more treacle at +Gilead?" Cranmer, "Is there no treason at Gilead?" The Genevan first +gave the poetic rendering, "Is there no balm in Gilead?" + +In the year 1568 another translation appeared, which is +indiscriminately known as "Matthew Parker's Bible," the "Bishops' +Bible" and the "Great English Bible." This version was undertaken and +carried on under the inspection of Matthew Parker, second Protestant +archbishop of Canterbury. Of the fifteen translators, six were +bishops, hence this edition is often called the Bishops' Bible, though +it is sometimes designated the Great English Bible, from its being a +huge folio volume. In 1569 it was published in octavo form. There is a +well-preserved copy of the first edition of Matthew Parker's Bible in +the possession of a gentleman residing in New York City. This was +the authorized version of the Scriptures for forty years, when it was +superseded by our present English Bible. + +The English Roman Catholic College at Rheims issued in the year 1582 +a translation of the New Testament, known as the "Rhemish New +Testament." It was condemned by the queen of England, and copies +imported into that country were seized and destroyed. In 1609 the +first volume of the Old Testament, and in the following year the +second volume, were published at Douay, hence ever since known as the +Douay Bible. Some years since Cardinal Wiseman remarked that the names +Rhemish and Douay, as applied to the current editions, are absolute +misnomers. The publishers of the edition chiefly used in this country +state that it is translated from the Latin Vulgate, "being the edition +published by the English College at Rheims A.D. 1582, and at Douay in +1609, as revised and corrected in 1750, according to the Clementine +edition of the Scriptures, by the Rt. Rev. Richard Challoner, +bishop of Debra, with his annotations for clearing up the principal +difficulties of Holy Writ." + +Theodore Beza translated the New Testament out of the Greek into the +Latin. This was first published in England in 1574, and afterward +frequently. In 1576 it was "Engelished" by Leonard Tomson, +under-secretary to Sir Francis Walsingham, and was afterward +frequently annexed to the Genevan Old Testament. The following is a +copy of the title-page of the New Testament, _verbatim et literatim_: +"The New Testament of our Lord Jesus Christ, translated out of Greeke +by Theod Beza: with brief summaries and expositions upon the hard +places by the said authour, _Ioach Amer and P Loseler Vallerius_. +Engelished by L Tomson. Together with the Annotations of _Fr Junius_ +upon the Revelation of S. John. Imprinted at London by the Deputies +of Christopher Barker, Printer to the Queene's Most Excellent +Majestie--1599." The volume opens with a primitive version of the +Psalms in verse, then follow the Old Testament, the Apocrypha and the +New Testament, as in Bibles of the present day. + +The version of the Scriptures now in use among Protestants was +translated by the authority of King James I., and published in 1611. +Fifty-four learned men were appointed to accomplish the work of +revision, but from death or other causes seven of the number failed +to enter upon it. The remaining forty-seven were ranged under six +divisions, different portions of the Bible being assigned to each +division. They entered upon their task in 1607, and after three years +of diligent labor the work was completed. This version was generally +adopted, and the former translations soon fell into disuse. The +authors of King James's version of the Bible included the most learned +divines of the day; one of whom was master of Latin, Greek, Hebrew, +Chaldee, Syriac and fifteen modern languages. + +Among other rare and highly-coveted editions of the Bible is one +printed in England in the seventeenth century, in which the important +word _not_ was omitted in the seventh commandment, from which +circumstance it has ever since been known as "The Adulterer's Bible." +Another edition, known as the Pearl Bible, appeared about the same +time, filled with errata, a single specimen of which will suffice: +"Know ye not the ungodly _shall inherit_ the kingdom of God?" Bibles +were once printed which affirmed that "all Scripture was profitable +for _de_struction;" while still another edition of the sacred volume +is known as the "Vinegar Bible," from the erratum in the title to the +twentieth chapter of St. Luke, in which "Parable of the Vineyard" is +printed "Parable of the Vinegar." + +J.G.W. + + + + +LITERATURE OF THE DAY. + + +Life and Labours of Mr. Brassey, 1805-1870. By Sir Arthur Helps, +K.C.B. Boston: Roberts Brothers. + +The "captains of industry," who constitute in our day so distinct and +notable a class of worthies, are doubtless as well entitled to have +their achievements recorded and their fame sounded throughout the +lands as were the doughty men of war who of old were deemed the only +fitting heroes of chronicle and epic. Few of them, however, can +hope to have their deeds commemorated by a "veray parfit, gentle +knight"--of the quill, not of the sword, albeit the letters which +he writes after his name would once have indicated the possession of +military rank and distinction. Sir Arthur Helps is not a man of few +words or of a very stern or passionate temperament. It is the graces +of chivalry, not its fiery ardor, that he cultivates and reflects, +and though "arms and the man" have often been his theme, the soft and +delicate strain was ever more suggestive of the pastoral pipe than +of the bardic lyre. Essayist, historian, biographer, novelist, he is +always intent to smooth away the asperities of his subject, and, like +some stately grandame enthroned in high-backed chair, he remembers +that his simple auditors are to be not merely entertained by the +matter of his discourse, but impressed by the suave tones and +high-bred prolixity of the speaker. With a dignified courtesy unknown +in these latter times--when biographers and historians do not scruple +to take liberties with their heroes to the extent even of designating +them by nicknames--the subject of the present memoir is introduced to +us as _Mr_. Brassey, a form not only adopted on the title-page, but +preserved in the body of the work, where we read that "Mr. Brassey +was born November 7, 1805," that "Mr. Brassey, at twelve years of age, +went to a school at Chester," and that, being afterward articled to +a surveyor, "Mr. Brassey was permitted by his master" to assist in +making certain surveys. It is only from a side whisper to the American +public, which is honored with a preface all to itself, that we are +permitted to learn that the great contractor owned to the Christian +name of Thomas. Besides the two prefaces there is a dedication to +the queen, an introduction telling how Sir Arthur Helps made the +acquaintance of Mr. Brassey and what impressions he received from the +interview, and a preliminary chapter containing a brief outline of +Mr. Brassey's character as "a man of business;" so that we get at the +substance of the book by a process like that which in a well-conducted +household precedes the carving and distribution of a Christmas cake, +any eagerness we might feel to "put in a thumb and pull out a plum" +being kept in check by a proper amount of ceremony and tissue-paper. + +Plums, however, there are, though not perhaps in full proportion to +the frosted coating, or of just the kind that are best agglutinated by +the biographical dough. Of anecdote or gossip, glimpses of "life and +manners" or personal details, there is nothing. Nor can we justly take +exception to this. On the contrary, it gives a unity to the subject by +excluding whatever had no relation to the enterprises with which Mr. +Brassey's name is connected, and which absorbed his time and thoughts +to a degree that can have left him but little opportunity for +intercourse with mankind except in a business capacity. It is these +enterprises--not in their entirety or with reference to the objects +with which they were designed, but as evidences and illustrations +of the working force, mental and physical, demanded for their +execution--that form the real subject of the book, the matter of which +has been chiefly furnished by the various agents entrusted with the +immediate supervision of the labor and outlay of the capital employed. +The details thus brought together afford perhaps a more vivid idea of +the industrial energy and activity of the nineteenth century, and +of the resources they have called into play, than could have been +obtained from a survey of any other field in which the like qualities +have been displayed. It was chiefly with railway enterprises, and this +almost from their inception, and to an extent far beyond the rivalry +of any other constructor, that Mr. Brassey was engaged; and the +railway system, not only by its own immense demands on capital, labor +and inventive skill, but still more by the stimulus and aid it has +given to industrial enterprises of every kind, must be regarded as the +main lever of a material progress that has outstripped the conceptions +and possibilities of all previous ages. With the development of a +system so different in its nature from the great undertakings of any +former period came the need of the contractor, entrusted with the +direction and laden with the full responsibility of works which no +government "boards" or similar machinery would have been competent to +carry through under the conditions imposed by the novel circumstances +of the movement and the exacting spirit by which it was impelled. To +attain the foremost place in the new career thus created demanded, +obviously, no ordinary powers--special knowledge of various kinds, +equal facility in mastering details and grasping a general plan, tact +in the choice and management of subordinates, courage and promptness +in encountering unforeseen obstacles and disasters, and skill and +clearheadedness in the general control of enormous and intricate +financial interests. To these qualities must be added in the present +case what is not so invariably associated with the names of succesful +contractors--a faithfulness and integrity which merited and received +the fullest confidence. Whether working at a gain or at a loss, Mr. +Brassey was ever resolute to execute his engagements to the letter, +and he declined to make demands for extra compensation when his +contracts proved unprofitable, though it was customary with him to +make good the losses of his sub-contractors. He amassed a colossal +fortune, not through excessive gains, but by a small profit--"as +nearly as possible three per cent."--which accrued to him from all his +enterprises taken as a whole, and the accumulations consequent on an +inexpensive mode of life. + +The railways constructed by Mr. Brassey, generally in partnership +with some other contractor, between the years 1834 and 1870, comprised +between six and seven thousand miles in all parts of the globe, +including Australia and in almost every civilized country except +Russia and the United States. "There were periods in his career during +which he and his partners were giving employment to 80,000 persons, +upon works requiring £ 17,000,000 of capital for their completion." +Yet a large part of his time and of the time of his agents was +spent in the investigation of schemes which he either decided not to +undertake or for which he tendered unsuccessfully. It was necessary at +times to transport materials, a large staff of employés and an army +of laborers from one country to another. In some cases works were +prosecuted in regions occupied or threatened by hostile armies, in +others under all the embarrassments and gloom of a great financial +revulsion. In countries where commercial transactions were usually +very limited the great difficulty was to obtain coin for the payment +of wages, while in others there was the danger of the supply of labor +failing through the enticements of superabundant capital or the more +dazzling temptations of gold-digging. It is needless to mention the +usual accidents and impediments to which all such undertakings are +liable, and which the skill and ingenuity of the modern engineer never +fail to overcome; but it is certainly not a little remarkable, when +the multiplicity of Mr. Brassey's contracts is remembered, as well +as the early period from which they date, to find that they were +invariably completed within the specified time. + + + +Personal Reminiscences of Barham, Harness and Hodder. (Bric-à-Brac +Series, edited by Richard Henry Stoddard.) New York: Scribner, +Armstrong & Co. + +Why we should love so dearly a fresh anecdote of a literary celebrity, +a new quip by Talleyrand, a new stutter of Lamb's, a new impertinence +of Sheridan's, may be not hard to understand, but it is rather hard to +defend, any regard being paid to our dignity. The best stories about +that particular line of authors who have possessed _bonhomie_ and +become classic for it are long since told. What remains is the dregs. +Yet the other day we found ourselves smiling with real delight over +a new "bit" of Cowper. It was merely that his barber, being late with +the poet's wig, said, "Twill soon be here, it is upon the road;" and +that Cowper had smiled, with a "Very well, William," or a "Very fair, +Thomas." The _mot_, like most of the stories that crop up now, was not +good; it did not exhibit the author of "John Gilpin" in a brilliant +light; it was not even uttered by the poet--he had merely smiled at +it; yet it had the effect of rekindling the vapid embers about the +dear old hearthstone of Olney, and the shy, gentle creatures that used +to disport there among the hares when nobody was looking became for a +moment more real from the citation. Now, the question is, What is +the superiority of a new piece of gossip like this, which involves +no witticism and confers no wisdom, over the next bit of history that +will be exchanged between the heroines of the alley-gate? When Mrs. +Jones tells Mrs. Baker that Mrs. Briggs has delivered a daughter, and +that Mr. Briggs said he had rather she had given him a wooden leg, the +epigram is quite as good as a _Bric-à-Brac_ anecdote, the people are +quite as worthy as Cowper's barber, and the effect upon the history +of letters quite as close and important. With this demurrer, we will +apply ourselves for a moment to Mr. Stoddard's last collection, which +of course we relish as much as anybody. We could wish that, after +discharging his very well-executed duty of writing the preface, he +could find some further time for elucidating the text. The present +book being about three people, whose memoirs are taken from three +volumes, it is confusing to the reader to find on a page headed +"Rogers" or "Scott" a foot-note about what "my father" said or +what "my friend" remembered, without anything to point out that +the authority is other than Mr. Stoddard's father or friend. Other +peculiarities, too, suggest that the pretty little volume is clipped +instead of edited: on page 134 we find that "William, who had lived +many years with Hook, grew rich and saucy. The latter used to assert +of him that for the first three years he was as good a servant as ever +came into a house; for the next two a kind and considerate friend; +and afterward an abominably bad master." And on page 240, that when +_Rogers_ was condoled with about the death of an old servant, he +exclaimed, "Well, I don't know that I feel his loss so much, after +all. For the first _seven_ years he was an obliging servant; for the +second _seven_ years an agreeable companion; but for the last seven +years he was a tyrannical master." This duality of epigrams seems to +show a discrepancy somewhere; or are we to believe that the wits of +the Regency used to drive their jokes as hired hacks, like the livery +carriages employed by faded dowagers in Hampton Court? The rest of the +little book is perhaps free from duplicates. It is a good one to turn +over for an hour in the cars, which is perhaps all it claims to be. +The anecdotes are good old familiar anecdotes, but it is pleasant to +have them strung on a thread. We are reminded that the original +Bride of Lammermoor was a Miss Dalrymple; that the "laughing Tom" +of Thackeray's "Ballad of Bouillabaise" was Thomas Frazer, Paris +correspondent of the _Morning Chronicle_; that the dramatist of +_Nicholas Nickleby_, so savagely assaulted by Dickens in the course of +the work, was a Mr. Moncrief, who would never have prepared the story +for the stage if Dickens had intimated his objection. + + + + +_Books Received._ + + +The American Educational Annual: A Reference Book for all matters +pertaining to Education. Vol. I., 1875. New York: J.W. Schermerhorn & +Co. + +The Song-Fountain: A Vocal Music-book. By Wm. Tillinghast & D.P. +Horton. New York: J.W. Schermerhorn & Co. + +My. Sister Jennie: A Novel. By George Sand. Translated by T.S. +Crocker. Boston: Roberts Brothers. + +Democracy and Monarchy in France. By Charles Kendall Adams. New York: +Henry Holt & Co. + +Egypt and Iceland in the year 1874. By Bayard Taylor. New York: G.P. +Putnam's Sons. + +Elements of Geometry. By W.H.H. Phillips, Ph. D. New York: J.W. +Schermerhorn & Co. + +The Old Woman who Lived in a Shoe. By Amanda M. Duglas. Boston: +William F. Gill & Co. + +The Lily and the Cross: A Tale of Acadia. By Prof. James De Mille. +Boston: Lee & Shepard. + +Alleged Discrepancies of the Bible. By John W. Haley, M.A. Andover: +Warren F. Draper. + +History of the United States. By George Bancroft. Vol. X. Boston: +Little, Brown & Co. + +Roddy's Romance. By Helen Kendrick Johnson. New York: G.P. Putnam's +Sons. + +My Life on the Plains. By Gen. G.A. Custer, U.S.A. New York: Sheldon & +Co. + +American Wild-Fowl Shooting. By Joseph W. Long. New York: J.B. Ford & +Co. + +Hazel-Blossoms. By John Greenleaf Whittier. Boston: James R. Osgood & +Co. + +Losing to Win: A Novel. By Theodore Davies. New York: Sheldon & Co. + +Linley Rochford: A Novel. By Justin McCarthy. New York: Sheldon & Co. + +A First Book in German. By Dr. Emil Otto. New York: Henry Holt & Co. + +What of the Churches and Clergy? Springfield, Mass: D.E. Fisk & Co. + + + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Lippincott's Magazine of Popular +Literature and Science Vol. XV., No. 85. January, 1875., by Various + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LIPPINCOTT'S MAGAZINE *** + +***** This file should be named 13440-8.txt or 13440-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/3/4/4/13440/ + +Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Sandra Brown and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team. + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. 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January, 1875., by Various + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Vol. XV., No. 85. January, 1875. + +Author: Various + +Release Date: September 11, 2004 [EBook #13440] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LIPPINCOTT'S MAGAZINE *** + + + + +Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Sandra Brown and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team. + + + + + + +</pre> + + <div class="trans-note"> + Transcriber's Note: The Table of Contents and the list of + illustrations were added by the transcriber. + </div> + <hr class="full" /> + + <h1>LIPPINCOTT'S MAGAZINE</h1> + + <h3>OF</h3> + + <h2><i>POPULAR LITERATURE AND SCIENCE.</i></h2> + <hr class="short" /> + + <h4>January, 1875.<br /> + Vol. XV. No. 85.</h4> + <hr class="short" /> + + <div class="figcenter" + style="width:10%;"> + <a href="images/title_page.png"><img width="100%" + src="images/title_page.png" + alt="decoration" /></a> + </div> + + <h4>PHILADELPHIA:<br /> + J. B. LIPPINCOTT AND CO.</h4><br /> + + <hr /> + <br /> + <br /> + + + <h3>TABLE OF CONTENTS</h3> + + <div class="toc"> + <p><a href="#illustrations">ILLUSTRATIONS</a></p> + + <p>THE NEW HYPERION.</p> + + <p class="i4">FROM PARIS TO MARLY BY WAY OF THE RHINE.</p> + + <p class="i4">XIX.--TYING UP THE CLEWS. + <a href="#page9">9</a></p> + + <p class="i4">CONCLUSION. <a href="#page28">28</a></p> + + <p>FOLLOWING THE TIBER.</p> + + <p class="i4">TWO PAPERS.--1. <a href="#page30">30</a></p> + + <p>THE PARADOX by CHARLOTTE F. BATES. + <a href="#page39">39</a></p> + + <p>A NIGHT AT COCKHOOLET CASTLE. + <a href="#page40">40</a></p> + + <p>THE LEADEN ARROW by EDWARD C. BRUCE. + <a href="#page56">56</a></p> + + <p>TWO MIRRORS by F.A. HILLARD. + <a href="#page66">66</a></p> + + <p>MALCOLM.</p> + + <p class="i4">CHAPTER LXIV. THE LAIRD AND HIS MOTHER. + <a href="#page67">67</a></p> + + <p class="i4">CHAPTER LXV. THE LAIRD'S VISION. + <a href="#page68">68</a></p> + + <p class="i4">CHAPTER LXVI. THE CRY FROM THE CHAMBER. + <a href="#page71">71</a></p> + + <p class="i4">CHAPTER LXVII. FEET OF WOOL. + <a href="#page75">75</a></p> + + <p class="i4">CHAPTER LXVIII. HANDS OF IRON. + <a href="#page78">78</a></p> + + <p class="i4">CHAPTER LXIX. THE MARQUIS AND THE + SCHOOLMASTER. <a href="#page81">81</a></p> + + <p class="i4">CHAPTER LXX. END OR BEGINNING? + <a href="#page85">85</a></p> + + <p>THE STAGE IN ITALY by R. DAVEY. + <a href="#page90">90</a></p> + + <p>THREE FEATHERS by WILLIAM BLACK.</p> + + <p class="i4">CHAPTER XX. TINTAGEL'S WALLS. + <a href="#page97">97</a></p> + + <p class="i4">CHAPTER XXI. CONFESSION. + <a href="#page105">105</a></p> + + <p class="i4">CHAPTER XXII. ON WINGS OF HOPE. + <a href="#page109">109</a></p> + + <p>ON THE VIA SAN BASILIO by EARL MARBLE. + <a href="#page112">112</a></p> + + <p>A CHRISTMAS HYMN by T. BUCHANAN READ. + <a href="#page116">116</a></p> + + <p>THE PARSEES by FANNIE ROPER FEUDGE. + <a href="#page117">117</a></p> + + <p>OUR MONTHLY GOSSIP.</p> + + <p class="i4">A SWEDISH PROVINCIAL THEATRE. + <a href="#page123">123</a></p> + + <p class="i4">VENETIAN CAFFÈS by T.A.T. + <a href="#page126">126</a></p> + + <p class="i4">A NEW MEXICAN CHRISTMAS EVE by J.T. + <a href="#page129">129</a></p> + + <p class="i4">ENGLISH BIBLE TRANSLATIONS by J.G.W. + <a href="#page131">131</a></p> + + <p>LITERATURE OF THE DAY. <a href="#page134">134</a></p> + + <p><i>Books Received.</i> <a href="#page136">136</a></p> + </div> + <hr /> + <a name="illustrations" + id="illustrations"></a> + + <h4>ILLUSTRATIONS</h4> + + <p class="illustrations"><a href="#fig009">CÆSAR'S + PENNY.</a></p> + + <p class="illustrations"><a href="#fig010">THE THRONED + CORPSE.</a></p> + + <p class="illustrations"><a href="#fig011">THE SKELETON IN + ARMOR.</a></p> + + <p class="illustrations"><a href="#fig012">BRUSSELS.</a></p> + + <p class="illustrations"><a href="#fig014-1">FATHER + JOLIET.</a></p> + + <p class="illustrations"><a href="#fig014-2">THE + CATECHISM.</a></p> + + <p class="illustrations"><a href="#fig015">FRAU + KRANICH.</a></p> + + <p class="illustrations"><a href="#fig016">"TO MY + ARMS."</a></p> + + <p class="illustrations"><a href="#fig017">THE FUTURE OF + FFARINA.</a></p> + + <p class="illustrations"><a href="#fig018">HOHENFELS' + FAILURE.</a></p> + + <p class="illustrations"><a href="#fig019">READING THE + CONTRACT.</a></p> + + <p class="illustrations"><a href="#fig020-1">INTERRUPTED + REPOSE.</a></p> + + <p class="illustrations"><a href="#fig020-2">COALS vs. + COATS</a></p> + + <p class="illustrations"><a href="#fig021">THE JESTER AT THE + FEAST.</a></p> + + <p class="illustrations"><a href="#fig022">ST. GUDOLE, + BRUSSELS.</a></p> + + <p class="illustrations"><a href="#fig023">SQUARE OF THE + HÔTEL DE VILLE, BRUSSELS.</a></p> + + <p class="illustrations"><a href="#fig024">DIVERS + DIVERSIONS.</a></p> + + <p class="illustrations"><a href="#fig025">THE MIMIC + HUNT.</a></p> + + <p class="illustrations"><a href="#fig028-1">HOMEWARD + BOUND.</a></p> + + <p class="illustrations"><a href="#fig028-2">CHARLES AND + JOSEPHINE.</a></p> + + <p class="illustrations"><a href="#fig028-3">ARGUS AND + ULYSSES.</a></p> + + <p class="illustrations"><a href="#fig029-1">"HAND IT OVER TO + ART."</a></p> + + <p class="illustrations"><a href="#fig030">NEAR THE SOURCE OF + THE TIBER.</a></p> + + <p class="illustrations"><a href="#fig031">CAPRESE.</a></p> + + <p class="illustrations"><a href="#fig032">LAKE + THRASIMENE.</a></p> + + <p class="illustrations"><a href="#fig034">THE TIBER NEAR + PERUGIA.</a></p> + + <p class="illustrations"><a href="#fig036">TODI.</a></p> + + <p class="illustrations"><a href="#fig037">CHURCH AND CONVENT + OF SAINT FRANCIS, AT ASSISI.</a></p> + <hr /> + <span class="pagenum"><a name="page9" + id="page9"></a>[pg 9]</span> + + <h2>THE NEW HYPERION.</h2> + + <h3>FROM PARIS TO MARLY BY WAY OF THE RHINE.</h3> + + <h3>XIX.—TYING UP THE CLEWS.</h3> + + <div class="figcenter" + style="width:75%;"> + <a href="images/009.png" + name="fig009" + id="fig009"><img width="100%" + src="images/009.png" + alt="CÆSAR'S PENNY." /></a>CÆSAR'S PENNY. + </div> + + <p>In leaving Cologne for Aix-la-Chapelle you turn your back to + the river—a particular which suited my mood well enough. + The railway bore us away from the Rhine-shore at an abrupt + angle, and in my notion the noble Germanic goddess or image + seemed at this point to recede with grand theatric strides, + like a divinity of the stage backing away from her admirers + over the billowy whirlpool of her own skirts. As I dreamed we + penetrated the tunnel of Königsdorf, which is fifteen + hundred yards long, and which seemed to me sufficiently + protracted to contain the slumber of Barbarossa. The thought + gave me a useful hint, and I fell into a light sleep, while + Charles and Hohenfels pervaded the darkness merely by their + perfumes—the former with whiffs at a concealed bottle of + Farina, the latter with a pastille counterfeiting the incense + of the cathedral. In a couple of hours from the Hôtel de + Hollande we reached Aachen, as the fond natives call the burgh + so dear to Charlemagne. Deprived of that + <span class="pagenum"><a name="page10" + id="page10"></a>[pg 10]</span> magnificent mirror, the + Rhine, the pretty towns throughout this part of Germany seem + but like country belles. We should hardly have paused at Aix + but for the sake of affording a rest to Charles, who grew + worse whenever lunch-time competed with railway-time. As for + the dull little city, for us it was a wilderness, with the + blank cleanliness of the desert, except in so far as it was + informed and populated by the memory of Charlemagne.</p> + + <div class="figleft" + style="width:60%;"> + <a href="images/010.png" + name="fig010" + id="fig010"><img width="100%" + src="images/010.png" + alt="THE THRONED CORPSE." /></a>THE THRONED CORPSE. + </div> + + <p>Here he died, and entered his tomb in the church himself had + founded. Into this sepulchre the emperor Otho III. dared to + penetrate in the year 997, impelled by a motive of vile and + varlet-like curiosity. They say the dead monarch confronted his + living visitor in the great marble chair in which he had been + seated at his own command, haughty and inflexible as in life, + the ivory sceptre in his ivory fingers, his white skull crowned + with the diadem of gold. The peeping emperor looked upon him + with awe, half afraid of the mysterious and penetrating shadows + that reached forth out of his rayless eyes. Before he left, + however, he peered about, touched the sceptre and the throne, + fingered this and that, and having, as it were, trimmed the + nails and combed the beard of the great spectre, retired with a + valet's bow. Observing that Charlemagne had lost most of his + nose, he caused it to be replaced in gold very delicately + chiseled and enchased. The sacrilege was repeated by Frederick + Barbarossa in 1165, who went farther and forced Charlemagne to + get up from his chair before him. The corpse, in rising, fell + in pieces, which have been dispersed through Europe as relics. + We saw such of them as remain here at the Chapelle. I was + allowed, for about the equivalent of an American dollar, to + measure the Occidental emperor's leg—they call it his + arm. And then, as a makeweight in the bargain, the venal + sacristan placed in my hands the head of Charlemagne.</p> + + <p>I thought Hohenfels would have sunk to the ground with + disgust. He colored deeply and dragged me into the air. "I am + ashamed of every drop of German blood in my veins," he cried. + "What are we to think of the commerce of these wretches, for + whom the very wounds of Cæsar are the lips of a + money-box?"</p> + + <p>I had given back the skull, as Hamlet returns the skull of + Yorick to the grave-digger, and was dusting my fingers with a + handkerchief, as hundreds of Hamlets have dusted theirs. I + said, "'Thrift, thrift, Horatio.'"</p> + + <p>"At Kreutzberg there are twenty monks on the counter! This + morning, at St. Ursula's, it was the eleven thousand virgins, + their skulls ranged like Dutch cheeses above our heads or in + rows around the walls, with a battery-full of them in the + neighboring apartment, like a cheesemonger's reserved magazine. + <span class="pagenum"><a name="page11" + id="page11"></a>[pg 11]</span> Here, the very leader of + modern ideas, the creator of our form of civilization, is + shown for so many pennies to any grocer who wants to weigh + the head of a king! Profanation! Barbarians! + Philistines!"</p> + + <div class="figright" + style="width:60%;"> + <a href="images/011.png" + name="fig011" + id="fig011"><img width="100%" + src="images/011.png" + alt="THE SKELETON IN ARMOR." /></a>THE SKELETON IN + ARMOR. + </div> + + <p>I turned rather hastily, while my hands were yet clammy with + the skull, thinking that this accusation of Philistinism was + aimed at me. But Hohenfels thought of nothing less than of a + personality, being in his cloudiest mood of generalization. So + I only concealed the handkerchief, while I said, as easily as I + might, "You need not accuse your German blood, for I have lived + long enough in my American's Paradise to know that civilized + Paris is considerably worse in this particular respect, with + the addition of a certain goblin levity particularly French. + How often have I seen babies frightened by the skulls in the + dentists' windows, with their cynical chewing action! It is + said that a child sat next a dentist's apprentice once in an + omnibus, and was observed to turn rigid, fixed and white, but + unable to speak: he had sat on one of these skulls, and it had + bitten him. Silver-mounted skulls set as goblets, in imitation + of Byron, are to be seen at any of the china-shops rubbing + against the chaste cheeks of the old maid's teacup. Skeletons + are sold, bleached and with gilded hinges, to the medical + students, who buy the pale horrors as openly as meerschaum + pipes. Have I not often found young Grandstone supping among + his doctors' apprentices of the Ober restaurant after + theatre-hours, a skeleton in the corner filled with umbrellas + like a hall-rack, and crowned with the triple or quintuple + tiara of the girls' best bonnets? Ay, Mimi Pinson's cap has + known what it is to perch on the bony head of Death. The + juxtaposition is but an emblem. The sewing-girl, like Hood's + shirtmaker, scarcely fears the 'phantom of grisly bone.' Poor + Francine! where have you taken <i>your</i> artisanne's cap to, + I wonder? Are you left alone, all alone again, and thinking of + the pretty solitude you have left behind you at Carlsruhe? Who + uses those polished keys now?"</p> + + <p>Hohenfels interrupted me, complaining that my monologue was + uninteresting and diffuse, and was interfering with the railway + time-table. But I finished it in the car: "And the railway! + What has a person of fixed and independent habits to do with + railways but to growl at them? Before I was tempted upon the + railway by that impertinent engineer at Noisy, I got up and sat + down when I liked, ate wholesome food at my own hours, and was + contented at home. Confusion to him who made me the victim of + his engineering calculations! + <span class="pagenum"><a name="page12" + id="page12"></a>[pg 12]</span> Confusion to Grandstone and + his nest of serpents at Épernay! Did they not + introduce me to Fortnoye, who has doubly destroyed my peace? + Where are the conspirators, that I may pulverize them with + my maledictions?"</p> + + <div class="figcenter" + style="width:80%;"> + <a href="images/012.png" + name="fig012" + id="fig012"><img width="100%" + src="images/012.png" + alt="BRUSSELS." /></a>BRUSSELS. + </div> + + <p>This question—which Hohenfels called peevish as he + buried himself in his book—was not answered until we had + passed Verviers, Chaudfontaine and Liège. I was aroused + from a sulky slumber in the station at Brussels by Hohenfels, + who said, in his musical scolding way, like the busy wheeze of + a clicking music-box, "You may say what you like, with your + left-handed flatteries, in regard to Fortnoye, and you may + praise Ariadnes and widows to the end of the chapter. You are + sorry at this moment not to be at Épernay to see the + destroyer of your peace married: you had rather assist at the + making of a wife than at the making of a widow."</p> + + <p>I was just sending Fortnoye to the gloomiest shades of + Acheron when a strong hand entered the carriage-door, helped me + handsomely down the steps, and then began warmly to shake my + own. Fortnoye!—Fortnoye in flesh and blood was before me. + While my mouth was yet filled with maledictions he began to + pour out a storm of thanks with all his own particular warmth, + expressing the most effusive gratitude for the trouble I had + taken in forsaking my route to be his wife's bridesmaid. That + is what he called it. "She has but one other," said Fortnoye. + At the same time I began to recognize other faces not unknown + to me, crudely illuminated by the raw colors of the + railway-lights. They all had black wedding-suits and enormous + buttonhole nosegays of orange-flowers. I picked them out, with + a particular recognition for each: 'twas the civil engineer of + Noisy; the short gentleman named Somerard; James Athanasius + Grandstone, with his saintly aureole upon him in the shape of a + Yankee wide-awake; the nameless mutes, or rather chorus, of the + champagne-crypt; in short, my nest of serpents in all its + integrity. Still entangled with my slumbers, I hesitated to + respond to the friendly hands that were everywhere thrust + centripetally toward me.</p> + + <p>I looked blackly at Hohenfels. He was chuckling.</p> + + <p>At Heidelberg, making the acquaintance of M. Fortnoye + contemporaneously with my departure, he had become more + enthralled than he ever confessed to this radiant + traveler—whom he called a + <span class="pagenum"><a name="page13" + id="page13"></a>[pg 13]</span> packman, but regarded as a + Mercury—and his pretty scheme of matrimony in motion. + Even now, if I can believe my eyes, he goes up to the + "vintner" and "peddler" of his objurgations, and meekly + whispers into his ear with the air of a conspirator + reporting a plot to his chief. Having engaged to produce me + at the wedding of Fortnoye, and finding me unexpectedly + recusant, he had adopted a little stratagem for bringing me + to the scene while thinking to escape from it.</p> + + <p>"Thou too, Brutus!" I said, and gave it up. It only remained + for me to return all round, after five minutes of petrified + stupidity, the hand-grasps that had been offered from every + quarter of the compass-box.</p> + + <p>Next morning, at an early hour, I was interrupted by a + knock, just as Charles had buttoned my gaiters and the young + man from the perruquier's (who had stolen in with that air of + delicacy and of almost literary refinement which belongs to his + gentle profession) had lathered me. A nick he gave my chin at + the shock made my countenance all argent and gules, and the + visitor entering saw me thus emblazoned, while the barber and + Charles, "like two wild men supporters of a shield," could only + stare at the untimely apparition.</p> + + <p>"Do you know him, Charles?" I asked, not recognizing my + guest, and putting over my painted face a mask of wet + toweling.</p> + + <p>"I know him intimately," replied my jester-in-ordinary: "I + would thank Monsieur Paul just to tell me his name. Do you + remember, monsieur, a sort of beggar, with a wagon and a + stylish horse and a pretty wife, who limped a bit with his + right hand, or perhaps his left hand? Does monsieur know what I + mean? He used to come and see us at Passy; and monsieur even + had some traffic with him in a little matter of two + chickens."</p> + + <p>"Father Joliet!" I cried.</p> + + <p>"Present!" shouted the personage thus designated at my + appeal to his name. I turned round, toweled, and he grasped my + hands. The unusual hour, appropriate as I supposed only to some + porter or other stipendiary visitor of my hotel, caused to + shine out with startling refulgence the morning splendors in + which Papa Joliet had arrayed himself. He wore a courtly dress, + appropriate to the most formal possible ceremony; his black + suit was glossy; his hat was glossy; his varnished pumps were + more than glossy—they were phosphorescent. Gloves only + were wanting to his honest hands.</p> + + <div class="figright" + style="width:30%;"> + <a href="images/013.png" + name="fig013" + id="fig013"><img width="100%" + src="images/013.png" + alt="PERRUQUIER." /></a>PERRUQUIER. + </div> + + <p>Soaped, napkined and generally extinguished, I could only + stammer, "You here in Brussels? What a droll meeting!"</p> + + <p>"Wherefore droll?" asked Joliet, with a huge surprise, which + lasted him all through his next sentence. "I come here to marry + my daughter. Everything is ready; we count on your presence at + the wedding; the lawyer has drawn up the contract; and the + breakfast is now cooking at the best restaurant in the + place."</p> + + <p>"Francine's wedding, my dear Joliet!" I exclaimed. And, + going back to my apprehensions at her furtive disappearance + from Carlsruhe, and to my conjectures of some amorous mystery + between her and her Yankee traducer, Kraaniff, I added gravely, + "It is very + creditable!"</p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page14" + id="page14"></a>[pg 14]</span> + + <p>"How, creditable—and droll?" repeated the honest man, + evidently much surprised at my own accumulating surprises. "Did + not you hear?"</p> + + <div class="figleft" + style="width:30%;"> + <a href="images/014-1.png" + name="fig014-1" + id="fig014-1"><img width="100%" + src="images/014-1.png" + alt="FATHER JOLIET." /></a>FATHER JOLIET. + </div> + + <p>"Not the faintest word," I said, "but I am none the less + gratified to find this affair ending, as it should, in the + presence of a lawyer. As for your wedding-invitation, my good + friend, you are a little tardy in delivering it, for it is + exactly to-day that I am obliged to attend at the marriage of + one of my friends, M. Fortnoye."</p> + + <p>"Ah, that is a good joke!" cried Joliet, breaking into an + explosion of laughter and clapping me pleasantly on the + shoulder—an action which caused a slight frown on the + part of Charles. "You always would have your jest, Monsieur the + American! Tease me and scare me as much as you like: I like + these hoaxes better before a wedding than after. Hold that," he + added, extending his hand as if it were a piece of + merchandise.</p> + + <p>I "held" it, and he went on, dwelling slowly on his words: + "If you are at Henri Fortnoye's wedding you will be at Francine + Joliet's also, for both of these persons are to be married at + one church."</p> + + <p>"Impossible!" I exclaimed, dropping the hand and stepping + back.</p> + + <p>"What! again?" said Joliet, his manly face visibly + darkening. "Droll! and creditable! and impossible! Why + impossible?" Then he dropped his head and looked angrily at the + floor. "Ah, yes, even you," he said, his eyes still fixed on + the boards, "believed that a French girl, trained as French + girls are trained, would flirt and expose herself to remark; + and all on account of such a man as your compatriot, the other + American! Well! well! you ought to know your countrymen + best."</p> + + <p>"I know of no harm," I interposed hastily. "I should always + have thought Kraaniff hard to swallow as a mere matter of + taste. I can but recollect, Father Joliet," I went on more + seriously, "that the last time I met you you begged me not to + talk of Francine if I would not break your heart. I have to add + to this the news brought me from Heidelberg, that this Kraaniff + was a serpent who had fascinated some young girl for an + approaching meal.—How dare you, Charles," I cried + suddenly, recalled to the consciousness of his presence by this + souvenir of his oratory, "stand here staring? Show the young + man out directly, and pay him."</p> + + <p>I will not answer for Charles's having got much farther away + than the door. Joliet continued: "But his aunt knows him now + for what he is. Kraaniff, say you? I call him Kranich, though + he had better change his baptismal record than disgrace one of + the best names in Brussels."</p> + + <div class="figright" + style="width:40%;"> + <a href="images/014-2.png" + name="fig014-2" + id="fig014-2"><img width="100%" + src="images/014-2.png" + alt="THE CATECHISM." /></a>THE CATECHISM. + </div> + + <p>"Frau Kranich, then, my old friend, is really his aunt?"</p> + + <p>"Madame Kranich, whom I have + <span class="pagenum"><a name="page15" + id="page15"></a>[pg 15]</span> known in your parlor, is + really Francine's godmother. Did you never know of all her + secret kindness? That rigid lady would commit a perjury to + deny one of her own good actions. Young Kranich has written + her a letter confessing his lies. Don't you know? The very + same day when you were determined to fight him in a + duel—"</p> + + <p>"Certainly, certainly," I said, a little confused. "We will + change the subject and leave my ferocity alone. Let us + understand one another. In regard to Fortnoye's marriage, was + there not some talk of a Madame Ashburleigh?"</p> + + <p>"I believe you. Madame Ashburleigh is the very key of the + manoeuvre. Madame Ashburleigh—don't you + perceive?—lost a child."</p> + + <p>"For that matter, she has lost four. I know the lady + confidentially, and she told me their histories and present + address. Lucia lies in Glasgow, Hannibal at Nice, and Waterloo + sleeps somewhere hereabout, as well as another nameless little + dear."</p> + + <p>"She is a good woman. She has collected all her proofs, and + has come hither with them voluntarily—has perhaps already + arrived. Brussels, where two of her marmots rest, is one of her + most frequent stations. That censorious Madame Kranich made a + scene, but she had to yield to conviction."</p> + + <p>"A censorious Madame Kranich! Is the young duelist + married?"</p> + + <p>"What? No, no! It is Francine's guardian I speak of. Of late + years she has become a sort of Puritan abbess, seeking the + Protestant society which abounds in Belgium, and lamenting her + husband, whom they say she used to drug with opium."</p> + + <p>"Then is she not Kranich's aunt?"</p> + + <p>"Oh yes, an aunt by marriage; but he is not her nephew: I + will die before I call him so."</p> + + <div class="figright" + style="width:35%;"> + <a href="images/015.png" + name="fig015" + id="fig015"><img width="100%" + src="images/015.png" + alt="FRAU KRANICH." /></a>FRAU KRANICH. + </div> + + <p>"Listen," said I, "Father Joliet. You are as full of + information as an oracle, but you are not coherent. This month + past I have been hunting down a chimaera, a hydra with a dozen + heads: each head shows me by turn the portrait of Fortnoye, or + Francine, or yourself, or Kranich, or Mrs. Ashburleigh. Ever + since Noisy I have been meandering through the folds of a + mystery. My head is turning with it. If you want to save me + from distraction, sit down in this chair and answer me a long + catechism, without saying a word but in reply to my + questions."</p> + + <p>"I am sure I talk as plain as a professor. Look! You + frightened me at first with your doubts and your + impossibilities. You have only to make Kranich's aunt agree + with Francine's guardian, and at the same time forgive + Francine's husband for having assumed the undertaker's bill for + Madame Ashburleigh's baby."</p> + + <p>"Yes, yes, my dear Joliet, you are clearer than Euclid." And + I administered a category of questions. Joliet, with his + fatherly joy bursting out of him in the longest of parentheses, + kept quiet in his refulgent shoes and answered as well as he + could.</p> + + <div class="figleft" + style="width:30%;"> + <a href="images/016.png" + name="fig016" + id="fig016"><img width="100%" + src="images/016.png" + alt="'TO MY ARMS.'" /></a>"TO MY ARMS." + </div> + + <p>Francine, he protested, had never been + <span class="pagenum"><a name="page16" + id="page16"></a>[pg 16]</span> a flirt (I have met no + Frenchmen who were ignorant of that one English word, to + which they give a new value by pronouncing it in a very + orotund manner, as <i>flort</i>). When she came to be ten or + twelve, Frau Kranich—until then a well-preserved + lioness with an appetite for society—ceased to give + her dolls and promised to give her an education. At the same + time, the banker's widow left Paris, and repaired with her + charge to Brussels, where the little girl received some good + half-Jesuitical, half-English schooling, of the kind + suggested in the Brontë novels. Her diploma attained, + Francine begged to accompany her English teacher back to + London: she wished to become a <i>meess</i>, she said, and + be competent to teach like a new Hypatia. She had hardly + bidden her kind protectress adieu when Frau Kranich's nephew + arrived at Brussels, exceedingly dissatisfied with his + American business in the bar-rooms of the grand duke of + Mississippi. A sordid jealousy of Mademoiselle Joliet's + claims upon his aunt took possession of this prudent spirit. + He took up a watch-post at a university town on the Rhine. + He began to whisper vague exaggerations of her coquetries + and liveliness, which the Protestant circle that revolved + about Madame Kranich did not fail to bear in to her. This + lady admired her nephew, sure that his want of manners was + the sign of a noble frankness. She wrote to Francine, + bidding her come immediately from London. The girl not + replying, the hopeful nephew was put upon her track. He went + away. His letters from England reported that Francine was no + longer in that country, but was probably come back to + Belgium, "I know not in what suburb of Brussels our very + independent miss may this instant be hiding," he wrote.</p> + + <p>About the same time, in the circle of French exiles at + Brussels, a young <i>romantique</i> named Fortnoye was reported + as weeping and lavishing statues over the grave of an unknown + infant in the churchyard at Laaken. It was a delicious mystery. + Kind meddlers approached the sexton, who said that all he knew + of the babe's mother was that she was a beautiful lady from + London. Kranich carried the story dutifully to his aunt, adding + his own ingenious surmise: "Can Francine have become + sufficiently Anglicised to contract secret marriages with + roving revolutionists, and scamper about the country with + ardent young Frenchmen in the style of Gretna Green?" In fact, + it was really from London that Mrs. Ashburleigh was proceeding, + for the purpose of taking care, in the Rhenish city where he + was dying, of her handsome, dissipated, worthless husband. + Taken suddenly ill at Brussels, she left her infant to the + unequaled chill of a strange, unknown cemetery, hastening + thence with tears and despair to the bedside where duty called + her.</p> + + <p>Has my reader forgotten the dim, tear-swollen story which I + heard—not at all improved in the telling—from my + generous young friend Grandstone—how an impulsive + Frenchman had laid to rest, in flowers and evergreens, the + unnamed baby of a woman he had never seen? Jealous as I was of + Fortnoye, I never could think without tenderness of this + singular action. To make the tomb of this helpless Innocence + the young man braved the curiosity of his + comrades—despised the rumor, the obloquy, and, hardest of + all, the jests. Well has the wise dramatist decided that + Ophelia must needs be laid in Yorick's + bed!</p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page17" + id="page17"></a>[pg 17]</span> + + <p>Poor Francine, gay, frivolous, innocently vain of her little + travesty of English behavior, found her accomplishments and + graces received by her guardian's circle with incomprehensible + coldness. Hurt and humiliated, she asked to pay a visit to her + father. The honest rustic received her with a miserable + confusion of doubt and severity, for her escapade to England + had never pleased him, and her return from her godmother's home + wore to him the air of a repudiation. At her father's house, + however, she was discovered by Fortnoye, who had never heard + the ingenious Kranich's theory of his own private wedding with + Francine, and who thought to find in her the veiled unknown of + the cemetery. He saw for the first time, in the flowery home at + Noisy, that fresh ingenuous beauty, a little over-cast with + disappointment. His generous nature was touched; and, with his + talent for administration and planning, he conceived the idea + of establishing Francine in the pretty bird's nest at + Carlsruhe, distant alike from the strongholds of her + calumniators, Belgium and France.</p> + + <div class="figright" + style="width:50%;"> + <a href="images/017.png" + name="fig017" + id="fig017"><img width="100%" + src="images/017.png" + alt="THE FUTURE OF FFARINA." /></a>THE FUTURE OF + FFARINA. + </div> + + <p>Fortnoye now had an object in life. "There is a very young + person in the cemetery of Laaken who is much in need of a + chaperone," he said. The frank proofs of his own relations with + this churchyard would not only do credit to his own reputation, + but would gratify the best friends of Mademoiselle Joliet and + at least one other lady. To attain these proofs he had to step + over the coiling, writhing bodies of a whole nest of rumors. + When he seized by the throat the especial slander that he + himself was the husband of the babe's mother, he found written + on its crest the signature of John Kranich. He sought the aunt. + This lady gave him several interviews, the Lutheran prayer-book + for ever in her hand. "Why does the dear girl not come to me?" + she would say, weeping, but she refused to hear a word against + her precious nephew, the personification of bluff frankness. As + if to make crushing him impossible, young Kranich had now + withdrawn to America, leaving his reputation in that best + possible protection, the chivalry that is extended toward the + absent. Fortnoye was baffled. "I will ask the baby at its tomb + for its mother's and father's name," he cried. In the pretty + God's Acre he found a fresh harvest of flowers and a new statue + over the well-known grave. It was a pretty miniature of + Thorwaldsen's Psyche, on which the proud copyist had inscribed + his name. A respectful correspondence with Mrs. Ashburleigh, to + whom he was guided by the sculptor, and who was now taking the + waters at Wildbad, soon put the whole tangled story to rights. + Fortnoye had the happiness of conducting Francine, by this time + his affianced wife, to the good Frau Kranich, who, convinced + that she had wrongly judged her, threw her arms ardently around + her recovered jewel, letting the eternal little book fly from + her hand like a projectile.</p> + + <p>"But the most singular part of the story," concluded Father + Joliet, "is the <span class="pagenum"><a name="page18" + id="page18"></a>[pg 18]</span> letter which Fortnoye, after + two or three quarrels, forced out of young Kranich when the + latter had returned to Europe, full of triumph and debts, to + take possession of his aunt for the rest of his life. Here + it is," added the good man, opening a pocket-book. "The + hand-writing is drunken, but the sense is clear as + Seltzer-water. The scholars tell me <i>in vino veritas + est</i>, but it appears to me that truth really comes out in + the repentance and headache that follow."</p> + + <div class="figcenter" + style="width:80%;"> + <a href="images/018.png" + name="fig018" + id="fig018"><img width="100%" + src="images/018.png" + alt="HOHENFELS' FAILURE." /></a>HOHENFELS' FAILURE. + </div> + + <p>"MY DEAR AUNT" (ran the letter which Charles had seen forced + from the alligator after his unlucky game of dominoes): "You + have known me as the soul of candor. It is this happy quality + which compels me to state (for I am something of a Rousseau) + that if I ever playfully accused your pretty pet Francine of + being a flirt, I knew nothing about it. The best proof is that + she absolutely refused to join her expectations with mine, + though I am something of an Adonis. If you believed that she + and the wine-peddler had made a match, I pity your credulity + and ignorance of human nature. I am certain that neither the + peddler nor myself would touch the enterprise until you had + shown exactly what you would (pecuniarily) do. For my part, I + have acted throughout on the most exact and advanced scientific + principles. Intending to modify the spirit-trade in America, + and especially to introduce the exclusive agency of the Farina + essences, I found that the sinew particularly needed for this + leap was capital. Desiring to absorb your bounties toward + Francine, I at first proposed matrimony. This offer was made + without any enmity toward the girl, as my next move was without + affection, though it seems to be resulting to her benefit. I + became her accuser as coolly as I had been her lover. Passion + has nothing to do with the combinations of strategic genius: I + am something of a Washington. My theory of her clandestine + marriage was one of the most masterly fictions of the + age—a plot worthy of Thackeray. If I could have succeeded + in mutilating the statue in the graveyard, I might have carried + it, while you would have admired my act of iconoclasm with all + your Puritan nature. In the momentary abandonment of my plans, + owing to the machinations of my enemies, you will conceive that + I am not very rich. My college-debts and other expenses I am + obliged to leave for your kind attention. The main point of + this letter, which M. Fortnoye has persuaded me to set down as + distinctly as in my present feeble state I can, is that + Francine is a pretty little maid who has never passed by Gretna + Green. There! that is my <i>credo</i>, and I will subscribe to + it,</p> + + <p>"Your loving nephew, JOHN.</p> + + <p>"P. S. Address, with such an enclosure as your generosity + will prompt, JEAN K. FFARINA, sole representative and + cosmetical chemist in America on behalf of the Farinas of + Cologne, at New Orleans <span class="pagenum"><a name="page19" + id="page19"></a>[pg 19]</span> where I am going to beat my + adversaries like Old HIC—"</p> + + <p>At this point the tipsy scrawl became illegible.</p> + + <p>"This is not a very handsome apology. Did Fortnoye accept + it?" I asked, turning over the clammy and malodorous epistle. + At this inquiry the crack of the door widened and Charles + appeared, on fire with enthusiasm, and so possessed with + self-importance that he forgot the betrayal of his + indiscretion.</p> + + <p>"I can reply to that question," said Charles. "When M. + Fortnoye received the paper from the duelist he read it over + and said, 'You have meant to impose on me, monsieur, with an + incomplete confession. But, in return for your imperfect + restoration of Mademoiselle Joliet's portrait, you have + unconsciously set down such a masterpiece of yourself that I am + certain your aunt will see you as she never did before.'"</p> + + <p>Charles, having thus added himself to our cabal without + rebuke, took a lively interest in what followed. The proud + father continued: "My son-in-law, after some business + preliminaries, wrote me a handsome letter demanding what he had + already effectively possessed himself of. I wrote to Francine, + already returned to her duties, to be a good girl and make her + husband obey her in all things."</p> + + <p>"That may have been," said I, "what made Francine take to + laughing all day and all night, as I heard she did some little + time after my departure from her house. The next news of her," + I pursued, "was that she had been spirited away by some sly old + kidnapper. I almost suspected Kranich."</p> + + <p>"The old kidnapper," said Joliet, laughing heartily at the + compliment, "is the man now talking to you. I wanted to take + Francine to her godmother. I turned the key in the door at + Carlsruhe, set the geographers all upon their travels to + explore new worlds, and we have been living ever since quite + close to Madame Kranich, who treats me like an emperor."</p> + + <p>It was easy now to understand why the young Kranich, as soon + as he could identify me as a protector of Francine, had been + thrown off his guard and tempted to attack me with his clumsy + abuse. It was not very mysterious, even, why he had wished all + handsome girls to be drowned in the Rhine. For him a pretty + damsel was simply a rival in trade.</p> + + <div class="figright" + style="width:50%;"> + <a href="images/019.png" + name="fig019" + id="fig019"><img width="100%" + src="images/019.png" + alt="READING THE CONTRACT." /></a>READING THE + CONTRACT. + </div> + + <p>Had I stopped at Wildbad with the party of orpheonists, I + should have encountered rather sooner the fatal beauties of + Mary Ashburleigh. It was to meet her that Fortnoye had paused + at that resort, considering her introduction to Frau Kranich + almost indispensable to the success of his scheme. She had no + hesitation in following the protecting angel of her lost child. + "My object in this journey is a happy marriage," she had told + me when to my unworthy care her guardianship had been + transferred. If I timorously suspected the marriage to be her + own, whose fault was it but mine? My heart leaped up at the + successive stages of this recital, its hopes + <span class="pagenum"><a name="page20" + id="page20"></a>[pg 20]</span> confirmed by every additional + fact: the Dark Ladye's hand was certainly free. Fortnoye, I + should surmise, was not too desirous to abandon this + magnificent companion at Schwetzingen; but the serpent, he + knew, was left behind, in company with two or three of his + and my friends: it was necessary to take the youth by the + ear, as it were, and dismiss him from the country, without + loss of time, to his future of counter-jumping. His dueling + experience may be of some use to him among the bowie-knives + of Louisiana. If his subsequent path is not strewn with + roses, let him rejoice that it is at least lubricated with + cologne-water.</p> + + <div class="figleft" + style="width:50%;"> + <a href="images/020-1.png" + name="fig020-1" + id="fig020-1"><img width="100%" + src="images/020-1.png" + alt="INTERRUPTED REPOSE." /></a>INTERRUPTED REPOSE. + </div> + + <p>An hour had passed, and into my room from his own adjoining + one now ambled amicably my friend the baron. He greeted Joliet + as an old friend. Many a smoking-match had they had in my + garden at Marly. But Hohenfels this morning was in robes of + state, with shoes that shone even beside old Father Joliet's, + and as a concession to elegance he had abandoned his cavernous + pipes in favor of cigarettes. A scroll of this description, + flavored with his Cologne pastille and very badly rolled, was + trying to exhale itself between his lips.</p> + + <p>"What a genius for conversation you have to-day, my + Flemming! This hour I have rocked back and forth in bed, trying + to understand your observations or to cover my ears and go to + rest. Your tongue has been like the tongue of a monastery-bell + summoning all hands to penance." But I had hardly spoken ten + consecutive words. The ears of the baron were this morning + quite muffled, I think, with the abundance of his hair, which + he had evidently been dressing with an avalanche of soap and + water, for the topknot was as harsh and tight as a felt. He had + lemon-blossoms on his lappel and lemon kids on his fists.</p> + + <p>It was then I remembered that my bags were all in the + steamer, where I had left them when surprised by Charles's + indisposition. My tin box would possibly yield me a + button-nosegay, but otherwise I might beat my breast, like the + wedding-guest in the <i>Ancient Mariner</i>, for I heard the + summons and was unable to attend in right attire. "We two must + take you out in the street and dress you," said Hohenfels.</p> + + <p>Although I had never been dressed in the street, I yielded. + It was a grand public holiday, and the sounds of festivity, + which had floated into my chamber with the entrance of + Hohenfels, were in full cadence outside. Everybody was pouring + out to the city-gate, or returning from thence, where, in honor + of some visit from the king of the Belgians and count and + countess of Flanders, a festival was going on in imitation or + rehearsal of the grand annual <i>kermesse</i>. These festivals, + retained in Belgium with a delightful fidelity to the customs + of antique Brabant, would fit the brush of Teniers better than + the pen of a mere bewildered tourist. Still, I will try, + copying principally from the reports of Charles (who contrives + to peep at everything, with an interest whose amount is in + ratio with the square of his distance from his master), to give + a few features of the scene, which he spread in detail before + the attentive Josephine during many an evening after.</p> + + <div class="figright" + style="width:20%;"> + <a href="images/020-2.png" + name="fig020-2" + id="fig020-2"><img width="100%" + src="images/020-2.png" + alt="COALS vs. COATS" /></a>COALS vs. COATS + </div> + + <p>The principal fair-ground—though the + <span class="pagenum"><a name="page21" + id="page21"></a>[pg 21]</span> occasion crammed the whole + city with revelers—was just outside the gate. It was a + veritable town in miniature, with a pattern of checker-board + streets—Columbine street, Polichinelle street, Avenue + des Parades, Place des Parades, Street of the Chanson, and + the like. There were more than five hundred booths, all + numbered—shops and restaurants. There were the Salon + Curtius, the Ménagerie Bidel, the Bal Mabille, the + Café Bataclan, the American Tavern. From one of the + little costumers' shops, Charles—with a higher + evincement of antiquarian taste than I should have + expected—managed to bear away a pattern of wall-paper, + which I afterward conferred on Mary Ashburleigh with great + applause: it was Parisian of 1824, the epoch of Charles Dix, + and was entirely covered with giraffes in honor of that + puissant and elegant monarch. The above establishments were + near the entrance, to the right.</p> + + <p>At the left were more attractions: another menagerie, a heap + of ostensible gold representing the five milliards paid by + France, a gallery of astonished wax soldiers representing the + Franco-Prussian war, a cook-shop with "mythologic" + confectionery. Farther on, in the Théâtre Casti, + was exposed the "renowned buffoon Peppino," breveted by His + Majesty the "king of Egypt;" then came the Chiarini Theatre; + then the Théâtre Adrien Delille, an enchantingly + pretty structure, where receptions were given by a little + creature who should have sat under a microscope: she was "the + Princess Felicia, aged thirteen, born at Clotat, near + Marseilles, weighing three kilogrammes and measuring forty-six + centimètres—a ravishing figure, admirably + proportioned in her littleness and <i>tout à fait + sympathique!"</i></p> + + <p>The announcements were heard, it was thought by Charles, to + the very centre of the city. A low-browed animal with rasped + hair was shouting, "Messieurs and ladies, come and + see—come and see the theatre of the galleys! The only one + in the world! This is the place to view the real instruments of + torture used on the prisoners—-chains four yards long and + balls of thirty-five pounds. All authentic, gentlemen and + ladies. You will see the poisoners of Marseilles, Grosjon who + killed his father, Madame Cottin who ate her baby. Come in, + come in, gentlemen and ladies! Fifteen centimes! 'Tis given + away! You enter and go out when you like. Come in! It is + educational: you see vice and crime depicted on the faces of + the criminals!"</p> + + <div class="figright" + style="width:40%;"> + <a href="images/021.png" + name="fig021" + id="fig021"><img width="100%" + src="images/021.png" + alt="THE JESTER AT THE FEAST." /></a>THE JESTER AT THE + FEAST. + </div> + + <p>In another place a malicious Flemish Figaro explained the + analogy betwen <i>een spinnekop</i> and <i>eene meisie</i>, the + perspiration streaming over his face; and my ancient + minnesinger's blood stirred within me at the report of the + pleasantries which were improvised by this Rabelais of the + people, and I remembered that I too was a Flemming.</p> + + <p>The bands belonging to the different booths tried to play + each other down, forming a stupefying charivari, with tributary + processions that quite overflowed the city. The house of + "confections" yielded me no broadcloth of a cut or dimension + suitable to my figure. But my two friends chose me a hat, a + light pale-tot (my second purchase in that sort on this + eventful journey), a scented cambric handkerchief, a rosebud, + and a snowy waistcoat, in which, as in a whited sepulchre, I + concealed the decay of my toilet. These changes were judged to + be sufficient for my accoutrement. They might have done very + well, but on my way back I paused at a lace-shop window to + inspect some present for Francine. A band, with many banners + and figures in <span class="pagenum"><a name="page22" + id="page22"></a>[pg 22]</span> masquerade, swept past, + followed by a shouting crowd. My friends lost me in a + moment, and I lost my way. I turned into a street which I + was sure led to the hotel, gave it up for another, lost that + in a blind alley, and finally brought up in a steep, narrow + cañon, where I was forced to ask a direction. The + passer-by who obliged me was a man bearing a bag of + charcoal. He answered with a ready intelligence that did + honor to his heart and his sense of Progressive Geography. + But he left on my white waistcoat, alas! a charcoal sketch, + full of chiaroscuro and <i>coloris</i>, representing his + index-finger surrounded with a sort of cloud-effect. My + waistcoat had to be given over in favor of the elder garment + buttoned up in the all-concealing overcoat.</p> + + <div class="figleft" + style="width:70%;"> + <a href="images/022.png" + name="fig022" + id="fig022"><img width="100%" + src="images/022.png" + alt="ST. GUDOLE, BRUSSELS." /></a>ST. GUDOLE, + BRUSSELS. + </div> + + <p>The ceremonies of the day, I soon found, were to consist in + an early and informal breakfast at the house of Frau Kranich; + then the civil wedding at the mayor's office, followed by the + usual church-service, from which the Protestant godmother of + Francine begged to be excused; the day to wind up with a + general dinner at a place of resort outside the city at four + o'clock, the usual dining-hour in old Brabant.</p> + + <p>The early breakfast gave a renewal of my friendship with + good Frau Kranich and a glimpse of the bride, with her sweet, + patient, dewy face shadowed like a honey-drop in the gauzy + calyx of her artisanne cap; for she was in the simplest of + morning dresses—something gray, with a clean white apron. + The quaint, old-fashioned house where we met was decorated with + exquisite trifles, the memorials of the mistress's old + fashionable taste, but scattered over the tables also were + lecture programmes, hospital reports and photographs of eminent + philosophers. As I took up for a plaything a gold pen-case, + well used, which rested on a magnificent old fan, the Kranich + said, with just a reminiscence of her former vivacity, "You + find me much changed, Mr. Flemming. I used to be the + grasshopper in the fable—now I am the ant."</p> + + <p>"I bless any change, ma'am," said I, "which increases your + kindness toward this charming girl."</p> + + <p>"Dear Mr. Flemming," said pretty Francine, "how nice and + shabby you look! You will do admirably to stand by a poor + girl—so poor that she has hardly a bridesmaid. I hope you + are as indigent as you were at Carlsruhe." Upon this I felt + very fatherly, and clasped her waist from behind as I kissed + her forehead.</p> + + <p>The lawyer, a professionally bland old man, with a porous + bald head like an emu's egg, said as he was introduced, "Ah, I + have heard of you before, monsieur. You are the man of the two + chickens."</p> + + <p>Joliet was so enchanted with this rare joke, laughing and + clapping all his nearer neighbors on the back, that I could not + but accept it graciously. For this exceptional day, at least, I + must bear my eternal nickname. Was not the maid now present + whose dower had been hatched by those well-omened fowls? and + was not the dower now coming to use? Hohenfels paired off with + the notary, and discussed with that parchment person the music + of Mozart, and, what <span class="pagenum"><a name="page23" + id="page23"></a>[pg 23]</span> would have been absurd and + incredible in any Anglo-Saxon country, the scribe understood + it!</p> + + <p>Our party had to wait but ten minutes for the groom and his + men. Fortnoye, in a grand blue suit, with a wondrous dazzle of + frilling on his broad chest, looked a noble husband, but was + preoccupied and silent. His chorus supported + him—Grandstone, Somerard, my engineer and the + others—in dignified black clothes, official + boutonnières and ceremonial cravats: they greeted Frau + Kranich with awe, and bowed before the polished head of the + lawyer with the parallelism of ninepins. My little group of + fellow-travelers was almost complete. The young duelist, of + course, was not expected or wanted. The Scotch doctor, Somerard + told me, had been obliged to fly to London, where a mammoth + meeting of the homoeopathic faith was in progress.</p> + + <p>The great feature of the breakfast came on when every crumb + of breakfast had been eaten. Charles and the maid cleared away + the table, and the notary stood up to read the marriage + contract. The reading, ordinarily a dull affair, was in this + instance vivified by curious incidents. In the first place, + Frau Kranich. amending the injustice her over-credulity had + caused, gave her <i>protègée</i> a + wedding-present of twenty thousand francs, accompanying the + gift with some singularly tart remarks about her nephew: this + sum was increased by the groom to sixty thousand. The second + incident was when Joliet, amid the almost incredulous surprise + of the whole table, raised the gift, by the addition of ten + thousand, to seventy thousand francs: the money was the product + of his former house and garden—that house of shreds and + patches which had cost him ten francs. When it came to affixing + the signatures, the notary appealed to Joliet for his name. He + could not sign it, being gouty and half forgetful of + pen-practice, but he responded to the question as bold as a + lion: "John Thomas Joliet, baron de Rouvière," throwing + to the lawyer a fine bunch of papers bearing witness to the + validity of the title; after which he added, no less proudly, + "wine-merchant, wholesale and retail, at the sign of the Golden + Chickens, Noisy."</p> + + <div class="figright" + style="width:70%;"> + <a href="images/023.png" + name="fig023" + id="fig023"><img width="100%" + src="images/023.png" + alt="SQUARE OF THE HÔTEL DE VILLE, BRUSSELS." /> + </a>SQUARE OF THE HÔTEL DE VILLE, BRUSSELS. + </div> + + <p>In truth, Joliet's father had rightfully borne the title of + baron de Rouvière, but, ruined by '48, had abandoned the + practice of signing it. Joliet resumed it for this special + occasion, having every warrant for the act, but whispered to me + that he should never so call himself in future, greatly + preferring the enumeration of his qualities on his + business-card.</p> + + <p>Poor Francine meanwhile had looked so timid and blushed so + that Frau Kranich nodded to her permission of absence. She gave + one glance at Fortnoye, buried her face in her hands, laughed a + sweet little gurgle, and fled. When her presence was again + necessary, she reappeared, drowned in white. We went to the + mayor's office, where she lost a pretty little surname that had + always seemed to fit her like a glove; then to the church, an + obscure one in the neighborhood of Frau Kranich's house. But at + the door of the sacred edifice the elder lady said, with much + conciliatory grace in her manner, "I claim exemption from + <span class="pagenum"><a name="page24" + id="page24"></a>[pg 24]</span> witnessing this part of the + ceremony; and you, Mr. Flemming, must resume or discover + your Protestantism and enter the carriage with me. I must + show you a little of the city while these young birds are + pairing."</p> + + <p>No objection was made to this rather strange proposal. The + bride, between her father and husband, forgot that she had no + friend of her own sex to stand near her. We arranged for a + general meeting at the dinner.</p> + + <p>In the carriage she said, "I brought you away because I am + devoured with uneasiness. Mrs. Ashburleigh wrote me that she + would certainly be here for at least the principal part of the + ceremony. I do not know what to make of it. It may be of no + use, but we will scour the city. These throngs, this noise, + make me uneasy. I fear some accident, having," she added with a + smile, "one lone woman's sympathy for another lone woman."</p> + + <div class="figleft" + style="width:30%;"> + <a href="images/024.png" + name="fig024" + id="fig024"><img width="100%" + src="images/024.png" + alt="DIVERS DIVERSIONS." /></a>DIVERS DIVERSIONS. + </div> + + <p>I peered through the crowds at this, right and left, with + inexpressible emotion. Perhaps this accidental sort of quest + was that which destiny had arranged for the solution of my + life-problem. To light upon Mary Ashburleigh in these festal + throngs, perhaps wanting assistance, perhaps calling upon my + name even now through her velvet lips, was a chance the mere + notion of which made my blood leap.</p> + + <p>When Brussels gives herself over to holiday-making, she does + it in a whole-souled and self-consistent way that has plenty of + attractiveness. The houses seemed to have turned themselves + inside out to replenish the streets. People in their best + clothes, equipages, processions, bands, troops of children, + filled the avenues. Some conjecture that there might have been + a mistake about the church took us to the cathedral of St. + Gudule. Here, amid the superb spectrums of the stained windows, + we searched through the vari-colored throngs that covered the + floor, but no familiar face looked upon us. Strange to us as + the old, impassive monumental dukes of Brabant who occupy the + niches, the people made way to let us pass from the doorway + between the lofty brace of towers to the high altar, which is a + juggler's apparatus, and has concealed machinery causing the + sacred wafer to come down seemingly of its own accord at the + moment when the priest is about to lift the Host. All was + unfamiliar and splendid, and we came away, feeling as if our + own little wedding-group would have been lost in so magnificent + a tabernacle. The Grande Place, on which lay the wedge-like + shadow of the high-towered Hôtel de Ville, was perhaps as + thronged a honeycomb of buzzing populace as when Alva looked + out upon it to see the execution of Egmont and Horn. Among all + the good-natured Netherlandish countenances that paved the + square there was none that responded to my own.</p> + + <p>We drove vaguely through the principal streets, and then, + baffled, made our way to the faubourg in which is situated the + zoological garden, toward which a considerable portion of the + inhabitants was going even as ourselves. At the entrance our + carriage encountered that of the bride and groom, and soon the + whole party of the breakfast-table assembled by the gate, for + the great coffee-rooms at which our meal was laid were close by + the garden, and a promenade in this famous living museum was a + premeditated part of the day's enjoyment. We entered the + grounds in character, frankly putting forward our claims as a + wedding-procession. That is the delightful French custom among + those who are brought up as Francine had been: her father would + have been heartbroken to have been denied the proud exhibition + of his joy, and Fortnoye was too great a traveler, too + cosmopolitan, to object to a little family pageant that he had + seen equaled or exceeded in publicity in most of the Catholic + <span class="pagenum"><a name="page25" + id="page25"></a>[pg 25]</span> countries on the globe. + Francine, her artisanne cap for ever lost, her gleaming dark + hair set, like a Milky Way, with a half wreath of + orange-blossoms, the silvery gauzes of her protecting veil + floating back from her forehead, strayed on at the head of + the little parade. She was wrapped in the delicious reverie + of the wedding-day. She was not yellow nor meagre, nor + uglier than herself, as so many brides contrive to be. Her + air of delicacy and tenderness was a blossom of character, + not a canker of ill-health. Her color was hardly raised, + though her head was perpetually bent. Fortnoye, holding her + on his firm arm, seemed like a man walking through + enchantments. Just behind, protecting Madame Kranich with an + action of effusive gallantry that must have been seen to be + conceived, walked the baron de Rouvière, his brave + knotted hands, for which he had not found any gloves, busily + occupied in pointing out the animated rarities that to him + seemed most worthy of selection. The hilarious hyenas, the + seals, the polar bears plunging from their lofty rocks, all + attracted his commendation; and we, who walked behind in + such order as our friendships or familiarity taught us, were + perpetually tripping upon his honest figure brought to a + halt before some object more than usually interesting. + Exclamations of delight at the bride's beauty, politely + wrapped in whispers, arose on all sides as we penetrated the + throng: it was a proud thing to be a part of a procession so + distinguished. My good Joliet beamed with complacency, and + drove his little herd up and down and across and about till + the greater part of the garden was explored. The zoological + garden of Brussels has the beauty of not showing too + obviously the character of a prison. It is extensive, + umbrageous, and the poor captives within its borders have + enough air and space around their eyes to give them a + semblance of liberty. For the special feast-day on which we + visited it the place had been arranged with particular + adaptation to the character of the time. There were + elephant-races and rides upon the camels free to all ladies + who would make the venture. In addition to the zebras, gnus + and Shetlands, there was that species of race-horse which + never wins and never spoils a course, being of wood and + constructed to go round in a tent, and never + <span class="pagenum"><a name="page26" + id="page26"></a>[pg 26]</span> to arrive anywhere or lose + any prizes. The pelicans were in high excitement, for all + along their beautiful little river, where it winds through + bowery trees, a profusion of living fish had been emptied + and confined here and there by grated dams, so that the + awkward birds had opportunity to angle in perfect freedom + and to their hearts' content. In the more wooded part of the + garden a mimic hunt had been arranged, and sportsmen in + correct suits of green, with curly brass horns and baying + hounds, coursed through the grounds, following a stag which, + though mangy and asthmatic, may yet have been a descendant + of the fawn that fed Genevieve of Brabant. We had re-entered + one of the grand alleys, and were receiving again the little + tribute of encomiums which the greater privacy of the groves + had pretermitted—we were parading happily along, + conscious of nothing to be ashamed of, our orange-blossoms + glistening, our veil flying, our broadcloth and + wedding-favors gleaming—when we met another group, + which, though more furtively, bore that matrimonial + character which distinguished our own.</p> + + <div class="figright" + style="width:60%;"> + <a href="images/025.png" + name="fig025" + id="fig025"><img width="100%" + src="images/025.png" + alt="THE MIMIC HUNT." /></a>THE MIMIC HUNT. + </div> + + <p>At the head walked Mr. Cookson & Jenkinson. He still + wore that species of shooting-costume which he had made his + uniform, but it was decked with roses, and his hands were + encased in milk-white gloves: on his hands, besides the gloves, + he had the two grammatical ladies from the Rhine steamboat in + guise of bridesmaids. Behind him walked Mary Ashburleigh. And + emerging from the skirts of Mary Ashburleigh's dress, with the + embarrassed happiness of a middle-aged bridegroom, + was—no? yes! no, no! but yes—was Sylvester Berkley. + I will not expose what I suffered to the curiosity of + imperfectly sympathetic strangers. I did not faint, and I + believe men in genuine despair never do so. But I felt that + weakness and unmanageableness of knee which comes with strong + mental anguish, and I sank back impotent upon the baron, whose + lingering legs repudiated the pressure, so that we both + accumulated miserably upon Grandstone. My eyes closed, and I + did not hear the Dark Ladye's salutations to Frau Kranich. But + I awoke to see with anguish a sight that drew involuntary + applause from all that careless crowd.</p> + + <p>It was the salute of the two brides. Imagine, if you can, + two great purple pansies, flushed with all the perfumed sap of + an Eden spring-time, threaded with diamonds of myriad-faceted + dew,—imagine them leaning forward on their elastic stems + until both their soft velvet countenances cling together and + exchange mutually their caparisons of honeyed gems; then let + them sway gently back, and balance once more in their morning + splendor. Such was the effect when these two imperial creatures + approached each other and imprinted with lips and palms a + sister's salute. Mary Ashburleigh, whom the throng recognized + as a natural empress, was arrayed this morning as brides are + seldom arrayed, but with a sense of artistic obedience to her + own sumptuous nature and personality. The royal purple of her + velvets was cut, on skirt and bodice, into one continuous + fretwork of heavy scrolls and leafage, and through the crevices + of this textile carving shone the robe she carried beneath: it + was tawny yellow, for she wore under her outward dress a + complete robe of ancient lace, whose cobweb softness was more + than — only perceived as the slashes of + her velvets made it evident. It was such dressing as queens + alone should indulge in perhaps, but Mary Ashburleigh chose for + once to do justice to her style and her magnificence.</p> + + <p>I was leaning against a tree, stunned in the sick sunshine. + I heard, while my eyes were closed, a sort of voluminous cloudy + roll, and the Dark Ladye was beside me. She whispered quickly + and volubly in my ear, "I tried to confide in you, but I could + not get it spoken. Yet I managed to confess that my heart had + been touched. It was only this summer—at the Molkencur + over Heidelberg—he lectured about the ruins. 'Twas + information—'twas rapture! I found at once he was the + Magician. We were quietly united at the embassy this morning. + And now he can leave that dreadful consulate and has got his + promotion, <span class="pagenum"><a name="page27" + id="page27"></a>[pg 27]</span> for he is to be + <i>chargé</i> here in Brussels. It is sudden, but we + were positively afraid to do it in any other way, I am such + a timid creature. When I saw the travelers' agent on the + steamboat, I was at first struck with his manly British + bearing and his resemblance to Sylvester. Then I found he + had the matrimonial prospectus, and perceived he might be a + link. He has managed everything beautifully. I had no + idea—With his assistance you need no more mind being + married than going into a shop for a plate of pudding. You + must come up and be presented, to show you bear no + malice."</p> + + <p>I cannot tell how I did it, but I allowed Sylvester and the + agent to grasp my hands, one on either side. Berkley, as to his + collar, his cravat, his face and his white gloves, presented + one general surface of mat silver. He clasped me with some + affection, but his intellect had quite gone, and he said it was + a fine day.</p> + + <p>I did not rally in the least until after my fourth glass of + champagne at the dinner. We made one party: indeed, Mrs. + Ashburleigh had brought her husband hither in that expectation. + Fortnoye vanished a minute to arrange the banquet-room; and as + his wife rushed in to find him, followed by the rest of us, he + snatched a great damask cloth from the table, and there was + such a set-out of flowers and viands as has seldom been seen in + Belgium or elsewhere. The table, instead of a cloth, was + entirely laid with; young emerald vine-leaves: our places were + marked, and at each plate was a gift for the bride, ostensibly + coming from the person who sat there, but really provided by + the forethought of Fortnoye. In front of my own cover two + pretty downy chicks were pecking in a cottage made of crystal + slats and heavily thatched with spun glass—the prettiest + birdcage in the world. On the eaves was an inscription: "The + Man of the Two Chickens." It happened that the little keepsake + I had found for Francine consisted of wheat-ears in pearls and + gold, adapted for brooch and eardrops; so I only had to drop + them in beside the chickens and the present was appropriate and + complete.</p> + + <p>I cannot tell of the effect as Mary Ashburleigh swept into + that splendid banqueting-room, one long pyramid of velvet + pierced with webbed interstices of light. If the largest window + of St. Ursula's church had come down and entered the room, the + spectacle could not have been so superb. One item struck me: + the younger bride, of course, wore orange buds; but for the + Englishwoman, a beauty ripe with many summers, buds and + blossoms were inappropriate; she wore fruits: in the grand + coronal of plaits that massed itself upon her head were set, + like gems, three or four small, delicious, amber-scented + mandarin oranges. With this piece of exquisite apropos did the + infallible Mary Ashburleigh crown the edifice of her good + taste. The two brides sat opposite each other. A small watch, + which I had happened to buy at Coblenz, I managed to detach and + lay on the Dark Ladye's plate as my offering. On a card beside + it I merely wrote, "ANOTHER TIME!"</p> + + <p>Who knows? Perhaps Sylvester may fill and founder as the + other has done. He looks miserably bilious and frightened.</p> + + <p>I had rather partake of a rare dinner than describe one. The + wines alone represented all the cellars of the Rhine and the + whole champagne country. Fortnoye, who gave the feast, + entertained both Sylvester's party and his own with regal good + cheer. Think not that Henri Fortnoye was the ordinary + obfuscated, superfluous, bewildered bridegroom. On the + contrary, assuming immediately the head of his own table, he + took the responsibility of the party's merriment, and made the + good humor flow like the wine. I know not how it was, but ere + the meal was over I found myself joining in one of his + choruses; Frau Kranich forgot her asceticism and exhumed all + her youthful air of gayety; James Athanasius Grandstone + promised the host to set his wines running in every State of + America. But the prettiest moment was when the two brides rose + and touched glasses, mutually and to the health of the company, + apropos of a little wedding-song which Fortnoye had + <span class="pagenum"><a name="page28" + id="page28"></a>[pg 28]</span> composed and was trolling at + the head our willing chorus.</p> + + <div class="figcenter" + style="width:75%;"> + <a href="images/028-1.png" + name="fig028-1" + id="fig028-1"><img width="100%" + src="images/028-1.png" + alt="HOMEWARD BOUND." /></a>HOMEWARD BOUND. + </div> + + <h3>CONCLUSION.</h3> + + <p>I have arrived at Marly, and, with the ssistance of much + sarcasm from Hohenfels, am getting on with considerable spirit + at my Progressive Geography. When man's Hope ceases temporarily + to take a merely Human aspect, may it not suffer a fresh avatar + and begin in a new and Geographical form its beneficent career? + The Dark Ladye has sunk beneath my horizon, but speculations + over the Atlantean and Lunar Mountains are still succulent and + vivifying.</p> + + <div class="figleft" + style="width:40%;"> + <a href="images/028-2.png" + name="fig028-2" + id="fig028-2"><img width="100%" + src="images/028-2.png" + alt="CHARLES AND JOSEPHINE." /></a>CHARLES AND + JOSEPHINE. + </div> + + <p>I fled, lashed by a hundred despairs and by many symptoms of + headache and dyspepsia, from the wedding-feast at Brussels. + Charles and the baron of Hohenfels accompanied me. It was a + night-train. The spectacle of so much wedded happiness was too + much for me, too much for Hohenfels. The effect was, + contrarily, rather stimulating to Charles, who has made a match + with Josephine, and with her assistance is now listening, the + tear of sensibility in his eye, to Mendelssohn's "Wedding + March" as executed by the village organ!</p> + + <p>We passed Valenciennes, Somain, Donai, Arras, Amiens, + Clermont, Criel, Pontoise—the last points of merely + bodily travel that I shall ever make: here-after my itineracy + shall be entirely theoretical. We took a carriage at Pontoise, + and traversed the woods of Saint-Germain. As I neared home I + bowed right and left to amicable and smiling neighbors, who + waved me good-day <span class="pagenum"><a name="page29" + id="page29"></a>[pg 29]</span> from their doors. So did my + Newfoundland, who broke his chain and leaped upon my + shoulders, flourishing his tail—overjoyed to salute + the returning Ulysses.</p> + + <div class="figright" + style="width:40%;"> + <a href="images/028-3.png" + name="fig028-3" + id="fig028-3"><img width="100%" + src="images/028-3.png" + alt="ARGUS AND ULYSSES." /></a>ARGUS AND ULYSSES. + </div> + + <p>In the British Museum, among the Elgin Marbles, Phidias has + carved a pile of heaped-up marble waves, and out of them rise + the arms of Hyperion—the most beautiful arms in the + world. Homesick for heaven, those weary arms try to free + themselves of the clinging foam. Another minute and surely the + triumphant god will leap from his watery couch and guide with + unerring hands the coursers of the Dawn! But that reluctant + minute is eternal, and the divinity still remains incapable, + clogged and wrapped in the embrace of marble waves. Yet the + real sun every morning succeeds in equipping himself for his + journey, and arrives, glad, at his welcome bath in the western + sea.</p> + + <p>The inference I draw is: If you want a career to be eternal + instead of transitory, hand it over to Art.</p> + + <div class="figright" + style="width:60%;"> + <a href="images/029-1.png" + name="fig029-1" + id="fig029-1"><img width="100%" + src="images/029-1.png" + alt="'HAND IT OVER TO ART.'" /></a>"HAND IT OVER TO + ART." + </div> + + <p>The true moral of it all is, that we are all savage myths of + the Course of the Sun. We disappear any number of times, but we + rise and trail new clouds of glory, and our readers or our + audiences perceive that it is the same old Hyperion back again. + The youth who by the faithful hound, half buried in the snow, + is found far up on the most inaccessible peaks of imagination, + is perceived to grasp still in his hand of ice that Germanesque + and strange device—<i>Auf Wiedersehen</i>.</p> + + <div class="figcenter" + style="width:80%;"> + <a href="images/029-2.png" + name="fig029-2" + id="fig029-2"><img width="100%" + src="images/029-2.png" + alt="Finis" /></a> + </div><span class="pagenum"><a name="page30" + id="page30"></a>[pg 30]</span> + + <h2>FOLLOWING THE TIBER.</h2> + + <h3>TWO PAPERS.—1.</h3> + + <div class="figcenter" + style="width:80%;"> + <a href="images/030.png" + name="fig030" + id="fig030"><img width="100%" + src="images/030.png" + alt="NEAR THE SOURCE OF THE TIBER." /></a>NEAR THE + SOURCE OF THE TIBER. + </div> + + <p>"Ecce Tiberum!" cried the Roman legions when they first + beheld the Scottish Tay. What power of association could have + made them see in the clear and shallow stream the likeless of + their tawny Tiber, with his full-flowing waters sweeping down + to the sea? Perhaps those soldiers under whose mailed and + rugged breasts lay so tender a thought of home came from the + northerly region among the Apennines, where a little bubbling + mountain-brook is the first form in which the storied Tiber + greets the light of day. One who has made a pilgrimage from its + mouth to its source thus describes the spot: "An old man + undertook to be our guide. By the side of the little stream, + which here constitutes the first vein of the Tiber, we + penetrated the wood. It was an immense beech-forest.... The + trees were almost all great gnarled veterans who had borne the + snows of many winters: now they stood basking above their + blackened shadows in the blazing sunshine. The little stream + tumbled from ledge to ledge of splintered rock, sometimes + creeping into a hazel thicket, green with long ferns and soft + moss, and then leaping once more merrily into the sunlight. + Presently it split into numerous little rills. We followed the + longest of these. It led us to a carpet of smooth green turf + amidst an opening in the trees; and there, bubbling out of the + green sod, embroidered with white strawberry-blossoms, the + delicate blue of the crane's bill and dwarf willow-herb, a + copious little stream arose. Here the old man paused, and + resting upon his staff, raised his age-dimmed eyes, and + pointing to the gushing water, said, <i>'E questo si chiama il + Tevere a Roma!'</i> ('And this is called the Tiber at Rome!') + ... We followed the stream from the spot where it issued out of + the beech-forest, over barren spurs + <span class="pagenum"><a name="page31" + id="page31"></a>[pg 31]</span> of the mountains crested with + fringes of dark pine, down to a lonely and desolate valley, + shut in by dim and misty blue peaks. Then we entered the + portals of a solemn wood, with gray trunks of trees + everywhere around us and impenetrable foliage above our + heads, the deep silence only broken by fitful songs of + birds. To this succeeded a blank district of barren shale + cleft into great gullies by many a wintry torrent. Presently + we found ourselves at an enormous height above the river, on + the ledge of a precipice which shot down almost + perpendicularly on one side to the bed of the stream.... A + little past this place we came upon a very singular and + picturesque spot. It was an elevated rock shut within a deep + dim gorge, about which the river twisted, almost running + round it. Upon this rock were built a few gloomy-looking + houses and a quaint, old-world mill. It was reached from the + hither side by a widely-spanning one-arched bridge. It was + called Val Savignone."<a id="footnotetag1" + name="footnotetag1"></a><a href="#footnote1"><sup>1</sup></a> + Beyond this, at a small village called Balsciano, the hills + begin to subside into gentler slopes, which gradually merge + in the plain at the little town of Pieve San Stefano.</p> + + <div class="figcenter" + style="width:80%;"> + <a href="images/031.png" + name="fig031" + id="fig031"><img width="100%" + src="images/031.png" + alt="CAPRESE." /></a>CAPRESE. + </div> + + <p>Thus far the infant stream has no history: its legends and + chronicles do not begin so early. But a few miles farther, on a + tiny branch called the Singerna, are the vestiges of what was + once a place of some importance—Caprese, where Michael + Angelo was born exactly four hundred years ago. His father was + for a twelvemonth governor of this place and Chiusi, five miles + off (not Lars Porsenna's Clusium, which is to the south, but + Clusium Novum), and brought his wife with him to inhabit the + <i>palazzo communale</i>. During his regency the painter of the + "Last Judgment," the sculptor of "Night and Morning," the + architect of St. Peter's cupola, first saw the light. Here the + history of the Tiber begins—here men first mingled blood + with its unsullied waves. On another little tributary is + Anghiara, where in 1440 a terrible battle was fought between + the Milanese troops, under command of the gallant free-lance + Piccinino, and the Floren-tines, led by Giovanni Paolo + (commonly called Giampaolo) Orsini; and a little + <span class="pagenum"><a name="page32" + id="page32"></a>[pg 32]</span> farther, on the main stream, + Città di Castello recalls the story of a long siege + which it valiantly sustained against Braccio da Montone, + surnamed Fortebraccio (Strongarm), another renowned soldier + of fortune of the fifteenth century.</p> + + <div class="figcenter" + style="width:80%;"> + <a href="images/032.png" + name="fig032" + id="fig032"><img width="100%" + src="images/032.png" + alt="LAKE THRASIMENE." /></a>LAKE THRASIMENE. + </div> + + <p>As the widening flood winds on through the beautiful plain, + a broad sheet of water on the right spreads for miles to the + foot of the mountains, whose jutting spurs form many a bay, + cove and estuary. It was in the small hours of a night of misty + moonlight that our eyes, stretched wide with the new wonder of + beholding classic ground, first caught sight of this smooth + expanse gleaming pallidly amid the dark, blurred outlines of + the landscape and trees. The monotonous noise and motion of the + train had put our fellow-travelers to sleep, and when it + gradually ceased they did not stir. There was no bustle at the + little station where we stopped; a few drowsy figures stole + silently by in the dim light, like ghosts on the spectral shore + of Acheron; the whole scene was strangely unreal, phantasmal. + "What can it be?" we asked each other under our breaths. "There + is but one thing that it can be—Lake Thrasimene." And so + it was. Often since, both by starlight and daylight, we have + seen that watery sheet of fatal memories, but it never wore the + same shadowy yet impressive aspect as on our first + night-journey from Florence to Rome.</p> + + <p>Not far from here one leaves the train for Perugia, seated + high on a bluff amid walls and towers. We had been told a good + deal of the terrors of the way—how so steep was the + approach that at a certain point horses give out and carriages + must be dragged up by oxen. It was with some surprise, + therefore, that we saw ordinary hotel omnibuses and carriages + waiting at the station. But we did not allow ourselves to feel + any false security: by and by we knew the tug must come. We set + off by a wide, winding road, uphill undoubtedly, but smooth and + easy: however, this was only the beginning; and as it grew + steeper and steeper, we waited in trepidation for the moment + when the heavy beasts should be hitched on to haul us up the + acclivity. We crawled up safely and slowly between orchards of + olive trees, which will grow wherever a goat can set its foot: + beneath us the great fertile vale of Umbria spread like a lake, + the encircling mountains, which had looked like a close chain + from <span class="pagenum"><a name="page33" + id="page33"></a>[pg 33]</span> below, unlinking themselves + to reveal gorges and glimpses of other valleys. Thus by + successive zigzags we mounted the broad turnpike-road, now + directly under the fortifications, now farther off, until we + saw them close above us, with the old citadel and the new + palace. And now surely the worst had come, but the carnage + turned a sharp corner, showing two more zigzags, forming a + long acute angle which carried us smoothly to the rocky + plateau on which the city stands, and we bowled in through + the old gate-way at a round trot, with the usual cracking of + whips and rattling and jingling of harness which announces + the arrival of travelers at minor places on the + Continent.</p> + + <p>We were not comfortable at Perugia—and let no one + think to be so until there is a new hotel on a new + principle—but it is a place where one can afford to + forego creature comforts. Of all the towns on the Tiber, so + rich in heirlooms of antiquity and art, none can boast such + various wealth as this. The moment one leaves the centre of the + town, which is built on a table of rock, the narrow streets + plunge down on every side like dangerous broken flights of + stairs: they disappear under deep cavernous arches, so that if + you are below they seem to lead straight up through the + darkness to the soft blue heaven, while from above they seem to + go straight down into deep cellars, but cellars full of + slanting sunshine. And whether you look up or down, there is + always a picture in the dark frame against the bright + background—a woman in a scarlet kerchief with a + water-vessel of antique form, or a ragged brown boy leading a + ragged brown donkey, or a soldier in gay uniform striking a + light for his pipe. As soon as you leave the live part of the + town, with the few little <i>caffès</i> and shops, and + the esplanades whence the thrice-lovely landscape unfolds + beneath your gaze, you wander among quiet little paved + <i>piazzas</i> with a bit of daisied grass in their midst, + surrounded by great silent buildings, whence through some + opening you descry a street which is a ravine, and the opposite + cliff rising high above you piled close with gray houses + overhung with shrubs and creepers, and little gardens in their + crevices like weeds between the stones of a wall; or you come + out upon a secluded gallery with tall, deserted-looking + mansions on one hand—except that at some sunny window + there is always to be seen a girl's head beside a pot of + carnations or nasturtiums—and on the other a parapet over + which you lean to see the town scrambling up the hillside, + while a great breadth of valley and hill and snow-covered + mountain stretches away below.</p> + + <p>Then what historical associations, straggling away across + three thousand years to when Perugia was one of the thirty + cities of Etruria, and kept her independence through every + vicissitude until Augustus starved her out in 40 B.C.! Portions + of the wall, huge smooth blocks of travertine stone, are the + work of the vanished Etruscans, and fragments of several + gateways, with Roman alterations. One is perfect, imbedded in + the outer wall of the castle: it has a round-headed arch, with + six pilasters, in the intervals of which are three half-length + human figures and two horses' heads. On the southern slope of + the hill, three miles beyond the walls, a number of Etruscan + tombs were accidentally discovered by a peasant a few years + ago. The outer entrance alone had suffered, buried under the + rubbish of two millenniums: the burial-place of the Volumnii + has been restored externally after ancient Etruscan models, but + within it has been left untouched. Descending a long flight of + stone steps, which led into the heart of the hill, we passed + through a low door formerly closed by a single slab of + travertine, too ponderous for modern hinges. At first we could + distinguish nothing in the darkness, but by the uncertain + flaring of two candles, which the guide waved about + incessantly, we saw a chamber hewn in the rock, with a roof in + imitation of beams and rafters, all of solid tufa stone. A low + stone seat against the wall on each hand and a small hanging + lamp were all the furniture of this apartment, awful in its + emptiness and mystery. On every side there were dark openings + into cells whence came gleams + <span class="pagenum"><a name="page34" + id="page34"></a>[pg 34]</span> of white, indefinite forms: a + great Gorgon's head gazed at us from the ceiling, and from + the walls in every direction started the crested heads and + necks of sculptured serpents. We entered one by one the nine + small grotto-like compartments which surround the central + cavern: the white shapes turned out to be cinerary urns, + enclosing the ashes of the three thousand years dead + Volumnii. Urns, as we understand the word, they are not, but + large caskets, some of them alabaster, on whose lids recline + male figures draped and garlanded as for a feast: the + <span class="pagenum"><a name="page35" + id="page35"></a>[pg 35]</span> faces differ so much in + feature and expression that one can hardly doubt their being + likenesses: the figures, if erect, would be nearly two feet + in height. The sides of these little sarcophagi are covered + with <i>bassi-rilievi</i>, many of them finely executed: the + subjects are combats and that favorite theme the boar-hunt + of Kalydon; there was one which represented the sacrifice of + a child. The Medusa's head, as it is thought to be, recurs + constantly, treated with extraordinary power: we were + divided among ourselves whether it was Medusa or an Erinnys + with winged head. The sphinx appears several times: there + are four on the corners of an alabaster urn in the shape of + a temple, exquisite in form and features, and exceedingly + delicate in workmanship. Bulls' heads, with garlands + drooping between them, a well-known ornament of antique + altars, are among the decorations. But far the most + beautiful objects were the little hanging figures, which + seemed to have been lamps of a green bronze color, though we + were assured that they are <i>terra-cotta</i>: they are male + figures of exquisite grace and beauty, with a lightness and + airiness commonly given to Mercury; but these had large + angel pinions on the shoulders, and none on the head or + feet. There was not a scholar in the party, so we all + returned unenlightened, but profoundly interested and + impressed, and with that delightful sense of stimulated + curiosity which is worth more than all Eurekas. With the + exception of a few weapons and trinkets, which we saw at the + museum, this is all that remains of the mighty Etruscans, + save the shapes of the common red pottery which is spread + out wholesale in the open space opposite the cathedral on + market-days—the most graceful and useful which could + be devised, and which have not changed their model since + earlier days than the occupants of those tombs could + remember.</p> + + <div class="figcenter" + style="width:100%;"> + <a href="images/034.png" + name="fig034" + id="fig034"><img width="100%" + src="images/034.png" + alt="THE TIBER NEAR PERUGIA." /></a>THE TIBER NEAR + PERUGIA. + </div> + + <p>The conquering Roman has left his sign-manual everywhere, + but one is so used to him in Italy that the scantier records of + later ages interest us more here. Like every other old Italian + town, Perugia had its great family, the Baglioni, who lorded it + over the place, sometimes harshly and cruelly enough, sometimes + generously and splendidly—protectors of popular rights + and patrons of art and letters. Their mediaeval history is full + of picturesque incident and dramatic catastrophe: it would make + a most romantic volume, but a thick one. At length the + Perugians, master and men, grew too turbulent, and Pope Paul + III. put them down, and sat upon them, so to speak, by building + the citadel.</p> + + <p>But time would fail us to tell of the Baglioni, or Pope Paul + the Borghese, or Fortebraccio, the chivalric <i>condottiere</i> + who led the Perugians to war against their neighbors of Todi, + or even the still burning memories of the sack of Perugia by + command of the present pope. We can no longer turn our thoughts + from the treasures of art which make Perugia rich above all + cities of the Tiber, save Rome alone. We cannot tarry before + the cathedral, noble despite its incompleteness and the + unsightly alterations of later times, and full of fine + paintings and matchless wood-carving and wrought metal and + precious sculptures; nor before the Palazzo Communale, another + grand Gothic wreck, equally dignified and degraded; nor even + beside the great fountain erected six hundred years ago by + Nicolo and Giovanni da Pisa, the chiefs and founders of the + Tuscan school of sculpture; nor beneath the statue of Pope + Julius III., which Hawthorne has made known to all; for there + are a score of churches and palaces, each with its priceless + Perugino, and drawings and designs by his pupil Raphael in his + lovely "first manner," which has so much of the Eden-like + innocence of his master; and the Academy of Fine Arts, where + one may study the Umbrian school at leisure; and last, but not + least, the Sala del Cambio, or Hall of Exchange, where Perugino + may be seen in his glory. It is not a hall of imposing size, so + that nothing interferes with the impression of the frescoes + which gaze upon you from every side as you enter. Or no; they + do not gaze upon you nor return your glance, but look sweetly + and serenely forth, as if with eyes never bent + <span class="pagenum"><a name="page36" + id="page36"></a>[pg 36]</span> on earthly things. The + right-hand wall is dedicated to the sibyls and prophets, the + left to the greatest sages and heroes of antiquity. There is + something capricious or else enigmatical in the mode of + presenting many of them—the dress, attitude and + general appearance often suggest a very different person + from the one intended—but the grace and loveliness of + some, the dignity and elevation of others, the expression of + wisdom in this face, of celestial courage in that, the calm + and purity and beauty of all, give them an indescribable + charm and potency. At the end of the room facing the door + are the "Nativity" and "Transfiguration," the latter, + infinitely beautiful and religious, full of quiet + concentrated feeling. We were none of us critics: none of us + had got beyond the stage when the sentiment of a work of art + is what most affects our enjoyment of it; and we all + confessed how much more impressive to us was this + Transfiguration, with its three quiet spectators, than the + world-famous one at the Vatican. Although there are + masterpieces of Perugino's in nearly every great European + collection, I cannot but think one must go to Perugia to + appreciate fully the limpid clearness, the pensive, tranquil + suavity, which reigns throughout his pictures in the + countenances, the landscape, the atmosphere.</p> + + <div class="figcenter" + style="width:80%;"> + <a href="images/036.png" + name="fig036" + id="fig036"><img width="100%" + src="images/036.png" + alt="TODI." /></a>TODI. + </div> + + <p>We found it hard to rob Perugia even of a day for a + pilgrimage to the tomb of Saint Francis at Assisi, yet could + not leave the neighborhood without making it. We took the + morning-train for the little excursion, meaning to drive back, + and crossed the Tiber for the first time on the downward + journey at Ponte San Giovanni. We got out at the station of + Santa Maria degli Angeli, so named from the immense church + built over the cell where Saint Francis lived and died and the + little chapel where he prayed. The Porzionuncula it was called, + or "little share," being all that he deemed needful for man's + abode on earth, and more than needful. It was hither that he + came in the heyday of youth, forsaking the house of his wealthy + father, the love of his mother, a life of pleasure with his gay + companions, and dedicated himself to poverty and preaching the + word of God. One of our party had said that she considered + Saint Francis the author of much evil, and as having done + irreparable harm to the Italian people in sanctifying dirt and + idleness. But apostles are not + <span class="pagenum"><a name="page37" + id="page37"></a>[pg 37]</span> to be judged by the abuse of + their doctrine; and although it cannot be denied that Saint + Francis encouraged beggary by forbidding his followers to + possess aught of their own, he enjoined that they should + labor with their hands for several hours daily. And to me it + seemed as if out of Palestine there could be no spot of + greater significance and sacredness to any Christian than + this, where in a sanguinary and licentious age a young man + suddenly broke all the bonds of self, and taught in his own + person humility, renunciation and brotherly love as they had + hardly been taught since his Master's death. The sternness + of his personal self-denial is only equaled by his sweetness + toward all living things: not men alone, but animals, birds, + fishes, the frogs, the crickets, shared his love, and were + called brother and sister by him. The great and + instantaneous movement which he produced in his own time was + no short-lived blaze of fanaticism, for its results have + lasted from the twelfth century to our own; and although we + may well believe that the day is past for serving Christ by + going barefoot and living on alms, the spirit of Saint + Francis's doctrine, charity, purity, self-abnegation, might + do as much for modern men as for those of six hundred years + ago. Believing all this, we were not sorry that our + uncompromising friend had stayed behind, and it was in a + reverent mood that we left the little stone + chamber—which shrinks to lowlier proportions by + contrast with the enormous dome above it—and turned to + climb the long hill which leads to the magnificent monument + which enthusiasm raised over him who in life had coveted so + humble a home.</p> + + <div class="figright" + style="width:60%;"> + <a href="images/037.png" + name="fig037" + id="fig037"><img width="100%" + src="images/037.png" + alt="CHURCH AND CONVENT OF SAINT FRANCIS, AT ASSISI." /> + </a>CHURCH AND CONVENT OF SAINT FRANCIS, AT ASSISI. + </div> + + <p>The cliff on which Assisi stands rises abruptly on the side + toward the Tiber: long lines of triple arches, which look as if + hewn in the living stone, stretch along its face, one above + another, like galleries, the great mass of the church and + convent, with its towers and gables and spire-like cypress + trees, crowning all. It is this marriage of the building to the + rock, these lower arcades which rise halfway between the valley + and the plateau seeking the help of the solid crag to sustain + the upper ones and the vast superimposed structure, that makes + the distant sight of Assisi so striking, and almost overwhelms + you with a sense of its greatness as the winding road brings + you close below on your way up to the town. It is a triple + church. The uppermost one, begun two years after the saint's + death, has a magnificent Gothic west front and high steps + leading from the piazza, and a rich side-portal with a still + higher flight leading from a court on a lower level. As we + entered, the early afternoon sun was streaming in through the + immense rose-window and flooding the vast nave, illumining the + blue star-studded vault of the lofty roof and the grand, simple + frescoes of Cimabue and Giotto on the walls. Thence we + descended to the second church, in whose darkness our vision + groped, half blind from the sudden change; but gradually + through the dusk we began to discern low vaults stretching + heavily across pillars which look like stunted giants, so short + are they and so tremendously thick-set, the high altar enclosed + by an elaborate grating, the little side-chapels like so many + black cells, and through the gloom a twinkle and glimmer of + gold and color and motes floating in furtive sunbeams that had + strayed in through the superb stained glass of the infrequent + windows. The <span class="pagenum"><a name="page38" + id="page38"></a>[pg 38]</span> frescoes of Giotto and his + school enrich every spandril and interspace with their + simple, serious forms—no other such place to study the + art of that early day—but a Virgin enthroned among + saints by Lo Spagna, a disciple of Perugino's, made a pure + light in the obscurity: it had all the master's golden + transparency, like clear shining after the rain. From this + most solemn and venerable place we went down to the lowest + church, the real sepulchre: it was darker than the one we + had left, totally dark it seemed to me, and contracted, + although—it is in the form of a Greek cross—each + arm is sixty feet: in fact, it is only a crypt of unusual + size; and although here were the saint's bones in an urn of + bronze, we were conscious of a weakening of the impression + made by the place we had just left. No doubt it is because + the crypt is of this century, while the other two churches + are of the thirteenth.</p> + + <p>There are other things to be seen at Assisi; and after + dining at the little Albergo del Leone, which, like every part + of the town except the churches, is remarkably clean, my + companion set out to climb up to the castle, and I wandered + back to the great church. As I sat idly on the steps a monk + accosted me, and finding that I had not seen the convent, + carried me through labyrinthine corridors and galleries, down + long flights of subterranean stone steps, one after another, + until I thought we could not be far from the centre of the + earth, when he suddenly turned aside into a vast cloister with + high arched openings and led me to one of them. Oh, the beauty, + the glory, the wonder of the sight! We were halfway down the + mountain-side, hanging between the blue heaven and the billowy + Umbrian plain, with its verdure and its azure fusing into tints + of dreamy softness as they vanished in the deep violet shadows + of thick-crowding mountains, on whose surfaces and gorges lay + changing colors of the superbest intensity. Poplars and willows + showed silvery among the tender green of other deciduous trees + in their fresh spring foliage and the deep velvet of the + immortal cypresses and the blossoming shrubs, which looked like + little puffs of pink and white cloud resting on the bosom of + the valley. A small, clear mountain-stream wound round the + headland to join the Tiber, which divides the landscape with + its bare, pebbly bed. It was almost the same view that one has + from twenty places in Perugia, but coming out upon it as from + the bowels of the earth, framed in its huge stone arch, it was + like opening a window from this world into Paradise.</p> + + <p>Slowly and lingeringly I left the cloister, and panted up + the many steps back to the piazza to await my companion and the + carriage which was to take us back to Perugia. The former was + already there, and in a few minutes a small omnibus came + clattering down the stony street, and stopping beside us the + driver informed us that he had come for us. Our surprise and + wrath broke forth. Hours before we had bespoken a little open + carriage, and it was this heavy, jarring, jolting vehicle which + they had sent to drive us ten miles across the hills. The + driver declared, with truly Italian volubility and command of + language and gesture, that there was no other means of + conveyance to be had; that it was excellent, swift, admirable; + that it was what the signori always went from Assisi to Perugia + in; that, in fine, we had engaged it, and <i>must</i> take it. + My companion hesitated, but I had the advantage here, being the + one who could speak Italian; so I promptly replied that we + would not go in the omnibus under any circumstances. The whole + story was then repeated with more adjectives and superlatives, + and gestures of a form and pathos to make the fortune of a + tragic actor. I repeated my refusal. He began a third time: I + sat down on the steps, rested my head on my hand and looked at + the carvings of the portal. This drove him to frenzy: so long + as you answer an Italian he gets the better of you; entrench + yourself in silence and he is impotent. The driver's impotence + first exploded in fury and threats: at least we should pay for + the omnibus, for his time, for his trouble; yes, pay the whole + way to Perugia and back, and his <i>buon' mano</i> besides. All + the beggars who haunt the + <span class="pagenum"><a name="page39" + id="page39"></a>[pg 39]</span> sanctuary of their patron had + gathered about us, and from playing Greek chorus now began + to give us advice: "Yes, we would do well to go: the only + carriage in Assisi, and excellent, admirable!" The numbers + of these vagrants, their officiousness, their fluency, were + bewildering. "But what are we to do?" asked my anxious + companion. "Why, if it comes to the worst, walk down to the + station and take the night-train back." He walked away + whistling, and I composed myself to a visage of stone and + turned my eyes to the sculptures once more. Suddenly the + driver stopped short: there was a minute's pause, and then I + heard a voice in the softest accents asking for something to + buy a drink. I turned round—beside me stood the driver + hat in hand: "Yes, the signora is right, quite right: I go, + but she will give me something to get a drink?" I nearly + laughed, but, biting my lips, I said firmly, "A drink? Yes, + if it be poison." The effect was astounding: the man uttered + an ejaculation, crossed himself, mounted his box and drove + off; the beggars shrank away, stood aloof and exchanged + awestruck whispers; only a few liquid-eyed little + ragamuffins continued to turn somersets and stand on their + heads undismayed.</p> + + <p>Half an hour elapsed: the sun was beginning to descend, when + the sound of wheels was again heard, and a light wagon with + four places and a brisk little horse came rattling down the + street. A pleasant-looking fellow jumped down, took off his hat + and said he had come to drive us to Perugia. We jumped up + joyfully, but I asked the price. "Fifty francs"—a sum + about equivalent to fifty dollars in those regions. I smiled + and shook my head: he eagerly assured me that this included his + <i>buon mano</i> and the cost of the oxen which we should be + obliged to hire to drag us up some of the hills. I shook my + head again: he shrugged and turned as if to go. My unhappy + fellow-traveler started forward: "Give him whatever he asks and + let us get away." I sat down again on the steps, saying in + Italian, as if in soliloquy, that we should have to go by the + train, after all. Then the new-comer cheerfully came back: + "Well, signora, whatever you please to give." I named half his + price—an exorbitant sum, as I well knew—and in a + moment more we were skimming along over the hard, smooth + mountain-roads: we heard no more of those mythical beasts the + oxen, and in two hours were safe in Perugia.</p> + + <h2>THE PARADOX.</h2> + + <div class="poem"> + <div class="stanza"> + <p>I wish that the day were over,</p> + + <p class="i2">The week, the month and the year;</p> + + <p>Yet life is not such a burden</p> + + <p class="i2">That I wish the end were near.</p> + </div> + + <div class="stanza"> + <p>And my birthdays come so swiftly</p> + + <p class="i2">That I meet them grudgingly:</p> + + <p>Would it be so were I longing</p> + + <p class="i2">For the life that is to be?</p> + </div> + + <div class="stanza"> + <p>Nay: the soul, though ever reaching</p> + + <p class="i2">For that which is out of sight,</p> + + <p>Yet soars with reluctant motion,</p> + + <p class="i2">Since there is no backward flight.</p> + </div> + </div> + + <p class="author">CHARLOTTE F. + BATES.</p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page40" + id="page40"></a>[pg 40]</span> + + <h2>A NIGHT AT COCKHOOLET CASTLE.</h2> + + <h3>I.</h3> + + <p>Cockhoolet was the name of the place: it was a farm of which + the Ormistons were and had been tenants for several + generations. A father, mother and five olive-branches made up + the family. A healthy, happy, united, thriving family they + were, and as such much respected. There were two sons and three + daughters, the eldest of whom was Bessie, the "Rose of + Cockhoolet," as she was called; for that she had all the beauty + and sweetness of the rose was generally allowed, although there + were people who could not be made to see this—people who + were probably idiopts; not idiots—although they might + have a streak of idiocy in them, too, perhaps—but + idiopts, or persons who were color-blind. None of the young men + of the district were color-blind.</p> + + <p>The clergyman of the parish in which Cockhoolet was + situated, and at whose church the Ormistons attended, was an + old man comparatively, whose sermons were old-fashioned, and + not given forth with the fire of youth: he was not one you + would have expected to be very popular, especially with the + young; yet various young men from considerable distances were + attracted to his church, and, generally speaking, they settled + themselves in pews opposite the gallery in front of which sat + Mr. Ormiston and his family. Any person who chanced to be in + the vicinity, if of discerning powers, might have been + conscious of the electricity in the air. Dull people neither + saw nor felt it.</p> + + <p>Bessie Ormiston was not dull, but, being a modest girl, she + would rather not have been stared at; and, being a good girl, + she thought people might be better employed in church: still, + she was only a girl, and it would not be the truth to say she + was mortally offended. Did the person ever exist who was + offended at an honest compliment? If he ever did, he ought to + have been fed on sarcasm for the rest of his days.</p> + + <p>Not only was Bessie pretty—she was also rich. A + grand-uncle had left her five thousand pounds, her brothers and + sisters getting only one thousand each. There is no use in + asking reasons for this: simply, the Rose was born with a + silver spoon in her mouth. Perhaps, indeed, the old man did not + know he had so much money, for it was as residuary legatee that + Bessie got the five thousand pounds, and it was not thought she + would get anything like that: people remarked, in the language + of the district, which was apt occasionally to be strong and + graphic rather than elegant,—people remarked that "old + Ormiston had cut up well." Five thousand charms added to those + Bessie already possessed—not to mention that her father + was a rich man—made her most miraculously charming: like + Tibby Fowler of the Glen, whose perplexities of this kind have + been embalmed in song, she had wealth of wooers, and wealth, it + is well known, makes wit waver.</p> + + <p>It is a saying that an Englishman's house is his castle, but + the phrase is understood to be figurative: Mr. Ormiston's house + was his castle without a figure. Cockhoolet Castle is very old, + at least one part of it is, having been built probably about + the year 1400. A more modern part was built in 1527, while the + most modern part of all was added in 1726: this last division + of it is used as the farm-house. The rooms have been painted + and papered in the present style of house decoration, and in + the sitting-rooms, in addition to the little old windows, the + thick walls have been pierced and a large bow-window put in + with fine effect. There are three narrow stone staircases + leading up the three divisions of the castle; there are long + passages; there are sudden short flights of steps taking you up + or down into all manner <span class="pagenum"><a name="page41" + id="page41"></a>[pg 41]</span> of cornered rooms; there is a + hall which might hold the population of the county. Keeping + up one of the spiral staircases, you come out on the roof, + round which there is a walk guarded by a low stone coping: + should you want to fling yourself over, you have ample + opportunity. There are stone sentry-boxes where you can sit + hidden from the wind and everything else, and look far and + wide over the country, and down into the garden if you can + do so without growing giddy. There is also a dungeon + tenanted by nothing more subject to suffering than potatoes + and other roots, for which it is a most favorable + receptable, the walls being so thick and the roof so low + that cold cannot get in in winter nor heat in summer: there + is only a single narrow slit in the wall for the admission + of light, but it is comforting to know that the doomed + wretches who inhabited it in past ages had at least a + temperate climate.</p> + + <p>There is the room Queen Mary Stuart slept in when she + occasionally visited in the vicinity. The reader is perhaps not + familiar with Queen Mary's name in connection with Cockhoolet + Castle, but there may be other facts about her of which he is + also ignorant. Does he know, for instance, that she had a + daughter by her third marriage, whom, as an infant, she + despatched to France to be reared in a nunnery, "that she may + not," said the unhappy queen, "run the risk of having such a + lot as I have"? Does he know that John Knox was possessed by a + mad passion of love for Mary Stuart? It has always been thought + otherwise—that in point of fact he held her in contempt; + but as it is proverbial that "nippin' and scartin' (figurative + of course) is Scotch folks' wooin'," there may be truth in the + new discovery. But true or not true, it is enough to make the + bold Reformer blush standing on the top of his pillar in the + necropolis of Glasgow: perhaps he <i>is</i> blushing, if he + were near enough to see.</p> + + <p>Be that as it may, there is no manner of doubt that Mary + Stuart honored Cockhoolet Castle by abiding under its roof when + it suited her to do so. Have not I, the present writer, stood + in the room she slept in—looked from the small windows + set in the ten-foot thick wall from which she looked? Have I + not gazed over the same country, up to the same skies, into the + same moon at which she gazed? Could her face be more fair than + that of the present Rose of Cockhoolet, her thoughts more + innocent, her reveries more sweet, than those of Bessie + Ormiston, who in the course of time had succeeded to the room + which had been consecrated by royal slumbers?</p> + + <p>It is a matter of certainty that Mary Stuart planted a tree + fast by Cockhoolet Castle—she would not have been herself + if she had not done that—and a magnificent tree it is, + very old and quite big enough for its age. The queen must have + been fond of planting trees, and, considering the number she + planted, it is astonishing how she found time for so many less + innocent employments: she must have improved each shining hour, + and, poor woman! she had not too many of these.</p> + + <p>There is a walk also, called the Lady's Walk, leading away + from the castle up a bosky dell, where a burn amuses itself + playing at hide-and-seek, but, like a little child, betrays its + hiding-places by its voice, and comes out into the light again + and laughs at its own joke. Did the queen ever wander here? did + she ever "paidle in the burn when summer days were fine"? did + its murmur ever soothe her ear? did she ever see her fair face + in its pools, or drop bitter tears to mingle and; flow on with + its waters?</p> + + <p>The burn has kept trotting through the dell for six thousand + years, singing its song all the time, and its speed is as good + and its voice as clear and musical as when the morning stars + sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy. Many a + wild story it could tell if its murmur could be understood; but + it is a murmur only—a murmur which crept into the ears of + Cæsar's legions, of Queen Mary, of Bessie Ormiston, and + will creep into yours, O reader! if you like to go and explore + the Lady's Walk, when you can interpret the murmur for + yourself, as all your predecessors no doubt did. In + <span class="pagenum"><a name="page42" + id="page42"></a>[pg 42]</span> days of old it fed the moat, + traces of which are to be seen round the castle still, + although it has long since been filled up and covered, like + the park of which it forms part, with rich natural pasture, + soft, thick and velvety. In short, Cockhoolet had everything + that a castle ought to have, and wanted nothing that a + castle ought not to want, not even a ghost.</p> + + <p>It was not the ghost of Mary Stuart: that would have been + too shocking—a ghost without a head, or having a head and + a broad vivid ray of red encircling its neck. Such a ghost + would have made every one who saw it lose his senses. + Cockhoolet Castle had a ghost: so much was certain, but + hitherto no one had ever either seen or heard it. How, then, + was it certain? Why ask a question like that? Is it reasonable + to pin a human being down to prove a ghost? Will not + presumptive evidence do? Strange things had happened, must have + happened, at the castle: is it for a moment to be supposed that + these things had happened and all gone scot free?—in + other words, that not one of them had left a ghost? It is not + to be supposed.</p> + + <h3>II.</h3> + + <p>It was Christmas Day. Christmas Day is not solemnized and + festivalized in Scotland as it is in England; still, the + observance of it in some shape is creeping in more and more. It + was Christmas, and Mr. and Mrs. Ormiston had gone to be present + at a feast from which they were not expected to return till the + following day. There were left at home the Rose, as head of the + family for the time being; her sisters, Bell and Jessie, + supposed to be little girls still, although the supposition + made them very indignant; and her two brothers, John and + William. A guest aad two servants made up the known inhabitants + of the house.</p> + + <p>The guest was a young man who had arrived before the heads + of the house left, and had been laughingly charged by them to + see that the children did not work mischief. He was an old + friend of the family; at least as old a friend as he was a man, + and she had been in the world a quarter of a century. We shall + call him Edwin: that name will do as well as another; indeed, + better, for he might not like his own made public. It need + hardly be said that among the rest young Edwin loved, and, like + his namesake in the ballad, he never talked of love. This might + be stupid, but the stupidity which springs from true modesty is + not to be classed with the stupidity which springs from want of + brains, even when, as is quite likely, the consequences are to + the full as disastrous. Now, how is a young lady to understand + or bring things to a bearing in a case like this? The Rose + could not go up to Edwin and tell him she was not a goddess; + neither could she say, "Although I have five thousand + pounds—and you know it, and I know that you know it, and + you know that I know that you know it—I am quite ready to + believe that you love me, and would love me if I hadn't a + farthing:" she could not say this, but she thought it, she + worried herself thinking over it, and, being a sensible girl + with a humble opinion of herself, she came to the conclusion + that she had been altogether mistaken—that Edwin did not + care for her, at least not as she cared for him, otherwise why + should he not say so? "If," she thought—"if I were in his + place and he in mine, neither money nor pride, nor anything + else, would keep me silent." And the roses in her face deepened + in color as she thought of her own silly folly in allowing her + feelings to be drawn in, and she determined her folly should + cease from that hour; which determination had the effect of + bringing sharp, short speeches about Edwin's ears tinged with + sarcasm that were meant to convey to him the conviction that + she did not care a pin about him; and they answered the purpose + admirably.</p> + + <div class="poem"> + <div class="stanza"> + <p>Love is a fickle game, which they</p> + + <p>Whose stakes are deepest worst can play,</p> + </div> + </div> + + <p>Edwin was at Cockhoolet that Christmas Day by the same + fatality that causes a moth to hover round a brilliant light; + and when her sister told Bessie that Edwin had come and was + putting his horse into the stable, she said, "Is Mr. Forrester + <span class="pagenum"><a name="page43" + id="page43"></a>[pg 43]</span> here again? He must surely be + dull at home." But of course she received him with friendly + civility.</p> + + <p>Edwin employed the forenoon out of doors with the boys and + two other visitors. A Mr. and Mrs. Parker arriving + unexpectedly, who were anxious to see the castle, the afternoon + was spent in going through every part of it from dungeon to + roof.</p> + + <p>Bessie carried the keys: she was châtelaine, seneschal + and cicerone, all rolled in one.</p> + + <p>Going up the narrow stairs, the party had to climb Indian + file: in the passages they could spread out a little, and in + some of the rooms in the uninhabited portion they had to walk + circumspectly, as if they were crossing water on + stepping-stones, for the flooring was wanting in some places, + leaving a stretch of bare rafters. Bessie tripped lightly over + them, and then turned to wait for the others. "Don't be + frightened," she said: "these rafters are as sound as the day + they were laid down. The flooring has not rotted: it must have + been taken up for some purpose. They did not know how to scamp + work in those days."</p> + + <p>"If we fall through, where shall we go?" inquired Mrs. + Parker, looking down into what seemed deep mysterious + darkness.</p> + + <p>"Oh, not very far; but don't fall: it won't be pleasant," + said Bessie: "you would alight on very hard stones."</p> + + <p>Mr. Forrester got on the roof first, and handed up the + ladies; and they all stood looking out over the country. It was + not a cold, bleak, snowy day, as Christmas in northern + latitudes has a right to be. The winter had been mild—one + of a series of mild winters, overturning the old traditions of + frosts and snow-storms that lasted for months, and to a great + extent stopped traffic and labor, and made traveling difficult + and wearisome. This Christmas was different. The year was dying + with calmness and dignity, and with a smile on its face, as you + might take the pale gleam of sunshine to be; and if you were a + little sad in mood you could suppose there was a wistfulness in + the smile that was spread over the still, soft face of Nature. + Cockhoolet stood high, and the country immediately round it was + flat, and much of it moorland.</p> + + <div class="poem"> + <div class="stanza"> + <p>If you climb to our castle's top,</p> + + <p>I don't see where your eye can stop;</p> + + <p>For when you've passed the corn-field country,</p> + + <p>Where vineyards leave off flocks are packed,</p> + + <p>And sheep-range leads to cattle-tract,</p> + + <p>And cattle-tract to open chase,</p> + + <p>And open chase to the very base</p> + + <p>O' the mountain.</p> + </div> + </div> + + <p>Strike out the vineyards and that description will apply + very well to Cockhoolet; and in addition you ought to have seen + from its roof Edinburgh and the sea; but on this day the sea + wore a garment of mist, and had wrapped the metropolis in it + also, as it not unfrequently does. You ought to have seen more + than one range of hills too, yet except by eyes well acquainted + with them their outlines could hardly be distinguished from the + leaden gray clouds lying in bands along the horizon.</p> + + <p>But as the party stood on the roof the clouds began to rise, + tower upon tower, against the sky, and the sun, who retires + early at this season, went behind them, when, instead of the + pale, wistful gleam he had been keeping up all day, he suddenly + threw a deep bright golden border on all the edges of the dark + misty battlements which had piled themselves like castles of + the Titans: a big rift appearing at their base, there poured + through it, filling up the space, a great belt of crimson rays + streaked with gray, as if from burning ashes falling into it, + and like the dense glow from a furnace, giving the idea that + the cloud-building was on fire, and that the flames from below, + shooting up inside the dark walls, were the cause of the + brilliant illumination that shone round every pinnacle and + coign of vantage. It was a grand and a curious sight. You could + fancy the sun looking across to the old Castle of Edinburgh + standing on its rock, and saying, "Can you do anything like + this with all the gas and paddelle you can lay your hands on?" + Precisely this idea struck Mrs. Parker, for she said, "I think + that is as good a sight as the castle the night the prince was + married."</p> + + <p>"That was a very good sight in its way," said Mr. Parker, + "but we can <span class="pagenum"><a name="page44" + id="page44"></a>[pg 44]</span> hardly hope to compete with + the sun, my dear: he has all his materials within himself, + and we have to pay for them."</p> + + <p>"Do you know, Miss Ormiston," said Mrs. Parker, "one of the + buildings they said had such a fine effect put me in mind of a + trunk studded with brass nails—the initials of the happy + pair in gas-jets looked like the name of the owner of the + trunk. All the time I was on the street I could not get that + notion out of my head; and I was sorry, for I am sure it cost a + great deal of money to light it up, and I really wished to + think it grand."</p> + + <p>"We were all in town that night," said John + Ormiston—"papa and mamma, and the whole of us, and Mr. + Forrester, who made eight."</p> + + <p>"I thought it a beautiful sight," said Bessie.</p> + + <p>"I never enjoyed anything more in my life," said Mr. + Forrester, who on that occasion had been Miss Ormiston's escort + through the streets, in which they lost their party, and had + the supreme bliss of wandering together in the crowd, when Mr. + Forrester almost forgot that Miss Ormiston was a goddess with + five thousand earthly charms, and Miss Ormiston had compared + his merits as a guide and protector with those of her brothers, + and found he was much more considerate, and made her wish law, + which they were often far from doing. In point of fact, a thaw + had been very imminent, but, alas! since then a sharp frost had + set in between them, as unaccountably as frosts frequently do + set in.</p> + + <p>"I think, now," said Mrs. Parker, "a fine old castle like + this ought to have had a grander name: don't you think so, Miss + Ormiston?"</p> + + <p>"Yes, I do, and it had, originally. There was a monastery + here at one time, over in that field with the trees in the + corner of it: it was called the abbey of Cakeholy, and when the + castle was built it got the name of Cakeholy Castle, after the + abbey. The name Cakeholy, tradition says, arose from the fact + that an extraordinary saint, whose wants had been relieved at + the monastery, blessed all the bread that should ever be baked + there, and the bread ever after had a great sustaining power in + it; so that pilgrims from Edinburgh and the North, going to the + southern shrines, all passed this way to get themselves + supplied with the holy cakes. At the Reformation the abbey was + destroyed, and became a ruin haunted by owls, so that, partly + in derision and partly as suiting the altered circumstances, + the common people corrupted the name into Cockhoolet; and in + process of time it was given to the castle also, and stuck to + it. That is the history of a name which is certainly neither + romantic, nor high-sounding."</p> + + <p>"How interesting!" said Mrs. Parker. "If I were you, I would + go back to the old name: there is a reverence about it there is + not about the other. Only think of bands of pilgrims coming + across the moor there!"</p> + + <p>"Yes, in their gowns and rope girdles, with wallets and + scallop-shells," said Bessie. "It must have been a curious old + world then: one could sit here and muse by the hour on all that + has come and gone. I often bring up my work or my book here in + summer and think of it."</p> + + <p>"I do like old things," said Mrs. Parker, "and old families + and old names. Our name, for instance, has no smack of age + about it, and it is so short and perky: it must have been given + to some one who had to do with parks."</p> + + <p>"But parks may be a very old institution," said Bessie, "if + we looked into the thing, though not so old as Forrester: that + is an ancient name," glancing at Edwin, who was leaning against + a sentry-box listening and watching the sun putting out the + lights in his bed-chamber; "yet not nearly so ancient as + Ormiston. I always feel it is fitting we should live in an old + castle, we are so ancient ourselves."</p> + + <p>"Are we?" said John: "I never knew that before."</p> + + <p>"Ormiston," she said, "is perhaps as pure a Saxon word as + now exists. It was during the Roman invasion our ancestor led + an army through a dense mist against the invaders: just as he + came up with them the sun shone out and the mist. The legions + were taken by surprise, for the advancing enemy had + <span class="pagenum"><a name="page45" + id="page45"></a>[pg 45]</span> been hidden by the mist, and + they were utterly routed. The Saxon king—"</p> + + <p>"What was his name?" asked John.</p> + + <p>"John," she said, "don't seek to be wise above what is + revealed. The king called our ancestor to the front and made + him earl of Ormiston on the spot—'Gold-Mist-on;' that is, + 'Be ever in the van;' and a proud race were the earls of + Ormiston, and well they answered to the name. But their + fortunes waned when the modern upstart, the Norman William, + laid his greedy hands on everything for himself and his mob of + pirates, and at present we are only middle-class people, but + our blood must be the bluest of the blue."</p> + + <p>"Mine must be as blue," said Edwin, "for the Forresters came + in with the trees, and the trees were early settlers."</p> + + <p>"But the mists were first by a very long time," answered + Bessie.</p> + + <p>"I don't believe that story," said John. "I have read about + the Cakeholy business somewhere, but you have made that + Or-Mist-on affair out of your own head: isn't that true, + Bessie?"</p> + + <p>"I am not bound to answer unbelievers, John."</p> + + <p>"Besides," said John, "Ormiston is far; liker French than + Saxon."</p> + + <p>"Mr. Parker," said Bessie, "there was an abbot John of + Cakeholy who flourished in the thirteenth century: his ghost is + said to revisit its old habitation, or rather the place where + it stood. I should like to meet it and have a talk over things; + it would be very interesting."</p> + + <p>"Would you not be terrified?" asked Mrs. Parker.</p> + + <p>"If I saw what I believed to be a ghost, I should die of + terror," said Bessie; "especially if I was alone and it was the + dead of night; but I have no faith whatever in ghosts."</p> + + <p>"It is getting rather chilly," said Mrs. Parker.</p> + + <p>"Perhaps we had better go down now, then," Miss Ormiston + said. "Mr. Forrester, would you come out of your brown study + and let us pass?"</p> + + <p>"Certainly. I'll see you all safe off the battlements. I + wasn't in a brown study: I was in a mist."</p> + + <p>"Then take care: people in a mist always think they are + going the right way when they are going directly wrong."</p> + + <p>"If I only knew the right way!" he said.</p> + + <p>"That's true, Mr. Forrester," said Mrs. Parker. "If we only + knew the right way; and people tell you to be guided by + Providence, but I say I never know when it is Providence and + when it is myself;" and she threaded her way down the narrow + stairs, followed by the rest of the party.</p> + + <h3>III.</h3> + + <p>The dining-room, with its low roof, its crimson walls, dark + furniture and handsome fire (the fires at Cockhoolet were + always handsome: Bessie was the architect and superintended the + building herself; they never looked harum-scarum nor + meaningless nor thoughtless, nor as if they were not meant to + burn; they combined taste, comfort, and, as a consequence, + economy; everything tasteful and comfortable is in the long run + economical), its table-cloth, glistening like the summit of the + Alps and laden with good things, looked a place where people + even not in love with each other might, unless naturally + perverse, be very happy.</p> + + <p>Mrs. Parker, being from town, was in raptures with every + country eatable, especially the scones, which she found were + manufactured by Miss Ormiston herself.</p> + + <p>"And have they," asked Mr. Parker, "the sustaining power + that the cakes made here of old had?"</p> + + <p>"If you eat enough of them you may get to Edinburgh to-night + before you are very hungry," said John.</p> + + <p>"The abbey cakes were unleavened," Bessie explained, "which + these are not, so that they are less substantial fare."</p> + + <p>"What do you raise them with?" asked Mrs. Parker.</p> + + <p>"Butter, milk and carbonate of soda," said Miss + Ormiston.</p> + + <p>"We call Bessie a doctor of the Carbon," said John: "she + makes very good scones, although you would hardly go from here + to Canterbury on the strength of one of + them."</p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page46" + id="page46"></a>[pg 46]</span> + + <p>"Mr. Forrester, are you dull?" asked Jessie: "you are not + saying anything."</p> + + <p>"I am too busy eating the holy cakes, Jessie," said Edwin: + "your sister is a master in her art."</p> + + <p>"I say," Jessie went on, "are you ever dull at home? When I + told Bessie that you had come she was surprised, and said that + you must surely be dull at home. I am sorry for you if you are: + you should come here oftener—we are never dull here."</p> + + <p>"Perhaps," said Edwin, "your sister thinks I come too often, + as it is."</p> + + <p>Bessie was so deeply engaged pressing Mr. Parker to eat + strawberry jam, with cheeks the color of the fruit, that of + course she could not have heard what her sister had been + saying.</p> + + <p>"Oh no, I don't think she thinks that at all," Jessie said: + "we never think any one can come too often. Bessie, can Mr. + Forrester come too often?"</p> + + <p>But still Miss Ormiston was so occupied with Mr. Parker that + she did not hear.</p> + + <p>And Mrs. Parker said, "It is a most intensely interesting + old place, this: do not people come to look at it?"</p> + + <p>"Oh yes," replied Bessie, "especially in summer: we + generally have several parties every week. One of the servants + takes them over the castle—grand people often, with + carriages and livery servants."</p> + + <p>"Do you not keep a book for them to write their names + in?"</p> + + <p>"No, we have never done that."</p> + + <p>"I would do it if I were you: it would be interesting to + know who comes and how many. Why, very remarkable people may + have been here without your knowing."</p> + + <p>"I doubt we are not sufficiently alive to our privileges," + Bessie said.</p> + + <p>"It's fine moonlight," said the boys, who, seeing that they + and every one had ceased eating, were impatient to be out + again. "Come, Mr. Parker, we'll show you the echo: Mr. + Forrester, come."</p> + + <p>"I'll go too," said Mrs. Parker; and they all went but the + Rose, who stayed behind for a little to direct about household + matters.</p> + + <p>The echo was a favorite with the boys, it gave such + unlimited scope to their powers of shouting: it was the + <i>sight</i> they most enjoyed exhibiting to strangers. And it + was an echo that could repeat every word of a sentence with + such perfection that it was difficult to believe that it was + not a human being shouting back from the other side of the + park, where stood some houses inhabited by the farm-servants + and their families.</p> + + <p>"Hallo, Abbot John! is that you?" shouted one of the boys, + and the other cried, "Yes, I'm taking a walk," so quickly that + the one sentence seemed the answer to the other, and both came + back loud and distinct on the still night-air.</p> + + <p>"Are the Ormistons ancient? It's all fudge," shouted + John.</p> + + <p>"Well," said Mr. Parker, "that's the most perfect echo I + ever heard. I've no doubt the holy fathers of the Middle Ages + knew of it, and used it in some shape to keep the superstitious + people in awe."</p> + + <p>"It is awesome," said his wife, "here in the moonlight, with + the old castle so near: if I were alone, positively I should + feel eerie."</p> + + <p>"Are you dull at home, Mr. Forrester?" was sent out from the + depths of Will's chest, and sent back again just as Bessie came + out and joined the party.</p> + + <p>"Boys! boys!" she said, "don't be foolish."</p> + + <p>"Why, it was what you said yourself," her sister + remarked.</p> + + <p>"<i>Are</i> you ever dull?" the lad shouted again.</p> + + <p>"Often," answered Edwin, and "Often" came back + instantly.</p> + + <p>"In that case, Mr. Forrester," said Mrs. Parker, "why don't + you get a wife? There's no company for a young man like a good + wife. Here's Miss Ormiston; I don't think you could do + better."</p> + + <p>Think of the delicate wound of these young people being thus + openly probed in broad moonlight in the presence of so many + people! What could Mrs. Parker be thinking of? Not of her own + love-passages surely, or, if she was, they must have been of a + blunter order than those of the Rose and her lover.</p> + + <p>"Oh no," said Bessie in cool, indifferent + <span class="pagenum"><a name="page47" + id="page47"></a>[pg 47]</span> tones: "Mr. Forrester knows + better than that."</p> + + <p>"There!" said Edwin, "you see, Mrs. Parker, I have been + refused."</p> + + <p>"'Faint heart never won fair lady,'" said Mrs. Parker.</p> + + <p>The boys hallooed this sentiment to the echo, and the echo + took it up and sent it back so vigorously that even a timid man + might have been inspired. "Mary Stuart," "Henry Darnley," + "James Bothwell," the lads went on calling to the echo + alternately—names which are not mere echoes even after + three hundred years, but live on by sheer force of tragic + romance. And it was possible that here, on this very spot, that + historical trio had stood and laughed and talked and amused + themselves as the young Ormistons and their visitors were + doing. What words had they used to rouse the echo? If only it + could be made to give them back now, what a wonderful echo it + would be! The world would come to listen to it. Would it tell + of the passions of love and ambition, grief and hatred, all + hurrying their victims to their doom? or was the place sacred + only to gentler memories and softer moods—the scene of + enjoyment and freedom from care for however short a time? Who + can tell?</p> + + <p>There was a woman in the village of Cockhoolet who was + ninety-eight years old, having all her faculties not perhaps + quite so fresh as when she was nineteen, but in wonderful + preservation after having been in daily use for little short of + a century. She was one of a long-lived race: her father had + been eighty-nine when he died, and her grandfather ninety-nine. + Now, it is perfectly possible—and, as the family had been + on the spot for centuries, it is even probable—that her + great-grandfather might have dug the hole in which Mary planted + her tree, or he may have saddled the queen's horse when she + went hunting, or stood by the roadside and lifted his bonnet as + she and her gay train swept by. Or he may have been despatched + upon royal errands through the subterranean passage which is + said to exist all the way between Cockhoolet Castle and + Edinburgh—the private telegraph of those days, when wires + in the air or under the sea by which to send messages would + have cost the inventors their lives as guilty of witchcraft. + While shaking hands with this old woman and speaking to her, + you lost sight of her and the present time and felt the air of + the sixteenth century blow in your face. Mary came up before + you in moving habit as she lived—the young Mary who + caught all hearts, not heartless herself, and laid hold of mere + straws to save herself as she drifted desperately with + circumstances; not the woman who has been painted as an actor + from first to last, as coming forth draped for effect at the + very closing scene,—not that woman, but the girlish queen + who laughed and called to the echo, and forgot the cares of a + kingdom while she could.</p> + + <h3>IV.</h3> + + <p>"They are a nice family, those Ormistons," said Mr. Parker + to his wife as they drove to the railway-station in the + moonlight.</p> + + <p>"Very," said Mrs. Parker; "and Mr. Forrester is a nice lad. + I hope he and Miss Ormiston will make it out: I did my best for + them."</p> + + <p>"They'll be quite able to do the best for themselves: it is + always better to let things of that kind alone."</p> + + <p>"I don't know that," said Mrs. Parker: "if a little shove is + all that is needed, it is a pity not to give it."</p> + + <p>"But what if your shove sends people separate? That's not + what you intended, I fancy?"</p> + + <p>"No fear: people are not so easily separated as all + that."</p> + + <p>"Well, we have had an uncommonly pleasant visit: I only wish + the heads of the house had been at home."</p> + + <p>Either the attachment of this pair must have been pretty + evident to ordinary capacities, or Mrs. Parker must have been + of a matchmaking turn of mind; probably the latter, for Bessie + at least was sure that no mortal guessed her secret; which was + a great comfort to her, seeing that Edwin was so indifferent. + Alas! there is no rose without a thorn, or if there is it is a + scentless, useless thing, + <span class="pagenum"><a name="page48" + id="page48"></a>[pg 48]</span> most likely incapable of + giving either pleasure or pain.</p> + + <p>The Parkers had left early. When the young people went + in-doors again it was only seven o'clock: the girls proposed a + game at hide-and-seek, and Bessie seconded the proposal; for + you see it would have been rather a formidable business to sit + down and entertain Mr. Forrester all the evening with + conversation, rational or otherwise; and although at the moment + she was in the dignified position of lady of the castle, she + could not the less enjoy a game amazingly.</p> + + <p>The theatre of operations was wisely restricted, because if + they had gone all over the castle they might have hidden + themselves so that the game would have been endless; therefore + they kept to the under part of the inhabited region. At length, + tiring of this, they changed their game to blindman's buff, and + went to the kitchen to play it, there being more room and fewer + obstacles there; besides that, it was empty of tenants at the + time, the servants having gone to see some of the + neighbors.</p> + + <p>It was a curious old kitchen, with a very low roof, and + having a fireplace in a big semicircular stone recess. Many a + boar's head had revolved there, and many a venison pasty had + sent forth its fragrance to greet the tired hunters returning + from the chase. The fire glowed in its deep recess like the eye + of an old-world monster in a cavern, till one of the boys + seized the poker and made it flame up, throwing its blaze out + as far as it could for its walls, and making the kitchen and + the group standing in it like a picture by Rembrandt.</p> + + <p>"Who's to be blind man first?" cried the girls.</p> + + <p>"Edwin: that will be the best fun," the boys said.</p> + + <p>"Very well, I sha'n't be long blind," said Edwin: "I shall + soon catch some of you. Who'll tie the handkerchief?"</p> + + <p>"Bessie: she always ties it. Go and kneel to her, and she'll + tie it so that you won't see."</p> + + <p>What must Mr. Forrester have felt while being blinded by the + Rose? Only, he had long been accustomed to be if not blinded, + at least dazed, by her. The boys led him into the middle of the + floor and dispersed themselves into corners. While he stood in + the attitude of listening intently, he was conscious of a very + gentle movement near him, and instantly closed his arms round + it, as he thought, and encountered empty air, while with a + shout of laughter the children cried, "Bessie was too quick for + you. There, quick! quick! Edwin!" He sprang to the corner the + voices came from, and the boys rushed along the wall to avoid + his arms spread out to catch them, when suddenly the doorbell + rang.</p> + + <p>At the sound Edwin put up his hand to take off the + handkerchief, but the boys cried, "Don't take it off: if it's + any one, Bessie can speak to them in the dining-room: we don't + need to stop our game."</p> + + <p>They were not aware that to Mr. Forrester the game without + Bessie was like <i>Hamlet</i> with the part of Hamlet left + out.</p> + + <p>"Yes," said Bessie, "just go on, and I'll see who is at the + door." As she left the kitchen she honored Mr. Forrester with a + good long look: people can feel so much at ease looking at a + blind person.</p> + + <p>The door was chained for greater security, and Bessie did + not take off the chain: she merely opened the door as far as it + would open, but seeing no one, she opened it fully and went out + on the steps; still she saw no person, although she thought + whoever rang the bell had not had time to get out of sight. + Waiting a little without result, she went back to the + kitchen.</p> + + <p>"Who was it?" cried the children.</p> + + <p>"No one," she said.</p> + + <p>"But the bell rang," said John.</p> + + <p>"Of course it did," Will corroborated.</p> + + <p>"And somebody must have rung it," John said.</p> + + <p>"Some one for a trick, I suppose," Bessie said, "although I + don't know how he disappeared so fast."</p> + + <p>Without further remark the game was resumed. Edwin had + caught John, and John had caught Bessie, and when he was + putting the handkerchief round her eyes Mr. Forrester said, + "You are making <span class="pagenum"><a name="page49" + id="page49"></a>[pg 49]</span> it far too tight, John: you + are hurting your sister."</p> + + <p>"No fear," said John: "none of us have soft heads here. Is + it too tight, Bessie?"</p> + + <p>"Rather, but I can bear it: go on."</p> + + <p>"I'll slacken it first," Edwin said.</p> + + <p>"Thank you, that will do. Now move off or I'll catch you." + She went very vigorously to work, and sent them all flying + round the kitchen, when the bell rang, and rang loudly, + again.</p> + + <p>John darted to the door and flung it wide, sure that he + would see the person who rang it, whether running away or not; + but there was no one, and the whole party followed him out, and + they surveyed round and round, but all was still and quiet and + vacant, the moonlight making it impossible that any figure + should be there without being seen.</p> + + <p>Now, if you lived in an ordinary house in an ordinary street + in an ordinary town, an incident like this would create no + surprise. It happens often: true, it is not a very new or + bright joke, still it is a joke that boys and girls enjoy, and + will continue to enjoy. But away in the country, at an old + castle, with no house within a quarter of a mile of it, the + case is very different. How was it to be accounted for?</p> + + <p>The Ormistons came in, the girls looking scared, and the + boys laughing and saying that Mary Stuart or Darnley or + Bothwell, whose names they had made so free with shouting to + the echo, must have heard themselves called and were ringing + the bell, although not allowed to show themselves; but even as + they said it the boys would fain have whistled to keep their + courage up.</p> + + <p>"I wish papa and mamma had been at home," said Bell.</p> + + <p>"Or if only the Parkers could have been persuaded to stay + all night," suggested Jessie.</p> + + <p>"Nonsense!" Bessie said. "Some one is playing us a trick, + but we don't need to let it spoil our game;" and she put the + handkerchief over her eyes. "Look here, Edwin: will you tie + this? You do it better than John."</p> + + <p>"He doesn't," said John. "I believe he leaves it so that you + can see. I'll do it. No, I won't make it too tight."</p> + + <p>"Don't you think, Jessie," Edwin asked, "that I could + protect you, in case of danger, as well as the Parkers?"</p> + + <p>"I don't know. Perhaps if you were like yourself, but you're + not like yourself."</p> + + <p>"He's as dull as ditch-water," said John.</p> + + <p>"But," said Jessie, taking his hand with a feeling of + security, "you're better than nothing—a great deal better + than nothing."</p> + + <p>"Thank you, Jessie, thank you! A man is the better for a + little encouragement, you know;" and he looked at the Rose, but + she was blind; which made her easier looked at, to be sure, but + there was less chance of an answer, encouraging or + otherwise.</p> + + <p>They had got up the spirit of the game again, and were going + on briskly, when they were all brought to a stand by the bell + ringing for the third time.</p> + + <p>"Don't stop," cried Bessie: "go on with the game and take no + notice unless it rings again;" and as a leader who must show no + fear she chased her sisters round the kitchen, making them flee + to avoid being caught, when, as if in answer to her remark, the + bell did ring again.</p> + + <p>This was too much. They all ran to the door, but neither + human being nor ghost was to be seen.</p> + + <p>"I say," said John to his brother, "you and I will go out + and watch. Edwin, you'll stay with the girls—they are + frightened—and if the bell rings again we'll see who does + it."</p> + + <p>"You have more need of Edwin than we have, John," Bessie + said: "it will take you all to catch a ghost."</p> + + <p>"Come away, then," cried John; and he posted his sentinels + at different angles, where each could have his eye on the door. + The girls shut themselves in the house, and outside and in they + awaited the result.</p> + + <p>There was no result.</p> + + <p>Ordinary sentinels can pace to and fro to make the moments + go more quickly, but Edwin and John and William were compelled + to stand without speech or + <span class="pagenum"><a name="page50" + id="page50"></a>[pg 50]</span> motion, as to betray their + presence would have been to defeat their purpose. At the end + of half an hour their patience was worn out, and they came + to the conclusion that whoever was playing the trick knew + that they were watching; so they went in, and hardly were + they in and the door shut when the bell rang again.</p> + + <p>John rushed from the kitchen, whither he had gone for + something, but the others, being in the dining-room and nearer + the door, reached it before him; and again nothing was to be + seen but the still calm night, in which hung the moon with all + her accustomed unimpassioned serenity. What cared she for + ghosts? Perhaps she is only a ghost herself, else why, with all + her pale quiet ways, does she never turn round and show herself + thoroughly? No doubt she has reasons of her own, whether they + are good or not: her sex is apt to be both capricious and + persistent—two qualities which she possesses in + perfection.</p> + + <p>The Ormistons and Edwin stood out on the broad walk before + the door, none of them feeling very comfortable, if the truth + must be told, but none of them showing their feelings except + Bell and Jessie, who openly declared that they were very much + frightened.</p> + + <p>"Nonsense!" said Bessie. "Who is going to be frightened at a + silly trick?"</p> + + <p>"But it may be somebody wanting to get in to do us + harm—kill us perhaps," suggested Bell.</p> + + <p>"People who want to get into a house for bad ends don't ring + the front doorbell, or any bell," said Bessie.</p> + + <p>At this junction two figures appeared in the distance + advancing along the road to the castle—soon made out to + be the servants, so that they at least were guiltless in the + affair.</p> + + <p>"It has not been them, you see," cried John.</p> + + <p>"No," Bessie said, "and you are not to say anything about it + to them when they come: if they know anything of it, it will + soon leak out; and if they don't tell, they will be quite + frightened: they are as easily frightened as Bell or Jessie + here."</p> + + <h3>V.</h3> + + <p>All this time Mr. Forrester was feeling—not frightened + certainly, but—perplexed; and while he could not but + admire Miss Ormiston's coolness and courage, he could not help + wishing that she had been just a little bit chicken-hearted: it + would have been so delightful to have to act as protector and + supporter. But there was no opening whatever for such a + position: she took the mysterious affair into her own hands and + pooh-poohed it entirely.</p> + + <p>They were accustomed to early hours at Cockhoolet, but when + the time came for going to bed the girls declared they were too + frightened to go up stairs alone. "It would be far better," + they both said, "for us to stay here all together in this room + till morning: we could sit up quite well."</p> + + <p>"Absurd!" said Bessie.</p> + + <p>"Well, we could not sleep even if we were in bed," they + protested.</p> + + <p>"No fear," said the châtelaine. "If you were to sit up + all night you would be like ghosts yourselves to-morrow + morning. Come, I'll go with you and sit beside you till you + sleep. But wait a minute till I come back."</p> + + <p>When they were bidding Mr. Forrester good-night he said to + the girls, "If anything happens let me know."</p> + + <p>"Nothing will happen," said Bessie: "the bell is quiet now + and the servants are sound asleep. I have just been looking at + them, and the sooner we follow their example the better."</p> + + <p>"What are we to do if we hear the bell ring again?" John + asked.</p> + + <p>"Nothing. Keep below the blankets, John," his sister said. + "It will ring a loud peal indeed if you hear it: I think a + cannon might be fired at your ear without disturbing you."</p> + + <p>"That's a mistake," said John, "I am a remarkably light + sleeper: a fly on my nose will make me turn round any + time."</p> + + <p>"I believe that, but it won't waken you. Good-night;" and + she took a hand of each of her sisters and went off with all + the dignity beseeming her position as head of the family and + governor of the <span class="pagenum"><a name="page51" + id="page51"></a>[pg 51]</span> castle. Her presence being + withdrawn, Edwin felt much as you do on a March day when the + sun goes under a cloud, although he had not enjoyed the sun + either, owing to the undercurrent of east wind that + continually chilled him. He almost determined to give it up. + Of what use was it? Evidently she did not care for him, and + the words, "Mr. Forrester here again! he must surely be dull + at home," sounded in his ears. Very east-windy they were; + still, he loved her with a great love, and he could not give + her up: he was in a mist, and could see neither to go back + nor forward.</p> + + <p>"I say, Edwin," said John confidentially, "what do you think + about this bell business? Of course one couldn't speak of it + before the girls, they are frightened enough + already—Bessie too, although she pretends not. What's + your own private opinion about it?"</p> + + <p>"Oh, it must be a ghost," said Edwin: "they do things of + that kind, you know—turn tables and rap and so on. I've + been thinking I must be an unconscious medium."</p> + + <p>"Well," said John, "I, for one, don't believe in that kind + of thing: if the spirits ever told anything worth hearing, or + did anything worth doing, it might be different; but would + Darnley or Bothwell or the abbot, or even any of the smaller + fry of monks, come back here to ring a bell? I know in their + place it's what I wouldn't do myself."</p> + + <p>"It would depend on where they are and how employed," said + Edwin: "like some other people, they may be dull at home."</p> + + <p>"Ah, that's what Bessie said that's sticking in your throat. + Man, it's no use minding what girls say: I never do.</p> + + <p>"The spirits must be deplorably dull if ringing a bell is a + diversion to them."</p> + + <p>"They may enjoy mystifying us," said Edwin. "Who knows but + they are listening just now, and laughing in whatever they may + have instead of sleeves?"</p> + + <p>"I'm not frightened," said Will, "but I don't like subjects + of this kind at bedtime, so I wish you wouldn't say any more + about it."</p> + + <p>"It seems, however, that the bell was rung by invisible + agency," said John.</p> + + <p>"Come, come, we'll stop talking and go to bed," Edwin + said.</p> + + <p>"But, Edwin," said Will with big eyes, out of which he could + not keep a frightened look, "do you think a spirit did it?"</p> + + <p>"No: it is a trick, and you'll find out who did it before + long."</p> + + <p>"Well," said John, "it was a stupid trick, but cleverly + done—very cleverly done, or whoever did it would not have + escaped me."</p> + + <p>"I should not like to sleep alone to-night," Will said to + his brother in confidence when they were in their own room, + "and I don't believe you would either, although you don't say + so. I wonder if Edwin likes it, away from every one too, in + that room with the hole in its roof? I wonder papa does not get + that hole mended?"</p> + + <p>"He has often spoken about it," said John, "but if I slept + in that room I should rather like the hole. It's uncommon: + every room hasn't a hole in its roof. If you couldn't sleep, + for instance, you'd have only to stare at the hole, and you + would doze off before you knew."</p> + + <p>"Staring at it would only keep me from sleeping," Will said: + "I should always think something was looking at me through + it."</p> + + <p>"What could look at you but light—moonlight or + daylight from the room above? In the dark you would the + hole."</p> + + <p>"Let's sleep," said Will; and, forgetting ghosts and bells + and all influences, the two boys were soon asleep.</p> + + <p>It is to be hoped the girls were asleep also; indeed, there + is little doubt the younger ones were. But Bessie, with the + cares of a castle on her head, the mysteries of the evening to + perplex her, and an unfortunate love-affair going more and more + awry, how was it with her?</p> + + <p>And Edwin, in his remote room with its hole in the roof, how + did he fare? He had gone up a stone staircase, through a long + passage and down a short flight of steps, into a room large, + somewhat low in ceiling, and, with the exception + <span class="pagenum"><a name="page52" + id="page52"></a>[pg 52]</span> of the hole, most comfortably + appointed. It felt warm, rather too warm, and he did not + replenish the fire, preferring to let it go out. The room + and the way to it were both very familiar to him, and, like + John, he enjoyed the hole: staring at it made you sleep, and + when not sleeping your fancy could play round it to any + extent. On this night the light of the moon, shining in at + the shutterless windows of the empty room above, fell across + its floor, and gleamed down through the opening.</p> + + <p>A superstitious person with a talent for being eerie would + have had nice scope for being frightened out of his senses in a + situation like this—alone in a distant room of an old + castle where bells rang mysteriously, and with borrowed + moonlight peering down from above like a ghost looking for + ghosts. But Mr. Forrester was not superstitious—not in + the least. He feared nothing material or immaterial + except—and it was a curious exception—except Bessie + Ormiston; yet it is true he loved her, perfectly as he thought, + but there was a flaw somewhere: it was not the perfect love + that casteth out fear. The turning of a straw, however, might + make it that, but who was to turn the straw? He feared to do + it, and she would not. Notwithstanding these perturbed and + cantankerous circumstances, these two people, being young and + naturally sleepy, slept.</p> + + <p>How long he had been sleeping Edwin did not know, when he + awoke suddenly, as if he had been startled by some noise. + However, he might have been dreaming: he did not know. The fire + was thoroughly out and black, there was no ray of light from + the roof, and the window-curtains being closely drawn, if there + was any light outside it was effectually shut out: the room was + as dark as midnight.</p> + + <p>He rose, and finding his way to the table groped for a box + of matches that he had noticed lying there, and lighted his + lamp, when, looking at his watch, he found the hour to be + half-past three. Before going to bed again he thought he would + see what night it was. Accordingly, he opened the curtains and + shutters and gazed forth. The moon had disappeared—which + was not remarkable, as it was past her hour for + retiring—and the night was very dark and hazy. But a + remarkable object met his eye. But from an angle of the house, + and toward the corner of the field which had been the site of + the ancient monastery, there stood a column five or six feet in + height of what through the haze appeared luminous vapor. It + seemed such an altogether unaccountable thing, standing there, + that Edwin pushed the window open and rubbed his eyes to get a + better sight of it. He expected it would disappear in some way + almost immediately, but it did not: there it stood, perfectly + still and perfectly distinct, at the corner of the field, where + there was absolutely nothing to cause it. He watched it for a + considerable time, and as his eye got accustomed to peering + into the darkness, he could see there was nothing near it, and + not a sound disturbed the stillness of the night.</p> + + <p>"That's not a trick," he thought: "no one would think it + worth while to play a trick, certain of being without an + audience either to see or hear it. I question even if it is the + abbot himself; or if he likes to air himself there in the + middle of a winter night, he must be too hot at home, if not + too dull."</p> + + <p>A filmy mantle of pale white vapor is surely a more likely + garment for a spirit to snatch up and wrap round him when about + to indulge in an earthly tour than the conventional and + traditionary white sheet: in point of fact, for the sheet he + must wait till he arrives in our world, and when he does arrive + he must of necessity help himself to it; which I, for one, + should be sorry to think any well-conditioned ghost would do; + but light, pale shadowy light, lying about everywhere for the + picking up, what so suitable as raiment for a being who has + nothing to wear?</p> + + <p>It could not but occur to Edwin, Had the abbot come back to + his old haunt on some errand? Had he a benevolent ghostly + interest in its present inhabitants? Here was a work in which + even a spirit of mark might engage without loss of + <span class="pagenum"><a name="page53" + id="page53"></a>[pg 53]</span> dignity and with perfect + propriety. He might turn tables on the perverse + circumstances that kept two young people separate; and if + marriages are made in heaven, an angel need not despise such + a mission as making two lovers happy.</p> + + <p>"Well" thought Edwin, "if you are Abbot John, how do you + like to see the dear old stones of your monastery built into + dykes? or would you have preferred seeing them applied to villa + purposes?" If it were the abbot, Edwin felt he would like to + have that familiar kind of intercourse with him which in our + country is known as twa-handed crack; and if it were not the + abbot, he had a wonderful curiosity to know what it + was—to have it accounted for. There it stood, apparently + as firm and sure as the first moment he had seen it; and a + cause it must have.</p> + + <p>Accordingly, he dressed himself with the intention of + proceeding to the spot to interview the abbot and see what kind + of stuff he was made of. Mr. Forrester took the lamp in his + hand and opened the room-door softly: not that he thought any + one would hear him, but soft sounds best become the stillness + of the night. As he went down the stairs he became conscious of + a cold air playing about, as if from an open door or window. He + set his lamp on the stone sill of the passage-window, and had + his hand on the key of the outer door to unlock it, when he + heard a quick, sudden scream, apparently from the oldest part + of the building. He listened intently for a second, but there + was no repetition of it, and everything was perfectly + quiet.</p> + + <p>"That was human," he said to himself; and seizing his lamp + he ran along till he came to the door of the ancient keep, + which was standing open: he took the way he and the rest of the + party had gone the previous afternoon, and found the doors that + were usually kept locked all open. Going on very hurriedly, he + came to the room where the bare rafters were the only flooring, + and at the other end of it he saw something like a white heap + gleaming. He strode across instantly, and stooping with the + light in hand discovered Bessie Ormiston lying in a dead faint + just at the edge of one of the rafters: the least movement + would have sent her down on the hard pavement below. He did not + stop to think how she came to be there: setting his lamp where + it would light him across the dangerous flooring, he lifted her + up and threaded the passages and stairs in the darkness till he + laid her safe on the dining-room sofa, still unconscious.</p> + + <p>Kneeling beside her in the darkness, he felt that her face + and hands were very cold. He did not know what to do. If she + had been any other person, he would have had his senses about + him, but, being who she was, they had scattered themselves, and + he felt dazed. The fire was not quite out, and he thought of + smashing up a chair to make it burn, but searching in the + coal-scuttle at the side, of the fireplace, he found both + sticks and coals, and heaped them on: then he lighted the lamp + that was still standing on the table. All this was the work of + a minute or two. A fainting-fit was quite beyond the range of + his experience, but he had some vague idea that in cases of the + kind water should be dashed in the face or a smelling-bottle + held to the nostrils or brandy poured down the throat; but none + of these things were at hand, and as he looked at Bessie, + hesitating what to do, he saw the color steal back to her face, + and she opened her eyes and suddenly shut them. When she opened + them again she took his presence as a matter of course, and + said, "I sometimes walk in my sleep, I know, but I am not in + the habit of fainting;" and she smiled, looking much more like + the lily than the rose.</p> + + <p>"I hope not," he said.</p> + + <p>"It was the fright I got when I woke and saw where I was. I + shouldn't have been frightened, for I knew the place as well as + I know this room, and could have found my way back in the + dark."</p> + + <p>"What can I get for you?—you must have something." It + is an awkward thing when a nurse has to seek directions from a + patient.</p> + + <p>"Nothing," she said: "I can take nothing, and I am quite + well. I can't think how I was so foolish as to scream, and I am + sorry for disturbing + you."</p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page54" + id="page54"></a>[pg 54]</span> + + <p>"You did not disturb me: if I had been asleep I should never + have heard you."</p> + + <p>"I wish you had been asleep."</p> + + <p>"You might have fallen through the rafters and been hurt or + perished of cold."</p> + + <p>"I shouldn't have fallen through the rafters: I should have + come to myself and have walked back quite well alone; but I am + not the less obliged to you."</p> + + <p>"I should say not," he said with a curl of sarcasm. "Then is + there nothing I can do for you?"</p> + + <p>"Nothing, unless, indeed, you could get hot water for me to + wash my feet in. Sleeping as I was, I had the good sense to put + on a thick shawl, but I made my excursion barefoot: they say + walking barefoot improves one's carriage."</p> + + <p>"Bessie, I never know what to make of you."</p> + + <p>"If you know what to make of yourself it's a great matter: + sometimes people don't know that," she said, rather + wearily.</p> + + <p>"I had better make myself scarce at present, probably?" he + said.</p> + + <p>"I think so."</p> + + <p>"Then good-night. You won't faint again?"</p> + + <p>"No: good-night."</p> + + <p>He left the room and shut the door gently, but when a few + paces away some impulse moved him to go back: she might faint + again, and he would ask if he should send one of the servants + to her.</p> + + <p>When he opened the door she was sitting with her face hidden + in her hands. At the sound of the door opening she glanced up, + and Edwin saw tears.</p> + + <p>She turned away instantly. He went up to her and said, "I + did not mean to intrude. I forgot to ask if I should tell one + of the servants to come."</p> + + <p>"No, you needn't."</p> + + <p>"Bessie," he said, "you are not well, and something is + vexing you. Could you not tell me about it. I mean nothing but + kindness."</p> + + <p>"I know you don't," she said almost fiercely, "and I hate + kindness: it's an insult."</p> + + <p>He stood in blank astonishment, "An insult?" he said.</p> + + <p>"Yes, an insult; and if you were not obtuse you would see + it. But you don't see and you don't feel, or you would never + have tried to make any one care for you for whom you did not + care a bit. But I won't care for you, and I don't."</p> + + <p>Off her guard, she had been stung into this. She was + standing away from him, her head erect and her eyes gleaming + through tears: Mary Stuart herself could not have been more + effective.</p> + + <p>"Care for you! not care for you!" he said in a voice he + could hardly control. "I have cared for you as I never cared + for a thing on earth: I have loved and shall love you as I have + never loved a human being."</p> + + <p>"How am I to believe it? Why did you not say it? Why did you + not say it without making me ashamed of myself?"</p> + + <p>"Ashamed! Oh, Bessie, I only feared to annoy you."</p> + + <p>"Annoy!"</p> + + <p>He gathered her to him and kissed her.</p> + + <p>A castle all to themselves at four o'clock in the morning is + a piece of fortune that rarely falls to lovers, and they need + not expect it; but those great thick walls were no way taken by + surprise: they had not been confidants of this kind of thing + off and on for four or five hundred years to be taken by + surprise now. Whether after such long familiarity with the old + story they felt it any way stale, you will readily believe they + did not say.</p> + + <h3>VI.</h3> + + <p>"I've forgotten the abbot entirely," said Edwin when he had + time to come to himself after the first draught of miraculous + champagne. "I was on my way to investigate his ghost when I + heard an unaccountable scream."</p> + + <p>"I never screamed before, and I don't think I shall ever + scream again: I don't know how I have been so weak + to-night."</p> + + <p>"Weakness always draws out kindness," said Edwin.</p> + + <p>"I would rather be weak than obtuse," said Bessie.</p> + + <p>"But it is better to be only obtuse than + <span class="pagenum"><a name="page55" + id="page55"></a>[pg 55]</span> both. I know someone who was + both."</p> + + <p>Well, what was I to think, and what could I do?"</p> + + <p>"Nothing better than you did—make a declar—"</p> + + <p>"What were you saying about the abbot's ghost?"</p> + + <p>"I was on my way to have an interview with it + when—"</p> + + <p>"What was it like, and where did you find it?"</p> + + <p>"It was like a column of light standing not far from the + house near the corner of the abbey-field."</p> + + <p>"And you did not think of any explanation of the + phenomenon?"</p> + + <p>"No, I did not: it seemed more mysterious even than the + ringing of the bell."</p> + + <p>"To obtuse people it does."</p> + + <p>"I thought the abbot might be feeling without a home, and + sympathized with him, I assure you, very heartily."</p> + + <p>"I can tell you what it is: the servants had to rise at + three this morning to work. It is the light shining out from + the laundry-window: I've seen it often enough."</p> + + <p>"Well, it was a providential ghost for you and Edwin."</p> + + <p>"[illegible]" said John when they were assembled at + breakfast next morning, looking no worse for the excitement of + the previous evening, having all slept well: if the bell had + rung it had disturbed no one at all. Mr. Forrester and Bessie + had not made any one the wiser of the well-timed appearance of + the abbot's ghost which had played such an effective part in + their previous night's drama,—"I say," he said looking at + Mr. Forrester and then at Bessie, "there is some understanding + between you two; you are always looking at each other, and when + you entered the room this morning you [illegible], and started + off [illegible] been caught. But I have [illegible] this + time."</p> + + <p>Bessie realized that her secret had become common property, + and blushed becomingly.</p> + + <p>Mr. Forrester said, "What have you suspected, John?"</p> + + <p>"That Bessie and you laid your heads together to make the + bell ring last night to frighten us. Remember, I'm not stupid + altogether."</p> + + <p>"I assure you, John, I had nothing to do with the ringing of + the bell," Bessie said.</p> + + <p>"Nor had I," said Edwin.</p> + + <p>"That's queer, then," said John; "but I'm sure there's + something of some kind between you two: you're planning + something, I know. What is it?"</p> + + <p>"Wise people don't reveal their plans to every one till near + the time for executing them, John," said Edwin.</p> + + <p>"Oh, very well," John answered: "you can keep them to + yourselves. I dare say it's nothing of consequence;" and having + finished his breakfast, John was off to his out-door business. + The shortest cut to his destination—and he always took + short cuts—was through the kitchen, and as he hastily + brushed along the wall toward the door he was brought up + suddenly by a loud peal of the bell, and he looked at one of + the servants, who was working at the table, as much as to say, + "Do you hear that?"</p> + + <p>She answered his look: "Yes, I ha'en, but there's naebody at + the door. It was yu that rang the bell: ye cam against that bag + of worsted clues for durning that I hung on the bell-wine + yesterday. When onybody happens to touch it the weight o' 't + gars the bell ring; I would hae to ta'en off."</p> + + <p>With this simple and inglorious explanation John rushed to + the dining-room where he found Mrs. Forrester and the + châtelaine in deep Conspiracy again; and to this hour the + ghost of Cockhoolet is a matter (if you can use that word in + connection with a ghost at all) of faith and not of sight.</p> + + <p>When Mrs. and Mrs. Ormiston returned they found that their + eldest daughter was engaged to be married, which surprised them + as little as it did the old woman but moved them a good deal + more.</p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page56" + id="page56"></a>[pg 56]</span> + + <h2>THE LEADEN ARROW.</h2> + + <p>A wondrous half-century was that which forms an isthmus + rather than a bridge between the Middle Ages and the times + termed Modern. Exit the Last of the Barons—enter the + printing-press. Exit Boabdil el Chico—enter Columbus and + Da Gama. The plot thickened as the <i>cinquecenti</i> hove in + view. The last years were the most pregnant. While the last + sigh of the Moor was dying into the murmurs of the Xenil, that + solitary shout that will ring while earth lasts went up from + the bows of the Pinta. Together came America and the sea-way to + India and—the rifle. For in 1498, when Buonarotti was at + his prime, Raphael, fifteen years old, had just taken his seat + at the paternal easel, and the scenes of the <i>Lusiad</i> were + in progress, "barrels were first grooved at Venice."</p> + + <p>Who grooved them we are not told. The name of that artist + has not survived, though we still remember his contemporary + townsman, Titian. Strictly, he is not entitled to the + immortality of an originator. That belongs to the unknown + savage who, in the miocene era probably, first gave a twist to + the feather of his arrow, thereby communicating to it a + revolving motion at right angles to the line of flight, and + making it an "arm of precision." But pre-historic artillery we + may dismiss or leave to Milton. The blind bard omits to inform + us whether the guns used in the great pounding-match between + Lucifer and Michael were smooth-bores or rifles. The strong + presumption is that they were exclusively the former, and that + a well-served battery of Parrotts would have silenced them in + fifteen minutes. By giving him a few pieces of the kind the + poet would have further brightened the feather he sets in + Satan's cap as the benefactor of mankind by inventing gunpowder + and shortening wars. The bow he presents to us as an old and + familiar weapon even at the date of that first and greatest of + pitched battles. Its claim, as the parent of projectile + implements, is recognized in the common etymology of <i>arcus, + arcualia</i>—artillery. Arblast, arquebuse, blunderbuss, + mark a humbler collateral descent in the same verbal family. + The ballista, or fifty-man-power bow, constituted the heavy, + and the individual article the light, artillery of twenty + centuries ago. Slings and javelins, being for hand-to-hand + fighting (David was near enough to hold an easy conversation + with Goliath before bringing him down), can hardly be brought + within the designation. The twang of either heavy or light was + but a thin contribution to the orchestra of battle compared to + "the diapason of the cannonade." How much we have lost in the + absence of this element of tremendous noise from the conflicts + of ancient days! What a tool it would have been in Homer's + hands! How trivial, to the author of the book of Job, would + have seemed the noise of the captains and the shouting! We + cannot, indeed, quite suppress the fancy that some mightier + counter-concussion must have filled the air at Thrasimene, when + "an earthquake reeled unheededly away:" <i>Nemo pugnantium + senserit</i>, avers Livy. But nothing is said of it. The old + heroes died in silence, like the wolf "biting hard among the + dying dogs."</p> + + <p>A well-known essay of a modern poet beautifully uses this + piece of the modern machinery of his craft. Dryden here makes + distance mellow the thunder of a naval fight into a musical + undertone. The great sea-fight between the duke of York and the + Dutch, fought within hearing of London, left "the town almost + empty" of its anxious citizens, whose "dreadful suspense would + not allow them to rest at home," but drew them into the eastern + fields and suburbs, "all seeking the noise in the depth of + silence." Dryden and three friends took a barge and descended + the river. Once clear of the crowded port above Greenwich, + "they ordered the watermen to let fall their + <span class="pagenum"><a name="page57" + id="page57"></a>[pg 57]</span> oars more gently; and then, + every one favoring his own curiosity with a strict silence, + it was not long ere they perceived the air to break about + them like the noise of distant thunder or of swallows in a + chimney; those little undulations of sound, though almost + vanishing before they reached them, yet still seeming to + retain somewhat of their first horror which they had between + the fleets. After they had attentively listened till such + time as the sound by little and little went from them, + Eugenius, lifting up his head and taking notice of it, was + the first who congratulated to the rest that happy omen of + our nation's victory."</p> + + <p>This, the eloquent eolian music of distant and unseen + battle, was unheard by the ancient cities and their chroniclers + and poets. It will grow again less familiar as rifled ordnance + is introduced, with its thinner and sharper style of + expression. Waterloo appears to have been heard farther than + Sedan or Metz, although its pieces were but popguns compared + with those that spoke the requiem of the Third Napoleon. And + perhaps, if we allow for smallness in number and calibre, those + employed by Robert the Bruce at the battle of Werewater in + 1327—said to be the first recorded occasion in + Europe—were more vociferous than their successors of + to-day. Few and cumbrous they must indeed have been, since + Edward III. could only bring four into the field at + Crécy; and they did far less service than the twanging + cloth-yard shaft in deciding the event of that conflict.</p> + + <p>It was not till centuries later that the rifle perceptibly + exerted its treble voice in the multitudinous debates of the + <i>ultima ratio</i>. Shrill as John Randolph's, its pipe, once + set up, was very attentively and respectfully listened to. Like + his, it spoke from the woods of America. "Stand your ground, my + brave fellows," shouted Colonel Washington under the sycamores + of the Monongahela on the 9th of July, 1755, "and draw your + sights for the honor of old Virginia!" The colonial rifle + covered the retreat of the British queen's-arm, if retreat such + a rout as Braddock's could be called.</p> + + <p>It is about the same time that we find a British writer, who + had witnessed the efficiency of the rifle as a companion + implement to the axe in pushing European settlement on this + continent, saying, "Whatever state shall thoroughly comprehend + the nature and advantages of rifle-pieces, and, having + facilitated and completed their construction, shall introduce + into its armies their general use, with a dexterity in the + management of them, will by this means acquire a superiority + which will almost equal anything that has been done at any time + by the particular excellence of any one kind of firearms, and + will perhaps fall but little short of the wonderful effects + which histories relate to have been formerly produced by the + first inventors of firearms."</p> + + <p>This was written in 1748, at which time the rifle was used + only by the hunters of the Alps and the hunters of the American + backwoods; the latter having doubtless derived it from the + former through German immigration. Bull's conservatism, + however, was in the way. The lessons of Fort Duquesne, of + Saratoga and of New Orleans were successively wasted on him. He + did arm one regiment, the Ninety-fifth, with this weapon toward + the close of the last century, but for a long time it stood + alone in the royal service. Austria had previously maintained + some corps of Tyrolese Jägers. The French fought through + all the wars of their Revolution without having recourse to the + rifle, save in the campaign of 1793. It is singular that the + keen eye of Napoleon failed to detect its value, especially + when we note the use he made of light troops. The fate of + Nelson justifies the idea that a large body of good riflemen + might have changed the issue of Trafalgar.</p> + + <p>Curiously enough, the French, who were the last to realize + the merits of the rifle, were the first to institute those + improvements which caused, within the present generation, its + universal substitution for the musket. The Gallic pioneer was + Delvigne, but his first improvements proved, as Pat might say, + no improvement at all. The inconvenience of slow + <span class="pagenum"><a name="page58" + id="page58"></a>[pg 58]</span> loading was the most obvious. + Delvigne's remedy was to give the ball increased windage; in + other words, to diminish its diameter comparatively with + that of the bore. The ball thus went easily down to the + shoulders of the chamber containing the charge. Arrived + there, a smart rap with the ramrod moulded it to the + grooves. But it also flattened the top, and forced the + bottom partly into the chamber. Thus misshapen at birth, the + bullet was cast upon the world to an erratic and fruitless + career.</p> + + <p>In 1828 a second Frenchman took the tube in hand. Colonel + Thouvenin abandoned the chamber, and filled up much of the + place it had occupied with a cylindrical steel pillar, or + <i>tige</i>, which projected from the breech-plug + longitudinally into the barrel. This formed a little anvil + whereon the bullet was to be beaten into the grooves. But the + bottom was flattened, and the powder acted only on the + periphery of the ball instead of the centre, tending thus to + give it an oblique direction.</p> + + <p>Here Delvigne picked up the weapon for another trial. He + accomplished far the most important advance yet seen—an + advance relatively as great as Watt's separate condenser in the + steam-engine. He retained the <i>tige</i>, but he <i>changed + the spherical ball into a cylinder with a conical point</i>, as + we now have it. In this he, in effect, reached the ultimatum of + progress as regards the general form of the projectile. He + assimilated it to Newton's solid of least resistance. That + primeval missile, the arrow, had for unnumbered centuries + presented to the eyes of men an illustration of a simple truth + which scientific formula succeeded, scarce a couple of + centuries since, in evolving. "The bridge was built," as the + old sapper told his commander, "before them picters" (the + engineer's designs) "came." The arrow-head describes, as it + whirls through the air, a solid varying from a cone only so far + as its edges vary from straight lines. This variation serves to + blend the cone with the cylinder formed by the revolution of + the arrow-head and the feather. The difference in length + between the ball and the arrow is due to the necessities of the + case. The least practicable length is best for both. The office + of the spirally-wound feather in communicating a rotary motion, + and thereby balancing, by an opposite force, the tendency of + the missile to swerve in any given direction, is fulfilled by + the spiral groove of the rifle. Of course, the ordinary smooth + musket is unfitted to the conico-cylindrical ball. Discharged + from such a barrel, there being nothing to keep the point in + the direction of its flight, it soon tumbles over, like an + arrow without a feather, and strikes wide of the mark.</p> + + <p>Delvigne's new gun came into use in 1840. The long + matchlocks of the Arabs had been very worrying to the French in + Algiers. It was a common pastime of the Ishmaelites to pick off + the Gauls at a distance which left Brown Bess helpless. + Protruded over an almost inaccessible crag, the former + primitive instrument would plump its ball into the ranks of the + Giaour in the dell below with a precision and an effect hardly + requited by victories in the open field or by the cave-smokings + of His Grace of Malakoff. Delvigne's arm was accordingly + supplied to the Chasseurs d'Orléans, and in their hands + served the desired purpose. The matchlock met its match.</p> + + <p>Under M. Delvigne's system, however, the ball was not always + well forced into the grooves. The <i>tige</i>, too, made + cleaning difficult: it often got crooked, and it sometimes + broke off. A M. Tamisier did something toward removing the + former difficulty by cutting very shallow grooves on the ball + itself. The other called forth the ingenuity of the now famous + Minié, who made his first appearance in 1847-1848, and + whose name has attained the same kind of lethal immortality + with the names of Shrapnell, Congreve and Rodman. M. + Minié abandoned the <i>tige</i> entirely. He scooped out + the base of the ball and inserted into it an iron cup. This cup + was driven into the ball by the explosion, and forced the soft + lead into the grooves. The leading objection to the + Minié ball in this form was that the device did its work + too thoroughly. The iron was often driven so deep into the lead + as to tear off the solid point and + <span class="pagenum"><a name="page59" + id="page59"></a>[pg 59]</span> scatter the whole projectile + into two or three pieces. This mitrailleuse-like + distribution of disrupted spheres or leaden asteroids was + obviated by the abandonment of the iron cup, the powder + being left to act on the lead itself. Two or three channels + cut around the neck of the bullet helped to keep the point + in line, and aided at the same time the fastening of the + cartridge. Thus came its final metamorphosis to the buzzing + little torment that has been at intervals for the last + twenty years flying over all the continents and perplexing + the nations.</p> + + <p>It was not till 1852 that the Enfield rifle was settled on + as the standard weapon of the British army. Machinery and + machinists were imported for its fabrication from the United + States, the appliances of our government armories being copied, + and Colonel Bruton, of the Harper's Ferry Works, employed to + set them going. Prior to that time all firearms of public or + private manufacture, in England, had been made by hand, the + interchangeability of all the parts of any given number of guns + being an end accomplished in this country alone. The advantage + of having every corresponding detail of each piece a fac simile + of the same part in all the firelocks of an army must have been + perceived from the time when such weapons were first invented; + and nothing but the most inveterate conservatism, or the + steadiest opposition of that stamp which mobbed + threshing-machines and the spinning-jenny, could have so long + staved off its practical adoption.</p> + + <p>Once awakened, however, England became, as she usually does, + active, innovating and experimental enough. Rifled cannon, + breech-loaders and armored ships—all the legitimate + offspring of the Venetian barrel and its American + employment—have kept her ever since in a ferment of + boards, commissions and target-firing. But these would carry us + beyond our prescribed limit into a boundless field of inquiry + and description. It would be like passing from a notice of the + tubular boiler of Stephenson's Rocket to a discussion of the + vast railway system it begot.</p> + + <p>The Crimean war afforded the first test, on a large scale, + in civilized warfare, of the issue between smooth and twist. + How the conoidal bullet and rifled barrel, opposed at Inkermann + to the antiquated Russian musket, tore through the dense + columns which had forced their way to the brow of the plateau, + driving the stolid Muscovites, "incapable of panic," back into + the ravine pell-mell—how, at many periods of the siege of + Sebastopol, the rifle-pits did more to cripple the defence than + did the mortars and battering-guns—we need not recount. + These pits, and the rope mantlets wherewith they obliged the + Russians to cover their embrasures, were pronounced by Captain + (since General) George B. McClellan, in his report of the + United States Military Commission, about the only marked + novelties of the siege. Of both, <i>mutatis mutandis</i>, he + and his opponents made effective use in our civil war.</p> + + <p>Nor shall we pick our perilous way among the Sniders, + Chassepots, Zündnadelgewehre, and + Zündnadelbüchsen whose various charms absorb the + military mind at this day. The debate among them is but as to + the best utilization of the old arrow-theory. The oblong + projectile, that goes singing on its winding way, is common to + them all. Slipped in at the back door or rammed home at the + front, delicately stirred up by the insinuating needle and its + titbit of fulminate or bluntly ordered off by the snappish + percussion-cap, it is the same obedient and faithful messenger, + and goes on its appointed errand in much the same style.</p> + + <p>Under the ancient régime of the musket it required + the soldier's weight in lead to kill him. Its point-blank range + was about sixty yards, but precision even at that short + distance it by no means possessed. At the battle of Fontenoy + the English and French Guards, drawn up in opposite lines, + conversed with each other prior to firing, like two groups of + friends across the street. "Gentlemen of the French Guards, + fire!" was the courteous invitation of the British commander. + "The French Guards never fire first," was the reply. And not + till then did punctilio come to an end. Such + <span class="pagenum"><a name="page60" + id="page60"></a>[pg 60]</span> a colloquy in our day would + need to be carried on with forty-horse power + speaking-trumpets, or with the thunderous articulation of + that between the bellowing Alps and echoing Jura. Even + smooth-bore field-pieces, with point-blank of three hundred + and twenty yards and service range of one thousand, have to + keep their distance. It is a rare thing now for cannon to be + captured by a charge of cavalry or the bayonet. The rifle + destroys <i>quantum suff.</i> of their horses, and, their + support overpowered, they remain a helpless prey.</p> + + <p>For this default of the blustering cannon in the trying of + conclusions with its quiet little cousin, the natural remedy is + to improve its interior in the same manner. This has been done, + and with marvelous effect in some respects. But the rifled + cannon, though extensively used both on sea and land, throwing + shot and shell five miles, and at close range through iron + plates a foot thick, cannot be yet styled a perfected weapon. + It may be in a very few years, thanks to the ardent anxiety, on + the part of the several peoples composing "the parliament of + man, the federation of the world," to excel each other in the + "brain-spattering, windpipe-slitting art." At present it is + maintained by very good American authority that for use under + some conditions, at short or moderate range, the smooth gun of + large calibre is more effective than a rifled gun throwing a + missile of the same weight. Our monitors continue to be armed + with the fifteen-inch Rodman, very recent experiments being + cited to prove its penetrating effect on iron plates greater + than that of the European rifled guns. This, of course, at very + close range.</p> + + <p>The rifle is, in its simplest form, a more complex + instrument than the smooth-bored piece, and will always require + superior intelligence to manage it. The army which naturally + possesses this requisite in the highest degree will best handle + this decisive weapon, and be, other things equal, the strongest + army. This consideration operates in favor of our people, among + whom the rifle has always been in so much more constant and + familiar use than with those of other countries. Our broad + forests will have to be cleared and our mountain-chains, east + and west, more densely settled than Switzerland, before the + distinction of a nation of marksmen can be lost to us. So far, + there is little evidence of this change. The deer and the + wild-turkey are nearly as abundant on the Atlantic slope of the + Alleghanies as they ever were. Probably there are more of both + in Virginia than at the time of the settlement of Jamestown. + Like the quail and the bee, they are favored by a certain + advance of population and cultivation.</p> + + <p>Another species of aborigine does not similarly thrive in + the path of the rifle. The Indian of the Plains is still + troublesome occasionally, but far less so than when blue-coats + and blunderbusses joined forces against him. The odds then were + often on his side, for many of the red men were armed with the + rifle, while the troops had but the musket and carbine. The + appearance of the breech-loading rifle in the hands of the + United States dragoons on the frontier just fifteen years ago + let in new light upon the Camanche and Apache mind. Up to that + period the badgering of a detachment of "heavies" was a + favorite pastime with these gentry. They got up their "spring + fights" with as much coolness and regularity as the early + patriarchs of Texas are related to have done, and not merely, + as in the case of the latter, in utter contempt, but directly + at the expense, of the constituted authorities. Tying a bag of + dried mule-meat and pounded corn to the peak of his saddle, + fashioning a small supply of arrows, or balls if he boasted the + spectre of a gun, coloring the inferior half of his + frontispiece a rich vermilion and the upper a delicate green, + with ramifications of lampblack coursing tastefully along the + cheek-bones and the bridge of the nose, twisting a crane's + feather into the tail of his horse, and giving his affectionate + squaw a farewell kick, the cavalier of the prairie was ready + for a raid on the Long-knives. Making a rapid night-march or + two, he would carry the "latest intelligence from the Indian + country" to the <span class="pagenum"><a name="page61" + id="page61"></a>[pg 61]</span> border ranches of Texas or + New Mexico. Stampeding all the horses and mules that stood + or ranged convenient, and under favorable circumstances some + cattle and sheep, and "gobbling" on occasion some incautious + Cyrion or Phyllis of the Western Arcadia, the marauder made + for the mountains. By the time he had well passed the last + outpost the hue-and-cry was at his heels, followed, after an + easy-going delay, by the lumbering dragoon. The soldier, + armed with ineffectual sabre and carbine, encumbered with a + variety of traps about as useful as they, usually managed, + if not forced to put back by stress of provisions, to come + up with him in the gates of the hills. There an idle + interchange of arrow and round ball between hollow and cliff + wound up the eventful history of the chase. As a rule, no + marked chastisement was inflicted on the Indian: he realized + in peace the proceeds of his little speculation.</p> + + <p>Now, Minié, like the Harpagon of his countryman, has + "changed all that." The retreating heathen flies to his hills + in vain. They do not cover him, but the rifle does. Cantering + to the summit of a knoll, he waves his compliments to the + distant dragoon with a gesture of derision, more expressive + than elegant, he has acquired from the white. Turning calmly to + depart, as he sinks below the crest of the hill a sagittiform + bullet, fired at five hundred yards' distance with all the + science and talent purchasable with thirteen dollars a month + and rations, plumps into the rump of his unhappy pony, and the + Stoic of the woods is unhorsed. Reared on horseback, and weak + in the legs from long addiction to that mode of locomotion, + this is a <i>casus omissus</i> in Lo's tactics. Scant time, + however, has he for reflection. He gathers up himself and his + drapery as well as circumstances will allow, and scuttles + hurriedly off, a fluttering chaos of rags and feathers. It is + too late. Heaven is on the side of the best artillery. A few + minutes and the Philistines are upon him. Burnside's or + Remington's last patent again lifts up its voice, and the + triumph of civilization is complete.</p> + + <p>The prairie Indian, unlike his congener of the woods, has as + yet been but partially able to substitute gunpowder for the + bow. The advantage he has in the protection afforded him by the + desolation of his waterless <i>mesas</i> and sage-covered hills + is thus in great measure neutralized. What, when he does + possess the modern firearm, he is capable of doing with it, the + achievements of the Modocs in their volcanic stronghold will + attest. But these were few, and soon went down. The extinction + of the tribes west and south of the Rio Grande and the Humboldt + cannot be many years postponed. The red rover of that region + will disappear as a combatant in the same way, and before the + same weapon, as his brother nomad of Algeria, the earliest + victim of the conoidal bullet. The spherical ball has done its + appointed part in disposing of the aborigines east of the + Mississippi, where forests covered the land and trees generally + intercepted the sight at a hundred or a hundred and fifty + yards. With the extension of Caucasian empire to the Plains + came an extension of the range of vision, which necessitated an + advance in the range of the rifle. The weapon of Sharpe figured + for the first time in the van when the woods of Missouri were + passed and the open plains of Kansas reached. There its office + was, unfortunately, the strife of white against white. The + largest possible range, the greatest possible number of shots + in a given time, were demanded in a war wherein the opposing + armies were seldom within five miles of each other, or more + than one man hurt to five hundred charges of powder burned. How + the Lenni Lenape must have opened their eyes at this + reproduction of the drama of a century ago when the whites, + English and French, were fighting each other for the possession + of the Delawares' lands in Pennsylvania! The feeble remnant of + the compatriots of Logan had "moved on," under pressure of a + very urgent police, a thousand miles westward to a reservation + not a great deal larger, when portioned out, than that last + reservation allotted to all men; and the pale-faces who had + hung upon his track he now saw fighting for + that.</p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page62" + id="page62"></a>[pg 62]</span> + + <p>From its warlike aspect it is pleasant to turn to the + contributions of the rifle to peaceful amusement, if not + peaceful industry. Contemptuously giving the go-by to its + minutest phase in this field—the "parlor rifle," with a + target against the chimney-piece or meandering, in feline form, + along our neighbor's roof-tree—we go forth, with Snider + and sunrise, to the forest fastness. Our companions throng, + tall, bronzed, close-knit and sinewy, true children of the + four-grooved, from frosty Caucasus, the Hartz, the Alps, the + Dovrafjeld, the Grampians, the Himmalaya, the Adirondack, the + Alleghany, the Nevada. The chamois, the ibex, the red deer, the + Virginia deer, the wapiti, the gour, or the royal tiger may be + the game in hand. The tiger we are accustomed to associate + exclusively with the dank jungles of Lower India, but he + climbs, each summer, the great passes of Central Asia, "the + roof of the world," and makes his way to the frontier of + Siberia, beyond 50° north.</p> + + <p>The equipment of the mountain-rifleman is characterized by + simplicity and a strict attention to business. The nature of + the ground over which he works inexorably prescribes this. The + superfluities of the fox-hunter or the partridge-shooter with + his dog-cart cannot be his. Hatchet, pouch, knife and knapsack, + with alpenstock on occasion, about comprise his kit. He may be + attended by a hound or two, but not a pack. He wants no + yelling. He hears but</p> + + <div class="poem"> + <div class="stanza"> + <p class="i10">the Spirit of the Mist,</p> + + <p>And it speaks to the Spirit of the Fell.</p> + </div> + </div> + + <p>For little hollows and little hills Scott's dogs, that</p> + + <div class="poem"> + <div class="stanza"> + <p class="i6">raved through the hollow pass amain,</p> + + <p>Chiding the rocks that yelled again,</p> + </div> + </div> + + <p>may have been highly effective when his mediæval + sportsmen, who carried no guns, could keep within a furlong of + them. But in the depths of the great mountains, with + point-blank range of six hundred yards and long pops of nearly + twice that, they would be preposterous. Fancy the Quorndon or + the Pytchley on the flanks of the Matterhorn!</p> + + <p>Chamois-hunting, the sporting specialty of the Swiss and the + Tyrolese, appears to be dying out. The hunter of our day keeps + it up rather as a tradition than as a practical pursuit. He + rarely bags a "goat," for goats are very few to bag, and those + few even more supernaturally fleet and sure of foot and keen of + nose than their less-hunted ancestors. Still, somewhere in that + upper world of lilac-white that melts into the clouds in vast + but distance-softened chasms of viscid ice and rifts of gray + gneiss, there is an object for him. In some nook or on some + crag of the square leagues of desert that swell around him a + troop of the desiderated ruminants is grazing, if grazing it + can be called where grass is none. He is very sure of that. + Even from the door of his chalet he scans the slopes in the + half hope of detecting a flock or a single goat. His father and + his grandfather before him had looked forth from the same door + on the same scene, snuffed the same "caller air," mentally + shaped the same pretext for yielding to the same spirit of + adventure begotten of the peaks and by going forth to battle + with the solitude, and hunted patiently, sometimes with + success, oftener without, the progenitors of the same quarry. + So he prepares himself anew for the wild and perilous tramp. A + day—two or three days—may pass without the + compassing of a shot, or even hearing the whistle of the + sentinel goat as he shrills the alarm far out of range and + leads his fellows in twenty minutes to crags the hunter cannot + reach in as many hours. Death crouches in the treacherous + snow-crust beneath or the poised avalanche above. A false step + or an inch's miscalculation of leap may make him a waif for the + lämmergeier or land him among the buried villages of the + last century. He toils on until success or starvation sends him + home. In the former case he out-generals his shy game after a + series of manoeuvres to which the deepest stratagems of our + Indians are straightforwardness personified. He gets a long + shot at a distance that would make the musket or buckshot as + useless as a sabre. The certainty may be apparent that the + animal, if hit mortally, must fall some hundreds of feet, + perhaps into an inaccessible + <span class="pagenum"><a name="page63" + id="page63"></a>[pg 63]</span> chasm. There is no help for + that. Now or never! The short rifle, assisted by a portable + rest, is called on for its best. The concentrated energy of + the whole chase is thrown into the long and carefully + calculated aim. A thin spurt of white smoke jets forth; a + sharp report echoes "from peak to peak the rattling crags + among;" half a dozen chamois whisk around the next + rock-buttress, and "one more unfortunate" tumbles from the + verge into vacancy. The labor of days is rewarded. Securing + the scanty venison if he can, the hunter is off for his + hillside burrow, advertising his approach by an exultant + jodel of extra nerve-splitting power.</p> + + <p>In Great Britain the rifle, ancient or modern, like, indeed, + any other firearm, has yet to establish itself as a democratic + "institution." Her forests are not forests in our sense, and + her mountain-dwellers know little of the rifle. In the duke of + Athol's seventy-mile forest, with scarce a tree save planted + larches, the stag roams by thousands, but of course the + game-laws interpose, as they did eight hundred years ago, + between him and the (biped) hind. He is still the reserved + luxury of the Norman. So with the leagues of upland where His + Grace of Sutherland has made the Highlander give place to the + hart, the "lassie wi' the lint-white locks" to the Cheviot + ewe—where, in short, the white Celt has been improved out + of existence as remorselessly as the red man in America, and + that in favor not of a superior race of men, but of + <i>feræ naturæ</i>. Into these and similar + districts, at stated seasons, sundry squads of gentlemen are + turned loose. They either "pay their shot," as <i>Punch</i> has + it, in the shape of rent, or are the guests of the noble + proprietors. Their devices for circumventing the antlered + monarch of the waste are amply detailed by Scrope, Hawker, + Herbert and also by the late Edwin Landseer doing the pictorial + department with a success attributable chiefly to his + management of landscape effect, for his dogs, deer and other + animals from his Æsop's fable-like groups to his four + duplicated lions in Trafalgar Square, belong—heretic that + we are to say it!—properly to still life, their want of + action and <i>verve</i> placing them beneath comparison with + the works of either one of a score of Flemish and French + painters, from Rubens and Snyders down to Bonheur and Vernet. + That his unsold pictures have brought, since his death, + something like half a million proves nothing. Time was when the + worthless canvases of West and Morland were equally + transmutable into gold.</p> + + <p>Like other forms of British field-sports, deer-stalking is + sufficiently intricate and artificial. It is obviously the + occupation of men whose primary object is more to kill time + than to kill deer. According to print, from type and plate, the + stag, a reduced edition of the American wapiti, is, in the + heart of a little kingdom of some hundreds of souls to the + square mile, as little accustomed to the sight of man and as + hard to approach as he would be on the head-waters of the + Yellowstone. If five or six hours' worming, <i>ventre à + terre</i>, up the bed of a mountain-torrent, with not even a + rowan-bush to aid concealment, succeed in bringing the + sports-man within two hundred yards of his unconscious game, it + is a good day's performance. How, the dun deer's hide once + perforated, the "tail" of game-keepers, beaters and volunteer + hangers-on is gathered up, the comforting toothfu' of + usquebaugh absorbed by the toilers of the brae, the victim + "gralloched" and suspended across the inevitable gray Highland + pony that makes such a capital "first light" for the + foreground, and the line of triumphant march taken up for + hunting-box, clachan or castle, have we not been told to + repletion? The tool used on these occasions is up to the latest + requirements of modern science. Whitworth and Lancaster, thanks + to their projectile's being wedged in so tight as to cause an + occasional misunderstanding it and the breech-plug as to which + was expected to move, have grown unpopular. The style and the + patentee vary every year or two or oftener, breech-loading and + the elongated bullet being the only persistent features.</p> + + <p>Among the commonalty of Britain, + <span class="pagenum"><a name="page64" + id="page64"></a>[pg 64]</span> within a very few years past, + rifle-clubs and matches have been brought greatly into vogue + under government encouragement. Austria, <i>tu infelix</i> + this time, having served unwillingly as an experimental + target, with the most distinguished and gratifying success + to the experimenters, at Solferino and Sadowa, gave a new + impetus to the rifle movement in England, as France, a + trifle later, did to the Battle-of-Dorking school of + prophetic literature. Thus it happens that the rifle is + taking its place gradually by the side of fat Durhams, + gooseberries, lop eared rabbits and the Derby as a popular + sensation. Johnny sends over a "team," evidently in his + judgment a whole one, to "shoot the American continent." His + next deputation ought to be sent, after vanquishing the + "blarsted" Gothamites, to the recesses of the Alleghany, and + pitted there against the woodsman with his ancient weapon + carrying a round ball of seventy-five to the pound, five + feet long and decorated with tin sights, double trigger and + mayhap flint-lock. The adventurers would beat in the long + run, but they would go home not wholly unlearned. Should + they stay to a turkey-shoot, they would see in it the + Occidental analogue of their own public matches—more + picturesque, if not quite so prim and scientific. Strictly, + it presupposes conditions non-existent in England—a + community, for instance, first of hunters, and second of + hunters with the rifle.</p> + + <p>This recreation, primarily belonging to localities where + large game, such as deer and wild-turkeys, is found, has spread + down to the cities, where it breaks out in a sporadic form + about Christmas. But the hills are its home—the + foot-hills, notably, of the Appalachian range, the domestic + turkey not being very common higher up, nor its wild original + ("original," we insist, <i>pace</i> the <i>Agricultural + Report</i> ornithologist, who finds an ineffaceable distinction + in the fact that the tail-ring of the one is sometimes, and + that of the other never, white!) lower down.</p> + + <p>We mind us of an ancient town in the Valley of Virginia, + settled nearly a century and a half ago by riflemen, sheltered + by them through a stormy infancy, and still steeped in the + traditions of the implement in question. Spitted by the + railway, the hub of many turnpikes, and surrounded by a + thickly-peopled country, it is yet near enough to the mountains + to receive from them each winter quite a delegation of their + inhabitants. Last year wild-turkeys were shot within the + corporate limits, a deer was chased within half a mile of them, + and a fine specimen of <i>Felis Canadensis</i> was killed in an + orchard still nearer.</p> + + <p>Four miles west of the town the fertile limestone + <i>carse</i> swells into the shady hills, clad largely with + pine, that form the long glacis of the Alleghanies. These hills + are peopled principally by a hardy race not unlike the German + woodsmen, whose blood, indeed, a great many of them share, as + their surnames, though sadly thinned down into English spelling + and pronunciation, denote. They inherit, likewise, their fancy + for the rifle. Allied with the axe, which, like Talleyrand's + supposititious frontiersman, they have not forgotten, it + supplies them materially with sport and subsistence. Their + land, where arable at all, being unproductive as a rule, + wood-chopping is their most profitable branch of farming. A + score or two of them drive into town daily, each with his + four-, three- or two-horse cargo of wood. The pile is + frequently topped off with a brace or two of ruffed grouse, + there called pheasant, or a wild-turkey, less often a deer, and + more often hares; which last multiply along the narrow + intervales in extraordinary numbers. We have seen three + sledge-loads of hares—say two thousand in all—on + the street of a winter's day.</p> + + <p>This sappy and sapid contribution to its comfort and luxury + the town often repays with a jug of whisky as an addendum to + the cash receipts; although it must not be inferred from this + that the hillmen are noted for a weakness in that direction. + Generally, they are as sober as they are hard-working, + independent and honest. The few who do take kindly to strong + waters are so hardened by a life of toil and exposure that the + enemy is a lifetime in bringing them down.. One little old + hook-nosed fellow was an <span class="pagenum"><a name="page65" + id="page65"></a>[pg 65]</span> every-day feature of the road + for fifteen or twenty years. In that entire period he was + rarely, if once, seen to go out sober. He drove but two + horses, which were apparently coeval with himself. Long + practice had taught them perfectly how to accommodate + themselves to their master's failing. The saddle-horse + adapted his movements with vigilant dexterity to the rolling + and pitching aloft. On more than one occasion the woodman + was found lying in the road by the side or under the feet of + his faithful and motionless team. Poor old Jack! thou hast + "gone under," deeper than that, at last, leaving behind thee + the savor of an honest name, slightly modified by that of + corn whisky.</p> + + <p>The Hayfield Inn, a little hostelrie on the Northern "pike," + is the scene of many a turkey-shoot. Between the hill and the + road, at the foot of a ravine that runs down at right angles, + room enough has been scooped out, partly by the rains and + partly by the pick, for the house, offices and microscopic yard + decorated with hollyhocks and larkspurs. Across the highway + stands a capacious barn, with open space for wagons, and + between it and the brook beyond stretches a narrow meadow, + whence a vivid imagination has extracted the name of the + caravanserai. The open space flanking the house and road is the + rifle-course, so to speak. When occupied of a mellow October + afternoon by a party of the autochthones, in their pea-jackets + of blue or hickory homespun, it presents a gay and cheery + spectacle. Festooning fence and tree around them, the Virginia + creeper, or <i>Ampelopsis</i>, shames vermilion against the + mass of pines that glooms skyward beyond. Other tints of + vegetable decay fringe the brook where it winds from side to + side of the long strip of grass, green from the autumnal rain. + Little reck the assembled marksmen of Nature's + stage-decorations. One group will be mentally weighing the + turkeys, another discussing the distance—too long or too + short for the peculiar powers of this or the other individual + or his weapon. Around the rude target kneel two or three, + scoring on it each man his "centre," above or below, to the + right or left, of the true centre, to counteract the + ascertained obliquity of his eye or his gun. Here a six-foot + Stoic, the Nestor of the glen, is very formally going through + the ceremony of loading. Another is slowly, and with the + precision of an astronomer, adjusting the tin slides which + protect his barrel from the glitter of the sun. The chatter of + a bevy of country maidens ripples from over the way. The horses + whinny under their square-skirted saddles, or stand "hard by + their chariots champing golden corn," like the horses of + Nestor, Agamemnon, Homer and Gladstone before Dr. Schliemann's + Troy; the yearlings in the meadow alternately gaze and graze; + the guinea-fowl now and then honors the shout over a good shot + with its harsh but well-meant rattle; the rifle speaks at + measured intervals; the prizes thin off to the remainder + gobbler; and so, with the quiet characteristic of + rifle-matches, the evening draws toward the dew. The + smoke-whitened guns are carefully swabbed with tow and prepared + for their rest as tenderly as infants. Dobbin is rescued from + the (fence) stake to hie hill-ward with his master, cantering + exultant or jogging grumly according to the result of the + "event;" and the metropolis of Petticoat Gap—for such, in + the vernacular and on the maps, is its unfortunate + designation—relapses into virtuous repose.</p> + + <p>The implement employed at these rural reunions is rarely the + breech-loader, or even the short gun. It promises to hold its + ground for years yet, gradually yielding to the little modern + tool. The essential characteristics of this we have described + as they exist and will probably remain. Variations in the + rifling and—where muzzle-loading is abandoned—in + the appliances of the chamber will continue to be made, as they + have heretofore been made without number numberless. The + patterns now fashionable will give place to others, in their + turn to be dropped like a last year's coat. Remington, + Winchester and the rest will retire in favor of new contrivers, + devoted, like them, to the simple task of facilitating the + flight of the leaden arrow with its grooved feather in steel or + iron. With <span class="pagenum"><a name="page66" + id="page66"></a>[pg 66]</span> them will rise and fall a + parallel series of names on a broader and more sonorous + field—the field of heavy artillery, the ponderous + Wiard being full brother to the liliputian Sharpe. Rifled + cannon certainly present problems far more complicated than + the small-arm. They can by no means be considered, as yet, + so near perfection. It is boldly maintained by many experts, + both here and in England, that the "smashing" power at + point-blank range of such smooth-bores as the Rodman 12-inch + and 15-inch is greater than that of the rifle of the same + weight. The question is so closely involved with that of + armor-plates for ships and ports, and that with buoyancy and + other naval requirements, and economy and stability on land, + that a long period must elapse ere the reaching of fixed + conclusions. Within the present generation wooden + line-of-battle ships, with sails alone, have ruled the wave. + These have given place to the steam-liners that began and + closed their brief career at Sebastopol and Bomarsund; and + the prize-belt is now borne, among the bruisers of the main, + by the mob of iron-clads, infinitely diverse of aspect and + some of them shapeless, like the geologic monsters that + weltered in the primal deep. Which of these is to triumph + ultimately and devour its misshapen kindred, or whether they + are not all to go down before the torpedo, that carries no + gun and fires no shot, is a "survival-of-the-fittest" + question to be solved by Darwins yet to come. But it is + tolerably safe to say that where the best shooting is to be + done it will continue to be done with the conico-cylindrical + missile, spirally revolving around the line of flight; that + is, with the arrow-rifle.</p> + + <p class="author">EDWARD C. BRUCE.</p> + + <h2>TWO MIRRORS.</h2> + + <div class="poem"> + <div class="stanza"> + <p>My love but breathed upon the glass,</p> + + <p class="i2">And, lo! upon the crystal sheen</p> + + <p>A tender mist did straightway pass,</p> + + <p class="i2">And raised its jealous veil between.</p> + </div> + + <div class="stanza"> + <p>But quick, as when Aurora's face</p> + + <p class="i2">Is hid behind some transient shroud,</p> + + <p>The sun strikes through with golden grace,</p> + + <p class="i2">And she emerges from the cloud;</p> + </div> + + <div class="stanza"> + <p>So from her eyes celestial light</p> + + <p class="i2">Shines on the mirror's cloudy plain,</p> + + <p>And swift the envious mist takes flight,</p> + + <p class="i2">And shows her lovely face again.</p> + </div> + + <div class="stanza"> + <p>When o'er the mirror of my heart,</p> + + <p class="i2">Wherein her image true endures,</p> + + <p>Some misty doubt doth sudden start,</p> + + <p class="i2">And all the sweet reflex obscures,</p> + </div> + + <div class="stanza"> + <p>There beams such glow from her clear eyes</p> + + <p class="i2">That swift the rising mists are laid;</p> + + <p>And, fixed again, her image lies,</p> + + <p class="i2">All lovelier for the passing shade.</p> + </div> + </div> + + <p class="author">F.A. + HILLARD.</p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page67" + id="page67"></a>[pg 67]</span> + + <h2>MALCOLM.</h2> + + <h3>BY GEORGE MACDONALD, AUTHOR OF "ANNALS OF A QUIET + NEIGHBORHOOD," "ROBERT FALCONER," ETC.</h3> + + <h3>CHAPTER LXIV.</h3> + + <h3>THE LAIRD AND HIS MOTHER.</h3> + + <p>When Malcolm and Joseph set out from Duff Harbor to find the + laird, they could hardly be said to have gone in search of him: + all in their power was to seek the parts where he was + occasionally seen, in the hope of chancing upon him; and they + wandered in vain about the woods of Fife House all that week, + returning disconsolate every evening to the little inn on the + banks of the Wan Water. Sunday came and went without yielding a + trace of him; and, almost in despair, they resolved, if + unsuccessful the next day, to get assistance and organize a + search for him. Monday passed like the days that had preceded + it, and they were returning dejectedly down the left bank of + the Wan Water in the gloaming, and nearing a part where it is + hemmed in by precipitous rocks and is very narrow and deep, + crawling slow and black under the lofty arch of an ancient + bridge that spans it at one leap, when suddenly they caught + sight of a head peering at them over the parapet. They dared + not run for fear of terrifying him if it should be the laird, + and hurried quietly to the spot. But when they reached the end + of the bridge its round back was bare from end to end. On the + other side of the river the trees came close up, and pursuit + was hopeless in the gathering darkness.</p> + + <p>"Laird, laird! they've ta'en awa' Phemy, an' we dinna ken + whaur to luik for her," cried the poor father aloud.</p> + + <p>Almost the same instant, and as if he had issued from the + ground, the laird stood before them. The men started back with + astonishment—soon changed into pity, for there was light + enough to see how miserable the poor fellow looked. Neither + exposure nor privation had thus weighed upon him: he was simply + dying of fear. Having greeted Joseph with embarrassment, he + kept glancing doubtfully at Malcolm, as if ready to run on his + least movement. In few words Joseph explained their + quest—with trembling voice and tears that would not be + denied enforcing the tale. Ere he had done the laird's jaw had + fallen and further speech was impossible to him. But by + gestures sad and plain enough he indicated that he knew nothing + of her, and had supposed her safe at home with her parents. In + vain they tried to persuade him to go back with them, promising + every protection: for sole answer he shook his head + mournfully.</p> + + <p>There came a sudden gust of wind among the branches. Joseph, + little used to trees and their ways with the wind, turned + toward the sound, and Malcolm unconsciously followed his + movement. When they turned again the laird had vanished, and + they took their way homeward in sadness.</p> + + <p>What passed next with the laird can be but conjectured. It + came to be well enough known afterward where he had been + hiding; and had it not been dusk as they came down the + river-bank the two men might, looking up to the bridge from + below, have had it suggested to them. For in the half-spandrel + wall between the first arch and the bank they might have spied + a small window looking down on the sullen, silent gloom, + foam-flecked with past commotion, that crept languidly away + from beneath. It belonged to a little vaulted chamber in the + bridge, devised by some vanished lord as a kind of + summer-house—long neglected, but having in it yet a + mouldering table, a broken chair or two and a rough bench. A + little path led steep from the end of the parapet down to its + hidden door. It was now used only by the game-keepers for traps + and fishing-gear and odds and ends of things, and was generally + <span class="pagenum"><a name="page68" id="page68"></a>[pg 68]</span> + supposed to be locked up. The laird had, however, found it + open, and his refuge in it had been connived at by one of the + men, who, as they heard afterward, had given him the key and + assisted him in carrying out a plan he had devised for + barricading the door. It was from this place he had so suddenly + risen at the call of Blue Peter, and to it he had as suddenly + withdrawn again—to pass in silence and loneliness through + his last purgatorial pain.<a id="footnotetag2" + name="footnotetag2"></a><a href="#footnote2"><sup>2</sup></a></p> + + <p>Mrs. Stewart was sitting in her drawing-room alone: she + seldom had visitors at Kirkbyres—not that she liked being + alone, or indeed being there at all, for she would have lived + on the Continent, but that her son's trustees, partly to + indulge their own aversion to her, taking upon them a larger + discretionary power than rightly belonged to them, kept her too + straitened, which no doubt in the recoil had its share in poor + Stephen's misery. It was only after scraping for a whole year + that she could escape to Paris or Homburg, where she was at + home. There her sojourn was determined by her good or ill + fortune at faro.</p> + + <p>What she meditated over her knitting by the + firelight—she had put out her candles—it would be + hard to say, perhaps unwholesome to think: there are souls to + look into which is, to our dim eyes, like gazing down from the + verge of one of the Swedenborgian pits.</p> + + <p>But much of the evil done by human beings is as the evil of + evil beasts: they know not what they do—an excuse which, + except in regard to the past, no man can make for himself, + seeing the very making of it must testify its falsehood.</p> + + <p>She looked up, gave a cry and started to her feet: Stephen + stood before her, halfway between her and the door. Revealed in + a flicker of flame from the fire, he vanished in the following + shade, and for a moment she stood in doubt of her seeing sense. + But when the coal flashed again there was her son, regarding + her out of great eyes that looked as if they had seen death. A + ghastly air hung about him, as if he had just come back from + Hades, but in his silent bearing there was a sanity, even + dignity, which strangely impressed her. He came forward a pace + or two, stopped, and said, "Dinna be frichtit, mem. I'm come. + Sen' the lassie hame an' du wi' me as ye like. I canna haud aff + o' me. But I think I'm deein', an' ye needna misguide me."</p> + + <p>His voice, although it trembled a little, was clear and + unimpeded, and, though weak in its modulation, manly.</p> + + <p>Something in the woman's heart responded. Was it motherhood + or the deeper godhead? Was it pity for the dignity housed in + the crumbling clay, or repentance for the son of her womb? Or + was it that sickness gave hope, and she could afford to be + kind?</p> + + <p>"I don't know what you mean, Stephen," she said, more gently + than he had ever heard her speak.</p> + + <p>Was it an agony of mind or of body, or was it but a + flickering of the shadows upon his face? A moment, and he gave + a half-choked shriek and fell on the floor. His mother turned + from him with disgust and rang the bell. "Send Tom here," she + said.</p> + + <p>An elderly, hard-featured man came.</p> + + <p>"Stephen is in one of his fits," she said.</p> + + <p>The man looked about him: he could see no one in the room + but his mistress.</p> + + <p>"There he is," she continued, pointing to the floor. "Take + him away. Get him up to the loft and lay him in the hay."</p> + + <p>The man lifted his master like an unwieldy log and carried + him, convulsed, from the room.</p> + + <p>Stephen's mother sat down again by the fire and resumed her + knitting.</p> + + <h3>CHAPTER LXV.</h3> + + <h3>THE LAIRD'S VISION.</h3> + + <p>Malcolm had just seen his master set out for his solitary + ride when one of the maids informed him that a man from + Kirkbyres wanted him. Hiding his + <span class="pagenum"><a name="page69" + id="page69"></a>[pg 69]</span> reluctance, he went with her + and found Tom, who was Mrs. Stewart's grieve and had been + about the place all his days.</p> + + <p>"Mr. Stephen's come hame, sir," he said, touching his + bonnet, a civility for which Malcolm was not grateful.</p> + + <p>"It's no possible," returned Malcolm. "I saw him last + nicht."</p> + + <p>"He cam aboot ten o'clock, sir, an' hed a turn o' the fa'in' + sickness o' the spot. He's verra ill the noo, an' the mistress + sent me ower to speir gien ye wad obleege her by gaein' to see + him."</p> + + <p>"Has he ta'en till's bed?" asked Malcolm.</p> + + <p>"We pat him infill 't, sir. He's ravin' mad, an' I'm + thinkin' he's no far frae his hin'er en'."</p> + + <p>"I'll gang wi' ye direckly," said Malcolm.</p> + + <p>In a few minutes they were riding fast along the road to + Kirkbyres, neither with much to say to the other, for Malcolm + distrusted every one about the place, and Tom was by nature + taciturn.</p> + + <p>"What garred them sen' for me, div ye ken?" asked Malcolm at + length when they had gone about halfway.</p> + + <p>"He cried oot upo' ye i' the nicht," answered Tom.</p> + + <p>When they arrived Malcolm was shown into the drawing-room, + where Mrs. Stewart met him with red eyes. "Will you come and + see my poor boy?" she said.</p> + + <p>"I wull du that, mem. Is he verra ill?"</p> + + <p>"Very. I'm afraid he is in a bad way."</p> + + <p>She led him to a dark, old-fashioned chamber, rich and + gloomy. There, sunk in the down of a huge bed with carved ebony + posts, lay the laird, far too ill to be incommoded by the + luxury to which he was unaccustomed. His head kept tossing from + side to side and his eyes seemed searching in vacancy.</p> + + <p>"Has the doctor been to see 'im, mem?" asked Malcolm.</p> + + <p>"Yes, but he says he can't do anything for him."</p> + + <p>"Wha waits upon 'im, mem?"</p> + + <p>"One of the maids and myself."</p> + + <p>"I'll jist bide wi' 'im."</p> + + <p>"That will be very kind of you."</p> + + <p>"I s' bide wi' 'im till I see 'im oot o' this, ae w'y or + ither,", added Malcolm, and sat down by the bedside of his poor + distrustful friend. There Mrs. Stewart left him.</p> + + <p>The laird was wandering in the thorny thickets and slimy + marshes which, haunted by the thousand misshapen horrors of + delirium, beset the gates of life. That one so near the light + and slowly drifting into it should lie tossing in hopeless + darkness! Is it that the delirium falls, a veil of love, to + hide other and more real terrors?</p> + + <p>His eyes would now and then meet those of Malcolm as they + gazed tenderly upon him, but the living thing that looked out + of the windows was darkened and saw him not. Occasionally a + word would fall from him, or a murmur of half-articulation + float up like the sound of a river of souls; but whether + Malcolm heard, or only seemed to hear, something like this, he + could not tell, for he could not be certain that he had not + himself shaped the words by receiving the babble into the + moulds of the laird's customary thought and speech: "I dinna + ken whaur I cam frae—I kenna whaur I'm gaein' + till.—Eh, gien He wad but come oot an' shaw + Himsel'!—O Lord! tak the deevil aff o' my puir + back.—O Father o' lichts! gar him tak the hump wi' him. I + hae no fawvor for't, though it's been my constant compainion + this mony a lang."</p> + + <p>But in general he only moaned, and after the words thus + heard or fashioned by Malcolm lay silent and nearly still for + an hour.</p> + + <p>All the waning afternoon Malcolm sat by his side, and + neither mother, maid nor doctor came near them.</p> + + <p>"Dark wa's an' no a breath!" he murmured or seemed to murmur + again. "Nae gerse nor flooers nor bees! I hae na room for my + hump, an' I canna lie upo' 't, for that wad kill me. Wull I + <i>ever</i> ken whaur I cam frae? The wine's unco guid. Gie me + a drap mair, gien ye please, Lady Horn.—I thought the + grave was a better place. I hae lain safter afore I + dee'd.—Phemy! Phemy! Rin, Phemy, rin! I s' bide wi' them + this time. Ye rin, + Phemy!"</p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page70" + id="page70"></a>[pg 70]</span> + + <p>As it grew dark the air turned very chill, and snow began to + fall thick and fast. Malcolm laid a few sticks on the + smouldering peat-fire, but they were damp and did not catch. + All at once the laird gave a shriek, and crying out, "Mither! + mither!" fell into a fit so violent that the heavy bed shook + with his convulsions. Malcolm held his wrists and called aloud. + No one came, and, bethinking himself that none could help, he + waited in silence for what would soon follow.</p> + + <p>The fit passed quickly, and he lay quiet. The sticks had + meantime dried, and suddenly they caught fire and blazed up. + The laird turned his face toward the flame; a smile came over + it; his eyes opened wide, and with such an expression of seeing + gazed beyond Malcolm that he turned his in the same + direction.</p> + + <p>"Eh, the bonny man! The bonny man!" murmured the laird.</p> + + <p>But Malcolm saw nothing, and turned again to the laird: his + jaw had fallen, and the light was fading out of his face like + the last of a sunset. He was dead.</p> + + <p>Malcolm rang the bell, told the woman who answered it what + had taken place, and hurried from the house, glad at heart that + his friend was at rest.</p> + + <p>He had ridden but a short distance when he was overtaken by + a boy on a fast pony, who pulled up as he neared him.</p> + + <p>"Whaur are ye for?" asked Malcolm. "I'm gaein' for Mistress + Cat'nach," answered the boy.</p> + + <p>"Gang yer w'ys than, an' dinna haud the deid waitin'," said + Malcolm with a shudder.</p> + + <p>The boy cast a look of dismay behind him and galloped + off.</p> + + <p>The snow still fell and the night was dark. Malcolm spent + nearly two hours on the way, and met the boy returning, who + told him that Mrs. Catanach was not to be found.</p> + + <p>His road lay down the glen, past Duncan's cottage, at whose + door he dismounted, but he did not find him. Taking the bridle + on his arm, he walked by his horse the rest of the way. It was + about nine o'clock, and the night very dark. As he neared the + house, he heard Duncan's voice. "Malcolm, my son! Will it pe + your ownself?" it said.</p> + + <p>"It wull that, daddy," answered Malcolm.</p> + + <p>The piper was sitting on a fallen tree, with the snow + settling softly upon him.</p> + + <p>"But it's ower cauld for ye to be sittin' there i' the snaw, + an' the mirk tu," added Malcolm.</p> + + <p>"Ta tarkness will not be ketting to ta inside of her," + returned the seer. "Ah, my poy! where ta light kets in, ta + tarkness will pe ketting in too. This now, your whole pody will + pe full of tarkness, as ta Piple will say, and Tuncan's pody + tat will pe full of ta light." Then with suddenly changed tone + he said, "Listen, Malcolm, my son! Shell pe ferry uneasy till + you'll wass pe come home."</p> + + <p>"What's the maitter noo, daddy?" returned Malcolm. "Onything + wrang aboot the hoose?"</p> + + <p>"Something will pe wrong, yes, put she'll not can tell + where. No, her pody will not pe full of light! For town here, + in ta curset Lowlands, ta sight has peen almost cone from her, + my son. It will now pe no more as a co creeping troo' her, and + shell nefer see plain no more till she'll pe come pack to her + own mountains."</p> + + <p>"The puir laird's gane back to his," said Malcolm. "I won'er + gien he kens yet, or gien he gangs speirin' at ilk ane he meets + gien he can tell him whaur he cam frae. He's mad nae mair, ony + gait."</p> + + <p>"How? Will he pe not tead? Ta poor lairt! Ta poor maad + lairt!"</p> + + <p>"Ay, he's deid: maybe that's what'll be troublin' yer sicht, + daddy."</p> + + <p>"No, my son. Ta maad lairt was not ferry maad, and if he was + maad he was not paad, and it was not ta plame of him: he was + coot always, howefer."</p> + + <p>"He wass that, daddy."</p> + + <p>"But it will pe something ferry paad, and it will pe efer + troubling her speerit. When she'll pe take ta pipes to pe + amusing herself, and will plow 'Till an crodh a' Dhonnaehaidh' + ('Turn the Cows, Duncan'), out will pe come' Cumhadh an fhir + <span class="pagenum"><a name="page71" + id="page71"></a>[pg 71]</span> mhoir' ('The Lament of the + Big Man'). Aal is not well, my son."</p> + + <p>"Weel, dinna distress yersel', daddy. Lat come what wull + come. Foreseein' 's no forefen'in'. Ye ken yersel' at mony 's + the time the seer has broucht the thing on by tryin' to haud it + aff."</p> + + <p>"It will be true, my son. Put it would aalways haf + come."</p> + + <p>"Nae doubt. Sae ye jist come in wi' me, daddy, an' sit doon + by the ha' fire, an' I'll come to ye as sune's I've been to see + 'at the maister disna want me. But ye'll better come up wi' me + to my room first," he went on, "for the maister disna like to + see me in onything but the kilt."</p> + + <p>"And why will he not pe in ta kilts aal as now?"</p> + + <p>"I hae been ridin', ye ken, daddy, an' the trews fits the + saiddle better nor the kilts."</p> + + <p>"She'll not pe knowing tat. Old Allister, your + creat—her own crandfather, was ta pest horseman ta worlt + efer saw, and he'll nefer pe hafing ta trews to his own lecks + nor ta saddle to his horse's pack. He'll chust make his men pe + strap on an old plaid, and he'll be kive a chump, and away they + wass, horse and man, one peast, aal two of tem poth + together."</p> + + <p>Thus chatting, they went to the stable, and from the stable + to the house, where they met no one, and went straight up to + Malcolm's room, the old man making as little of the long ascent + as Malcolm himself.</p> + + <h3>CHAPTER LXVI.</h3> + + <h3>THE CRY FROM THE CHAMBER.</h3> + + <p>Brooding—if a man of his temperament may ever be said + to brood—over the sad history of his young wife and the + prospects of his daughter, the marquis rode over fields and + through gates—he never had been one to jump a fence in + cold blood—till the darkness began to fall; and the + bearings of his perplexed position came plainly before him.</p> + + <p>First of all, Malcolm acknowledged and the date of his + mother's death known, what would Florimel be in the eyes of the + world? Supposing the world deceived by the statement that his + mother died when he was born, where yet was the future he had + marked out for her? He had no money to leave her, and she must + be helplessly dependent on her brother.</p> + + <p>Malcolm, on the other hand, might make a good match, or, + with the advantages he could secure him in the army, still + better in the navy, well enough push his way in the world.</p> + + <p>Miss Horn could produce no testimony, and Mrs. Catanach had + asserted him to be the son of Mrs. Stewart. He had seen enough, + however, to make him dread certain possible results if Malcolm + were acknowledged as the laird of Kirkbyres. No: there was but + one hopeful measure, one which he had even already approached + in a tentative way—an appeal, namely, to Malcolm himself, + in which, while acknowledging his probable rights, but + representing in the strongest manner the difficulty of proving + them, he would set forth in their full dismay the consequences + to Florimel of their public recognition, and offer, upon the + pledge of his word to a certain line of conduct, to start him + in any path he chose to follow.</p> + + <p>Having thought the thing out pretty thoroughly, as he + fancied, and resolved at the same time to feel his way toward + negotiations with Mistress Catanach, he turned and rode + home.</p> + + <p>After a tolerable dinner he was sitting over a bottle of the + port which he prized beyond anything else his succession had + brought him, when the door of the dining-room opened suddenly + and the butler appeared, pale with terror. "My lord! my lord!" + he stammered as he closed the door behind him.</p> + + <p>"Well? What the devil's the matter now? Whose cow's + dead?"</p> + + <p>"Your lordship didn't hear it, then?" faltered the + butler.</p> + + <p>"You've been drinking, Bings," said the marquis, lifting his + seventh glass of port.</p> + + <p>"<i>I</i> didn't say I heard it, my lord."</p> + + <p>"Heard what, in the name of + Beelzebub?"</p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page72" + id="page72"></a>[pg 72]</span> + + <p>"The ghost, my lord."</p> + + <p>"The what?" shouted the marquis.</p> + + <p>"That's what they call it, my lord. It's all along of having + that wizard's chamber in the house, my lord."</p> + + <p>"You're a set of fools," said the marquis—"the whole + kit of you!"</p> + + <p>"That's what I say, my lord. I don't know what to do with + them, stericking and screaming. Mrs. Courthope is trying her + best with them, but it's my belief she's about as bad + herself."</p> + + <p>The marquis finished his glass of wine, poured out and drank + another, then walked to the door. When the butler opened it a + strange sight met his eyes. All the servants in the house, men + and women, Duncan and Malcolm alone excepted, had crowded after + the butler, every one afraid of being left behind; and there + gleamed the crowd of ghastly faces in the light of the great + hall-fire. Demon stood in front, his mane bristling and his + eyes flaming. Such was the silence that the marquis heard the + low howl of the waking wind, and the snow like the patting of + soft hands against the windows. He stood for a moment, more + than half enjoying their terror, when from somewhere in the + building a far-off shriek, shrill and piercing, rang in every + ear. Some of the men drew in their breath with a gasping sob, + but most of the women screamed outright; and that set the + marquis cursing.</p> + + <p>Duncan and Malcolm had but just entered the bed-room of the + latter when the shriek rent the air close beside, and for a + moment deafened them. So agonized, so shrill, so full of dismal + terror was it, that Malcolm stood aghast, and Duncan started to + his feet with responsive outcry. But Malcolm at once recovered + himself. "Bide here till I come back," he whispered, and + hurried noiselessly out.</p> + + <p>In a few minutes he returned, during which all had been + still. "Noo, daddy," he said, "I'm gaein' to drive in the door + o' the neist room. There's some deevilry at wark there. Stan' + ye i' the door, an' ghaist or deevil 'at wad win by ye, grip + it, an' haud on like Demon the dog."</p> + + <p>"She will so, she will so," muttered Duncan in a strange + tone. "Ochone! that she'll not pe hafing her turk with her! + Ochone! ochone!"</p> + + <p>Malcolm took the key of the wizard's chamber from his chest + and his candle from the table, which he set down in the + passage. In a moment he had unlocked the door, put his shoulder + to it and burst it open. A light was extinguished, and a + shapeless figure went gliding away through the gloom. It was no + shadow, however, for, dashing itself against a door at the + other side of the chamber, it staggered back with an + imprecation of fury and fear, pressed two hands to its head, + and, turning at bay, revealed the face of Mrs. Catanach.</p> + + <p>In the door stood the blind piper with outstretched arms and + hands ready to clutch, the fingers curved like claws, his knees + and haunches bent, leaning forward like a rampant beast + prepared to spring. In his face was wrath, hatred, vengeance, + disgust—an enmity of all mingled kinds.</p> + + <p>Malcolm was busied with something in the bed, and when she + turned Mrs, Catanach saw only Duncan's white face of hatred + gleaming through the darkness. "Ye auld donnert deevil!" she + cried, with an addition too coarse to be set down, and threw + herself upon him.</p> + + <p>The old man said never a word, but with indrawn breath + hissing through his clenched teeth clutched her, and down they + went together in the passage, the piper undermost. He had her + by the throat, it is true, but she had her fingers in his eyes, + and, kneeling on his chest, kept him down with a vigor of + hostile effort that drew the very picture of murder. It lasted + but a moment, however, for the old man, spurred by torture as + well as hate, gathered what survived of a most sinewy strength + into one huge heave, threw her back into the room, and rose + with the blood streaming from his eyes, just as the marquis + came round the near end of the passage, followed by Mrs. + Courthope, the butler, Stoat and two of the footmen. Heartily + enjoying a row, he stopped instantly, and, signing a halt to + his followers, stood listening to the + <span class="pagenum"><a name="page73" + id="page73"></a>[pg 73]</span> mud-geyser that now burst + from Mrs. Catanach's throat.</p> + + <p>"Ye blin' abortion o' Sawtan's soo!" she cried, "didna I tak + ye to du wi' ye as I likit? An' that deil's tripe ye ca' yer + oye (<i>grandson</i>)—He! he! <i>him</i> yer gran'son! + He's naething but ane o' yer hatit Cawm'ells!"</p> + + <p>"A teanga a' diabhuil mhoir, tha thu ag dènamh breug + (O tongue of the great devil! thou art making a lie)," screamed + Duncan, speaking for the first time.</p> + + <p>"God lay me deid i' my sins gien he be onything but a + bastard Cawm'ell!" she asseverated with a laugh of demoniacal + scorn. "Yer dautit (<i>petted</i>) Ma'colm's naething but the + dyke-side brat o' the late Grizel Cawm'ell, 'at the fowk tuik + for a sant 'cause she grat an' said naething. I laid the + Cawm'ell pup i' yer boody (<i>scarecrow</i>) airms wi' my ain + han's, upo' the tap o' yer curst scraighin' bagpipes 'at sae + aften drave the sleep frae my een. Na, ye wad nane o' me! But I + ga'e ye a Cawm'ell bairn to yer hert for a' that, ye auld, + hungert, weyver (<i>spider</i>)-leggit, worm-aten idiot!"</p> + + <p>A torrent of Gaelic broke from Duncan, into the midst of + which rushed another from Mrs. Catanach, similar, but coarse in + vowel and harsh in consonant sounds. The marquis stepped into + the room. "What is the meaning of all this?" he said with + dignity.</p> + + <p>The tumult of Celtic altercation ceased. The old piper drew + himself up to his full height and stood silent. Mrs. Catanach, + red as fire with exertion and wrath, turned ashy pale. The + marquis cast on her a searching and significant look.</p> + + <p>"See here, my lord," said Malcolm.</p> + + <p>Candle in hand, his lordship approached the bed. At the same + moment Mrs. Catanach glided out with her usual downy step, gave + a wink as of mutual intelligence to the group at the door, and + vanished.</p> + + <p>On Malcolm's arm lay the head of a young girl. Her thin, + worn countenance was stained with tears and livid with + suffocation. She was recovering, but her eyes rolled stupid and + visionless.</p> + + <p>"It's Phemy, my lord—Blue Peter's lassie, 'at was + tint," said Malcolm.</p> + + <p>"It begins to look serious," said the marquis.—"Mrs. + Catanach! Mrs. Courthope!"</p> + + <p>He turned toward the door. Mrs. Courthope entered, and a + head or two peeped in after her. Duncan stood as before, drawn + up and stately, his visage working, but his body motionless as + the statue of a sentinel.</p> + + <p>"Where is the Catanach woman gone?" cried the marquis.</p> + + <p>"Cone!" shouted the piper. "Cone! and her huspant will be + waiting to pe killing her! Och nan ochan!"</p> + + <p>"Her husband!" echoed the marquis.</p> + + <p>"Ach! she'll not can pe helping it, my lort—no more + till one will pe tead; and tat should pe ta woman, for she'll + pe a paad woman—ta worstest woman efer was married, my + lort."</p> + + <p>"That's saying a good deal," returned the marquis.</p> + + <p>"Not one wort more as enough, my lort," said Duncan. "She + was only pe her next wife, put, ochone! ochone! why did she'll + pe marry her? You would haf stapt her long aco, my lort, if + she'll was your wife and you was knowing ta tamned fox and + padger she was pe. Ochone! and she tidn't pe have her turk at + her hench nor her sgian in her hose."</p> + + <p>He shook his hands like a despairing child, then stamped and + wept in the agony of frustrated rage.</p> + + <p>Mrs. Courthope took Phemy in her arms and carried her to her + own room, where she opened the window and let the snowy wind + blow full upon her. As soon as she came quite to herself, + Malcolm set out to bear the good tidings to her father and + mother.</p> + + <p>Only a few nights before had Phemy been taken to the room + where they found her. She had been carried from place to place, + and had been some time, she believed, in Mrs. Catanach's own + house. They had always kept her in the dark, and removed her at + night blindfolded. When asked if she had never cried out + before, she said she had been too frightened; and when + questioned as to what had made her do so then, she knew nothing + of it: she remembered only that a horrible creature appeared by + the bedside, <span class="pagenum"><a name="page74" + id="page74"></a>[pg 74]</span> after which all was blank. On + the floor they found a hideous death-mask, doubtless the + cause of the screams which Mrs. Catanach had sought to + stifle with the pillows and bed-clothes.</p> + + <p>When Malcolm returned he went at once to the piper's + cottage, where he found him in bed, utterly exhausted and as + utterly restless. "Weel, daddy," he said, "I doobt I daurna + come near ye noo."</p> + + <p>"Come to her arms, my poor poy," faltered Duncan. "She'll pe + sorry in her sore heart for her poy. Nefer you pe minding, my + son: you couldn't help ta Cam'ell mother, and you'll pe her own + poy however. Ochone! it will pe a plot upon you aal your tays, + my son, and she'll not can help you, and it'll pe preaking her + old heart."</p> + + <p>"Gien God thoucht the Cam'ells worth makin', daddy, I dinna + see 'at I hae ony richt to compleen 'at I cam' o' them."</p> + + <p>"She hopes you'll pe forgifing ta plind old man, however. + She couldn't see, or she would haf known at once petter."</p> + + <p>"I dinna ken what ye're efter noo, daddy," said Malcolm.</p> + + <p>"That she'll do you a creat wrong, and she'll be ferry sorry + for it, my son."</p> + + <p>"What wrang did ye ever du me, daddy?"</p> + + <p>"That she was let you crow up a Cam'ell, my poy. If she tid + put know ta paad blood was pe in you, she wouldn't pe tone you + ta wrong as pring you up."</p> + + <p>"That's a wrang no ill to forgi'e, daddy. But it's a pity ye + didna lat me lie, for maybe syne Mistress Catanach wad hae + broucht me up hersel', an' I micht hae come to something."</p> + + <p>"Ta duvil mhor (<i>great</i>) would pe in your heart and + prain and poosom, my son."</p> + + <p>"Weel, ye see what ye hae saved me frae."</p> + + <p>"Yes; put ta duvil will be to pay, for she couldn't safe you + from ta Cam'ell plood, my son. Malcolm, my poy," he added after + a pause, and with the solemnity of a mighty hate, "ta efil + woman herself will pe a Cam'ell—ta woman Catanach will pe + a Cam'ell, and her nainsel' she'll not know it pefore she'll be + in ta ped with ta worstest Cam'ell tat ever God made; and she + pecks his pardon, for she'll not pelieve He wass making ta + Cam'ells."</p> + + <p>"Divna ye think God made me, daddy?" asked Malcolm.</p> + + <p>The old man thought for a little. "Tat will tepend on who + was pe your father, my son," he replied. "If he too will be a + Cam'ell—ochone! ochone! Put tere may pe some coot plood + co into you—more as enough to say God will pe make you, + my son. Put don't pe asking, Malcolm—ton't you'll pe + asking."</p> + + <p>"What am I no to ask, daddy?"</p> + + <p>"Ton't pe asking who made you, who was ta father to you, my + poy. She would rather not pe knowing, for ta man might pe a + Cam'ell poth. And if she couldn't pe lofing you no more, my + son, she would pe tie before her time, and her tays would pe + long in ta land under ta crass, my son."</p> + + <p>But the remembrance of the sweet face whose cold loveliness + he had once kissed was enough to outweigh with Malcolm all the + prejudices of Duncan's instillation, and he was proud to take + up even her shame. To pass from Mrs. Stewart to her was to + escape from the clutches of a vampire demon to the arms of a + sweet mother-angel.</p> + + <p>Deeply concerned for the newly-discovered misfortunes of the + old man to whom he was indebted for this world's life at least, + he anxiously sought to soothe him; but he had far more and far + worse to torment him than Malcolm even yet knew, and with + burning cheeks and bloodshot eyes he lay tossing from side to + side, now uttering terrible curses in Gaelic and now weeping + bitterly. Malcolm took his loved pipes, and with the gentlest + notes he could draw from them tried to charm to rest the + ruffled waters of his spirit; but his efforts were all in vain, + and believing at length that he would be quieter without him, + he went to the House and to his own room.</p> + + <p>The door of the adjoining chamber stood open, and the + long-forbidden room lay exposed to any eye. Little did Malcolm + think as he gazed around it that it was the room in which he + had first breathed <span class="pagenum"><a name="page75" + id="page75"></a>[pg 75]</span> the air of the world; in + which his mother had wept over her own false position and + his reported death; and from which he had been carried, by + Duncan's wicked wife, down the ruinous stair and away to the + lip of the sea, to find a home in the arms of the man whom + he had just left on his lonely couch torn between the + conflicting emotions of a gracious love for him and the + frightful hate of her.</p> + + <h3>CHAPTER LXVII.</h3> + + <h3>FEET OF WOOL.</h3> + + <p>The next day, Miss Horn, punctual as Fate, presented herself + at Lossie House, and was shown at once into the marquis's + study, as it was called. When his lordship entered she took the + lead the moment the door was shut. "By this time, my lord, + ye'll doobtless hae made up yer min' to du what's richt?" she + said.</p> + + <p>"That's what I have always wanted to do," returned the + marquis.</p> + + <p>"Hm!" remarked Miss Horn as plainly as inarticulately.</p> + + <p>"In this affair," he supplemented; adding, "It's not always + so easy to tell what <i>is</i> right."</p> + + <p>"It's no aye easy to luik for 't wi' baith yer een," said + Miss Horn.</p> + + <p>"This woman Catanach—we must get her to give credible + testimony. Whatever the fact may be, we must have strong + evidence. And there comes the difficulty, that she has already + made an altogether different statement."</p> + + <p>"It gangs for naething, my lord. It was never made afore a + justice o' the peace."</p> + + <p>"I wish you would go to her and see how she is + inclined."</p> + + <p>"Me gang to Bawbie Catanach!" exclaimed Miss Horn. "I wad as + sune gang an' kittle Sawtan's nose wi' the p'int o' 's tail. + Na, na, my lord. Gien onybody gang till her wi' my wull, it s' + be a limb o' the law. I s' hae nae cognostin' wi' her."</p> + + <p>"You would have no objection, however; to my seeing her, I + presume—just to let her know that we have an inkling of + the truth?" said the marquis.</p> + + <p>Now, all this was the merest talk, for of course Miss Horn + could not long remain in ignorance of the declaration her fury + had, the night previous, forced from Mrs. Catanach; but he + must, he thought, put her off and keep her quiet, if possible, + until he had come to an understanding with Malcolm, after which + he would no doubt have his trouble with her.</p> + + <p>"Ye can du as yer lordship likes," answered Miss Horn, "but + I wadna hae 't said o' me 'at I had ony dealin's wi' her. Wha + kens but she micht say ye tried to bribe her? There's naething + she wad bogle at gien she thoucht it worth her while. No 'at I + 'm feart at her. Lat her lee! I'm no sae blate but—Only + dinna lippen till a word she says, my lord."</p> + + <p>The marquis hesitated. "I wonder whether the real source of + my perplexity occurs to you, Miss Horn," he said at length. + "You know I have a daughter?"</p> + + <p>"Weel eneuch that, my lord."</p> + + <p>"By my second marriage."</p> + + <p>"Nae merridge ava', my lord."</p> + + <p>"True, if I confess to the first."</p> + + <p>"A' the same whether or no, my lord."</p> + + <p>"Then you see," the marquis went on, refusing offence, "what + the admission of your story would make of my daughter?"</p> + + <p>"That's plain eneuch, my lord."</p> + + <p>"Now, if I have read Malcolm right he has too much regard + for his—mistress—to put her in such a false + position."</p> + + <p>"That is, my lord, ye wad hae yer lawfu' son beir the + lawless name."</p> + + <p>"No, no: it need never come out what he is. I will provide + for him—as a gentleman, of course."</p> + + <p>"It canna be, my lord. Ye can du naething for him, wi' that + face o' his, but oot comes the trouth as to the father o' 'im; + an' it wadna be lang afore the tale was ekit oot wi' the name + o' his mither—Mistress Catanach wad see to that, gien + 'twas only to spite me—an' I wunna hae my Grizel ca'd + what she is not for ony lord's dauchter i' the three + kynriks."</p> + + <p>"What <i>does</i> it matter, now she's dead and gone?" said + the marquis, false to the dead in his love for the + living.</p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page76" + id="page76"></a>[pg 76]</span> + + <p>"Deid an' gane, my lord? What ca' ye deid an' gane? Maybe + the great anes o' the yerth get sic a forlethie + (<i>surfeit</i>) o' grand'ur 'at they're for nae mair, an' wad + perish like the brute beast. For onything I ken, they may hae + their wuss, but for mysel', I wad warstle to haud my sowl + waukin' (<i>awake</i>) i' the verra article o' deith, for the + bare chance o' seein' my bonny Grizel again. It's a mercy I hae + nae feelin's," she added, arresting her handkerchief on its way + to her eyes, and refusing to acknowledge the single tear that + ran down her cheek.</p> + + <p>Plainly she was not like any of the women whose characters + the marquis had accepted as typical of womankind.</p> + + <p>"Then you won't leave the matter to her husband and son?" he + said reproachfully.</p> + + <p>"I tellt ye, my lord, I wad du naething but what I saw to be + richt. Lat this affair oot o' my han's I daurna. That laad ye + micht work to onything 'at made agane himsel'. He's jist like + his puir mither there."</p> + + <p>"If Miss Campbell <i>was</i> his mother," said the + marquis.</p> + + <p>"Miss Cam'ell!" cried Miss Horn. "I'll thank yer lordship to + ca' her by her ain, an' that's Lady Lossie."</p> + + <p>What of the something ruinous heart of the marquis was + habitable was occupied by his daughter, and had no + accommodation at present either for his dead wife or his living + son. Once more he sat thinking in silence for a while. "I'll + make Malcolm a post-captain in the navy and give you a thousand + pounds," he said at length, hardly knowing that he spoke.</p> + + <p>Miss Horn rose to her full height and stood like an angel of + rebuke before him. Not a word did she speak, only looked at him + for a moment and turned to leave the room. The marquis saw his + danger, and striding to the door stood with his back against + it.</p> + + <p>"Think ye to scare <i>me</i>, my lord?" she asked with a + scornful laugh. "Gang an' scare the stane lion-beast at yer + ha'-door. Haud oot o' the gait an' lat me gang."</p> + + <p>"Not until I know what you are going to do," said the + marquis very seriously.</p> + + <p>"I hae naething mair to transac' wi' yer lordship. You an' + me 's strangers, my lord."</p> + + <p>"Tut! tut! I was but trying you."</p> + + <p>"An' gien I had ta'en the disgrace ye offert me, ye wad hae + drawn back?"</p> + + <p>"No, certainly."</p> + + <p>"Ye wasna tryin' me, then: ye was duin' yer best to corrup' + me."</p> + + <p>"I'm no splitter of hairs."</p> + + <p>"My lord, it's nane but the corrup'ible wad seek to + corrup'."</p> + + <p>The marquis gnawed a nail or two in silence. Miss Horn + dragged an easy-chair within a couple of yards of him.</p> + + <p>"We'll see wha tires o' this ghem first, my lord," she said + as she sank into its hospitable embrace.</p> + + <p>The marquis turned to lock the door, but there was no key in + it. Neither was there any chair within reach, and he was not + fond of standing. Clearly, his enemy had the advantage.</p> + + <p>"Hae ye h'ard o' puir Sandy Graham—hoo they're + misguidin' him, my lord?" she asked with composure.</p> + + <p>The marquis was first astounded, and then tickled by her + assurance. "No," he answered.</p> + + <p>"They hae turnt him oot o' hoose an' ha'—schuil, at + least, an' hame," she rejoined. "I may say they hae turnt him + oot o' Scotlan', for what presbytery wad hae him efter he had + been fun' guilty o' no thinkin' like ither fowk? Ye maun stan' + his guid freen', my lord."</p> + + <p>"He shall be Malcolm's tutor," answered the marquis, not to + be outdone in coolness, "and go with him to Edinburgh—or + Oxford, if he prefers it."</p> + + <p>"Never yerl o' Colonsay had a better," said Miss Horn.</p> + + <p>"Softly, softly, ma'am," returned the marquis. "I did not + say he should go in that style."</p> + + <p>"He s' gang as my lord o' Colonsay or he s' no gang at + <i>your</i> expense, my lord," said his antagonist.</p> + + <p>"Really, ma'am, one would think you were my grandmother, to + hear you order my affairs for me."</p> + + <p>"I wuss I war, my lord: I sud gar ye hear risson upo' baith + sides o' yer heid, I s' warran'."</p> + + <p>The marquis laughed. "Well, I can't + <span class="pagenum"><a name="page77" + id="page77"></a>[pg 77]</span> stand here all day," he said, + impatiently swinging one leg.</p> + + <p>"I'm weel awaur o' that, my lord," answered Miss Horn, + rearranging her scanty skirt.</p> + + <p>"How long are you going to keep me, then?"</p> + + <p>"I wadna hae ye bide a meenute langer nor's agreeable to + yersel'. But <i>I</i>'m in nae hurry sae lang's ye're afore me. + Ye're nae ill to luik at, though ye maun hae been bonnier the + day ye wan the hert o' my Grizel."</p> + + <p>The marquis uttered an oath and left the door. Miss Horn + sprang to it, but there was the marquis again. "Miss Horn," he + said, "I beg you will give me another day to think of + this."</p> + + <p>"Whaur's the use? A' the thinkin' i' the warl' canna alter a + single fac'. Ye maun do richt by my laddie o' yer ainsel', or I + maun gar ye."</p> + + <p>"You would find a lawsuit heavy, Miss Horn."</p> + + <p>"An' ye wad fin' the scandal o' 't ill to bide, my lord. It + wad come sair upo' Miss—I kenna what name she has a richt + till, my lord."</p> + + <p>The marquis uttered a frightful imprecation, left the door, + and, sitting down, hid his face in his hands.</p> + + <p>Miss Horn rose, but instead of securing her retreat, + approached him gently and stood by his side. "My lord," she + said, "I canna thole to see a man in tribble. Women's born till + 't, an' they tak it an' are thankfu'; but a man never gies in + till 't, an' sae it comes harder upo' him nor upo' them. Hear + me, my lord: gien there be a man upo' this earth wha wad shield + a woman, that man's Ma'colm Colonsay."</p> + + <p>"If only she weren't his sister!" murmured the marquis.</p> + + <p>"An' jist bethink ye, my lord: wad it be onything less nor + an imposition to lat a man merry her ohn tellt him what she + was?"</p> + + <p>"You insolent old woman!" cried the marquis, losing his + temper, discretion and manners all together. "Go and do your + worst, and be damned to you!"</p> + + <p>So saying, he left the room, and Miss Horn found her way out + of the house in a temper quite as fierce as his—in + character, however, entirely different, inasmuch as it was + righteous.</p> + + <p>At that very moment Malcolm was in search of his master, and + seeing the back of him disappear in the library, to which he + had gone in a half-blind rage, he followed him. "My lord!" he + said.</p> + + <p>"What do you want?" returned his master in a rage. For some + time he had been hauling on the curb-rein, which had fretted + his temper the more, and when he let go the devil ran away with + him.</p> + + <p>"I thoucht yer lordship wad like to see an auld stair I cam + upo' the ither day, 'at gangs frae the wizard's + chaumer—"</p> + + <p>"Go to hell with your damned tomfoolery!" said the marquis. + "If ever you mention that cursed hole again I'll kick you out + of the house."</p> + + <p>Malcolm's eyes flashed and a fierce answer rose to his lips, + but he had seen that his master was in trouble, and sympathy + supplanted rage. He turned and left the room in silence.</p> + + <p>Lord Lossie paced up and down the library for a whole + hour—a long time for him to be in one mood. The mood + changed color pretty frequently during the hour, however, and + by degrees his wrath assuaged. But at the end of it he knew no + more what he was going to do than when he left Miss Horn in the + study. Then came the gnawing of his usual ennui and + restlessness: he must find something to do.</p> + + <p>The thing he always thought of first was a ride, but the + only animal of horse-kind about the place which he liked was + the bay mare, and her he had lamed. He would go and see what + the rascal had come bothering about—alone, though, for he + could not endure the sight of the fisher-fellow, damn him!</p> + + <p>In a few minutes he stood in the wizard's chamber, and + glanced around it with a feeling of discomfort rather than + sorrow—of annoyance at the trouble of which it had been + for him both fountain and storehouse, rather than regret for + the agony and contempt which his selfishness had brought upon + the woman he loved: then spying the door in the farthest + corner, he made for it, and in a + <span class="pagenum"><a name="page78" + id="page78"></a>[pg 78]</span> moment more, his curiosity + now thoroughly roused, was slowly gyrating down the steps of + the old screw-stair.</p> + + <p>But Malcolm had gone to his own room, and, hearing some one + in the next, half suspected who it was, and went in. Seeing the + closet-door open, he hurried to the stair, and shouted, "My + lord! my lord! or whaever ye are! tak care hoo ye gang or ye'll + get a terrible fa'."</p> + + <p>Down a single yard the stair was quite dark, and he dared + not follow fast for fear of himself falling and occasioning the + accident he feared. As he descended he kept repeating his + warnings, but either his master did not hear or heeded too + little, for presently Malcolm heard a rush, a dull fall and a + groan. Hurrying as fast as he dared with the risk of falling + upon him, he found the marquis lying amongst the stones in the + ground entrance, apparently unable to move, and white with + pain. Presently, however, he got up, swore a good deal and + limped swearing into the house.</p> + + <p>The doctor, who was sent for instantly, pronounced the + knee-cap injured, and applied leeches. Inflammation set in, and + another doctor and surgeon were sent for from Aberdeen. They + came, applied poultices, and again leeches, and enjoined the + strictest repose. The pain was severe, but to one of the + marquis's temperament the enforced quiet was worse.</p> + + <h3>CHAPTER LXVIII.</h3> + + <h3>HANDS OF IRON.</h3> + + <p>The marquis was loved by his domestics, and his accident, + with its consequences, although none more serious were + anticipated, cast a gloom over Lossie House. Far apart as was + his chamber from all the centres of domestic life, the pulses + of his suffering beat as it were through the house, and the + servants moved with hushed voice and gentle footfall.</p> + + <p>Outside, the course of events waited upon his recovery, for + Miss Horn, was too generous not to delay proceedings while her + adversary was ill. Besides, what she most of all desired was + the marquis's free acknowledgment of his son; and after such a + time of suffering and constrained reflection as he was now + passing through he could hardly fail, she thought, to be more + inclined to what was just and fair.</p> + + <p>Malcolm had of course hastened to the schoolmaster with the + joy of his deliverance from Mrs. Stewart, but Mr. Graham had + not acquainted him with the discovery Miss Horn had made, or + her belief concerning his large interest therein, to which + Malcolm's report of the wrath-born declaration of Mrs. Catanach + had now supplied the only testimony wanting, for the right of + disclosure was Miss Horn's. To her he had carried Malcolm's + narrative of late events, tenfold strengthening her position; + but she was anxious in her turn that the revelation concerning + his birth should come to him from his father. Hence, Malcolm + continued in ignorance of the strange dawn that had begun to + break on the darkness of his origin.</p> + + <p>Miss Horn had told Mr. Graham what the marquis had said + about the tutorship, but the schoolmaster only shook his head + with a smile, and went on with his preparations for + departure.</p> + + <p>The hours went by, the days lengthened into weeks, and the + marquis's condition did not improve. He had never known + sickness and pain before, and like most of the children of this + world counted them the greatest of evils; nor was there any + sign of their having as yet begun to open his eyes to what + those who have seen them call truths—those who have never + even boded their presence count absurdities.</p> + + <p>More and more, however, he desired the attendance of + Malcolm, who was consequently a great deal about him, serving + with a love to account for which those who knew his nature + would not have found it necessary to fall back on the instinct + of the relation between them. The marquis had soon satisfied + himself that that relation was as yet unknown to him, and was + all the better pleased with his devotion and + tenderness.</p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page79" + id="page79"></a>[pg 79]</span> + + <p>The inflammation continued, increased, spread, and at length + the doctors determined to amputate. But the marquis was + absolutely horrified at the idea—shrank from it with + invincible repugnance. The moment the first dawn of + comprehension vaguely illuminated their periphrastic approaches + he blazed out in a fury, cursed them frightfully, called them + all the contemptuous names in his rather limited vocabulary, + and swore he would see them—uncomfortable first.</p> + + <p>"We fear mortification, my lord," said the physician + calmly.</p> + + <p>"So do I. Keep it off," returned the marquis.</p> + + <p>"We fear we cannot, my lord." It had, in fact, already + commenced.</p> + + <p>"Let it mortify, then, and be damned," said his + lordship.</p> + + <p>"I trust, my lord, you will reconsider it," said the + surgeon. "We should not have dreamed of suggesting a measure of + such severity had we not had reason to dread that the further + prosecution of gentler means would but lessen your lordship's + chance of recovery."</p> + + <p>"You mean, then, that my life is in danger?"</p> + + <p>"We fear," said the physician, "that the amputation proposed + is the only thing that can save it."</p> + + <p>"What a brace of blasted bunglers you are!" cried the + marquis, and, turning away his face, lay silent.</p> + + <p>The two men looked at each other and said nothing.</p> + + <p>Malcolm was by, and a pang shot to his heart at the verdict. + The men retired to consult. Malcolm approached the bed. "My + lord!" he said gently.</p> + + <p>No reply came.</p> + + <p>"Dinna lea 's oor lanes, my lord—no yet," Malcolm + persisted. "What's to come o' my leddy?"</p> + + <p>The marquis gave a gasp. Still he made no reply.</p> + + <p>"She has naebody, ye ken, my lord, 'at ye wad like to lippen + her wi'."</p> + + <p>"You must take care of her when I am gone, Malcolm," + murmured the marquis; and his voice was now gentle with sadness + and broken with misery.</p> + + <p>"Me, my lord!" returned Malcolm. "Wha wad min' me? An' what + cud I du wi' her? I cudna even hand her ohn wat her feet. Her + leddy's maid cud du mair wi' her, though I wad lay doon my life + for her, as I tauld ye, my lord; an' she kens 't weel + eneuch."</p> + + <p>Silence followed. Both men were thinking.</p> + + <p>"Gie me a richt, my lord, an' I'll du my best," said + Malcolm, at length breaking the silence.</p> + + <p>"What do you mean?" growled the marquis, whose mood had + altered.</p> + + <p>"Gie me a legal richt, my lord, an' see gien I dinna."</p> + + <p>"See what?"</p> + + <p>"See gien I dinna luik weel efter my leddy."</p> + + <p>"How am I to see? I shall be dead and damned."</p> + + <p>"Please God, my lord, ye'll be alive an' weel—in a + better place, if no here to luik efter my leddy yersel'."</p> + + <p>"Oh, I dare say," muttered the marquis.</p> + + <p>"But ye'll hearken to the doctors, my lord," Malcolm went + on, "an' no dee wantin' time to consider o' 't."</p> + + <p>"Yes, yes: to-morrow I'll have another talk with them. We'll + see about it. There's time enough yet. They're all coxcombs, + every one of them. They never give a patient the least credit + for common sense."</p> + + <p>"I dinna ken, my lord," said Malcolm doubtfully.</p> + + <p>After a few minutes' silence, during which Malcolm thought + he had fallen asleep, the marquis resumed abruptly. "What do + you mean by giving you a legal right?" he said.</p> + + <p>"There's some w'y o' makin' ae body guairdian till anither, + sae 'at the law 'll uphaud him—isna there, my lord?"</p> + + <p>"Yes, surely. Well! Rather odd—wouldn't it be?—a + young fisher-lad guardian to a marchioness! Eh? They say + there's nothing new under the sun, but that sounds rather like + it, I think."</p> + + <p>Malcolm was overjoyed to hear him speak with something like + his old manner. He felt he could stand any amount of chaff from + him now, and so the proposition he had made in seriousness he + <span class="pagenum"><a name="page80" + id="page80"></a>[pg 80]</span> went on to defend in the hope + of giving amusement, yet with a secret wild delight in the + dream of such full devotion to the service of Lady + Florimel.</p> + + <p>"It wad soon' queer eneuch, my lord, nae doobt, but fowk + maunna min' the soon' o' a thing gien 't be a' straucht an' + fair, an' strong eneuch to stan'. They cudna lauch me oot o' my + richts, be they 'at they likit—Lady Bellair or ony o' + them—na, nor jaw me oot o' them aither."</p> + + <p>"They might do a good deal to render those rights of little + use," said the marquis.</p> + + <p>"That wad come till a trial o' brains, my lord," returned + Malcolm: "an' ye dinna think I wadna hae the wit to speir + advice; an', what's mair, to ken whan it was guid, an' tak it. + There's lawyers, my lord."</p> + + <p>"And their expenses?"</p> + + <p>"Ye cud lea' sae muckle to be waured (<i>spent</i>) upo' the + cairryin' oot o' yer lordship's wull."</p> + + <p>"Who would see that you applied it properly?"</p> + + <p>"My ain conscience, my lord, or Mr. Graham gien ye + likit."</p> + + <p>"And how would you live yourself?"</p> + + <p>"Ow! lea' ye that to me, my lord. Only dinna imagine I wad + be behauden to yer lordship. I houp I hae mair pride nor that. + Ilka poun'-not', shillin' an' bawbee sud be laid oot for + <i>her</i>, an' what was left hainet (<i>saved</i>) for + her."</p> + + <p>"By Jove! it's a daring proposal!" said the marquis; and, + which seemed strange to Malcolm, not a single thread of + ridicule ran through the tone in which he made the remark.</p> + + <p>The next day came, but brought neither strength of body nor + of mind with it. Again his professional attendants besought + him, and he heard them more quietly, but rejected their + proposition as positively as before. In a day or two he ceased + to oppose it, but would not hear of preparation. Hour glided + into hour, and days had gathered to a week, when they assailed + him with a solemn and last appeal.</p> + + <p>"Nonsense!" answered the marquis. "My leg is getting better. + I feel no pain—in fact, nothing but a little faintness. + Your damned medicines, I haven't a doubt."</p> + + <p>"You are in the greatest danger, my lord. It is all but too + late even now."</p> + + <p>"To-morrow, then, if it must be. To-day I could not endure + to have my hair cut, positively; and as to having my leg + off—pooh! the thing's preposterous."</p> + + <p>He turned white and shuddered, for all the nonchalance of + his speech.</p> + + <p>When to-morrow came there was not a surgeon in the land who + would have taken his leg off. He looked in their faces, and + seemed for the first time convinced of the necessity of the + measure.</p> + + <p>"You may do as you please," he said: "I am ready."</p> + + <p>"Not to-day, my lord," replied the doctor—"your + lordship is not equal to it to-day."</p> + + <p>"I understand," said the marquis, and paled frightfully and + turned his head aside.</p> + + <p>When Mrs. Courthope suggested that Lady Florimel should be + sent for, he flew into a frightful rage, and spoke as it is to + be hoped he had never spoken to a woman before. She took it + with perfect gentleness, but could not repress a tear. The + marquis saw it, and his heart was touched. "You mustn't mind a + dying man's temper," he said.</p> + + <p>"It's not for myself, my lord," she answered.</p> + + <p>"I know: you think I'm not fit to die; and, damn it! you are + right. Never one was less fit for heaven or less willing to go + to hell."</p> + + <p>"Wouldn't you like to see a clergyman, my lord?" she + suggested, sobbing.</p> + + <p>He was on the point of breaking out into a still worse + passion, but controlled himself. "A clergyman!" he cried: "I + would as soon see the undertaker. What could he do but tell me + I was going to be damned—a fact I know better than he + can? That is, if it's not all an invention of the cloth, as, in + my soul, I believe it is. I've said so any time these forty + years."</p> + + <p>"Oh, my lord! my lord! do not fling away your last + hope."</p> + + <p>"You imagine me to have a chance, then? Good soul! you don't + know any better."</p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page81" + id="page81"></a>[pg 81]</span> + + <p>"The Lord is merciful."</p> + + <p>The marquis laughed—that is, he tried, failed, and + grinned.</p> + + <p>"Mr. Cairns is in the dining-room, my lord."</p> + + <p>"Bah! A low pettifogger, with the soul of a bullock. Don't + let me hear the fellow's name. I've been bad enough, God knows, + but I haven't sunk to the level of <i>his</i> help yet. If he's + God Almighty's factor, and the saw holds, 'Like master, like + man,' well, I would rather have nothing to do with either."</p> + + <p>"That is, if you had the choice, my lord," said Mrs. + Courthope, her temper yielding somewhat, though in truth his + speech was not half so irreverent as it seemed to her.</p> + + <p>"Tell him to go to hell. No, don't: set him down to a bottle + of port and a great sponge-cake, and you needn't tell him to go + to heaven, for he'll be there already. Why, Mrs. Courthope, the + fellow isn't a gentleman. And yet all he cares for the cloth is + that he thinks it makes a gentleman of him—as if anything + in heaven, earth or hell could work that miracle!"</p> + + <p>In the middle of the night, as Malcolm sat by his bed, + thinking him asleep, the marquis spoke suddenly. "You must go + to Aberdeen to-morrow, Malcolm," he said.</p> + + <p>"Verra weel, my lord."</p> + + <p>"And bring Mr. Glennie, the lawyer, back with you."</p> + + <p>"Yes, my lord."</p> + + <p>"Go to bed, then."</p> + + <p>"I wad raither bide, my lord. I cudna sleep a wink for + wantin' to be back aside ye."</p> + + <p>The marquis yielded, and Malcolm sat by him all the night + through. He tossed about, would doze off and murmur strangely, + then wake up and ask for brandy and water, yet be content with + the lemonade Malcolm gave him.</p> + + <p>Next day he quarreled with every word that Mrs. Courthope + uttered, kept forgetting he had sent Malcolm away, and was + continually wanting him. His fits of pain were more severe, + alternated with drowsiness, which deepened at times to + stupor.</p> + + <p>It was late before Malcolm returned. He went instantly to + his bedside.</p> + + <p>"Is Mr. Glennie with you?" asked his master feebly.</p> + + <p>"Yes, my lord."</p> + + <p>"Tell him to come here at once."</p> + + <p>When Malcolm returned with the lawyer the marquis directed + him to place a table and chair by the bedside, light four + candles, provide everything necessary for writing and go to + bed.</p> + + <h3>CHAPTER LXIX.</h3> + + <h3>THE MARQUIS AND THE SCHOOLMASTER.</h3> + + <p>Before Malcolm was awake his lordship had sent for him. When + he re-entered the sick chamber Mr. Glennie had vanished, the + table had been removed, and, instead of the radiance of the + wax-lights, the cold gleam of a vapor-dimmed sun, with its + sickly blue-white reflex from the widespread snow, filled the + room. The marquis looked ghastly, but was sipping chocolate + with a spoon.</p> + + <p>"What w'y are ye the day, my lord?" asked Malcolm.</p> + + <p>"Nearly well," he answered; "but those cursed carrion-crows + are set upon killing me—damn their souls!"</p> + + <p>"We'll hae Leddy Florimel sweirin' awfu' gien ye gang on + that gait, my lord," said Malcolm.</p> + + <p>The marquis laughed feebly.</p> + + <p>"An' what's mair," Malcolm continued, "I doobt they're some + partic'lar aboot the turn o' their phrases up yonner, my + lord."</p> + + <p>The marquis looked at him keenly. "You don't anticipate that + inconvenience for me?" he said. "I'm pretty sure to have my + billet where they're not so precise."</p> + + <p>"Dinna brak my hert, my lord," cried Malcolm, the tears + rushing to his eyes.</p> + + <p>"I should be sorry to hurt you, Malcalm," rejoined the + marquis gently, almost tenderly. "I won't go there if I can + help it—I shouldn't like to break any more + hearts—but how the devil am I to keep out of it? Besides, + there are people up there I don't want to meet: I have no fancy + for being made ashamed <span class="pagenum"><a name="page82" + id="page82"></a>[pg 82]</span> of myself. The fact is, I'm + not fit for such company, and I don't believe there is any + such place. But if there be, I trust in God there isn't any + other, or it will go badly with your poor master, Malcolm. + It doesn't look <i>like</i> true—now does it? Only + such a multitude of things I thought I had done with for + ever keep coming up and grinning at me. It nearly drives me + mad, Malcolm; and I would fain die like a gentleman, with a + cool bow and a sharp face-about."</p> + + <p>"Wadna ye hae a word wi' somebody 'at kens, my lord?" said + Malcolm, scarcely able to reply.</p> + + <p>"No," answered the marquis fiercely. "That Cairns is a + fool."</p> + + <p>"He's a' that, an' mair, my lord. I didna mean + <i>him</i>."</p> + + <p>"They're all fools together."</p> + + <p>"Ow, na, my lord. There's a heap o' them no muckle better, + it may be; but there's guid men an' true amang them, or the + Kirk wad hae been wi' Sodom and Gomorrah by this time. But it's + no a minister I wad hae yer lordship confar wi'."</p> + + <p>"Who, then? Mrs. Courthope, eh?"</p> + + <p>"Ow na, my lord—no Mistress Courthoup. She's a guid + body, but she wadna believe her ain een gien onybody ca'd a + minister said contrar' to them."</p> + + <p>"Who the devil do you mean, then?"</p> + + <p>"Nae deevil, but an honest man 'at's been his warst enemy + sae lang 's I hae kent him—Maister Graham, the + schuil-maister."</p> + + <p>"Pooh!" said the marquis with a puff. "I'm too old to go to + school."</p> + + <p>"I dinna ken the man 'at isna a bairn till <i>him</i>, my + lord."</p> + + <p>"In Greek and Latin?"</p> + + <p>"I' richteousness an' trouth, my lord—in what's been + an' what is to be."</p> + + <p>"What! has he the second sight, like the piper?"</p> + + <p>"He <i>has</i> the second sicht, my lord, but ane 'at gangs + a sicht farther nor my auld daddy's."</p> + + <p>"He could tell me, then, what's going to become of me?"</p> + + <p>"As weel 's ony man, my lord."</p> + + <p>"That's not saying much, I fear."</p> + + <p>"Maybe mair nor ye think, my lord."</p> + + <p>"Well, take him my compliments and tell him I should like to + see him," said the marquis after a minute's silence.</p> + + <p>"He'll come direckly, my lord."</p> + + <p>"Of course he will," said the marquis.</p> + + <p>"Jist as readily, my lord, as he wad gang to ony tramp 'at + sent for 'im at sic a time," returned Malcolm, who did not + relish either the remark or its tone.</p> + + <p>"What do you mean by that? <i>You</i> don't think it such a + serious affair, do you?"</p> + + <p>"My lord, ye haena a chance."</p> + + <p>The marquis was dumb. He had actually begun once more to + buoy himself up with earthly hopes.</p> + + <p>Dreading a recall of his commission, Malcolm slipped from + the room, sent Mrs. Courthope to take his place, and sped to + the schoolmaster. The moment Mr. Graham heard the marquis's + message he rose without a word and led the way from the + cottage. Hardly a sentence passed between them as they went, + for they were on a solemn errand.</p> + + <p>"Mr. Graham's here, my lord," said Malcolm.</p> + + <p>"Where? Not in the room?" returned the marquis.</p> + + <p>"Waitin' at the door, my lord."</p> + + <p>"Bah! You needn't have been so ready. Have you told the + sexton to get a new spade? But you may let him in; and leave + him alone with me."</p> + + <p>Mr. Graham walked gently up to the bedside.</p> + + <p>"Sit down, sir," said the marquis courteously, pleased with + the calm, self-possessed, unobtrusive bearing of the man. "They + tell me I'm dying, Mr. Graham."</p> + + <p>"I'm sorry it seems to trouble you, my lord."</p> + + <p>"What! wouldn't it trouble you, then?"</p> + + <p>"I don't think so, my lord."</p> + + <p>"Ah! you're one of the elect, no doubt?"</p> + + <p>"That's a thing I never did think about, my lord."</p> + + <p>"What do you think about, then?"</p> + + <p>"About God."</p> + + <p>"And when you die you'll go straight to heaven, of + course?"</p> + + <p>"I don't know, my lord. That's + <span class="pagenum"><a name="page83" + id="page83"></a>[pg 83]</span> another thing I never trouble + my head about."</p> + + <p>"Ah! you're like me, then. <i>I</i> don't care much about + going to heaven. What do you care about?"</p> + + <p>"The will of God. I hope your lordship will say the + same."</p> + + <p>"No I won't: I want my own will."</p> + + <p>"Well, that is to be had, my lord."</p> + + <p>"How?"</p> + + <p>"By taking his for yours as the better of the two, which it + must be every way."</p> + + <p>"That's all moonshine."</p> + + <p>"It <i>is</i> light, my lord."</p> + + <p>"Well, I don't mind confessing, if I am to die, I should + prefer heaven to the other place, but I trust I have no chance + of either. Do you now honestly believe there are two such + places?"</p> + + <p>"I don't know, my lord."</p> + + <p>"You don't know? And you come here to comfort a dying + man!"</p> + + <p>"Your lordship must first tell me what you mean by 'two + <i>such</i> places.' And as to comfort, going by my notions, I + cannot tell which you would be more or less comfortable in; and + that, I presume, would be the main point with your + lordship."</p> + + <p>"And what, pray, sir, would be the main point with you?"</p> + + <p>"To get nearer to God."</p> + + <p>"Well, I can't say <i>I</i> want to get nearer to God. It's + little he's ever done for me."</p> + + <p>"It's a good deal he has tried to do for you, my lord."</p> + + <p>"Well, who interfered? Who stood in his way, then?"</p> + + <p>"Yourself, my lord."</p> + + <p>"I wasn't aware of it. When did he ever try to do anything + for me and I stood in his way?"</p> + + <p>"When he gave you one of the loveliest of women, my lord," + said Mr. Graham with solemn, faltering voice, "and you left her + to die in neglect and her child to be brought up by + strangers."</p> + + <p>The marquis gave a cry. The unexpected answer had roused the + slowly-gnawing death and made it bite deeper.</p> + + <p>"What have <i>you</i> to do," he almost screamed, "with my + affairs? It was for <i>me</i> to introduce what I chose of + them. You presume."</p> + + <p>"Pardon me, my lord: you led me to what I was bound to say. + Shall I leave you, my lord?"</p> + + <p>The marquis made no answer. "God knows I loved her," he said + after a while with a sigh.</p> + + <p>"You loved her, my lord?"</p> + + <p>"I did, by God!"</p> + + <p>"Love a woman like that and come to this?"</p> + + <p>"Come to this? We must all come to this, I fancy, sooner or + later. Come to what, in the name of Beelzebub?"</p> + + <p>"That, having loved a woman like her, you are content to + lose her. In the name of God, have you no desire to see her + again?"</p> + + <p>"It would be an awkward meeting," said the marquis.</p> + + <p>His was an old love, alas! He had not been capable of the + sort that defies change. It had faded from him until it seemed + one of the things that are not. Although his being had once + glowed in its light, he could now speak of a meeting as + awkward.</p> + + <p>"Because you wronged her?" suggested the schoolmaster.</p> + + <p>"Because they lied to me, by God!"</p> + + <p>"Which they dared not have done had you not lied to them + first."</p> + + <p>"Sir!" shouted the marquis, with all the voice he had + left.—"O God, have mercy! I <i>cannot</i> punish the + scoundrel."</p> + + <p>"The scoundrel is the man who lies, my lord."</p> + + <p>"Were I anywhere else—"</p> + + <p>"There would be no good in telling you the truth, my lord. + You showed her to the world as a woman over whom you had + prevailed, and not as the honest wife she was. What <i>kind</i> + of a lie was that, my lord? Not a white one, surely?"</p> + + <p>"You are a damned coward to speak so to a man who cannot + even turn on his side to curse you for a base hound. You would + not dare it but that you know I cannot defend myself."</p> + + <p>"You are right, my lord: your conduct is indefensible."</p> + + <p>"By Heaven! if I could but get this cursed leg under me, I + would throw you out of the window."</p> + + <p>"I shall go by the door, my lord. + <span class="pagenum"><a name="page84" + id="page84"></a>[pg 84]</span> While you hold by your sins, + your sins will hold by you. If you should want me again I + shall be at your lordship's command."</p> + + <p>He rose and left the room, but had not reached his cottage + before Malcolm overtook him with a second message from his + master. He turned at once, saying only, "I expected it."</p> + + <p>"Mr. Graham," said the marquis, looking ghastly, "you must + have patience with a dying man. I was very rude to you, but I + was in horrible pain."</p> + + <p>"Don't mention it, my lord. It would be a poor friendship + that gave way for a rough word."</p> + + <p>"How can you call yourself my friend?"</p> + + <p>"I should be your friend, my lord, if it were only for your + wife's sake. She died loving you. I want to send you to her, my + lord. You will allow that, as a gentleman, you at least owe her + an apology."</p> + + <p>"By Jove, you are right, sir! Then you really and positively + believe in the place they call heaven?"</p> + + <p>"My lord, I believe that those who open their hearts to the + truth shall see the light on their friends' faces again, and be + able to set right what was wrong between them."</p> + + <p>"It's a week too late to talk of setting right."</p> + + <p>"Go and tell her you are sorry, my lord—that will be + enough for her."</p> + + <p>"Ah! but there's more than her concerned."</p> + + <p>"You are right, my lord. There is another—One who + cannot be satisfied that the fairest works of his hands, or + rather the loveliest children of his heart, should be treated + as you have treated women."</p> + + <p>"But the Deity you talk of—"</p> + + <p>"I beg your pardon, my lord: I talked of no deity. I talked + of a living Love that gave us birth and calls us his children. + Your deity I know nothing of."</p> + + <p>"Call Him what you please: <i>He</i> won't be put off so + easily."</p> + + <p>"He won't be put off, one jot or one tittle. He will forgive + anything, but He will pass nothing. Will your wife forgive + you?"</p> + + <p>"She will, when I explain."</p> + + <p>"Then why should you think the forgiveness of God, which + created her forgiveness, should be less?"</p> + + <p>Whether the marquis could grasp the reasoning may be + doubtful.</p> + + <p>"Do you really suppose God cares whether a man comes to good + or ill?"</p> + + <p>"If He did not, He could not be good Himself."</p> + + <p>"Then you don't think a good God would care to punish poor + wretches like us?"</p> + + <p>"Your lordship has not been in the habit of regarding + himself as a poor wretch. And, remember, you can't call a child + a poor wretch without insulting the father of it."</p> + + <p>"That's quite another thing."</p> + + <p>"But on the wrong side for your argument, seeing the + relation between God and the poorest creature is infinitely + closer than that between any father and his child."</p> + + <p>"Then He can't be so hard on him as the parsons say."</p> + + <p>"He will give him absolute justice, which is the only good + thing. He will spare nothing to bring his children back to + Himself, their sole well-being. What would you do, my lord, if + you saw your son strike a woman?"</p> + + <p>"Knock him down and horsewhip him."</p> + + <p>It was Mr. Graham who broke the silence that followed: "Are + you satisfied with yourself, my lord?"</p> + + <p>"No, by God!"</p> + + <p>"You would like to be better?"</p> + + <p>"I would."</p> + + <p>"Then you are of the same mind with God."</p> + + <p>"Yes, but I'm not a fool. It won't do to say I should like + to be. I must be it, and that's not so easy. It's damned hard + to be good. I would have a fight for it, but there's no time. + How is a poor devil to get out of such an infernal scrape?"</p> + + <p>"Keep the commandments."</p> + + <p>"That's it, of course; but there's no time, I tell + you—no time; at least, so those cursed doctors will keep + telling me."</p> + + <p>"If there were but time to draw + <span class="pagenum"><a name="page85" + id="page85"></a>[pg 85]</span> another breath, there would + be time to begin."</p> + + <p>"How am I to begin? Which am I to begin with?"</p> + + <p>"There is one commandment which includes all the rest."</p> + + <p>"Which is that?"</p> + + <p>"To believe in the Lord Jesus Christ."</p> + + <p>"That's cant."</p> + + <p>"After thirty years' trial of it, it is to me the essence of + wisdom. It has given me a peace which makes life or death all + but indifferent to me, though I would choose the latter."</p> + + <p>"What am I to believe about Him, then?"</p> + + <p>"You are to believe <i>in</i> Him, not about Him."</p> + + <p>"I don't understand."</p> + + <p>"He is our Lord and Master, Elder Brother, King, Saviour, + the divine Man, the human God: to believe in Him is to give + ourselves up to Him in obedience—to search out his will + and do it."</p> + + <p>"But there's no time, I tell you again," the marquis almost + shrieked.</p> + + <p>"And I tell you there is all eternity to do it in. Take Him + for your master, and He will demand nothing of you which you + are not able to perform. This is the open door to bliss. With + your last breath you can cry to Him, and He will hear you as He + heard the thief on the cross, who cried to Him dying beside + him: 'Lord, remember me when Thou comest into Thy + kingdom.'—'To-day shalt thou be with me in paradise.' It + makes my heart swell to think of it, my lord. No + cross-questioning of the poor fellow, no preaching to him. He + just took him with Him where He was going, to make a man of + him."</p> + + <p>"Well, you know something of my history: what would you have + me do now?—at once, I mean. What would the Person you are + speaking of have me do?"</p> + + <p>"That is not for me to say, my lord."</p> + + <p>"You could give me a hint."</p> + + <p>"No. God is telling you Himself. For me to presume to tell + you would be to interfere with Him. What He would have a man do + He lets him know in his mind."</p> + + <p>"But what if I had not made up my mind before the last + came?"</p> + + <p>"Then I fear He would say to you, 'Depart from me, thou + worker of iniquity.'"</p> + + <p>"That would be hard when another minute might have done + it."</p> + + <p>"If another minute would have done it, you would have had + it."</p> + + <p>A paroxysm of pain followed, during which Mr. Graham + silently left him.</p> + + <h3>CHAPTER LXX.</h3> + + <h3>END OR BEGINNING?</h3> + + <p>When the fit was over and he found Mr. Graham was gone, he + asked Malcolm, who had resumed his watch, how long it would + take Lady Florimel to come from Edinburgh.</p> + + <p>"Mr. Crathie left wi' fower horses frae the Lossie Airms + last nicht, my lord," said Malcolm; "but the ro'ds are ill, an' + she winna be here afore some time the morn."</p> + + <p>The marquis stared aghast: they had sent for her without his + orders. "What <i>shall</i> I do?" he murmured. "If once I look + in her eyes, I shall be damned.—Malcolm!"</p> + + <p>"Yes, my lord."</p> + + <p>"Is there a lawyer in Portlossie?"</p> + + <p>"Yes, my lord: there's auld Maister Carmichael."</p> + + <p>"He won't do: he was my brother's rascal. Is there no one + besides?"</p> + + <p>"No in Portlossie, my lord. There can be nane nearer than + Duff Harbor, I doobt."</p> + + <p>"Take the chariot and bring him here directly. Tell them to + put four horses to: Stokes can ride one."</p> + + <p>"I'll ride the ither, my lord."</p> + + <p>"You'll do nothing of the kind: you're not used to the + pole."</p> + + <p>"I can tak the leader, my lord."</p> + + <p>"I tell you you're to do nothing of the kind," cried the + marquis angrily. "You're to ride inside, and bring + Mr.—what's his name?—back with you."</p> + + <p>"Soutar, my lord, gien ye please."</p> + + <p>"Be off, then. Don't wait to feed. The brutes have been + eating all day, and <span class="pagenum"><a name="page86" + id="page86"></a>[pg 86]</span> they can eat all night. You + must have him here in an hour."</p> + + <p>In an hour and a quarter Miss Horn's friend stood by the + marquis's bedside, Malcolm was dismissed, but was presently + summoned again to receive more orders.</p> + + <p>Fresh horses were put to the chariot, and he had to set out + once more—this time to fetch a justice of the peace, a + neighbor laird. The distance was greater than to Duff Harbor; + the roads were worse; the north wind, rising as they went, blew + against them as they returned, increasing to a violent gale; + and it was late before they reached Lossie House.</p> + + <p>When Malcolm entered he found the marquis alone.</p> + + <p>"Is Morrison here at last?" he cried, in a feeble, irritated + voice.</p> + + <p>"Yes, my lord."</p> + + <p>"What the devil kept you so long? The bay mare would have + carried me there and back in an hour and a half."</p> + + <p>"The roads war verra heavy, my lord. An' jist hear till the + win'."</p> + + <p>The marquis listened a moment, and a frightened expression + grew over his thin, pale, anxious face. "You don't know what + depends on it," he said, "or you would have driven better. + Where is Mr. Soutar?"</p> + + <p>"I dinna ken, my lord. I'm only jist come, an' I've seen + naebody."</p> + + <p>"Go and tell Mrs. Courthope I want Soutar. You'll find her + crying somewhere—the old chicken!—because I swore + at her. What harm could that do the old goose?"</p> + + <p>"It'll be mair for love o' yer lordship than fricht at the + sweirin', my lord."</p> + + <p>"You think so? Why should <i>she</i> care? Go and tell her + I'm sorry. But really she ought to be used to me by this time. + Tell her to send Soutar directly."</p> + + <p>Mr. Soutar was not to be found, the fact being that he had + gone to see Miss Horn. The marquis flew into an awful rage, and + began to curse and swear frightfully.</p> + + <p>"My lord! my lord!" said Malcolm, "for God's sake, dinna + gang on that gait. He canna like to hear that kin' o' speech; + an' frae ane o' his ain' tu!"</p> + + <p>The marquis stopped, aghast at his presumption and choking + with rage, but Malcolm's eyes filled with tears, and, instead + of breaking out again, his master turned his head away and was + silent.</p> + + <p>Mr. Soutar came.</p> + + <p>"Fetch Morrison," said the marquis, "and go to bed."</p> + + <p>The wind howled terribly as Malcolm ascended the stairs and + half felt his way, for he had no candle, through the long + passages leading to his room. As he entered the last a huge + vague form came down upon him like a deeper darkness through + the dark. Instinctively he stepped aside. It passed + noiselessly, with a long stride, and not even a rustle of its + garments—at least Malcolm heard nothing but the roar of + the wind. He turned and followed it. On and on it went, down + the stair, through a corridor, down the great stone turnpike + stair, and through passage after passage. When it came into the + more frequented and half-lighted thoroughfares of the house it + showed as a large figure in a long cloak, indistinct in + outline.</p> + + <p>It turned a corner close by the marquis's room. But when + Malcolm, close at its heels, turned also, he saw nothing but a + vacant lobby, the doors around which were all shut. One after + another he quickly opened them, all except the marquis's, but + nothing was to be seen. The conclusion was that it had entered + the marquis's room. He must not disturb the conclave in the + sick chamber with what might be but "a false creation + proceeding from the heat-oppressed brain," and turned back to + his own room, where he threw himself on his bed and fell + asleep.</p> + + <p>About twelve Mrs. Courthope called him: his master was + worse, and wanted to see him.</p> + + <p>The midnight was dark and still, for the wind had ceased. + But a hush and a cloud seemed gathering in the stillness and + darkness, and with them came the sense of a solemn celebration, + as if the gloom were canopy as well as pall—black, but + bordered and hearted with purple and gold; and the terrible + stillness seemed to tremble as with the + <span class="pagenum"><a name="page87" + id="page87"></a>[pg 87]</span> inaudible tones of a great + organ at the close or commencement of some mighty + symphony.</p> + + <p>With beating heart he walked softly toward the room where, + as on an altar, lay the vanishing form of his master, like the + fuel in whose dying flame was offered the late and ill-nurtured + sacrifice of his spirit.</p> + + <p>As he went through the last corridor leading thither, Mrs. + Catanach, type and embodiment of the horrors that haunt the + dignity of death, came walking toward him like one at home, her + great round body lighty upborne on her soft foot. It was no + time to challenge her presence, and yielding her the half of + the narrow way he passed without a greeting. She dropped him a + courtesy with an up-look and again a veiling of her wicked + eyes.</p> + + <p>The marquis would not have the doctors come near him, and + when Malcolm entered there was no one in the room but Mrs. + Courthope. The shadow had crept far along the dial. His face + had grown ghastly, the skin had sunk to the bones, and his eyes + stood out as if from much staring into the dark. They rested + very mournfully on Malcolm for a few moments, and then closed + softly.</p> + + <p>"Is she come yet?" he murmured, opening them wide with + sudden stare.</p> + + <p>"No, my lord."</p> + + <p>The lids fell again, softly, slowly.</p> + + <p>"Be good to her, Malcolm," he murmured.</p> + + <p>"I wull, my lord," said Malcolm solemnly.</p> + + <p>Then the eyes opened and looked at him: something grew in + them, a light as of love, and drew up after it a tear; but the + lips said nothing. The eyelids fell again, and in a minute more + Malcolm knew by his breathing that he slept.</p> + + <p>The slow night waned. He woke sometimes, but soon dozed off + again. The two watched by him till the dawn. It brought a still + gray morning, without a breath of wind and warm for the season. + The marquis appeared a little revived, but was hardly able to + speak. Mostly by signs he made Malcolm understand that he + wanted Mr. Graham, but that some one else must go for him. Mrs. + Courthope went.</p> + + <p>As soon as she was out of the room he lifted his hand with + effort, laid feeble hold on Malcolm's jacket, and, drawing him + down, kissed him on the forehead. Malcolm burst into tears and + sank weeping by the bedside.</p> + + <p>Mr. Graham, entering a little after, and seeing Malcolm on + his knees, knelt also and broke into a prayer.</p> + + <p>"O blessed Father!" he said, "who knowest this thing, so + strange to us, which we call death, breathe more life into the + heart of Thy dying son, that in the power of life he may front + death. O Lord Christ! who diedst Thyself, and in Thyself + knowest it all, heal this man in his sore need—heal him + with strength to die."</p> + + <p>A faint <i>Amen</i> came from the marquis.</p> + + <p>"Thou didst send him into the world: help him out of it. O + God! we belong to Thee utterly. We dying men are Thy children, + O living Father! Thou art such a father that Thou takest our + sins from us and throwest them behind Thy back. Thou cleansest + our souls as Thy Son did wash our feet. We hold our hearts up + to Thee: make them what they must be, O Love! O Life of men! O + Heart of hearts! Give Thy dying child courage and hope and + peace—the peace of Him who overcame all the terrors of + humanity, even death itself, and liveth for evermore, sitting + at Thy right hand, our God-brother, blessed to all ages. + Amen."</p> + + <p>"Amen!" murmured the marquis, and, slowly lifting his hand + from the coverlid, he laid it on the head of Malcolm, who did + not know it was the hand of his father blessing him ere he + died.</p> + + <p>"Be good to her," said the marquis once more.</p> + + <p>But Malcolm could not answer for weeping, and the marquis + was not satisfied. Gathering all his force, he said again, "Be + good to her."</p> + + <p>"I wull, I wull," burst from Malcolm in sobs; and he wailed + aloud.</p> + + <p>The day wore on, and the afternoon came. Still Lady Florimel + had not arrived, and still the marquis + lingered.</p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page88" + id="page88"></a>[pg 88]</span> + + <p>As the gloom of the twilight was deepening into the early + darkness of the winter night he opened wide his eyes, and was + evidently listening. Malcolm could hear nothing, but the light + in his master's face grew and the strain of his listening + diminished. At length Malcolm became aware of the sound of + wheels, which came rapidly nearer, till at last the carriage + swung up to the hall-door. A moment, and Lady Florimel was + flitting across the room.</p> + + <p>"Papa! papa!" she cried, and, throwing her arm over him, + laid her cheek to his.</p> + + <p>The marquis could not return her embrace: he could only + receive her into the depths of his shining, tearful eyes.</p> + + <p>"Flory!" he murmured, "I'm going away. I'm going—I've + got—to make an—apology. Malcolm, be + good—"</p> + + <p>The sentence remained unfinished. The light paled from his + countenance: he had to carry it with him. He was dead.</p> + + <p>Lady Florimel gave a loud cry. Mrs. Courthope ran to her + assistance. "My lady's in a dead faint," she whispered, and + left the room to get help.</p> + + <p>Malcolm lifted Lady Florimel in his great arms and bore her + tenderly to her own apartment. There he left her to the care of + her women and returned to the chamber of death.</p> + + <p>Meantime, Mr. Graham and Mr. Soutar had come. When Malcolm + re-entered the schoolmaster took him kindly by the arm and + said, "Malcolm, there can be neither place nor moment fitter + for the solemn communication I am commissioned to make to you: + I have, as in the presence of your dead father, to inform you + that you are now marquis of Lossie; and God forbid you should + be less worthy as marquis than you have been as fisherman!"</p> + + <p>Malcolm stood stupefied. For a while he seemed to himself to + be turning over in his mind something he had heard read from a + book, with a nebulous notion of being somehow concerned in it. + The thought of his father cleared his brain. He ran to the dead + body, kissed its lips as he had once kissed the forehead of + another, and falling on his knees wept, he knew not for what. + Presently, however, he recovered himself, rose, and, rejoining + the two men, said, "Gentlemen, hoo mony kens this turn o' + things?"</p> + + <p>"None but Mr. Morrison, Mrs. Catanach and ourselves—so + far as I know," answered Mr. Soutar.</p> + + <p>"And Miss Horn," added Mr. Graham, "She first brought out + the truth of it, and ought to be the first to know of your + recognition by your father."</p> + + <p>"I s' tell her mysel'," returned Malcolm. "But, gentlemen, I + beg o' ye, till I ken what I'm aboot an' gie ye leave, dinna + open yer moo' to leevin' cratur' aboot this. There's time + eneuch for the warl' to ken 't."</p> + + <p>"Your lordship commands me," said Mr. Soutar.</p> + + <p>"Yes, Malcolm, until you give me leave," said Mr. + Graham.</p> + + <p>"Whaur's Mr. Morrison?" asked Malcolm.</p> + + <p>"He is still in the house," said Mr. Soutar.</p> + + <p>"Gang till him, sir, an' gar him promise, on the word o' a + gentleman, to haud his tongue. I canna bide to hae't blaret a' + gait an' a' at ance. For Mistress Catanach, I s' deal wi' her + mysel'."</p> + + <p>The door opened, and, in all the conscious dignity conferred + by the immunities and prerogatives of her calling, Mrs. + Catanach walked into the room.</p> + + <p>"A word wi' ye, Mistress Catanach," said Malcolm.</p> + + <p>"Certainly, my lord," answered the howdy with mingled + presumption and respect, and followed him to the dining-room. + "Weel, my lord—" she began, before he had turned from + shutting the door behind them, in the tone and with the + air—or rather <i>airs</i>—of having conferred a + great benefit, and expecting its recognition.</p> + + <p>"Mistress Catanach," interrupted Malcolm, turning and facing + her, "gien I be un'er ony obligation to you, it's frae anither + tongue I maun hear't. But I hae an offer to mak ye: Sae lang as + it disna coom oot 'at I'm onything better nor a fisherman born, + ye s' hae yer twinty poun' i' the year, peyed ye quarterly. + <span class="pagenum"><a name="page89" + id="page89"></a>[pg 89]</span> But the moment fowk says wha + I am ye touch na a poun'-not' mair, an' I coont mysel' free + to pursue onything I can pruv agane ye."</p> + + <p>Mrs. Catanach attempted a laugh of scorn, but her face was + gray as putty and its muscles declined response.</p> + + <p>"<i>Ay</i> or <i>no</i>?" said Malcolm. "I winna gar ye + sweir, for I wad lippen to yer aith no a hair."</p> + + <p>"Ay, my lord," said the howdy, reassuming at least outward + composure, and with it her natural brass, for as she spoke she + held out her open palm.</p> + + <p>"Na, na," said Malcolm, "nae forhan' payments. Three months + o' tongue-haudin', an' there's yer five poun'; an' Maister + Soutar o' Duff Harbor 'ill pay 't intill yer ain han'. But + brack troth wi' me, an' ye s' hear o' 't; for gien ye war hangt + the warl' wad be a' the cleaner. Noo quit the hoose, an' never + lat me see ye aboot the place again. But afore ye gang I gie ye + fair warnin' 'at I mean to win at a' yer byganes."</p> + + <p>The blood of red wrath was seething in Mrs. Catanach's face: + she drew herself up and stood flaming before him, on the verge + of explosion.</p> + + <p>"Gang frae the hoose," said Malcolm, "or I'll set the muckle + hun' to shaw ye the gait."</p> + + <p>Her face turned the color of ashes, and with hanging cheeks + and scared but not the less wicked eyes she hurried from the + room. Malcolm watched her out of the house, then, following her + into the town, brought Miss Horn back with him to aid in the + last earthly services, and hastened to Duncan's cottage.</p> + + <p>But, to his amazement and distress, it was forsaken and the + hearth cold. In his attendance on his father he had not seen + the piper—he could not remember for how many days; and on + inquiry he found that, although he had not been missed, no one + could recall having seen him later than three or four days + agone. The last he could hear of him was that about a week + before a boy had spied him sitting on a rock in the Baillies' + Barn with his pipes in his lap. Searching the cottage, he found + that his broadsword and dirk, with all his poor finery, were + gone.</p> + + <p>That same night Mrs. Catanach also disappeared.</p> + + <p>A week after, what was left of Lord Lossie was buried. + Malcolm followed the hearse with the household. Miss Horn + walked immediately behind him, on the arm of the schoolmaster. + It was a great funeral, with a short road, for the body was + laid in the church—close to the wall, just under the + crusader with the Norman canopy.</p> + + <p>Lady Florimel wept incessantly for three days; on the fourth + she looked out on the sea and thought it very dreary; on the + fifth she found a certain gratification in hearing herself + called the marchioness; on the sixth she tried on her mourning + and was pleased; on the seventh she went with the funeral and + wept again; on the eighth came Lady Bellair, who on the ninth + carried her away.</p> + + <p>To Malcolm she had not spoken once.</p> + + <p>Mr. Graham left Portlossie.</p> + + <p>Miss Horn took to her bed for a week.</p> + + <p>Mr. Crathie removed his office to the House itself, took + upon him the function of steward as well as factor, had the + state-rooms dismantled, and was master of the place.</p> + + <p>Malcolm helped Stoat with the horses and did odd jobs for + Mr. Crathie. From his likeness to the old marquis, as he was + still called, the factor had a favor for him, firmly believing + the said marquis to be his father and Mrs. Stewart his mother; + and hence it came that he allowed him a key to the library.</p> + + <p>The story of Malcom's plans and what came of them requires + another book.</p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page90" + id="page90"></a>[pg 90]</span> + + <h2>THE STAGE IN ITALY.</h2> + + <p>The Italians are undoubtedly the most theatre-loving people + in the world. With them the play-house takes the place to a + great extent of drawing-room and evening lounge. Almost every + Italian family of any social position possesses a box at one of + the principal theatres, where visits are received and many a + scene from the <i>School for Scandal</i> is enacted whilst the + fair gossip-mongers flirt and sip ices. In winter the opera is + the standard amusement of the fashionable world, while the + favorite resort in summer is the <i>diurno</i> or open air + theatre, which is in the form of an amphitheatre, the stage + with its accessories facing an unroofed enclosure, with the + seats arranged in tiers one above another, and fenced off by an + iron balustrade from a terrace which serves the purpose of a + gallery. A vast covered corridor is nearly always to be found + adjacent to the <i>diurno</i>, beneath which the audience can + take refuge in case of a shower, walk between the acts and + indulge in <i>bebite</i>—cooling drinks, such as sherbets + and beer. The <i>abbonamento</i> (or subscription) to a diurno + costs from three to ten dollars for the season of thirty or + forty representations. When a dramatic company is about to + visit a city the manager first secures his <i>abbonati</i>, for + according to their number he is able to regulate his expenses, + as he counts little on chance spectators, and is sure to have + almost always to play before the same audience.</p> + + <p>The lyric stage in Italy takes precedence of the dramatic, + and in the large cities, Milan, Venice, Genoa, Florence, Rome + and Naples, the production of a new opera is considered a + national event, forming for many days previous to its + production the chief topic of conversation in salons and + <i>caffès</i>. No such enthusiasm is manifested in + regard to the first representation of a new play; and although + the house may be crowded and the author called before the + curtain, he may deem himself happy if his drama is played four + times during the season; whereas a popular opera will be given + night after night for two months. An opera, if it has any + merit, may be the means of carrying the fame of Italian genius + to the farthest limits of the earth, but it is a chance if the + comedy which pleases at Venice will be appreciated in the least + degree at Rome or Naples, such are the variations in manners + and customs, especially amongst the lower orders, between one + Italian province and another. Hence, opera is greatly fostered + and protected. There are a dozen musical <i>conservatori</i>, + public and private, in each of the principal cities, for the + training of singers, and prizes are accorded to them out of + funds especially set apart for the purpose by the government, + which also grants large annual subsidies to the leading lyric + theatres, such as the Scala at Milan, the San Carlo at Naples, + the Fenice at Venice, the Pergola at Florence, the Carlo Felice + at Genoa, the Communale at Bologna, and the Apollo at Rome. The + dramatic stage has none of these aids, the various companies + have to pay their own expenses, and, whatever may be the merits + of the artists who compose them, they scarcely ever obtain any + special recognition from the government. Although the smallest + Italian city possesses its theatre, and some of the + capitals—Milan and Naples, for instance—at least a + dozen, there is no training-school for the stage in any part of + the country. Nor is there such an institution as the English + Dramatic College, where decayed artists can retire when their + day of glory is past and they have become poor and lonely. Each + city has one theatre, the largest and most magnificent, + reserved exclusively for operatic performances, and where the + unmusical drama is scarcely ever tolerated. I once saw Ristori + act in Metastasio's <i>Dido</i> at the Scala for the benefit of + the wounded <span class="pagenum"><a name="page91" + id="page91"></a>[pg 91]</span> during the war for Italian + independence; but this was the only occasion in fifty years + on which an actress had declaimed in that enormous edifice, + and nothing but patriotic charity would have excused such an + infringement of time-honored etiquette. When, therefore, the + Italian opera-houses close for the season, they are never + reopened for the accommodation of wandering "stars." The + consequence of this is, that the drama is banished to the + inferior theatres, and whilst thousands of francs are spent + on the scenery of a new opera or ballet, the poor player has + to content himself with an indifferent stage and wretched + decorations. In short, to quote an observation made to me + recently by Signor Salvini, "Theatrical affairs are just the + opposite in Italy to what they are in America. In Italy the + opera-bill is never changed more than three times in as many + months: in America it varies almost every evening. In Italy + the play-bill is renewed nightly, while in this country and + in England a drama, if good, may have a run of over a + hundred representations." Nothing surprised Salvini more + during his stay in the United States than the splendor of + the <i>mise en scène</i> of some of the New York + plays, but he accounted for it easily enough. The managers + of most of the New York, Paris and London theatres do not + hesitate to lavish large sums of money upon their + decorations and scenery, because should the piece fail for + which they were painted they can be used in some other. The + Italian theatres are nearly always the property either of + some nobleman or of a company of speculators, whose + principal object is to make as much money out of them, and + spend as little upon them, as possible. They are rented out + for a month or so to one or other of the many troupes of + actors which are constantly wandering about the country, and + which bring their own scenery and dresses with them, + generally of the cheapest and most tawdry description.</p> + + <p>A Tuscan proverb says, "<i>Figlio d'attore, attore</i>" + ("The son of an actor is always an actor"); and this in Italy + is pretty sure to be the case. The three greatest living + actors, Salvini, Rossi and Majeroni, belong to families which + have long been popular on the stage, and so do the actresses + Ristori and Sedowsky. Signora Ristori made her début as + an infant in the cradle, and was for years a member of a troupe + the leading lady of which was her late mother, Signora + Maddalena Ristori, a woman of great talent and merit, whose + death at an advanced age has recently occasioned her celebrated + daughter poignant grief. There still exists in Italy a Venetian + troupe of comedians whose ancestors were the first interpreters + of the comedies of Goldoni, and several of them claim descent + from players who enacted the tragedies and comedies of serious + classical literature before the courts of Lucrezia Borgia and + Leonora d'Este. In glancing over an Italian play-bill one is + invariably struck by the fact that many of the artists bear the + same name, and are evidently connected by ties of consanguinity + or of marriage. In the Ristori troupe, for instance, there are + several actors calling themselves by the same name as that + great artist, and who are doubtless of her family. The Salvini + company embraces, besides the two brothers Tommaso and + Alessandro, several Piamontis, two or three Piccininis and two + Colonellos. I once knew in Italy a manager named Spada who + directed a little troupe of buffo actors consisting of his + grandfather and grandmother, father and mother, three or four + uncles and aunts, two brothers, and one or two sisters, in + addition to himself, his wife and children. Such facts are in + part accounted for by the social status—or rather want of + status—of the profession. Down to within a very recent + period ecclesiastical censures weighed heavily upon all actors, + and Christian burial was denied them unless during their final + illness they had formally declared their intention to abandon + the stage in case of recovery. So severe a condemnation on the + part of the clergy naturally produced a strong prejudice + against those who connected themselves in any way with the + stage; and it is only recently that in Italy, a land where + social changes are slow, the + <span class="pagenum"><a name="page92" + id="page92"></a>[pg 92]</span> doors of her somewhat formal + society have been opened to admit even persons so + distinguished in every sense of the word as are Ristori, + Piamonti, Salvini and Rossi. The social unfriendliness of + the audiences—who can applaud so enthusiastically that + a stranger witnessing for the first time their noisy + demonstrations would easily believe every man and woman in + the theatre ready to die for the sake of the admired + artist—is doubtless the cause of the patriarchal + system observable in the formation of Italian dramatic + companies. The members thereof prefer adopting their + fathers' profession rather than enter another where they + would be constantly mortified by being pointed at as the + children of actors.</p> + + <p>A little research into the history of the stage in Italy + will enlighten the reader as to the true cause both of the + harsh condemnation of the Church and of the prejudice of + society against this great profession. The plays of the old + Romans were proverbially loose both in their plots and + dialogues, and Juvenal has spoken of the actors of his time + with the bitterest contempt. During the Middle Ages the members + of the various religious confraternities monopolized the stage + with their sacred dramas and mysteries, and the "profane + stage," as an Italian writer calls it, was so degraded that + more than once both the Church and State had to use their + influence to put down performances which were too infamous to + be here described. When the Renaissance came the drama was + reinstated in the position it occupied during the days of Roman + civilization, but the plays of this period were merely + imitations of the Latin comedies; and if we may judge by the + most celebrated of them which still exists—the + <i>Mandragora</i> of Macchiavelli, for example—far + exceeded their models in obscenity. When Benedict XIV. ascended + the pontifical throne he established a severe censorship, and + inaugurated the harsh system to which I have already alluded, + with the effect of banishing immoral productions from the + stage, though without improving its intellectual tone. In the + eighteenth century Goldoni appeared and gave to the world his + graceful comedies, which were followed by the lyric dramas of + Metastasio and the lofty tragedies of Alfieri. Since then there + has been a succession of able dramatists—Monti, Gozzi, + Manzoni, Pellico, Ippolito d'Asti, etc.; and as the class of + plays acted was elevated, so the character of the performers + was also improved. From being dissolute they became generally + respectable; and at present it may be safely asserted that a + better-conducted, more frugal or industrious class of men and + woman can scarcely be found than are the Italian players. That + class of actresses with whom their profession is only a means + of displaying their beauty and splendid but often ill-gotten + robes and jewelry, is little known in Italy, Such persons would + be scarcely tolerated either by their comrades or by the + public. Indeed, although within the past few years, owing to + the unsettled state of affairs, a great many plays of + questionable morality have been acted, especially in Rome, + still the tone of the performances usually witnessed in an + Italian theatre is greatly above the average of what even + Americans applaud; and a French play has to go through more + careful pruning for the Italian stage than for ours.</p> + + <p>The Italian actors have always been in the habit of forming + themselves into troupes, or, as they call them, + <i>compagnie</i>, placed under the direction of one person, who + is both manager and principal performer. They divide these + troupes according to the various kinds of acting; thus, there + are companies of tragic, melodramatic and comic actors, but it + is very rare to find a combination of tragedy and comedy in the + same entertainment. There are at present about eighty different + troupes of actors in Italy, including those devoted to the + marionnette and dialect performances. The principal are the + "Salvini," "Ristori," "Majeroni," "Sedowsky," and "Rossi" for + tragedy, the "Bellotti Bon" for high comedy, and the "De + Mestri" for farce and vaudeville. The "Ristori," "Salvini" and + "Rossi" troupes have been the round of the world. + <span class="pagenum"><a name="page93" + id="page93"></a>[pg 93]</span> The "Bellotti Bon" has, I + believe, never quitted Italy. It is a remarkable combination + of well-trained actors, devoted exclusively to the + representation of modern society plays and dramas, mostly + translated or adapted from the French. Bellotti-Bon, the + director, is not excelled in his own line even on the stage + of the Théâtre Français. His company is + rich, and its scenery and dresses are tasteful. The late + Signora Cazzola, formerly the leading lady of this troupe, + was perhaps the best high-comedy and dramatic actress Italy + has produced. Signer Salvini informed me that Alexandre + Dumas <i>fils</i> told him he preferred this lady's + interpretation of the <i>rôle</i> of Marguerite + Gauthier (Camille) in <i>La Dame aux Camélias</i> to + that of Madame Doche, who created the part. She produced a + great effect when the dying Camille looks at herself in the + glass for the first time after her long illness. Instead of + screaming or fainting, as is usual with most actresses who + undertake the character, Signora Cazzola stood for a long + time gazing intently at the havoc disease had wrought upon + her lovely countenance. Then, with a deep sigh and an + expression of intense agony, she turned the mirror with its + back toward her, implying that she could never again endure + the pain of seeing herself reflected upon its truth-telling + surface. On the toilette-table was a vase full of + camellias—those beautiful but scentless flowers which + were emblematic of her brilliant but artificial life. Taking + one of these in her hand, she plucked it to pieces leaf by + leaf, and when the last petal fell to the ground went + quietly back to her bed, there hopelessly to await the + coming on of death. Her parting with Armand was very + pathetic, and her death, although harrowing and true to + Nature, was not revolting, its horrors being moderated by + artistic good sense and delicacy. This great artiste died + young, worn out by the strong emotions she not only + represented, but actually felt.</p> + + <p>Signora Cazzola, together with Virginia Marini and Isolina + Piamonti, was a pupil of Signor Salvini. Virginia Marini is + well considered in Italy, and used to be the leading lady in + the Salvini troupe. She now directs a company of her own, and + has been succeeded in her former position by the estimable + Signora Piamonti, whom Salvini declares to be one of the most + versatile artistes he has ever known, equally good in the + highest tragedy or the liveliest farce. Her Dalilla in + <i>Samson</i> was much admired in America, but her rendering of + the <i>rôle</i> of Francesca di Rimini in the tragedy of + that name is perhaps her greatest performance.</p> + + <p>Signora Sedowsky is undoubtedly the greatest tragic actress + of Italy. She is perhaps less stately and grand than Ristori, + but in fire and depth of feeling she greatly surpasses this + eminent tragédienne. Her Phèdre is pronounced by + excellent judges equal to that of Rachel. Signora Sedowsky was + born at Naples, and is the proprietress of three large theatres + in that city. She is the wife of a wealthy nobleman. + Notwithstanding her rank, she still keeps on the stage, but is + received with honor in the first society. She has never acted + out of Italy, and very rarely beyond the walls of Naples.</p> + + <p>The superlative merits of Signora Ristori are so well known + in America that the mere mention of her name is sure to recall + some of the most delightful evenings ever spent by many of my + readers. Her genius and beauty, her majesty and glorious method + of declamation, have won her a foremost rank in her profession, + and her virtues and nobility of conduct the esteem of all who + have ever known her. There are indeed few women more estimable + than Adelaide Ristori, Marchioness Capranica del Grillo. It may + be a matter of surprise to some who are not aware of the fact + when I tell them that in Italy Ristori is more famous in comedy + than in tragedy. She is inimitable in such parts as the hostess + in Goldoni's clever comedy of <i>La Locandiera</i>.</p> + + <p>Of all Italian actors, Gustavo Modena was the most renowned. + He is to the stage of his native land what Garrick was to that + of England, and his conception of the various parts in classic + drama, <span class="pagenum"><a name="page94" + id="page94"></a>[pg 94]</span> his "points," and even his + dress, have become traditional, and are almost invariably + retained by his followers. I never saw him act, but I once + heard him recite in a private <i>salon</i> his famous + <i>rôle</i> of Saul in Alfieri's tragedy of that name. + In person he was tall and largely built, His countenance was + not prepossessing, and, like Michael Angelo, he had a broken + nose. His eye could assume a terrific aspect, and his voice + was rich, powerful and varied in its tone. At times it + rolled like thunder, while at other moments it was as soft + and tender as the sweetest notes of a flute. Signor Modena + died some years ago. He was the master of Salvini, and to + him that illustrious actor does not hesitate to attribute + much of his fame.</p> + + <p>Rossi, the only living rival of Salvini, is still a young + man, and doubtless has great talents. I think him even more + impetuous and ardent than Salvini, but he is less intellectual, + and his elocution is decidedly inferior.</p> + + <p>Majeroni is an actor of the same school, but he is becoming + old, and has a tendency to rant.</p> + + <p>Tommaso Salvini, our late visitor, is of Milanese parentage, + and was born in the Lombard capital on January 1, 1830. His + father, as I have already said, was an able actor, and his + mother a popular actress named Guglielmina Zocchi. When quite a + boy he showed a rare talent for acting, and performed in + certain plays given during the Easter holidays in the school + where he was educated, with such rare ability that his father + determined to devote him to the stage. For this purpose he + placed him under the tuition of the great Modena, who conceived + much affection for him. The training received thus early from + such able hands soon bore fruits, and before he was thirteen + Salvini had already won a kind of renown in juvenile + characters. At fifteen he lost both his parents, and the + bereavement so preyed upon his spirits that he was obliged to + abandon his career for two years, and returned once more under + the tuition of Modena. When he again emerged from retirement he + joined the Ristori troupe, and shared with that great actress + many a triumph. In 1849, Salvini entered the army of Italian + independence, and fought valiantly for the defence of his + country, receiving in recognition of his services several + medals of honor. Peace being proclaimed, he again appeared upon + the stage in a company directed by Signer Cesare Dondini. He + played in the <i>Edipo</i> of Nicolini—a tragedy written + expressly for him—and achieved a great success. Next he + appeared in Alfieri's <i>Saul</i>, and then all Italy declared + that Modena's mantle had fallen on worthy shoulders. His fame + was now prodigious, and wherever he went he was received with + boundless enthusiasm. He visited Paris, where he played + Orasmane, Orestes, Saul and Othello. On his return to Florence + he was hospitably entertained by the marquis of Normanby, then + English ambassador to the court of Tuscany, and this + enlightened nobleman strongly encouraged him to extend his + repertory of Shakespearian characters. In 1865 occurred the + sixth centenary of Dante's birthday, and the four greatest + Italian actors were invited to perform in Silvio Pellico's + tragedy of <i>Francesca di Rimini</i>, which is founded on an + episode in the <i>Divina Commedia</i>. The cast originally + stood on the play-bills thus: Francesca, Signora Ristori; + Lancelotto, Signor Rossi; Paulo, Signor Salvini; and Guido, + Signor Majeroni. It happened, however, that Rossi, who was + unaccustomed to play the part of Lancelotto, felt timid at + appearing in a character so little suited to him. Hearing this, + Signor Salvini, with exquisite politeness and good-nature, + volunteered to take the insignificant part, relinquishing the + grand <i>rôle</i> of Paulo to his junior in the + profession. He created by the force of his genius an impression + in the minor part which is still vivid in the minds of all who + witnessed the performance. The government of Florence, grateful + for his urbanity, presented him with a statuette of Dante, and + King Victor Emmanuel rewarded him with the title of knight of + the Order of the Saints Maurice and Lazarus. Later he received + from the same monarch a diamond ring, with the rank of officer + in the Order of the Crown + <span class="pagenum"><a name="page95" + id="page95"></a>[pg 95]</span> of Italy. In 1868, Signer + Salvini visited Madrid, where his acting of the death of + Conrad in <i>La Morte Civile</i> produced such an impression + that the easily-excited Madrilese rushed upon the stage to + ascertain whether the death was actual or fictitious. The + queen, Isabella II., conferred upon the great actor many + marks of favor, and so shortly afterward did King Louis of + Portugal, who frequently entertained him at the royal palace + of Lisbon.</p> + + <p>Signor Salvini's recent visit to America I need scarcely + mention: its triumphs are still fresh in the memory of the + public, and the only drawback to its complete success was the + unhappy fact that the eminent artist did not appeal to his + audiences in their own language.</p> + + <p>I know of nothing more remarkable than the difference which + exists between the Salvini of the stage and the Salvini of + private life, the one so imposing, impetuous and fiery, the + other so gentle, urbane, and even retiring. He is a gentleman + possessing the manners of the good old school—courtly and + somewhat ceremonious, reminding one of those Italian nobles of + the sixteenth century of whom we lead in the novels of Giraldo + Cinthio and Fiorentino—<i>uomini illustri, e di civil + costumi</i>. His greeting is cordial and his conversation + delightful, full of anecdote and marked with enthusiasm for his + art. When I first became acquainted with him I was of opinion + that his interpretation of Hamlet was based only upon the + translated text, but in the course of a very long conversation + on the subject I discovered that he was well acquainted + (through literal translations) not only with the text, but also + with the notes and comments of our leading critics. In speaking + of the part in which he is altogether unrivaled he said, "I am + of opinion that Shakespeare intended Othello to be a Moor of + Barbary or some other part of Northern Africa, of whom there + were many in Italy during the sixteenth century. I have met + several, and think I imitate their ways and manners pretty + well. You are aware, however, that the historical Othello was + not a black at all. He was a white man, and a Venetian general + named Mora. His history resembles that of Shakespeare's hero in + many particulars. Giraldo Cinthio, probably for better effect, + made out of the name Mora, <i>moro</i>, a blackamoor; and + Shakespeare, unacquainted with the true story, followed this + old novelist's lead; and it was well he did so, for have we not + in consequence the most perfect delineation of the + peculiarities of Moorish temperament ever conceived?" The + costumes worn by Salvini in this play are copied from those + depicted in certain Venetian pictures of the fifteenth century + in which several Moorish officers appear. It took him many + years to master this <i>rôle</i>, and he assured me he + could not play it more than three times in succession without + experiencing terrible fatigue. "It is a matter of wonder to + me," he observed, "that English actors can play a great + character like this so many nights in succession; and, above + all, that they retain self-possession whilst the fidgety noise + of scene-shifting is going on behind them. To avoid this, I + have been obliged to cut <i>Othello</i> into six acts, and to + make many changes in <i>Hamlet</i>." The intensity of feeling + with which he throws himself into the part he is representing + was especially evident on the occasion of his playing Saul. + After the performance I was invited to go behind the scenes to + speak with him, and was surprised as well as pained to find him + utterly exhausted. I could not help saying, "How can you exert + yourself thus to please so few people?" There were scarcely + four hundred persons assembled to see this sublime performance. + He answered with honest simplicity, "They have paid their + money, and are entitled to the best I can do for them; besides + that, when I am on the stage I forget the world and all that is + in it, and live the character I represent." "You will," said I, + "make a grand Lear." "Yes," he replied, "I think I shall be + able to make something out of the old king. I have been reading + the tragedy for some time, but it will still take me two years + to study it thoroughly."</p> + + <p>Salvini related to me several anecdotes which show how quick + he is to master <span class="pagenum"><a name="page96" + id="page96"></a>[pg 96]</span> any difficulties accident + throws in his way. "Once I bought," he said, "a play of a + poor young writer which I thought I could make something of; + but when we came to rehearse it for the last time before + representation, it seemed to me utterly flat and + unprofitable. The piece was called <i>La Suonatrice + d'Arpa</i> ('The Harp-Girl'). The actors all said the last + act was so stupid that we should make a <i>fiasco</i>. I at + last hit upon an idea. We had, however, only a few hours to + execute it in. I changed the story: instead of the play + ending happily, I made the father kill his daughter + accidentally, and then die of grief. All the dialogue had to + be improvised by the leading actress and myself. I played + the father, and Signora Piamonti the daughter. Such was the + success of our invention that the piece was played eight + nights in succession, and a rival actor, hearing of the + triumph achieved by <i>The Harp-Girl</i>, bought from the + author for a handsome sum the privilege of acting it in + certain districts which were not included in my purchase of + the drama. Not being aware of the alterations we had made, + and performing it according to the letter of the text, he + made <i>un fiasco solenne</i>—a dead failure."</p> + + <p>After the first performance of <i>Zaïre</i> I took the + liberty of observing to Salvini that a superb piece of + "business" which marks his acting in the last act was not to be + found in the text. "Oh," he replied, "I will tell you the + origin of it. I was playing at Naples, and one night, when I + threw the body of my murdered wife upon the ottoman in the last + act, my burnouse fell off and fixed itself to my waist like a + tail. I saw at once that if I was not careful I should provoke + laughter, and instantly imagined that I would pretend to + believe the clinging drapery was the wounded Zaïre + grasping me behind. I appeared to dread even to look round, + lest I should encounter her pallid face. I hesitated, I + trembled, and when with a supreme effort I at last grasped the + burnouse and cast it from me, I still lacked the courage to + ascertain what it really was, and stood shivering before the + white heap it made upon the floor. Finally, just as I thought + public curiosity to know what I was going to do began to grow + weary, I stooped down and seizing the white mantle dashed it + from me with contempt, showing by the gesture that I had + discovered what it was, and felt anger that such a trifle + should thus alarm a bold man who had committed murder." This + pantomime obtained for Salvini at the New York Academy of Music + one of his greatest ovations.</p> + + <p>When asked why he did not learn English, "Ah!" he replied, + "I am too old; and even if I mastered it, I could not control + my knowledge of it. When excited I should be lapsing into + Italian, which would be very absurd. You asked me the other day + why I do not play Orestes. I should make a queer young Greek + with an Apollo-like figure now-a-days! The time was when I + looked the part and acted it well, and then I liked to play it. + I must leave it, with many other good things, to younger men." + Speaking about dramatic elocution, he said, "The best method is + obtained by close observation of Nature, and above all by + earnestness. If you can impress people with the conviction that + you feel what you say, they will pardon many shortcomings. And, + above all, study, study, study! All the genius in the world + will not help you along with any art unless you become a hard + student. It has taken me years to master a single part."</p> + + <p>Salvini's visit to America has been fruitful of a double + good. He has shown forth the splendor of Italian genius, even + revealing to us new marvels in that mine of wealth, the works + of the greatest Bard of the English-speaking race; and he has + gone back to Italy to tell her people of things he has seen in + the New World which his great compatriot discovered—as + wonderful in their way as any related by Othello to Desdemona's + willing ear.</p> + + <p class="author">R. + DAVEY.</p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page97" + id="page97"></a>[pg 97]</span> + + <h2>THREE FEATHERS.</h2> + + <h3>BY WILLIAM BLACK, AUTHOR OF "A PRINCESS OF THULE."</h3> + + <h3>CHAPTER XX.</h3> + + <h3>TINTAGEL'S WALLS.</h3> + + <p>What was the matter with Harry Trelyon? His mother could not + make out; and there never had been much confidence between + them, so that she did not care to ask. But she watched, and she + saw that he had, for the time at least, forsaken his accustomed + haunts and ways and become gloomy, silent and self-possessed. + Dick was left neglected in the stables: you no longer heard his + rapid clatter along the highway, with the not over-melodious + voice of his master singing "The Men of Merry, Merry England" + or "The Young Chevalier." The long and slender fishing-rod + remained on the pegs in the hall, although you could hear the + flop of the small burn-trout of an evening when the flies were + thick over the stream. The dogs were deprived of their + accustomed runs; the horses had to be taken out for exercise by + the groom; and the various and innumerable animals about the + place missed their doses of alternate petting and teasing, all + because Master Harry had chosen to shut himself up in his + study.</p> + + <p>The mother of the young man very soon discovered that her + son was not devoting his hours of seclusion in that + extraordinary museum of natural history to making trout-flies, + stuffing birds and arranging pinned butterflies in cases, as + was his custom. These were not the occupations which now kept + Master Harry up half the night. When she went in of a morning, + before he was up, she found that he had been covering whole + sheets of paper with careful copying out of passages taken at + random from the volumes beside him. A Latin grammar was + ordinarily on the table—a book which the young gentleman + had brought back from school free from thumb-marks. + Occasionally a fencing-foil lay among these evidences of study, + while the small aquaria, the cases of stuffed animals with + fancy backgrounds and the numerous bird-cages had been thrust + aside to give fair elbow-room.</p> + + <p>"Perhaps," said Mrs. Trelyon to herself with much + satisfaction—"perhaps, after all, that good little girl + has given him a hint about Parliament, and he is preparing + himself."</p> + + <p>A few days of this seclusion, however, began to make the + mother anxious; and so one morning she went into his room. He + hastily turned over the sheet of paper on which he had been + writing: then he looked up, not too well pleased.</p> + + <p>"Harry, why do you stay in-doors on such a beautiful + morning? It is quite like summer."</p> + + <p>"Yes, I know," he said. "I suppose we shall soon have a + batch of parsons here: summer always brings them. They come out + with the hot weather—like butterflies."</p> + + <p>Mrs. Trelyon was shocked and disappointed: she thought Wenna + Rosewarne had cured him of his insane dislike to + clergymen—indeed, for many a day gone by he had kept + respectfully silent on the subject.</p> + + <p>"But we shall not ask them to come if you'd rather not," she + said, wishing to do all she could to encourage the reformation + of his ways. "I think Mr. Barnes promised to visit us early in + May, but he is only one."</p> + + <p>"And one is worse than a dozen. When there's a lot you can + leave 'em to fight it out among themselves. But one!—to + have one stalking about an empty house, like a ghost dipped in + ink! Why can't you ask anybody but clergymen, mother? There are + whole lots of people would like to run down from London for a + fortnight before getting into the thick of the season: there's + the Pomeroy girls as good as offered to come."</p> + + <p>"But they can't come by themselves," Mrs. Trelyon said with + a feeble protest.</p> + + <p>"Oh yes, they can: they're ugly enough + <span class="pagenum"><a name="page98" + id="page98"></a>[pg 98]</span> to be safe anywhere. And why + don't you get Juliott up? She'll be glad to get away from + that old curmudgeon for a week. And you ought to ask the + Trewhellas, father and daughter, to dinner: that old fellow + is not half a bad sort of fellow, although he's a + clergyman."</p> + + <p>"Harry," said his mother, interrupting him, "I'll fill the + house if that will please you; and you shall ask just + whomsoever you please."</p> + + <p>"All right," said he: "the place wants waking up."</p> + + <p>"And then," said the mother, wishing to be still more + gracious, "you might ask Miss Rosewarne to dine with us: she + might come well enough, although Mr. Roscorla is not here."</p> + + <p>A sort of gloom fell over the young man's face again: "I + can't ask her—you may if you like."</p> + + <p>Mrs. Trelyon stared: "What is the matter, Harry? Have you + and she quarreled? Why, I was going to ask you, if you were + down in the village to-day, to say that I should like to see + her."</p> + + <p>"And how could I take such a message?" the young man said, + rather warmly, "I don't see why the girl should be ordered up + to see you as if you were conferring a favor on her by joining + in this scheme. She's very hard-worked; you have got plenty of + time; you ought to call on her and study her convenience, + instead of making her trot all the way up here whenever you + want to talk to her."</p> + + <p>The pale and gentle woman flushed a little, but she was + anxious not to give way to petulance just then: "Well, you are + quite right, Harry: it was thoughtless of me. I should like to + go down and see her this morning; but I have sent Jakes over to + the blacksmith's, and I am afraid of that new lad."</p> + + <p>"Oh, I will drive you down to the inn. I suppose among them + they can put the horses to the wagonette," the young man said, + not very graciously: and then Mrs. Trelyon went off to get + ready.</p> + + <p>It was a beautiful, fresh morning, the far-off line of the + sea still and blue, the sunlight lighting up the wonderful + masses of primroses along the tall banks, the air sweet with + the resinous odor of the gorse. Mrs. Trelyon looked with a + gentle and childlike pleasure on all these things, and was + fairly inclined to be very friendly with the young gentleman + beside her. But he was more than ordinarily silent and morose. + Mrs. Trelyon knew she had done nothing to offend him, and + thought it hard she should be punished for the sins of anybody + else.</p> + + <p>He spoke scarcely a word to her as the carriage rolled along + the silent highways. He drove rapidly and carelessly down the + steep thoroughfare of Eglosilyan, although there were plenty of + loose stones about. Then he pulled sharply up in front of the + inn, and George Rosewarne appeared.</p> + + <p>"Mr. Rosewarne, let me introduce you to my mother. She wants + to see Miss Wenna for a few moments, if she is not + engaged."</p> + + <p>Mr. Rosewarne took off his cap, assisted Mrs. Trelyon to + alight, and then showed her the way into the house.</p> + + <p>"Won't you come in, Harry?" his mother said.</p> + + <p>"No."</p> + + <p>A man had come out to the horses' heads.</p> + + <p>"You leave 'em alone," said the young gentleman: "I sha'n't + get down."</p> + + <p>Mabyn came out, her bright young face full of pleasure.</p> + + <p>"How do you do, Mabyn?" he said coldly, and without offering + to shake hands.</p> + + <p>"Won't you come in for a minute?" she said, rather + surprised.</p> + + <p>"No, thank you. Don't you stay out in the cold: you've got + nothing round your neck."</p> + + <p>Mabyn went away without saying a word, but thinking that the + coolness of the air was much less apparent than that of his + manner and speech.</p> + + <p>Being at length left to himself, he turned his attention to + the horses before him, and eventually, to pass the time, took + out his pocket-handkerchief and began to polish the silver on + the handle of the whip. He was disturbed in this peaceful + occupation by a very timid voice, which said, "Mr. Trelyon." He + <span class="pagenum"><a name="page99" + id="page99"></a>[pg 99]</span> turned round and found that + Wenna's wistful face was looking up to him, with a look in + it partly of friendly gladness and partly of anxiety and + entreaty. "Mr. Trelyon," she said, with her eyes cast down, + "I think you are offended with me. I am very sorry: I beg + your forgiveness."</p> + + <p>The reins were fastened up in a minute, and he was down in + the road beside her. "Now look here, Wenna," he said. "What + could you mean by treating me so unfairly? I don't mean in + being vexed with me, but in shunting me off, as it were, + instead of having it out at once. I don't think it was + fair."</p> + + <p>"I am very sorry," she said. "I think I was very wrong, but + you don't know what a girl feels about such things. Will you + come into the inn?"</p> + + <p>"And leave my horses? No," he said, good-naturedly. "But as + soon as I get that fellow out, I will; so you go in at once, + and I'll follow you directly. And mind, Wenna, don't you be so + silly again, or you and I may have a real quarrel; and I know + that would break your heart."</p> + + <p>The old pleased smile lit up her face again as she turned + and went in-doors: he meanwhile proceeded to summon a hostler + by shouting his name at the pitch of his voice.</p> + + <p>The small party of women assembled in the parlor were a + trifle embarrassed: it was the first time that the great lady + of the neighborhood had honored the inn with a visit. She + herself was merely quiet, gentle and pleased, but Mrs. + Rosewarne, with her fine eyes and her sensitive face all lit up + and quickened by, the novel excitement, was all anxiety to + amuse and interest and propitiate her distinguished guest. + Mabyn, too, was rather shy and embarrassed: she said things + hastily, and then seemed afraid of her interference. Wenna was + scarcely at her ease, because she saw that her mother and + sister were not; and she was very anxious, moreover, that these + two should think well of Mrs. Trelyon and be disposed to like + her.</p> + + <p>The sudden appearance of a man with a man's rough ways and + loud voice seemed to shake these feminine elements better + together, and to clear the air of timid apprehensions and + cautions. Harry Trelyon came into the room with quite a marked + freshness and good-nature on his face. His mother was + surprised: what had completely changed his manner in a couple + of minutes?</p> + + <p>"How are you, Mrs. Rosewarne?" he cried in his off-hand + fashion. "You oughtn't to be in-doors on such a morning, or we + shall never get you well, you know; and the doctor will be + sending you to Penzance or Devonport for a change. Well, Mabyn, + have you convinced anybody yet that your farm-laborers with + their twelve shillings a week are better off than the + slate-workers with their eighteen? You'd better take your + sister's opinion on that point, and don't squabble with me. + Mother, what's the use of sitting here? You bring Miss Wenna + with you into the wagonette, and talk to her there about all + your business-affairs, and I'll take you for a drive. Come + along. And of course I want somebody with me: will you come, + Mrs. Rosewarne, or will Mabyn? You can't?—then Mabyn + must. Go along, Mabyn, and put your best hat on, and make + yourself uncommonly smart, and you shall be allowed to sit next + the driver—that's me."</p> + + <p>And indeed he bundled the whole of them about until they + were seated in the wagonette just as he had indicated; and away + they went from the inn-door.</p> + + <p>"And you think you are coming back in half an hour?" he said + to his companion, who was much pleased and very proud to occupy + such a place. "Oh no, you're not. You're a young and simple + thing, Mabyn. These two behind us will go on talking now for + any time about yards of calico and crochet-needles and twopenny + subscriptions, while you and I, don't you see, are quietly + driving them over to Tintagel—"</p> + + <p>"Oh, Mr. Trelyon!" said Mabyn.</p> + + <p>"You keep quiet. That isn't the half of what's going to + befall you. I shall put up the horses at the inn, and I shall + take you all down to the beach for a scramble to improve your + appetite; and at the said inn you shall have luncheon with me, + if you're all very good and + <span class="pagenum"><a name="page100" + id="page100"></a>[pg 100]</span> behave yourselves. Then we + shall drive back just when we particularly please. Do you + like the picture?"</p> + + <p>"It is delightful: oh, I am sure Wenna will enjoy it," Mabyn + said. "But don't you think, Mr. Trelyon, that you might ask her + to sit here? One sees better here than sitting sideways in a + wagonette."</p> + + <p>"They have their business-affairs to settle."</p> + + <p>"Yes," said Mabyn petulantly, "that is what every one says: + nobody expects Wenna ever to have a moment's enjoyment to + herself. Oh, here is old Uncle Cornish—he's a great + friend of Wenna's: he will be dreadfully hurt if she passes him + without saying a word."</p> + + <p>"Then we shall pull up and address Uncle Cornish. I believe + he used to be the most thieving old ruffian of a poacher in + this county."</p> + + <p>There was a hale old man of seventy or so seated on a low + wall in front of one of the gardens, his face shaded from the + sunlight by a broad hat, his lean gray hands employed in + buckling up the leathern leggings that encased his spare + calves. He got up when the horses stopped, and looked in rather + a dazed fashion at the carriage.</p> + + <p>"How do you do this morning, Mr. Cornish?" Wenna said.</p> + + <p>"Why, now, to be sure!" the old man said, as if reproaching + his own imperfect vision. "'Tis a fine marnin', Miss Wenna, and + yü be agwoin' for a drive."</p> + + <p>"And how is your daughter-in-law, Mr. Cornish? Has she sold + the pig yet?"</p> + + <p>"Naw, she hasn't sold the peg. If yü be agwoin' + thrü Trevalga, Miss Wenna, just yü stop and have a + look at that peg: yü'll be 'mazed to see en. 'Tis many a + year agone sence there has been such a peg by me. And perhaps + yü'd take the laste bit o' refrashment, Miss Wenna, as + yü go by: Jane would get yü a coop o' tay to + once."</p> + + <p>"Thank you, Mr. Cornish, I'll look in and see the pig some + other time: to-day we sha'n't be going as far as Trevalga."</p> + + <p>"Oh, won't you?" said Master Harry in a low voice as he + drove on. "You'll be in Trevalga before you know where you + are."</p> + + <p>Which was literally the case. Wenna was so much engaged in + her talk with Mrs. Trelyon that she did not notice how far away + they were getting from Eglosilyan; but Mabyn and her companion + knew. They were now on the high uplands by the coast, driving + between the beautiful banks, which were starred with primroses + and stitchwort and red dead-nettle and a dozen other bright and + tender-hued firstlings of the year. The sun was warm on the + hedges and the fields, but a cool breeze blew about these lofty + heights, and stirred Mabyn's splendid masses of hair as they + drove rapidly along. Far over on their right, beyond the + majestic wall of cliff, lay the great blue plain of the sea; + and there stood the bold brown masses of the Sisters Rocks, + with a circle of white foam round their base. As they looked + down into the south the white light was so fierce that they + could but faintly discern objects through it; but here and + there they caught a glimpse of a square church-tower or of a + few rude cottages clustered on the high plain, and these seemed + to be of a transparent gray in the blinding glare of the + sun.</p> + + <p>Then suddenly in front of them they found a deep chasm, with + the white road leading down through its cool shadows. There was + the channel of a stream, with the rocks looking purple amid the + gray bushes; and here were rich meadows, with cattle standing + deep in the grass and the daisies; and over there, on the other + side, a strip of forest, with the sunlight shining along one + side of the tall and dark-green pines. As they drove down into + this place, which is called the Rocky Valley, a magpie rose + from one of the fields and flew up into the firs.</p> + + <p>"That is sorrow," said Mabyn.</p> + + <p>Another one rose and flew up to the same spot.</p> + + <p>"And that is joy," she said, with her face brightening.</p> + + <p>"Oh, but I saw another as we came to the brow of the hill, + and that means a marriage," her companion remarked to + her.</p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page101" + id="page101"></a>[pg 101]</span> + + <p>"Oh no," she said quite eagerly, "I am sure there was no + third one: I am certain there were only two. I am quite + positive we only saw two."</p> + + <p>"But why should you be so anxious?" Trelyon said, "You know + you ought to be looking forward to a marriage, and that is + always a happy thing. Are you envious, Mabyn?"</p> + + <p>The girl was silent for a moment or two. Then she said, with + a sudden bitterness in her tone, "Isn't it a fearful thing to + have to be civil to people whom you hate? Isn't it, when they + come and establish a claim on you through some one you care + for? You look at them—yes, you can look at them—and + you've got to see them kiss some one that you love; and you + wonder she doesn't rush away for a bit of caustic and cauterize + the place, as you do when a mad dog bites you."</p> + + <p>"Mabyn," said the young man beside her, "you are a most + unchristian sort of person this morning. Who is it you hate in + such a fashion? Will you take the reins while I walk up the + hill?"</p> + + <p>Mabyn's little burst of passion still burned in her cheeks + and gave a proud and angry look to her mouth, but she took the + reins all the same, and her companion leapt to the ground. The + banks on each side of the road going up this hill were tall and + steep: here and there great masses of wild flowers were + scattered among the grass and the gorse. From time to time he + stopped to pick up a handful, until, when they had got up to + the high and level country again, he had brought together a + very pretty bouquet of wild blossoms. When he got into his seat + and took the reins again he carelessly gave the bouquet to + Mabyn.</p> + + <p>"Oh, how pretty!" she said; and then she turned round: + "Wenna, are you very much engaged? Look at the pretty bouquet + Mr. Trelyon has gathered for you."</p> + + <p>Wenna's quiet face flushed with pleasure when she took the + flowers, and Mrs. Trelyon looked pleased and said they were + very pretty. She evidently thought that her son was greatly + improved in his manners when he condescended to gather flowers + to present to a girl. Nay, was he not at this moment devoting a + whole forenoon of his precious time to the unaccustomed task of + taking ladies for a drive? Mrs. Trelyon regarded Wenna with a + friendly look, and began to take a greater liking than ever to + that sensitive and expressive face and to the quiet and earnest + eyes.</p> + + <p>"But, Mr. Trelyon," said Wenna, looking round, "hadn't we + better turn? We shall be at Trevenna directly."</p> + + <p>"Yes, you are quite right," said Master Harry: "you will be + at Trevenna directly, and you are likely to be there for some + time. For Mabyn and I have resolved to have luncheon there, and + we are going down to Tintagel, and we shall most likely climb + to King Arthur's Castle. Have you any objections?"</p> + + <p>Wenna had none. The drive through the cool and bright day + had braced up her spirits. She was glad to know that everything + looked promising about this scheme of hers. So she willingly + surrendered herself to the holiday, and in due time they drove + into the odd and remote little village and pulled up in front + of the inn.</p> + + <p>So soon as the hostler had come to the horses' heads the + young gentleman who had been driving jumped down and assisted + his three companions to alight: then he led the way into the + inn. In the doorway stood a stranger, probably a commercial + traveler, who, with his hands in his pockets, his legs apart + and a cigar in his mouth, had been visiting those three ladies + with a very hearty stare as they got out of the carriage. + Moreover, when they came to the doorway he did not budge an + inch nor did he take his cigar from his mouth; and so, as it + had never been Mr. Trelyon's fashion to sidle past any one, + that young gentleman made straight for the middle of the + passage, keeping his shoulders very square. The consequence was + a collision. The imperturbable person with his hands in his + pockets was sent staggering against the wall, while his cigar + dropped on the stone. "What the devil—!" he was beginning + to say, when Trelyon got the three women past him and into the + small parlor. Then he went back: "Did you + <span class="pagenum"><a name="page102" + id="page102"></a>[pg 102]</span> wish to speak to me, sir? + No, you didn't: I perceive you are a prudent person. Next + time ladies pass you, you'd better take your cigar out of + your mouth or somebody'll destroy that two-pennyworth of + tobacco for you. Good-morning."</p> + + <p>Then he returned to the little parlor, to which a waitress + had been summoned: "Now, Jinny, pull yourself together and + let's have something nice for luncheon—in an hour's time, + sharp. You will, won't you? And how about that Sillery with the + blue star—not the stuff with the gold head that some + abandoned ruffian in Plymouth brews in his back garden. Well, + can't you speak?"</p> + + <p>"Yes, sir," said the bewildered maid.</p> + + <p>"That's a good thing—a very good thing," said he, + putting the shawls together on a sofa. "Don't you forget how to + speak until you get married. And don't let anybody come into + this room. And you can let my man have his dinner and a pint of + beer. Oh, I forgot: I'm my own man this morning, so you needn't + go asking for him. Now, will you remember all these + things?"</p> + + <p>"Yes, sir; but what would you like for luncheon?"</p> + + <p>"My good girl, we should like a thousand things such as + Tintagel never saw, but what you've got to do is to give us the + nicest things you've got: do you see? I leave it entirely in + your hands. Come along, young people."</p> + + <p>And so he bundled his charges out again into the main street + of the village; and somehow it happened that Mabyn addressed a + timid remark to Mrs. Trelyon, and that Mrs. Trelyon, in + answering it, stopped for a moment; so that Master Harry was + sent to Wenna's side, and these two led the way down the wide + thoroughfare. There were few people visible in the + old-fashioned place: here and there an aged crone came out to + the door of one of the rude stone cottages to look at the + strangers. Overhead the sky was veiled over with a thin fleece + of white cloud, but the light was intense for all that, and + indeed the colors of the objects around seemed all the more + clear and marked.</p> + + <p>"Well, Miss Wenna," said the young man gayly, "how long are + we to remain good friends? What is the next fault you will have + to find with me? Or have you discovered something wrong + already?"</p> + + <p>"Oh no," she said with a quiet smile, "I am very good + friends with you this morning. You have pleased your mother + very much by bringing her for this drive."</p> + + <p>"Oh, nonsense!" he said. "She might have as many drives as + she chose; but presently you'll find a lot of those parsons + back at the house, and she'll take to her white gowns again, + and the playing of the organ all the day long, and all that + sham stuff. I tell you what it is: she never seems alive, she + never seems to take any interest in anything, unless you're + with her. Now, you will see how the novelty of this + luncheon-party in an inn will amuse her; but do you think she + would care for it if she and I were here alone?"</p> + + <p>"Perhaps you never tried?" Miss Wenna said gently.</p> + + <p>"Perhaps I knew she wouldn't come. However, don't let's have + a fight, Wenna: I mean to be very civil to you to-day—I + do, really."</p> + + <p>"I am so much obliged to you," she said meekly. "But pray + don't give yourself unnecessary trouble."</p> + + <p>"Oh," said he, "I'd always be civil to you if you would + treat me decently. But you say far more rude things than I + do—in that soft way, you know, that looks as if it were + all silk and honey. I do think you've awfully little + consideration for human failings. If one goes wrong in the + least thing, even in one's spelling, you say something that + sounds as pleasant as possible, and all the same it transfixes + one just as you stick a pin through a beetle. You are very + hard, you are—mean with those who would like to be + friends with you. When it's mere strangers and cottagers and + people of that sort, who don't care a brass farthing about you, + then I believe you're all gentleness and kindness; but to your + real friends the edge of a saw is smooth compared to you."</p> + + <p>"Am I so very harsh to my friends?" the young lady said in a + resigned way.</p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page103" + id="page103"></a>[pg 103]</span> + + <p>"Oh, well," he said, with some compunction, "I don't quite + say that, but you could be much more pleasant if you liked, and + a little more charitable to their faults. You know there are + some who would give a great deal to win your approval; and + perhaps when you find fault they are so disappointed that they + think your words are sharper than you mean; and sometimes they + think you might give them credit for trying to please you, at + least."</p> + + <p>"And who are these persons?" Wenna said, with another smile + stealing over her face.</p> + + <p>"Oh," said he rather shamefacedly, "there's no need to + explain anything to you: you always see it before one need put + it in words."</p> + + <p>Well, perhaps it was in his manner or in the tone of his + voice that there was something which seemed at this moment to + touch her deeply, for she half turned and looked up at his face + with her honest and earnest eyes, and said to him kindly, "Yes, + I do know without you telling me; and it makes me happy to hear + you talk so; and if I am unjust to you, you must not think it + intentional. And I shall try not to be so in the future."</p> + + <p>Mrs. Trelyon was regarding with a kindly look the two young + people walking on in front of her. Whatever pleased her son + pleased her, and she was glad to see him enjoy himself in so + light-hearted a fashion. These two were chatting to each other + in the friendliest manner: sometimes they stopped to pick up + wild flowers: they were as two children together under the fair + and light summer skies.</p> + + <p>They went down and along a narrow valley, until they + suddenly stood in front of the sea, the green waters of which + were breaking in upon a small and lonely creek. What strange + light was this that fell from the white skies above, rendering + all the objects around them sharp its outline and intense in + color? The beach before them seemed of a pale lilac, where the + green waves broke in a semicircle of white. On their right some + masses of ruddy rock jutted out into the cold sea, and there + were huge black caverns into which the waves dashed and roared. + On their left and far above them towered a great and isolated + rock, its precipitous sides scored here and there with twisted + lines of red and yellow quartz; and on the summit of this bold + headland, amid the dark green of the sea-grass, they could see + the dusky ruins—the crumbling walls and doorways and + battlements—of the castle that is named in all the + stories of King Arthur and his knights. The bridge across to + the mainland has, in the course of centuries, fallen away, but + there, on the other side of the wide chasm, were the ruins of + the other portions of the castle, scarcely to be distinguished + in parts from the grass-grown rocks. How long ago was it since + Sir Tristram rode out here to the end of the world, to find the + beautiful Isoulde awaiting him—she whom he had brought + from Ireland as an unwilling bride to the old king Mark? And + what of the joyous company of knights and ladies who once held + high sport in the courtyard there? Trelyon, looking shyly at + his companion, could see that her eyes seemed centuries away + from him. She was quite unconscious of his covertly staring at + her, for she was absently looking at the high and bare + precipices, the deserted slopes of dark sea-grass and the + lonely and crumbling ruins. She was wondering whether the + ghosts of those vanished people ever came back to this lonely + headland, where they would find the world scarcely altered + since they had left it. Did they come at night, when the land + was dark, and when there was a light over the sea only coming + from the stars? If one were to come at night alone, and to sit + down here by the shore, might not one see strange things far + overhead or hear some sound other than the falling of the + waves?</p> + + <p>"Miss Wenna," he said—and she started + suddenly—"are you bold enough to climb with me up to the + castle? I know my mother would rather stay here."</p> + + <p>She went with him mechanically. She followed him up the rude + steps cut in the steep slopes of slate, holding his hand where + that was possible, but her head was so full of dreams that she + answered <span class="pagenum"><a name="page104" + id="page104"></a>[pg 104]</span> him when he spoke only with + a vague yes or no. When they descended again they found that + Mabyn had taken Mrs. Trelyon down to the beach, and had + inveigled her into entering a huge cavern, or rather a + natural tunnel, that went right through underneath the + promontory on which the castle is built. They were in a sort + of green-hued twilight, a scent of seaweed filling the damp + air, and their voices raising an echo in the great hall of + rock.</p> + + <p>"I hope the climbing has not made you giddy," Mrs. Trelyon + said in her kind way to Wenna, noticing that she was very + silent and distrait.</p> + + <p>"Oh no," Mabyn said promptly. "She has been seeing ghosts. + We always know when Wenna has been seeing ghosts: she remains + so for hours."</p> + + <p>And, indeed, at this time she was rather more reserved than + usual all during their walk back to luncheon and while they + were in the inn; and yet she was obviously very happy, and + sometimes even amused by the childlike pleasure which Mrs. + Trelyon seemed to obtain from these unwonted experiences.</p> + + <p>"Come, now, mother," Master Harry said, "what are you going + to do for me when I come of age next month? Fill the house with + guests—yes, you promised that—with not more than + one parson to the dozen? And when they're all feasting and + gabbling, and missing the targets with their arrows, you'll + slip quietly away, and I'll drive you and Miss Wenna over here, + and you'll go and get your feet wet again in that cavern, and + you'll come up here again and have an elegant luncheon, just + like this. Won't that do?"</p> + + <p>"I don't quite know about the elegance of the luncheon, but + I'm sure our little excursion has been very pleasant. Don't you + think so, Miss Rosewarne?" Mrs. Trelyon said.</p> + + <p>"Indeed I do," said Wenna, with her big, earnest eyes coming + back from their trance.</p> + + <p>"And here is another thing," remarked young Trelyon. + "There's a picture I've seen of the heir coming of + age—he's a horrid, self-sufficient young cad, but never + mind—and it seems to be a day of general jollification. + Can't I give a present to somebody? Well, I'm going to give it + to a young lady who never cares for anything but what she can + give away again to somebody else; and it is—well, it + is—Why don't you guess, Mabyn?"</p> + + <p>"I don't know what you mean to give Wenna," said Mabyn + naturally.</p> + + <p>"Why, you silly! I mean to give her a dozen + sewing-machines—a baker's dozen—thirteen. There! + Oh, I heard you as you came along. It was all, 'Three + sewing-machines will cost so much, and four sewing-machines + will cost so much, and five sewing-machines will cost so much. + And a penny a week from so many subscribers will be so much, + and twopence a week from so many will be so much;' and all this + as if my mother could tell you how much twice two was. My + arithmetic ain't very brilliant, but as for hers—And + these you shall have, Miss Wenna—one baker's dozen of + sewing-machines, as per order, duly delivered, carriage + free—empty casks and bottles to be returned."</p> + + <p>"That is very kind of you, Mr. Trelyon," Wenna + said—and all the dreams had gone straight out of her head + so soon as this was mentioned—"but we can't possibly + accept them. You know our scheme is to make the sewing club + quite self-supporting—no charity."</p> + + <p>"Oh, what stuff!" the young gentleman cried. "You know you + will give all your labor and supervision for nothing: isn't + that charity? And you know you will let off all sorts of people + owing you subscriptions the moment some blessed baby falls ill. + And you know you won't charge interest on all the outlay. But + if you insist on paying me back for my sewing-machines out of + the overwhelming profits at the end of next year, then I'll + take the money. I'm not proud."</p> + + <p>"Then we will take six sewing-machines from you, if you + please, Mr. Trelyon, on those conditions," said Wenna gravely. + And Master Harry—with a look toward Mabyn which was just + about as good as a wink—consented.</p> + + <p>As they drove quietly back again to Eglosilyan, Mabyn had + taken her former <span class="pagenum"><a name="page105" + id="page105"></a>[pg 105]</span> place by the driver, and + found him uncommonly thoughtful. He answered her questions, + but that was all; and it was so unusual to find Harry + Trelyon in this mood that she said to him, "Mr. Trelyon, + have you been seeing ghosts, too?"</p> + + <p>He turned to her and said, "I was thinking about something. + Look here, Mabyn: did you ever know any one, or do you know any + one, whose face is a sort of barometer to you? Suppose that you + see her look pale and tired or sad in any way, then down go + your spirits, and you almost wish you had never been born. When + you see her face brighten up and get full of healthy color, you + feel glad enough to burst out singing or go mad: anyhow, you + know that everything's all right. What the weather is, what + people may say about you, whatever else may happen to you, + that's nothing: all you want to see is just that one person's + face look perfectly bright and perfectly happy, and nothing can + touch you then. Did you ever know anybody like that?" he added + rather abruptly.</p> + + <p>"Oh yes," said Mabyn, in a low voice: "that is when you are + in love with some one. And there is only one face in all the + world that I look to for all these things, there is only one + person I know who tells you openly and simply in her face all + that affects her, and that is our Wenna. I suppose you have + noticed that, Mr. Trelyon?"</p> + + <p>But he did not make any answer.</p> + + <h3>CHAPTER XXI.</h3> + + <h3>CONFESSION.</h3> + + <p>The lad lay dreaming in the warm meadows by the side of a + small and rapid brook, the clear waters of which plashed and + bubbled in the sunlight as they hurried past the brown stones. + His fishing-rod lay beside him, hidden in the long grass and + the daisies. The sun was hot in the valley—shining on a + wall of gray rock behind him, and throwing purple shadows over + the clefts; shining on the dark bushes beside the stream and on + the lush green of the meadows; shining on the trees beyond, in + the shadow of which some dark red cattle were standing. Then + away on the other side of the valley rose gently-sloping woods, + gray and green in the haze of the heat, and over these again + was the pale blue sky with scarcely a cloud in it. It was a hot + day to be found in spring-time, but the waters of the brook + seemed cool and pleasant as they gurgled by, and occasionally a + breath of wind blew over from the woods. For the rest, he lay + so still on this fine, indolent, dreamy morning that the birds + around seemed to take no note of his presence, and one of the + large woodpeckers, with his scarlet head and green body + brilliant in the sun, flew close by him and disappeared into + the bushes opposite like a sudden gleam of color shot by a + diamond.</p> + + <p>"Next month," he was thinking to himself as he lay with his + hands behind his head, not caring to shade his handsome and + well-tanned face from the warm sun—"next month I shall be + twenty-one, and most folks will consider me a man. Anyhow, I + don't know the man whom I wouldn't fight or run or ride or + shoot against for any wager he liked. But of all the people who + know anything about me, just that one whose opinion I care for + will not consider me a man at all, but only a boy. And that + without saying anything. You can tell, somehow, by a mere look, + what her feelings are; and you know that what she thinks is + true. Of course it's true—I am only a boy. What's the + good of me to anybody? I could look after a farm—that is, + I could look after other people doing their work—but I + couldn't do any work myself. And that seems to me what she is + always looking at: 'What's the good of you, what are you doing, + what are you busy about?' It's all very well for her to be + busy, for she can do a hundred thousand things, and she is + always at them. What can I do?"</p> + + <p>Then his wandering day-dreamings took another turn: "It was + an odd thing for Mabyn to say—'<i>That is when you are in + love with some one</i>.' But those girls take everything for + love. They don't know how you can admire, almost + <span class="pagenum"><a name="page106" + id="page106"></a>[pg 106]</span> to worshiping, the goodness + of a woman, and how you are anxious that she should be well + and happy, and how you would do anything in the world to + please her, without fancying straight away that you are in + love with her, and want to marry her and drive about in the + same carriage with her. I shall be quite as fond of Wenna + Rosewarne when she is married, although I shall hate that + little brute with his rum and his treacle. The cheek of him, + in asking her to marry him, is astonishing. He is the most + hideous little beast that could have been picked out to + marry any woman, but I suppose he has appealed to her + compassion, and then she'll do anything. But if there was + anybody else in love with her, if she cared the least bit + about anybody else, wouldn't I go straight to her and insist + on her shunting that fellow aside? What claim has he on any + other feeling of hers but her compassion? Why, if that + fellow were to come and try to frighten her, and if I were + in the affair, and if she appealed to me even by a look, + then there would be short work with something or + somebody."</p> + + <p>He got up hastily, with something of a gloomy and angry look + on his face. He did not notice that he had startled all the + birds around from out of the bushes. He picked up his rod and + line in a morose fashion, not seeming to care about adding to + the half dozen small and red-speckled trout he had in his + basket.</p> + + <p>While he was thus irresolutely standing he caught sight of a + girl's figure coming rapidly along the valley under the shadow + of some ash trees growing by the stream. It was Wenna Rosewarne + herself, and she seemed to be hurrying toward him. She was + carrying some black object in her arms.</p> + + <p>"Oh, Mr. Trelyon," she said, "what am I to do with this + little dog? I saw him kicking in the road and foaming at the + mouth; and then he got up and ran, and I caught him—"</p> + + <p>Before she had time to say anything more the young man made + a sudden dive at the dog, caught hold of him and turned and + heaved him into the stream. He fell into a little pool of clear + brown water: he spluttered and paddled there for a second, then + he got his footing and scrambled across the stones up to the + opposite bank, where he began shaking the water from his coat + among the long grass.</p> + + <p>"Oh, how could you be so disgracefully cruel?" she said, + with her face full of indignation.</p> + + <p>"And how could you be so imprudent?"' he said quite as + vehemently. "Why, whose is the dog?"</p> + + <p>"I don't know."</p> + + <p>"And you catch up some mongrel little cur in the middle of + the highway—He might have been mad."</p> + + <p>"I knew he wasn't mad," she said: "it was only a fit; and + how could you be so cruel as to throw him into the river?"</p> + + <p>"Oh," said the young man, coolly, "a clash of cold water is + the best thing for a dog that has a fit. Besides, I don't care + what he had or what I did with him, so long as you are safe. + Your little finger is of more consequence than the necks of all + the curs in the country."</p> + + <p>"Oh, it is mean of you to say that," she retorted warmly. + "You have no pity for those wretched little things that are at + every one's mercy. If it were a handsome and beautiful dog, + now, you would care for that, or if it were a dog that was + skilled in getting game for you, you would care for that."</p> + + <p>"Yes, certainly," he said: "these are dogs that have + something to recommend them."</p> + + <p>"Yes, and every one is good to them: they are not in need of + your favor. But you don't think of the wretched little brutes + that have nothing to recommend them, that only live on + sufferance, that every one kicks and despises and starves."</p> + + <p>"Well," said he with some compunction, "look there! That new + friend of yours—he's no great beauty, you must + confess—is all right now. The bath has cured him. As soon + as he's done licking his paws he'll be off home, wherever that + may be. But I've always noticed that about you, Wenna: you're + always on the side of things that are ugly and + <span class="pagenum"><a name="page107" + id="page107"></a>[pg 107]</span> helpless and useless in the + world; and you're not very just to those who don't agree + with you. For after all, you know, one wants time to acquire + that notion of yours—that it is only weak and + ill-favored creatures that are worthy of the least + consideration."</p> + + <p>"Yes," she said rather sadly, "you want time to learn + that."</p> + + <p>He looked at her. Did she mean that her sympathy with those + who were weak and ill-favored arose from some strange + consciousness that she herself was both? His cheeks began to + burn red. He had often heard her hint something like that, and + yet he had never dared to reason with her or show her what he + thought of her. Should he do so now?</p> + + <p>"Wenna," he said, blushing hotly, "I can't make you out + sometimes. You speak as if no one cared for you. Now, if I were + to tell you—"</p> + + <p>"Oh, I am not so ungrateful," she said hastily. "I know that + two or three do; and—and, Mr. Trelyon, do you think you + could coax that little dog over the stream again? You see he + has come back again—he can't find his way home."</p> + + <p>Mr. Trelyon called to the dog: it came down to the river's + side, and whined and shivered on the brink.</p> + + <p>"Do you care a brass farthing about the little beast?" he + said to Wenna.</p> + + <p>"I must put him on his way home," she answered.</p> + + <p>Thereupon the young man went straight through the stream to + the other side, jumping the deeper portions of the channel: he + caught up the dog and brought it back to her; and when she was + very angry with him for this mad performance, he merely kicked + some of the water out of his trousers and laughed.</p> + + <p>Then a smile broke over her face also. "Is that an example + of what people would do for me?" she said shyly. "Mr. Trelyon, + you must keep walking through the warm grass till your feet are + dry; or will you come along to the inn, and I shall get you + some shoes and stockings? Pray do, and at once. I am rather in + a hurry."</p> + + <p>"I'll go along with you, anyway," he said, "and put this + little brute into the highway. But why are you in a hurry?"</p> + + <p>"Because," said Wenna, as they set out to walk down the + valley—"because my mother and I are going to Penzance the + day after to-morrow, and I have a lot of things to get + ready."</p> + + <p>"To Penzance?" said he with a sudden falling of the + face.</p> + + <p>"Yes. She has been dreadfully out of sorts lately, and she + has sunk into a kind of despondent state. The doctor says she + must have a change—a holiday, really—to take her + away from the cares of the house—"</p> + + <p>"Why, Wenna, it's you who want the holiday—it's you + who have the cares of the house," Trelyon said warmly.</p> + + <p>"And so I have persuaded her to go to Penzance for a week or + two, and I go with her to look after her. Mr. Trelyon, would + you be kind enough to keep Rock for me until we come back? I am + afraid of the servants neglecting him."</p> + + <p>"You needn't be afraid of that: he's not one of the + ill-favored—every one will attend to him," said Trelyon; + and then he added, after a minute or two of silence, "The fact + is, I think I shall be at Penzance also while you are there. My + cousin Juliott is coming here in about a fortnight to celebrate + the important event of my coming of age, and I promised to go + for her. I might as well go now."</p> + + <p>She said nothing.</p> + + <p>"I might as well go any time," he said rather impatiently. + "I haven't got anything to do. Do you know, before you came + along just now, I was thinking what a very useful person you + were in the world, and what a very useless person I + was—about as useless as this little cur. I think somebody + should take me up and heave me into a river. And I was + wondering, too"—here he became a little more embarrassed + and slow of speech—"I was wondering what you would say + if I spoke to you, and gave you a hint that + sometimes—that sometimes one might wish to cut this lazy + life if one only knew how, and whether so very busy a person as + yourself mightn't—don't you see?—give one some + notion—some sort of hint, in fact—"</p> + + <p>"Oh, but then, Mr. Trelyon," she said quite cheerfully, "you + would think it very <span class="pagenum"><a name="page108" + id="page108"></a>[pg 108]</span> strange if I asked you to + take any interest in the things that keep me busy. That is + not a man's work. I wouldn't accept you as a pupil."</p> + + <p>He burst out laughing. "Why," said he, "do you think I + offered to mend stockings and set sums on slates and coddle + babies?"</p> + + <p>"As for setting sums on slates," she remarked with a quiet + impertinence, "the working of them out might be of use to + you."</p> + + <p>"Yes, and a serious trouble too," he said candidly. "No, + no—that cottage business ain't in my line. I like to have + a joke with the old folks or a romp with the kids, but I can't + go in for cutting out pinafores. I shall leave my mother to do + my share of that for me; and hasn't she come out strong lately, + eh? It's quite a new amusement for her, and it's driven a deal + of that organ-grinding and stuff out of her head; and I've a + notion some o' those parsons—"</p> + + <p>He stopped short, remembering who his companion was; and at + this moment they came to a gate which opened out on the + highway, through which the small cur was passed to find his way + home.</p> + + <p>"Now, Miss Wenna," said the young man—"By the way, you + see how I remember to address you respectfully ever since you + got sulky with me about it the other day?"</p> + + <p>"I am sure I did not get sulky with you, and especially + about that," she remarked with much composure. "I suppose you + are not aware that you have dropped the 'Miss' several times + this morning already?"</p> + + <p>"Did I, really? Well, then, I'm awfully sorry; but then you + are so good-natured you tempt one to forget; and my mother she + always calls you Wenna Rosewarne now in speaking to me, as if + you were a little school-girl, instead of being the chief + support and pillar of all the public affairs of Eglosilyan. And + now, Miss Wenna, I sha'n't go down the road with you, because + my damp boots and garments would gather the dust; but perhaps + you wouldn't mind stopping two seconds here, and I'm going to + go a cracker and ask you a question: What should a fellow in my + position try to do? You see, I haven't had the least training + for any one of the professions, even if I had any sort of + capacity—"</p> + + <p>"But why should you wish to have a profession?" she said + simply. "You have more money than is good for you already."</p> + + <p>"Then you don't think it ignominious," he said, with his + face lighting up considerably, "to fish in summer and shoot in + autumn and hunt in winter, and make that the only business of + one's life?"</p> + + <p>"I should if it were the only business, but it needn't be, + and you don't make it so. My father speaks very highly of the + way you look after your property; and he knows what attending + to an estate is. And then you have so many opportunities of + being kind and useful to the people about you that you might do + more good that way than by working night and day at a + profession. Then you owe much to yourself, because if every one + began with himself, and educated himself, and became satisfied + and happy with doing his best, there would be no bad conduct + and wretchedness to call for interference. I don't see why you + should be ashamed of shooting and hunting and all that, and + doing them as well as anybody else, or far better, as I hear + people say. I don't think a man is bound to have ambition and + try to become famous: you might be of much greater use in the + world, even in such a little place as Eglosilyan, than if you + were in Parliament. I did say to Mrs. Trelyon that I should + like to see you in Parliament, because one has a natural pride + in any person one admires and likes very much, and one + wishes—"</p> + + <p>He saw the quick look of fear that sprang to her + eyes—not a sudden appearance of shy embarrassment, but of + absolute fear—and he was almost as startled by her + blunder as she herself was. He hastily came to her rescue. He + thanked her in a few rapid and formal words for her patience + and advice; and, as he saw she was trying to turn away and hide + the mortification visible on her face, he shook hands with her + and let her go.</p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page109" + id="page109"></a>[pg 109]</span> + + <p>Then he turned. He had been startled, it is true, and + grieved to see the pain her chance words had caused her. But + now a great glow of delight rose up within him, and he could + have called aloud to the blue skies and the silent woods + because of the joy that filled his heart. They were but chance + words, of course. They were uttered with no deliberate + intention: on the contrary, her quick look of pain showed how + bitterly she regretted the blunder. Moreover, he congratulated + himself on his rapid piece of acting, and assured himself that + she would believe that he had not noticed that admission of + hers. They were idle words: she would forget them. The + incident, so far as she was concerned, was gone.</p> + + <p>But not so far as he was concerned. For now he knew that the + person whom, above all other persons in the world, he was most + desirous to please, whose respect and esteem he was most + anxious to obtain, had not only condoned much of his idleness + out of the abundant charity of her heart, but had further, and + by chance, revealed to him that she gave him some little share + of that affection which she seemed to shed generously and + indiscriminately on so many folks and things around her. He, + too, was now in the charmed circle. He walked with a new pride + through the warm, green meadows, his rod over his shoulder: he + whistled as he went, or he sang snatches of "The Rose of + Allandale." He met two small boys out bird's-nesting: he gave + them a shilling apiece, and then inconsistently informed them + that if he caught them then or at any other time with a bird's + nest in their hands he would cuff their ears. Then he walked + hastily home, put by his fishing-rod, and shut himself up in + his study with half a dozen of those learned volumes which he + had brought back unsoiled from school.</p> + + <h3>CHAPTER XXII.</h3> + + <h3>ON WINGS OF HOPE.</h3> + + <p>When Trelyon arrived late one evening at Penzance he was + surprised to find his uncle's coachman awaiting him at the + station: "What's the matter, Tobias? Is the old gentleman going + to die? You don't mean to say you are here for me?"</p> + + <p>"Yaäs, zor, I be," said the little old man with no + great courtesy.</p> + + <p>"Then he is going to die if he sends out his horse at this + time o' night. Look here, Tobias: I'll put my portmanteau + inside and come on the box to have a talk with you—you're + such a jolly old card, you know—and you'll tell me all + that's happened since I last enjoyed my uncle's bountiful + hospitality."</p> + + <p>This the young man did: and then the brown-faced, wiry and + surly little person, having started his horse, proceeded to + tell his story in a series of grumbling and disconnected + sentences. He was not nearly so taciturn as he looked: "The + maäster he went sün to bed to-night: 'twere Miss + Juliott sent me to the station, without tellin' en. He's + gettin' worse and worse, that's sure: if yü be for giving + me half a crown, like, or any one that comes to the house, he + finds it out and stops it out o' my wages: yes, he does, zor, + the old fule!"</p> + + <p>"Tobias, be a little more respectful to my uncle, if you + please."</p> + + <p>"Why, zor, yü knaw en well enough," said the man in the + same surly fashion. "And I'll tell yü this, Maäster + Harry, if yü be after dinner with en, and he has a bottle + o' poort wine that he puts on the mantelpiece, and he says to + yü to let that aloän, vor 'tis a medicine-zart o' + wine, don't yü heed en, but have that wine. 'Tis the real + old poort wine, zor, that yür vather gied en—the + dahmned old pagan!"</p> + + <p>The young man burst out laughing, instead of reprimanding + Tobias, who maintained his sulky impassiveness of face.</p> + + <p>"Why, zor, I be gardener now, too: yaäs I be, to save + the wages. And he's gone clean mazed about that + garden—yaäs, I think. Would yü believe this, + Maäster Harry, that he killed every one o' the blessed + strawberries last year with a lot o' wrack from the bache, + because he said it wüd be as good for them as for the + 'sparagus?"</p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page110" + id="page110"></a>[pg 110]</span> + + <p>"Well, but the old chap finds amusement in pottering about + the garden—" said Master Harry.</p> + + <p>"The old fule!" repeated Tobias, in an under tone.</p> + + <p>"And the theory is sound about the seaweed and the + strawberries; just as his old notion of getting a green rose by + pouring sulphate of copper in at the roots."</p> + + <p>"Yaäs, that were another pretty thing, Maäster + Harry, and he had the tin labels all printed out in French, and + he waited and waited, and there bain't a fairly güde rose + left in the garden. And his violet glass for the cucumbers: he + burned en up to once, although 'twere fine to hear'n talk about + the sunlight and the rays and such nonsenses. He be a strange + mahn, zor, and a dahmned close'n with his penny-pieces, + Christian and all as he calls his-sen. There's Miss Juliott, + zor, she's go-in' to get married, I suppose; and when she goes + no one 'll dare spake to 'n. Be yü going to stop long this + time, Maäster Harry?"</p> + + <p>"Not at the Hollies, Tobias. I shall go down to the Queen's + to-morrow: I've got rooms there."</p> + + <p>"So much the better—so much the better," said the + frank but inhospitable retainer; and presently the jogtrot old + animal between the shafts was pulled up in front of a certain + square old-fashioned building of gray stone which was prettily + surrounded with trees. They had arrived at the Rev. Mr. + Penaluna's house, and there was a young lady standing in the + light of the hall, she having opened the door very softly as + she heard the carriage drive up.</p> + + <p>"So here you are, Harry; and you'll stay with us the whole + fortnight, won't you? Come in to the dining-room—I have + some supper ready for you. Papa's gone to bed, and he desired + me to give you his excuses, and he hopes you'll make yourself + quite at home, as you always do, Harry."</p> + + <p>He did make himself quite at home, for, having kissed his + cousin and flung his topcoat down in the hall, he went into the + dining-room and took possession of an easy-chair.</p> + + <p>"Sha'n't have any supper, Jue, thank you. You won't mind my + lighting a cigar—somebody's been smoking here already. + And what's the least poisonous claret you've got?"</p> + + <p>"Well, I declare!" she said, but she got him the wine all + the same, and watched him light his cigar: then she took the + easy-chair opposite.</p> + + <p>"Tell us about your young man, Jue," he said. "Girls always + like to talk about that."</p> + + <p>"Do they?" she said. "Not to boys."</p> + + <p>"I shall be twenty-one in a fortnight. I am thinking of + getting married."</p> + + <p>"So I hear," she remarked quietly.</p> + + <p>Now he had been talking nonsense at random, mostly intent on + getting his cigar well lit, but this little observation rather + startled him. "What have you heard?" he said abruptly.</p> + + <p>"Oh, nothing—the ordinary stupid gossip," she said, + though she was watching him rather closely. "Are you going to + stay with us for the next fortnight?"</p> + + <p>"No, I have got rooms at the Queen's."</p> + + <p>"I thought so. One might have expected you, however, to stay + with your relations when you came to Penzance."</p> + + <p>"Oh, that's all gammon, Jue," he said: "you know very well + your father doesn't care to have any one stay with + you—it's too much bother. You'll have quite enough of me + while I am in Penzance."</p> + + <p>"Shall we have anything of you?" she said with apparent + indifference. "I understood that Miss Rosewarne and her mamma + had already come here."</p> + + <p>"And what if they have?" he said with unnecessary + fierceness.</p> + + <p>"Well, Harry," she said, "you needn't get unto a temper + about it, but people will talk, you know; and they say that + your attentions to that young lady are rather marked, + considering that she is engaged to be married; and you have + induced your mother to make a pet of her. Shall I go on?"</p> + + <p>"No, you needn't," he said with a strong effort to overcome + his anger. "You're quite right—people do talk, but they + wouldn't talk so much if other people didn't carry tales. Why, + it isn't like you, Jue! I thought you were another + <span class="pagenum"><a name="page111" + id="page111"></a>[pg 111]</span> sort. And about this girl, + of all girls in the world!"</p> + + <p>He got up and began walking about the room, and talking with + considerable vehemence, but no more in anger. He would tell her + what cause there was for this silly gossip. He would tell her + who this girl was who had been lightly mentioned. And in his + blunt, frank, matter-of-fact way, which did not quite conceal + his emotion, he revealed to his cousin all that he thought of + Wenna Rosewarne, and what he hoped for her in the future, and + what their present relations were, and then plainly asked her + if she could condemn him.</p> + + <p>Miss Juliott was touched: "Sit down, Harry: I have wanted to + talk to you, and I don't mean to heed any gossip. Sit down, + please—you frighten me by walking up and down like that. + Now, I'm going to talk common sense to you, for I should like + to be your friend; and your mother is so easily led away by any + sort of sentiment that she isn't likely to have seen with my + eyes. Suppose that this Miss Rosewarne—"</p> + + <p>"No, hold hard a bit, Jue," he said imperatively. "You may + talk till the millennium, but just keep off her, I warn + you."</p> + + <p>"Will you hear me out, you silly boy? Suppose that Miss + Rosewarne is everything that you believe her to be. I'm going + to grant that, because I'm going to ask you a question. You + can't have such an opinion of any girl, and be constantly in + her society, and go following her about like this, without + falling in love with her. Now, in that case would you propose + to marry her?"</p> + + <p>"I marry her!" he said, his face becoming suddenly pale for + a moment. "Jue, you are mad! I am not fit to marry a girl like + that. You don't know her. Why—"</p> + + <p>"Let all that alone, Harry: when a man is in love with a + woman he always thinks he's good enough for her; and whether he + does or not he tries to get her for a wife. Don't let us + discuss your comparative merits: one might even put in a word + for you. But suppose you drifted into being in love with + her—and I consider that quite probable—and suppose + you forgot, as I know you would forget, the difference in your + social position, how would you like to go and ask her to break + her promise to the gentleman to whom she is engaged?"</p> + + <p>Master Harry laughed aloud in a somewhat nervous fashion: + "Him? Look here, Jue: leave me out of it—I haven't the + cheek to talk of myself in that connection—but if there + was a decent sort of fellow whom that girl really took a liking + to, do you think he would let that elderly and elegant swell + out in Jamaica stand in his way? He would be no such fool, I + can tell you. He would consider the girl first of all. He would + say to himself, 'I mean to make this girl happy; if any one + interferes, let him look out!' Why, Jue, you don't suppose any + man would be frightened by that sort of thing?"</p> + + <p>Miss Juliott did not seem quite convinced by this burst of + scornful oratory. She continued quietly, "You forget something, + Harry. Your heroic young man might find it easy to do something + wild—to fight with that gentleman in the West Indies, or + murder him, or anything like that, just as you see in a + story—but perhaps Miss Rosewarne might have something to + say."</p> + + <p>"I meant if she cared for him," Trelyon said, looking + down.</p> + + <p>"Granting that also, do you think it likely your hot-headed + gentleman would be able to get a young lady to disgrace herself + by breaking her plighted word and deceiving a man who went away + trusting in her? You say she has a very tender + conscience—that she is so anxious to consult every one's + happiness before her own, and all that. Probably it is true. I + say nothing against her. But to bring the matter back to + yourself—for I believe you're hot-headed enough to do + anything—what would you think of her if you or anybody + else persuaded her to do such a treacherous thing?"</p> + + <p>"She is not capable of treachery," he said somewhat stiffly. + "If you've got no more cheerful things to talk about, you'd + better go to bed, Jue. I shall finish my cigar by + myself."</p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page112" + id="page112"></a>[pg 112]</span> + + <p>"Very well, then, Harry. You know your room. Will you put + out the lamp when you have lit your candle?"</p> + + <p>So she went, and the young man was left alone in no very + enviable frame of mind. He sat and smoked while the clock on + the mantelpiece swung its gilded boy and struck the hours and + half hours with unheeded regularity. He lit a second cigar, and + a third; he forgot the wine. It seemed to him that he was + looking on all the roads of life that lay before him, and they + were lit up by as strange and new a light as that which was + beginning to shine over the world outside. New fancies seemed + to awake with the new dawn. For himself to ask Wenna Rosewarne + to be his wife! Could he but win the tender and shy regard of + her eyes he would fall at her feet and bathe them with his + tears. And if this wonderful thing were possible—if she + could put her hand in his and trust to him for safety in all + the coming years they might live together—what man of + woman born would dare to interfere? There was a blue light + coming in through the shutters. He went to the window: the + topmost leaves of the trees were quivering in the cold air far + up there in the clearing skies, where the stars were fading out + one by one, and he could hear the sound of the sea on the + distant beach, and he knew that across the gray plain of waters + the dawn was breaking, and that over the sleeping world another + day was rising that seemed to him the first day of a new and + tremulous life, full of joy and courage and hope.</p> + + <p>[TO BE CONTINUED.]</p> + + <h2>ON THE VIA SAN BASILIO.</h2> + + <p>In Rome, 1851; a cold, dreary day in December—one of + those days in which a man's ambition seems to desert him + entirely, leaving only its grinning skeleton to mock him. + Depressing as was the weather to a man who had cheerfulness as + a companion by which to repel its blustering attacks, and raise + his mind above the despondency it was calculated to produce, + how much more so to one whose hope had gone out as a flickering + lamp in a sudden gust of wind, and the sharp steel of whose + ambition had turned to pierce his own heart!</p> + + <p>Such a man, on the day mentioned, was walking along the Via + San Basilio. He was small in stature, poorly clad, and so thin, + and even cadaverous, that the casual observer might have been + under apprehension lest a gust of wind a little stronger than + the average might blow him entirely away; yet his air and + manner were proud and haughty, and what little evidences of + feeling peered through the signs of dissipation too apparent on + his naturally attractive face were those of genuine refinement. + He was accompanied by a cicerone, or servant, as + villainous-looking a fellow as one often meets, even in Italy, + where an evil expression is so often seen stamped on handsome + features.</p> + + <p>Along the Via San Basilio the two men walked until they + stood opposite the door of No. 51. Sacred ground this, and + historical as well. Art had her votaries here, as the tourist + of to-day will find she still has, at whose shrines pilgrims + from afar and from near worshiped, and grew better and stronger + for their ministrations. Crawford, then at the acme of his + fame, had his constantly-thronged studio in the immediate + vicinity, while those at No. 51 embraced, among others, that of + Tenerani, the famous Italian sculptor, whose work is always in + such fine dramatic taste, although he never sacrifices his love + and deep feeling of reverence for Nature, combining that with + the most delightful charms of Greek art. Among this + <span class="pagenum"><a name="page113" + id="page113"></a>[pg 113]</span> artist's most noted works + will be remembered his "Descent from the Cross," which + tourists visiting the Torlonia chapel in the Lateran never + gaze upon without a thrill. The house was owned and also + occupied by Bienaimé, a French sculptor who afterward + became famous.</p> + + <p>In the immediate vicinity stands the famous Palazzo + Barberini, begun by Urban VIII. (Maffeo Barberini), who sat in + the pontifical chair from 1623 to 1644, and finished by Bernini + in 1640. This palace contains many paintings of historical + interest by Raphael, Titian, Guido, Claude and others. The one + by the first-mentioned artist is a Fornarina, and bears the + autograph of the painter on the armlet. But the picture that + attracts the most attention here is one of world-wide + reputation, copies, engravings and photographs of which are + everywhere to be met with—Guido's Beatrice Cenci. A great + divergence of opinion, as is well known, exists in regard to + the portrait. It bears the pillar and crown of the Colonnas, to + which family it probably belonged. According to the family + tradition, it was taken on the night before her execution. + Other accounts state that it was painted by Guido from memory + after he had seen her on the scaffold. Judging from the + position in which the poor girl's head is represented, one + would more readily give credence to the latter story, and think + the artist's memory had preserved her look and position as she + turned her head for a last look at the brutal, bellowing crowd + behind.</p> + + <p>In the piazza of the palace is a very beautiful fountain, + utilized by one of the oldest Roman statues, representing a + faun blowing water from a conch-shell.</p> + + <p>But we must return to the Via San Basilio, and the two + wayfarers we left standing in front of No. 51. After gazing a + moment at the number to assure themselves that they were right, + they entered, and knocked at the first door, which was opened + by the occupant of the apartment. He was an artist and a man of + very marked characteristics. Seven years later Hawthorne wrote + as follows of him: "He is a plain, homely Yankee, quite + unpolished by his many years' residence in Italy. He talks + ungrammatically; walks with a strange, awkward gait and + stooping shoulders; is altogether unpicturesque, but wins one's + confidence by his very lack of grace. It is not often that we + see an artist so entirely free from affectation in his aspect + and deportment. His pictures were views of Swiss and Italian + scenery, and were most beautiful and true. One of them, a + moonlight picture, was really magical—the moon shining so + brightly that it seemed to throw a light even beyond the limits + of the picture; and yet his sunrises and sunsets, and noontides + too, were nowise inferior to this, although their excellence + required somewhat longer study to be fully appreciated."</p> + + <p>After this introduction by our sweet and quaint romancer, + the reader will hardly need be told that the two strangers + stood in the presence of America's now illustrious artist, + George L. Brown. But one seeing him then, as he stood almost + scowling at the two strangers, would hardly have idealized him + into the artist whose pencil has done so much of late years to + give American art a distinctive name through his poetical + delineations of the rare, sun-tinted atmosphere that hovers + over Italian landscapes. However, our apology for him must be + that the day was raw and blustering, and that he had no sooner + caught sight of the men through his window, as they + hesitatingly entered the door, than his suspicions were + aroused.</p> + + <p>The Italian acted as spokesman, and inquired if there were + any rooms to let in the building. Brown, thinking this the + easiest way of ridding himself of the visitors, went in search + of the landlord, who came, and after a moment's conversation + the whole party entered the studio, much to its owner's + displeasure.</p> + + <p>The cicerone did most of the talking, though now and then + the other made a remark or two in broken Italian. But this was + only for the first few moments. He soon became oblivious of all + save art, of which one could see at a glance he was + passionately fond. One of Mr. Brown's pictures—a large + one he was then engaged on—particularly attracted + <span class="pagenum"><a name="page114" + id="page114"></a>[pg 114]</span> his attention. He drew + closer and closer to the canvas, examining it with a + minuteness that showed the connoisseur, and finally + remarked: "It is very fine in color, sir, and the atmosphere + is delicious. Why have I not heard of you before?" examining + the corner of the canvas for the artist's name, but speaking + in a tone and with an air that gave Brown the impression he + was indulging in the random flattery so current in studios. + So, ignoring the question, he asked with a slight shrug of + the shoulders, "Are you an artist?"</p> + + <p>"I paint a little," was the reply, with an air of modesty + which Brown mistook for the bashful half-assertion of some + daubing amateur.</p> + + <p>Just then the cicerone came forward and announced that the + bargain was completed and the room ready for occupancy.</p> + + <p>"I shall be happy—no, <i>happy</i> is not a good word + for me—I shall be glad to see you in my studio when I + have moved in, and perhaps you may see some things to please + you."</p> + + <p>So saying, the stranger departed, leaving Brown not a whit + better impressed with him than at first.</p> + + <p>The next morning the two called again, when the gentleman + made an examination of the room selected the day before, having + met Mr. Brown in the hall-way and invited him in. On entering, + the new occupant took from his pocket a piece of chalk and a + compass and made a number of circles and figures on the floor + to determine when the sun would shine in the room. Brown + watched him with a certain degree of curiosity and amusement, + and finally, concluding he was half crazy, returned to his own + studio.</p> + + <p>The next day the cicerone called alone to see about some + repairs, when Brown hailed him: "<i>Buono giorno. Che è + questo</i>?" ("Good-day. Who is that?")</p> + + <p>"<i>Non sapete</i>?" ("Don't you know?"), was the Italian's + response. "Why, that is the celebrated Brullof."</p> + + <p>Brown started as though shot. First there flashed through + his brain the remembrance of how cavalierly he had treated the + distinguished artist, and then a quick panorama of his recent + history, which had been the gossip of studios and art-circles + for some time back. "I must go to him," he said, "and apologize + for not treating him with more deference."</p> + + <p>"<i>Non, signore</i>," was the cicerone's response. "Never + mind: let it rest. He is a man of the world, and pays little + heed to such things. Besides, he is so overwhelmed with his + private griefs that he has probably noticed no slight."</p> + + <p>However, when the great Russian artist took possession of + his studio his American brother of the pencil made his apology, + and received this response; "Don't waste words on so trivial a + matter. Do I not court the contempt of a world that I despise + to my heart's core? Say no more about it. Run in and see me + when agreeable; and if you have no better callers than such a + plaything of fate as I, maybe you will not refuse me occasional + admittance."</p> + + <p>The Russian artist now shunned notoriety as he had formerly + courted it. Little is known of his history beyond mere rumor, + and that only in artistic circles. He was born at St. + Petersburg in 1799 or 1800, and gave himself to the study of + art at an early age, becoming an especial proficient in color + and composition. One of his most widely-known works is "The + Last Days of Pompeii," which created great enthusiasm a quarter + of a century ago. This, however, was painted during his career + of dissipation, and its vivid coloring seemed to have been + drawn from a soul morbid with secret woes and craving a + nepenthe which never came.</p> + + <p>The young artist was petted and idolized by the wealth and + nobility of St. Petersburg, where he married a beautiful woman, + and became court-painter to the czar Nicholas about the year + 1830. For some years no couple lived more happily, and no + artist swayed a greater multitude of fashion and wealth than + he; but scandal began to whisper that the czar was as fond of + the handsome, brilliant wife of the young court-painter as the + cultivated people of St. Petersburg were of the husband's + marvelously colored works; and when at last the fact became + <span class="pagenum"><a name="page115" + id="page115"></a>[pg 115]</span> known to Brullof that the + monarch who had honored him through an intelligent + appreciation of art had dishonored him through a guilty + passion for his wife, he left St. Petersburg, swore never + again to set foot on Russian soil or be recognized as a + Russian subject, and, plunging headlong into a wild career + of dissipation, was thenceforth a wanderer up and down the + continent of Europe.</p> + + <p>It was when this career had borne its inevitable fruit, and + he was but a mere wreck of the polished gentleman of a few + years previous, that Brullof came to the Via San Basilio, + where, as soon as the fact became known, visitors began to + call. Among the first were the Russian ambassador and suite, + who were driven up in a splendid carriage, with liveried + attendants; but after the burly Italian had announced to his + master who was in waiting, the door was closed, and with no + message in return the representatives of the mightiest empire + on the globe were left to withdraw with the best grace they + could muster for the occasion. Similar scenes were repeated + often during the entire Roman season. He saw but few of his + callers—Russians, never.</p> + + <p>The Russian and the American artists became quite intimate + during the few months they were thrown together, and Mr. Brown + has acknowledged that he owes much of the success of his later + efforts to hints received from the self-exiled, dying + Russian.</p> + + <p>"Mr. Brown," he said on one occasion, while examining the + picture on the artist's easel, "no one since Claude has painted + atmosphere as you do. But you must follow Calamé's + example, and make drawing more of a study. Draw from Nature, + and do it faithfully, and with your atmosphere I will back you + against the world. That is bad," pointing to the huge limb of a + tree in the foreground: "it bulges both ways, you see. Now, + Nature is never so. Look at my arm," speaking with increased + animation, and suddenly throwing off his coat and rolling up + his shirt-sleeve. "When you see a convexity, you will see + concavity opposite. Just so in Nature, especially in the trunks + and limbs of trees."</p> + + <p>This criticism made such an impression on Brown that it + decided him to go into more laborious work, and was the + foundation of his habit of getting up at daybreak and going out + to sketch rocks, trees and cattle, until he stands where he now + does as a draughtsman.</p> + + <p>The painting which Brullof had first admired, and which had + induced him to compare Brown to Claude in atmospheric effects, + was a view of the Pontine Marshes, painted for Crawford the + sculptor, and now in possession, of his widow, Mrs. Terry, at + Rome.</p> + + <p>During this entire season the penuriousness exhibited by + Brullof is one of the hardest phases of his character to + explain. Though he was worth at least half a million of + dollars, his meals were generally of the scantiest kind, + purchased by the Italian cicerone, and cooked and eaten in his + room. Yet a kindness would touch the hidden springs of his + generosity as the staff of Moses did the rock of Horeb.</p> + + <p>Toward the close of the Roman season, Brullof, growing more + and more moody, and becoming still more of a recluse, painted + his last picture, which showed how diseased and morbid his mind + had become. He called it "The End of All Things," and made it + sensational to the verge of that flexible characteristic. It + represented popes and emperors tumbling headlong into a + terrible abyss, while the world's benefactors were ascending in + a sort of theatrical transformation-scene. A representation of + Christ holding a cross aloft was given, and winged angels were + hovering here and there, much in the same manner as + <i>coryphées</i> and lesser auxiliaries of the ballet. A + capital portrait of George Washington was painted in the mass + of rubbish, perhaps as a compliment to Brown. In + contradistinction to the portrait of Washington were seen + prominently those of the czar Nicholas and the emperor + Napoleon; the former put in on account of the artist's own + private wrong, and the latter because at that time, just after + the <i>coup d'ètat</i>, he was the execration of the + liberty-loving world.</p> + + <p>In the spring the Russian artist gave up + <span class="pagenum"><a name="page116" + id="page116"></a>[pg 116]</span> his studio, and went down + to some baths possessing a local reputation situated on the + road to Florence, where he died very suddenly. Much mystery + overhangs his last days, and absolutely no knowledge exists + as to what became of his vast property. His cicerone robbed + him of his gold watch and all his personal effects and + disappeared. His remains lie buried in the Protestant + burying-ground outside the walls of Rome, near the Porto di + Sebastiano. His tomb is near that of Shelley and Keats, and + the monument erected to his memory is very simple, his head + being sculptured upon it in <i>alto relievo</i>, and on the + opposite side an artist's palette and brushes.</p> + + <p class="author">EARL MARBLE.</p> + + <h2>A CHRISTMAS HYMN.</h2> + + <div class="poem"> + <div class="stanza"> + <p>The air was still o'er Bethlehem's plain,</p> + + <p class="i2">As if the great Night held its + breath,</p> + + <p>When Life Eternal came to reign</p> + + <p class="i2">Over a world of Death.</p> + </div> + + <div class="stanza"> + <p>The pagan at his midnight board</p> + + <p class="i2">Let fall his brimming cup of gold:</p> + + <p>He felt the presence of his Lord</p> + + <p class="i2">Before His birth was told.</p> + </div> + + <div class="stanza"> + <p>The temples trembled to their base,</p> + + <p class="i2">The idols shuddered as in pain:</p> + + <p>A priesthood in its power of place</p> + + <p class="i2">Knelt to its gods in vain.</p> + </div> + + <div class="stanza"> + <p>All Nature felt a thrill divine</p> + + <p class="i2">When burst that meteor on the night,</p> + + <p>Which, pointing to the Saviour's shrine,</p> + + <p class="i2">Proclaimed the new-born light—</p> + </div> + + <div class="stanza"> + <p>Light to the shepherds! and the star</p> + + <p class="i2">Gilded their silent midnight + fold—</p> + + <p>Light to the Wise Men from afar,</p> + + <p class="i2">Bearing their gifts of gold—</p> + </div> + + <div class="stanza"> + <p>Light to a realm of Sin and Grief—</p> + + <p class="i2">Light to a world in all its + needs—</p> + + <p>The Light of life—a new belief</p> + + <p class="i2">Rising o'er fallen creeds—</p> + </div> + + <div class="stanza"> + <p>Light on a tangled path of thorns,</p> + + <p class="i2">Though leading to a martyr's + throne—</p> + + <p>Light to guide till Christ returns</p> + + <p class="i2">In glory to His own.</p> + </div> + + <div class="stanza"> + <p>There still it shines, while far abroad</p> + + <p class="i2">The Christmas choir sings now, as + then,</p> + + <p>"Glory, glory unto God!</p> + + <p class="i2">Peace and good-will to men!"</p> + </div> + </div> + + <p>ROME, Christmas, 1871.</p> + + <p class="author">T. BUCHANAN + READ.</p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page117" + id="page117"></a>[pg 117]</span> + + <h2>THE PARSEES.</h2> + + <p>Hanging in my study is a noteworthy portrait, generally the + first object observed by those who enter. It is an exquisite + painting on glass, the work of Làng Quà, the best + artist China has produced in our day, and it delineates the + form and features of a singularly handsome young man. But it is + the quaint Parsee garb that first attracts attention; and the + weird romance that attaches to the history of the + Fire-worshipers gives this work of art its real value, rather + than its lines of beauty or the celebrity of the painter's + name. This delicately-featured portrait <i>may</i> depict the + countenance of Musaljee Jamsetjee Jejeebhoy, the first-born son + and heir of the late Sir Jamsetjee Jejeebhoy, baronet, of + Bombay, India. That he really sat for this portrait I cannot, + however, positively assert, since I obtained the painting from + an English officer, who bought it of the artist, but had + "forgotten the strange, outlandish name of the Indian nabob," + as he said. It is certainly the portrait of a + <i>Parsee</i>—true to the life in features and garb, and + it bears a striking resemblance to the young Musaljee when + about eighteen years of age. He was not then a personage of any + great celebrity, though the worthy son of a most remarkable + sire, the latter long known and honored in Europe for his + liberal and enlightened charities, and especially for his + munificent donations, that saved the lives of thousands of + British subjects, during the terrible famines that occurred in + India between the years 1840 and 1846. It was in grateful + recognition of this noble philanthropy that Queen Victoria + conferred upon him the honor of a baronetcy, sending out a + nobleman to act as her proxy in the presentation of a sword + which had been handled by more than one British monarch. Sir + Jamsetjee was the first East Indian who ever received a title + from a European sovereign. During the terrible famines alluded + to he not only distributed daily from his own palace a + plentiful supply of food to all who came, but he made also + large donations of provisions to the English governor of Bombay + for the supply of his starving troops. When, subsequently, + pestilence followed in the footsteps of famine, this + true-hearted philanthropist, overstepping all prejudices of + creed and clan, built and endowed at his own expense a free + hospital for the sick of all nations and religions. Temporary + bamboo cottages at first received the sick till there was time + for the erection of the present elegant structure, which is + built in the Gothic style, and is capable of accommodating some + six or eight hundred patients, besides nurses and attendants. + The physicians have been from the beginning of the enterprise + all English, as are many of the nurses, and the supplies in + every department are the very best the country can furnish. + Since the death of the noble founder, the son, who inherits his + name and title, has continued to foster with loving devotion + the institution which stands as a lasting monument of the fame + and virtues of his illustrious sire. The conception of such a + charity tells not only of a generous heart, but of far-reaching + intelligence, while the energy and perseverance of both father + and son in carrying on, year after year, so vast a system of + benefactions, challenge our warmest admiration.</p> + + <p>The name of the late Sir Jamsetjee stood for more than a + score of years at the very head of the list of merchant-princes + and ship-owners in Bombay, where he was born, and where his + ancestors for many generations resided. He came of an old and + wealthy family, who trace their genealogy back to the Parsee + exodus of the eighth century; and it is said that the "sacred + fire" has never once during all that time burned out upon their + altar. Sir Jamsetjee himself, though probably faithful in the + observance of the actual requirements of his + <span class="pagenum"><a name="page118" + id="page118"></a>[pg 118]</span> creed, was assuredly less + strict than the majority, and being a man of large + intellect, cultivated mind and great independence of + character, he did not hesitate to borrow from other nations + any customs, institutions or inventions that might tend to + the improvement of his own people. His stately mansion was + built and furnished in European style; his children, even + his daughters, were carefully educated in foreign as well as + native lore; and his own associations were with refined and + cultivated people, without any regard to their nation or + creed. It was while visiting at his house, in familiar + intercourse with his family, and with other Parsees of + similar position, that I gleaned many items of interest + concerning the history and practices of the Fire-worshipers. + Other facts were added from time to time during several + years of frequent association with these singular people, in + whose glorious though unsuccessful struggles for home and + liberty it is impossible not to feel an interest.</p> + + <p>As a race, the Parsees are intelligent, active and + energetic. With business capacities far above the average, they + are usually successful in amassing wealth, while they are + extremely benevolent in dispensing their gains for both public + and private charities. For private benefactions they have, + however, little call among themselves, since a Parsee pauper + would be an unheard-of anomaly. Their style of living is + princely but peculiar. In the reception-rooms of the + wealthy—and most of the Parsees in the city of Bombay are + wealthy—one finds a rather quaint mingling of Oriental + luxury and European elegance—brightly-tinted Persian + carpets placed in Eastern fashion over divans strewn with + embroidered cushions and jewel-studded pillows, among which + recline, with genuine Oriental indolence, some of the members + of the family; while in another part of the same room half a + dozen more may be grouped about a table of marble and rosewood, + occupying velvet chairs that have traveled unmistakably from + London or Paris. French mirrors and Italian statuettes may have + for their <i>vis-à-vis</i> the exquisite mosaics, the + massive gold vases and the costly bijouterie of the Orient, + strewn so profusely around as to startle unaccustomed eyes; and + a genuine Meissonier will be just as likely to be placed side + by side with a Persian houri as anywhere else. The Parsees + drive the finest Arab steeds, but on their equipages there is a + more lavish display of ornament than we should deem quite in + accordance with good taste. The same is true in regard to + personal decoration. They wear immense quantities of costly + jewelry, and nearly all their garments are of silk, generally + richly embroidered in gold, and often with the addition of + precious stones. Even little children wear only silk, infants + from the very first being wrapped in long, loose robes of plain + white silk that are gradually displaced by others more + elaborate and costly; while the toilette of a Parsee lady in + full evening-dress is often of the value of a hundred thousand + rupees (or forty-five thousand dollars). The female costume + consists of silk or cotton skirts gathered full round the + waist, and long, loose robes of silk, lace or muslin, all more + or less decorated according to the wealth of the wearer. The + dress of the men is composed of trousers and shirts of white or + colored silk and long caftans of muslin, with the addition of a + fanciful little scarf fringed at the ends, and worn jauntily + across one shoulder and under the other arm. Their caps are + made of pasteboard covered with gay-colored silk, embroidered + and studded with precious stones or pearls. The form of a + Parsee's shirt is a matter of vital importance, both in regard + to respectability and religion. It must have five seams, + neither more nor less, and be made to lap on the breast exactly + in a certain way. Both sexes wear around the body a double + string, which they loosen when at prayer, and which a Parsee is + never, under any circumstances, permitted to dispense with. No + engagement or business transaction is legally binding if by any + chance this talismanic cord was left off by either party when + the contract was made. The cord is first placed on children + when they have completed their + <span class="pagenum"><a name="page119" + id="page119"></a>[pg 119]</span> ninth year, and this serves + to mark the most important epoch of their lives. Before the + investiture the eating of food with Christians or heathen + does not defile the juvenile Parsee, and girls may even go + about in public with their fathers; but after the bestowal + of the sacred cord the girls must be kept in seclusion and + the boys eat only with their own people.</p> + + <p>Only the most liberal Parsees will permit those of other + creeds to eat under the same roof with themselves, and even + these never eat at the table with their guests. The table is + first covered for the visitors, and they are waited on with the + utmost assiduity, often by the members of the family in + addition to the servants. When the guests leave the board not + only is the cloth changed, but the table itself is washed + before being recovered: salts, castors and other similar + articles are all emptied and washed, and the table newly laid + in every particular. Small flat cakes are distributed round the + board to do service as plates, and the various dishes arranged + in the centre within reach of all. The family then wash hands + and faces and the father says a short prayer, after which all + take their seats and the meal begins. Neither knives nor forks + are used, but the meat is torn from the bones with the fingers + only, and with the left hand each one dips, from time to time, + bread, meat or vegetables into the broth or gravy as he wishes, + and then tosses it into his mouth, without allowing his fingers + to touch his lips. This requires some dexterity, and children + are not permitted at the family board till they have learned + thus to acquit themselves. If, however, the fingers of any one, + child or adult, should chance to come in contact with the lips, + though ever so slightly, he is required to leave the table + instantly and perform his ablutions over again, or else to take + the dish from which he was eating to himself, and touch no + other during the meal. In drinking they exercise the same + caution, adroitly throwing the liquid into the mouth or throat + without touching the lips with the cup or glass. The left hand + is the one with which food is always taken; and the reason + assigned is, that the right, having of necessity to perform + most labor, is more frequently brought in contact with things + unclean.</p> + + <p>I once made a voyage with an American lady and gentleman in + a Bombay ship that was owned and commanded by a wealthy Parsee + merchant, though the real sailing-master and mate were + Englishmen. Our party ate at one table, and the Parsee nabob + had his own in solitary state. I was then quite a youthful + wife, and, as my husband was not of the party, the Parsee + supposed me unmarried, and overwhelmed me with the most gallant + attentions, among which were frequent invitations to our party + to dine in his cabin. But, though he would stand at my side all + the time I was eating, fill my cup or glass with his own hands, + and urge me to partake of certain dishes that were favorites of + his own, nothing could induce him to eat or drink in our + presence, even after we had left the table. And I learned + afterward that the costly service of rare china, silver and + glass from which we had eaten and drunk at his table, though + carefully laid aside, was never again used by the owner. One + evening, as we sat on the upper deck inhaling the balmy air, he + invited me to smoke. Of course I declined, and when he insisted + I told him that it was contrary to the customs of good society + in our country for ladies to use tobacco in any form. He + laughed heartily, and said, "Did you suppose I would ask a lady + to pollute her fragrant breath and dewy lips with so foul a + thing as vile tobacco? Taste and see." He brought his splendid + hookah, which I found filled with the "fragrant spices of + Araby" perfumed with attar of roses, while a long slender tube + rested in a vessel of rose-water at my feet; and the fumes were + certainly as agreeable as harmless. But this, my first + experiment in smoking, cost my Parsee friend three hundred + dollars, the estimated value of his gold-mounted hookah, with + its complicated array of tubes and vessels of the same precious + metal, none of which he durst ever use + again.</p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page120" + id="page120"></a>[pg 120]</span> + + <p>As we sat chatting together in the bright moonlight our ears + were suddenly greeted by the sound of sweet music—wild, + unearthly melody that seemed to rise from the very depths of + the ocean just below our feet. At first it was only a soft + trill or a subdued hum, as of a single voice: then followed + what seemed a full chorus of voices of enchanting sweetness. + Presently the melody died away in the distance, only, however, + to burst forth anew after a brief interval. All the time we + were being regaled with the music we could see nothing to + enlighten us as to its source, and were inclined to pronounce + it a trick played by our fun-loving sailing-master. He, + however, denied all agency in the matter, but counseled us to + "keep a close look-out on the lee bow" if we wanted to see a + mermaid. We had noticed a sort of thrilling motion on the lower + deck, not unlike the sensation produced by the charge of an + electro-galvanic battery; and this, the Parsee captain gravely + assured us, was the mermaids' dance, and their efforts to drag + down our ship. "But I'll catch one of them yet—see if I + don't," he said energetically as he caught up something from + the deck and ran forward, and was presently, with two of the + Lascars, leaning over the bow. Half an hour afterward he + returned, and with a merry laugh laid in my lap two little + brown fish, informing me that they were singing-fish, and that + the music we had heard had been produced by shoals of these + tiny vocalists then clinging to the bottom of our ship. Our + Parsee friend told me that the Arabs and Persians always speak + of the singing-fish as "tiny women of the sea;" but he had + never heard our version of their long hair, and their twining + it about hapless sailors to drag them down to their coral + caverns beneath the ocean's wave. He showed me how to preserve + the fish by drying in the sun after repeated anointings with an + aromatic oil, which he gave me for the purpose; and I have + still in my cabinet these two specimens as a reminder of the + incident.</p> + + <p>The manner in which the Parsees dispose of their dead seems + to us too shocking to be tolerated by a people so gentle and + refined. But they have grown familiar with a custom that, + generation after generation, has been observed by their race + till it has ceased to be repugnant. They call it "consigning + the dead to the element of air." For this purpose they have + roofless enclosures, the walls of which are twenty-five or + thirty feet high, and within are three biers—one each for + men, women and children. Upon these the bodies of the dead are + laid, and fastened down with chains or iron bands. Presently + birds of prey, so numerous within the tropics and always + waiting to devour, pounce upon the corpse and quickly tear the + flesh from the bones, while the skeleton remains intact. This + is afterward deposited in a pit dug within the same enclosure, + and which remains open till completely filled up with bones; + after which another is dug, and when the enclosure can + conveniently contain no more pits a new one is selected and + prepared. None but priests and bearers of the dead may enter, + or even look into, these walled cemeteries. The priests, by + virtue of their holy office, are preserved from defilement, but + the bearers are men set apart for this express purpose, and + they are considered so unclean that they may not enter under + the roof of any other Parsee or salute him on the street. If in + passing a bearer do but touch one's clothes accidentally, he is + subject to a heavy fine, while he who has been thus + contaminated must bathe his entire person and burn every + article of raiment he wore at the time of his defilement.</p> + + <p>I was anxious to visit one of their temples, but this, Sir + Jamsetjee assured me, was impossible, as none but the initiated + are allowed even to approach the entrance, still less to get a + glimpse of what is passing within. He, however, volunteered the + information that, so far as the sanctuary itself was concerned, + there was little to be seen, only naked walls, bare floors, and + an altar upon which burns the sacred fire brought with the + Parsees from Persia, and which, he said, had never been + extinguished since it was kindled by Zoroaster from the sun + four thousand years ago. Of the form of service I could + <span class="pagenum"><a name="page121" + id="page121"></a>[pg 121]</span> not induce the baronet to + speak, but I learned afterward from my ship-friend that the + altar is enclosed by gratings, within which none but the + priest may enter. He goes in every day to tend "the eternal + fire," when he must remain for the space of an hour, + repeating certain invocations, with a bundle of rods in his + hand to repel any unclean spirits that should venture to + approach the sacred fire. Meanwhile, the assembled + multitudes prostrate themselves without and offer up their + silent adoration. "Yet, after all," musingly said the + Parsee, "the universe is the throne of the invisible God, of + whom fire is but the emblem, and we worship Him most + acceptably with our eyes fixed on the east when the sun + rides forth at morning in his celestial chariot of fire." + This form of worship those curious in such matters may see + on any bright morning at Bombay, where whole crowds of + Parsee men, women and children rush out at sunrise to greet + the king of day and offer up their morning oblations. I was + not surprised at the avowed preference of my Parsee friends + for out-door worship, since it is well known that the + ancient Persians not only permitted few temples to be + erected to their gods, and held in abhorrence all painted + and graven images, but they laid it to the charge of the + Greeks, as a daring impiety, that "they shut up their gods + in shrines and temples, like puppets in a cabinet, when all + created things were open to them and the wide world was + their dwelling-place." It was probably religious zeal, even + more than revenge against the Greeks, that induced the + burning of the temple at Athens by Xerxes, led on, as he may + have been, by the fanatical zeal of the Magi who accompanied + him.</p> + + <p>Plutarch speaks of the Persians, in common with the + Chaldeans and Egyptians, as worshipers of the sun under the + name of Mithra, whom they regarded as standing between Ormuzd, + "the author of good," and Ahriman, "the author of evil," + occupied alternately in aiding the former and subduing the + latter. So do the Parsees of our own day regard him; and their + only hope for the ultimate triumph of Ormuzd is in constant + sacrifices and prayers and propitiatory offerings to the sun as + the fire that is to burn out and utterly consume all evil from + our earth. Fire is to the Parsees now, as it has ever been, the + holiest of all holy things, carried about by princes and great + men for safety; by warriors, as that which is to give them the + victory over their foes; and by all, as their sole and + ever-present deity. Sir Jamsetjee assured me that the + <i>intelligent</i> Parsees regard the sun and fire as only the + symbols that are to remind them of the God they worship. But + there can be no doubt that the mass of the Parsees literally + worship the sun and the "sacred fire;" and hence arise the + utter repugnance many of them have to celebrating their + religious rites within closed walls, and the decided preference + ever shown for out-door worship. I have often heard them say + that the Fire-god shows his aversion to confinement by drooping + when he is shut up, and growing vigorous just in proportion as + free scope is given him. The sun appears everywhere on the + shields and armor of the ancient Persians, as on some of the + old-time monuments that have come down to us; while + occasionally Mithra is depicted as a youthful hero, with high + Persian cap, his knee on a prostrate bull, into whose heart he + seems plunging a dagger—symbolically, "the power of evil" + in complete subjection to the victorious sun, and about to be + for ever annihilated.</p> + + <p>Zoroaster (called by the Persians <i>Zerduscht</i>) was not, + the Parsees say, the <i>founder</i> of their sect, but only the + reviser and perfecter of the system as it now exists among + them. Living in the reign of Darius Hystaspes, he was the + contemporary, probably an associate, of the prophet Daniel. + Before the advent of this reformer the Magi acknowledged two + great First Causes—i.e., the light and the darkness, the + former the author of all good, the latter of every evil, moral + and physical—and these they believed were at perpetual + war with each other. Zoroaster taught, as he may have learned + from Daniel, that there was One + <span class="pagenum"><a name="page122" + id="page122"></a>[pg 122]</span> greater still, who created + both the light and the darkness, making both to subserve His + own will. He also inculcated the duty of building temples + for the preservation of the sacred fire from storm and + tempest, when "by sudden extinction of the light the powers + of darkness do gain often a signal victory." The Parsees + hold in supreme veneration the name of Zoroaster as the most + noted of all their Magi for wisdom and virtue. They believe + that the sacred fire was lighted by him miraculously from + the sun—that it has burned steadily ever since, and + can never go out till it has consumed all evil from the + earth and the good has become universally triumphant. They + claim also that from the reforms wrought by Zoroaster there + was never the slightest change in any of their observances + until about twelve centuries ago, when Persia was overrun + and conquered by the Mohammedan Arabs. But not the fiercest + persecution could induce the Fire-worshipers to change their + religion for that of the Koran. Preferring liberty and their + altars in a foreign land to the alternative of apostasy or + persecution at home, the aboriginal Persian inhabitants fled + to other lands, settling immense colonies in Surat and + Bombay, where their descendants form in our day a large and + valuable element of the population. Their integrity, + industry and enterprise are proverbial all over the East; + and while they live strictly apart from all other races, the + Parsees are never wanting in sympathy and help for those who + need them. Dwelling amid nations who are almost universally + destitute of veracity, the Parsees are eminently truthful; + surrounded by polygamists and sensualists, they maintain + habits of purity and virtue; and accustomed to every-day + association with those who make a boast of cheating, my + memory fails to recall the case of a single Fire-worshiper + who was not strictly upright and honorable in his + dealings.</p> + + <p>Commencing with the worship of the sun, and of fire as his + emblem, the Parsee grew into a sort of reverence for the + elements of air, earth and water. The air must not be + contaminated by foul odors, and of necessity no filth could be + tolerated anywhere in house, street or suburb; and to this + reverence for the purity of the atmosphere may be traced the + absolute cleanliness for which Fire-worshipers are everywhere + noted. As the earth must receive no defilement, the Parsees + would deem it sacrilege to deposit therein their dead for + corruption and decay; and hence have doubtless originated their + strange rites of sepulture, as they believe that the body is + thus more readily and rapidly reduced to its original elements. + Streams of water, even the tiniest rivulets, are deemed too + holy to be desecrated by washing or spitting in them, and still + less would they make the water the receptacle of offal of any + sort. To each of these elements, as well as to the fire, the + Parsees still make oblations on their high-days. It is true + that their ceremonies now are less imposing than those + described by Xenophon, when a thousand head of cattle were + immolated at a single festival, four beautiful bulls presented + to Jupiter, or the sky, and a magnificent chariot, drawn by + white horses crowned with flowers and wearing a golden yoke, + was offered to the sun; while the king in his chariot was + escorted by princes and great nobles, two thousand spearmen + marching on either side, and three hundred sceptre-bearers, + armed with javelins and mounted on splendidly-caparisoned + horses, bringing up the rear. But those jubilant days have + passed: the Fire-worshipers are in exile, and have no king to + lead them, either in battle against their foes or in triumphal + processions in honor of their gods. Yet is Parseeism not dead, + nor even on the decrease. Sacrifices, numerous and costly, are + still piled upon their altars, the finest cattle are dedicated + to their gods, the flesh being cut up and roasted for the + people, while the Magi cast the caul and a portion of the fat + into the fire as emblematic of the souls of the victims being + imbibed by the gods, while the grosser portions are + rejected.</p> + + <p>The sacrifices and those who offer them are always crowned + with flowers, but the pontifical robes of the Magi, though of + pure white silk, are severely + <span class="pagenum"><a name="page123" + id="page123"></a>[pg 123]</span> plain in style and utterly + devoid of ornament. In their lives the Magi claim to + practice a rigid asceticism, making the earth their bed and + subsisting wholly on fruit, vegetables and bread, besides + submitting to frequent painful penances from fasting, + scourging and the endurance of fatiguing exercises. "Wine, + women and flesh" they are commanded to eschew as "special + abominations to those who aspire to minister before the + gods." The most remarkable feast of the ancient Parsees was + one called by them the "sack-feast." On the appointed day a + condemned malefactor was clothed in royal robes, seated on a + kingly throne and the sceptre of regal power placed in his + hand. Princes and people bowed the knee in mock homage + before this king of a day, and he was suffered to glut his + appetite with all manner of sensual delights till the sun + went down, and then he was cruelly beaten with rods, and + forthwith executed. (Were the crown and sceptre, the purple + robe and mock reverence, that were the antecedents of the + Redeemer's crucifixion, a reproduction of this barbarous + custom?) The modern Parsees, though recognizing this feast + as a legitimate part of their worship, say that they have + not observed it since their flight from Persia in the eighth + century, because since then, being under a foreign yoke, + they have had no jurisdiction over human life, and durst not + sacrifice even those who chanced to be in their power. This + may be one reason for the renunciation of this barbarous + practice of the olden time, but there has been wonderful + progress in civilization during the last twelve hundred + years; and certain it is that scenes of cruelty that suited + the ferocious tastes of the eighth century could not + possibly be repeated in the nineteenth.</p> + + <p class="author">FANNIE ROPER FEUDGE.</p> + + <h2>OUR MONTHLY GOSSIP.</h2> + + <h3>A SWEDISH PROVINCIAL THEATRE.</h3> + + <p>It is not so magnificent as the Scala and San Carlo, and + still, after seeing both those famous theatres, I must confess + I preferred that of Carlstad to either. It is small and + different in form from the generality: it reminded me, in fact, + of a hall in a certain New England town where I used to go to + the panorama as a child. There was a gallery like that in which + the men and boys sat who tramped the loudest and kissed their + hands, to the confusion of their neighbors, when the lights + were turned down to enhance the effect of the burning of + Moscow; only, at my panorama the gallery was unfashionable on + account of the noisy male element, whereas at Carlstad it was + the dress-circle. We—a party of Americans, the only + foreigners in the house that night—occupied + orchestra-stalls, as I presume the two or three front benches + in the parquet may be called. There was a white cape in our + vicinity, as well as one in the balcony; so our seats were + probably as fashionable as those in the first and only circle; + but behind us, stretching out to the doors and in under the + gallery, was a dense mass unrelieved by opera-cloaks of any + description; and that was the region of the + unpretending—-of those who came simply to enjoy, to see + and not to be seen.</p> + + <p>As we spent a good part of a day at Carlstad, I should, + perhaps, relate something more of the place than merely how we + went to the theatre there; but that delightful evening effaced + all other impressions, and after the interval that has since + elapsed <i>Fleur de Thé</i> and our commissioner are the + only things that have retained somewhat of their original + savor.</p> + + <p>The railway from Stockholm to Christiania ceased at Carlstad + on Lake <span class="pagenum"><a name="page124" + id="page124"></a>[pg 124]</span> Wener, which gave us a + day's drive to Arvika to strike the track again; and while + we stood consulting where we were to get carriages, and + whether we should go directly on, there came up a + flourishing specimen of the genus <i>valet de place</i>, who + took possession of us and laid out a plan that he had + apparently prepared over night for our especial benefit. It + is a way those persons have, and one that gives them a + tremendous advantage over travelers weakened by a long + journey, that they act as if they were there by appointment + to meet you, or as if you had telegraphed precisely what you + wished to do, and they were merely carrying out your + intentions. "You want to go to the Black Eagle Hotel: I take + you there. You would like to dine: you can have dinner at + the hotel, or I shall show you a nice restaurant." We had + not expected to find a member of the great European + brotherhood just there in a little town in the heart of + Sweden, and, taken unawares, fell an easy prey. However, + they do not invariably succeed in that way: sometimes, if + their officiousness is excessive, their English very + exasperating and the traveler a little fractious as well as + tired, they get the tables turned on them. A lady just + arrived at Genoa, when halfway to the hotel with one of + these persuasive personages snatched her bag out of his hand + and walked into the rival albergo because he said with an + aggravating accent, "I sall get you a ticket for de + steam-er." "No you sha'n't, either: I have got it myself," + she said; and so they parted company, to his infinite + amazement. My friend—it was a friend of + mine—turned back, on second thoughts, to offer the man + something for having carried her belongings, but he put on + offended dignity and declared that he didn't want her money. + She was rather sorry afterward that he didn't do violence to + his feelings and take it; and so, no doubt, was he.</p> + + <p>Our Carlstad commissioner beguiled the length of the way to + the inn, at which we were a little inclined to grumble, by + pointing out everything of note in our walk through the town. + We had been reading up in the train, and knew that Carlstad was + the capital of a district, had five thousand inhabitants, and + was nearly destroyed by fire in 1865; but he, a son of the + place, and seeing in his mind's eye its rising glory when the + railroad should be completed, did not let us off with that. We + had to look and admire just where he told us. "Wide streets," + he would say in his finely-chopped English. "Houses all very + high—new since the fire. See here! there's the + telegraph-office."</p> + + <p>At which, to answer in the style he understood best, we must + have responded, "Oh, I say! Well. Very good! All right!"</p> + + <p>"You shall go to the theatre if you want to," he remarked at + last, in that sweet, protecting way peculiar to his class from + the habitual confounding of <i>can, shall</i> and <i>will</i>, + and that put us into good humor directly. To go to the theatre + would be just the thing.</p> + + <p>"Oh yes, everybody goes," he said. It was a Danish + company—very good actors—very pretty piece; but we + rather expected to care more for the <i>everybody</i> than + either the piece or the actors; and so it proved.</p> + + <p>We went early, and established ourselves in the + orchestra-stalls, as already stated, while our guardian + accepted an unpretending seat for himself, where he remained in + readiness to tow us home after the performance. And then the + spectators began to come in, and positively some of the very + people who used to be at the panorama. I know there was a lady + in front of me, in Mechanic Hall, who wore her hair in just + such a little knot—<i>pug</i> is, I think, the classic + name for that coiffure—and her dress cut as low in the + throat and adorned with precisely such a self-embroidered + collar as the lady rejoiced in who occupied the seat before me + at the theatre. That she was one of the fashionables of + Carlstad could be seen in the lofty pose of that pug, and in + the curious structure of ribbon and lace that sat astride of it + and hung down at each side. Her husband, a small, rather + dried-up gentleman, had the look of a town oracle who was + oppressed at home, and her daughter + <span class="pagenum"><a name="page125" + id="page125"></a>[pg 125]</span> was one of the prettiest + girls in the house. The overgrown boy, the son and heir, was + not pretty: he sat beside his sister and kept nudging her. I + could not exactly understand what he said in Swedish, but I + know it must have been of this nature: "There's Jim Davis + over there. Look, sister, look!"</p> + + <p>Sister only glanced at him with a reproving air of "Don't + push me so," and then gazed steadfastly in the other direction; + but she was not left long in peace. Tom's elbow began again in + a minute: "He's looking right at you, all the time. You'd + better turn round and bow to him." And the color would creep up + in her cheeks, do all she could to prevent it, so that she had + to lean across mamma and say something to her father, just so + as not to bow to Mr. Davis, which would have been such a simple + thing to do, after all.</p> + + <p>Everybody who came in nodded and spoke to everybody else, + and then shook hands across the seats; and we felt quite out of + our element under the inquiring but superior glances that fell + to our lot. It was all very well for us to make our little + observations and smile at each other on the sly: we had the + consciousness all the while of not belonging to the first + society in Carlstad, and of being viewed as intruders in that + select circle.</p> + + <p>We had been studying one family party after another as the + seats filled around us, for the audience collected by families, + when, with a little rustle and stir attending her progress, and + a whispering behind her as she advanced, the Bride appeared, + for she had arrived from Stockholm by our train. It was the + first time any one had seen her since she started on the + wedding-tour, and the bows and smiles she dealt out on every + side were not to be numbered. Our pretty girl got + one—they were school-friends—and the horrid boy + another, which he barely answered with a solemn nod of his + head, being as shy of her, apparently, in her blue silk and + white cape, as his sister was of Mr. Davis. It was really a + very pretty dress of the Bride's, and one that made our + traveling costumes look uncommonly shabby: it was taken up + behind in the approved style, and only needed a bustle to have + been truly effective. Doubtless she had seen plenty of those + articles in Stockholm, only her husband said, "I hope, dear, + you will never put on one of those horrid things;" and she told + him certainly not if he did not like them; but I think she + found afterward she needed one for that blue dress, and sent + for it at the first opportunity. The young husband was not got + up for show, knowing very well that no one would mind him, but + he looked beamingly happy; and if he was not in a dress-coat + with a flower in his buttonhole, like the + <i>habitués</i> of the Comédie Française + or the Italiens, he understood how they use an opera-glass + there. The glass was a new acquisition that he had brought home + with him, and after practicing with it at the Royal Theatre in + the capital, he was fully prepared to stand up between the + acts, with his arm behind him in a negligently graceful + attitude, and study the balcony. His acquaintances there must + have found it rather embarrassing, for it was not a usual thing + in Carlstad to look at one's friends through an opera-glass: he + was the only person who did it, and they probably all talked + about it when they went home.</p> + + <p>We were so occupied with our surroundings that we hardly + thought of the piece, though it was given with considerable + spirit, if I remember rightly. The sailors were fine, jolly + tars, and the Chinese ladies and gentlemen toddled about in + flowered dressing-gowns and talked with their thumbs, as it + would appear the inhabitants of the Celestial Empire usually + do; but the house did not allow itself to be betrayed into + unseemly enthusiasm. There was an involuntary laugh now and + then, and once somebody said <i>bravo</i>, but as a general + thing a discreet reticence prevailed, and the actors might have + gone through the piece on their heads in an extravagant desire + to elicit signs of approval: they would only have received a + cool little round of applause when the curtain fell.</p> + + <p>We, at all events, had no hesitation in telling the + commissioner that we had enjoyed ourselves immensely; and so, + <span class="pagenum"><a name="page126" + id="page126"></a>[pg 126]</span> it appeared, had he. He was + even bold enough to call it a very fine company, and as we + walked back to the hotel at half-past nine in broad + daylight, he told us what they were going to play the next + evening, possibly in the hope that we should stay for it and + he should get another seat. That was out of the question, + however, sorry as we were to disappoint him. He had to tuck + us into the carriage the following day, and let us drive + away and leave him bereft of his charges. "You shall have a + good ride," were his parting words, kind and fatherly as he + was to the last; and so we had. But we found no one again to + care for us so tenderly as our old friend, nor did any one + take us to the theatre throughout the remainder of the + journey. G.H.</p> + + <h3>VENETIAN CAFFÈS.</h3> + + <p>It is years since so lovely an autumn as that of 1874 has + been seen in Europe: people say not since the last great comet + year, and they credit the erratic visitor of last summer with + the exceptional beauty of the weather. As in the case of other + marked comet years, the vintages of which still bring + extraordinary prices, Italy has had exceptionally fine harvests + of all kinds this year. The grain has been abundant, the + vintage has been superb, the olives have escaped the danger of + unseasonable frosts, and the still more important crop of + foreigners seems to be pretty well assured. The charming + weather in October and November made the interesting blossoms + sprout plentifully; and boat-loads and train-loads came in with + an abundance promising an unusually fine winter for <i>la bella + Italia</i>. Venice, indeed, may be said to have pretty well + housed her crop in this kind already. It has been a magnificent + one, and the Queen of the Adriatic admits that due homage has + been done to her. The <i>forestieri</i> season sets in earlier + in her case than in her sister cities. The real "Carnival de + Venice" is in August, September and October now-a-days, let the + calendar say what it may. Some flaunting of gaudy-colored + calico, some dancing on the Piazza of St. Mark, there may be on + the eve of Lent in obedience to old usages, but the dancing + that really glads the Italian heart is the dancing for which + the <i>forestiere</i> pays the piper, and the true Lenten time + is that when his beneficent presence is wanting.</p> + + <p>Venice, then, has already brought her Carnival to a + conclusion; and it has been a splendid one. English, Americans, + Germans, all came in shoals—all thronged the galleries, + the churches and the palaces in the morning, sauntered or + bathed on the outer shore of the Lido in the afternoon, and met + at Florian's in the evening. "What is Florian's?" will be asked + by those who have never been at Venice—by some such, at + least. For probably the fame of the celebrated + <i>caffè</i> may have traveled across the Atlantic, just + as many who have never crossed it westward are no strangers to + the name of Delmonico. Florian's, however, in any case, + deserves a word of recognition. It is the principal, largest + and most fashionable caffè on the Piazza di San Marco. + But the singular and curious specialty of the place is that it + has never been closed—no, not for five minutes—day + or night, for a period of more than a hundred and thirty years! + Probably it is the only human habitation of any sort on the + face of the globe of which that could be said.</p> + + <p>But the caffè in itself is in many respects a + specialty of Venetian life, and has been so since the days of + Goldoni. The readers of his comedies, so abundantly rich in + local coloring, will not have failed to observe that the + caffè plays a larger part in the life of Venice than is + the case in any other city. Probably no Venetian passes a + single day without visiting once at least, if not oftener, his + accustomed caffè. Men of business write their letters + and arrange their meetings there. Men of pleasure know that + they shall find their peers there. Mere loafers take their + seats there, and gaze at the stream of life, as it flows past + them, for hours together. And, most marked specialty of all, + Venice is the only city in Italy where the native female + aristocracy frequents the caffè. Indeed, I know no place + in all the Peninsula where so large an amount of Italian beauty + may be seen <span class="pagenum"><a name="page127" + id="page127"></a>[pg 127]</span> as among the fashionable + crowd at Florian's on a brilliant midsummer moonlight + night.</p> + + <p>Venice is of all the cities in the world the one which those + who have never seen it know best. The peculiarities of it are + so marked and so unlike anything else in the world, and the + graphic representations of every part of the city are so + numerous and so admirably accurate, that every traveler finds + it to be exactly what he was prepared to see, and can hardly + fancy that he sees the Queen of the Adriatic for the first + time. I may therefore assume, perhaps, that my readers are + acquainted with the appearance of that most matchless of city + spaces, the Piazza di San Marco. They will readily call to mind + the long series of arcades that form the two long sides of the + parallellogram which has the gorgeous front of St. Mark's + church occupying the entirety of one of the shorter sides. + Well, about halfway up the length of the piazza six of the + arches on the right hand of one facing St. Mark's church are + occupied by the celebrated caffè. The six never-closed + rooms, corresponding each with one of the arches of the arcade, + are very small, and would not suffice to accommodate a + twentieth part of the throng which finds itself at Florian's + quite as a matter of course every fine summer's night. But + nobody thinks of entering these smartly-furnished little + cabinets save for breakfast or during the hours of the day. + Some take their evening ice or coffee on the seats under the + arcade, either immediately in front of the cabinets or around + the pillars which support the arches, and thus have an + opportunity of observing the never-ceasing and ever-varying + stream of life that flows by them under the arcade. But the + vast majority of the crowd place themselves on chairs arranged + around little tables set out on the flags of the piazza. A + hundred or so of these little tables are placed in long rows + extending far out into the piazza, and far on either side + beyond the extent of the six arches which are occupied by the + caffè itself. A London or New York policeman would have + his very soul revolted, and conclude that there must be + something very rotten indeed in the state of a city in which + the public way could be thus encumbered and no cry of "move on" + ever heard. Assuredly, it is public ground which Florian, in + the person of his nineteenth-century representative, thus + occupies with his tables and chairs. Probably, if a Venetian + were asked by what right he does so, the question would seem to + him much as if one asked by what right the tide covers the + shallows of the lagoon. It always has been so. It is in the + natural order of things. And how could Venice live without + Florian's?</p> + + <p>But it is not Florian's alone which is thus a trespasser on + the domain of the public. The other less celebrated + caffès do the same thing. One immediately opposite to + Florian's, on the other side of the + piazza—Quadri's—has almost as large a spread of + chairs and tables as Florian himself. But it is a curious + instance of the permanence of habits at Venice, that though at + Quadri's the articles supplied are quite as good, and the + prices exactly the same, the fashionable world never deserts + Florian's. The only difference between the two establishments, + except this one of their customers, that is perceptible to the + naked eye, is that at Quadri's beer is served, while Florian + ignores the existence of that plebeian beverage, which + assuredly was never heard of in Venice in the days when he + began his career and formed his habitudes.</p> + + <p>I am tempted to endeavor to give the reader some picture of + the scene on the piazza on a night when (as is the case almost + every other evening) a military band is playing in the middle + of the open space, and the cosmopolitan crowd is assembled in + force—to describe the wonderful surroundings of the + scene, the charm of the quietude broken by no sound of hoof or + of wheel, the soft and tempered light, the gay clatter, athwart + which comes every fifteen minutes the solemn mellow tone of the + great clock of St. Mark with importunate warning that another + pleasant quarter of an hour has drifted away down the stream of + time. It is a scene that tempts the pen. But the well-dressed + portion of mankind <span class="pagenum"><a name="page128" + id="page128"></a>[pg 128]</span> is very similar in all + countries and under all circumstances, and perhaps my + readers may be more interested in a few traits of the + popular life of Venice, which the magnificent Piazza of St. + Mark is not the best place for studying, for some of the + most characteristic phases of it are absolutely banished + thence. The strolling musician or singer, who may be heard + every night in other parts of the city, never plies his + trade on the piazza. Mendicancy, which is more rife at + Venice, I am sorry to say, than in any other Italian city, + except perhaps Naples, is not tolerated on the piazza.</p> + + <p>But if we wish for a good specimen of the truly popular life + of Venice, it will not be necessary to wander far from the + great centre of the piazza. Coming down the Piazzetta, or + Little Piazza, which opens out of the great square at one end, + and abuts on the open lagoon opposite the island of St. George + at the other, and turning round the corner of the ducal palace, + we cross the bridge over the canal, which above our heads is + bridged by the "Bridge of Sighs," with its "palace and a prison + on each hand," as Byron sings, and find ourselves on the "Riva + dei Schiavoni"—the quay at which the Slavonic vessels + arrived, and arrive still. The quay is a very broad one, by far + the broadest in Venice, paved with flagstones, and teeming with + every characteristic form of Venetian life from early morning + till late into the night. There are two or three hotels + frequented by foreigners on the Riva, for the situation facing + the open lagoon is an exceptionally good one; and there are + three or four caffès at which the cosmopolitan and not + too aristocratic visitor may get an excellent cup of coffee + (for the Venetians, thanks to their long connection with the + East, know what coffee is, and will not take chiccory or other + such detestable substitutes in lieu of it) for the modest + charge of thirteen centimes—just over two cents—and + study as he drinks it the moving and ever-amusing scenes + enacted before his eyes. His neighbor perhaps will be an old + gentleman, the very type of the old "pantaloon" whose mask was + in the old comedy supposed to be the impersonation of Venice. + There are the long, slender and rather delicately-cut features + terminating in a long, narrow and somewhat protruding chin; the + high cheek-bones, the lank and sombre cheeks, the high nose, + the dark bright eye under its bushy brow. He is very thin, very + seedy, and evidently <i>very</i> poor. But he salutes you, as + you take your seat beside him, with the air of an ex-member of + "The Ten;" his ancient hat and napless coat are carefully + brushed; his outrageously high shirt-collar and voluminous + unstarched neckcloth, after the fashion of a former generation, + though as yellow as saffron, are clean; and his poor old boots + as irreproachable as blacking—which can do much, but, + alas! not all things—can make them. His expenditure of a + penny will entitle him not only to a cup of coffee, as + aforesaid, but also to a glass of fresh water, which has been + turned to an opaline color by the shaking into it of a few + drops of something which the waiter drops from a bottle with + some contrivance at its mouth, the effect of which is to cause + only a drop or two of the liquor, whatever it may be, to come + out at each shake. Our old friend is also entitled, in virtue + of his expenditure, to occupy the chair he sits on for as many + hours as he shall see fit to remain in it. And after the + coffee, which must be drunk while hot, has been despatched, the + sippings of the opaline mixture aforesaid may be protracted + indefinitely while he enjoys the cool evening-breezes from the + lagoon, the perfection of <i>dolce far niente</i>, and the + amusement the life of the Riva never fails to afford him. An + itinerant vender of little models of gondolas and bracelets and + toys made out of shells comes by, seeking a customer among the + folk assembled at the caffè. He does not address + Pantaloon, for of course he knows that there is nothing to be + done in that line with him. But spying with a hawk's glance a + <i>forestiere</i> among the crowd, he strolls up to him, + holding up one of his gimcrack bracelets daintily—and he + thinks temptingly, poor fellow!—between his finger and + thumb. "Un franco! Un sol franco! è una beleza per una + contesa!" ("One franc! <span class="pagenum"><a name="page129" + id="page129"></a>[pg 129]</span> only one franc! It would be + beautiful on the arm of a countess!") he murmurs in his soft + lisping Venetian, which abolishes all double consonants, and + supplies their place by prolonging the soft liquid sound of + the preceding vowel. One franc! It is wonderful how the + thing, worthless as it is, can be made even by the most + starving fingers for such a price. Yet after dangling his + toy for a minute, and gazing, oh, so wistfully! the while + out of his big haggard eyes, he says, "Seventy-five + centimes! half a franc!" and still lingers ere he turns away + with a sigh, a weary movement of his emaciated figure and a + longing look on his poor hollow face that make one feel that + the drama we are witnessing is not all comedy. But it is all + supremely interesting to our neighbor, Si'or Pantaleone. He + has been keenly watching the attempted deal, and no doubt + wished that his countryman might succeed. But there was no + element of tragedy in the matter for him, a condition of + semi-starvation is too much an ordinary, every-day and + normal spectacle. He looked on more as a retired merchant + might look on at the progress of a bargain for the delivery + of a shipload of grain. Presently, a middle-aged woman and a + girl of some fourteen years station themselves in front of + the audience seated outside the caffè. The elder + woman has a guitar, and the girl a violin and some sheets of + music in her hand. The woman has her wonderful wealth of + black hair grandly dressed and as shining as oil can make + it. She has large gilt earrings in her ears, a heavy coral + necklace, and a gaudy-colored shawl in good condition. + Whatever might be beneath and below this is in dark + shadow—"et sic melius situm." She is not starved, + however, for, as she prepares to finger her guitar, she + shows a well-nourished and not ill-formed arm. The young + girl has one of those pale, delicate, oval faces so common + in Venice: she also has a good shawl—an amber-colored + one—which so sets off the olive-colored complexion of + her face as to make her a perfect picture. This couple do + not in any degree assume an attitude of appealing <i>ad + misericordiam</i>. They pose themselves <i>en artistes</i>. + The girl sets about arranging her music in a business-like + way, and then they play the well-known air of "La Stella + Confidente," the little violinist really playing remarkably + well. Then the elder woman comes round with a little tin + saucer for our contributions. No slightest word or look of + disappointment or displeasure follows the refusal of those + who give nothing. The saucer is presented to each in turn. I + supposed that the application to Si'or Pantaleone was an + empty form. But no. That retired gentleman could still find + wherewithal to patronize the fine arts, and dropped a + centime—the fifth part of a cent—into the dish + with the air of a prince bestowing the grand cross of the + Golden Fleece. Then comes a dealer in ready-made trousers, + which Pantaloon examines curiously and cheapens. Then a body + of men singing part-songs, not badly, but to some + disadvantage, as they utterly ignore the braying of half a + dozen trumpets which are coming along the Riva in advance of + a body of soldiers returning to some neighboring barracks. + Then there are fruit-sellers and fish-sellers and + hot-chestnut dealers, and, most vociferous of all, the + cryers of "Acqua! acqua! acqua fresca!" There, making its + way among the numerous small vessels from Dalmatia, Greece, + etc. moored to the quay of the Schiavoni, comes a boat from + the Peninsular and Oriental steamer, which arrived this + morning from Alexandria, with four or five Orientals on + board. They come on shore, and proceed to saunter along the + Riva toward the Grand Piazza, while their dark faces and + brightly-colored garments add an element to the motley scene + which is perfectly in keeping with old Venetian + reminiscences.</p> + + <p class="author">T.A.T.</p> + + <h3>A NEW MEXICAN CHRISTMAS EVE.</h3> + + <p>It is Christmas Eve in Albuquerque. Blazing fagots of + mesquite-roots placed on the surrounding adobe walls illuminate + the old church on the plaza. There is a grand <i>baile</i> at + the fonda, to which we and our "family are most respectfully + invited." The sounds of music + <span class="pagenum"><a name="page130" + id="page130"></a>[pg 130]</span> already invite us to the + ball-room. We enter. The floor is full; a hundred couples + are gliding through the graceful "Spanish dance," or "slow + waltz," as it is termed here. Not a few blue-and-gold United + States uniforms are to be seen in the throng. A + full-uniformed major-general of volunteers adds the + éclat of his epaulettes to the occasion. The ranchos + have poured in their señoras and señoritas, + and three rows of the dark-eyed creatures sit ranged around + the room.</p> + + <p>The Mexican women look their best in a ball-room. Their + black eyes, black hair and white teeth glisten in the light; + they are dressed in the gayest of gay colors; ponderous + ornaments of gold, strongly relieved by their dusk complexions, + shed around them a rich barbaric lustre. Not that they eschew + adventitious means to blanch their sun-shadowed tints. For days + some of the señoras and señoritas have worn a + mask of a white clayey mixture to give them an ephemeral + whiteness for this occasion. Those who could procure nothing + else have worn a pasty vizard kneaded of common clay, to effect + in some degree a like result by protecting their faces from the + sun and wind. Should you visit New Mexico, and as you ride + along slowly in the heat of midday meet a señorita who + gazes at you with a pair of jet black eyes through a hideous, + ghastly mask of mud or mortar, do not be frightened from your + accustomed propriety. The señorita is preparing her + <i>toilette de bal</i>.</p> + + <p>The New Mexican women cannot be considered pretty, generally + speaking. In artistic symmetry of feature, in purity of + complexion, they are not to be compared with our countrywomen. + These can bear the searching light of day, when delicacy of + detail can be distinguished and appreciated. Those look their + best in the artificial light of the ball-room. There the + blue-black hair, the brilliant black eyes, the well-traced + eyebrows, the magnificently white and regular teeth, the + richly-developed forms, produce a general effect before which + our blond and delicate beauties seem pale and <i>fades</i>. But + the Mexican's coarser skin—her <i>teint + basané</i>—is too plainly visible in the light of + the sun: you should see her only by the lamps. It is doubtless + rather from an instinct of coquetry than from any other feeling + that in the day-time the Mexican women shroud their dusky + traits in the folds of their <i>rebosas</i>, leaving only one + pilot eye to look upon the outer world.</p> + + <p>No introductions are necessary at the public bailes. Saunter + around the room, inspect the show of expectant partners, and + when you see one who suits your fancy ask her to dance, without + more ado. If she be not engaged she will at once accept your + proffered arm. She will not say anything. Ten to one she will + not breathe a syllable during your evolutions. Conversation is + not the forte of the señoritas. But she will smile and + smile, and you will have no reason to complain of her waltzing. + The Mexican <i>caballero</i>, when he seeks a partner, will not + put himself out so far as to have any words about it. He merely + beckons the chosen one, as the sultan might throw the + handkerchief, and she comes to him at once.</p> + + <p>Each dance concluded, you lead your partner to a sort of bar + where refreshments are furnished, and ask her whether she will + take <i>vino</i> or <i>dulces</i>—wine or candies? She + will take <i>dulces</i>—"Gracias, señor!" This is + <i>de rigueur</i>. You pay for them of course, and conduct her + to her seat. She pours the <i>dulces</i> into the awaiting + pocket-handkerchiefs of the old people, her <i>comadres</i>, + and of her younger brothers and sisters.</p> + + <p>In a little room adjoining the ball-room, with door + invitingly open, is the shrine of <i>monte</i>. The revelry of + the ball-room is unheeded by the preoccupied votaries of the + changeful deity as they sit around the green table watching the + dealer as he turns the cards, and nervously fingering their + little piles of red or white "chips." We have no business and + no pleasure here. Let us merely look in and pass on.</p> + + <p>Waltzes, "round" and "slow," are the <i>pièces de + résistance</i> of a Mexican baile: quadrilles are not + relished by the <span class="pagenum"><a name="page131" + id="page131"></a>[pg 131]</span> dusky danseuses. There are + some New Mexican dances which do not lack prettiness. Of + these, the Cuna is the most popular. It commences with a + see-saw movement suggestive of its name—cuna- or + cradle-dance. For the rest, the waltz enters much into its + composition.</p> + + <p>The orchestra generally consists of one or more violins and + a guitar or two. The New Mexican guitar is strung conversely: + the base-string is where we put the treble, and <i>vice + versâ</i>. The strings are generally struck with the + thumb-nail or with a piece of horn or wood like the ancient + <i>plectrum</i>. This produces a harsh metallic sound, without + any rotundity. Few New Mexican fiddlers or guitar-players are + capable of playing in any time except dancing time, and the + character of the baile, funeral and sacred music is the same. + The only distinction is the addition of a continuous + <i>tremolo</i> to the latter two, which produces the same + unpleasant effect on the nerves as a comic song chanted by the + shaky, cracked, piping and quavering voice of senility. As the + fiddles invariably play their parts in funerals as well as on + festive processions, it requires some familiarity with the + customs of the country to distinguish one from the other. The + music to-night is much better than the ordinary baile music. A + native harpist adds the music of his many strings; and not bad + music either, though he does not know a quaver from a + semibreve, and his harp is of his own manufacture. The + sameness, however, caused by playing always and everything in + the same key is perceptible. But dancing critics are not + disposed to be very severe.</p> + + <p>The enjoyment of the evening is at high pressure. The + dancers are swinging, surging, spinning through the Spanish + dance. Everybody who can find a partner and a place on the + floor—there are many who cannot find the latter—is + dancing. It is a gay, a brilliant scene. All is going as + merrily as a whole chime of marriage-bells when a deep and + solemn peal from the church close by breaks in over the music, + the laughter and the dancing. It is midnight! It is the + <i>Noche Buena</i>, and the bell summons the faithful to the + midnight mass. The effect is electric. The last twirl of the + waltz is suspended, half executed. The dancers stop as suddenly + as if they were puppets moved and stilled by the cunning of + some wire-pulling hand. A general rush is made for the church: + in a moment the ball-room is empty. The church is filled as + instantaneously, and the wildly gay dancers of a moment ago are + now kneeling, hushed and down-bent, in devotional + attitudes.</p> + + <p>The scene is impressive: the bright ball-toilettes + contrasted in a "dim religious light," the sudden change of + place and mood, from gay to grave, from ball-room to sanctuary, + strikes a stranger's eye with thrilling effect. At the + conclusion of the service the dancers return to the ball-room, + to change from grave to gay, and dance <i>ad libitum</i> till + daylight.</p> + + <p class="author">J.T.</p> + + <h3>ENGLISH BIBLE TRANSLATIONS.</h3> + + <p>The first complete translation of the Bible into our + language was made about the year 1380 by John de Wycliffe, or + Wickliffe. There are several manuscript copies of it in the + Bodleian and other European libraries. This great work unlocked + the Scriptures to the multitude, or, as one of his antagonists, + bewailing such an enterprise, worded it, "the gospel pearl was + cast abroad and trodden under foot." Long before the appearance + of this translation various versions of portions of the Bible + had appeared, specimens of which, of every century from the + reign of Alfred to Chaucer's time, are preserved in the British + Museum and elsewhere. Sir Thomas More says: "The Holy Byble was + longe before Wycliffis daies by virtuose and well-learned men + translated into the English tongue, and by good and godly + people with devotion and soberness well and reverently read." + This statement is further corroborated by Foxe, the + martyrologist, who remarks: "If histories be well examined, we + shall find both before and after the Conquest, as well before + John Wickliffe was borne as since, the whole body of the + Scriptures by sundry men translated into this our country + tongue." Wycliffe's Bible was first printed at + <span class="pagenum"><a name="page132" + id="page132"></a>[pg 132]</span> Oxford in 1850, previous to + which the New Testament appeared in 1721 and was reprinted + in 1810.</p> + + <p>In 1526, William Tyndale completed and published in English + his translation of the New Testament. He also translated and + printed the Pentateuch and the book of Jonah, and was preparing + them for publication when he was put to death in Flanders, + being strangled and burnt for heresy. Tyndale's translation, + with his latest revisions (1534), was republished in the + English Hexapla in 1841. A copy of his translation of the + Pentateuch which had belonged to Bishop Heber was sold in 1854 + for $795. Four years later another copy sold for within twenty + dollars of that amount.</p> + + <p>The first English translation of the entire Bible was made + by Miles Coverdale, who afterward became bishop of Exeter, and + was printed in folio in the year 1535. In 1538 a second edition + of Coverdale's Bible was printed at Paris, but the Inquisition + interfered and committed the whole edition of twenty-five + hundred copies to the flames. No perfect copy of Coverdale's + version is known to exist, but one lacking the original + title-page and first leaf was sold in 1854 for $1725. Another, + at the Perkins' sale, in June, 1873, brought $2000.</p> + + <p>Two years after the appearance of the first edition of + Coverdale's Bible, John Rogers, the first martyr in Queen + Mary's reign, published his version of the Scriptures. He made + some emendations, but the text is chiefly that of Tyndale and + Coverdale. It was printed by Grafton and Whitchurch in 1537, + and the title runs: "The Byble, which is all the holy + Scripture: in which are contayned the Olde and Newe Testament + truely and purely translated into Englysh by Thomas Matthew." + For safety, Rogers assumed the name of Matthew, whence it is + known as Matthew's Bible. Seven hundred and fifty dollars have + been paid for a copy.</p> + + <p>The third version of the Bible, known as Taverner's, was + published in 1539. Richard Taverner was a learned man who + published many translations during the sixteenth century. Horne + says of his translation, "This is neither a bare revisal of + Cranmer's Bible nor a new version, but a kind of intermediate + work, being a correction of what is called 'Matthew's + Bible.'"</p> + + <p>The first edition of Cranmer's Bible, the printing of which + was begun in Paris in 1538 and completed in London in + 1540—the Inquisition having interposed by imprisoning the + printers and burning the greater part of the + impression—is excessively rare. Cranmer's Bible—or + the Great Bible, as it was called—is Tyndale's, + Coverdale's and Rogers's translations most carefully revised + throughout. This was the first sound and authorized English + version; and as soon as it was perfected a proclamation was + issued ordering it to be provided for every parish church, + under a penalty of forty shillings a month. A second edition of + Cranmer's Bible appeared in 1560, a copy of which brought, at a + recent sale in England, the sum of $610.</p> + + <p>The Genevan version of the Bible was made by several English + exiles at Geneva in Queen Mary's reign—viz., Cole, + Coverdale, Gilby, Knox, Sampson, Whittingham and + Woodman—and was first printed in 1560. It went through + fifty editions in the course of thirty years. This translation + was very popular with the Puritan party. In this version the + first division into verses was made. It is commonly known as + the "Breeches Bible," from the peculiar rendering of Genesis + iii. 7—" breeches of fig-leaves." To the Geneva Bible we + owe the beautiful phraseology of the admired passage in + Jeremiah viii. 22. Coverdale, Matthew and Taverner render it, + "For there is no more treacle at Gilead?" Cranmer, "Is there no + treason at Gilead?" The Genevan first gave the poetic + rendering, "Is there no balm in Gilead?"</p> + + <p>In the year 1568 another translation appeared, which is + indiscriminately known as "Matthew Parker's Bible," the + "Bishops' Bible" and the "Great English Bible." This version + was undertaken and carried on under the inspection of Matthew + Parker, second Protestant archbishop of Canterbury. Of the + fifteen <span class="pagenum"><a name="page133" + id="page133"></a>[pg 133]</span> translators, six were + bishops, hence this edition is often called the Bishops' + Bible, though it is sometimes designated the Great English + Bible, from its being a huge folio volume. In 1569 it was + published in octavo form. There is a well-preserved copy of + the first edition of Matthew Parker's Bible in the + possession of a gentleman residing in New York City. This + was the authorized version of the Scriptures for forty + years, when it was superseded by our present English + Bible.</p> + + <p>The English Roman Catholic College at Rheims issued in the + year 1582 a translation of the New Testament, known as the + "Rhemish New Testament." It was condemned by the queen of + England, and copies imported into that country were seized and + destroyed. In 1609 the first volume of the Old Testament, and + in the following year the second volume, were published at + Douay, hence ever since known as the Douay Bible. Some years + since Cardinal Wiseman remarked that the names Rhemish and + Douay, as applied to the current editions, are absolute + misnomers. The publishers of the edition chiefly used in this + country state that it is translated from the Latin Vulgate, + "being the edition published by the English College at Rheims + A.D. 1582, and at Douay in 1609, as revised and corrected in + 1750, according to the Clementine edition of the Scriptures, by + the Rt. Rev. Richard Challoner, bishop of Debra, with his + annotations for clearing up the principal difficulties of Holy + Writ."</p> + + <p>Theodore Beza translated the New Testament out of the Greek + into the Latin. This was first published in England in 1574, + and afterward frequently. In 1576 it was "Engelished" by + Leonard Tomson, under-secretary to Sir Francis Walsingham, and + was afterward frequently annexed to the Genevan Old Testament. + The following is a copy of the title-page of the New Testament, + <i>verbatim et literatim</i>: "The New Testament of our Lord + Jesus Christ, translated out of Greeke by Theod Beza: with + brief summaries and expositions upon the hard places by the + said authour, <i>Ioach Amer and P Loseler Vallerius</i>. + Engelished by L Tomson. Together with the Annotations of <i>Fr + Junius</i> upon the Revelation of S. John. Imprinted at London + by the Deputies of Christopher Barker, Printer to the Queene's + Most Excellent Majestie—1599." The volume opens with a + primitive version of the Psalms in verse, then follow the Old + Testament, the Apocrypha and the New Testament, as in Bibles of + the present day.</p> + + <p>The version of the Scriptures now in use among Protestants + was translated by the authority of King James I., and published + in 1611. Fifty-four learned men were appointed to accomplish + the work of revision, but from death or other causes seven of + the number failed to enter upon it. The remaining forty-seven + were ranged under six divisions, different portions of the + Bible being assigned to each division. They entered upon their + task in 1607, and after three years of diligent labor the work + was completed. This version was generally adopted, and the + former translations soon fell into disuse. The authors of King + James's version of the Bible included the most learned divines + of the day; one of whom was master of Latin, Greek, Hebrew, + Chaldee, Syriac and fifteen modern languages.</p> + + <p>Among other rare and highly-coveted editions of the Bible is + one printed in England in the seventeenth century, in which the + important word <i>not</i> was omitted in the seventh + commandment, from which circumstance it has ever since been + known as "The Adulterer's Bible." Another edition, known as the + Pearl Bible, appeared about the same time, filled with errata, + a single specimen of which will suffice: "Know ye not the + ungodly <i>shall inherit</i> the kingdom of God?" Bibles were + once printed which affirmed that "all Scripture was profitable + for <i>de</i>struction;" while still another edition of the + sacred volume is known as the "Vinegar Bible," from the erratum + in the title to the twentieth chapter of St. Luke, in which + "Parable of the Vineyard" is printed "Parable of the + Vinegar."</p> + + <p class="author"> + J.G.W.</p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page134" + id="page134"></a>[pg 134]</span> + + <h3>LITERATURE OF THE DAY.</h3> + + <p>Life and Labours of Mr. Brassey, 1805-1870. By Sir Arthur + Helps, K.C.B. Boston: Roberts Brothers.</p> + + <p>The "captains of industry," who constitute in our day so + distinct and notable a class of worthies, are doubtless as well + entitled to have their achievements recorded and their fame + sounded throughout the lands as were the doughty men of war who + of old were deemed the only fitting heroes of chronicle and + epic. Few of them, however, can hope to have their deeds + commemorated by a "veray parfit, gentle knight"—of the + quill, not of the sword, albeit the letters which he writes + after his name would once have indicated the possession of + military rank and distinction. Sir Arthur Helps is not a man of + few words or of a very stern or passionate temperament. It is + the graces of chivalry, not its fiery ardor, that he cultivates + and reflects, and though "arms and the man" have often been his + theme, the soft and delicate strain was ever more suggestive of + the pastoral pipe than of the bardic lyre. Essayist, historian, + biographer, novelist, he is always intent to smooth away the + asperities of his subject, and, like some stately grandame + enthroned in high-backed chair, he remembers that his simple + auditors are to be not merely entertained by the matter of his + discourse, but impressed by the suave tones and high-bred + prolixity of the speaker. With a dignified courtesy unknown in + these latter times—when biographers and historians do not + scruple to take liberties with their heroes to the extent even + of designating them by nicknames—the subject of the + present memoir is introduced to us as <i>Mr</i>. Brassey, a + form not only adopted on the title-page, but preserved in the + body of the work, where we read that "Mr. Brassey was born + November 7, 1805," that "Mr. Brassey, at twelve years of age, + went to a school at Chester," and that, being afterward + articled to a surveyor, "Mr. Brassey was permitted by his + master" to assist in making certain surveys. It is only from a + side whisper to the American public, which is honored with a + preface all to itself, that we are permitted to learn that the + great contractor owned to the Christian name of Thomas. Besides + the two prefaces there is a dedication to the queen, an + introduction telling how Sir Arthur Helps made the acquaintance + of Mr. Brassey and what impressions he received from the + interview, and a preliminary chapter containing a brief outline + of Mr. Brassey's character as "a man of business;" so that we + get at the substance of the book by a process like that which + in a well-conducted household precedes the carving and + distribution of a Christmas cake, any eagerness we might feel + to "put in a thumb and pull out a plum" being kept in check by + a proper amount of ceremony and tissue-paper.</p> + + <p>Plums, however, there are, though not perhaps in full + proportion to the frosted coating, or of just the kind that are + best agglutinated by the biographical dough. Of anecdote or + gossip, glimpses of "life and manners" or personal details, + there is nothing. Nor can we justly take exception to this. On + the contrary, it gives a unity to the subject by excluding + whatever had no relation to the enterprises with which Mr. + Brassey's name is connected, and which absorbed his time and + thoughts to a degree that can have left him but little + opportunity for intercourse with mankind except in a business + capacity. It is these enterprises—not in their entirety + or with reference to the objects with which they were designed, + but as evidences and illustrations of the working force, mental + and physical, demanded for their execution—that form the + real subject of the book, the matter of which has been chiefly + furnished by the various agents entrusted with the immediate + supervision of the labor and outlay of the capital employed. + The details thus brought together afford perhaps a more vivid + idea of the industrial energy and activity of the nineteenth + century, and of the resources they have called into play, than + could have been obtained from a survey of any other field in + which the like qualities have been displayed. It was chiefly + with railway enterprises, and this almost from their inception, + and to an extent far beyond the rivalry of any other + constructor, that Mr. Brassey was engaged; and the railway + system, not only by its own immense demands on capital, labor + and inventive skill, but still more by the stimulus and aid it + has given to industrial enterprises of every kind, must be + regarded <span class="pagenum"><a name="page135" + id="page135"></a>[pg 135]</span> as the main lever of a + material progress that has outstripped the conceptions and + possibilities of all previous ages. With the development of + a system so different in its nature from the great + undertakings of any former period came the need of the + contractor, entrusted with the direction and laden with the + full responsibility of works which no government "boards" or + similar machinery would have been competent to carry through + under the conditions imposed by the novel circumstances of + the movement and the exacting spirit by which it was + impelled. To attain the foremost place in the new career + thus created demanded, obviously, no ordinary + powers—special knowledge of various kinds, equal + facility in mastering details and grasping a general plan, + tact in the choice and management of subordinates, courage + and promptness in encountering unforeseen obstacles and + disasters, and skill and clearheadedness in the general + control of enormous and intricate financial interests. To + these qualities must be added in the present case what is + not so invariably associated with the names of succesful + contractors—a faithfulness and integrity which merited + and received the fullest confidence. Whether working at a + gain or at a loss, Mr. Brassey was ever resolute to execute + his engagements to the letter, and he declined to make + demands for extra compensation when his contracts proved + unprofitable, though it was customary with him to make good + the losses of his sub-contractors. He amassed a colossal + fortune, not through excessive gains, but by a small + profit—"as nearly as possible three per + cent."—which accrued to him from all his enterprises + taken as a whole, and the accumulations consequent on an + inexpensive mode of life.</p> + + <p>The railways constructed by Mr. Brassey, generally in + partnership with some other contractor, between the years 1834 + and 1870, comprised between six and seven thousand miles in all + parts of the globe, including Australia and in almost every + civilized country except Russia and the United States. "There + were periods in his career during which he and his partners + were giving employment to 80,000 persons, upon works requiring + £ 17,000,000 of capital for their completion." Yet a + large part of his time and of the time of his agents was spent + in the investigation of schemes which he either decided not to + undertake or for which he tendered unsuccessfully. It was + necessary at times to transport materials, a large staff of + employés and an army of laborers from one country to + another. In some cases works were prosecuted in regions + occupied or threatened by hostile armies, in others under all + the embarrassments and gloom of a great financial revulsion. In + countries where commercial transactions were usually very + limited the great difficulty was to obtain coin for the payment + of wages, while in others there was the danger of the supply of + labor failing through the enticements of superabundant capital + or the more dazzling temptations of gold-digging. It is + needless to mention the usual accidents and impediments to + which all such undertakings are liable, and which the skill and + ingenuity of the modern engineer never fail to overcome; but it + is certainly not a little remarkable, when the multiplicity of + Mr. Brassey's contracts is remembered, as well as the early + period from which they date, to find that they were invariably + completed within the specified time.</p> + + <p>Personal Reminiscences of Barham, Harness and Hodder. + (Bric-à-Brac Series, edited by Richard Henry Stoddard.) + New York: Scribner, Armstrong & Co.</p> + + <p>Why we should love so dearly a fresh anecdote of a literary + celebrity, a new quip by Talleyrand, a new stutter of Lamb's, a + new impertinence of Sheridan's, may be not hard to understand, + but it is rather hard to defend, any regard being paid to our + dignity. The best stories about that particular line of authors + who have possessed <i>bonhomie</i> and become classic for it + are long since told. What remains is the dregs. Yet the other + day we found ourselves smiling with real delight over a new + "bit" of Cowper. It was merely that his barber, being late with + the poet's wig, said, "Twill soon be here, it is upon the + road;" and that Cowper had smiled, with a "Very well, William," + or a "Very fair, Thomas." The <i>mot</i>, like most of the + stories that crop up now, was not good; it did not exhibit the + author of "John Gilpin" in a brilliant light; it was not even + uttered by the poet—he had merely smiled at it; yet it + had the effect of rekindling the vapid embers about the dear + old hearthstone of Olney, and the shy, gentle creatures that + used to disport there among the hares when nobody was looking + became for a moment more real from the citation. Now, the + question is, What is the superiority of a new piece of gossip + like this, which involves + <span class="pagenum"><a name="page136" + id="page136"></a>[pg 136]</span> no witticism and confers no + wisdom, over the next bit of history that will be exchanged + between the heroines of the alley-gate? When Mrs. Jones + tells Mrs. Baker that Mrs. Briggs has delivered a daughter, + and that Mr. Briggs said he had rather she had given him a + wooden leg, the epigram is quite as good as a + <i>Bric-à-Brac</i> anecdote, the people are quite as + worthy as Cowper's barber, and the effect upon the history + of letters quite as close and important. With this demurrer, + we will apply ourselves for a moment to Mr. Stoddard's last + collection, which of course we relish as much as anybody. We + could wish that, after discharging his very well-executed + duty of writing the preface, he could find some further time + for elucidating the text. The present book being about three + people, whose memoirs are taken from three volumes, it is + confusing to the reader to find on a page headed "Rogers" or + "Scott" a foot-note about what "my father" said or what "my + friend" remembered, without anything to point out that the + authority is other than Mr. Stoddard's father or friend. + Other peculiarities, too, suggest that the pretty little + volume is clipped instead of edited: on page 134 we find + that "William, who had lived many years with Hook, grew rich + and saucy. The latter used to assert of him that for the + first three years he was as good a servant as ever came into + a house; for the next two a kind and considerate friend; and + afterward an abominably bad master." And on page 240, that + when <i>Rogers</i> was condoled with about the death of an + old servant, he exclaimed, "Well, I don't know that I feel + his loss so much, after all. For the first <i>seven</i> + years he was an obliging servant; for the second + <i>seven</i> years an agreeable companion; but for the last + seven years he was a tyrannical master." This duality of + epigrams seems to show a discrepancy somewhere; or are we to + believe that the wits of the Regency used to drive their + jokes as hired hacks, like the livery carriages employed by + faded dowagers in Hampton Court? The rest of the little book + is perhaps free from duplicates. It is a good one to turn + over for an hour in the cars, which is perhaps all it claims + to be. The anecdotes are good old familiar anecdotes, but it + is pleasant to have them strung on a thread. We are reminded + that the original Bride of Lammermoor was a Miss Dalrymple; + that the "laughing Tom" of Thackeray's "Ballad of + Bouillabaise" was Thomas Frazer, Paris correspondent of the + <i>Morning Chronicle</i>; that the dramatist of <i>Nicholas + Nickleby</i>, so savagely assaulted by Dickens in the course + of the work, was a Mr. Moncrief, who would never have + prepared the story for the stage if Dickens had intimated + his objection.</p> + + <h4><i>Books Received.</i></h4> + + <p>The American Educational Annual: A Reference Book for all + matters pertaining to Education. Vol. I., 1875. New York: J.W. + Schermerhorn & Co.</p> + + <p>The Song-Fountain: A Vocal Music-book. By Wm. Tillinghast + & D.P. Horton. New York: J.W. Schermerhorn & Co.</p> + + <p>My. Sister Jennie: A Novel. By George Sand. Translated by + T.S. Crocker. Boston: Roberts Brothers.</p> + + <p>Democracy and Monarchy in France. By Charles Kendall Adams. + New York: Henry Holt & Co.</p> + + <p>Egypt and Iceland in the year 1874. By Bayard Taylor. New + York: G.P. Putnam's Sons.</p> + + <p>Elements of Geometry. By W.H.H. Phillips, Ph. D. New York: + J.W. Schermerhorn & Co.</p> + + <p>The Old Woman who Lived in a Shoe. By Amanda M. Duglas. + Boston: William F. Gill & Co.</p> + + <p>The Lily and the Cross: A Tale of Acadia. By Prof. James De + Mille. Boston: Lee & Shepard.</p> + + <p>Alleged Discrepancies of the Bible. By John W. Haley, M.A. + Andover: Warren F. Draper.</p> + + <p>History of the United States. By George Bancroft. Vol. X. + Boston: Little, Brown & Co.</p> + + <p>Roddy's Romance. By Helen Kendrick Johnson. New York: G.P. + Putnam's Sons.</p> + + <p>My Life on the Plains. By Gen. G.A. Custer, U.S.A. New York: + Sheldon & Co.</p> + + <p>American Wild-Fowl Shooting. By Joseph W. Long. New York: + J.B. Ford & Co.</p> + + <p>Hazel-Blossoms. By John Greenleaf Whittier. Boston: James R. + Osgood & Co.</p> + + <p>Losing to Win: A Novel. By Theodore Davies. New York: + Sheldon & Co.</p> + + <p>Linley Rochford: A Novel. By Justin McCarthy. New York: + Sheldon & Co.</p> + + <p>A First Book in German. By Dr. Emil Otto. New York: Henry + Holt & Co.</p> + + <p>What of the Churches and Clergy? Springfield, Mass: D.E. + Fisk & Co.</p> + <hr class="full" /> + + <blockquote class="footnote"> + <a id="footnote1" + name="footnote1"></a><b>Footnote 1:</b> + <a href="#footnotetag1">(return)</a> + + <p><i>The Pilgrimage of the Tiber</i>, by Wm. Davies.</p> + </blockquote> + + <blockquote class="footnote"> + <a id="footnote2" + name="footnote2"></a><b>Footnote 2:</b> + <a href="#footnotetag2">(return)</a> + + <div class="poem"> + <div class="stanza"> + <p>Com' io fui dentro, in un bogliente vetro</p> + + <p>Gittato mi sarei per rinfrescarmi,</p> + + <p>Tant' era ivi lo'ncendio senza metro.</p> + </div> + </div> + + <p><i>Del Purgatorio</i>, xxvii. 49.</p> + </blockquote> + <hr class="full" /> + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Lippincott's Magazine of Popular +Literature and Science Vol. XV., No. 85. January, 1875., by Various + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LIPPINCOTT'S MAGAZINE *** + +***** This file should be named 13440-h.htm or 13440-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/3/4/4/13440/ + +Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Sandra Brown and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team. + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. 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January, 1875., by Various + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Vol. XV., No. 85. January, 1875. + +Author: Various + +Release Date: September 11, 2004 [EBook #13440] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LIPPINCOTT'S MAGAZINE *** + + + + +Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Sandra Brown and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team. + + + + + +LIPPINCOTT'S MAGAZINE + +OF + +_POPULAR LITERATURE AND SCIENCE_. + +VOLUME XV., No. 85. + +PHILADELPHIA: + +J. B. LIPPINCOTT AND CO. + + + +January, 1875. + + + +CONTENTS + +THE NEW HYPERION. + FROM PARIS TO MARLY BY WAY OF THE RHINE. + XIX.--TYING UP THE CLEWS. + +FOLLOWING THE TIBER + TWO PAPERS.--1. + +THE PARADOX by CHARLOTTE F. BATES. + +THE LEADEN ARROW by EDWARD C. BRUCE. + +TWO MIRRORS by F.A. HILLARD. + +MALCOLM. + CHAPTER LXIV. THE LAIRD AND HIS MOTHER. + CHAPTER LXV. THE LAIRD'S VISION. + CHAPTER LXVI. THE CRY FROM THE CHAMBER. + CHAPTER LXVII. FEET OF WOOL. + CHAPTER LXVIII. HANDS OF IRON. + CHAPTER LXIX. THE MARQUIS AND THE SCHOOLMASTER. + CHAPTER LXX. END OR BEGINNING? + +THE STAGE IN ITALY by R. DAVEY. + +THREE FEATHERS BY WILLIAM BLACK. + CHAPTER XX. TINTAGEL'S WALLS. + CHAPTER XXI. CONFESSION. + CHAPTER XXII. ON WINGS OF HOPE. + +ON THE VIA SAN BASILIO by EARL MARBLE. + +A CHRISTMAS HYMN by T. BUCHANAN READ. + +THE PARSEES by FANNIE ROPER FEUDGE. + +OUR MONTHLY GOSSIP + A SWEDISH PROVINCIAL THEATRE. + VENETIAN CAFFES. + A NEW MEXICAN CHRISTMAS EVE. + ENGLISH BIBLE TRANSLATIONS. + +LITERATURE OF THE DAY. + _Books Received._ + + + + +ILLUSTRATIONS + + CAESAR'S PENNY. + THE THRONED CORPSE. + THE SKELETON IN ARMOR. + BRUSSELS. + FATHER JOLIET. + THE CATECHISM. + FRAU KRANICH. + "TO MY ARMS." + THE FUTURE OF FFARINA. + HOHENFELS' FAILURE. + READING THE CONTRACT. + INTERRUPTED REPOSE. + COALS vs. COATS + THE JESTER AT THE FEAST. + ST. GUDOLE, BRUSSELS. + SQUARE OF THE HOTEL DE VILLE, BRUSSELS. + DIVERS DIVERSIONS. + THE MIMIC HUNT. + HOMEWARD BOUND. + CHARLES AND JOSEPHINE. + ARGUS AND ULYSSES. + "HAND IT OVER TO ART." + NEAR THE SOURCE OF THE TIBER. + CAPRESE. + LAKE THRASIMENE. + THE TIBER NEAR PERUGIA. + TODI. + CHURCH AND CONVENT OF SAINT FRANCIS, AT ASSISI. + + + + +THE NEW HYPERION. + +FROM PARIS TO MARLY BY WAY OF THE RHINE. + + +XIX.--TYING UP THE CLEWS. + + +[Illustration: CAESAR'S PENNY.] + +In leaving Cologne for Aix-la-Chapelle you turn your back to the +river--a particular which suited my mood well enough. The railway bore +us away from the Rhine-shore at an abrupt angle, and in my notion the +noble Germanic goddess or image seemed at this point to recede with +grand theatric strides, like a divinity of the stage backing away +from her admirers over the billowy whirlpool of her own skirts. As +I dreamed we penetrated the tunnel of Koenigsdorf, which is fifteen +hundred yards long, and which seemed to me sufficiently protracted to +contain the slumber of Barbarossa. The thought gave me a useful hint, +and I fell into a light sleep, while Charles and Hohenfels pervaded +the darkness merely by their perfumes--the former with whiffs at a +concealed bottle of Farina, the latter with a pastille counterfeiting +the incense of the cathedral. In a couple of hours from the Hotel de +Hollande we reached Aachen, as the fond natives call the burgh so dear +to Charlemagne. Deprived of that magnificent mirror, the Rhine, the +pretty towns throughout this part of Germany seem but like country +belles. We should hardly have paused at Aix but for the sake of +affording a rest to Charles, who grew worse whenever lunch-time +competed with railway-time. As for the dull little city, for us it was +a wilderness, with the blank cleanliness of the desert, except in so +far as it was informed and populated by the memory of Charlemagne. + +[Illustration: THE THRONED CORPSE.] + +Here he died, and entered his tomb in the church himself had founded. +Into this sepulchre the emperor Otho III. dared to penetrate in the +year 997, impelled by a motive of vile and varlet-like curiosity. They +say the dead monarch confronted his living visitor in the great marble +chair in which he had been seated at his own command, haughty and +inflexible as in life, the ivory sceptre in his ivory fingers, his +white skull crowned with the diadem of gold. The peeping emperor +looked upon him with awe, half afraid of the mysterious and +penetrating shadows that reached forth out of his rayless eyes. Before +he left, however, he peered about, touched the sceptre and the throne, +fingered this and that, and having, as it were, trimmed the nails and +combed the beard of the great spectre, retired with a valet's bow. +Observing that Charlemagne had lost most of his nose, he caused it +to be replaced in gold very delicately chiseled and enchased. The +sacrilege was repeated by Frederick Barbarossa in 1165, who went +farther and forced Charlemagne to get up from his chair before him. +The corpse, in rising, fell in pieces, which have been dispersed +through Europe as relics. We saw such of them as remain here at the +Chapelle. I was allowed, for about the equivalent of an American +dollar, to measure the Occidental emperor's leg--they call it his arm. +And then, as a makeweight in the bargain, the venal sacristan placed +in my hands the head of Charlemagne. + +I thought Hohenfels would have sunk to the ground with disgust. He +colored deeply and dragged me into the air. "I am ashamed of every +drop of German blood in my veins," he cried. "What are we to think of +the commerce of these wretches, for whom the very wounds of Caesar are +the lips of a money-box?" + +I had given back the skull, as Hamlet returns the skull of Yorick to +the grave-digger, and was dusting my fingers with a handkerchief, +as hundreds of Hamlets have dusted theirs. I said, "'Thrift, thrift, +Horatio.'" + +"At Kreutzberg there are twenty monks on the counter! This morning, at +St. Ursula's, it was the eleven thousand virgins, their skulls ranged +like Dutch cheeses above our heads or in rows around the walls, with +a battery-full of them in the neighboring apartment, like a +cheesemonger's reserved magazine. Here, the very leader of modern +ideas, the creator of our form of civilization, is shown for so +many pennies to any grocer who wants to weigh the head of a king! +Profanation! Barbarians! Philistines!" + +[Illustration: THE SKELETON IN ARMOR.] + +I turned rather hastily, while my hands were yet clammy with the +skull, thinking that this accusation of Philistinism was aimed at me. +But Hohenfels thought of nothing less than of a personality, being +in his cloudiest mood of generalization. So I only concealed the +handkerchief, while I said, as easily as I might, "You need not accuse +your German blood, for I have lived long enough in my American's +Paradise to know that civilized Paris is considerably worse in this +particular respect, with the addition of a certain goblin levity +particularly French. How often have I seen babies frightened by the +skulls in the dentists' windows, with their cynical chewing action! +It is said that a child sat next a dentist's apprentice once in an +omnibus, and was observed to turn rigid, fixed and white, but unable +to speak: he had sat on one of these skulls, and it had bitten him. +Silver-mounted skulls set as goblets, in imitation of Byron, are to +be seen at any of the china-shops rubbing against the chaste cheeks +of the old maid's teacup. Skeletons are sold, bleached and with gilded +hinges, to the medical students, who buy the pale horrors as openly +as meerschaum pipes. Have I not often found young Grandstone +supping among his doctors' apprentices of the Ober restaurant after +theatre-hours, a skeleton in the corner filled with umbrellas like +a hall-rack, and crowned with the triple or quintuple tiara of the +girls' best bonnets? Ay, Mimi Pinson's cap has known what it is to +perch on the bony head of Death. The juxtaposition is but an emblem. +The sewing-girl, like Hood's shirtmaker, scarcely fears the +'phantom of grisly bone.' Poor Francine! where have you taken _your_ +artisanne's cap to, I wonder? Are you left alone, all alone again, and +thinking of the pretty solitude you have left behind you at Carlsruhe? +Who uses those polished keys now?" + +Hohenfels interrupted me, complaining that my monologue was +uninteresting and diffuse, and was interfering with the railway +time-table. But I finished it in the car: "And the railway! What has +a person of fixed and independent habits to do with railways but +to growl at them? Before I was tempted upon the railway by that +impertinent engineer at Noisy, I got up and sat down when I liked, ate +wholesome food at my own hours, and was contented at home. Confusion +to him who made me the victim of his engineering calculations! +Confusion to Grandstone and his nest of serpents at Epernay! Did they +not introduce me to Fortnoye, who has doubly destroyed my peace? Where +are the conspirators, that I may pulverize them with my maledictions?" + +[Illustration: BRUSSELS.] + +This question--which Hohenfels called peevish as he buried himself in +his book--was not answered until we had passed Verviers, Chaudfontaine +and Liege. I was aroused from a sulky slumber in the station at +Brussels by Hohenfels, who said, in his musical scolding way, like the +busy wheeze of a clicking music-box, "You may say what you like, with +your left-handed flatteries, in regard to Fortnoye, and you may praise +Ariadnes and widows to the end of the chapter. You are sorry at +this moment not to be at Epernay to see the destroyer of your peace +married: you had rather assist at the making of a wife than at the +making of a widow." + +I was just sending Fortnoye to the gloomiest shades of Acheron when a +strong hand entered the carriage-door, helped me handsomely down the +steps, and then began warmly to shake my own. Fortnoye!--Fortnoye +in flesh and blood was before me. While my mouth was yet filled with +maledictions he began to pour out a storm of thanks with all his own +particular warmth, expressing the most effusive gratitude for the +trouble I had taken in forsaking my route to be his wife's bridesmaid. +That is what he called it. "She has but one other," said Fortnoye. +At the same time I began to recognize other faces not unknown to me, +crudely illuminated by the raw colors of the railway-lights. They +all had black wedding-suits and enormous buttonhole nosegays of +orange-flowers. I picked them out, with a particular recognition for +each: 'twas the civil engineer of Noisy; the short gentleman named +Somerard; James Athanasius Grandstone, with his saintly aureole upon +him in the shape of a Yankee wide-awake; the nameless mutes, or rather +chorus, of the champagne-crypt; in short, my nest of serpents in +all its integrity. Still entangled with my slumbers, I hesitated +to respond to the friendly hands that were everywhere thrust +centripetally toward me. + +I looked blackly at Hohenfels. He was chuckling. + +At Heidelberg, making the acquaintance of M. Fortnoye +contemporaneously with my departure, he had become more enthralled +than he ever confessed to this radiant traveler--whom he called a +packman, but regarded as a Mercury--and his pretty scheme of matrimony +in motion. Even now, if I can believe my eyes, he goes up to the +"vintner" and "peddler" of his objurgations, and meekly whispers into +his ear with the air of a conspirator reporting a plot to his chief. +Having engaged to produce me at the wedding of Fortnoye, and finding +me unexpectedly recusant, he had adopted a little stratagem for +bringing me to the scene while thinking to escape from it. + +"Thou too, Brutus!" I said, and gave it up. It only remained for me +to return all round, after five minutes of petrified stupidity, +the hand-grasps that had been offered from every quarter of the +compass-box. + +Next morning, at an early hour, I was interrupted by a knock, just +as Charles had buttoned my gaiters and the young man from the +perruquier's (who had stolen in with that air of delicacy and of +almost literary refinement which belongs to his gentle profession) had +lathered me. A nick he gave my chin at the shock made my countenance +all argent and gules, and the visitor entering saw me thus emblazoned, +while the barber and Charles, "like two wild men supporters of a +shield," could only stare at the untimely apparition. + +"Do you know him, Charles?" I asked, not recognizing my guest, and +putting over my painted face a mask of wet toweling. + +"I know him intimately," replied my jester-in-ordinary: "I would thank +Monsieur Paul just to tell me his name. Do you remember, monsieur, a +sort of beggar, with a wagon and a stylish horse and a pretty wife, +who limped a bit with his right hand, or perhaps his left hand? Does +monsieur know what I mean? He used to come and see us at Passy; and +monsieur even had some traffic with him in a little matter of two +chickens." + +"Father Joliet!" I cried. + +"Present!" shouted the personage thus designated at my appeal to his +name. I turned round, toweled, and he grasped my hands. The unusual +hour, appropriate as I supposed only to some porter or other +stipendiary visitor of my hotel, caused to shine out with startling +refulgence the morning splendors in which Papa Joliet had arrayed +himself. He wore a courtly dress, appropriate to the most formal +possible ceremony; his black suit was glossy; his hat was glossy; +his varnished pumps were more than glossy--they were phosphorescent. +Gloves only were wanting to his honest hands. + +[Illustration: PERRUQUIER.] + +Soaped, napkined and generally extinguished, I could only stammer, +"You here in Brussels? What a droll meeting!" + +"Wherefore droll?" asked Joliet, with a huge surprise, which lasted +him all through his next sentence. "I come here to marry my daughter. +Everything is ready; we count on your presence at the wedding; the +lawyer has drawn up the contract; and the breakfast is now cooking at +the best restaurant in the place." + +"Francine's wedding, my dear Joliet!" I exclaimed. And, going back to +my apprehensions at her furtive disappearance from Carlsruhe, and +to my conjectures of some amorous mystery between her and her Yankee +traducer, Kraaniff, I added gravely, "It is very creditable!" + +"How, creditable--and droll?" repeated the honest man, evidently much +surprised at my own accumulating surprises. "Did not you hear?" + +[Illustration: FATHER JOLIET.] + +"Not the faintest word," I said, "but I am none the less gratified to +find this affair ending, as it should, in the presence of a lawyer. As +for your wedding-invitation, my good friend, you are a little tardy in +delivering it, for it is exactly to-day that I am obliged to attend at +the marriage of one of my friends, M. Fortnoye." + +"Ah, that is a good joke!" cried Joliet, breaking into an explosion of +laughter and clapping me pleasantly on the shoulder--an action which +caused a slight frown on the part of Charles. "You always would have +your jest, Monsieur the American! Tease me and scare me as much as +you like: I like these hoaxes better before a wedding than after. +Hold that," he added, extending his hand as if it were a piece of +merchandise. + +I "held" it, and he went on, dwelling slowly on his words: "If you are +at Henri Fortnoye's wedding you will be at Francine Joliet's also, for +both of these persons are to be married at one church." + +"Impossible!" I exclaimed, dropping the hand and stepping back. + +"What! again?" said Joliet, his manly face visibly darkening. "Droll! +and creditable! and impossible! Why impossible?" Then he dropped his +head and looked angrily at the floor. "Ah, yes, even you," he said, +his eyes still fixed on the boards, "believed that a French girl, +trained as French girls are trained, would flirt and expose herself to +remark; and all on account of such a man as your compatriot, the other +American! Well! well! you ought to know your countrymen best." + +"I know of no harm," I interposed hastily. "I should always have +thought Kraaniff hard to swallow as a mere matter of taste. I can but +recollect, Father Joliet," I went on more seriously, "that the last +time I met you you begged me not to talk of Francine if I would not +break your heart. I have to add to this the news brought me from +Heidelberg, that this Kraaniff was a serpent who had fascinated some +young girl for an approaching meal.--How dare you, Charles," I cried +suddenly, recalled to the consciousness of his presence by this +souvenir of his oratory, "stand here staring? Show the young man out +directly, and pay him." + +I will not answer for Charles's having got much farther away than the +door. Joliet continued: "But his aunt knows him now for what he is. +Kraaniff, say you? I call him Kranich, though he had better change his +baptismal record than disgrace one of the best names in Brussels." + +[Illustration: THE CATECHISM.] + +"Frau Kranich, then, my old friend, is really his aunt?" + +"Madame Kranich, whom I have known in your parlor, is really +Francine's godmother. Did you never know of all her secret kindness? +That rigid lady would commit a perjury to deny one of her own good +actions. Young Kranich has written her a letter confessing his lies. +Don't you know? The very same day when you were determined to fight +him in a duel--" + +"Certainly, certainly," I said, a little confused. "We will change the +subject and leave my ferocity alone. Let us understand one another. +In regard to Fortnoye's marriage, was there not some talk of a Madame +Ashburleigh?" + +"I believe you. Madame Ashburleigh is the very key of the manoeuvre. +Madame Ashburleigh--don't you perceive?--lost a child." + +"For that matter, she has lost four. I know the lady confidentially, +and she told me their histories and present address. Lucia lies in +Glasgow, Hannibal at Nice, and Waterloo sleeps somewhere hereabout, as +well as another nameless little dear." + +"She is a good woman. She has collected all her proofs, and has come +hither with them voluntarily--has perhaps already arrived. Brussels, +where two of her marmots rest, is one of her most frequent stations. +That censorious Madame Kranich made a scene, but she had to yield to +conviction." + +"A censorious Madame Kranich! Is the young duelist married?" + +"What? No, no! It is Francine's guardian I speak of. Of late years she +has become a sort of Puritan abbess, seeking the Protestant society +which abounds in Belgium, and lamenting her husband, whom they say she +used to drug with opium." + +"Then is she not Kranich's aunt?" + +"Oh yes, an aunt by marriage; but he is not her nephew: I will die +before I call him so." + +"Listen," said I, "Father Joliet. You are as full of information as an +oracle, but you are not coherent. This month past I have been hunting +down a chimaera, a hydra with a dozen heads: each head shows me by +turn the portrait of Fortnoye, or Francine, or yourself, or Kranich, +or Mrs. Ashburleigh. Ever since Noisy I have been meandering through +the folds of a mystery. My head is turning with it. If you want to +save me from distraction, sit down in this chair and answer me a long +catechism, without saying a word but in reply to my questions." + +[Illustration: FRAU KRANICH.] + +"I am sure I talk as plain as a professor. Look! You frightened me at +first with your doubts and your impossibilities. You have only to make +Kranich's aunt agree with Francine's guardian, and at the same time +forgive Francine's husband for having assumed the undertaker's bill +for Madame Ashburleigh's baby." + +"Yes, yes, my dear Joliet, you are clearer than Euclid." And I +administered a category of questions. Joliet, with his fatherly joy +bursting out of him in the longest of parentheses, kept quiet in his +refulgent shoes and answered as well as he could. + +[Illustration: "TO MY ARMS."] + +Francine, he protested, had never been a flirt (I have met no +Frenchmen who were ignorant of that one English word, to which they +give a new value by pronouncing it in a very orotund manner, as +_flort_). When she came to be ten or twelve, Frau Kranich--until then +a well-preserved lioness with an appetite for society--ceased to give +her dolls and promised to give her an education. At the same time, the +banker's widow left Paris, and repaired with her charge to Brussels, +where the little girl received some good half-Jesuitical, half-English +schooling, of the kind suggested in the Bronte novels. Her diploma +attained, Francine begged to accompany her English teacher back to +London: she wished to become a _meess_, she said, and be competent to +teach like a new Hypatia. She had hardly bidden her kind protectress +adieu when Frau Kranich's nephew arrived at Brussels, exceedingly +dissatisfied with his American business in the bar-rooms of the grand +duke of Mississippi. A sordid jealousy of Mademoiselle Joliet's claims +upon his aunt took possession of this prudent spirit. He took up a +watch-post at a university town on the Rhine. He began to whisper +vague exaggerations of her coquetries and liveliness, which the +Protestant circle that revolved about Madame Kranich did not fail to +bear in to her. This lady admired her nephew, sure that his want of +manners was the sign of a noble frankness. She wrote to Francine, +bidding her come immediately from London. The girl not replying, the +hopeful nephew was put upon her track. He went away. His letters from +England reported that Francine was no longer in that country, but was +probably come back to Belgium, "I know not in what suburb of Brussels +our very independent miss may this instant be hiding," he wrote. + +About the same time, in the circle of French exiles at Brussels, +a young _romantique_ named Fortnoye was reported as weeping and +lavishing statues over the grave of an unknown infant in the +churchyard at Laaken. It was a delicious mystery. Kind meddlers +approached the sexton, who said that all he knew of the babe's mother +was that she was a beautiful lady from London. Kranich carried the +story dutifully to his aunt, adding his own ingenious surmise: "Can +Francine have become sufficiently Anglicised to contract secret +marriages with roving revolutionists, and scamper about the country +with ardent young Frenchmen in the style of Gretna Green?" In fact, it +was really from London that Mrs. Ashburleigh was proceeding, for the +purpose of taking care, in the Rhenish city where he was dying, of +her handsome, dissipated, worthless husband. Taken suddenly ill at +Brussels, she left her infant to the unequaled chill of a strange, +unknown cemetery, hastening thence with tears and despair to the +bedside where duty called her. + +Has my reader forgotten the dim, tear-swollen story which I heard--not +at all improved in the telling--from my generous young friend +Grandstone--how an impulsive Frenchman had laid to rest, in flowers +and evergreens, the unnamed baby of a woman he had never seen? Jealous +as I was of Fortnoye, I never could think without tenderness of this +singular action. To make the tomb of this helpless Innocence the young +man braved the curiosity of his comrades--despised the rumor, the +obloquy, and, hardest of all, the jests. Well has the wise dramatist +decided that Ophelia must needs be laid in Yorick's bed! + +Poor Francine, gay, frivolous, innocently vain of her little travesty +of English behavior, found her accomplishments and graces received +by her guardian's circle with incomprehensible coldness. Hurt and +humiliated, she asked to pay a visit to her father. The honest rustic +received her with a miserable confusion of doubt and severity, for +her escapade to England had never pleased him, and her return from her +godmother's home wore to him the air of a repudiation. At her father's +house, however, she was discovered by Fortnoye, who had never heard +the ingenious Kranich's theory of his own private wedding with +Francine, and who thought to find in her the veiled unknown of the +cemetery. He saw for the first time, in the flowery home at Noisy, +that fresh ingenuous beauty, a little over-cast with disappointment. +His generous nature was touched; and, with his talent for +administration and planning, he conceived the idea of establishing +Francine in the pretty bird's nest at Carlsruhe, distant alike from +the strongholds of her calumniators, Belgium and France. + +Fortnoye now had an object in life. "There is a very young person in +the cemetery of Laaken who is much in need of a chaperone," he said. +The frank proofs of his own relations with this churchyard would +not only do credit to his own reputation, but would gratify the best +friends of Mademoiselle Joliet and at least one other lady. To attain +these proofs he had to step over the coiling, writhing bodies of +a whole nest of rumors. When he seized by the throat the especial +slander that he himself was the husband of the babe's mother, he found +written on its crest the signature of John Kranich. He sought the +aunt. This lady gave him several interviews, the Lutheran prayer-book +for ever in her hand. "Why does the dear girl not come to me?" +she would say, weeping, but she refused to hear a word against her +precious nephew, the personification of bluff frankness. As if to make +crushing him impossible, young Kranich had now withdrawn to America, +leaving his reputation in that best possible protection, the chivalry +that is extended toward the absent. Fortnoye was baffled. "I will ask +the baby at its tomb for its mother's and father's name," he cried. +In the pretty God's Acre he found a fresh harvest of flowers and a +new statue over the well-known grave. It was a pretty miniature of +Thorwaldsen's Psyche, on which the proud copyist had inscribed his +name. A respectful correspondence with Mrs. Ashburleigh, to whom +he was guided by the sculptor, and who was now taking the waters at +Wildbad, soon put the whole tangled story to rights. Fortnoye had the +happiness of conducting Francine, by this time his affianced wife, to +the good Frau Kranich, who, convinced that she had wrongly judged +her, threw her arms ardently around her recovered jewel, letting the +eternal little book fly from her hand like a projectile. + +[Illustration: THE FUTURE OF FFARINA.] + +"But the most singular part of the story," concluded Father Joliet, +"is the letter which Fortnoye, after two or three quarrels, forced +out of young Kranich when the latter had returned to Europe, full of +triumph and debts, to take possession of his aunt for the rest of his +life. Here it is," added the good man, opening a pocket-book. "The +hand-writing is drunken, but the sense is clear as Seltzer-water. +The scholars tell me _in vino veritas est_, but it appears to me that +truth really comes out in the repentance and headache that follow." + +[Illustration: HOHENFELS' FAILURE.] + +"MY DEAR AUNT" (ran the letter which Charles had seen forced from the +alligator after his unlucky game of dominoes): "You have known me as +the soul of candor. It is this happy quality which compels me to state +(for I am something of a Rousseau) that if I ever playfully accused +your pretty pet Francine of being a flirt, I knew nothing about it. +The best proof is that she absolutely refused to join her expectations +with mine, though I am something of an Adonis. If you believed that +she and the wine-peddler had made a match, I pity your credulity and +ignorance of human nature. I am certain that neither the peddler nor +myself would touch the enterprise until you had shown exactly what you +would (pecuniarily) do. For my part, I have acted throughout on the +most exact and advanced scientific principles. Intending to modify +the spirit-trade in America, and especially to introduce the exclusive +agency of the Farina essences, I found that the sinew particularly +needed for this leap was capital. Desiring to absorb your bounties +toward Francine, I at first proposed matrimony. This offer was made +without any enmity toward the girl, as my next move was without +affection, though it seems to be resulting to her benefit. I became +her accuser as coolly as I had been her lover. Passion has nothing +to do with the combinations of strategic genius: I am something of a +Washington. My theory of her clandestine marriage was one of the most +masterly fictions of the age--a plot worthy of Thackeray. If I could +have succeeded in mutilating the statue in the graveyard, I might have +carried it, while you would have admired my act of iconoclasm with all +your Puritan nature. In the momentary abandonment of my plans, owing +to the machinations of my enemies, you will conceive that I am not +very rich. My college-debts and other expenses I am obliged to leave +for your kind attention. The main point of this letter, which M. +Fortnoye has persuaded me to set down as distinctly as in my present +feeble state I can, is that Francine is a pretty little maid who has +never passed by Gretna Green. There! that is my _credo_, and I will +subscribe to it, + +"Your loving nephew, JOHN. + +"P. S. Address, with such an enclosure as your generosity will prompt, +JEAN K. FFARINA, sole representative and cosmetical chemist in America +on behalf of the Farinas of Cologne, at New Orleans where I am going +to beat my adversaries like Old HIC--" + +At this point the tipsy scrawl became illegible. + +"This is not a very handsome apology. Did Fortnoye accept it?" I +asked, turning over the clammy and malodorous epistle. At this inquiry +the crack of the door widened and Charles appeared, on fire with +enthusiasm, and so possessed with self-importance that he forgot the +betrayal of his indiscretion. + +"I can reply to that question," said Charles. "When M. Fortnoye +received the paper from the duelist he read it over and said, 'You +have meant to impose on me, monsieur, with an incomplete confession. +But, in return for your imperfect restoration of Mademoiselle Joliet's +portrait, you have unconsciously set down such a masterpiece of +yourself that I am certain your aunt will see you as she never did +before.'" + +Charles, having thus added himself to our cabal without rebuke, took +a lively interest in what followed. The proud father continued: "My +son-in-law, after some business preliminaries, wrote me a handsome +letter demanding what he had already effectively possessed himself of. +I wrote to Francine, already returned to her duties, to be a good girl +and make her husband obey her in all things." + +"That may have been," said I, "what made Francine take to laughing +all day and all night, as I heard she did some little time after my +departure from her house. The next news of her," I pursued, "was +that she had been spirited away by some sly old kidnapper. I almost +suspected Kranich." + +"The old kidnapper," said Joliet, laughing heartily at the compliment, +"is the man now talking to you. I wanted to take Francine to her +godmother. I turned the key in the door at Carlsruhe, set the +geographers all upon their travels to explore new worlds, and we have +been living ever since quite close to Madame Kranich, who treats me +like an emperor." + +It was easy now to understand why the young Kranich, as soon as he +could identify me as a protector of Francine, had been thrown off his +guard and tempted to attack me with his clumsy abuse. It was not very +mysterious, even, why he had wished all handsome girls to be drowned +in the Rhine. For him a pretty damsel was simply a rival in trade. + +[Illustration: READING THE CONTRACT.] + +Had I stopped at Wildbad with the party of orpheonists, I should have +encountered rather sooner the fatal beauties of Mary Ashburleigh. It +was to meet her that Fortnoye had paused at that resort, considering +her introduction to Frau Kranich almost indispensable to the success +of his scheme. She had no hesitation in following the protecting angel +of her lost child. "My object in this journey is a happy marriage," +she had told me when to my unworthy care her guardianship had been +transferred. If I timorously suspected the marriage to be her own, +whose fault was it but mine? My heart leaped up at the successive +stages of this recital, its hopes confirmed by every additional fact: +the Dark Ladye's hand was certainly free. Fortnoye, I should surmise, +was not too desirous to abandon this magnificent companion at +Schwetzingen; but the serpent, he knew, was left behind, in company +with two or three of his and my friends: it was necessary to take +the youth by the ear, as it were, and dismiss him from the country, +without loss of time, to his future of counter-jumping. His dueling +experience may be of some use to him among the bowie-knives of +Louisiana. If his subsequent path is not strewn with roses, let him +rejoice that it is at least lubricated with cologne-water. + +[Illustration: INTERRUPTED REPOSE.] + +An hour had passed, and into my room from his own adjoining one now +ambled amicably my friend the baron. He greeted Joliet as an old +friend. Many a smoking-match had they had in my garden at Marly. But +Hohenfels this morning was in robes of state, with shoes that shone +even beside old Father Joliet's, and as a concession to elegance he +had abandoned his cavernous pipes in favor of cigarettes. A scroll of +this description, flavored with his Cologne pastille and very badly +rolled, was trying to exhale itself between his lips. + +"What a genius for conversation you have to-day, my Flemming! This +hour I have rocked back and forth in bed, trying to understand your +observations or to cover my ears and go to rest. Your tongue has been +like the tongue of a monastery-bell summoning all hands to penance." +But I had hardly spoken ten consecutive words. The ears of the baron +were this morning quite muffled, I think, with the abundance of his +hair, which he had evidently been dressing with an avalanche of soap +and water, for the topknot was as harsh and tight as a felt. He had +lemon-blossoms on his lappel and lemon kids on his fists. + +It was then I remembered that my bags were all in the steamer, where +I had left them when surprised by Charles's indisposition. My tin box +would possibly yield me a button-nosegay, but otherwise I might beat +my breast, like the wedding-guest in the _Ancient Mariner_, for I +heard the summons and was unable to attend in right attire. "We two +must take you out in the street and dress you," said Hohenfels. + +Although I had never been dressed in the street, I yielded. It was a +grand public holiday, and the sounds of festivity, which had floated +into my chamber with the entrance of Hohenfels, were in full cadence +outside. Everybody was pouring out to the city-gate, or returning from +thence, where, in honor of some visit from the king of the Belgians +and count and countess of Flanders, a festival was going on in +imitation or rehearsal of the grand annual _kermesse_. These +festivals, retained in Belgium with a delightful fidelity to the +customs of antique Brabant, would fit the brush of Teniers better +than the pen of a mere bewildered tourist. Still, I will try, copying +principally from the reports of Charles (who contrives to peep at +everything, with an interest whose amount is in ratio with the square +of his distance from his master), to give a few features of the scene, +which he spread in detail before the attentive Josephine during many +an evening after. + +[Illustration: COALS vs. COATS] + +The principal fair-ground--though the occasion crammed the whole city +with revelers--was just outside the gate. It was a veritable town in +miniature, with a pattern of checker-board streets--Columbine street, +Polichinelle street, Avenue des Parades, Place des Parades, Street of +the Chanson, and the like. There were more than five hundred booths, +all numbered--shops and restaurants. There were the Salon Curtius, +the Menagerie Bidel, the Bal Mabille, the Cafe Bataclan, the American +Tavern. From one of the little costumers' shops, Charles--with +a higher evincement of antiquarian taste than I should have +expected--managed to bear away a pattern of wall-paper, which I +afterward conferred on Mary Ashburleigh with great applause: it was +Parisian of 1824, the epoch of Charles Dix, and was entirely covered +with giraffes in honor of that puissant and elegant monarch. The above +establishments were near the entrance, to the right. + +At the left were more attractions: another menagerie, a heap of +ostensible gold representing the five milliards paid by France, a +gallery of astonished wax soldiers representing the Franco-Prussian +war, a cook-shop with "mythologic" confectionery. Farther on, in the +Theatre Casti, was exposed the "renowned buffoon Peppino," breveted by +His Majesty the "king of Egypt;" then came the Chiarini Theatre; then +the Theatre Adrien Delille, an enchantingly pretty structure, where +receptions were given by a little creature who should have sat under +a microscope: she was "the Princess Felicia, aged thirteen, born at +Clotat, near Marseilles, weighing three kilogrammes and measuring +forty-six centimetres--a ravishing figure, admirably proportioned in +her littleness and _tout a fait sympathique!"_ + +The announcements were heard, it was thought by Charles, to the very +centre of the city. A low-browed animal with rasped hair was shouting, +"Messieurs and ladies, come and see--come and see the theatre of the +galleys! The only one in the world! This is the place to view the real +instruments of torture used on the prisoners---chains four yards long +and balls of thirty-five pounds. All authentic, gentlemen and ladies. +You will see the poisoners of Marseilles, Grosjon who killed his +father, Madame Cottin who ate her baby. Come in, come in, gentlemen +and ladies! Fifteen centimes! 'Tis given away! You enter and go out +when you like. Come in! It is educational: you see vice and crime +depicted on the faces of the criminals!" + +[Illustration: THE JESTER AT THE FEAST.] + +In another place a malicious Flemish Figaro explained the analogy +betwen _een spinnekop_ and _eene meisie_, the perspiration streaming +over his face; and my ancient minnesinger's blood stirred within me at +the report of the pleasantries which were improvised by this Rabelais +of the people, and I remembered that I too was a Flemming. + +The bands belonging to the different booths tried to play each other +down, forming a stupefying charivari, with tributary processions that +quite overflowed the city. The house of "confections" yielded me no +broadcloth of a cut or dimension suitable to my figure. But my two +friends chose me a hat, a light pale-tot (my second purchase in that +sort on this eventful journey), a scented cambric handkerchief, a +rosebud, and a snowy waistcoat, in which, as in a whited sepulchre, +I concealed the decay of my toilet. These changes were judged to be +sufficient for my accoutrement. They might have done very well, but on +my way back I paused at a lace-shop window to inspect some present for +Francine. A band, with many banners and figures in masquerade, swept +past, followed by a shouting crowd. My friends lost me in a moment, +and I lost my way. I turned into a street which I was sure led to the +hotel, gave it up for another, lost that in a blind alley, and finally +brought up in a steep, narrow canon, where I was forced to ask a +direction. The passer-by who obliged me was a man bearing a bag of +charcoal. He answered with a ready intelligence that did honor to his +heart and his sense of Progressive Geography. But he left on my white +waistcoat, alas! a charcoal sketch, full of chiaroscuro and _coloris_, +representing his index-finger surrounded with a sort of cloud-effect. +My waistcoat had to be given over in favor of the elder garment +buttoned up in the all-concealing overcoat. + +[Illustration: ST. GUDOLE, BRUSSELS.] + +The ceremonies of the day, I soon found, were to consist in an early +and informal breakfast at the house of Frau Kranich; then the civil +wedding at the mayor's office, followed by the usual church-service, +from which the Protestant godmother of Francine begged to be excused; +the day to wind up with a general dinner at a place of resort outside +the city at four o'clock, the usual dining-hour in old Brabant. + +The early breakfast gave a renewal of my friendship with good Frau +Kranich and a glimpse of the bride, with her sweet, patient, dewy face +shadowed like a honey-drop in the gauzy calyx of her artisanne cap; +for she was in the simplest of morning dresses--something gray, with +a clean white apron. The quaint, old-fashioned house where we met was +decorated with exquisite trifles, the memorials of the mistress's old +fashionable taste, but scattered over the tables also were lecture +programmes, hospital reports and photographs of eminent philosophers. +As I took up for a plaything a gold pen-case, well used, which rested +on a magnificent old fan, the Kranich said, with just a reminiscence +of her former vivacity, "You find me much changed, Mr. Flemming. I +used to be the grasshopper in the fable--now I am the ant." + +"I bless any change, ma'am," said I, "which increases your kindness +toward this charming girl." + +"Dear Mr. Flemming," said pretty Francine, "how nice and shabby you +look! You will do admirably to stand by a poor girl--so poor that she +has hardly a bridesmaid. I hope you are as indigent as you were at +Carlsruhe." Upon this I felt very fatherly, and clasped her waist from +behind as I kissed her forehead. + +The lawyer, a professionally bland old man, with a porous bald head +like an emu's egg, said as he was introduced, "Ah, I have heard of you +before, monsieur. You are the man of the two chickens." + +Joliet was so enchanted with this rare joke, laughing and clapping +all his nearer neighbors on the back, that I could not but accept it +graciously. For this exceptional day, at least, I must bear my eternal +nickname. Was not the maid now present whose dower had been hatched +by those well-omened fowls? and was not the dower now coming to +use? Hohenfels paired off with the notary, and discussed with that +parchment person the music of Mozart, and, what would have been absurd +and incredible in any Anglo-Saxon country, the scribe understood it! + +Our party had to wait but ten minutes for the groom and his men. +Fortnoye, in a grand blue suit, with a wondrous dazzle of frilling +on his broad chest, looked a noble husband, but was preoccupied and +silent. His chorus supported him--Grandstone, Somerard, my engineer +and the others--in dignified black clothes, official boutonnieres +and ceremonial cravats: they greeted Frau Kranich with awe, and +bowed before the polished head of the lawyer with the parallelism of +ninepins. My little group of fellow-travelers was almost complete. +The young duelist, of course, was not expected or wanted. The Scotch +doctor, Somerard told me, had been obliged to fly to London, where a +mammoth meeting of the homoeopathic faith was in progress. + +The great feature of the breakfast came on when every crumb of +breakfast had been eaten. Charles and the maid cleared away the table, +and the notary stood up to read the marriage contract. The reading, +ordinarily a dull affair, was in this instance vivified by curious +incidents. In the first place, Frau Kranich. amending the injustice +her over-credulity had caused, gave her _protegee_ a wedding-present +of twenty thousand francs, accompanying the gift with some singularly +tart remarks about her nephew: this sum was increased by the groom to +sixty thousand. The second incident was when Joliet, amid the almost +incredulous surprise of the whole table, raised the gift, by the +addition of ten thousand, to seventy thousand francs: the money was +the product of his former house and garden--that house of shreds and +patches which had cost him ten francs. When it came to affixing the +signatures, the notary appealed to Joliet for his name. He could +not sign it, being gouty and half forgetful of pen-practice, but he +responded to the question as bold as a lion: "John Thomas Joliet, +baron de Rouviere," throwing to the lawyer a fine bunch of papers +bearing witness to the validity of the title; after which he added, no +less proudly, "wine-merchant, wholesale and retail, at the sign of the +Golden Chickens, Noisy." + +[Illustration: SQUARE OF THE HOTEL DE VILLE, BRUSSELS.] + +In truth, Joliet's father had rightfully borne the title of baron de +Rouviere, but, ruined by '48, had abandoned the practice of signing +it. Joliet resumed it for this special occasion, having every warrant +for the act, but whispered to me that he should never so call himself +in future, greatly preferring the enumeration of his qualities on his +business-card. + +Poor Francine meanwhile had looked so timid and blushed so that Frau +Kranich nodded to her permission of absence. She gave one glance at +Fortnoye, buried her face in her hands, laughed a sweet little gurgle, +and fled. When her presence was again necessary, she reappeared, +drowned in white. We went to the mayor's office, where she lost a +pretty little surname that had always seemed to fit her like a +glove; then to the church, an obscure one in the neighborhood of Frau +Kranich's house. But at the door of the sacred edifice the elder lady +said, with much conciliatory grace in her manner, "I claim exemption +from witnessing this part of the ceremony; and you, Mr. Flemming, must +resume or discover your Protestantism and enter the carriage with +me. I must show you a little of the city while these young birds are +pairing." + +No objection was made to this rather strange proposal. The bride, +between her father and husband, forgot that she had no friend of her +own sex to stand near her. We arranged for a general meeting at the +dinner. + +In the carriage she said, "I brought you away because I am devoured +with uneasiness. Mrs. Ashburleigh wrote me that she would certainly +be here for at least the principal part of the ceremony. I do not know +what to make of it. It may be of no use, but we will scour the city. +These throngs, this noise, make me uneasy. I fear some accident, +having," she added with a smile, "one lone woman's sympathy for +another lone woman." + +[Illustration: DIVERS DIVERSIONS.] + +I peered through the crowds at this, right and left, with +inexpressible emotion. Perhaps this accidental sort of quest was that +which destiny had arranged for the solution of my life-problem. To +light upon Mary Ashburleigh in these festal throngs, perhaps wanting +assistance, perhaps calling upon my name even now through her velvet +lips, was a chance the mere notion of which made my blood leap. + +When Brussels gives herself over to holiday-making, she does it in +a whole-souled and self-consistent way that has plenty of +attractiveness. The houses seemed to have turned themselves inside +out to replenish the streets. People in their best clothes, equipages, +processions, bands, troops of children, filled the avenues. Some +conjecture that there might have been a mistake about the church took +us to the cathedral of St. Gudule. Here, amid the superb spectrums of +the stained windows, we searched through the vari-colored throngs that +covered the floor, but no familiar face looked upon us. Strange to +us as the old, impassive monumental dukes of Brabant who occupy the +niches, the people made way to let us pass from the doorway between +the lofty brace of towers to the high altar, which is a juggler's +apparatus, and has concealed machinery causing the sacred wafer to +come down seemingly of its own accord at the moment when the priest is +about to lift the Host. All was unfamiliar and splendid, and we came +away, feeling as if our own little wedding-group would have been lost +in so magnificent a tabernacle. The Grande Place, on which lay the +wedge-like shadow of the high-towered Hotel de Ville, was perhaps as +thronged a honeycomb of buzzing populace as when Alva looked out upon +it to see the execution of Egmont and Horn. Among all the good-natured +Netherlandish countenances that paved the square there was none that +responded to my own. + +We drove vaguely through the principal streets, and then, baffled, +made our way to the faubourg in which is situated the zoological +garden, toward which a considerable portion of the inhabitants was +going even as ourselves. At the entrance our carriage encountered +that of the bride and groom, and soon the whole party of the +breakfast-table assembled by the gate, for the great coffee-rooms at +which our meal was laid were close by the garden, and a promenade +in this famous living museum was a premeditated part of the day's +enjoyment. We entered the grounds in character, frankly putting +forward our claims as a wedding-procession. That is the delightful +French custom among those who are brought up as Francine had been: +her father would have been heartbroken to have been denied the proud +exhibition of his joy, and Fortnoye was too great a traveler, too +cosmopolitan, to object to a little family pageant that he had seen +equaled or exceeded in publicity in most of the Catholic countries +on the globe. Francine, her artisanne cap for ever lost, her +gleaming dark hair set, like a Milky Way, with a half wreath of +orange-blossoms, the silvery gauzes of her protecting veil floating +back from her forehead, strayed on at the head of the little parade. +She was wrapped in the delicious reverie of the wedding-day. She was +not yellow nor meagre, nor uglier than herself, as so many brides +contrive to be. Her air of delicacy and tenderness was a blossom of +character, not a canker of ill-health. Her color was hardly raised, +though her head was perpetually bent. Fortnoye, holding her on his +firm arm, seemed like a man walking through enchantments. Just behind, +protecting Madame Kranich with an action of effusive gallantry that +must have been seen to be conceived, walked the baron de Rouviere, +his brave knotted hands, for which he had not found any gloves, busily +occupied in pointing out the animated rarities that to him seemed most +worthy of selection. The hilarious hyenas, the seals, the polar bears +plunging from their lofty rocks, all attracted his commendation; and +we, who walked behind in such order as our friendships or familiarity +taught us, were perpetually tripping upon his honest figure brought to +a halt before some object more than usually interesting. Exclamations +of delight at the bride's beauty, politely wrapped in whispers, arose +on all sides as we penetrated the throng: it was a proud thing to be +a part of a procession so distinguished. My good Joliet beamed with +complacency, and drove his little herd up and down and across and +about till the greater part of the garden was explored. The zoological +garden of Brussels has the beauty of not showing too obviously the +character of a prison. It is extensive, umbrageous, and the poor +captives within its borders have enough air and space around their +eyes to give them a semblance of liberty. For the special feast-day +on which we visited it the place had been arranged with particular +adaptation to the character of the time. There were elephant-races and +rides upon the camels free to all ladies who would make the venture. +In addition to the zebras, gnus and Shetlands, there was that species +of race-horse which never wins and never spoils a course, being +of wood and constructed to go round in a tent, and never to arrive +anywhere or lose any prizes. The pelicans were in high excitement, for +all along their beautiful little river, where it winds through bowery +trees, a profusion of living fish had been emptied and confined here +and there by grated dams, so that the awkward birds had opportunity +to angle in perfect freedom and to their hearts' content. In the +more wooded part of the garden a mimic hunt had been arranged, and +sportsmen in correct suits of green, with curly brass horns and baying +hounds, coursed through the grounds, following a stag which, though +mangy and asthmatic, may yet have been a descendant of the fawn that +fed Genevieve of Brabant. We had re-entered one of the grand alleys, +and were receiving again the little tribute of encomiums which the +greater privacy of the groves had pretermitted--we were parading +happily along, conscious of nothing to be ashamed of, our +orange-blossoms glistening, our veil flying, our broadcloth and +wedding-favors gleaming--when we met another group, which, though more +furtively, bore that matrimonial character which distinguished our +own. + +[ILLUSTRATION: THE MIMIC HUNT.] + +At the head walked Mr. Cookson & Jenkinson. He still wore that species +of shooting-costume which he had made his uniform, but it was decked +with roses, and his hands were encased in milk-white gloves: on his +hands, besides the gloves, he had the two grammatical ladies from +the Rhine steamboat in guise of bridesmaids. Behind him walked Mary +Ashburleigh. And emerging from the skirts of Mary Ashburleigh's dress, +with the embarrassed happiness of a middle-aged bridegroom, was--no? +yes! no, no! but yes--was Sylvester Berkley. I will not expose what I +suffered to the curiosity of imperfectly sympathetic strangers. I did +not faint, and I believe men in genuine despair never do so. But +I felt that weakness and unmanageableness of knee which comes with +strong mental anguish, and I sank back impotent upon the baron, whose +lingering legs repudiated the pressure, so that we both accumulated +miserably upon Grandstone. My eyes closed, and I did not hear the Dark +Ladye's salutations to Frau Kranich. But I awoke to see with anguish a +sight that drew involuntary applause from all that careless crowd. + +It was the salute of the two brides. Imagine, if you can, two +great purple pansies, flushed with all the perfumed sap of an Eden +spring-time, threaded with diamonds of myriad-faceted dew,--imagine +them leaning forward on their elastic stems until both their soft +velvet countenances cling together and exchange mutually their +caparisons of honeyed gems; then let them sway gently back, and +balance once more in their morning splendor. Such was the effect when +these two imperial creatures approached each other and imprinted with +lips and palms a sister's salute. Mary Ashburleigh, whom the throng +recognized as a natural empress, was arrayed this morning as brides +are seldom arrayed, but with a sense of artistic obedience to her own +sumptuous nature and personality. The royal purple of her velvets +was cut, on skirt and bodice, into one continuous fretwork of heavy +scrolls and leafage, and through the crevices of this textile carving +shone the robe she carried beneath: it was tawny yellow, for she wore +under her outward dress a complete robe of ancient lace, whose cobweb +softness was more than half sacrificed--only perceived as the slashes +of her velvets made it evident. It was such dressing as queens alone +should indulge in perhaps, but Mary Ashburleigh chose for once to do +justice to her style and her magnificence. + +I was leaning against a tree, stunned in the sick sunshine. I heard, +while my eyes were closed, a sort of voluminous cloudy roll, and the +Dark Ladye was beside me. She whispered quickly and volubly in my +ear, "I tried to confide in you, but I could not get it spoken. Yet +I managed to confess that my heart had been touched. It was only this +summer--at the Molkencur over Heidelberg--he lectured about the ruins. +'Twas information--'twas rapture! I found at once he was the Magician. +We were quietly united at the embassy this morning. And now he can +leave that dreadful consulate and has got his promotion, for he is +to be _charge_ here in Brussels. It is sudden, but we were positively +afraid to do it in any other way, I am such a timid creature. When I +saw the travelers' agent on the steamboat, I was at first struck with +his manly British bearing and his resemblance to Sylvester. Then I +found he had the matrimonial prospectus, and perceived he might be a +link. He has managed everything beautifully. I had no idea--With his +assistance you need no more mind being married than going into a shop +for a plate of pudding. You must come up and be presented, to show you +bear no malice." + +I cannot tell how I did it, but I allowed Sylvester and the agent to +grasp my hands, one on either side. Berkley, as to his collar, his +cravat, his face and his white gloves, presented one general surface +of mat silver. He clasped me with some affection, but his intellect +had quite gone, and he said it was a fine day. + +I did not rally in the least until after my fourth glass of champagne +at the dinner. We made one party: indeed, Mrs. Ashburleigh had brought +her husband hither in that expectation. Fortnoye vanished a minute +to arrange the banquet-room; and as his wife rushed in to find him, +followed by the rest of us, he snatched a great damask cloth from +the table, and there was such a set-out of flowers and viands as has +seldom been seen in Belgium or elsewhere. The table, instead of a +cloth, was entirely laid with; young emerald vine-leaves: our places +were marked, and at each plate was a gift for the bride, ostensibly +coming from the person who sat there, but really provided by the +forethought of Fortnoye. In front of my own cover two pretty downy +chicks were pecking in a cottage made of crystal slats and heavily +thatched with spun glass--the prettiest birdcage in the world. On the +eaves was an inscription: "The Man of the Two Chickens." It happened +that the little keepsake I had found for Francine consisted of +wheat-ears in pearls and gold, adapted for brooch and eardrops; so +I only had to drop them in beside the chickens and the present was +appropriate and complete. + +I cannot tell of the effect as Mary Ashburleigh swept into that +splendid banqueting-room, one long pyramid of velvet pierced with +webbed interstices of light. If the largest window of St. Ursula's +church had come down and entered the room, the spectacle could not +have been so superb. One item struck me: the younger bride, of course, +wore orange buds; but for the Englishwoman, a beauty ripe with many +summers, buds and blossoms were inappropriate; she wore fruits: in +the grand coronal of plaits that massed itself upon her head were +set, like gems, three or four small, delicious, amber-scented mandarin +oranges. With this piece of exquisite apropos did the infallible Mary +Ashburleigh crown the edifice of her good taste. The two brides sat +opposite each other. A small watch, which I had happened to buy at +Coblenz, I managed to detach and lay on the Dark Ladye's plate as my +offering. On a card beside it I merely wrote, "ANOTHER TIME!" + +Who knows? Perhaps Sylvester may fill and founder as the other has +done. He looks miserably bilious and frightened. + +I had rather partake of a rare dinner than describe one. The wines +alone represented all the cellars of the Rhine and the whole champagne +country. Fortnoye, who gave the feast, entertained both Sylvester's +party and his own with regal good cheer. Think not that Henri Fortnoye +was the ordinary obfuscated, superfluous, bewildered bridegroom. On +the contrary, assuming immediately the head of his own table, he took +the responsibility of the party's merriment, and made the good humor +flow like the wine. I know not how it was, but ere the meal was over +I found myself joining in one of his choruses; Frau Kranich forgot +her asceticism and exhumed all her youthful air of gayety; James +Athanasius Grandstone promised the host to set his wines running in +every State of America. But the prettiest moment was when the two +brides rose and touched glasses, mutually and to the health of the +company, apropos of a little wedding-song which Fortnoye had composed +and was trolling at the head our willing chorus. + +[ILLUSTRATION: HOMEWARD BOUND.] + + + + +CONCLUSION. + + +I have arrived at Marly, and, with the ssistance of much sarcasm from +Hohenfels, am getting on with considerable spirit at my Progressive +Geography. When man's Hope ceases temporarily to take a merely Human +aspect, may it not suffer a fresh avatar and begin in a new and +Geographical form its beneficent career? The Dark Ladye has sunk +beneath my horizon, but speculations over the Atlantean and Lunar +Mountains are still succulent and vivifying. + +[ILLUSTRATION: CHARLES AND JOSEPHINE.] + +I fled, lashed by a hundred despairs and by many symptoms of headache +and dyspepsia, from the wedding-feast at Brussels. Charles and the +baron of Hohenfels accompanied me. It was a night-train. The spectacle +of so much wedded happiness was too much for me, too much for +Hohenfels. The effect was, contrarily, rather stimulating to Charles, +who has made a match with Josephine, and with her assistance is +now listening, the tear of sensibility in his eye, to Mendelssohn's +"Wedding March" as executed by the village organ! + +We passed Valenciennes, Somain, Donai, Arras, Amiens, Clermont, Criel, +Pontoise--the last points of merely bodily travel that I shall ever +make: here-after my itineracy shall be entirely theoretical. We took +a carriage at Pontoise, and traversed the woods of Saint-Germain. As I +neared home I bowed right and left to amicable and smiling neighbors, +who waved me good-day from their doors. So did my Newfoundland, +who broke his chain and leaped upon my shoulders, flourishing his +tail--overjoyed to salute the returning Ulysses. + +[ILLUSTRATION: ARGUS AND ULYSSES.] + +In the British Museum, among the Elgin Marbles, Phidias has carved +a pile of heaped-up marble waves, and out of them rise the arms of +Hyperion--the most beautiful arms in the world. Homesick for heaven, +those weary arms try to free themselves of the clinging foam. Another +minute and surely the triumphant god will leap from his watery couch +and guide with unerring hands the coursers of the Dawn! But that +reluctant minute is eternal, and the divinity still remains incapable, +clogged and wrapped in the embrace of marble waves. Yet the real +sun every morning succeeds in equipping himself for his journey, and +arrives, glad, at his welcome bath in the western sea. + +The inference I draw is: If you want a career to be eternal instead of +transitory, hand it over to Art. + +[ILLUSTRATION: "HAND IT OVER TO ART."] + +The true moral of it all is, that we are all savage myths of the +Course of the Sun. We disappear any number of times, but we rise and +trail new clouds of glory, and our readers or our audiences perceive +that it is the same old Hyperion back again. The youth who by the +faithful hound, half buried in the snow, is found far up on the most +inaccessible peaks of imagination, is perceived to grasp still in his +hand of ice that Germanesque and strange device--_Auf Wiedersehen_. + +[ILLUSTRATION] + + + + +FOLLOWING THE TIBER. + + +TWO PAPERS.--1. + + +[Illustration: NEAR THE SOURCE OF THE TIBER.] + +"Ecce Tiberum!" cried the Roman legions when they first beheld the +Scottish Tay. What power of association could have made them see in +the clear and shallow stream the likeless of their tawny Tiber, +with his full-flowing waters sweeping down to the sea? Perhaps those +soldiers under whose mailed and rugged breasts lay so tender a thought +of home came from the northerly region among the Apennines, where a +little bubbling mountain-brook is the first form in which the storied +Tiber greets the light of day. One who has made a pilgrimage from its +mouth to its source thus describes the spot: "An old man undertook to +be our guide. By the side of the little stream, which here constitutes +the first vein of the Tiber, we penetrated the wood. It was an immense +beech-forest.... The trees were almost all great gnarled veterans +who had borne the snows of many winters: now they stood basking above +their blackened shadows in the blazing sunshine. The little stream +tumbled from ledge to ledge of splintered rock, sometimes creeping +into a hazel thicket, green with long ferns and soft moss, and then +leaping once more merrily into the sunlight. Presently it split into +numerous little rills. We followed the longest of these. It led us +to a carpet of smooth green turf amidst an opening in the trees; +and there, bubbling out of the green sod, embroidered with white +strawberry-blossoms, the delicate blue of the crane's bill and dwarf +willow-herb, a copious little stream arose. Here the old man paused, +and resting upon his staff, raised his age-dimmed eyes, and pointing +to the gushing water, said, _'E questo si chiama il Tevere a Roma!'_ +('And this is called the Tiber at Rome!') ... We followed the stream +from the spot where it issued out of the beech-forest, over barren +spurs of the mountains crested with fringes of dark pine, down to a +lonely and desolate valley, shut in by dim and misty blue peaks. Then +we entered the portals of a solemn wood, with gray trunks of trees +everywhere around us and impenetrable foliage above our heads, the +deep silence only broken by fitful songs of birds. To this succeeded +a blank district of barren shale cleft into great gullies by many a +wintry torrent. Presently we found ourselves at an enormous height +above the river, on the ledge of a precipice which shot down almost +perpendicularly on one side to the bed of the stream.... A little past +this place we came upon a very singular and picturesque spot. It was +an elevated rock shut within a deep dim gorge, about which the river +twisted, almost running round it. Upon this rock were built a few +gloomy-looking houses and a quaint, old-world mill. It was reached +from the hither side by a widely-spanning one-arched bridge. It was +called Val Savignone."[1] Beyond this, at a small village called +Balsciano, the hills begin to subside into gentler slopes, which +gradually merge in the plain at the little town of Pieve San Stefano. + +[Illustration: CAPRESE.] + +Thus far the infant stream has no history: its legends and chronicles +do not begin so early. But a few miles farther, on a tiny branch +called the Singerna, are the vestiges of what was once a place of +some importance--Caprese, where Michael Angelo was born exactly four +hundred years ago. His father was for a twelvemonth governor of this +place and Chiusi, five miles off (not Lars Porsenna's Clusium, which +is to the south, but Clusium Novum), and brought his wife with him to +inhabit the _palazzo communale_. During his regency the painter of the +"Last Judgment," the sculptor of "Night and Morning," the architect of +St. Peter's cupola, first saw the light. Here the history of the Tiber +begins--here men first mingled blood with its unsullied waves. On +another little tributary is Anghiara, where in 1440 a terrible battle +was fought between the Milanese troops, under command of the gallant +free-lance Piccinino, and the Floren-tines, led by Giovanni Paolo +(commonly called Giampaolo) Orsini; and a little farther, on the main +stream, Citta di Castello recalls the story of a long siege which it +valiantly sustained against Braccio da Montone, surnamed Fortebraccio +(Strongarm), another renowned soldier of fortune of the fifteenth +century. + +[Footnote 1: _The Pilgrimage of the Tiber_, by Wm. Davies.] + +[Illustration: LAKE THRASIMENE.] + +As the widening flood winds on through the beautiful plain, a broad +sheet of water on the right spreads for miles to the foot of the +mountains, whose jutting spurs form many a bay, cove and estuary. It +was in the small hours of a night of misty moonlight that our eyes, +stretched wide with the new wonder of beholding classic ground, first +caught sight of this smooth expanse gleaming pallidly amid the dark, +blurred outlines of the landscape and trees. The monotonous noise and +motion of the train had put our fellow-travelers to sleep, and when it +gradually ceased they did not stir. There was no bustle at the little +station where we stopped; a few drowsy figures stole silently by in +the dim light, like ghosts on the spectral shore of Acheron; the whole +scene was strangely unreal, phantasmal. "What can it be?" we asked +each other under our breaths. "There is but one thing that it can +be--Lake Thrasimene." And so it was. Often since, both by starlight +and daylight, we have seen that watery sheet of fatal memories, but +it never wore the same shadowy yet impressive aspect as on our first +night-journey from Florence to Rome. + +Not far from here one leaves the train for Perugia, seated high on +a bluff amid walls and towers. We had been told a good deal of the +terrors of the way--how so steep was the approach that at a certain +point horses give out and carriages must be dragged up by oxen. It was +with some surprise, therefore, that we saw ordinary hotel omnibuses +and carriages waiting at the station. But we did not allow ourselves +to feel any false security: by and by we knew the tug must come. We +set off by a wide, winding road, uphill undoubtedly, but smooth and +easy: however, this was only the beginning; and as it grew steeper and +steeper, we waited in trepidation for the moment when the heavy beasts +should be hitched on to haul us up the acclivity. We crawled up safely +and slowly between orchards of olive trees, which will grow wherever +a goat can set its foot: beneath us the great fertile vale of Umbria +spread like a lake, the encircling mountains, which had looked like +a close chain from below, unlinking themselves to reveal gorges and +glimpses of other valleys. Thus by successive zigzags we mounted +the broad turnpike-road, now directly under the fortifications, now +farther off, until we saw them close above us, with the old citadel +and the new palace. And now surely the worst had come, but the carnage +turned a sharp corner, showing two more zigzags, forming a long acute +angle which carried us smoothly to the rocky plateau on which the city +stands, and we bowled in through the old gate-way at a round trot, +with the usual cracking of whips and rattling and jingling of harness +which announces the arrival of travelers at minor places on the +Continent. + +We were not comfortable at Perugia--and let no one think to be so +until there is a new hotel on a new principle--but it is a place where +one can afford to forego creature comforts. Of all the towns on the +Tiber, so rich in heirlooms of antiquity and art, none can boast such +various wealth as this. The moment one leaves the centre of the town, +which is built on a table of rock, the narrow streets plunge down on +every side like dangerous broken flights of stairs: they disappear +under deep cavernous arches, so that if you are below they seem to +lead straight up through the darkness to the soft blue heaven, while +from above they seem to go straight down into deep cellars, but +cellars full of slanting sunshine. And whether you look up or down, +there is always a picture in the dark frame against the bright +background--a woman in a scarlet kerchief with a water-vessel of +antique form, or a ragged brown boy leading a ragged brown donkey, or +a soldier in gay uniform striking a light for his pipe. As soon as +you leave the live part of the town, with the few little _caffes_ and +shops, and the esplanades whence the thrice-lovely landscape unfolds +beneath your gaze, you wander among quiet little paved _piazzas_ with +a bit of daisied grass in their midst, surrounded by great silent +buildings, whence through some opening you descry a street which is a +ravine, and the opposite cliff rising high above you piled close with +gray houses overhung with shrubs and creepers, and little gardens in +their crevices like weeds between the stones of a wall; or you come +out upon a secluded gallery with tall, deserted-looking mansions on +one hand--except that at some sunny window there is always to be seen +a girl's head beside a pot of carnations or nasturtiums--and on the +other a parapet over which you lean to see the town scrambling up the +hillside, while a great breadth of valley and hill and snow-covered +mountain stretches away below. + +Then what historical associations, straggling away across three +thousand years to when Perugia was one of the thirty cities of +Etruria, and kept her independence through every vicissitude until +Augustus starved her out in 40 B.C.! Portions of the wall, huge smooth +blocks of travertine stone, are the work of the vanished Etruscans, +and fragments of several gateways, with Roman alterations. One +is perfect, imbedded in the outer wall of the castle: it has a +round-headed arch, with six pilasters, in the intervals of which are +three half-length human figures and two horses' heads. On the southern +slope of the hill, three miles beyond the walls, a number of Etruscan +tombs were accidentally discovered by a peasant a few years ago. The +outer entrance alone had suffered, buried under the rubbish of two +millenniums: the burial-place of the Volumnii has been restored +externally after ancient Etruscan models, but within it has been left +untouched. Descending a long flight of stone steps, which led into the +heart of the hill, we passed through a low door formerly closed by a +single slab of travertine, too ponderous for modern hinges. At first +we could distinguish nothing in the darkness, but by the uncertain +flaring of two candles, which the guide waved about incessantly, we +saw a chamber hewn in the rock, with a roof in imitation of beams and +rafters, all of solid tufa stone. A low stone seat against the wall +on each hand and a small hanging lamp were all the furniture of this +apartment, awful in its emptiness and mystery. On every side there +were dark openings into cells whence came gleams of white, indefinite +forms: a great Gorgon's head gazed at us from the ceiling, and from +the walls in every direction started the crested heads and necks of +sculptured serpents. We entered one by one the nine small grotto-like +compartments which surround the central cavern: the white shapes +turned out to be cinerary urns, enclosing the ashes of the three +thousand years dead Volumnii. Urns, as we understand the word, they +are not, but large caskets, some of them alabaster, on whose lids +recline male figures draped and garlanded as for a feast: the faces +differ so much in feature and expression that one can hardly doubt +their being likenesses: the figures, if erect, would be nearly two +feet in height. The sides of these little sarcophagi are covered +with _bassi-rilievi_, many of them finely executed: the subjects are +combats and that favorite theme the boar-hunt of Kalydon; there was +one which represented the sacrifice of a child. The Medusa's head, +as it is thought to be, recurs constantly, treated with extraordinary +power: we were divided among ourselves whether it was Medusa or an +Erinnys with winged head. The sphinx appears several times: there +are four on the corners of an alabaster urn in the shape of a +temple, exquisite in form and features, and exceedingly delicate in +workmanship. Bulls' heads, with garlands drooping between them, a +well-known ornament of antique altars, are among the decorations. But +far the most beautiful objects were the little hanging figures, which +seemed to have been lamps of a green bronze color, though we were +assured that they are _terra-cotta_: they are male figures of +exquisite grace and beauty, with a lightness and airiness commonly +given to Mercury; but these had large angel pinions on the shoulders, +and none on the head or feet. There was not a scholar in the party, +so we all returned unenlightened, but profoundly interested and +impressed, and with that delightful sense of stimulated curiosity +which is worth more than all Eurekas. With the exception of a few +weapons and trinkets, which we saw at the museum, this is all that +remains of the mighty Etruscans, save the shapes of the common red +pottery which is spread out wholesale in the open space opposite the +cathedral on market-days--the most graceful and useful which could +be devised, and which have not changed their model since earlier days +than the occupants of those tombs could remember. + +[Illustration: THE TIBER NEAR PERUGIA.] + +The conquering Roman has left his sign-manual everywhere, but one +is so used to him in Italy that the scantier records of later ages +interest us more here. Like every other old Italian town, Perugia +had its great family, the Baglioni, who lorded it over the place, +sometimes harshly and cruelly enough, sometimes generously and +splendidly--protectors of popular rights and patrons of art and +letters. Their mediaeval history is full of picturesque incident and +dramatic catastrophe: it would make a most romantic volume, but +a thick one. At length the Perugians, master and men, grew too +turbulent, and Pope Paul III. put them down, and sat upon them, so to +speak, by building the citadel. + +But time would fail us to tell of the Baglioni, or Pope Paul the +Borghese, or Fortebraccio, the chivalric _condottiere_ who led the +Perugians to war against their neighbors of Todi, or even the still +burning memories of the sack of Perugia by command of the present +pope. We can no longer turn our thoughts from the treasures of art +which make Perugia rich above all cities of the Tiber, save Rome +alone. We cannot tarry before the cathedral, noble despite its +incompleteness and the unsightly alterations of later times, and full +of fine paintings and matchless wood-carving and wrought metal and +precious sculptures; nor before the Palazzo Communale, another grand +Gothic wreck, equally dignified and degraded; nor even beside the +great fountain erected six hundred years ago by Nicolo and Giovanni da +Pisa, the chiefs and founders of the Tuscan school of sculpture; nor +beneath the statue of Pope Julius III., which Hawthorne has made known +to all; for there are a score of churches and palaces, each with its +priceless Perugino, and drawings and designs by his pupil Raphael +in his lovely "first manner," which has so much of the Eden-like +innocence of his master; and the Academy of Fine Arts, where one may +study the Umbrian school at leisure; and last, but not least, the Sala +del Cambio, or Hall of Exchange, where Perugino may be seen in his +glory. It is not a hall of imposing size, so that nothing interferes +with the impression of the frescoes which gaze upon you from every +side as you enter. Or no; they do not gaze upon you nor return your +glance, but look sweetly and serenely forth, as if with eyes never +bent on earthly things. The right-hand wall is dedicated to the sibyls +and prophets, the left to the greatest sages and heroes of antiquity. +There is something capricious or else enigmatical in the mode of +presenting many of them--the dress, attitude and general appearance +often suggest a very different person from the one intended--but the +grace and loveliness of some, the dignity and elevation of others, the +expression of wisdom in this face, of celestial courage in that, the +calm and purity and beauty of all, give them an indescribable charm +and potency. At the end of the room facing the door are the "Nativity" +and "Transfiguration," the latter, infinitely beautiful and religious, +full of quiet concentrated feeling. We were none of us critics: none +of us had got beyond the stage when the sentiment of a work of art is +what most affects our enjoyment of it; and we all confessed how much +more impressive to us was this Transfiguration, with its three quiet +spectators, than the world-famous one at the Vatican. Although +there are masterpieces of Perugino's in nearly every great European +collection, I cannot but think one must go to Perugia to appreciate +fully the limpid clearness, the pensive, tranquil suavity, which +reigns throughout his pictures in the countenances, the landscape, the +atmosphere. + +[Illustration: TODI.] + +We found it hard to rob Perugia even of a day for a pilgrimage to the +tomb of Saint Francis at Assisi, yet could not leave the neighborhood +without making it. We took the morning-train for the little excursion, +meaning to drive back, and crossed the Tiber for the first time on the +downward journey at Ponte San Giovanni. We got out at the station of +Santa Maria degli Angeli, so named from the immense church built over +the cell where Saint Francis lived and died and the little chapel +where he prayed. The Porzionuncula it was called, or "little share," +being all that he deemed needful for man's abode on earth, and more +than needful. It was hither that he came in the heyday of youth, +forsaking the house of his wealthy father, the love of his mother, +a life of pleasure with his gay companions, and dedicated himself to +poverty and preaching the word of God. One of our party had said that +she considered Saint Francis the author of much evil, and as having +done irreparable harm to the Italian people in sanctifying dirt and +idleness. But apostles are not to be judged by the abuse of their +doctrine; and although it cannot be denied that Saint Francis +encouraged beggary by forbidding his followers to possess aught of +their own, he enjoined that they should labor with their hands for +several hours daily. And to me it seemed as if out of Palestine +there could be no spot of greater significance and sacredness to any +Christian than this, where in a sanguinary and licentious age a young +man suddenly broke all the bonds of self, and taught in his own person +humility, renunciation and brotherly love as they had hardly been +taught since his Master's death. The sternness of his personal +self-denial is only equaled by his sweetness toward all living things: +not men alone, but animals, birds, fishes, the frogs, the crickets, +shared his love, and were called brother and sister by him. The great +and instantaneous movement which he produced in his own time was no +short-lived blaze of fanaticism, for its results have lasted from the +twelfth century to our own; and although we may well believe that the +day is past for serving Christ by going barefoot and living on +alms, the spirit of Saint Francis's doctrine, charity, purity, +self-abnegation, might do as much for modern men as for those of six +hundred years ago. Believing all this, we were not sorry that our +uncompromising friend had stayed behind, and it was in a reverent +mood that we left the little stone chamber--which shrinks to lowlier +proportions by contrast with the enormous dome above it--and turned +to climb the long hill which leads to the magnificent monument which +enthusiasm raised over him who in life had coveted so humble a home. + +[Illustration: CHURCH AND CONVENT OF SAINT FRANCIS, AT ASSISI.] + +The cliff on which Assisi stands rises abruptly on the side toward +the Tiber: long lines of triple arches, which look as if hewn in +the living stone, stretch along its face, one above another, like +galleries, the great mass of the church and convent, with its towers +and gables and spire-like cypress trees, crowning all. It is this +marriage of the building to the rock, these lower arcades which rise +halfway between the valley and the plateau seeking the help of +the solid crag to sustain the upper ones and the vast superimposed +structure, that makes the distant sight of Assisi so striking, and +almost overwhelms you with a sense of its greatness as the winding +road brings you close below on your way up to the town. It is a triple +church. The uppermost one, begun two years after the saint's death, +has a magnificent Gothic west front and high steps leading from the +piazza, and a rich side-portal with a still higher flight leading from +a court on a lower level. As we entered, the early afternoon sun was +streaming in through the immense rose-window and flooding the vast +nave, illumining the blue star-studded vault of the lofty roof and the +grand, simple frescoes of Cimabue and Giotto on the walls. Thence we +descended to the second church, in whose darkness our vision groped, +half blind from the sudden change; but gradually through the dusk we +began to discern low vaults stretching heavily across pillars which +look like stunted giants, so short are they and so tremendously +thick-set, the high altar enclosed by an elaborate grating, the little +side-chapels like so many black cells, and through the gloom a twinkle +and glimmer of gold and color and motes floating in furtive sunbeams +that had strayed in through the superb stained glass of the infrequent +windows. The frescoes of Giotto and his school enrich every spandril +and interspace with their simple, serious forms--no other such place +to study the art of that early day--but a Virgin enthroned among +saints by Lo Spagna, a disciple of Perugino's, made a pure light in +the obscurity: it had all the master's golden transparency, like clear +shining after the rain. From this most solemn and venerable place we +went down to the lowest church, the real sepulchre: it was darker than +the one we had left, totally dark it seemed to me, and contracted, +although--it is in the form of a Greek cross--each arm is sixty feet: +in fact, it is only a crypt of unusual size; and although here +were the saint's bones in an urn of bronze, we were conscious of a +weakening of the impression made by the place we had just left. No +doubt it is because the crypt is of this century, while the other two +churches are of the thirteenth. + +There are other things to be seen at Assisi; and after dining at the +little Albergo del Leone, which, like every part of the town except +the churches, is remarkably clean, my companion set out to climb up to +the castle, and I wandered back to the great church. As I sat idly +on the steps a monk accosted me, and finding that I had not seen the +convent, carried me through labyrinthine corridors and galleries, down +long flights of subterranean stone steps, one after another, until +I thought we could not be far from the centre of the earth, when he +suddenly turned aside into a vast cloister with high arched openings +and led me to one of them. Oh, the beauty, the glory, the wonder of +the sight! We were halfway down the mountain-side, hanging between the +blue heaven and the billowy Umbrian plain, with its verdure and its +azure fusing into tints of dreamy softness as they vanished in the +deep violet shadows of thick-crowding mountains, on whose surfaces +and gorges lay changing colors of the superbest intensity. Poplars and +willows showed silvery among the tender green of other deciduous trees +in their fresh spring foliage and the deep velvet of the immortal +cypresses and the blossoming shrubs, which looked like little puffs +of pink and white cloud resting on the bosom of the valley. A small, +clear mountain-stream wound round the headland to join the Tiber, +which divides the landscape with its bare, pebbly bed. It was almost +the same view that one has from twenty places in Perugia, but coming +out upon it as from the bowels of the earth, framed in its huge stone +arch, it was like opening a window from this world into Paradise. + +Slowly and lingeringly I left the cloister, and panted up the many +steps back to the piazza to await my companion and the carriage which +was to take us back to Perugia. The former was already there, and in a +few minutes a small omnibus came clattering down the stony street, and +stopping beside us the driver informed us that he had come for us. Our +surprise and wrath broke forth. Hours before we had bespoken a little +open carriage, and it was this heavy, jarring, jolting vehicle which +they had sent to drive us ten miles across the hills. The driver +declared, with truly Italian volubility and command of language and +gesture, that there was no other means of conveyance to be had; that +it was excellent, swift, admirable; that it was what the signori +always went from Assisi to Perugia in; that, in fine, we had engaged +it, and _must_ take it. My companion hesitated, but I had the +advantage here, being the one who could speak Italian; so I promptly +replied that we would not go in the omnibus under any circumstances. +The whole story was then repeated with more adjectives and +superlatives, and gestures of a form and pathos to make the fortune +of a tragic actor. I repeated my refusal. He began a third time: I +sat down on the steps, rested my head on my hand and looked at the +carvings of the portal. This drove him to frenzy: so long as you +answer an Italian he gets the better of you; entrench yourself in +silence and he is impotent. The driver's impotence first exploded +in fury and threats: at least we should pay for the omnibus, for his +time, for his trouble; yes, pay the whole way to Perugia and back, and +his _buon' mano_ besides. All the beggars who haunt the sanctuary of +their patron had gathered about us, and from playing Greek chorus +now began to give us advice: "Yes, we would do well to go: the only +carriage in Assisi, and excellent, admirable!" The numbers of these +vagrants, their officiousness, their fluency, were bewildering. "But +what are we to do?" asked my anxious companion. "Why, if it comes to +the worst, walk down to the station and take the night-train back." He +walked away whistling, and I composed myself to a visage of stone +and turned my eyes to the sculptures once more. Suddenly the driver +stopped short: there was a minute's pause, and then I heard a voice +in the softest accents asking for something to buy a drink. I turned +round--beside me stood the driver hat in hand: "Yes, the signora is +right, quite right: I go, but she will give me something to get a +drink?" I nearly laughed, but, biting my lips, I said firmly, "A +drink? Yes, if it be poison." The effect was astounding: the man +uttered an ejaculation, crossed himself, mounted his box and drove +off; the beggars shrank away, stood aloof and exchanged awestruck +whispers; only a few liquid-eyed little ragamuffins continued to turn +somersets and stand on their heads undismayed. + +Half an hour elapsed: the sun was beginning to descend, when the sound +of wheels was again heard, and a light wagon with four places and a +brisk little horse came rattling down the street. A pleasant-looking +fellow jumped down, took off his hat and said he had come to drive +us to Perugia. We jumped up joyfully, but I asked the price. "Fifty +francs"--a sum about equivalent to fifty dollars in those regions. I +smiled and shook my head: he eagerly assured me that this included +his _buon mano_ and the cost of the oxen which we should be obliged +to hire to drag us up some of the hills. I shook my head again: he +shrugged and turned as if to go. My unhappy fellow-traveler started +forward: "Give him whatever he asks and let us get away." I sat down +again on the steps, saying in Italian, as if in soliloquy, that +we should have to go by the train, after all. Then the new-comer +cheerfully came back: "Well, signora, whatever you please to give." +I named half his price--an exorbitant sum, as I well knew--and in +a moment more we were skimming along over the hard, smooth +mountain-roads: we heard no more of those mythical beasts the oxen, +and in two hours were safe in Perugia. + + + + +THE PARADOX. + + + I wish that the day were over, + The week, the month and the year; + Yet life is not such a burden + That I wish the end were near. + + And my birthdays come so swiftly + That I meet them grudgingly: + Would it be so were I longing + For the life that is to be? + + Nay: the soul, though ever reaching + For that which is out of sight, + Yet soars with reluctant motion, + Since there is no backward flight. + +CHARLOTTE F. BATES. + + + + +A NIGHT AT COCKHOOLET CASTLE. + +I. + + +Cockhoolet was the name of the place: it was a farm of which the +Ormistons were and had been tenants for several generations. A father, +mother and five olive-branches made up the family. A healthy, happy, +united, thriving family they were, and as such much respected. There +were two sons and three daughters, the eldest of whom was Bessie, +the "Rose of Cockhoolet," as she was called; for that she had all the +beauty and sweetness of the rose was generally allowed, although +there were people who could not be made to see this--people who were +probably idiopts; not idiots--although they might have a streak +of idiocy in them, too, perhaps--but idiopts, or persons who were +color-blind. None of the young men of the district were color-blind. + +The clergyman of the parish in which Cockhoolet was situated, and at +whose church the Ormistons attended, was an old man comparatively, +whose sermons were old-fashioned, and not given forth with the fire +of youth: he was not one you would have expected to be very popular, +especially with the young; yet various young men from considerable +distances were attracted to his church, and, generally speaking, they +settled themselves in pews opposite the gallery in front of which +sat Mr. Ormiston and his family. Any person who chanced to be in the +vicinity, if of discerning powers, might have been conscious of the +electricity in the air. Dull people neither saw nor felt it. + +Bessie Ormiston was not dull, but, being a modest girl, she would +rather not have been stared at; and, being a good girl, she thought +people might be better employed in church: still, she was only a girl, +and it would not be the truth to say she was mortally offended. Did +the person ever exist who was offended at an honest compliment? If +he ever did, he ought to have been fed on sarcasm for the rest of his +days. + +Not only was Bessie pretty--she was also rich. A grand-uncle had left +her five thousand pounds, her brothers and sisters getting only one +thousand each. There is no use in asking reasons for this: simply, the +Rose was born with a silver spoon in her mouth. Perhaps, indeed, the +old man did not know he had so much money, for it was as residuary +legatee that Bessie got the five thousand pounds, and it was not +thought she would get anything like that: people remarked, in the +language of the district, which was apt occasionally to be strong and +graphic rather than elegant,--people remarked that "old Ormiston +had cut up well." Five thousand charms added to those Bessie already +possessed--not to mention that her father was a rich man--made her +most miraculously charming: like Tibby Fowler of the Glen, whose +perplexities of this kind have been embalmed in song, she had wealth +of wooers, and wealth, it is well known, makes wit waver. + +It is a saying that an Englishman's house is his castle, but the +phrase is understood to be figurative: Mr. Ormiston's house was his +castle without a figure. Cockhoolet Castle is very old, at least one +part of it is, having been built probably about the year 1400. A more +modern part was built in 1527, while the most modern part of all was +added in 1726: this last division of it is used as the farm-house. +The rooms have been painted and papered in the present style of house +decoration, and in the sitting-rooms, in addition to the little old +windows, the thick walls have been pierced and a large bow-window put +in with fine effect. There are three narrow stone staircases leading +up the three divisions of the castle; there are long passages; there +are sudden short flights of steps taking you up or down into all +manner of cornered rooms; there is a hall which might hold the +population of the county. Keeping up one of the spiral staircases, +you come out on the roof, round which there is a walk guarded by a low +stone coping: should you want to fling yourself over, you have ample +opportunity. There are stone sentry-boxes where you can sit hidden +from the wind and everything else, and look far and wide over the +country, and down into the garden if you can do so without growing +giddy. There is also a dungeon tenanted by nothing more subject +to suffering than potatoes and other roots, for which it is a most +favorable receptable, the walls being so thick and the roof so low +that cold cannot get in in winter nor heat in summer: there is only a +single narrow slit in the wall for the admission of light, but it is +comforting to know that the doomed wretches who inhabited it in past +ages had at least a temperate climate. + +There is the room Queen Mary Stuart slept in when she occasionally +visited in the vicinity. The reader is perhaps not familiar with Queen +Mary's name in connection with Cockhoolet Castle, but there may be +other facts about her of which he is also ignorant. Does he know, for +instance, that she had a daughter by her third marriage, whom, as an +infant, she despatched to France to be reared in a nunnery, "that she +may not," said the unhappy queen, "run the risk of having such a lot +as I have"? Does he know that John Knox was possessed by a mad passion +of love for Mary Stuart? It has always been thought otherwise--that +in point of fact he held her in contempt; but as it is proverbial that +"nippin' and scartin' (figurative of course) is Scotch folks' wooin'," +there may be truth in the new discovery. But true or not true, it +is enough to make the bold Reformer blush standing on the top of his +pillar in the necropolis of Glasgow: perhaps he _is_ blushing, if he +were near enough to see. + +Be that as it may, there is no manner of doubt that Mary Stuart +honored Cockhoolet Castle by abiding under its roof when it suited her +to do so. Have not I, the present writer, stood in the room she slept +in--looked from the small windows set in the ten-foot thick wall from +which she looked? Have I not gazed over the same country, up to the +same skies, into the same moon at which she gazed? Could her face be +more fair than that of the present Rose of Cockhoolet, her thoughts +more innocent, her reveries more sweet, than those of Bessie Ormiston, +who in the course of time had succeeded to the room which had been +consecrated by royal slumbers? + +It is a matter of certainty that Mary Stuart planted a tree fast by +Cockhoolet Castle--she would not have been herself if she had not done +that--and a magnificent tree it is, very old and quite big enough +for its age. The queen must have been fond of planting trees, and, +considering the number she planted, it is astonishing how she found +time for so many less innocent employments: she must have improved +each shining hour, and, poor woman! she had not too many of these. + +There is a walk also, called the Lady's Walk, leading away from +the castle up a bosky dell, where a burn amuses itself playing at +hide-and-seek, but, like a little child, betrays its hiding-places by +its voice, and comes out into the light again and laughs at its own +joke. Did the queen ever wander here? did she ever "paidle in the burn +when summer days were fine"? did its murmur ever soothe her ear? +did she ever see her fair face in its pools, or drop bitter tears to +mingle and; flow on with its waters? + +The burn has kept trotting through the dell for six thousand years, +singing its song all the time, and its speed is as good and its voice +as clear and musical as when the morning stars sang together and all +the sons of God shouted for joy. Many a wild story it could tell if +its murmur could be understood; but it is a murmur only--a murmur +which crept into the ears of Caesar's legions, of Queen Mary, of Bessie +Ormiston, and will creep into yours, O reader! if you like to go +and explore the Lady's Walk, when you can interpret the murmur for +yourself, as all your predecessors no doubt did. In days of old it +fed the moat, traces of which are to be seen round the castle still, +although it has long since been filled up and covered, like the park +of which it forms part, with rich natural pasture, soft, thick and +velvety. In short, Cockhoolet had everything that a castle ought to +have, and wanted nothing that a castle ought not to want, not even a +ghost. + +It was not the ghost of Mary Stuart: that would have been too +shocking--a ghost without a head, or having a head and a broad vivid +ray of red encircling its neck. Such a ghost would have made every one +who saw it lose his senses. Cockhoolet Castle had a ghost: so much was +certain, but hitherto no one had ever either seen or heard it. How, +then, was it certain? Why ask a question like that? Is it reasonable +to pin a human being down to prove a ghost? Will not presumptive +evidence do? Strange things had happened, must have happened, at +the castle: is it for a moment to be supposed that these things had +happened and all gone scot free?--in other words, that not one of them +had left a ghost? It is not to be supposed. + + + + +II. + + +It was Christmas Day. Christmas Day is not solemnized and festivalized +in Scotland as it is in England; still, the observance of it in some +shape is creeping in more and more. It was Christmas, and Mr. and Mrs. +Ormiston had gone to be present at a feast from which they were not +expected to return till the following day. There were left at home the +Rose, as head of the family for the time being; her sisters, Bell and +Jessie, supposed to be little girls still, although the supposition +made them very indignant; and her two brothers, John and William. A +guest aad two servants made up the known inhabitants of the house. + +The guest was a young man who had arrived before the heads of the +house left, and had been laughingly charged by them to see that the +children did not work mischief. He was an old friend of the family; at +least as old a friend as he was a man, and she had been in the world +a quarter of a century. We shall call him Edwin: that name will do as +well as another; indeed, better, for he might not like his own made +public. It need hardly be said that among the rest young Edwin loved, +and, like his namesake in the ballad, he never talked of love. This +might be stupid, but the stupidity which springs from true modesty +is not to be classed with the stupidity which springs from want of +brains, even when, as is quite likely, the consequences are to the +full as disastrous. Now, how is a young lady to understand or bring +things to a bearing in a case like this? The Rose could not go up +to Edwin and tell him she was not a goddess; neither could she say, +"Although I have five thousand pounds--and you know it, and I know +that you know it, and you know that I know that you know it--I am +quite ready to believe that you love me, and would love me if I hadn't +a farthing:" she could not say this, but she thought it, she worried +herself thinking over it, and, being a sensible girl with a humble +opinion of herself, she came to the conclusion that she had been +altogether mistaken--that Edwin did not care for her, at least not +as she cared for him, otherwise why should he not say so? "If," she +thought--"if I were in his place and he in mine, neither money nor +pride, nor anything else, would keep me silent." And the roses in +her face deepened in color as she thought of her own silly folly in +allowing her feelings to be drawn in, and she determined her folly +should cease from that hour; which determination had the effect of +bringing sharp, short speeches about Edwin's ears tinged with sarcasm +that were meant to convey to him the conviction that she did not care +a pin about him; and they answered the purpose admirably. + + Love is a fickle game, which they + Whose stakes are deepest worst can play, + +Edwin was at Cockhoolet that Christmas Day by the same fatality that +causes a moth to hover round a brilliant light; and when her sister +told Bessie that Edwin had come and was putting his horse into the +stable, she said, "Is Mr. Forrester here again? He must surely be dull +at home." But of course she received him with friendly civility. + +Edwin employed the forenoon out of doors with the boys and two other +visitors. A Mr. and Mrs. Parker arriving unexpectedly, who were +anxious to see the castle, the afternoon was spent in going through +every part of it from dungeon to roof. + +Bessie carried the keys: she was chatelaine, seneschal and cicerone, +all rolled in one. + +Going up the narrow stairs, the party had to climb Indian file: in the +passages they could spread out a little, and in some of the rooms in +the uninhabited portion they had to walk circumspectly, as if they +were crossing water on stepping-stones, for the flooring was wanting +in some places, leaving a stretch of bare rafters. Bessie tripped +lightly over them, and then turned to wait for the others. "Don't be +frightened," she said: "these rafters are as sound as the day they +were laid down. The flooring has not rotted: it must have been taken +up for some purpose. They did not know how to scamp work in those +days." + +"If we fall through, where shall we go?" inquired Mrs. Parker, looking +down into what seemed deep mysterious darkness. + +"Oh, not very far; but don't fall: it won't be pleasant," said Bessie: +"you would alight on very hard stones." + +Mr. Forrester got on the roof first, and handed up the ladies; and +they all stood looking out over the country. It was not a cold, bleak, +snowy day, as Christmas in northern latitudes has a right to be. The +winter had been mild--one of a series of mild winters, overturning the +old traditions of frosts and snow-storms that lasted for months, +and to a great extent stopped traffic and labor, and made traveling +difficult and wearisome. This Christmas was different. The year was +dying with calmness and dignity, and with a smile on its face, as you +might take the pale gleam of sunshine to be; and if you were a little +sad in mood you could suppose there was a wistfulness in the smile +that was spread over the still, soft face of Nature. Cockhoolet stood +high, and the country immediately round it was flat, and much of it +moorland. + + If you climb to our castle's top, + I don't see where your eye can stop; + For when you've passed the corn-field country, + Where vineyards leave off flocks are packed, + And sheep-range leads to cattle-tract, + And cattle-tract to open chase, + And open chase to the very base + O' the mountain. + +Strike out the vineyards and that description will apply very well +to Cockhoolet; and in addition you ought to have seen from its roof +Edinburgh and the sea; but on this day the sea wore a garment of mist, +and had wrapped the metropolis in it also, as it not unfrequently +does. You ought to have seen more than one range of hills too, yet +except by eyes well acquainted with them their outlines could hardly +be distinguished from the leaden gray clouds lying in bands along the +horizon. + +But as the party stood on the roof the clouds began to rise, tower +upon tower, against the sky, and the sun, who retires early at this +season, went behind them, when, instead of the pale, wistful gleam he +had been keeping up all day, he suddenly threw a deep bright golden +border on all the edges of the dark misty battlements which had piled +themselves like castles of the Titans: a big rift appearing at their +base, there poured through it, filling up the space, a great belt of +crimson rays streaked with gray, as if from burning ashes falling into +it, and like the dense glow from a furnace, giving the idea that the +cloud-building was on fire, and that the flames from below, shooting +up inside the dark walls, were the cause of the brilliant illumination +that shone round every pinnacle and coign of vantage. It was a grand +and a curious sight. You could fancy the sun looking across to the +old Castle of Edinburgh standing on its rock, and saying, "Can you +do anything like this with all the gas and paddelle you can lay your +hands on?" Precisely this idea struck Mrs. Parker, for she said, "I +think that is as good a sight as the castle the night the prince was +married." + +"That was a very good sight in its way," said Mr. Parker, "but we can +hardly hope to compete with the sun, my dear: he has all his materials +within himself, and we have to pay for them." + +"Do you know, Miss Ormiston," said Mrs. Parker, "one of the buildings +they said had such a fine effect put me in mind of a trunk studded +with brass nails--the initials of the happy pair in gas-jets looked +like the name of the owner of the trunk. All the time I was on the +street I could not get that notion out of my head; and I was sorry, +for I am sure it cost a great deal of money to light it up, and I +really wished to think it grand." + +"We were all in town that night," said John Ormiston--"papa and mamma, +and the whole of us, and Mr. Forrester, who made eight." + +"I thought it a beautiful sight," said Bessie. + +"I never enjoyed anything more in my life," said Mr. Forrester, who on +that occasion had been Miss Ormiston's escort through the streets, in +which they lost their party, and had the supreme bliss of wandering +together in the crowd, when Mr. Forrester almost forgot that Miss +Ormiston was a goddess with five thousand earthly charms, and Miss +Ormiston had compared his merits as a guide and protector with those +of her brothers, and found he was much more considerate, and made her +wish law, which they were often far from doing. In point of fact, a +thaw had been very imminent, but, alas! since then a sharp frost had +set in between them, as unaccountably as frosts frequently do set in. + +"I think, now," said Mrs. Parker, "a fine old castle like this ought +to have had a grander name: don't you think so, Miss Ormiston?" + +"Yes, I do, and it had, originally. There was a monastery here at one +time, over in that field with the trees in the corner of it: it was +called the abbey of Cakeholy, and when the castle was built it got the +name of Cakeholy Castle, after the abbey. The name Cakeholy, tradition +says, arose from the fact that an extraordinary saint, whose wants had +been relieved at the monastery, blessed all the bread that should ever +be baked there, and the bread ever after had a great sustaining power +in it; so that pilgrims from Edinburgh and the North, going to the +southern shrines, all passed this way to get themselves supplied with +the holy cakes. At the Reformation the abbey was destroyed, and became +a ruin haunted by owls, so that, partly in derision and partly as +suiting the altered circumstances, the common people corrupted the +name into Cockhoolet; and in process of time it was given to the +castle also, and stuck to it. That is the history of a name which is +certainly neither romantic, nor high-sounding." + +"How interesting!" said Mrs. Parker. "If I were you, I would go back +to the old name: there is a reverence about it there is not about the +other. Only think of bands of pilgrims coming across the moor there!" + +"Yes, in their gowns and rope girdles, with wallets and +scallop-shells," said Bessie. "It must have been a curious old world +then: one could sit here and muse by the hour on all that has come and +gone. I often bring up my work or my book here in summer and think of +it." + +"I do like old things," said Mrs. Parker, "and old families and old +names. Our name, for instance, has no smack of age about it, and it is +so short and perky: it must have been given to some one who had to do +with parks." + +"But parks may be a very old institution," said Bessie, "if we looked +into the thing, though not so old as Forrester: that is an ancient +name," glancing at Edwin, who was leaning against a sentry-box +listening and watching the sun putting out the lights in his +bed-chamber; "yet not nearly so ancient as Ormiston. I always feel +it is fitting we should live in an old castle, we are so ancient +ourselves." + +"Are we?" said John: "I never knew that before." + +"Ormiston," she said, "is perhaps as pure a Saxon word as now exists. +It was during the Roman invasion our ancestor led an army through a +dense mist against the invaders: just as he came up with them the sun +shone out and the mist. The legions were taken by surprise, for the +advancing enemy had been hidden by the mist, and they were utterly +routed. The Saxon king--" + +"What was his name?" asked John. + +"John," she said, "don't seek to be wise above what is revealed. The +king called our ancestor to the front and made him earl of Ormiston on +the spot--'Gold-Mist-on;' that is, 'Be ever in the van;' and a proud +race were the earls of Ormiston, and well they answered to the name. +But their fortunes waned when the modern upstart, the Norman William, +laid his greedy hands on everything for himself and his mob of +pirates, and at present we are only middle-class people, but our blood +must be the bluest of the blue." + +"Mine must be as blue," said Edwin, "for the Forresters came in with +the trees, and the trees were early settlers." + +"But the mists were first by a very long time," answered Bessie. + +"I don't believe that story," said John. "I have read about the +Cakeholy business somewhere, but you have made that Or-Mist-on affair +out of your own head: isn't that true, Bessie?" + +"I am not bound to answer unbelievers, John." + +"Besides," said John, "Ormiston is far; liker French than Saxon." + +"Mr. Parker," said Bessie, "there was an abbot John of Cakeholy who +flourished in the thirteenth century: his ghost is said to revisit its +old habitation, or rather the place where it stood. I should like to +meet it and have a talk over things; it would be very interesting." + +"Would you not be terrified?" asked Mrs. Parker. + +"If I saw what I believed to be a ghost, I should die of terror," said +Bessie; "especially if I was alone and it was the dead of night; but I +have no faith whatever in ghosts." + +"It is getting rather chilly," said Mrs. Parker. + +"Perhaps we had better go down now, then," Miss Ormiston said. "Mr. +Forrester, would you come out of your brown study and let us pass?" + +"Certainly. I'll see you all safe off the battlements. I wasn't in a +brown study: I was in a mist." + +"Then take care: people in a mist always think they are going the +right way when they are going directly wrong." + +"If I only knew the right way!" he said. + +"That's true, Mr. Forrester," said Mrs. Parker. "If we only knew the +right way; and people tell you to be guided by Providence, but I say +I never know when it is Providence and when it is myself;" and she +threaded her way down the narrow stairs, followed by the rest of the +party. + + + + +III. + + +The dining-room, with its low roof, its crimson walls, dark furniture +and handsome fire (the fires at Cockhoolet were always handsome: +Bessie was the architect and superintended the building herself; they +never looked harum-scarum nor meaningless nor thoughtless, nor as if +they were not meant to burn; they combined taste, comfort, and, as a +consequence, economy; everything tasteful and comfortable is in the +long run economical), its table-cloth, glistening like the summit of +the Alps and laden with good things, looked a place where people even +not in love with each other might, unless naturally perverse, be very +happy. + +Mrs. Parker, being from town, was in raptures with every country +eatable, especially the scones, which she found were manufactured by +Miss Ormiston herself. + +"And have they," asked Mr. Parker, "the sustaining power that the +cakes made here of old had?" + +"If you eat enough of them you may get to Edinburgh to-night before +you are very hungry," said John. + +"The abbey cakes were unleavened," Bessie explained, "which these are +not, so that they are less substantial fare." + +"What do you raise them with?" asked Mrs. Parker. + +"Butter, milk and carbonate of soda," said Miss Ormiston. + +"We call Bessie a doctor of the Carbon," said John: "she makes very +good scones, although you would hardly go from here to Canterbury on +the strength of one of them." + +"Mr. Forrester, are you dull?" asked Jessie: "you are not saying +anything." + +"I am too busy eating the holy cakes, Jessie," said Edwin: "your +sister is a master in her art." + +"I say," Jessie went on, "are you ever dull at home? When I told +Bessie that you had come she was surprised, and said that you must +surely be dull at home. I am sorry for you if you are: you should come +here oftener--we are never dull here." + +"Perhaps," said Edwin, "your sister thinks I come too often, as it +is." + +Bessie was so deeply engaged pressing Mr. Parker to eat strawberry +jam, with cheeks the color of the fruit, that of course she could not +have heard what her sister had been saying. + +"Oh no, I don't think she thinks that at all," Jessie said: "we never +think any one can come too often. Bessie, can Mr. Forrester come too +often?" + +But still Miss Ormiston was so occupied with Mr. Parker that she did +not hear. + +And Mrs. Parker said, "It is a most intensely interesting old place, +this: do not people come to look at it?" + +"Oh yes," replied Bessie, "especially in summer: we generally have +several parties every week. One of the servants takes them over the +castle--grand people often, with carriages and livery servants." + +"Do you not keep a book for them to write their names in?" + +"No, we have never done that." + +"I would do it if I were you: it would be interesting to know who +comes and how many. Why, very remarkable people may have been here +without your knowing." + +"I doubt we are not sufficiently alive to our privileges," Bessie +said. + +"It's fine moonlight," said the boys, who, seeing that they and every +one had ceased eating, were impatient to be out again. "Come, Mr. +Parker, we'll show you the echo: Mr. Forrester, come." + +"I'll go too," said Mrs. Parker; and they all went but the Rose, who +stayed behind for a little to direct about household matters. + +The echo was a favorite with the boys, it gave such unlimited scope +to their powers of shouting: it was the _sight_ they most enjoyed +exhibiting to strangers. And it was an echo that could repeat every +word of a sentence with such perfection that it was difficult to +believe that it was not a human being shouting back from the +other side of the park, where stood some houses inhabited by the +farm-servants and their families. + +"Hallo, Abbot John! is that you?" shouted one of the boys, and +the other cried, "Yes, I'm taking a walk," so quickly that the one +sentence seemed the answer to the other, and both came back loud and +distinct on the still night-air. + +"Are the Ormistons ancient? It's all fudge," shouted John. + +"Well," said Mr. Parker, "that's the most perfect echo I ever heard. +I've no doubt the holy fathers of the Middle Ages knew of it, and used +it in some shape to keep the superstitious people in awe." + +"It is awesome," said his wife, "here in the moonlight, with the old +castle so near: if I were alone, positively I should feel eerie." + +"Are you dull at home, Mr. Forrester?" was sent out from the depths of +Will's chest, and sent back again just as Bessie came out and joined +the party. + +"Boys! boys!" she said, "don't be foolish." + +"Why, it was what you said yourself," her sister remarked. + +"_Are_ you ever dull?" the lad shouted again. + +"Often," answered Edwin, and "Often" came back instantly. + +"In that case, Mr. Forrester," said Mrs. Parker, "why don't you get a +wife? There's no company for a young man like a good wife. Here's Miss +Ormiston; I don't think you could do better." + +Think of the delicate wound of these young people being thus openly +probed in broad moonlight in the presence of so many people! What +could Mrs. Parker be thinking of? Not of her own love-passages surely, +or, if she was, they must have been of a blunter order than those of +the Rose and her lover. + +"Oh no," said Bessie in cool, indifferent tones: "Mr. Forrester knows +better than that." + +"There!" said Edwin, "you see, Mrs. Parker, I have been refused." + +"'Faint heart never won fair lady,'" said Mrs. Parker. + +The boys hallooed this sentiment to the echo, and the echo took it up +and sent it back so vigorously that even a timid man might have been +inspired. "Mary Stuart," "Henry Darnley," "James Bothwell," the lads +went on calling to the echo alternately--names which are not mere +echoes even after three hundred years, but live on by sheer force of +tragic romance. And it was possible that here, on this very spot, that +historical trio had stood and laughed and talked and amused themselves +as the young Ormistons and their visitors were doing. What words had +they used to rouse the echo? If only it could be made to give them +back now, what a wonderful echo it would be! The world would come +to listen to it. Would it tell of the passions of love and ambition, +grief and hatred, all hurrying their victims to their doom? or was the +place sacred only to gentler memories and softer moods--the scene +of enjoyment and freedom from care for however short a time? Who can +tell? + +There was a woman in the village of Cockhoolet who was ninety-eight +years old, having all her faculties not perhaps quite so fresh as when +she was nineteen, but in wonderful preservation after having been in +daily use for little short of a century. She was one of a long-lived +race: her father had been eighty-nine when he died, and her +grandfather ninety-nine. Now, it is perfectly possible--and, as the +family had been on the spot for centuries, it is even probable--that +her great-grandfather might have dug the hole in which Mary planted +her tree, or he may have saddled the queen's horse when she went +hunting, or stood by the roadside and lifted his bonnet as she and her +gay train swept by. Or he may have been despatched upon royal errands +through the subterranean passage which is said to exist all the way +between Cockhoolet Castle and Edinburgh--the private telegraph of +those days, when wires in the air or under the sea by which to send +messages would have cost the inventors their lives as guilty of +witchcraft. While shaking hands with this old woman and speaking to +her, you lost sight of her and the present time and felt the air of +the sixteenth century blow in your face. Mary came up before you in +moving habit as she lived--the young Mary who caught all hearts, not +heartless herself, and laid hold of mere straws to save herself as +she drifted desperately with circumstances; not the woman who has been +painted as an actor from first to last, as coming forth draped for +effect at the very closing scene,--not that woman, but the girlish +queen who laughed and called to the echo, and forgot the cares of a +kingdom while she could. + + + + +IV. + + +"They are a nice family, those Ormistons," said Mr. Parker to his wife +as they drove to the railway-station in the moonlight. + +"Very," said Mrs. Parker; "and Mr. Forrester is a nice lad. I hope he +and Miss Ormiston will make it out: I did my best for them." + +"They'll be quite able to do the best for themselves: it is always +better to let things of that kind alone." + +"I don't know that," said Mrs. Parker: "if a little shove is all that +is needed, it is a pity not to give it." + +"But what if your shove sends people separate? That's not what you +intended, I fancy?" + +"No fear: people are not so easily separated as all that." + +"Well, we have had an uncommonly pleasant visit: I only wish the heads +of the house had been at home." + +Either the attachment of this pair must have been pretty evident to +ordinary capacities, or Mrs. Parker must have been of a matchmaking +turn of mind; probably the latter, for Bessie at least was sure that +no mortal guessed her secret; which was a great comfort to her, seeing +that Edwin was so indifferent. Alas! there is no rose without a thorn, +or if there is it is a scentless, useless thing, most likely incapable +of giving either pleasure or pain. + +The Parkers had left early. When the young people went in-doors again +it was only seven o'clock: the girls proposed a game at hide-and-seek, +and Bessie seconded the proposal; for you see it would have been +rather a formidable business to sit down and entertain Mr. Forrester +all the evening with conversation, rational or otherwise; and although +at the moment she was in the dignified position of lady of the castle, +she could not the less enjoy a game amazingly. + +The theatre of operations was wisely restricted, because if they had +gone all over the castle they might have hidden themselves so that the +game would have been endless; therefore they kept to the under part +of the inhabited region. At length, tiring of this, they changed their +game to blindman's buff, and went to the kitchen to play it, there +being more room and fewer obstacles there; besides that, it was empty +of tenants at the time, the servants having gone to see some of the +neighbors. + +It was a curious old kitchen, with a very low roof, and having a +fireplace in a big semicircular stone recess. Many a boar's head had +revolved there, and many a venison pasty had sent forth its fragrance +to greet the tired hunters returning from the chase. The fire glowed +in its deep recess like the eye of an old-world monster in a cavern, +till one of the boys seized the poker and made it flame up, throwing +its blaze out as far as it could for its walls, and making the kitchen +and the group standing in it like a picture by Rembrandt. + +"Who's to be blind man first?" cried the girls. + +"Edwin: that will be the best fun," the boys said. + +"Very well, I sha'n't be long blind," said Edwin: "I shall soon catch +some of you. Who'll tie the handkerchief?" + +"Bessie: she always ties it. Go and kneel to her, and she'll tie it so +that you won't see." + +What must Mr. Forrester have felt while being blinded by the Rose? +Only, he had long been accustomed to be if not blinded, at least +dazed, by her. The boys led him into the middle of the floor and +dispersed themselves into corners. While he stood in the attitude of +listening intently, he was conscious of a very gentle movement near +him, and instantly closed his arms round it, as he thought, and +encountered empty air, while with a shout of laughter the children +cried, "Bessie was too quick for you. There, quick! quick! Edwin!" He +sprang to the corner the voices came from, and the boys rushed along +the wall to avoid his arms spread out to catch them, when suddenly the +doorbell rang. + +At the sound Edwin put up his hand to take off the handkerchief, but +the boys cried, "Don't take it off: if it's any one, Bessie can speak +to them in the dining-room: we don't need to stop our game." + +They were not aware that to Mr. Forrester the game without Bessie was +like _Hamlet_ with the part of Hamlet left out. + +"Yes," said Bessie, "just go on, and I'll see who is at the door." As +she left the kitchen she honored Mr. Forrester with a good long look: +people can feel so much at ease looking at a blind person. + +The door was chained for greater security, and Bessie did not take +off the chain: she merely opened the door as far as it would open, but +seeing no one, she opened it fully and went out on the steps; still +she saw no person, although she thought whoever rang the bell had not +had time to get out of sight. Waiting a little without result, she +went back to the kitchen. + +"Who was it?" cried the children. + +"No one," she said. + +"But the bell rang," said John. + +"Of course it did," Will corroborated. + +"And somebody must have rung it," John said. + +"Some one for a trick, I suppose," Bessie said, "although I don't know +how he disappeared so fast." + +Without further remark the game was resumed. Edwin had caught John, +and John had caught Bessie, and when he was putting the handkerchief +round her eyes Mr. Forrester said, "You are making it far too tight, +John: you are hurting your sister." + +"No fear," said John: "none of us have soft heads here. Is it too +tight, Bessie?" + +"Rather, but I can bear it: go on." + +"I'll slacken it first," Edwin said. + +"Thank you, that will do. Now move off or I'll catch you." She went +very vigorously to work, and sent them all flying round the kitchen, +when the bell rang, and rang loudly, again. + +John darted to the door and flung it wide, sure that he would see the +person who rang it, whether running away or not; but there was no +one, and the whole party followed him out, and they surveyed round and +round, but all was still and quiet and vacant, the moonlight making it +impossible that any figure should be there without being seen. + +Now, if you lived in an ordinary house in an ordinary street in an +ordinary town, an incident like this would create no surprise. It +happens often: true, it is not a very new or bright joke, still it is +a joke that boys and girls enjoy, and will continue to enjoy. But away +in the country, at an old castle, with no house within a quarter of +a mile of it, the case is very different. How was it to be accounted +for? + +The Ormistons came in, the girls looking scared, and the boys laughing +and saying that Mary Stuart or Darnley or Bothwell, whose names they +had made so free with shouting to the echo, must have heard themselves +called and were ringing the bell, although not allowed to show +themselves; but even as they said it the boys would fain have whistled +to keep their courage up. + +"I wish papa and mamma had been at home," said Bell. + +"Or if only the Parkers could have been persuaded to stay all night," +suggested Jessie. + +"Nonsense!" Bessie said. "Some one is playing us a trick, but we don't +need to let it spoil our game;" and she put the handkerchief over +her eyes. "Look here, Edwin: will you tie this? You do it better than +John." + +"He doesn't," said John. "I believe he leaves it so that you can see. +I'll do it. No, I won't make it too tight." + +"Don't you think, Jessie," Edwin asked, "that I could protect you, in +case of danger, as well as the Parkers?" + +"I don't know. Perhaps if you were like yourself, but you're not like +yourself." + +"He's as dull as ditch-water," said John. + +"But," said Jessie, taking his hand with a feeling of security, +"you're better than nothing--a great deal better than nothing." + +"Thank you, Jessie, thank you! A man is the better for a little +encouragement, you know;" and he looked at the Rose, but she was +blind; which made her easier looked at, to be sure, but there was less +chance of an answer, encouraging or otherwise. + +They had got up the spirit of the game again, and were going on +briskly, when they were all brought to a stand by the bell ringing for +the third time. + +"Don't stop," cried Bessie: "go on with the game and take no notice +unless it rings again;" and as a leader who must show no fear she +chased her sisters round the kitchen, making them flee to avoid being +caught, when, as if in answer to her remark, the bell did ring again. + +This was too much. They all ran to the door, but neither human being +nor ghost was to be seen. + +"I say," said John to his brother, "you and I will go out and watch. +Edwin, you'll stay with the girls--they are frightened--and if the +bell rings again we'll see who does it." + +"You have more need of Edwin than we have, John," Bessie said: "it +will take you all to catch a ghost." + +"Come away, then," cried John; and he posted his sentinels at +different angles, where each could have his eye on the door. The girls +shut themselves in the house, and outside and in they awaited the +result. + +There was no result. + +Ordinary sentinels can pace to and fro to make the moments go more +quickly, but Edwin and John and William were compelled to stand +without speech or motion, as to betray their presence would have been +to defeat their purpose. At the end of half an hour their patience was +worn out, and they came to the conclusion that whoever was playing the +trick knew that they were watching; so they went in, and hardly were +they in and the door shut when the bell rang again. + +John rushed from the kitchen, whither he had gone for something, but +the others, being in the dining-room and nearer the door, reached it +before him; and again nothing was to be seen but the still calm night, +in which hung the moon with all her accustomed unimpassioned serenity. +What cared she for ghosts? Perhaps she is only a ghost herself, else +why, with all her pale quiet ways, does she never turn round and show +herself thoroughly? No doubt she has reasons of her own, whether +they are good or not: her sex is apt to be both capricious and +persistent--two qualities which she possesses in perfection. + +The Ormistons and Edwin stood out on the broad walk before the door, +none of them feeling very comfortable, if the truth must be told, but +none of them showing their feelings except Bell and Jessie, who openly +declared that they were very much frightened. + +"Nonsense!" said Bessie. "Who is going to be frightened at a silly +trick?" + +"But it may be somebody wanting to get in to do us harm--kill us +perhaps," suggested Bell. + +"People who want to get into a house for bad ends don't ring the front +doorbell, or any bell," said Bessie. + +At this junction two figures appeared in the distance advancing along +the road to the castle--soon made out to be the servants, so that they +at least were guiltless in the affair. + +"It has not been them, you see," cried John. + +"No," Bessie said, "and you are not to say anything about it to them +when they come: if they know anything of it, it will soon leak out; +and if they don't tell, they will be quite frightened: they are as +easily frightened as Bell or Jessie here." + + + + +V. + + +All this time Mr. Forrester was feeling--not frightened certainly, +but--perplexed; and while he could not but admire Miss Ormiston's +coolness and courage, he could not help wishing that she had been just +a little bit chicken-hearted: it would have been so delightful to have +to act as protector and supporter. But there was no opening whatever +for such a position: she took the mysterious affair into her own hands +and pooh-poohed it entirely. + +They were accustomed to early hours at Cockhoolet, but when the time +came for going to bed the girls declared they were too frightened to +go up stairs alone. "It would be far better," they both said, "for us +to stay here all together in this room till morning: we could sit up +quite well." + +"Absurd!" said Bessie. + +"Well, we could not sleep even if we were in bed," they protested. + +"No fear," said the chatelaine. "If you were to sit up all night you +would be like ghosts yourselves to-morrow morning. Come, I'll go with +you and sit beside you till you sleep. But wait a minute till I come +back." + +When they were bidding Mr. Forrester good-night he said to the girls, +"If anything happens let me know." + +"Nothing will happen," said Bessie: "the bell is quiet now and the +servants are sound asleep. I have just been looking at them, and the +sooner we follow their example the better." + +"What are we to do if we hear the bell ring again?" John asked. + +"Nothing. Keep below the blankets, John," his sister said. "It will +ring a loud peal indeed if you hear it: I think a cannon might be +fired at your ear without disturbing you." + +"That's a mistake," said John, "I am a remarkably light sleeper: a fly +on my nose will make me turn round any time." + +"I believe that, but it won't waken you. Good-night;" and she took +a hand of each of her sisters and went off with all the dignity +beseeming her position as head of the family and governor of the +castle. Her presence being withdrawn, Edwin felt much as you do on a +March day when the sun goes under a cloud, although he had not +enjoyed the sun either, owing to the undercurrent of east wind that +continually chilled him. He almost determined to give it up. Of what +use was it? Evidently she did not care for him, and the words, "Mr. +Forrester here again! he must surely be dull at home," sounded in +his ears. Very east-windy they were; still, he loved her with a great +love, and he could not give her up: he was in a mist, and could see +neither to go back nor forward. + +"I say, Edwin," said John confidentially, "what do you think about +this bell business? Of course one couldn't speak of it before the +girls, they are frightened enough already--Bessie too, although she +pretends not. What's your own private opinion about it?" + +"Oh, it must be a ghost," said Edwin: "they do things of that kind, +you know--turn tables and rap and so on. I've been thinking I must be +an unconscious medium." + +"Well," said John, "I, for one, don't believe in that kind of thing: +if the spirits ever told anything worth hearing, or did anything worth +doing, it might be different; but would Darnley or Bothwell or the +abbot, or even any of the smaller fry of monks, come back here to ring +a bell? I know in their place it's what I wouldn't do myself." + +"It would depend on where they are and how employed," said Edwin: +"like some other people, they may be dull at home." + +"Ah, that's what Bessie said that's sticking in your throat. Man, it's +no use minding what girls say: I never do. + +"The spirits must be deplorably dull if ringing a bell is a diversion +to them." + +"They may enjoy mystifying us," said Edwin. "Who knows but they are +listening just now, and laughing in whatever they may have instead of +sleeves?" + +"I'm not frightened," said Will, "but I don't like subjects of this +kind at bedtime, so I wish you wouldn't say any more about it." + +"It seems, however, that the bell was rung by invisible agency," said +John. + +"Come, come, we'll stop talking and go to bed," Edwin said. + +"But, Edwin," said Will with big eyes, out of which he could not keep +a frightened look, "do you think a spirit did it?" + +"No: it is a trick, and you'll find out who did it before long." + +"Well," said John, "it was a stupid trick, but cleverly done--very +cleverly done, or whoever did it would not have escaped me." + +"I should not like to sleep alone to-night," Will said to his brother +in confidence when they were in their own room, "and I don't believe +you would either, although you don't say so. I wonder if Edwin likes +it, away from every one too, in that room with the hole in its roof? I +wonder papa does not get that hole mended?" + +"He has often spoken about it," said John, "but if I slept in that +room I should rather like the hole. It's uncommon: every room hasn't a +hole in its roof. If you couldn't sleep, for instance, you'd have only +to stare at the hole, and you would doze off before you knew." + +"Staring at it would only keep me from sleeping," Will said: "I should +always think something was looking at me through it." + +"What could look at you but light--moonlight or daylight from the room +above? In the dark you would the hole." + +"Let's sleep," said Will; and, forgetting ghosts and bells and all +influences, the two boys were soon asleep. + +It is to be hoped the girls were asleep also; indeed, there is little +doubt the younger ones were. But Bessie, with the cares of a castle +on her head, the mysteries of the evening to perplex her, and an +unfortunate love-affair going more and more awry, how was it with her? + +And Edwin, in his remote room with its hole in the roof, how did he +fare? He had gone up a stone staircase, through a long passage and +down a short flight of steps, into a room large, somewhat low in +ceiling, and, with the exception of the hole, most comfortably +appointed. It felt warm, rather too warm, and he did not replenish +the fire, preferring to let it go out. The room and the way to it +were both very familiar to him, and, like John, he enjoyed the hole: +staring at it made you sleep, and when not sleeping your fancy could +play round it to any extent. On this night the light of the moon, +shining in at the shutterless windows of the empty room above, fell +across its floor, and gleamed down through the opening. + +A superstitious person with a talent for being eerie would have had +nice scope for being frightened out of his senses in a situation +like this--alone in a distant room of an old castle where bells rang +mysteriously, and with borrowed moonlight peering down from above +like a ghost looking for ghosts. But Mr. Forrester was not +superstitious--not in the least. He feared nothing material or +immaterial except--and it was a curious exception--except Bessie +Ormiston; yet it is true he loved her, perfectly as he thought, but +there was a flaw somewhere: it was not the perfect love that casteth +out fear. The turning of a straw, however, might make it that, but +who was to turn the straw? He feared to do it, and she would not. +Notwithstanding these perturbed and cantankerous circumstances, these +two people, being young and naturally sleepy, slept. + +How long he had been sleeping Edwin did not know, when he awoke +suddenly, as if he had been startled by some noise. However, he might +have been dreaming: he did not know. The fire was thoroughly out +and black, there was no ray of light from the roof, and the +window-curtains being closely drawn, if there was any light outside it +was effectually shut out: the room was as dark as midnight. + +He rose, and finding his way to the table groped for a box of matches +that he had noticed lying there, and lighted his lamp, when, looking +at his watch, he found the hour to be half-past three. Before going to +bed again he thought he would see what night it was. Accordingly, +he opened the curtains and shutters and gazed forth. The moon had +disappeared--which was not remarkable, as it was past her hour for +retiring--and the night was very dark and hazy. But a remarkable +object met his eye. But from an angle of the house, and toward the +corner of the field which had been the site of the ancient monastery, +there stood a column five or six feet in height of what through +the haze appeared luminous vapor. It seemed such an altogether +unaccountable thing, standing there, that Edwin pushed the window open +and rubbed his eyes to get a better sight of it. He expected it would +disappear in some way almost immediately, but it did not: there it +stood, perfectly still and perfectly distinct, at the corner of the +field, where there was absolutely nothing to cause it. He watched it +for a considerable time, and as his eye got accustomed to peering into +the darkness, he could see there was nothing near it, and not a sound +disturbed the stillness of the night. + +"That's not a trick," he thought: "no one would think it worth while +to play a trick, certain of being without an audience either to see or +hear it. I question even if it is the abbot himself; or if he likes to +air himself there in the middle of a winter night, he must be too hot +at home, if not too dull." + +A filmy mantle of pale white vapor is surely a more likely garment for +a spirit to snatch up and wrap round him when about to indulge in an +earthly tour than the conventional and traditionary white sheet: +in point of fact, for the sheet he must wait till he arrives in our +world, and when he does arrive he must of necessity help himself to +it; which I, for one, should be sorry to think any well-conditioned +ghost would do; but light, pale shadowy light, lying about everywhere +for the picking up, what so suitable as raiment for a being who has +nothing to wear? + +It could not but occur to Edwin, Had the abbot come back to his old +haunt on some errand? Had he a benevolent ghostly interest in its +present inhabitants? Here was a work in which even a spirit of mark +might engage without loss of dignity and with perfect propriety. He +might turn tables on the perverse circumstances that kept two young +people separate; and if marriages are made in heaven, an angel need +not despise such a mission as making two lovers happy. + +"Well" thought Edwin, "if you are Abbot John, how do you like to see +the dear old stones of your monastery built into dykes? or would you +have preferred seeing them applied to villa purposes?" If it were +the abbot, Edwin felt he would like to have that familiar kind of +intercourse with him which in our country is known as twa-handed +crack; and if it were not the abbot, he had a wonderful curiosity to +know what it was--to have it accounted for. There it stood, apparently +as firm and sure as the first moment he had seen it; and a cause it +must have. + +Accordingly, he dressed himself with the intention of proceeding to +the spot to interview the abbot and see what kind of stuff he was made +of. Mr. Forrester took the lamp in his hand and opened the room-door +softly: not that he thought any one would hear him, but soft sounds +best become the stillness of the night. As he went down the stairs he +became conscious of a cold air playing about, as if from an open door +or window. He set his lamp on the stone sill of the passage-window, +and had his hand on the key of the outer door to unlock it, when he +heard a quick, sudden scream, apparently from the oldest part of +the building. He listened intently for a second, but there was no +repetition of it, and everything was perfectly quiet. + +"That was human," he said to himself; and seizing his lamp he ran +along till he came to the door of the ancient keep, which was standing +open: he took the way he and the rest of the party had gone the +previous afternoon, and found the doors that were usually kept locked +all open. Going on very hurriedly, he came to the room where the bare +rafters were the only flooring, and at the other end of it he saw +something like a white heap gleaming. He strode across instantly, and +stooping with the light in hand discovered Bessie Ormiston lying in a +dead faint just at the edge of one of the rafters: the least movement +would have sent her down on the hard pavement below. He did not stop +to think how she came to be there: setting his lamp where it would +light him across the dangerous flooring, he lifted her up and threaded +the passages and stairs in the darkness till he laid her safe on the +dining-room sofa, still unconscious. + +Kneeling beside her in the darkness, he felt that her face and hands +were very cold. He did not know what to do. If she had been any other +person, he would have had his senses about him, but, being who she +was, they had scattered themselves, and he felt dazed. The fire was +not quite out, and he thought of smashing up a chair to make it burn, +but searching in the coal-scuttle at the side, of the fireplace, he +found both sticks and coals, and heaped them on: then he lighted the +lamp that was still standing on the table. All this was the work of +a minute or two. A fainting-fit was quite beyond the range of his +experience, but he had some vague idea that in cases of the kind water +should be dashed in the face or a smelling-bottle held to the nostrils +or brandy poured down the throat; but none of these things were at +hand, and as he looked at Bessie, hesitating what to do, he saw the +color steal back to her face, and she opened her eyes and suddenly +shut them. When she opened them again she took his presence as a +matter of course, and said, "I sometimes walk in my sleep, I know, but +I am not in the habit of fainting;" and she smiled, looking much more +like the lily than the rose. + +"I hope not," he said. + +"It was the fright I got when I woke and saw where I was. I shouldn't +have been frightened, for I knew the place as well as I know this +room, and could have found my way back in the dark." + +"What can I get for you?--you must have something." It is an awkward +thing when a nurse has to seek directions from a patient. + +"Nothing," she said: "I can take nothing, and I am quite well. I can't +think how I was so foolish as to scream, and I am sorry for disturbing +you." + +"You did not disturb me: if I had been asleep I should never have +heard you." + +"I wish you had been asleep." + +"You might have fallen through the rafters and been hurt or perished +of cold." + +"I shouldn't have fallen through the rafters: I should have come to +myself and have walked back quite well alone; but I am not the less +obliged to you." + +"I should say not," he said with a curl of sarcasm. "Then is there +nothing I can do for you?" + +"Nothing, unless, indeed, you could get hot water for me to wash my +feet in. Sleeping as I was, I had the good sense to put on a thick +shawl, but I made my excursion barefoot: they say walking barefoot +improves one's carriage." + +"Bessie, I never know what to make of you." + +"If you know what to make of yourself it's a great matter: sometimes +people don't know that," she said, rather wearily. + +"I had better make myself scarce at present, probably?" he said. + +"I think so." + +"Then good-night. You won't faint again?" + +"No: good-night." + +He left the room and shut the door gently, but when a few paces away +some impulse moved him to go back: she might faint again, and he would +ask if he should send one of the servants to her. + +When he opened the door she was sitting with her face hidden in her +hands. At the sound of the door opening she glanced up, and Edwin saw +tears. + +She turned away instantly. He went up to her and said, "I did not mean +to intrude. I forgot to ask if I should tell one of the servants to +come." + +"No, you needn't." + +"Bessie," he said, "you are not well, and something is vexing you. +Could you not tell me about it. I mean nothing but kindness." + +"I know you don't," she said almost fiercely, "and I hate kindness: +it's an insult." + +He stood in blank astonishment, "An insult?" he said. + +"Yes, an insult; and if you were not obtuse you would see it. But you +don't see and you don't feel, or you would never have tried to make +any one care for you for whom you did not care a bit. But I won't care +for you, and I don't." + +Off her guard, she had been stung into this. She was standing away +from him, her head erect and her eyes gleaming through tears: Mary +Stuart herself could not have been more effective. + +"Care for you! not care for you!" he said in a voice he could hardly +control. "I have cared for you as I never cared for a thing on earth: +I have loved and shall love you as I have never loved a human being." + +"How am I to believe it? Why did you not say it? Why did you not say +it without making me ashamed of myself?" + +"Ashamed! Oh, Bessie, I only feared to annoy you." + +"Annoy!" + +He gathered her to him and kissed her. + +A castle all to themselves at four o'clock in the morning is a piece +of fortune that rarely falls to lovers, and they need not expect it; +but those great thick walls were no way taken by surprise: they had +not been confidants of this kind of thing off and on for four or five +hundred years to be taken by surprise now. Whether after such long +familiarity with the old story they felt it any way stale, you will +readily believe they did not say. + + + + +VI. + + +"I've forgotten the abbot entirely," said Edwin when he had time to +come to himself after the first draught of miraculous champagne. "I +was on my way to investigate his ghost when I heard an unaccountable +scream." + +"I never screamed before, and I don't think I shall ever scream again: +I don't know how I have been so weak to-night." + +"Weakness always draws out kindness," said Edwin. + +"I would rather be weak than obtuse," said Bessie. + +"But it is better to be only obtuse than both. I know someone who was +both." + +"Well, what was I to think, and what could I do?" + +"Nothing better than you did--make a declar--" + +"What were you saying about the abbot's ghost?" + +"I was on my way to have an interview with it when--" + +"What was it like, and where did you find it?" + +"It was like a column of light standing not far from the house near the +corner of the abbey-field." + +"And you did not think of any explanation of the phenomenon?" + +"No, I did not: it seemed more mysterious even than the ringing of the +bell." + +"To obtuse people it does." + +"I thought the abbot might be feeling without a home, and sympathized +with him, I assure you, very heartily." + +"I can tell you what it is: the servants had to rise at three this +morning to work. It is the light shining out from the laundry-window: +I've seen it often enough." + +"Well, it was a providential ghost for you and Edwin." + +"[illegible]" said John when they were assembled at breakfast next +morning, looking no worse for the excitement of the previous evening, +having all slept well: if the bell had rung it had disturbed no one +at all. Mr. Forrester and Bessie had not made any one the wiser of the +well-timed appearance of the abbot's ghost which had played such an +effective part in their previous night's drama,--"I say," he +said looking at Mr. Forrester and then at Bessie, "there is some +understanding between you two; you are always looking at each other, +and when you entered the room this morning you [illegible], and +started off [illegible] been caught. But I have [illegible] this +time." + +Bessie realized that her secret had become common property, and +blushed becomingly. + +Mr. Forrester said, "What have you suspected, John?" + +"That Bessie and you laid your heads together to make the bell ring +last night to frighten us. Remember, I'm not stupid altogether." + +"I assure you, John, I had nothing to do with the ringing of the +bell," Bessie said. + +"Nor had I," said Edwin. + +"That's queer, then," said John; "but I'm sure there's something of +some kind between you two: you're planning something, I know. What is +it?" + +"Wise people don't reveal their plans to every one till near the time +for executing them, John," said Edwin. + +"Oh, very well," John answered: "you can keep them to yourselves. +I dare say it's nothing of consequence;" and having finished his +breakfast, John was off to his out-door business. The shortest cut +to his destination--and he always took short cuts--was through the +kitchen, and as he hastily brushed along the wall toward the door he +was brought up suddenly by a loud peal of the bell, and he looked at +one of the servants, who was working at the table, as much as to say, +"Do you hear that?" + +She answered his look: "Yes, I ha'en, but there's naebody at the door. +It was yu that rang the bell: ye cam against that bag of worsted +clues for durning that I hung on the bell-wine yesterday. When onybody +happens to touch it the weight o' 't gars the bell ring; I would hae +to ta'en off." + +With this simple and inglorious explanation John rushed to the +dining-room where he found Mrs. Forrester and the chatelaine in deep +Conspiracy again; and to this hour the ghost of Cockhoolet is a matter +(if you can use that word in connection with a ghost at all) of faith +and not of sight. + +When Mrs. and Mrs Ormiston returned they found that their eldest +daughter was engaged to be married, which surprised them as little as +it did the old woman but moved them a good deal more. + + + + +THE LEADEN ARROW. + + +A wondrous half-century was that which forms an isthmus rather than a +bridge between the Middle Ages and the times termed Modern. Exit +the Last of the Barons--enter the printing-press. Exit Boabdil +el Chico--enter Columbus and Da Gama. The plot thickened as the +_cinquecenti_ hove in view. The last years were the most pregnant. +While the last sigh of the Moor was dying into the murmurs of the +Xenil, that solitary shout that will ring while earth lasts went up +from the bows of the Pinta. Together came America and the sea-way to +India and--the rifle. For in 1498, when Buonarotti was at his prime, +Raphael, fifteen years old, had just taken his seat at the paternal +easel, and the scenes of the _Lusiad_ were in progress, "barrels were +first grooved at Venice." + +Who grooved them we are not told. The name of that artist has not +survived, though we still remember his contemporary townsman, Titian. +Strictly, he is not entitled to the immortality of an originator. That +belongs to the unknown savage who, in the miocene era probably, first +gave a twist to the feather of his arrow, thereby communicating to it +a revolving motion at right angles to the line of flight, and making +it an "arm of precision." But pre-historic artillery we may dismiss +or leave to Milton. The blind bard omits to inform us whether the +guns used in the great pounding-match between Lucifer and Michael +were smooth-bores or rifles. The strong presumption is that they were +exclusively the former, and that a well-served battery of Parrotts +would have silenced them in fifteen minutes. By giving him a few +pieces of the kind the poet would have further brightened the feather +he sets in Satan's cap as the benefactor of mankind by inventing +gunpowder and shortening wars. The bow he presents to us as an old and +familiar weapon even at the date of that first and greatest of +pitched battles. Its claim, as the parent of projectile implements, +is recognized in the common etymology of _arcus, arcualia_--artillery. +Arblast, arquebuse, blunderbuss, mark a humbler collateral descent +in the same verbal family. The ballista, or fifty-man-power bow, +constituted the heavy, and the individual article the light, artillery +of twenty centuries ago. Slings and javelins, being for hand-to-hand +fighting (David was near enough to hold an easy conversation with +Goliath before bringing him down), can hardly be brought within +the designation. The twang of either heavy or light was but a thin +contribution to the orchestra of battle compared to "the diapason of +the cannonade." How much we have lost in the absence of this element +of tremendous noise from the conflicts of ancient days! What a tool +it would have been in Homer's hands! How trivial, to the author of +the book of Job, would have seemed the noise of the captains and +the shouting! We cannot, indeed, quite suppress the fancy that some +mightier counter-concussion must have filled the air at Thrasimene, +when "an earthquake reeled unheededly away:" _Nemo pugnantium +senserit_, avers Livy. But nothing is said of it. The old heroes died +in silence, like the wolf "biting hard among the dying dogs." + +A well-known essay of a modern poet beautifully uses this piece of the +modern machinery of his craft. Dryden here makes distance mellow the +thunder of a naval fight into a musical undertone. The great sea-fight +between the duke of York and the Dutch, fought within hearing of +London, left "the town almost empty" of its anxious citizens, whose +"dreadful suspense would not allow them to rest at home," but drew +them into the eastern fields and suburbs, "all seeking the noise +in the depth of silence." Dryden and three friends took a barge and +descended the river. Once clear of the crowded port above Greenwich, +"they ordered the watermen to let fall their oars more gently; and +then, every one favoring his own curiosity with a strict silence, it +was not long ere they perceived the air to break about them like the +noise of distant thunder or of swallows in a chimney; those little +undulations of sound, though almost vanishing before they reached +them, yet still seeming to retain somewhat of their first horror which +they had between the fleets. After they had attentively listened till +such time as the sound by little and little went from them, Eugenius, +lifting up his head and taking notice of it, was the first who +congratulated to the rest that happy omen of our nation's victory." + +This, the eloquent eolian music of distant and unseen battle, was +unheard by the ancient cities and their chroniclers and poets. It will +grow again less familiar as rifled ordnance is introduced, with its +thinner and sharper style of expression. Waterloo appears to have been +heard farther than Sedan or Metz, although its pieces were but popguns +compared with those that spoke the requiem of the Third Napoleon. +And perhaps, if we allow for smallness in number and calibre, those +employed by Robert the Bruce at the battle of Werewater in 1327--said +to be the first recorded occasion in Europe--were more vociferous than +their successors of to-day. Few and cumbrous they must indeed have +been, since Edward III. could only bring four into the field at Crecy; +and they did far less service than the twanging cloth-yard shaft in +deciding the event of that conflict. + +It was not till centuries later that the rifle perceptibly exerted +its treble voice in the multitudinous debates of the _ultima ratio_. +Shrill as John Randolph's, its pipe, once set up, was very attentively +and respectfully listened to. Like his, it spoke from the woods +of America. "Stand your ground, my brave fellows," shouted Colonel +Washington under the sycamores of the Monongahela on the 9th of +July, 1755, "and draw your sights for the honor of old Virginia!" +The colonial rifle covered the retreat of the British queen's-arm, if +retreat such a rout as Braddock's could be called. + +It is about the same time that we find a British writer, who had +witnessed the efficiency of the rifle as a companion implement to +the axe in pushing European settlement on this continent, saying, +"Whatever state shall thoroughly comprehend the nature and advantages +of rifle-pieces, and, having facilitated and completed their +construction, shall introduce into its armies their general use, with +a dexterity in the management of them, will by this means acquire a +superiority which will almost equal anything that has been done at +any time by the particular excellence of any one kind of firearms, +and will perhaps fall but little short of the wonderful effects which +histories relate to have been formerly produced by the first inventors +of firearms." + +This was written in 1748, at which time the rifle was used only by +the hunters of the Alps and the hunters of the American backwoods; +the latter having doubtless derived it from the former through German +immigration. Bull's conservatism, however, was in the way. The lessons +of Fort Duquesne, of Saratoga and of New Orleans were successively +wasted on him. He did arm one regiment, the Ninety-fifth, with this +weapon toward the close of the last century, but for a long time it +stood alone in the royal service. Austria had previously maintained +some corps of Tyrolese Jaegers. The French fought through all the wars +of their Revolution without having recourse to the rifle, save in the +campaign of 1793. It is singular that the keen eye of Napoleon failed +to detect its value, especially when we note the use he made of light +troops. The fate of Nelson justifies the idea that a large body of +good riflemen might have changed the issue of Trafalgar. + +Curiously enough, the French, who were the last to realize the merits +of the rifle, were the first to institute those improvements which +caused, within the present generation, its universal substitution +for the musket. The Gallic pioneer was Delvigne, but his first +improvements proved, as Pat might say, no improvement at all. The +inconvenience of slow loading was the most obvious. Delvigne's remedy +was to give the ball increased windage; in other words, to diminish +its diameter comparatively with that of the bore. The ball thus went +easily down to the shoulders of the chamber containing the charge. +Arrived there, a smart rap with the ramrod moulded it to the grooves. +But it also flattened the top, and forced the bottom partly into the +chamber. Thus misshapen at birth, the bullet was cast upon the world +to an erratic and fruitless career. + +In 1828 a second Frenchman took the tube in hand. Colonel Thouvenin +abandoned the chamber, and filled up much of the place it had occupied +with a cylindrical steel pillar, or _tige_, which projected from the +breech-plug longitudinally into the barrel. This formed a little anvil +whereon the bullet was to be beaten into the grooves. But the bottom +was flattened, and the powder acted only on the periphery of the ball +instead of the centre, tending thus to give it an oblique direction. + +Here Delvigne picked up the weapon for another trial. He accomplished +far the most important advance yet seen--an advance relatively as +great as Watt's separate condenser in the steam-engine. He retained +the _tige_, but he _changed the spherical ball into a cylinder with a +conical point_, as we now have it. In this he, in effect, reached the +ultimatum of progress as regards the general form of the projectile. +He assimilated it to Newton's solid of least resistance. That primeval +missile, the arrow, had for unnumbered centuries presented to the +eyes of men an illustration of a simple truth which scientific formula +succeeded, scarce a couple of centuries since, in evolving. "The +bridge was built," as the old sapper told his commander, "before them +picters" (the engineer's designs) "came." The arrow-head describes, as +it whirls through the air, a solid varying from a cone only so far as +its edges vary from straight lines. This variation serves to blend the +cone with the cylinder formed by the revolution of the arrow-head and +the feather. The difference in length between the ball and the arrow +is due to the necessities of the case. The least practicable length +is best for both. The office of the spirally-wound feather in +communicating a rotary motion, and thereby balancing, by an opposite +force, the tendency of the missile to swerve in any given direction, +is fulfilled by the spiral groove of the rifle. Of course, the +ordinary smooth musket is unfitted to the conico-cylindrical ball. +Discharged from such a barrel, there being nothing to keep the point +in the direction of its flight, it soon tumbles over, like an arrow +without a feather, and strikes wide of the mark. + +Delvigne's new gun came into use in 1840. The long matchlocks of the +Arabs had been very worrying to the French in Algiers. It was a common +pastime of the Ishmaelites to pick off the Gauls at a distance which +left Brown Bess helpless. Protruded over an almost inaccessible crag, +the former primitive instrument would plump its ball into the ranks +of the Giaour in the dell below with a precision and an effect hardly +requited by victories in the open field or by the cave-smokings of +His Grace of Malakoff. Delvigne's arm was accordingly supplied to the +Chasseurs d'Orleans, and in their hands served the desired purpose. +The matchlock met its match. + +Under M. Delvigne's system, however, the ball was not always well +forced into the grooves. The _tige_, too, made cleaning difficult: +it often got crooked, and it sometimes broke off. A M. Tamisier +did something toward removing the former difficulty by cutting +very shallow grooves on the ball itself. The other called forth the +ingenuity of the now famous Minie, who made his first appearance +in 1847-1848, and whose name has attained the same kind of lethal +immortality with the names of Shrapnell, Congreve and Rodman. M. Minie +abandoned the _tige_ entirely. He scooped out the base of the ball and +inserted into it an iron cup. This cup was driven into the ball by +the explosion, and forced the soft lead into the grooves. The leading +objection to the Minie ball in this form was that the device did its +work too thoroughly. The iron was often driven so deep into the lead +as to tear off the solid point and scatter the whole projectile into +two or three pieces. This mitrailleuse-like distribution of disrupted +spheres or leaden asteroids was obviated by the abandonment of the +iron cup, the powder being left to act on the lead itself. Two or +three channels cut around the neck of the bullet helped to keep +the point in line, and aided at the same time the fastening of the +cartridge. Thus came its final metamorphosis to the buzzing little +torment that has been at intervals for the last twenty years flying +over all the continents and perplexing the nations. + +It was not till 1852 that the Enfield rifle was settled on as the +standard weapon of the British army. Machinery and machinists were +imported for its fabrication from the United States, the appliances +of our government armories being copied, and Colonel Bruton, of the +Harper's Ferry Works, employed to set them going. Prior to that time +all firearms of public or private manufacture, in England, had been +made by hand, the interchangeability of all the parts of any given +number of guns being an end accomplished in this country alone. The +advantage of having every corresponding detail of each piece a fac +simile of the same part in all the firelocks of an army must have been +perceived from the time when such weapons were first invented; +and nothing but the most inveterate conservatism, or the steadiest +opposition of that stamp which mobbed threshing-machines and the +spinning-jenny, could have so long staved off its practical adoption. + +Once awakened, however, England became, as she usually does, active, +innovating and experimental enough. Rifled cannon, breech-loaders and +armored ships--all the legitimate offspring of the Venetian barrel +and its American employment--have kept her ever since in a ferment of +boards, commissions and target-firing. But these would carry us +beyond our prescribed limit into a boundless field of inquiry and +description. It would be like passing from a notice of the tubular +boiler of Stephenson's Rocket to a discussion of the vast railway +system it begot. + +The Crimean war afforded the first test, on a large scale, in +civilized warfare, of the issue between smooth and twist. How the +conoidal bullet and rifled barrel, opposed at Inkermann to the +antiquated Russian musket, tore through the dense columns which +had forced their way to the brow of the plateau, driving the stolid +Muscovites, "incapable of panic," back into the ravine pell-mell--how, +at many periods of the siege of Sebastopol, the rifle-pits did more to +cripple the defence than did the mortars and battering-guns--we need +not recount. These pits, and the rope mantlets wherewith they obliged +the Russians to cover their embrasures, were pronounced by Captain +(since General) George B. McClellan, in his report of the United +States Military Commission, about the only marked novelties of +the siege. Of both, _mutatis mutandis_, he and his opponents made +effective use in our civil war. + +Nor shall we pick our perilous way among the Sniders, Chassepots, +Zuendnadelgewehre, and Zuendnadelbuechsen whose various charms absorb the +military mind at this day. The debate among them is but as to the best +utilization of the old arrow-theory. The oblong projectile, that goes +singing on its winding way, is common to them all. Slipped in at the +back door or rammed home at the front, delicately stirred up by the +insinuating needle and its titbit of fulminate or bluntly ordered off +by the snappish percussion-cap, it is the same obedient and faithful +messenger, and goes on its appointed errand in much the same style. + +Under the ancient regime of the musket it required the soldier's +weight in lead to kill him. Its point-blank range was about sixty +yards, but precision even at that short distance it by no means +possessed. At the battle of Fontenoy the English and French Guards, +drawn up in opposite lines, conversed with each other prior to firing, +like two groups of friends across the street. "Gentlemen of the French +Guards, fire!" was the courteous invitation of the British commander. +"The French Guards never fire first," was the reply. And not till then +did punctilio come to an end. Such a colloquy in our day would need +to be carried on with forty-horse power speaking-trumpets, or with the +thunderous articulation of that between the bellowing Alps and echoing +Jura. Even smooth-bore field-pieces, with point-blank of three hundred +and twenty yards and service range of one thousand, have to keep their +distance. It is a rare thing now for cannon to be captured by a charge +of cavalry or the bayonet. The rifle destroys _quantum suff._ of their +horses, and, their support overpowered, they remain a helpless prey. + +For this default of the blustering cannon in the trying of conclusions +with its quiet little cousin, the natural remedy is to improve its +interior in the same manner. This has been done, and with marvelous +effect in some respects. But the rifled cannon, though extensively +used both on sea and land, throwing shot and shell five miles, and at +close range through iron plates a foot thick, cannot be yet styled a +perfected weapon. It may be in a very few years, thanks to the ardent +anxiety, on the part of the several peoples composing "the parliament +of man, the federation of the world," to excel each other in the +"brain-spattering, windpipe-slitting art." At present it is maintained +by very good American authority that for use under some conditions, +at short or moderate range, the smooth gun of large calibre is more +effective than a rifled gun throwing a missile of the same weight. +Our monitors continue to be armed with the fifteen-inch Rodman, very +recent experiments being cited to prove its penetrating effect on iron +plates greater than that of the European rifled guns. This, of course, +at very close range. + +The rifle is, in its simplest form, a more complex instrument than the +smooth-bored piece, and will always require superior intelligence to +manage it. The army which naturally possesses this requisite in the +highest degree will best handle this decisive weapon, and be, other +things equal, the strongest army. This consideration operates in favor +of our people, among whom the rifle has always been in so much more +constant and familiar use than with those of other countries. Our +broad forests will have to be cleared and our mountain-chains, +east and west, more densely settled than Switzerland, before the +distinction of a nation of marksmen can be lost to us. So far, there +is little evidence of this change. The deer and the wild-turkey are +nearly as abundant on the Atlantic slope of the Alleghanies as they +ever were. Probably there are more of both in Virginia than at the +time of the settlement of Jamestown. Like the quail and the bee, they +are favored by a certain advance of population and cultivation. + +Another species of aborigine does not similarly thrive in the path of +the rifle. The Indian of the Plains is still troublesome occasionally, +but far less so than when blue-coats and blunderbusses joined forces +against him. The odds then were often on his side, for many of the red +men were armed with the rifle, while the troops had but the musket and +carbine. The appearance of the breech-loading rifle in the hands of +the United States dragoons on the frontier just fifteen years ago let +in new light upon the Camanche and Apache mind. Up to that period the +badgering of a detachment of "heavies" was a favorite pastime with +these gentry. They got up their "spring fights" with as much coolness +and regularity as the early patriarchs of Texas are related to have +done, and not merely, as in the case of the latter, in utter contempt, +but directly at the expense, of the constituted authorities. Tying +a bag of dried mule-meat and pounded corn to the peak of his saddle, +fashioning a small supply of arrows, or balls if he boasted the +spectre of a gun, coloring the inferior half of his frontispiece a +rich vermilion and the upper a delicate green, with ramifications of +lampblack coursing tastefully along the cheek-bones and the bridge of +the nose, twisting a crane's feather into the tail of his horse, and +giving his affectionate squaw a farewell kick, the cavalier of the +prairie was ready for a raid on the Long-knives. Making a rapid +night-march or two, he would carry the "latest intelligence from +the Indian country" to the border ranches of Texas or New Mexico. +Stampeding all the horses and mules that stood or ranged convenient, +and under favorable circumstances some cattle and sheep, and +"gobbling" on occasion some incautious Cyrion or Phyllis of the +Western Arcadia, the marauder made for the mountains. By the time he +had well passed the last outpost the hue-and-cry was at his heels, +followed, after an easy-going delay, by the lumbering dragoon. The +soldier, armed with ineffectual sabre and carbine, encumbered with +a variety of traps about as useful as they, usually managed, if not +forced to put back by stress of provisions, to come up with him in the +gates of the hills. There an idle interchange of arrow and round ball +between hollow and cliff wound up the eventful history of the chase. +As a rule, no marked chastisement was inflicted on the Indian: he +realized in peace the proceeds of his little speculation. + +Now, Minie, like the Harpagon of his countryman, has "changed all +that." The retreating heathen flies to his hills in vain. They do not +cover him, but the rifle does. Cantering to the summit of a knoll, +he waves his compliments to the distant dragoon with a gesture of +derision, more expressive than elegant, he has acquired from the +white. Turning calmly to depart, as he sinks below the crest of the +hill a sagittiform bullet, fired at five hundred yards' distance with +all the science and talent purchasable with thirteen dollars a month +and rations, plumps into the rump of his unhappy pony, and the Stoic +of the woods is unhorsed. Reared on horseback, and weak in the legs +from long addiction to that mode of locomotion, this is a _casus +omissus_ in Lo's tactics. Scant time, however, has he for reflection. +He gathers up himself and his drapery as well as circumstances will +allow, and scuttles hurriedly off, a fluttering chaos of rags and +feathers. It is too late. Heaven is on the side of the best artillery. +A few minutes and the Philistines are upon him. Burnside's or +Remington's last patent again lifts up its voice, and the triumph of +civilization is complete. + +The prairie Indian, unlike his congener of the woods, has as yet been +but partially able to substitute gunpowder for the bow. The advantage +he has in the protection afforded him by the desolation of his +waterless _mesas_ and sage-covered hills is thus in great measure +neutralized. What, when he does possess the modern firearm, he is +capable of doing with it, the achievements of the Modocs in their +volcanic stronghold will attest. But these were few, and soon went +down. The extinction of the tribes west and south of the Rio Grande +and the Humboldt cannot be many years postponed. The red rover of that +region will disappear as a combatant in the same way, and before the +same weapon, as his brother nomad of Algeria, the earliest victim of +the conoidal bullet. The spherical ball has done its appointed part +in disposing of the aborigines east of the Mississippi, where forests +covered the land and trees generally intercepted the sight at a +hundred or a hundred and fifty yards. With the extension of Caucasian +empire to the Plains came an extension of the range of vision, which +necessitated an advance in the range of the rifle. The weapon of +Sharpe figured for the first time in the van when the woods of +Missouri were passed and the open plains of Kansas reached. There +its office was, unfortunately, the strife of white against white. The +largest possible range, the greatest possible number of shots in a +given time, were demanded in a war wherein the opposing armies were +seldom within five miles of each other, or more than one man hurt to +five hundred charges of powder burned. How the Lenni Lenape must have +opened their eyes at this reproduction of the drama of a century ago +when the whites, English and French, were fighting each other for the +possession of the Delawares' lands in Pennsylvania! The feeble remnant +of the compatriots of Logan had "moved on," under pressure of a very +urgent police, a thousand miles westward to a reservation not a great +deal larger, when portioned out, than that last reservation allotted +to all men; and the pale-faces who had hung upon his track he now saw +fighting for that. + +From its warlike aspect it is pleasant to turn to the contributions +of the rifle to peaceful amusement, if not peaceful industry. +Contemptuously giving the go-by to its minutest phase in this +field--the "parlor rifle," with a target against the chimney-piece +or meandering, in feline form, along our neighbor's roof-tree--we go +forth, with Snider and sunrise, to the forest fastness. Our companions +throng, tall, bronzed, close-knit and sinewy, true children of +the four-grooved, from frosty Caucasus, the Hartz, the Alps, the +Dovrafjeld, the Grampians, the Himmalaya, the Adirondack, the +Alleghany, the Nevada. The chamois, the ibex, the red deer, the +Virginia deer, the wapiti, the gour, or the royal tiger may be the +game in hand. The tiger we are accustomed to associate exclusively +with the dank jungles of Lower India, but he climbs, each summer, the +great passes of Central Asia, "the roof of the world," and makes his +way to the frontier of Siberia, beyond 50 deg. north. + +The equipment of the mountain-rifleman is characterized by simplicity +and a strict attention to business. The nature of the ground over +which he works inexorably prescribes this. The superfluities of the +fox-hunter or the partridge-shooter with his dog-cart cannot be his. +Hatchet, pouch, knife and knapsack, with alpenstock on occasion, about +comprise his kit. He may be attended by a hound or two, but not a +pack. He wants no yelling. He hears but + + the Spirit of the Mist, + And it speaks to the Spirit of the Fell. + +For little hollows and little hills Scott's dogs, that + + raved through the hollow pass amain, + Chiding the rocks that yelled again, + +may have been highly effective when his mediaeval sportsmen, who +carried no guns, could keep within a furlong of them. But in the +depths of the great mountains, with point-blank range of six hundred +yards and long pops of nearly twice that, they would be preposterous. +Fancy the Quorndon or the Pytchley on the flanks of the Matterhorn! + +Chamois-hunting, the sporting specialty of the Swiss and the Tyrolese, +appears to be dying out. The hunter of our day keeps it up rather as +a tradition than as a practical pursuit. He rarely bags a "goat," +for goats are very few to bag, and those few even more supernaturally +fleet and sure of foot and keen of nose than their less-hunted +ancestors. Still, somewhere in that upper world of lilac-white that +melts into the clouds in vast but distance-softened chasms of viscid +ice and rifts of gray gneiss, there is an object for him. In some nook +or on some crag of the square leagues of desert that swell around him +a troop of the desiderated ruminants is grazing, if grazing it can +be called where grass is none. He is very sure of that. Even from the +door of his chalet he scans the slopes in the half hope of detecting a +flock or a single goat. His father and his grandfather before him had +looked forth from the same door on the same scene, snuffed the same +"caller air," mentally shaped the same pretext for yielding to the +same spirit of adventure begotten of the peaks and by going forth +to battle with the solitude, and hunted patiently, sometimes with +success, oftener without, the progenitors of the same quarry. So he +prepares himself anew for the wild and perilous tramp. A day--two or +three days--may pass without the compassing of a shot, or even hearing +the whistle of the sentinel goat as he shrills the alarm far out of +range and leads his fellows in twenty minutes to crags the hunter +cannot reach in as many hours. Death crouches in the treacherous +snow-crust beneath or the poised avalanche above. A false step or an +inch's miscalculation of leap may make him a waif for the laemmergeier +or land him among the buried villages of the last century. He toils +on until success or starvation sends him home. In the former case he +out-generals his shy game after a series of manoeuvres to which the +deepest stratagems of our Indians are straightforwardness personified. +He gets a long shot at a distance that would make the musket or +buckshot as useless as a sabre. The certainty may be apparent that the +animal, if hit mortally, must fall some hundreds of feet, perhaps into +an inaccessible chasm. There is no help for that. Now or never! The +short rifle, assisted by a portable rest, is called on for its best. +The concentrated energy of the whole chase is thrown into the long and +carefully calculated aim. A thin spurt of white smoke jets forth; a +sharp report echoes "from peak to peak the rattling crags among;" half +a dozen chamois whisk around the next rock-buttress, and "one more +unfortunate" tumbles from the verge into vacancy. The labor of days is +rewarded. Securing the scanty venison if he can, the hunter is off for +his hillside burrow, advertising his approach by an exultant jodel of +extra nerve-splitting power. + +In Great Britain the rifle, ancient or modern, like, indeed, any other +firearm, has yet to establish itself as a democratic "institution." +Her forests are not forests in our sense, and her mountain-dwellers +know little of the rifle. In the duke of Athol's seventy-mile forest, +with scarce a tree save planted larches, the stag roams by thousands, +but of course the game-laws interpose, as they did eight hundred years +ago, between him and the (biped) hind. He is still the reserved +luxury of the Norman. So with the leagues of upland where His Grace of +Sutherland has made the Highlander give place to the hart, the "lassie +wi' the lint-white locks" to the Cheviot ewe--where, in short, the +white Celt has been improved out of existence as remorselessly as the +red man in America, and that in favor not of a superior race of men, +but of _ferae naturae_. Into these and similar districts, at stated +seasons, sundry squads of gentlemen are turned loose. They either +"pay their shot," as _Punch_ has it, in the shape of rent, or are the +guests of the noble proprietors. Their devices for circumventing the +antlered monarch of the waste are amply detailed by Scrope, Hawker, +Herbert and also by the late Edwin Landseer doing the pictorial +department with a success attributable chiefly to his management of +landscape effect, for his dogs, deer and other animals from his AEsop's +fable-like groups to his four duplicated lions in Trafalgar Square, +belong--heretic that we are to say it!--properly to still life, their +want of action and _verve_ placing them beneath comparison with the +works of either one of a score of Flemish and French painters, +from Rubens and Snyders down to Bonheur and Vernet. That his unsold +pictures have brought, since his death, something like half a million +proves nothing. Time was when the worthless canvases of West and +Morland were equally transmutable into gold. + +Like other forms of British field-sports, deer-stalking is +sufficiently intricate and artificial. It is obviously the occupation +of men whose primary object is more to kill time than to kill deer. +According to print, from type and plate, the stag, a reduced edition +of the American wapiti, is, in the heart of a little kingdom of some +hundreds of souls to the square mile, as little accustomed to the +sight of man and as hard to approach as he would be on the head-waters +of the Yellowstone. If five or six hours' worming, _ventre a terre_, +up the bed of a mountain-torrent, with not even a rowan-bush to aid +concealment, succeed in bringing the sports-man within two hundred +yards of his unconscious game, it is a good day's performance. How, +the dun deer's hide once perforated, the "tail" of game-keepers, +beaters and volunteer hangers-on is gathered up, the comforting +toothfu' of usquebaugh absorbed by the toilers of the brae, the victim +"gralloched" and suspended across the inevitable gray Highland pony +that makes such a capital "first light" for the foreground, and the +line of triumphant march taken up for hunting-box, clachan or castle, +have we not been told to repletion? The tool used on these occasions +is up to the latest requirements of modern science. Whitworth and +Lancaster, thanks to their projectile's being wedged in so tight as +to cause an occasional misunderstanding it and the breech-plug as to +which was expected to move, have grown unpopular. The style and the +patentee vary every year or two or oftener, breech-loading and the +elongated bullet being the only persistent features. + +Among the commonalty of Britain, within a very few years past, +rifle-clubs and matches have been brought greatly into vogue under +government encouragement. Austria, _tu infelix_ this time, having +served unwillingly as an experimental target, with the most +distinguished and gratifying success to the experimenters, at +Solferino and Sadowa, gave a new impetus to the rifle movement in +England, as France, a trifle later, did to the Battle-of-Dorking +school of prophetic literature. Thus it happens that the rifle is +taking its place gradually by the side of fat Durhams, gooseberries, +lop eared rabbits and the Derby as a popular sensation. Johnny sends +over a "team," evidently in his judgment a whole one, to "shoot the +American continent." His next deputation ought to be sent, after +vanquishing the "blarsted" Gothamites, to the recesses of the +Alleghany, and pitted there against the woodsman with his ancient +weapon carrying a round ball of seventy-five to the pound, five +feet long and decorated with tin sights, double trigger and mayhap +flint-lock. The adventurers would beat in the long run, but they would +go home not wholly unlearned. Should they stay to a turkey-shoot, +they would see in it the Occidental analogue of their own public +matches--more picturesque, if not quite so prim and scientific. +Strictly, it presupposes conditions non-existent in England--a +community, for instance, first of hunters, and second of hunters with +the rifle. + +This recreation, primarily belonging to localities where large game, +such as deer and wild-turkeys, is found, has spread down to the +cities, where it breaks out in a sporadic form about Christmas. But +the hills are its home--the foot-hills, notably, of the Appalachian +range, the domestic turkey not being very common higher up, nor its +wild original ("original," we insist, _pace_ the _Agricultural Report_ +ornithologist, who finds an ineffaceable distinction in the fact that +the tail-ring of the one is sometimes, and that of the other never, +white!) lower down. + +We mind us of an ancient town in the Valley of Virginia, settled +nearly a century and a half ago by riflemen, sheltered by them through +a stormy infancy, and still steeped in the traditions of the implement +in question. Spitted by the railway, the hub of many turnpikes, and +surrounded by a thickly-peopled country, it is yet near enough to the +mountains to receive from them each winter quite a delegation of their +inhabitants. Last year wild-turkeys were shot within the corporate +limits, a deer was chased within half a mile of them, and a fine +specimen of _Felis Canadensis_ was killed in an orchard still nearer. + +Four miles west of the town the fertile limestone _carse_ swells into +the shady hills, clad largely with pine, that form the long glacis of +the Alleghanies. These hills are peopled principally by a hardy race +not unlike the German woodsmen, whose blood, indeed, a great many of +them share, as their surnames, though sadly thinned down into English +spelling and pronunciation, denote. They inherit, likewise, their +fancy for the rifle. Allied with the axe, which, like Talleyrand's +supposititious frontiersman, they have not forgotten, it supplies them +materially with sport and subsistence. Their land, where arable +at all, being unproductive as a rule, wood-chopping is their most +profitable branch of farming. A score or two of them drive into town +daily, each with his four-, three- or two-horse cargo of wood. The +pile is frequently topped off with a brace or two of ruffed grouse, +there called pheasant, or a wild-turkey, less often a deer, and +more often hares; which last multiply along the narrow intervales in +extraordinary numbers. We have seen three sledge-loads of hares--say +two thousand in all--on the street of a winter's day. + +This sappy and sapid contribution to its comfort and luxury the town +often repays with a jug of whisky as an addendum to the cash receipts; +although it must not be inferred from this that the hillmen are noted +for a weakness in that direction. Generally, they are as sober as they +are hard-working, independent and honest. The few who do take kindly +to strong waters are so hardened by a life of toil and exposure +that the enemy is a lifetime in bringing them down.. One little old +hook-nosed fellow was an every-day feature of the road for fifteen or +twenty years. In that entire period he was rarely, if once, seen to go +out sober. He drove but two horses, which were apparently coeval with +himself. Long practice had taught them perfectly how to accommodate +themselves to their master's failing. The saddle-horse adapted his +movements with vigilant dexterity to the rolling and pitching aloft. +On more than one occasion the woodman was found lying in the road by +the side or under the feet of his faithful and motionless team. Poor +old Jack! thou hast "gone under," deeper than that, at last, leaving +behind thee the savor of an honest name, slightly modified by that of +corn whisky. + +The Hayfield Inn, a little hostelrie on the Northern "pike," is the +scene of many a turkey-shoot. Between the hill and the road, at the +foot of a ravine that runs down at right angles, room enough has +been scooped out, partly by the rains and partly by the pick, for +the house, offices and microscopic yard decorated with hollyhocks and +larkspurs. Across the highway stands a capacious barn, with open space +for wagons, and between it and the brook beyond stretches a narrow +meadow, whence a vivid imagination has extracted the name of the +caravanserai. The open space flanking the house and road is the +rifle-course, so to speak. When occupied of a mellow October afternoon +by a party of the autochthones, in their pea-jackets of blue or +hickory homespun, it presents a gay and cheery spectacle. Festooning +fence and tree around them, the Virginia creeper, or _Ampelopsis_, +shames vermilion against the mass of pines that glooms skyward beyond. +Other tints of vegetable decay fringe the brook where it winds from +side to side of the long strip of grass, green from the autumnal rain. +Little reck the assembled marksmen of Nature's stage-decorations. One +group will be mentally weighing the turkeys, another discussing the +distance--too long or too short for the peculiar powers of this or the +other individual or his weapon. Around the rude target kneel two or +three, scoring on it each man his "centre," above or below, to the +right or left, of the true centre, to counteract the ascertained +obliquity of his eye or his gun. Here a six-foot Stoic, the Nestor +of the glen, is very formally going through the ceremony of loading. +Another is slowly, and with the precision of an astronomer, adjusting +the tin slides which protect his barrel from the glitter of the sun. +The chatter of a bevy of country maidens ripples from over the way. +The horses whinny under their square-skirted saddles, or stand "hard +by their chariots champing golden corn," like the horses of Nestor, +Agamemnon, Homer and Gladstone before Dr. Schliemann's Troy; the +yearlings in the meadow alternately gaze and graze; the guinea-fowl +now and then honors the shout over a good shot with its harsh but +well-meant rattle; the rifle speaks at measured intervals; the +prizes thin off to the remainder gobbler; and so, with the quiet +characteristic of rifle-matches, the evening draws toward the dew. The +smoke-whitened guns are carefully swabbed with tow and prepared for +their rest as tenderly as infants. Dobbin is rescued from the (fence) +stake to hie hill-ward with his master, cantering exultant or jogging +grumly according to the result of the "event;" and the metropolis of +Petticoat Gap--for such, in the vernacular and on the maps, is its +unfortunate designation--relapses into virtuous repose. + +The implement employed at these rural reunions is rarely the +breech-loader, or even the short gun. It promises to hold its ground +for years yet, gradually yielding to the little modern tool. The +essential characteristics of this we have described as they exist +and will probably remain. Variations in the rifling and--where +muzzle-loading is abandoned--in the appliances of the chamber will +continue to be made, as they have heretofore been made without number +numberless. The patterns now fashionable will give place to others, +in their turn to be dropped like a last year's coat. Remington, +Winchester and the rest will retire in favor of new contrivers, +devoted, like them, to the simple task of facilitating the flight of +the leaden arrow with its grooved feather in steel or iron. With them +will rise and fall a parallel series of names on a broader and more +sonorous field--the field of heavy artillery, the ponderous Wiard +being full brother to the liliputian Sharpe. Rifled cannon certainly +present problems far more complicated than the small-arm. They can +by no means be considered, as yet, so near perfection. It is boldly +maintained by many experts, both here and in England, that the +"smashing" power at point-blank range of such smooth-bores as the +Rodman 12-inch and 15-inch is greater than that of the rifle of +the same weight. The question is so closely involved with that of +armor-plates for ships and ports, and that with buoyancy and other +naval requirements, and economy and stability on land, that a long +period must elapse ere the reaching of fixed conclusions. Within the +present generation wooden line-of-battle ships, with sails alone, have +ruled the wave. These have given place to the steam-liners that began +and closed their brief career at Sebastopol and Bomarsund; and the +prize-belt is now borne, among the bruisers of the main, by the mob of +iron-clads, infinitely diverse of aspect and some of them shapeless, +like the geologic monsters that weltered in the primal deep. Which of +these is to triumph ultimately and devour its misshapen kindred, or +whether they are not all to go down before the torpedo, that carries +no gun and fires no shot, is a "survival-of-the-fittest" question to +be solved by Darwins yet to come. But it is tolerably safe to say that +where the best shooting is to be done it will continue to be done with +the conico-cylindrical missile, spirally revolving around the line of +flight; that is, with the arrow-rifle. + +EDWARD C. BRUCE. + + + + +TWO MIRRORS. + + My love but breathed upon the glass, + And, lo! upon the crystal sheen + A tender mist did straightway pass, + And raised its jealous veil between. + + But quick, as when Aurora's face + Is hid behind some transient shroud, + The sun strikes through with golden grace, + And she emerges from the cloud; + + So from her eyes celestial light + Shines on the mirror's cloudy plain, + And swift the envious mist takes flight, + And shows her lovely face again. + + When o'er the mirror of my heart, + Wherein her image true endures, + Some misty doubt doth sudden start, + And all the sweet reflex obscures, + + There beams such glow from her clear eyes + That swift the rising mists are laid; + And, fixed again, her image lies, + All lovelier for the passing shade. + +F.A. HILLARD. + + + + +MALCOLM. + +BY GEORGE MACDONALD, AUTHOR OF "ANNALS OF A QUIET NEIGHBORHOOD," +"ROBERT FALCONER," ETC. CHAPTER LXIV. + +THE LAIRD AND HIS MOTHER. + + +When Malcolm and Joseph set out from Duff Harbor to find the laird, +they could hardly be said to have gone in search of him: all in their +power was to seek the parts where he was occasionally seen, in the +hope of chancing upon him; and they wandered in vain about the woods +of Fife House all that week, returning disconsolate every evening to +the little inn on the banks of the Wan Water. Sunday came and +went without yielding a trace of him; and, almost in despair, they +resolved, if unsuccessful the next day, to get assistance and organize +a search for him. Monday passed like the days that had preceded it, +and they were returning dejectedly down the left bank of the Wan +Water in the gloaming, and nearing a part where it is hemmed in by +precipitous rocks and is very narrow and deep, crawling slow and black +under the lofty arch of an ancient bridge that spans it at one leap, +when suddenly they caught sight of a head peering at them over the +parapet. They dared not run for fear of terrifying him if it should be +the laird, and hurried quietly to the spot. But when they reached +the end of the bridge its round back was bare from end to end. On +the other side of the river the trees came close up, and pursuit was +hopeless in the gathering darkness. + +"Laird, laird! they've ta'en awa' Phemy, an' we dinna ken whaur to +luik for her," cried the poor father aloud. + +Almost the same instant, and as if he had issued from the ground, the +laird stood before them. The men started back with astonishment--soon +changed into pity, for there was light enough to see how miserable the +poor fellow looked. Neither exposure nor privation had thus weighed +upon him: he was simply dying of fear. Having greeted Joseph with +embarrassment, he kept glancing doubtfully at Malcolm, as if ready +to run on his least movement. In few words Joseph explained their +quest--with trembling voice and tears that would not be denied +enforcing the tale. Ere he had done the laird's jaw had fallen and +further speech was impossible to him. But by gestures sad and plain +enough he indicated that he knew nothing of her, and had supposed her +safe at home with her parents. In vain they tried to persuade him +to go back with them, promising every protection: for sole answer he +shook his head mournfully. + +There came a sudden gust of wind among the branches. Joseph, little +used to trees and their ways with the wind, turned toward the sound, +and Malcolm unconsciously followed his movement. When they turned +again the laird had vanished, and they took their way homeward in +sadness. + +What passed next with the laird can be but conjectured. It came to be +well enough known afterward where he had been hiding; and had it not +been dusk as they came down the river-bank the two men might, looking +up to the bridge from below, have had it suggested to them. For in the +half-spandrel wall between the first arch and the bank they might +have spied a small window looking down on the sullen, silent gloom, +foam-flecked with past commotion, that crept languidly away from +beneath. It belonged to a little vaulted chamber in the bridge, +devised by some vanished lord as a kind of summer-house--long +neglected, but having in it yet a mouldering table, a broken chair +or two and a rough bench. A little path led steep from the end of +the parapet down to its hidden door. It was now used only by the +game-keepers for traps and fishing-gear and odds and ends of things, +and was generally supposed to be locked up. The laird had, however, +found it open, and his refuge in it had been connived at by one of the +men, who, as they heard afterward, had given him the key and assisted +him in carrying out a plan he had devised for barricading the door. +It was from this place he had so suddenly risen at the call of Blue +Peter, and to it he had as suddenly withdrawn again--to pass in +silence and loneliness through his last purgatorial pain.[1] + +[Footnote 1: + Com' io fui dentro, in un bogliente vetro + Gittato mi sarei per rinfrescarmi, + Tant' era ivi lo'ncendio senza metro. + +_Del Purgatorio_, xxvii. 49.] + +Mrs. Stewart was sitting in her drawing-room alone: she seldom had +visitors at Kirkbyres--not that she liked being alone, or indeed being +there at all, for she would have lived on the Continent, but that her +son's trustees, partly to indulge their own aversion to her, taking +upon them a larger discretionary power than rightly belonged to them, +kept her too straitened, which no doubt in the recoil had its share +in poor Stephen's misery. It was only after scraping for a whole year +that she could escape to Paris or Homburg, where she was at home. +There her sojourn was determined by her good or ill fortune at faro. + +What she meditated over her knitting by the firelight--she had put out +her candles--it would be hard to say, perhaps unwholesome to think: +there are souls to look into which is, to our dim eyes, like gazing +down from the verge of one of the Swedenborgian pits. + +But much of the evil done by human beings is as the evil of evil +beasts: they know not what they do--an excuse which, except in regard +to the past, no man can make for himself, seeing the very making of it +must testify its falsehood. + +She looked up, gave a cry and started to her feet: Stephen stood +before her, halfway between her and the door. Revealed in a flicker +of flame from the fire, he vanished in the following shade, and for +a moment she stood in doubt of her seeing sense. But when the coal +flashed again there was her son, regarding her out of great eyes that +looked as if they had seen death. A ghastly air hung about him, as if +he had just come back from Hades, but in his silent bearing there was +a sanity, even dignity, which strangely impressed her. He came forward +a pace or two, stopped, and said, "Dinna be frichtit, mem. I'm come. +Sen' the lassie hame an' du wi' me as ye like. I canna haud aff o' me. +But I think I'm deein', an' ye needna misguide me." + +His voice, although it trembled a little, was clear and unimpeded, +and, though weak in its modulation, manly. + +Something in the woman's heart responded. Was it motherhood or the +deeper godhead? Was it pity for the dignity housed in the crumbling +clay, or repentance for the son of her womb? Or was it that sickness +gave hope, and she could afford to be kind? + +"I don't know what you mean, Stephen," she said, more gently than he +had ever heard her speak. + +Was it an agony of mind or of body, or was it but a flickering of the +shadows upon his face? A moment, and he gave a half-choked shriek and +fell on the floor. His mother turned from him with disgust and rang +the bell. "Send Tom here," she said. + +An elderly, hard-featured man came. + +"Stephen is in one of his fits," she said. + +The man looked about him: he could see no one in the room but his +mistress. + +"There he is," she continued, pointing to the floor. "Take him away. +Get him up to the loft and lay him in the hay." + +The man lifted his master like an unwieldy log and carried him, +convulsed, from the room. + +Stephen's mother sat down again by the fire and resumed her knitting. + + + + +CHAPTER LXV. + +THE LAIRD'S VISION. + + +Malcolm had just seen his master set out for his solitary ride when +one of the maids informed him that a man from Kirkbyres wanted him. +Hiding his reluctance, he went with her and found Tom, who was Mrs. +Stewart's grieve and had been about the place all his days. + +"Mr. Stephen's come hame, sir," he said, touching his bonnet, a +civility for which Malcolm was not grateful. + +"It's no possible," returned Malcolm. "I saw him last nicht." + +"He cam aboot ten o'clock, sir, an' hed a turn o' the fa'in' sickness +o' the spot. He's verra ill the noo, an' the mistress sent me ower to +speir gien ye wad obleege her by gaein' to see him." + +"Has he ta'en till's bed?" asked Malcolm. + +"We pat him infill 't, sir. He's ravin' mad, an' I'm thinkin' he's no +far frae his hin'er en'." + +"I'll gang wi' ye direckly," said Malcolm. + +In a few minutes they were riding fast along the road to Kirkbyres, +neither with much to say to the other, for Malcolm distrusted every +one about the place, and Tom was by nature taciturn. + +"What garred them sen' for me, div ye ken?" asked Malcolm at length +when they had gone about halfway. + +"He cried oot upo' ye i' the nicht," answered Tom. + +When they arrived Malcolm was shown into the drawing-room, where Mrs. +Stewart met him with red eyes. "Will you come and see my poor boy?" +she said. + +"I wull du that, mem. Is he verra ill?" + +"Very. I'm afraid he is in a bad way." + +She led him to a dark, old-fashioned chamber, rich and gloomy. There, +sunk in the down of a huge bed with carved ebony posts, lay the +laird, far too ill to be incommoded by the luxury to which he was +unaccustomed. His head kept tossing from side to side and his eyes +seemed searching in vacancy. + +"Has the doctor been to see 'im, mem?" asked Malcolm. + +"Yes, but he says he can't do anything for him." + +"Wha waits upon 'im, mem?" + +"One of the maids and myself." + +"I'll jist bide wi' 'im." + +"That will be very kind of you." + +"I s' bide wi' 'im till I see 'im oot o' this, ae w'y or ither,", +added Malcolm, and sat down by the bedside of his poor distrustful +friend. There Mrs. Stewart left him. + +The laird was wandering in the thorny thickets and slimy marshes +which, haunted by the thousand misshapen horrors of delirium, beset +the gates of life. That one so near the light and slowly drifting into +it should lie tossing in hopeless darkness! Is it that the delirium +falls, a veil of love, to hide other and more real terrors? + +His eyes would now and then meet those of Malcolm as they gazed +tenderly upon him, but the living thing that looked out of the windows +was darkened and saw him not. Occasionally a word would fall from him, +or a murmur of half-articulation float up like the sound of a river +of souls; but whether Malcolm heard, or only seemed to hear, something +like this, he could not tell, for he could not be certain that he had +not himself shaped the words by receiving the babble into the moulds +of the laird's customary thought and speech: "I dinna ken whaur I cam +frae--I kenna whaur I'm gaein' till.--Eh, gien He wad but come oot an' +shaw Himsel'!--O Lord! tak the deevil aff o' my puir back.--O Father +o' lichts! gar him tak the hump wi' him. I hae no fawvor for't, though +it's been my constant compainion this mony a lang." + +But in general he only moaned, and after the words thus heard or +fashioned by Malcolm lay silent and nearly still for an hour. + +All the waning afternoon Malcolm sat by his side, and neither mother, +maid nor doctor came near them. + +"Dark wa's an' no a breath!" he murmured or seemed to murmur again. +"Nae gerse nor flooers nor bees! I hae na room for my hump, an' I +canna lie upo' 't, for that wad kill me. Wull I _ever_ ken whaur I cam +frae? The wine's unco guid. Gie me a drap mair, gien ye please, Lady +Horn.--I thought the grave was a better place. I hae lain safter afore +I dee'd.--Phemy! Phemy! Rin, Phemy, rin! I s' bide wi' them this time. +Ye rin, Phemy!" + +As it grew dark the air turned very chill, and snow began to +fall thick and fast. Malcolm laid a few sticks on the smouldering +peat-fire, but they were damp and did not catch. All at once the laird +gave a shriek, and crying out, "Mither! mither!" fell into a fit so +violent that the heavy bed shook with his convulsions. Malcolm held +his wrists and called aloud. No one came, and, bethinking himself that +none could help, he waited in silence for what would soon follow. + +The fit passed quickly, and he lay quiet. The sticks had meantime +dried, and suddenly they caught fire and blazed up. The laird turned +his face toward the flame; a smile came over it; his eyes opened wide, +and with such an expression of seeing gazed beyond Malcolm that he +turned his in the same direction. + +"Eh, the bonny man! The bonny man!" murmured the laird. + +But Malcolm saw nothing, and turned again to the laird: his jaw had +fallen, and the light was fading out of his face like the last of a +sunset. He was dead. + +Malcolm rang the bell, told the woman who answered it what had taken +place, and hurried from the house, glad at heart that his friend was +at rest. + +He had ridden but a short distance when he was overtaken by a boy on a +fast pony, who pulled up as he neared him. + +"Whaur are ye for?" asked Malcolm. "I'm gaein' for Mistress Cat'nach," +answered the boy. + +"Gang yer w'ys than, an' dinna haud the deid waitin'," said Malcolm +with a shudder. + +The boy cast a look of dismay behind him and galloped off. + +The snow still fell and the night was dark. Malcolm spent nearly two +hours on the way, and met the boy returning, who told him that Mrs. +Catanach was not to be found. + +His road lay down the glen, past Duncan's cottage, at whose door he +dismounted, but he did not find him. Taking the bridle on his arm, he +walked by his horse the rest of the way. It was about nine o'clock, +and the night very dark. As he neared the house, he heard Duncan's +voice. "Malcolm, my son! Will it pe your ownself?" it said. + +"It wull that, daddy," answered Malcolm. + +The piper was sitting on a fallen tree, with the snow settling softly +upon him. + +"But it's ower cauld for ye to be sittin' there i' the snaw, an' the +mirk tu," added Malcolm. + +"Ta tarkness will not be ketting to ta inside of her," returned the +seer. "Ah, my poy! where ta light kets in, ta tarkness will pe ketting +in too. This now, your whole pody will pe full of tarkness, as ta +Piple will say, and Tuncan's pody tat will pe full of ta light." Then +with suddenly changed tone he said, "Listen, Malcolm, my son! Shell pe +ferry uneasy till you'll wass pe come home." + +"What's the maitter noo, daddy?" returned Malcolm. "Onything wrang +aboot the hoose?" + +"Something will pe wrong, yes, put she'll not can tell where. No, her +pody will not pe full of light! For town here, in ta curset Lowlands, +ta sight has peen almost cone from her, my son. It will now pe no more +as a co creeping troo' her, and shell nefer see plain no more till +she'll pe come pack to her own mountains." + +"The puir laird's gane back to his," said Malcolm. "I won'er gien he +kens yet, or gien he gangs speirin' at ilk ane he meets gien he can +tell him whaur he cam frae. He's mad nae mair, ony gait." + +"How? Will he pe not tead? Ta poor lairt! Ta poor maad lairt!" + +"Ay, he's deid: maybe that's what'll be troublin' yer sicht, daddy." + +"No, my son. Ta maad lairt was not ferry maad, and if he was maad +he was not paad, and it was not ta plame of him: he was coot always, +howefer." + +"He wass that, daddy." + +"But it will pe something ferry paad, and it will pe efer troubling +her speerit. When she'll pe take ta pipes to pe amusing herself, and +will plow 'Till an crodh a' Dhonnaehaidh' ('Turn the Cows, Duncan'), +out will pe come' Cumhadh an fhir mhoir' ('The Lament of the Big +Man'). Aal is not well, my son." + +"Weel, dinna distress yersel', daddy. Lat come what wull come. +Foreseein' 's no forefen'in'. Ye ken yersel' at mony 's the time the +seer has broucht the thing on by tryin' to haud it aff." + +"It will be true, my son. Put it would aalways haf come." + +"Nae doubt. Sae ye jist come in wi' me, daddy, an' sit doon by the ha' +fire, an' I'll come to ye as sune's I've been to see 'at the maister +disna want me. But ye'll better come up wi' me to my room first," he +went on, "for the maister disna like to see me in onything but the +kilt." + +"And why will he not pe in ta kilts aal as now?" + +"I hae been ridin', ye ken, daddy, an' the trews fits the saiddle +better nor the kilts." + +"She'll not pe knowing tat. Old Allister, your creat--her own +crandfather, was ta pest horseman ta worlt efer saw, and he'll nefer +pe hafing ta trews to his own lecks nor ta saddle to his horse's pack. +He'll chust make his men pe strap on an old plaid, and he'll be kive +a chump, and away they wass, horse and man, one peast, aal two of tem +poth together." + +Thus chatting, they went to the stable, and from the stable to the +house, where they met no one, and went straight up to Malcolm's room, +the old man making as little of the long ascent as Malcolm himself. + + + + +CHAPTER LXVI. + +THE CRY FROM THE CHAMBER. + + +Brooding--if a man of his temperament may ever be said to brood--over +the sad history of his young wife and the prospects of his daughter, +the marquis rode over fields and through gates--he never had been one +to jump a fence in cold blood--till the darkness began to fall; and +the bearings of his perplexed position came plainly before him. + +First of all, Malcolm acknowledged and the date of his mother's death +known, what would Florimel be in the eyes of the world? Supposing the +world deceived by the statement that his mother died when he was born, +where yet was the future he had marked out for her? He had no money to +leave her, and she must be helplessly dependent on her brother. + +Malcolm, on the other hand, might make a good match, or, with the +advantages he could secure him in the army, still better in the navy, +well enough push his way in the world. + +Miss Horn could produce no testimony, and Mrs. Catanach had asserted +him to be the son of Mrs. Stewart. He had seen enough, however, to +make him dread certain possible results if Malcolm were acknowledged +as the laird of Kirkbyres. No: there was but one hopeful measure, one +which he had even already approached in a tentative way--an appeal, +namely, to Malcolm himself, in which, while acknowledging his probable +rights, but representing in the strongest manner the difficulty of +proving them, he would set forth in their full dismay the consequences +to Florimel of their public recognition, and offer, upon the pledge +of his word to a certain line of conduct, to start him in any path he +chose to follow. + +Having thought the thing out pretty thoroughly, as he fancied, and +resolved at the same time to feel his way toward negotiations with +Mistress Catanach, he turned and rode home. + +After a tolerable dinner he was sitting over a bottle of the port +which he prized beyond anything else his succession had brought +him, when the door of the dining-room opened suddenly and the butler +appeared, pale with terror. "My lord! my lord!" he stammered as he +closed the door behind him. + +"Well? What the devil's the matter now? Whose cow's dead?" + +"Your lordship didn't hear it, then?" faltered the butler. + +"You've been drinking, Bings," said the marquis, lifting his seventh +glass of port. + +"_I_ didn't say I heard it, my lord." + +"Heard what, in the name of Beelzebub?" + +"The ghost, my lord." + +"The what?" shouted the marquis. + +"That's what they call it, my lord. It's all along of having that +wizard's chamber in the house, my lord." + +"You're a set of fools," said the marquis--"the whole kit of you!" + +"That's what I say, my lord. I don't know what to do with them, +stericking and screaming. Mrs. Courthope is trying her best with them, +but it's my belief she's about as bad herself." + +The marquis finished his glass of wine, poured out and drank another, +then walked to the door. When the butler opened it a strange sight +met his eyes. All the servants in the house, men and women, Duncan and +Malcolm alone excepted, had crowded after the butler, every one afraid +of being left behind; and there gleamed the crowd of ghastly faces +in the light of the great hall-fire. Demon stood in front, his mane +bristling and his eyes flaming. Such was the silence that the marquis +heard the low howl of the waking wind, and the snow like the patting +of soft hands against the windows. He stood for a moment, more than +half enjoying their terror, when from somewhere in the building a +far-off shriek, shrill and piercing, rang in every ear. Some of the +men drew in their breath with a gasping sob, but most of the women +screamed outright; and that set the marquis cursing. + +Duncan and Malcolm had but just entered the bed-room of the latter +when the shriek rent the air close beside, and for a moment deafened +them. So agonized, so shrill, so full of dismal terror was it, that +Malcolm stood aghast, and Duncan started to his feet with responsive +outcry. But Malcolm at once recovered himself. "Bide here till I come +back," he whispered, and hurried noiselessly out. + +In a few minutes he returned, during which all had been still. "Noo, +daddy," he said, "I'm gaein' to drive in the door o' the neist room. +There's some deevilry at wark there. Stan' ye i' the door, an' ghaist +or deevil 'at wad win by ye, grip it, an' haud on like Demon the dog." + +"She will so, she will so," muttered Duncan in a strange tone. +"Ochone! that she'll not pe hafing her turk with her! Ochone! ochone!" + +Malcolm took the key of the wizard's chamber from his chest and his +candle from the table, which he set down in the passage. In a moment +he had unlocked the door, put his shoulder to it and burst it open. +A light was extinguished, and a shapeless figure went gliding away +through the gloom. It was no shadow, however, for, dashing itself +against a door at the other side of the chamber, it staggered back +with an imprecation of fury and fear, pressed two hands to its head, +and, turning at bay, revealed the face of Mrs. Catanach. + +In the door stood the blind piper with outstretched arms and hands +ready to clutch, the fingers curved like claws, his knees and haunches +bent, leaning forward like a rampant beast prepared to spring. In his +face was wrath, hatred, vengeance, disgust--an enmity of all mingled +kinds. + +Malcolm was busied with something in the bed, and when she turned Mrs, +Catanach saw only Duncan's white face of hatred gleaming through the +darkness. "Ye auld donnert deevil!" she cried, with an addition too +coarse to be set down, and threw herself upon him. + +The old man said never a word, but with indrawn breath hissing through +his clenched teeth clutched her, and down they went together in the +passage, the piper undermost. He had her by the throat, it is true, +but she had her fingers in his eyes, and, kneeling on his chest, kept +him down with a vigor of hostile effort that drew the very picture of +murder. It lasted but a moment, however, for the old man, spurred +by torture as well as hate, gathered what survived of a most sinewy +strength into one huge heave, threw her back into the room, and rose +with the blood streaming from his eyes, just as the marquis came round +the near end of the passage, followed by Mrs. Courthope, the butler, +Stoat and two of the footmen. Heartily enjoying a row, he stopped +instantly, and, signing a halt to his followers, stood listening to +the mud-geyser that now burst from Mrs. Catanach's throat. + +"Ye blin' abortion o' Sawtan's soo!" she cried, "didna I tak ye to +du wi' ye as I likit? An' that deil's tripe ye ca' yer oye +(_grandson_)--He! he! _him_ yer gran'son! He's naething but ane o' yer +hatit Cawm'ells!" + +"A teanga a' diabhuil mhoir, tha thu ag denamh breug (O tongue of the +great devil! thou art making a lie)," screamed Duncan, speaking for +the first time. + +"God lay me deid i' my sins gien he be onything but a bastard +Cawm'ell!" she asseverated with a laugh of demoniacal scorn. "Yer +dautit (_petted_) Ma'colm's naething but the dyke-side brat o' the +late Grizel Cawm'ell, 'at the fowk tuik for a sant 'cause she grat +an' said naething. I laid the Cawm'ell pup i' yer boody (_scarecrow_) +airms wi' my ain han's, upo' the tap o' yer curst scraighin' bagpipes +'at sae aften drave the sleep frae my een. Na, ye wad nane o' me! But +I ga'e ye a Cawm'ell bairn to yer hert for a' that, ye auld, hungert, +weyver (_spider_)-leggit, worm-aten idiot!" + +A torrent of Gaelic broke from Duncan, into the midst of which rushed +another from Mrs. Catanach, similar, but coarse in vowel and harsh +in consonant sounds. The marquis stepped into the room. "What is the +meaning of all this?" he said with dignity. + +The tumult of Celtic altercation ceased. The old piper drew himself up +to his full height and stood silent. Mrs. Catanach, red as fire +with exertion and wrath, turned ashy pale. The marquis cast on her a +searching and significant look. + +"See here, my lord," said Malcolm. + +Candle in hand, his lordship approached the bed. At the same moment +Mrs. Catanach glided out with her usual downy step, gave a wink as of +mutual intelligence to the group at the door, and vanished. + +On Malcolm's arm lay the head of a young girl. Her thin, worn +countenance was stained with tears and livid with suffocation. She was +recovering, but her eyes rolled stupid and visionless. + +"It's Phemy, my lord--Blue Peter's lassie, 'at was tint," said +Malcolm. + +"It begins to look serious," said the marquis.--"Mrs. Catanach! Mrs. +Courthope!" + +He turned toward the door. Mrs. Courthope entered, and a head or two +peeped in after her. Duncan stood as before, drawn up and stately, his +visage working, but his body motionless as the statue of a sentinel. + +"Where is the Catanach woman gone?" cried the marquis. + +"Cone!" shouted the piper. "Cone! and her huspant will be waiting to +pe killing her! Och nan ochan!" + +"Her husband!" echoed the marquis. + +"Ach! she'll not can pe helping it, my lort--no more till one will +pe tead; and tat should pe ta woman, for she'll pe a paad woman--ta +worstest woman efer was married, my lort." + +"That's saying a good deal," returned the marquis. + +"Not one wort more as enough, my lort," said Duncan. "She was only pe +her next wife, put, ochone! ochone! why did she'll pe marry her? You +would haf stapt her long aco, my lort, if she'll was your wife and +you was knowing ta tamned fox and padger she was pe. Ochone! and she +tidn't pe have her turk at her hench nor her sgian in her hose." + +He shook his hands like a despairing child, then stamped and wept in +the agony of frustrated rage. + +Mrs. Courthope took Phemy in her arms and carried her to her own room, +where she opened the window and let the snowy wind blow full upon her. +As soon as she came quite to herself, Malcolm set out to bear the good +tidings to her father and mother. + +Only a few nights before had Phemy been taken to the room where they +found her. She had been carried from place to place, and had been some +time, she believed, in Mrs. Catanach's own house. They had always kept +her in the dark, and removed her at night blindfolded. When asked if +she had never cried out before, she said she had been too frightened; +and when questioned as to what had made her do so then, she knew +nothing of it: she remembered only that a horrible creature appeared +by the bedside, after which all was blank. On the floor they found +a hideous death-mask, doubtless the cause of the screams which Mrs. +Catanach had sought to stifle with the pillows and bed-clothes. + +When Malcolm returned he went at once to the piper's cottage, where +he found him in bed, utterly exhausted and as utterly restless. "Weel, +daddy," he said, "I doobt I daurna come near ye noo." + +"Come to her arms, my poor poy," faltered Duncan. "She'll pe sorry in +her sore heart for her poy. Nefer you pe minding, my son: you couldn't +help ta Cam'ell mother, and you'll pe her own poy however. Ochone! it +will pe a plot upon you aal your tays, my son, and she'll not can help +you, and it'll pe preaking her old heart." + +"Gien God thoucht the Cam'ells worth makin', daddy, I dinna see 'at I +hae ony richt to compleen 'at I cam' o' them." + +"She hopes you'll pe forgifing ta plind old man, however. She couldn't +see, or she would haf known at once petter." + +"I dinna ken what ye're efter noo, daddy," said Malcolm. + +"That she'll do you a creat wrong, and she'll be ferry sorry for it, +my son." + +"What wrang did ye ever du me, daddy?" + +"That she was let you crow up a Cam'ell, my poy. If she tid put know +ta paad blood was pe in you, she wouldn't pe tone you ta wrong as +pring you up." + +"That's a wrang no ill to forgi'e, daddy. But it's a pity ye didna +lat me lie, for maybe syne Mistress Catanach wad hae broucht me up +hersel', an' I micht hae come to something." + +"Ta duvil mhor (_great_) would pe in your heart and prain and poosom, +my son." + +"Weel, ye see what ye hae saved me frae." + +"Yes; put ta duvil will be to pay, for she couldn't safe you from ta +Cam'ell plood, my son. Malcolm, my poy," he added after a pause, and +with the solemnity of a mighty hate, "ta efil woman herself will pe a +Cam'ell--ta woman Catanach will pe a Cam'ell, and her nainsel' she'll +not know it pefore she'll be in ta ped with ta worstest Cam'ell tat +ever God made; and she pecks his pardon, for she'll not pelieve He +wass making ta Cam'ells." + +"Divna ye think God made me, daddy?" asked Malcolm. + +The old man thought for a little. "Tat will tepend on who was pe your +father, my son," he replied. "If he too will be a Cam'ell--ochone! +ochone! Put tere may pe some coot plood co into you--more as enough to +say God will pe make you, my son. Put don't pe asking, Malcolm--ton't +you'll pe asking." + +"What am I no to ask, daddy?" + +"Ton't pe asking who made you, who was ta father to you, my poy. She +would rather not pe knowing, for ta man might pe a Cam'ell poth. And +if she couldn't pe lofing you no more, my son, she would pe tie before +her time, and her tays would pe long in ta land under ta crass, my +son." + +But the remembrance of the sweet face whose cold loveliness he had +once kissed was enough to outweigh with Malcolm all the prejudices of +Duncan's instillation, and he was proud to take up even her shame. +To pass from Mrs. Stewart to her was to escape from the clutches of a +vampire demon to the arms of a sweet mother-angel. + +Deeply concerned for the newly-discovered misfortunes of the old man +to whom he was indebted for this world's life at least, he anxiously +sought to soothe him; but he had far more and far worse to torment him +than Malcolm even yet knew, and with burning cheeks and bloodshot +eyes he lay tossing from side to side, now uttering terrible curses +in Gaelic and now weeping bitterly. Malcolm took his loved pipes, and +with the gentlest notes he could draw from them tried to charm to rest +the ruffled waters of his spirit; but his efforts were all in vain, +and believing at length that he would be quieter without him, he went +to the House and to his own room. + +The door of the adjoining chamber stood open, and the long-forbidden +room lay exposed to any eye. Little did Malcolm think as he gazed +around it that it was the room in which he had first breathed the air +of the world; in which his mother had wept over her own false position +and his reported death; and from which he had been carried, by +Duncan's wicked wife, down the ruinous stair and away to the lip of +the sea, to find a home in the arms of the man whom he had just +left on his lonely couch torn between the conflicting emotions of a +gracious love for him and the frightful hate of her. + + + + +CHAPTER LXVII. + +FEET OF WOOL. + + +The next day, Miss Horn, punctual as Fate, presented herself at Lossie +House, and was shown at once into the marquis's study, as it was +called. When his lordship entered she took the lead the moment the +door was shut. "By this time, my lord, ye'll doobtless hae made up yer +min' to du what's richt?" she said. + +"That's what I have always wanted to do," returned the marquis. + +"Hm!" remarked Miss Horn as plainly as inarticulately. + +"In this affair," he supplemented; adding, "It's not always so easy to +tell what _is_ right." + +"It's no aye easy to luik for 't wi' baith yer een," said Miss Horn. + +"This woman Catanach--we must get her to give credible testimony. +Whatever the fact may be, we must have strong evidence. And there +comes the difficulty, that she has already made an altogether +different statement." + +"It gangs for naething, my lord. It was never made afore a justice o' +the peace." + +"I wish you would go to her and see how she is inclined." + +"Me gang to Bawbie Catanach!" exclaimed Miss Horn. "I wad as sune gang +an' kittle Sawtan's nose wi' the p'int o' 's tail. Na, na, my lord. +Gien onybody gang till her wi' my wull, it s' be a limb o' the law. I +s' hae nae cognostin' wi' her." + +"You would have no objection, however; to my seeing her, I +presume--just to let her know that we have an inkling of the truth?" +said the marquis. + +Now, all this was the merest talk, for of course Miss Horn could not +long remain in ignorance of the declaration her fury had, the night +previous, forced from Mrs. Catanach; but he must, he thought, put +her off and keep her quiet, if possible, until he had come to an +understanding with Malcolm, after which he would no doubt have his +trouble with her. + +"Ye can du as yer lordship likes," answered Miss Horn, "but I wadna +hae 't said o' me 'at I had ony dealin's wi' her. Wha kens but she +micht say ye tried to bribe her? There's naething she wad bogle at +gien she thoucht it worth her while. No 'at I 'm feart at her. Lat her +lee! I'm no sae blate but--Only dinna lippen till a word she says, my +lord." + +The marquis hesitated. "I wonder whether the real source of my +perplexity occurs to you, Miss Horn," he said at length. "You know I +have a daughter?" + +"Weel eneuch that, my lord." + +"By my second marriage." + +"Nae merridge ava', my lord." + +"True, if I confess to the first." + +"A' the same whether or no, my lord." + +"Then you see," the marquis went on, refusing offence, "what the +admission of your story would make of my daughter?" + +"That's plain eneuch, my lord." + +"Now, if I have read Malcolm right he has too much regard for +his--mistress--to put her in such a false position." + +"That is, my lord, ye wad hae yer lawfu' son beir the lawless name." + +"No, no: it need never come out what he is. I will provide for him--as +a gentleman, of course." + +"It canna be, my lord. Ye can du naething for him, wi' that face o' +his, but oot comes the trouth as to the father o' 'im; an' it wadna be +lang afore the tale was ekit oot wi' the name o' his mither--Mistress +Catanach wad see to that, gien 'twas only to spite me--an' I wunna hae +my Grizel ca'd what she is not for ony lord's dauchter i' the three +kynriks." + +"What _does_ it matter, now she's dead and gone?" said the marquis, +false to the dead in his love for the living. + +"Deid an' gane, my lord? What ca' ye deid an' gane? Maybe the great +anes o' the yerth get sic a forlethie (_surfeit_) o' grand'ur 'at +they're for nae mair, an' wad perish like the brute beast. For +onything I ken, they may hae their wuss, but for mysel', I wad warstle +to haud my sowl waukin' (_awake_) i' the verra article o' deith, for +the bare chance o' seein' my bonny Grizel again. It's a mercy I hae +nae feelin's," she added, arresting her handkerchief on its way to her +eyes, and refusing to acknowledge the single tear that ran down her +cheek. + +Plainly she was not like any of the women whose characters the marquis +had accepted as typical of womankind. + +"Then you won't leave the matter to her husband and son?" he said +reproachfully. + +"I tellt ye, my lord, I wad du naething but what I saw to be richt. +Lat this affair oot o' my han's I daurna. That laad ye micht work +to onything 'at made agane himsel'. He's jist like his puir mither +there." + +"If Miss Campbell _was_ his mother," said the marquis. + +"Miss Cam'ell!" cried Miss Horn. "I'll thank yer lordship to ca' her +by her ain, an' that's Lady Lossie." + +What of the something ruinous heart of the marquis was habitable was +occupied by his daughter, and had no accommodation at present either +for his dead wife or his living son. Once more he sat thinking in +silence for a while. "I'll make Malcolm a post-captain in the navy and +give you a thousand pounds," he said at length, hardly knowing that he +spoke. + +Miss Horn rose to her full height and stood like an angel of rebuke +before him. Not a word did she speak, only looked at him for a moment +and turned to leave the room. The marquis saw his danger, and striding +to the door stood with his back against it. + +"Think ye to scare _me_, my lord?" she asked with a scornful laugh. +"Gang an' scare the stane lion-beast at yer ha'-door. Haud oot o' the +gait an' lat me gang." + +"Not until I know what you are going to do," said the marquis very +seriously. + +"I hae naething mair to transac' wi' yer lordship. You an' me 's +strangers, my lord." + +"Tut! tut! I was but trying you." + +"An' gien I had ta'en the disgrace ye offert me, ye wad hae drawn +back?" + +"No, certainly." + +"Ye wasna tryin' me, then: ye was duin' yer best to corrup' me." + +"I'm no splitter of hairs." + +"My lord, it's nane but the corrup'ible wad seek to corrup'." + +The marquis gnawed a nail or two in silence. Miss Horn dragged an +easy-chair within a couple of yards of him. + +"We'll see wha tires o' this ghem first, my lord," she said as she +sank into its hospitable embrace. + +The marquis turned to lock the door, but there was no key in it. +Neither was there any chair within reach, and he was not fond of +standing. Clearly, his enemy had the advantage. + +"Hae ye h'ard o' puir Sandy Graham--hoo they're misguidin' him, my +lord?" she asked with composure. + +The marquis was first astounded, and then tickled by her assurance. +"No," he answered. + +"They hae turnt him oot o' hoose an' ha'--schuil, at least, an' hame," +she rejoined. "I may say they hae turnt him oot o' Scotlan', for what +presbytery wad hae him efter he had been fun' guilty o' no thinkin' +like ither fowk? Ye maun stan' his guid freen', my lord." + +"He shall be Malcolm's tutor," answered the marquis, not to be outdone +in coolness, "and go with him to Edinburgh--or Oxford, if he prefers +it." + +"Never yerl o' Colonsay had a better," said Miss Horn. + +"Softly, softly, ma'am," returned the marquis. "I did not say he +should go in that style." + +"He s' gang as my lord o' Colonsay or he s' no gang at _your_ expense, +my lord," said his antagonist. + +"Really, ma'am, one would think you were my grandmother, to hear you +order my affairs for me." + +"I wuss I war, my lord: I sud gar ye hear risson upo' baith sides o' +yer heid, I s' warran'." + +The marquis laughed. "Well, I can't stand here all day," he said, +impatiently swinging one leg. + +"I'm weel awaur o' that, my lord," answered Miss Horn, rearranging her +scanty skirt. + +"How long are you going to keep me, then?" + +"I wadna hae ye bide a meenute langer nor's agreeable to yersel'. But +_I_'m in nae hurry sae lang's ye're afore me. Ye're nae ill to luik +at, though ye maun hae been bonnier the day ye wan the hert o' my +Grizel." + +The marquis uttered an oath and left the door. Miss Horn sprang to it, +but there was the marquis again. "Miss Horn," he said, "I beg you will +give me another day to think of this." + +"Whaur's the use? A' the thinkin' i' the warl' canna alter a single +fac'. Ye maun do richt by my laddie o' yer ainsel', or I maun gar ye." + +"You would find a lawsuit heavy, Miss Horn." + +"An' ye wad fin' the scandal o' 't ill to bide, my lord. It wad come +sair upo' Miss--I kenna what name she has a richt till, my lord." + +The marquis uttered a frightful imprecation, left the door, and, +sitting down, hid his face in his hands. + +Miss Horn rose, but instead of securing her retreat, approached him +gently and stood by his side. "My lord," she said, "I canna thole to +see a man in tribble. Women's born till 't, an' they tak it an' are +thankfu'; but a man never gies in till 't, an' sae it comes harder +upo' him nor upo' them. Hear me, my lord: gien there be a man upo' +this earth wha wad shield a woman, that man's Ma'colm Colonsay." + +"If only she weren't his sister!" murmured the marquis. + +"An' jist bethink ye, my lord: wad it be onything less nor an +imposition to lat a man merry her ohn tellt him what she was?" + +"You insolent old woman!" cried the marquis, losing his temper, +discretion and manners all together. "Go and do your worst, and be +damned to you!" + +So saying, he left the room, and Miss Horn found her way out of the +house in a temper quite as fierce as his--in character, however, +entirely different, inasmuch as it was righteous. + +At that very moment Malcolm was in search of his master, and seeing +the back of him disappear in the library, to which he had gone in a +half-blind rage, he followed him. "My lord!" he said. + +"What do you want?" returned his master in a rage. For some time he +had been hauling on the curb-rein, which had fretted his temper the +more, and when he let go the devil ran away with him. + +"I thoucht yer lordship wad like to see an auld stair I cam upo' the +ither day, 'at gangs frae the wizard's chaumer--" + +"Go to hell with your damned tomfoolery!" said the marquis. "If ever +you mention that cursed hole again I'll kick you out of the house." + +Malcolm's eyes flashed and a fierce answer rose to his lips, but he +had seen that his master was in trouble, and sympathy supplanted rage. +He turned and left the room in silence. + +Lord Lossie paced up and down the library for a whole hour--a +long time for him to be in one mood. The mood changed color pretty +frequently during the hour, however, and by degrees his wrath +assuaged. But at the end of it he knew no more what he was going to do +than when he left Miss Horn in the study. Then came the gnawing of his +usual ennui and restlessness: he must find something to do. + +The thing he always thought of first was a ride, but the only animal +of horse-kind about the place which he liked was the bay mare, and her +he had lamed. He would go and see what the rascal had come bothering +about--alone, though, for he could not endure the sight of the +fisher-fellow, damn him! + +In a few minutes he stood in the wizard's chamber, and glanced around +it with a feeling of discomfort rather than sorrow--of annoyance at +the trouble of which it had been for him both fountain and storehouse, +rather than regret for the agony and contempt which his selfishness +had brought upon the woman he loved: then spying the door in the +farthest corner, he made for it, and in a moment more, his curiosity +now thoroughly roused, was slowly gyrating down the steps of the old +screw-stair. + +But Malcolm had gone to his own room, and, hearing some one in the +next, half suspected who it was, and went in. Seeing the closet-door +open, he hurried to the stair, and shouted, "My lord! my lord! or +whaever ye are! tak care hoo ye gang or ye'll get a terrible fa'." + +Down a single yard the stair was quite dark, and he dared not follow +fast for fear of himself falling and occasioning the accident he +feared. As he descended he kept repeating his warnings, but either his +master did not hear or heeded too little, for presently Malcolm heard +a rush, a dull fall and a groan. Hurrying as fast as he dared with +the risk of falling upon him, he found the marquis lying amongst the +stones in the ground entrance, apparently unable to move, and white +with pain. Presently, however, he got up, swore a good deal and limped +swearing into the house. + +The doctor, who was sent for instantly, pronounced the knee-cap +injured, and applied leeches. Inflammation set in, and another doctor +and surgeon were sent for from Aberdeen. They came, applied poultices, +and again leeches, and enjoined the strictest repose. The pain was +severe, but to one of the marquis's temperament the enforced quiet was +worse. + + + + +CHAPTER LXVIII. + +HANDS OF IRON. + + +The marquis was loved by his domestics, and his accident, with its +consequences, although none more serious were anticipated, cast a +gloom over Lossie House. Far apart as was his chamber from all the +centres of domestic life, the pulses of his suffering beat as it were +through the house, and the servants moved with hushed voice and gentle +footfall. + +Outside, the course of events waited upon his recovery, for Miss Horn, +was too generous not to delay proceedings while her adversary was +ill. Besides, what she most of all desired was the marquis's free +acknowledgment of his son; and after such a time of suffering and +constrained reflection as he was now passing through he could hardly +fail, she thought, to be more inclined to what was just and fair. + +Malcolm had of course hastened to the schoolmaster with the joy of his +deliverance from Mrs. Stewart, but Mr. Graham had not acquainted him +with the discovery Miss Horn had made, or her belief concerning his +large interest therein, to which Malcolm's report of the wrath-born +declaration of Mrs. Catanach had now supplied the only testimony +wanting, for the right of disclosure was Miss Horn's. To her he had +carried Malcolm's narrative of late events, tenfold strengthening +her position; but she was anxious in her turn that the revelation +concerning his birth should come to him from his father. Hence, +Malcolm continued in ignorance of the strange dawn that had begun to +break on the darkness of his origin. + +Miss Horn had told Mr. Graham what the marquis had said about the +tutorship, but the schoolmaster only shook his head with a smile, and +went on with his preparations for departure. + +The hours went by, the days lengthened into weeks, and the marquis's +condition did not improve. He had never known sickness and pain +before, and like most of the children of this world counted them the +greatest of evils; nor was there any sign of their having as yet begun +to open his eyes to what those who have seen them call truths--those +who have never even boded their presence count absurdities. + +More and more, however, he desired the attendance of Malcolm, who was +consequently a great deal about him, serving with a love to account +for which those who knew his nature would not have found it necessary +to fall back on the instinct of the relation between them. The marquis +had soon satisfied himself that that relation was as yet unknown to +him, and was all the better pleased with his devotion and tenderness. + +The inflammation continued, increased, spread, and at length the +doctors determined to amputate. But the marquis was absolutely +horrified at the idea--shrank from it with invincible repugnance. +The moment the first dawn of comprehension vaguely illuminated +their periphrastic approaches he blazed out in a fury, cursed them +frightfully, called them all the contemptuous names in his rather +limited vocabulary, and swore he would see them--uncomfortable first. + +"We fear mortification, my lord," said the physician calmly. + +"So do I. Keep it off," returned the marquis. + +"We fear we cannot, my lord." It had, in fact, already commenced. + +"Let it mortify, then, and be damned," said his lordship. + +"I trust, my lord, you will reconsider it," said the surgeon. "We +should not have dreamed of suggesting a measure of such severity had +we not had reason to dread that the further prosecution of gentler +means would but lessen your lordship's chance of recovery." + +"You mean, then, that my life is in danger?" + +"We fear," said the physician, "that the amputation proposed is the +only thing that can save it." + +"What a brace of blasted bunglers you are!" cried the marquis, and, +turning away his face, lay silent. + +The two men looked at each other and said nothing. + +Malcolm was by, and a pang shot to his heart at the verdict. The men +retired to consult. Malcolm approached the bed. "My lord!" he said +gently. + +No reply came. + +"Dinna lea 's oor lanes, my lord--no yet," Malcolm persisted. "What's +to come o' my leddy?" + +The marquis gave a gasp. Still he made no reply. + +"She has naebody, ye ken, my lord, 'at ye wad like to lippen her wi'." + +"You must take care of her when I am gone, Malcolm," murmured the +marquis; and his voice was now gentle with sadness and broken with +misery. + +"Me, my lord!" returned Malcolm. "Wha wad min' me? An' what cud I du +wi' her? I cudna even hand her ohn wat her feet. Her leddy's maid cud +du mair wi' her, though I wad lay doon my life for her, as I tauld ye, +my lord; an' she kens 't weel eneuch." + +Silence followed. Both men were thinking. + +"Gie me a richt, my lord, an' I'll du my best," said Malcolm, at +length breaking the silence. + +"What do you mean?" growled the marquis, whose mood had altered. + +"Gie me a legal richt, my lord, an' see gien I dinna." + +"See what?" + +"See gien I dinna luik weel efter my leddy." + +"How am I to see? I shall be dead and damned." + +"Please God, my lord, ye'll be alive an' weel--in a better place, if +no here to luik efter my leddy yersel'." + +"Oh, I dare say," muttered the marquis. + +"But ye'll hearken to the doctors, my lord," Malcolm went on, "an' no +dee wantin' time to consider o' 't." + +"Yes, yes: to-morrow I'll have another talk with them. We'll see about +it. There's time enough yet. They're all coxcombs, every one of them. +They never give a patient the least credit for common sense." + +"I dinna ken, my lord," said Malcolm doubtfully. + +After a few minutes' silence, during which Malcolm thought he had +fallen asleep, the marquis resumed abruptly. "What do you mean by +giving you a legal right?" he said. + +"There's some w'y o' makin' ae body guairdian till anither, sae 'at +the law 'll uphaud him--isna there, my lord?" + +"Yes, surely. Well! Rather odd--wouldn't it be?--a young fisher-lad +guardian to a marchioness! Eh? They say there's nothing new under the +sun, but that sounds rather like it, I think." + +Malcolm was overjoyed to hear him speak with something like his old +manner. He felt he could stand any amount of chaff from him now, and +so the proposition he had made in seriousness he went on to defend in +the hope of giving amusement, yet with a secret wild delight in the +dream of such full devotion to the service of Lady Florimel. + +"It wad soon' queer eneuch, my lord, nae doobt, but fowk maunna min' +the soon' o' a thing gien 't be a' straucht an' fair, an' strong +eneuch to stan'. They cudna lauch me oot o' my richts, be they 'at +they likit--Lady Bellair or ony o' them--na, nor jaw me oot o' them +aither." + +"They might do a good deal to render those rights of little use," said +the marquis. + +"That wad come till a trial o' brains, my lord," returned Malcolm: +"an' ye dinna think I wadna hae the wit to speir advice; an', what's +mair, to ken whan it was guid, an' tak it. There's lawyers, my lord." + +"And their expenses?" + +"Ye cud lea' sae muckle to be waured (_spent_) upo' the cairryin' oot +o' yer lordship's wull." + +"Who would see that you applied it properly?" + +"My ain conscience, my lord, or Mr. Graham gien ye likit." + +"And how would you live yourself?" + +"Ow! lea' ye that to me, my lord. Only dinna imagine I wad be behauden +to yer lordship. I houp I hae mair pride nor that. Ilka poun'-not', +shillin' an' bawbee sud be laid oot for _her_, an' what was left +hainet (_saved_) for her." + +"By Jove! it's a daring proposal!" said the marquis; and, which seemed +strange to Malcolm, not a single thread of ridicule ran through the +tone in which he made the remark. + +The next day came, but brought neither strength of body nor of mind +with it. Again his professional attendants besought him, and he heard +them more quietly, but rejected their proposition as positively as +before. In a day or two he ceased to oppose it, but would not hear of +preparation. Hour glided into hour, and days had gathered to a week, +when they assailed him with a solemn and last appeal. + +"Nonsense!" answered the marquis. "My leg is getting better. I feel no +pain--in fact, nothing but a little faintness. Your damned medicines, +I haven't a doubt." + +"You are in the greatest danger, my lord. It is all but too late even +now." + +"To-morrow, then, if it must be. To-day I could not endure to have my +hair cut, positively; and as to having my leg off--pooh! the thing's +preposterous." + +He turned white and shuddered, for all the nonchalance of his speech. + +When to-morrow came there was not a surgeon in the land who would have +taken his leg off. He looked in their faces, and seemed for the first +time convinced of the necessity of the measure. + +"You may do as you please," he said: "I am ready." + +"Not to-day, my lord," replied the doctor--"your lordship is not equal +to it to-day." + +"I understand," said the marquis, and paled frightfully and turned his +head aside. + +When Mrs. Courthope suggested that Lady Florimel should be sent for, +he flew into a frightful rage, and spoke as it is to be hoped he had +never spoken to a woman before. She took it with perfect gentleness, +but could not repress a tear. The marquis saw it, and his heart was +touched. "You mustn't mind a dying man's temper," he said. + +"It's not for myself, my lord," she answered. + +"I know: you think I'm not fit to die; and, damn it! you are right. +Never one was less fit for heaven or less willing to go to hell." + +"Wouldn't you like to see a clergyman, my lord?" she suggested, +sobbing. + +He was on the point of breaking out into a still worse passion, but +controlled himself. "A clergyman!" he cried: "I would as soon see the +undertaker. What could he do but tell me I was going to be damned--a +fact I know better than he can? That is, if it's not all an invention +of the cloth, as, in my soul, I believe it is. I've said so any time +these forty years." + +"Oh, my lord! my lord! do not fling away your last hope." + +"You imagine me to have a chance, then? Good soul! you don't know any +better." + +"The Lord is merciful." + +The marquis laughed--that is, he tried, failed, and grinned. + +"Mr. Cairns is in the dining-room, my lord." + +"Bah! A low pettifogger, with the soul of a bullock. Don't let me hear +the fellow's name. I've been bad enough, God knows, but I haven't sunk +to the level of _his_ help yet. If he's God Almighty's factor, and the +saw holds, 'Like master, like man,' well, I would rather have nothing +to do with either." + +"That is, if you had the choice, my lord," said Mrs. Courthope, her +temper yielding somewhat, though in truth his speech was not half so +irreverent as it seemed to her. + +"Tell him to go to hell. No, don't: set him down to a bottle of port +and a great sponge-cake, and you needn't tell him to go to heaven, +for he'll be there already. Why, Mrs. Courthope, the fellow isn't a +gentleman. And yet all he cares for the cloth is that he thinks it +makes a gentleman of him--as if anything in heaven, earth or hell +could work that miracle!" + +In the middle of the night, as Malcolm sat by his bed, thinking +him asleep, the marquis spoke suddenly. "You must go to Aberdeen +to-morrow, Malcolm," he said. + +"Verra weel, my lord." + +"And bring Mr. Glennie, the lawyer, back with you." + +"Yes, my lord." + +"Go to bed, then." + +"I wad raither bide, my lord. I cudna sleep a wink for wantin' to be +back aside ye." + +The marquis yielded, and Malcolm sat by him all the night through. He +tossed about, would doze off and murmur strangely, then wake up and +ask for brandy and water, yet be content with the lemonade Malcolm +gave him. + +Next day he quarreled with every word that Mrs. Courthope uttered, +kept forgetting he had sent Malcolm away, and was continually wanting +him. His fits of pain were more severe, alternated with drowsiness, +which deepened at times to stupor. + +It was late before Malcolm returned. He went instantly to his bedside. + +"Is Mr. Glennie with you?" asked his master feebly. + +"Yes, my lord." + +"Tell him to come here at once." + +When Malcolm returned with the lawyer the marquis directed him to +place a table and chair by the bedside, light four candles, provide +everything necessary for writing and go to bed. + + + + +CHAPTER LXIX. + +THE MARQUIS AND THE SCHOOLMASTER. + + +Before Malcolm was awake his lordship had sent for him. When he +re-entered the sick chamber Mr. Glennie had vanished, the table had +been removed, and, instead of the radiance of the wax-lights, the cold +gleam of a vapor-dimmed sun, with its sickly blue-white reflex from +the widespread snow, filled the room. The marquis looked ghastly, but +was sipping chocolate with a spoon. + +"What w'y are ye the day, my lord?" asked Malcolm. + +"Nearly well," he answered; "but those cursed carrion-crows are set +upon killing me--damn their souls!" + +"We'll hae Leddy Florimel sweirin' awfu' gien ye gang on that gait, my +lord," said Malcolm. + +The marquis laughed feebly. + +"An' what's mair," Malcolm continued, "I doobt they're some partic'lar +aboot the turn o' their phrases up yonner, my lord." + +The marquis looked at him keenly. "You don't anticipate that +inconvenience for me?" he said. "I'm pretty sure to have my billet +where they're not so precise." + +"Dinna brak my hert, my lord," cried Malcolm, the tears rushing to his +eyes. + +"I should be sorry to hurt you, Malcalm," rejoined the marquis gently, +almost tenderly. "I won't go there if I can help it--I shouldn't like +to break any more hearts--but how the devil am I to keep out of it? +Besides, there are people up there I don't want to meet: I have no +fancy for being made ashamed of myself. The fact is, I'm not fit for +such company, and I don't believe there is any such place. But if +there be, I trust in God there isn't any other, or it will go badly +with your poor master, Malcolm. It doesn't look _like_ true--now does +it? Only such a multitude of things I thought I had done with for ever +keep coming up and grinning at me. It nearly drives me mad, Malcolm; +and I would fain die like a gentleman, with a cool bow and a sharp +face-about." + +"Wadna ye hae a word wi' somebody 'at kens, my lord?" said Malcolm, +scarcely able to reply. + +"No," answered the marquis fiercely. "That Cairns is a fool." + +"He's a' that, an' mair, my lord. I didna mean _him_." + +"They're all fools together." + +"Ow, na, my lord. There's a heap o' them no muckle better, it may be; +but there's guid men an' true amang them, or the Kirk wad hae been wi' +Sodom and Gomorrah by this time. But it's no a minister I wad hae yer +lordship confar wi'." + +"Who, then? Mrs. Courthope, eh?" + +"Ow na, my lord--no Mistress Courthoup. She's a guid body, but she +wadna believe her ain een gien onybody ca'd a minister said contrar' +to them." + +"Who the devil do you mean, then?" + +"Nae deevil, but an honest man 'at's been his warst enemy sae lang 's +I hae kent him--Maister Graham, the schuil-maister." + +"Pooh!" said the marquis with a puff. "I'm too old to go to school." + +"I dinna ken the man 'at isna a bairn till _him_, my lord." + +"In Greek and Latin?" + +"I' richteousness an' trouth, my lord--in what's been an' what is to +be." + +"What! has he the second sight, like the piper?" + +"He _has_ the second sicht, my lord, but ane 'at gangs a sicht farther +nor my auld daddy's." + +"He could tell me, then, what's going to become of me?" + +"As weel 's ony man, my lord." + +"That's not saying much, I fear." + +"Maybe mair nor ye think, my lord." + +"Well, take him my compliments and tell him I should like to see him," +said the marquis after a minute's silence. + +"He'll come direckly, my lord." + +"Of course he will," said the marquis. + +"Jist as readily, my lord, as he wad gang to ony tramp 'at sent for +'im at sic a time," returned Malcolm, who did not relish either the +remark or its tone. + +"What do you mean by that? _You_ don't think it such a serious affair, +do you?" + +"My lord, ye haena a chance." + +The marquis was dumb. He had actually begun once more to buoy himself +up with earthly hopes. + +Dreading a recall of his commission, Malcolm slipped from the room, +sent Mrs. Courthope to take his place, and sped to the schoolmaster. +The moment Mr. Graham heard the marquis's message he rose without +a word and led the way from the cottage. Hardly a sentence passed +between them as they went, for they were on a solemn errand. + +"Mr. Graham's here, my lord," said Malcolm. + +"Where? Not in the room?" returned the marquis. + +"Waitin' at the door, my lord." + +"Bah! You needn't have been so ready. Have you told the sexton to get +a new spade? But you may let him in; and leave him alone with me." + +Mr. Graham walked gently up to the bedside. + +"Sit down, sir," said the marquis courteously, pleased with the calm, +self-possessed, unobtrusive bearing of the man. "They tell me I'm +dying, Mr. Graham." + +"I'm sorry it seems to trouble you, my lord." + +"What! wouldn't it trouble you, then?" + +"I don't think so, my lord." + +"Ah! you're one of the elect, no doubt?" + +"That's a thing I never did think about, my lord." + +"What do you think about, then?" + +"About God." + +"And when you die you'll go straight to heaven, of course?" + +"I don't know, my lord. That's another thing I never trouble my head +about." + +"Ah! you're like me, then. _I_ don't care much about going to heaven. +What do you care about?" + +"The will of God. I hope your lordship will say the same." + +"No I won't: I want my own will." + +"Well, that is to be had, my lord." + +"How?" + +"By taking his for yours as the better of the two, which it must be +every way." + +"That's all moonshine." + +"It _is_ light, my lord." + +"Well, I don't mind confessing, if I am to die, I should prefer heaven +to the other place, but I trust I have no chance of either. Do you now +honestly believe there are two such places?" + +"I don't know, my lord." + +"You don't know? And you come here to comfort a dying man!" + +"Your lordship must first tell me what you mean by 'two _such_ +places.' And as to comfort, going by my notions, I cannot tell which +you would be more or less comfortable in; and that, I presume, would +be the main point with your lordship." + +"And what, pray, sir, would be the main point with you?" + +"To get nearer to God." + +"Well, I can't say _I_ want to get nearer to God. It's little he's +ever done for me." + +"It's a good deal he has tried to do for you, my lord." + +"Well, who interfered? Who stood in his way, then?" + +"Yourself, my lord." + +"I wasn't aware of it. When did he ever try to do anything for me and +I stood in his way?" + +"When he gave you one of the loveliest of women, my lord," said Mr. +Graham with solemn, faltering voice, "and you left her to die in +neglect and her child to be brought up by strangers." + +The marquis gave a cry. The unexpected answer had roused the +slowly-gnawing death and made it bite deeper. + +"What have _you_ to do," he almost screamed, "with my affairs? It was +for _me_ to introduce what I chose of them. You presume." + +"Pardon me, my lord: you led me to what I was bound to say. Shall I +leave you, my lord?" + +The marquis made no answer. "God knows I loved her," he said after a +while with a sigh. + +"You loved her, my lord?" + +"I did, by God!" + +"Love a woman like that and come to this?" + +"Come to this? We must all come to this, I fancy, sooner or later. +Come to what, in the name of Beelzebub?" + +"That, having loved a woman like her, you are content to lose her. In +the name of God, have you no desire to see her again?" + +"It would be an awkward meeting," said the marquis. + +His was an old love, alas! He had not been capable of the sort that +defies change. It had faded from him until it seemed one of the things +that are not. Although his being had once glowed in its light, he +could now speak of a meeting as awkward. + +"Because you wronged her?" suggested the schoolmaster. + +"Because they lied to me, by God!" + +"Which they dared not have done had you not lied to them first." + +"Sir!" shouted the marquis, with all the voice he had left.--"O God, +have mercy! I _cannot_ punish the scoundrel." + +"The scoundrel is the man who lies, my lord." + +"Were I anywhere else--" + +"There would be no good in telling you the truth, my lord. You showed +her to the world as a woman over whom you had prevailed, and not as +the honest wife she was. What _kind_ of a lie was that, my lord? Not a +white one, surely?" + +"You are a damned coward to speak so to a man who cannot even turn on +his side to curse you for a base hound. You would not dare it but that +you know I cannot defend myself." + +"You are right, my lord: your conduct is indefensible." + +"By Heaven! if I could but get this cursed leg under me, I would throw +you out of the window." + +"I shall go by the door, my lord. While you hold by your sins, your +sins will hold by you. If you should want me again I shall be at your +lordship's command." + +He rose and left the room, but had not reached his cottage before +Malcolm overtook him with a second message from his master. He turned +at once, saying only, "I expected it." + +"Mr. Graham," said the marquis, looking ghastly, "you must have +patience with a dying man. I was very rude to you, but I was in +horrible pain." + +"Don't mention it, my lord. It would be a poor friendship that gave +way for a rough word." + +"How can you call yourself my friend?" + +"I should be your friend, my lord, if it were only for your wife's +sake. She died loving you. I want to send you to her, my lord. You +will allow that, as a gentleman, you at least owe her an apology." + +"By Jove, you are right, sir! Then you really and positively believe +in the place they call heaven?" + +"My lord, I believe that those who open their hearts to the truth +shall see the light on their friends' faces again, and be able to set +right what was wrong between them." + +"It's a week too late to talk of setting right." + +"Go and tell her you are sorry, my lord--that will be enough for her." + +"Ah! but there's more than her concerned." + +"You are right, my lord. There is another--One who cannot be satisfied +that the fairest works of his hands, or rather the loveliest children +of his heart, should be treated as you have treated women." + +"But the Deity you talk of--" + +"I beg your pardon, my lord: I talked of no deity. I talked of a +living Love that gave us birth and calls us his children. Your deity I +know nothing of." + +"Call Him what you please: _He_ won't be put off so easily." + +"He won't be put off, one jot or one tittle. He will forgive anything, +but He will pass nothing. Will your wife forgive you?" + +"She will, when I explain." + +"Then why should you think the forgiveness of God, which created her +forgiveness, should be less?" + +Whether the marquis could grasp the reasoning may be doubtful. + +"Do you really suppose God cares whether a man comes to good or ill?" + +"If He did not, He could not be good Himself." + +"Then you don't think a good God would care to punish poor wretches +like us?" + +"Your lordship has not been in the habit of regarding himself as +a poor wretch. And, remember, you can't call a child a poor wretch +without insulting the father of it." + +"That's quite another thing." + +"But on the wrong side for your argument, seeing the relation between +God and the poorest creature is infinitely closer than that between +any father and his child." + +"Then He can't be so hard on him as the parsons say." + +"He will give him absolute justice, which is the only good thing. He +will spare nothing to bring his children back to Himself, their sole +well-being. What would you do, my lord, if you saw your son strike a +woman?" + +"Knock him down and horsewhip him." + +It was Mr. Graham who broke the silence that followed: "Are you +satisfied with yourself, my lord?" + +"No, by God!" + +"You would like to be better?" + +"I would." + +"Then you are of the same mind with God." + +"Yes, but I'm not a fool. It won't do to say I should like to be. I +must be it, and that's not so easy. It's damned hard to be good. I +would have a fight for it, but there's no time. How is a poor devil to +get out of such an infernal scrape?" + +"Keep the commandments." + +"That's it, of course; but there's no time, I tell you--no time; at +least, so those cursed doctors will keep telling me." + +"If there were but time to draw another breath, there would be time to +begin." + +"How am I to begin? Which am I to begin with?" + +"There is one commandment which includes all the rest." + +"Which is that?" + +"To believe in the Lord Jesus Christ." + +"That's cant." + +"After thirty years' trial of it, it is to me the essence of wisdom. +It has given me a peace which makes life or death all but indifferent +to me, though I would choose the latter." + +"What am I to believe about Him, then?" + +"You are to believe _in_ Him, not about Him." + +"I don't understand." + +"He is our Lord and Master, Elder Brother, King, Saviour, the divine +Man, the human God: to believe in Him is to give ourselves up to Him +in obedience--to search out his will and do it." + +"But there's no time, I tell you again," the marquis almost shrieked. + +"And I tell you there is all eternity to do it in. Take Him for your +master, and He will demand nothing of you which you are not able to +perform. This is the open door to bliss. With your last breath you can +cry to Him, and He will hear you as He heard the thief on the cross, +who cried to Him dying beside him: 'Lord, remember me when Thou comest +into Thy kingdom.'--'To-day shalt thou be with me in paradise.' It +makes my heart swell to think of it, my lord. No cross-questioning of +the poor fellow, no preaching to him. He just took him with Him where +He was going, to make a man of him." + +"Well, you know something of my history: what would you have me do +now?--at once, I mean. What would the Person you are speaking of have +me do?" + +"That is not for me to say, my lord." + +"You could give me a hint." + +"No. God is telling you Himself. For me to presume to tell you would +be to interfere with Him. What He would have a man do He lets him know +in his mind." + +"But what if I had not made up my mind before the last came?" + +"Then I fear He would say to you, 'Depart from me, thou worker of +iniquity.'" + +"That would be hard when another minute might have done it." + +"If another minute would have done it, you would have had it." + +A paroxysm of pain followed, during which Mr. Graham silently left +him. + + + + +CHAPTER LXX. + +END OR BEGINNING? + + +When the fit was over and he found Mr. Graham was gone, he asked +Malcolm, who had resumed his watch, how long it would take Lady +Florimel to come from Edinburgh. + +"Mr. Crathie left wi' fower horses frae the Lossie Airms last nicht, +my lord," said Malcolm; "but the ro'ds are ill, an' she winna be here +afore some time the morn." + +The marquis stared aghast: they had sent for her without his orders. +"What _shall_ I do?" he murmured. "If once I look in her eyes, I shall +be damned.--Malcolm!" + +"Yes, my lord." + +"Is there a lawyer in Portlossie?" + +"Yes, my lord: there's auld Maister Carmichael." + +"He won't do: he was my brother's rascal. Is there no one besides?" + +"No in Portlossie, my lord. There can be nane nearer than Duff Harbor, +I doobt." + +"Take the chariot and bring him here directly. Tell them to put four +horses to: Stokes can ride one." + +"I'll ride the ither, my lord." + +"You'll do nothing of the kind: you're not used to the pole." + +"I can tak the leader, my lord." + +"I tell you you're to do nothing of the kind," cried the marquis +angrily. "You're to ride inside, and bring Mr.--what's his name?--back +with you." + +"Soutar, my lord, gien ye please." + +"Be off, then. Don't wait to feed. The brutes have been eating all +day, and they can eat all night. You must have him here in an hour." + +In an hour and a quarter Miss Horn's friend stood by the marquis's +bedside, Malcolm was dismissed, but was presently summoned again to +receive more orders. + +Fresh horses were put to the chariot, and he had to set out once +more--this time to fetch a justice of the peace, a neighbor laird. The +distance was greater than to Duff Harbor; the roads were worse; the +north wind, rising as they went, blew against them as they returned, +increasing to a violent gale; and it was late before they reached +Lossie House. + +When Malcolm entered he found the marquis alone. + +"Is Morrison here at last?" he cried, in a feeble, irritated voice. + +"Yes, my lord." + +"What the devil kept you so long? The bay mare would have carried me +there and back in an hour and a half." + +"The roads war verra heavy, my lord. An' jist hear till the win'." + +The marquis listened a moment, and a frightened expression grew over +his thin, pale, anxious face. "You don't know what depends on it," he +said, "or you would have driven better. Where is Mr. Soutar?" + +"I dinna ken, my lord. I'm only jist come, an' I've seen naebody." + +"Go and tell Mrs. Courthope I want Soutar. You'll find her crying +somewhere--the old chicken!--because I swore at her. What harm could +that do the old goose?" + +"It'll be mair for love o' yer lordship than fricht at the sweirin', +my lord." + +"You think so? Why should _she_ care? Go and tell her I'm sorry. +But really she ought to be used to me by this time. Tell her to send +Soutar directly." + +Mr. Soutar was not to be found, the fact being that he had gone to see +Miss Horn. The marquis flew into an awful rage, and began to curse and +swear frightfully. + +"My lord! my lord!" said Malcolm, "for God's sake, dinna gang on that +gait. He canna like to hear that kin' o' speech; an' frae ane o' his +ain' tu!" + +The marquis stopped, aghast at his presumption and choking with rage, +but Malcolm's eyes filled with tears, and, instead of breaking out +again, his master turned his head away and was silent. + +Mr. Soutar came. + +"Fetch Morrison," said the marquis, "and go to bed." + +The wind howled terribly as Malcolm ascended the stairs and half felt +his way, for he had no candle, through the long passages leading to +his room. As he entered the last a huge vague form came down upon +him like a deeper darkness through the dark. Instinctively he stepped +aside. It passed noiselessly, with a long stride, and not even a +rustle of its garments--at least Malcolm heard nothing but the roar +of the wind. He turned and followed it. On and on it went, down the +stair, through a corridor, down the great stone turnpike stair, and +through passage after passage. When it came into the more frequented +and half-lighted thoroughfares of the house it showed as a large +figure in a long cloak, indistinct in outline. + +It turned a corner close by the marquis's room. But when Malcolm, +close at its heels, turned also, he saw nothing but a vacant lobby, +the doors around which were all shut. One after another he quickly +opened them, all except the marquis's, but nothing was to be seen. +The conclusion was that it had entered the marquis's room. He must +not disturb the conclave in the sick chamber with what might be but "a +false creation proceeding from the heat-oppressed brain," and turned +back to his own room, where he threw himself on his bed and fell +asleep. + +About twelve Mrs. Courthope called him: his master was worse, and +wanted to see him. + +The midnight was dark and still, for the wind had ceased. But a hush +and a cloud seemed gathering in the stillness and darkness, and with +them came the sense of a solemn celebration, as if the gloom were +canopy as well as pall--black, but bordered and hearted with purple +and gold; and the terrible stillness seemed to tremble as with the +inaudible tones of a great organ at the close or commencement of some +mighty symphony. + +With beating heart he walked softly toward the room where, as on an +altar, lay the vanishing form of his master, like the fuel in whose +dying flame was offered the late and ill-nurtured sacrifice of his +spirit. + +As he went through the last corridor leading thither, Mrs. Catanach, +type and embodiment of the horrors that haunt the dignity of death, +came walking toward him like one at home, her great round body lighty +upborne on her soft foot. It was no time to challenge her presence, +and yielding her the half of the narrow way he passed without a +greeting. She dropped him a courtesy with an up-look and again a +veiling of her wicked eyes. + +The marquis would not have the doctors come near him, and when Malcolm +entered there was no one in the room but Mrs. Courthope. The shadow +had crept far along the dial. His face had grown ghastly, the skin had +sunk to the bones, and his eyes stood out as if from much staring into +the dark. They rested very mournfully on Malcolm for a few moments, +and then closed softly. + +"Is she come yet?" he murmured, opening them wide with sudden stare. + +"No, my lord." + +The lids fell again, softly, slowly. + +"Be good to her, Malcolm," he murmured. + +"I wull, my lord," said Malcolm solemnly. + +Then the eyes opened and looked at him: something grew in them, a +light as of love, and drew up after it a tear; but the lips said +nothing. The eyelids fell again, and in a minute more Malcolm knew by +his breathing that he slept. + +The slow night waned. He woke sometimes, but soon dozed off again. +The two watched by him till the dawn. It brought a still gray morning, +without a breath of wind and warm for the season. The marquis appeared +a little revived, but was hardly able to speak. Mostly by signs he +made Malcolm understand that he wanted Mr. Graham, but that some one +else must go for him. Mrs. Courthope went. + +As soon as she was out of the room he lifted his hand with effort, +laid feeble hold on Malcolm's jacket, and, drawing him down, kissed +him on the forehead. Malcolm burst into tears and sank weeping by the +bedside. + +Mr. Graham, entering a little after, and seeing Malcolm on his knees, +knelt also and broke into a prayer. + +"O blessed Father!" he said, "who knowest this thing, so strange to +us, which we call death, breathe more life into the heart of Thy dying +son, that in the power of life he may front death. O Lord Christ! who +diedst Thyself, and in Thyself knowest it all, heal this man in his +sore need--heal him with strength to die." + +A faint _Amen_ came from the marquis. + +"Thou didst send him into the world: help him out of it. O God! +we belong to Thee utterly. We dying men are Thy children, O living +Father! Thou art such a father that Thou takest our sins from us and +throwest them behind Thy back. Thou cleansest our souls as Thy Son did +wash our feet. We hold our hearts up to Thee: make them what they must +be, O Love! O Life of men! O Heart of hearts! Give Thy dying child +courage and hope and peace--the peace of Him who overcame all the +terrors of humanity, even death itself, and liveth for evermore, +sitting at Thy right hand, our God-brother, blessed to all ages. +Amen." + +"Amen!" murmured the marquis, and, slowly lifting his hand from the +coverlid, he laid it on the head of Malcolm, who did not know it was +the hand of his father blessing him ere he died. + +"Be good to her," said the marquis once more. + +But Malcolm could not answer for weeping, and the marquis was not +satisfied. Gathering all his force, he said again, "Be good to her." + +"I wull, I wull," burst from Malcolm in sobs; and he wailed aloud. + +The day wore on, and the afternoon came. Still Lady Florimel had not +arrived, and still the marquis lingered. + +As the gloom of the twilight was deepening into the early darkness of +the winter night he opened wide his eyes, and was evidently listening. +Malcolm could hear nothing, but the light in his master's face grew +and the strain of his listening diminished. At length Malcolm became +aware of the sound of wheels, which came rapidly nearer, till at last +the carriage swung up to the hall-door. A moment, and Lady Florimel +was flitting across the room. + +"Papa! papa!" she cried, and, throwing her arm over him, laid her +cheek to his. + +The marquis could not return her embrace: he could only receive her +into the depths of his shining, tearful eyes. + +"Flory!" he murmured, "I'm going away. I'm going--I've got--to make +an--apology. Malcolm, be good--" + +The sentence remained unfinished. The light paled from his +countenance: he had to carry it with him. He was dead. + +Lady Florimel gave a loud cry. Mrs. Courthope ran to her assistance. +"My lady's in a dead faint," she whispered, and left the room to get +help. + +Malcolm lifted Lady Florimel in his great arms and bore her tenderly +to her own apartment. There he left her to the care of her women and +returned to the chamber of death. + +Meantime, Mr. Graham and Mr. Soutar had come. When Malcolm re-entered +the schoolmaster took him kindly by the arm and said, "Malcolm, there +can be neither place nor moment fitter for the solemn communication +I am commissioned to make to you: I have, as in the presence of your +dead father, to inform you that you are now marquis of Lossie; and +God forbid you should be less worthy as marquis than you have been as +fisherman!" + +Malcolm stood stupefied. For a while he seemed to himself to be +turning over in his mind something he had heard read from a book, with +a nebulous notion of being somehow concerned in it. The thought of his +father cleared his brain. He ran to the dead body, kissed its lips as +he had once kissed the forehead of another, and falling on his knees +wept, he knew not for what. Presently, however, he recovered himself, +rose, and, rejoining the two men, said, "Gentlemen, hoo mony kens this +turn o' things?" + +"None but Mr. Morrison, Mrs. Catanach and ourselves--so far as I +know," answered Mr. Soutar. + +"And Miss Horn," added Mr. Graham, "She first brought out the truth +of it, and ought to be the first to know of your recognition by your +father." + +"I s' tell her mysel'," returned Malcolm. "But, gentlemen, I beg o' +ye, till I ken what I'm aboot an' gie ye leave, dinna open yer moo' to +leevin' cratur' aboot this. There's time eneuch for the warl' to ken +'t." + +"Your lordship commands me," said Mr. Soutar. + +"Yes, Malcolm, until you give me leave," said Mr. Graham. + +"Whaur's Mr. Morrison?" asked Malcolm. + +"He is still in the house," said Mr. Soutar. + +"Gang till him, sir, an' gar him promise, on the word o' a gentleman, +to haud his tongue. I canna bide to hae't blaret a' gait an' a' at +ance. For Mistress Catanach, I s' deal wi' her mysel'." + +The door opened, and, in all the conscious dignity conferred by the +immunities and prerogatives of her calling, Mrs. Catanach walked into +the room. + +"A word wi' ye, Mistress Catanach," said Malcolm. + +"Certainly, my lord," answered the howdy with mingled presumption and +respect, and followed him to the dining-room. "Weel, my lord--" she +began, before he had turned from shutting the door behind them, in the +tone and with the air--or rather _airs_--of having conferred a great +benefit, and expecting its recognition. + +"Mistress Catanach," interrupted Malcolm, turning and facing her, +"gien I be un'er ony obligation to you, it's frae anither tongue I +maun hear't. But I hae an offer to mak ye: Sae lang as it disna coom +oot 'at I'm onything better nor a fisherman born, ye s' hae yer twinty +poun' i' the year, peyed ye quarterly. But the moment fowk says wha +I am ye touch na a poun'-not' mair, an' I coont mysel' free to pursue +onything I can pruv agane ye." + +Mrs. Catanach attempted a laugh of scorn, but her face was gray as +putty and its muscles declined response. + +"_Ay_ or _no_?" said Malcolm. "I winna gar ye sweir, for I wad lippen +to yer aith no a hair." + +"Ay, my lord," said the howdy, reassuming at least outward composure, +and with it her natural brass, for as she spoke she held out her open +palm. + +"Na, na," said Malcolm, "nae forhan' payments. Three months o' +tongue-haudin', an' there's yer five poun'; an' Maister Soutar o' Duff +Harbor 'ill pay 't intill yer ain han'. But brack troth wi' me, an' ye +s' hear o' 't; for gien ye war hangt the warl' wad be a' the cleaner. +Noo quit the hoose, an' never lat me see ye aboot the place again. +But afore ye gang I gie ye fair warnin' 'at I mean to win at a' yer +byganes." + +The blood of red wrath was seething in Mrs. Catanach's face: she drew +herself up and stood flaming before him, on the verge of explosion. + +"Gang frae the hoose," said Malcolm, "or I'll set the muckle hun' to +shaw ye the gait." + +Her face turned the color of ashes, and with hanging cheeks and +scared but not the less wicked eyes she hurried from the room. Malcolm +watched her out of the house, then, following her into the town, +brought Miss Horn back with him to aid in the last earthly services, +and hastened to Duncan's cottage. + +But, to his amazement and distress, it was forsaken and the hearth +cold. In his attendance on his father he had not seen the piper--he +could not remember for how many days; and on inquiry he found that, +although he had not been missed, no one could recall having seen him +later than three or four days agone. The last he could hear of him was +that about a week before a boy had spied him sitting on a rock in the +Baillies' Barn with his pipes in his lap. Searching the cottage, he +found that his broadsword and dirk, with all his poor finery, were +gone. + +That same night Mrs. Catanach also disappeared. + +A week after, what was left of Lord Lossie was buried. Malcolm +followed the hearse with the household. Miss Horn walked immediately +behind him, on the arm of the schoolmaster. It was a great funeral, +with a short road, for the body was laid in the church--close to the +wall, just under the crusader with the Norman canopy. + +Lady Florimel wept incessantly for three days; on the fourth she +looked out on the sea and thought it very dreary; on the fifth +she found a certain gratification in hearing herself called the +marchioness; on the sixth she tried on her mourning and was pleased; +on the seventh she went with the funeral and wept again; on the eighth +came Lady Bellair, who on the ninth carried her away. + +To Malcolm she had not spoken once. + +Mr. Graham left Portlossie. + +Miss Horn took to her bed for a week. + +Mr. Crathie removed his office to the House itself, took upon him the +function of steward as well as factor, had the state-rooms dismantled, +and was master of the place. + +Malcolm helped Stoat with the horses and did odd jobs for Mr. Crathie. +From his likeness to the old marquis, as he was still called, the +factor had a favor for him, firmly believing the said marquis to be +his father and Mrs. Stewart his mother; and hence it came that he +allowed him a key to the library. + +The story of Malcom's plans and what came of them requires another +book. + + + + + +THE STAGE IN ITALY. + + +The Italians are undoubtedly the most theatre-loving people in the +world. With them the play-house takes the place to a great extent of +drawing-room and evening lounge. Almost every Italian family of any +social position possesses a box at one of the principal theatres, +where visits are received and many a scene from the _School for +Scandal_ is enacted whilst the fair gossip-mongers flirt and sip +ices. In winter the opera is the standard amusement of the fashionable +world, while the favorite resort in summer is the _diurno_ or open air +theatre, which is in the form of an amphitheatre, the stage with its +accessories facing an unroofed enclosure, with the seats arranged in +tiers one above another, and fenced off by an iron balustrade from a +terrace which serves the purpose of a gallery. A vast covered corridor +is nearly always to be found adjacent to the _diurno_, beneath which +the audience can take refuge in case of a shower, walk between the +acts and indulge in _bebite_--cooling drinks, such as sherbets and +beer. The _abbonamento_ (or subscription) to a diurno costs from three +to ten dollars for the season of thirty or forty representations. When +a dramatic company is about to visit a city the manager first secures +his _abbonati_, for according to their number he is able to regulate +his expenses, as he counts little on chance spectators, and is sure to +have almost always to play before the same audience. + +The lyric stage in Italy takes precedence of the dramatic, and in the +large cities, Milan, Venice, Genoa, Florence, Rome and Naples, the +production of a new opera is considered a national event, forming for +many days previous to its production the chief topic of conversation +in salons and _caffes_. No such enthusiasm is manifested in regard to +the first representation of a new play; and although the house may be +crowded and the author called before the curtain, he may deem himself +happy if his drama is played four times during the season; whereas +a popular opera will be given night after night for two months. An +opera, if it has any merit, may be the means of carrying the fame of +Italian genius to the farthest limits of the earth, but it is a chance +if the comedy which pleases at Venice will be appreciated in the +least degree at Rome or Naples, such are the variations in manners +and customs, especially amongst the lower orders, between one Italian +province and another. Hence, opera is greatly fostered and protected. +There are a dozen musical _conservatori_, public and private, in each +of the principal cities, for the training of singers, and prizes are +accorded to them out of funds especially set apart for the purpose +by the government, which also grants large annual subsidies to the +leading lyric theatres, such as the Scala at Milan, the San Carlo +at Naples, the Fenice at Venice, the Pergola at Florence, the Carlo +Felice at Genoa, the Communale at Bologna, and the Apollo at Rome. The +dramatic stage has none of these aids, the various companies have to +pay their own expenses, and, whatever may be the merits of the artists +who compose them, they scarcely ever obtain any special recognition +from the government. Although the smallest Italian city possesses its +theatre, and some of the capitals--Milan and Naples, for instance--at +least a dozen, there is no training-school for the stage in any +part of the country. Nor is there such an institution as the English +Dramatic College, where decayed artists can retire when their day of +glory is past and they have become poor and lonely. Each city has one +theatre, the largest and most magnificent, reserved exclusively for +operatic performances, and where the unmusical drama is scarcely ever +tolerated. I once saw Ristori act in Metastasio's _Dido_ at the +Scala for the benefit of the wounded during the war for Italian +independence; but this was the only occasion in fifty years on which +an actress had declaimed in that enormous edifice, and nothing +but patriotic charity would have excused such an infringement of +time-honored etiquette. When, therefore, the Italian opera-houses +close for the season, they are never reopened for the accommodation +of wandering "stars." The consequence of this is, that the drama is +banished to the inferior theatres, and whilst thousands of francs are +spent on the scenery of a new opera or ballet, the poor player has to +content himself with an indifferent stage and wretched decorations. In +short, to quote an observation made to me recently by Signor Salvini, +"Theatrical affairs are just the opposite in Italy to what they are +in America. In Italy the opera-bill is never changed more than three +times in as many months: in America it varies almost every evening. In +Italy the play-bill is renewed nightly, while in this country and +in England a drama, if good, may have a run of over a hundred +representations." Nothing surprised Salvini more during his stay in +the United States than the splendor of the _mise en scene_ of some +of the New York plays, but he accounted for it easily enough. The +managers of most of the New York, Paris and London theatres do not +hesitate to lavish large sums of money upon their decorations and +scenery, because should the piece fail for which they were painted +they can be used in some other. The Italian theatres are nearly always +the property either of some nobleman or of a company of speculators, +whose principal object is to make as much money out of them, and spend +as little upon them, as possible. They are rented out for a month or +so to one or other of the many troupes of actors which are constantly +wandering about the country, and which bring their own scenery +and dresses with them, generally of the cheapest and most tawdry +description. + +A Tuscan proverb says, "_Figlio d'attore, attore_" ("The son of an +actor is always an actor"); and this in Italy is pretty sure to be the +case. The three greatest living actors, Salvini, Rossi and Majeroni, +belong to families which have long been popular on the stage, and so +do the actresses Ristori and Sedowsky. Signora Ristori made her debut +as an infant in the cradle, and was for years a member of a troupe the +leading lady of which was her late mother, Signora Maddalena Ristori, +a woman of great talent and merit, whose death at an advanced age +has recently occasioned her celebrated daughter poignant grief. There +still exists in Italy a Venetian troupe of comedians whose ancestors +were the first interpreters of the comedies of Goldoni, and several of +them claim descent from players who enacted the tragedies and comedies +of serious classical literature before the courts of Lucrezia Borgia +and Leonora d'Este. In glancing over an Italian play-bill one is +invariably struck by the fact that many of the artists bear the same +name, and are evidently connected by ties of consanguinity or of +marriage. In the Ristori troupe, for instance, there are several +actors calling themselves by the same name as that great artist, and +who are doubtless of her family. The Salvini company embraces, besides +the two brothers Tommaso and Alessandro, several Piamontis, two or +three Piccininis and two Colonellos. I once knew in Italy a manager +named Spada who directed a little troupe of buffo actors consisting +of his grandfather and grandmother, father and mother, three or four +uncles and aunts, two brothers, and one or two sisters, in addition to +himself, his wife and children. Such facts are in part accounted for +by the social status--or rather want of status--of the profession. +Down to within a very recent period ecclesiastical censures weighed +heavily upon all actors, and Christian burial was denied them unless +during their final illness they had formally declared their intention +to abandon the stage in case of recovery. So severe a condemnation on +the part of the clergy naturally produced a strong prejudice against +those who connected themselves in any way with the stage; and it is +only recently that in Italy, a land where social changes are slow, the +doors of her somewhat formal society have been opened to admit even +persons so distinguished in every sense of the word as are Ristori, +Piamonti, Salvini and Rossi. The social unfriendliness of the +audiences--who can applaud so enthusiastically that a stranger +witnessing for the first time their noisy demonstrations would easily +believe every man and woman in the theatre ready to die for the sake +of the admired artist--is doubtless the cause of the patriarchal +system observable in the formation of Italian dramatic companies. The +members thereof prefer adopting their fathers' profession rather +than enter another where they would be constantly mortified by being +pointed at as the children of actors. + +A little research into the history of the stage in Italy will +enlighten the reader as to the true cause both of the harsh +condemnation of the Church and of the prejudice of society against +this great profession. The plays of the old Romans were proverbially +loose both in their plots and dialogues, and Juvenal has spoken of the +actors of his time with the bitterest contempt. During the Middle Ages +the members of the various religious confraternities monopolized the +stage with their sacred dramas and mysteries, and the "profane stage," +as an Italian writer calls it, was so degraded that more than once +both the Church and State had to use their influence to put down +performances which were too infamous to be here described. When the +Renaissance came the drama was reinstated in the position it occupied +during the days of Roman civilization, but the plays of this period +were merely imitations of the Latin comedies; and if we may judge by +the most celebrated of them which still exists--the _Mandragora_ of +Macchiavelli, for example--far exceeded their models in obscenity. +When Benedict XIV. ascended the pontifical throne he established a +severe censorship, and inaugurated the harsh system to which I have +already alluded, with the effect of banishing immoral productions +from the stage, though without improving its intellectual tone. In the +eighteenth century Goldoni appeared and gave to the world his graceful +comedies, which were followed by the lyric dramas of Metastasio and +the lofty tragedies of Alfieri. Since then there has been a succession +of able dramatists--Monti, Gozzi, Manzoni, Pellico, Ippolito d'Asti, +etc.; and as the class of plays acted was elevated, so the character +of the performers was also improved. From being dissolute they became +generally respectable; and at present it may be safely asserted that +a better-conducted, more frugal or industrious class of men and woman +can scarcely be found than are the Italian players. That class of +actresses with whom their profession is only a means of displaying +their beauty and splendid but often ill-gotten robes and jewelry, is +little known in Italy, Such persons would be scarcely tolerated either +by their comrades or by the public. Indeed, although within the past +few years, owing to the unsettled state of affairs, a great many plays +of questionable morality have been acted, especially in Rome, still +the tone of the performances usually witnessed in an Italian theatre +is greatly above the average of what even Americans applaud; and a +French play has to go through more careful pruning for the Italian +stage than for ours. + +The Italian actors have always been in the habit of forming themselves +into troupes, or, as they call them, _compagnie_, placed under the +direction of one person, who is both manager and principal performer. +They divide these troupes according to the various kinds of acting; +thus, there are companies of tragic, melodramatic and comic actors, +but it is very rare to find a combination of tragedy and comedy in +the same entertainment. There are at present about eighty different +troupes of actors in Italy, including those devoted to the marionnette +and dialect performances. The principal are the "Salvini," "Ristori," +"Majeroni," "Sedowsky," and "Rossi" for tragedy, the "Bellotti Bon" +for high comedy, and the "De Mestri" for farce and vaudeville. The +"Ristori," "Salvini" and "Rossi" troupes have been the round of the +world. The "Bellotti Bon" has, I believe, never quitted Italy. It is a +remarkable combination of well-trained actors, devoted exclusively +to the representation of modern society plays and dramas, mostly +translated or adapted from the French. Bellotti-Bon, the director, +is not excelled in his own line even on the stage of the Theatre +Francais. His company is rich, and its scenery and dresses are +tasteful. The late Signora Cazzola, formerly the leading lady of this +troupe, was perhaps the best high-comedy and dramatic actress Italy +has produced. Signer Salvini informed me that Alexandre Dumas _fils_ +told him he preferred this lady's interpretation of the _role_ of +Marguerite Gauthier (Camille) in _La Dame aux Camelias_ to that of +Madame Doche, who created the part. She produced a great effect when +the dying Camille looks at herself in the glass for the first time +after her long illness. Instead of screaming or fainting, as is usual +with most actresses who undertake the character, Signora Cazzola stood +for a long time gazing intently at the havoc disease had wrought upon +her lovely countenance. Then, with a deep sigh and an expression +of intense agony, she turned the mirror with its back toward her, +implying that she could never again endure the pain of seeing herself +reflected upon its truth-telling surface. On the toilette-table was +a vase full of camellias--those beautiful but scentless flowers which +were emblematic of her brilliant but artificial life. Taking one of +these in her hand, she plucked it to pieces leaf by leaf, and when +the last petal fell to the ground went quietly back to her bed, there +hopelessly to await the coming on of death. Her parting with Armand +was very pathetic, and her death, although harrowing and true to +Nature, was not revolting, its horrors being moderated by artistic +good sense and delicacy. This great artiste died young, worn out by +the strong emotions she not only represented, but actually felt. + +Signora Cazzola, together with Virginia Marini and Isolina Piamonti, +was a pupil of Signor Salvini. Virginia Marini is well considered in +Italy, and used to be the leading lady in the Salvini troupe. She now +directs a company of her own, and has been succeeded in her former +position by the estimable Signora Piamonti, whom Salvini declares to +be one of the most versatile artistes he has ever known, equally good +in the highest tragedy or the liveliest farce. Her Dalilla in _Samson_ +was much admired in America, but her rendering of the _role_ of +Francesca di Rimini in the tragedy of that name is perhaps her +greatest performance. + +Signora Sedowsky is undoubtedly the greatest tragic actress of Italy. +She is perhaps less stately and grand than Ristori, but in fire and +depth of feeling she greatly surpasses this eminent tragedienne. Her +Phedre is pronounced by excellent judges equal to that of Rachel. +Signora Sedowsky was born at Naples, and is the proprietress of three +large theatres in that city. She is the wife of a wealthy nobleman. +Notwithstanding her rank, she still keeps on the stage, but is +received with honor in the first society. She has never acted out of +Italy, and very rarely beyond the walls of Naples. + +The superlative merits of Signora Ristori are so well known in America +that the mere mention of her name is sure to recall some of the most +delightful evenings ever spent by many of my readers. Her genius and +beauty, her majesty and glorious method of declamation, have won her +a foremost rank in her profession, and her virtues and nobility of +conduct the esteem of all who have ever known her. There are indeed +few women more estimable than Adelaide Ristori, Marchioness Capranica +del Grillo. It may be a matter of surprise to some who are not aware +of the fact when I tell them that in Italy Ristori is more famous in +comedy than in tragedy. She is inimitable in such parts as the hostess +in Goldoni's clever comedy of _La Locandiera_. + +Of all Italian actors, Gustavo Modena was the most renowned. He is to +the stage of his native land what Garrick was to that of England, and +his conception of the various parts in classic drama, his "points," +and even his dress, have become traditional, and are almost invariably +retained by his followers. I never saw him act, but I once heard him +recite in a private _salon_ his famous _role_ of Saul in Alfieri's +tragedy of that name. In person he was tall and largely built, His +countenance was not prepossessing, and, like Michael Angelo, he had a +broken nose. His eye could assume a terrific aspect, and his voice +was rich, powerful and varied in its tone. At times it rolled like +thunder, while at other moments it was as soft and tender as the +sweetest notes of a flute. Signor Modena died some years ago. He was +the master of Salvini, and to him that illustrious actor does not +hesitate to attribute much of his fame. + +Rossi, the only living rival of Salvini, is still a young man, and +doubtless has great talents. I think him even more impetuous and +ardent than Salvini, but he is less intellectual, and his elocution is +decidedly inferior. + +Majeroni is an actor of the same school, but he is becoming old, and +has a tendency to rant. + +Tommaso Salvini, our late visitor, is of Milanese parentage, and was +born in the Lombard capital on January 1, 1830. His father, as I have +already said, was an able actor, and his mother a popular actress +named Guglielmina Zocchi. When quite a boy he showed a rare talent +for acting, and performed in certain plays given during the Easter +holidays in the school where he was educated, with such rare ability +that his father determined to devote him to the stage. For this +purpose he placed him under the tuition of the great Modena, who +conceived much affection for him. The training received thus early +from such able hands soon bore fruits, and before he was thirteen +Salvini had already won a kind of renown in juvenile characters. At +fifteen he lost both his parents, and the bereavement so preyed upon +his spirits that he was obliged to abandon his career for two years, +and returned once more under the tuition of Modena. When he again +emerged from retirement he joined the Ristori troupe, and shared with +that great actress many a triumph. In 1849, Salvini entered the army +of Italian independence, and fought valiantly for the defence of his +country, receiving in recognition of his services several medals of +honor. Peace being proclaimed, he again appeared upon the stage in a +company directed by Signer Cesare Dondini. He played in the _Edipo_ +of Nicolini--a tragedy written expressly for him--and achieved a great +success. Next he appeared in Alfieri's _Saul_, and then all Italy +declared that Modena's mantle had fallen on worthy shoulders. His +fame was now prodigious, and wherever he went he was received with +boundless enthusiasm. He visited Paris, where he played Orasmane, +Orestes, Saul and Othello. On his return to Florence he was hospitably +entertained by the marquis of Normanby, then English ambassador to the +court of Tuscany, and this enlightened nobleman strongly encouraged +him to extend his repertory of Shakespearian characters. In 1865 +occurred the sixth centenary of Dante's birthday, and the four +greatest Italian actors were invited to perform in Silvio Pellico's +tragedy of _Francesca di Rimini_, which is founded on an episode in +the _Divina Commedia_. The cast originally stood on the play-bills +thus: Francesca, Signora Ristori; Lancelotto, Signor Rossi; Paulo, +Signor Salvini; and Guido, Signor Majeroni. It happened, however, that +Rossi, who was unaccustomed to play the part of Lancelotto, felt timid +at appearing in a character so little suited to him. Hearing this, +Signor Salvini, with exquisite politeness and good-nature, volunteered +to take the insignificant part, relinquishing the grand _role_ of +Paulo to his junior in the profession. He created by the force of his +genius an impression in the minor part which is still vivid in +the minds of all who witnessed the performance. The government of +Florence, grateful for his urbanity, presented him with a statuette of +Dante, and King Victor Emmanuel rewarded him with the title of knight +of the Order of the Saints Maurice and Lazarus. Later he received from +the same monarch a diamond ring, with the rank of officer in the Order +of the Crown of Italy. In 1868, Signer Salvini visited Madrid, where +his acting of the death of Conrad in _La Morte Civile_ produced such +an impression that the easily-excited Madrilese rushed upon the stage +to ascertain whether the death was actual or fictitious. The queen, +Isabella II., conferred upon the great actor many marks of favor, +and so shortly afterward did King Louis of Portugal, who frequently +entertained him at the royal palace of Lisbon. + +Signor Salvini's recent visit to America I need scarcely mention: its +triumphs are still fresh in the memory of the public, and the only +drawback to its complete success was the unhappy fact that the eminent +artist did not appeal to his audiences in their own language. + +I know of nothing more remarkable than the difference which exists +between the Salvini of the stage and the Salvini of private life, the +one so imposing, impetuous and fiery, the other so gentle, urbane, and +even retiring. He is a gentleman possessing the manners of the good +old school--courtly and somewhat ceremonious, reminding one of those +Italian nobles of the sixteenth century of whom we lead in the novels +of Giraldo Cinthio and Fiorentino--_uomini illustri, e di civil +costumi_. His greeting is cordial and his conversation delightful, +full of anecdote and marked with enthusiasm for his art. When I first +became acquainted with him I was of opinion that his interpretation of +Hamlet was based only upon the translated text, but in the course of +a very long conversation on the subject I discovered that he was well +acquainted (through literal translations) not only with the text, but +also with the notes and comments of our leading critics. In speaking +of the part in which he is altogether unrivaled he said, "I am of +opinion that Shakespeare intended Othello to be a Moor of Barbary or +some other part of Northern Africa, of whom there were many in Italy +during the sixteenth century. I have met several, and think I imitate +their ways and manners pretty well. You are aware, however, that the +historical Othello was not a black at all. He was a white man, and +a Venetian general named Mora. His history resembles that of +Shakespeare's hero in many particulars. Giraldo Cinthio, probably for +better effect, made out of the name Mora, _moro_, a blackamoor; and +Shakespeare, unacquainted with the true story, followed this old +novelist's lead; and it was well he did so, for have we not in +consequence the most perfect delineation of the peculiarities of +Moorish temperament ever conceived?" The costumes worn by Salvini in +this play are copied from those depicted in certain Venetian pictures +of the fifteenth century in which several Moorish officers appear. It +took him many years to master this _role_, and he assured me he could +not play it more than three times in succession without experiencing +terrible fatigue. "It is a matter of wonder to me," he observed, "that +English actors can play a great character like this so many nights in +succession; and, above all, that they retain self-possession whilst +the fidgety noise of scene-shifting is going on behind them. To avoid +this, I have been obliged to cut _Othello_ into six acts, and to make +many changes in _Hamlet_." The intensity of feeling with which he +throws himself into the part he is representing was especially evident +on the occasion of his playing Saul. After the performance I was +invited to go behind the scenes to speak with him, and was surprised +as well as pained to find him utterly exhausted. I could not help +saying, "How can you exert yourself thus to please so few people?" +There were scarcely four hundred persons assembled to see this sublime +performance. He answered with honest simplicity, "They have paid their +money, and are entitled to the best I can do for them; besides that, +when I am on the stage I forget the world and all that is in it, and +live the character I represent." "You will," said I, "make a grand +Lear." "Yes," he replied, "I think I shall be able to make something +out of the old king. I have been reading the tragedy for some time, +but it will still take me two years to study it thoroughly." + +Salvini related to me several anecdotes which show how quick he is to +master any difficulties accident throws in his way. "Once I bought," +he said, "a play of a poor young writer which I thought I could make +something of; but when we came to rehearse it for the last time before +representation, it seemed to me utterly flat and unprofitable. The +piece was called _La Suonatrice d'Arpa_ ('The Harp-Girl'). The actors +all said the last act was so stupid that we should make a _fiasco_. I +at last hit upon an idea. We had, however, only a few hours to execute +it in. I changed the story: instead of the play ending happily, I made +the father kill his daughter accidentally, and then die of grief. All +the dialogue had to be improvised by the leading actress and myself. +I played the father, and Signora Piamonti the daughter. Such was the +success of our invention that the piece was played eight nights in +succession, and a rival actor, hearing of the triumph achieved by _The +Harp-Girl_, bought from the author for a handsome sum the privilege of +acting it in certain districts which were not included in my purchase +of the drama. Not being aware of the alterations we had made, and +performing it according to the letter of the text, he made _un fiasco +solenne_--a dead failure." + +After the first performance of _Zaire_ I took the liberty of observing +to Salvini that a superb piece of "business" which marks his acting +in the last act was not to be found in the text. "Oh," he replied, +"I will tell you the origin of it. I was playing at Naples, and one +night, when I threw the body of my murdered wife upon the ottoman in +the last act, my burnouse fell off and fixed itself to my waist like +a tail. I saw at once that if I was not careful I should provoke +laughter, and instantly imagined that I would pretend to believe the +clinging drapery was the wounded Zaire grasping me behind. I appeared +to dread even to look round, lest I should encounter her pallid face. +I hesitated, I trembled, and when with a supreme effort I at last +grasped the burnouse and cast it from me, I still lacked the courage +to ascertain what it really was, and stood shivering before the +white heap it made upon the floor. Finally, just as I thought public +curiosity to know what I was going to do began to grow weary, I +stooped down and seizing the white mantle dashed it from me with +contempt, showing by the gesture that I had discovered what it was, +and felt anger that such a trifle should thus alarm a bold man who had +committed murder." This pantomime obtained for Salvini at the New York +Academy of Music one of his greatest ovations. + +When asked why he did not learn English, "Ah!" he replied, "I am too +old; and even if I mastered it, I could not control my knowledge of +it. When excited I should be lapsing into Italian, which would be very +absurd. You asked me the other day why I do not play Orestes. I should +make a queer young Greek with an Apollo-like figure now-a-days! The +time was when I looked the part and acted it well, and then I liked +to play it. I must leave it, with many other good things, to younger +men." Speaking about dramatic elocution, he said, "The best method is +obtained by close observation of Nature, and above all by earnestness. +If you can impress people with the conviction that you feel what you +say, they will pardon many shortcomings. And, above all, study, study, +study! All the genius in the world will not help you along with any +art unless you become a hard student. It has taken me years to master +a single part." + +Salvini's visit to America has been fruitful of a double good. He has +shown forth the splendor of Italian genius, even revealing to us new +marvels in that mine of wealth, the works of the greatest Bard of +the English-speaking race; and he has gone back to Italy to tell +her people of things he has seen in the New World which his great +compatriot discovered--as wonderful in their way as any related by +Othello to Desdemona's willing ear. + +R. DAVEY. + + + + +THREE FEATHERS. + +BY WILLIAM BLACK, AUTHOR OF "A PRINCESS OF THULE." + +CHAPTER XX. + +TINTAGEL'S WALLS. + + +What was the matter with Harry Trelyon? His mother could not make out; +and there never had been much confidence between them, so that she +did not care to ask. But she watched, and she saw that he had, for +the time at least, forsaken his accustomed haunts and ways and become +gloomy, silent and self-possessed. Dick was left neglected in the +stables: you no longer heard his rapid clatter along the highway, with +the not over-melodious voice of his master singing "The Men of +Merry, Merry England" or "The Young Chevalier." The long and slender +fishing-rod remained on the pegs in the hall, although you could hear +the flop of the small burn-trout of an evening when the flies were +thick over the stream. The dogs were deprived of their accustomed +runs; the horses had to be taken out for exercise by the groom; and +the various and innumerable animals about the place missed their doses +of alternate petting and teasing, all because Master Harry had chosen +to shut himself up in his study. + +The mother of the young man very soon discovered that her son was +not devoting his hours of seclusion in that extraordinary museum of +natural history to making trout-flies, stuffing birds and arranging +pinned butterflies in cases, as was his custom. These were not the +occupations which now kept Master Harry up half the night. When she +went in of a morning, before he was up, she found that he had been +covering whole sheets of paper with careful copying out of passages +taken at random from the volumes beside him. A Latin grammar was +ordinarily on the table--a book which the young gentleman had brought +back from school free from thumb-marks. Occasionally a fencing-foil +lay among these evidences of study, while the small aquaria, the cases +of stuffed animals with fancy backgrounds and the numerous bird-cages +had been thrust aside to give fair elbow-room. + +"Perhaps," said Mrs. Trelyon to herself with much +satisfaction--"perhaps, after all, that good little girl has given him +a hint about Parliament, and he is preparing himself." + +A few days of this seclusion, however, began to make the mother +anxious; and so one morning she went into his room. He hastily turned +over the sheet of paper on which he had been writing: then he looked +up, not too well pleased. + +"Harry, why do you stay in-doors on such a beautiful morning? It is +quite like summer." + +"Yes, I know," he said. "I suppose we shall soon have a batch of +parsons here: summer always brings them. They come out with the hot +weather--like butterflies." + +Mrs. Trelyon was shocked and disappointed: she thought Wenna Rosewarne +had cured him of his insane dislike to clergymen--indeed, for many a +day gone by he had kept respectfully silent on the subject. + +"But we shall not ask them to come if you'd rather not," she said, +wishing to do all she could to encourage the reformation of his ways. +"I think Mr. Barnes promised to visit us early in May, but he is only +one." + +"And one is worse than a dozen. When there's a lot you can leave 'em +to fight it out among themselves. But one!--to have one stalking about +an empty house, like a ghost dipped in ink! Why can't you ask anybody +but clergymen, mother? There are whole lots of people would like to +run down from London for a fortnight before getting into the thick of +the season: there's the Pomeroy girls as good as offered to come." + +"But they can't come by themselves," Mrs. Trelyon said with a feeble +protest. + +"Oh yes, they can: they're ugly enough to be safe anywhere. And why +don't you get Juliott up? She'll be glad to get away from that old +curmudgeon for a week. And you ought to ask the Trewhellas, father and +daughter, to dinner: that old fellow is not half a bad sort of fellow, +although he's a clergyman." + +"Harry," said his mother, interrupting him, "I'll fill the house if +that will please you; and you shall ask just whomsoever you please." + +"All right," said he: "the place wants waking up." + +"And then," said the mother, wishing to be still more gracious, "you +might ask Miss Rosewarne to dine with us: she might come well enough, +although Mr. Roscorla is not here." + +A sort of gloom fell over the young man's face again: "I can't ask +her--you may if you like." + +Mrs. Trelyon stared: "What is the matter, Harry? Have you and she +quarreled? Why, I was going to ask you, if you were down in the +village to-day, to say that I should like to see her." + +"And how could I take such a message?" the young man said, rather +warmly, "I don't see why the girl should be ordered up to see you as +if you were conferring a favor on her by joining in this scheme. She's +very hard-worked; you have got plenty of time; you ought to call on +her and study her convenience, instead of making her trot all the way +up here whenever you want to talk to her." + +The pale and gentle woman flushed a little, but she was anxious not to +give way to petulance just then: "Well, you are quite right, Harry: +it was thoughtless of me. I should like to go down and see her this +morning; but I have sent Jakes over to the blacksmith's, and I am +afraid of that new lad." + +"Oh, I will drive you down to the inn. I suppose among them they +can put the horses to the wagonette," the young man said, not very +graciously: and then Mrs. Trelyon went off to get ready. + +It was a beautiful, fresh morning, the far-off line of the sea still +and blue, the sunlight lighting up the wonderful masses of primroses +along the tall banks, the air sweet with the resinous odor of the +gorse. Mrs. Trelyon looked with a gentle and childlike pleasure on +all these things, and was fairly inclined to be very friendly with the +young gentleman beside her. But he was more than ordinarily silent +and morose. Mrs. Trelyon knew she had done nothing to offend him, and +thought it hard she should be punished for the sins of anybody else. + +He spoke scarcely a word to her as the carriage rolled along the +silent highways. He drove rapidly and carelessly down the steep +thoroughfare of Eglosilyan, although there were plenty of loose stones +about. Then he pulled sharply up in front of the inn, and George +Rosewarne appeared. + +"Mr. Rosewarne, let me introduce you to my mother. She wants to see +Miss Wenna for a few moments, if she is not engaged." + +Mr. Rosewarne took off his cap, assisted Mrs. Trelyon to alight, and +then showed her the way into the house. + +"Won't you come in, Harry?" his mother said. + +"No." + +A man had come out to the horses' heads. + +"You leave 'em alone," said the young gentleman: "I sha'n't get down." + +Mabyn came out, her bright young face full of pleasure. + +"How do you do, Mabyn?" he said coldly, and without offering to shake +hands. + +"Won't you come in for a minute?" she said, rather surprised. + +"No, thank you. Don't you stay out in the cold: you've got nothing +round your neck." + +Mabyn went away without saying a word, but thinking that the coolness +of the air was much less apparent than that of his manner and speech. + +Being at length left to himself, he turned his attention to the +horses before him, and eventually, to pass the time, took out his +pocket-handkerchief and began to polish the silver on the handle of +the whip. He was disturbed in this peaceful occupation by a very +timid voice, which said, "Mr. Trelyon." He turned round and found that +Wenna's wistful face was looking up to him, with a look in it +partly of friendly gladness and partly of anxiety and entreaty. "Mr. +Trelyon," she said, with her eyes cast down, "I think you are offended +with me. I am very sorry: I beg your forgiveness." + +The reins were fastened up in a minute, and he was down in the road +beside her. "Now look here, Wenna," he said. "What could you mean by +treating me so unfairly? I don't mean in being vexed with me, but in +shunting me off, as it were, instead of having it out at once. I don't +think it was fair." + +"I am very sorry," she said. "I think I was very wrong, but you don't +know what a girl feels about such things. Will you come into the inn?" + +"And leave my horses? No," he said, good-naturedly. "But as soon as I +get that fellow out, I will; so you go in at once, and I'll follow you +directly. And mind, Wenna, don't you be so silly again, or you and I +may have a real quarrel; and I know that would break your heart." + +The old pleased smile lit up her face again as she turned and went +in-doors: he meanwhile proceeded to summon a hostler by shouting his +name at the pitch of his voice. + +The small party of women assembled in the parlor were a trifle +embarrassed: it was the first time that the great lady of the +neighborhood had honored the inn with a visit. She herself was merely +quiet, gentle and pleased, but Mrs. Rosewarne, with her fine eyes and +her sensitive face all lit up and quickened by, the novel excitement, +was all anxiety to amuse and interest and propitiate her distinguished +guest. Mabyn, too, was rather shy and embarrassed: she said things +hastily, and then seemed afraid of her interference. Wenna was +scarcely at her ease, because she saw that her mother and sister were +not; and she was very anxious, moreover, that these two should think +well of Mrs. Trelyon and be disposed to like her. + +The sudden appearance of a man with a man's rough ways and loud voice +seemed to shake these feminine elements better together, and to clear +the air of timid apprehensions and cautions. Harry Trelyon came into +the room with quite a marked freshness and good-nature on his face. +His mother was surprised: what had completely changed his manner in a +couple of minutes? + +"How are you, Mrs. Rosewarne?" he cried in his off-hand fashion. "You +oughtn't to be in-doors on such a morning, or we shall never get you +well, you know; and the doctor will be sending you to Penzance or +Devonport for a change. Well, Mabyn, have you convinced anybody yet +that your farm-laborers with their twelve shillings a week are better +off than the slate-workers with their eighteen? You'd better take your +sister's opinion on that point, and don't squabble with me. Mother, +what's the use of sitting here? You bring Miss Wenna with you into the +wagonette, and talk to her there about all your business-affairs, and +I'll take you for a drive. Come along. And of course I want +somebody with me: will you come, Mrs. Rosewarne, or will Mabyn? You +can't?--then Mabyn must. Go along, Mabyn, and put your best hat on, +and make yourself uncommonly smart, and you shall be allowed to sit +next the driver--that's me." + +And indeed he bundled the whole of them about until they were seated +in the wagonette just as he had indicated; and away they went from the +inn-door. + +"And you think you are coming back in half an hour?" he said to his +companion, who was much pleased and very proud to occupy such a place. +"Oh no, you're not. You're a young and simple thing, Mabyn. These two +behind us will go on talking now for any time about yards of calico +and crochet-needles and twopenny subscriptions, while you and I, don't +you see, are quietly driving them over to Tintagel--" + +"Oh, Mr. Trelyon!" said Mabyn. + +"You keep quiet. That isn't the half of what's going to befall you. I +shall put up the horses at the inn, and I shall take you all down to +the beach for a scramble to improve your appetite; and at the said inn +you shall have luncheon with me, if you're all very good and behave +yourselves. Then we shall drive back just when we particularly please. +Do you like the picture?" + +"It is delightful: oh, I am sure Wenna will enjoy it," Mabyn said. +"But don't you think, Mr. Trelyon, that you might ask her to sit here? +One sees better here than sitting sideways in a wagonette." + +"They have their business-affairs to settle." + +"Yes," said Mabyn petulantly, "that is what every one says: nobody +expects Wenna ever to have a moment's enjoyment to herself. Oh, here +is old Uncle Cornish--he's a great friend of Wenna's: he will be +dreadfully hurt if she passes him without saying a word." + +"Then we shall pull up and address Uncle Cornish. I believe he used to +be the most thieving old ruffian of a poacher in this county." + +There was a hale old man of seventy or so seated on a low wall in +front of one of the gardens, his face shaded from the sunlight by a +broad hat, his lean gray hands employed in buckling up the leathern +leggings that encased his spare calves. He got up when the horses +stopped, and looked in rather a dazed fashion at the carriage. + +"How do you do this morning, Mr. Cornish?" Wenna said. + +"Why, now, to be sure!" the old man said, as if reproaching his own +imperfect vision. "'Tis a fine marnin', Miss Wenna, and yue be agwoin' +for a drive." + +"And how is your daughter-in-law, Mr. Cornish? Has she sold the pig +yet?" + +"Naw, she hasn't sold the peg. If yue be agwoin' thrue Trevalga, Miss +Wenna, just yue stop and have a look at that peg: yue'll be 'mazed to +see en. 'Tis many a year agone sence there has been such a peg by me. +And perhaps yue'd take the laste bit o' refrashment, Miss Wenna, as yue +go by: Jane would get yue a coop o' tay to once." + +"Thank you, Mr. Cornish, I'll look in and see the pig some other time: +to-day we sha'n't be going as far as Trevalga." + +"Oh, won't you?" said Master Harry in a low voice as he drove on. +"You'll be in Trevalga before you know where you are." + +Which was literally the case. Wenna was so much engaged in her talk +with Mrs. Trelyon that she did not notice how far away they were +getting from Eglosilyan; but Mabyn and her companion knew. They were +now on the high uplands by the coast, driving between the beautiful +banks, which were starred with primroses and stitchwort and red +dead-nettle and a dozen other bright and tender-hued firstlings of the +year. The sun was warm on the hedges and the fields, but a cool breeze +blew about these lofty heights, and stirred Mabyn's splendid masses of +hair as they drove rapidly along. Far over on their right, beyond the +majestic wall of cliff, lay the great blue plain of the sea; and there +stood the bold brown masses of the Sisters Rocks, with a circle of +white foam round their base. As they looked down into the south the +white light was so fierce that they could but faintly discern objects +through it; but here and there they caught a glimpse of a square +church-tower or of a few rude cottages clustered on the high plain, +and these seemed to be of a transparent gray in the blinding glare of +the sun. + +Then suddenly in front of them they found a deep chasm, with the white +road leading down through its cool shadows. There was the channel of +a stream, with the rocks looking purple amid the gray bushes; and +here were rich meadows, with cattle standing deep in the grass and the +daisies; and over there, on the other side, a strip of forest, with +the sunlight shining along one side of the tall and dark-green pines. +As they drove down into this place, which is called the Rocky Valley, +a magpie rose from one of the fields and flew up into the firs. + +"That is sorrow," said Mabyn. + +Another one rose and flew up to the same spot. + +"And that is joy," she said, with her face brightening. + +"Oh, but I saw another as we came to the brow of the hill, and that +means a marriage," her companion remarked to her. + +"Oh no," she said quite eagerly, "I am sure there was no third one: I +am certain there were only two. I am quite positive we only saw two." + +"But why should you be so anxious?" Trelyon said, "You know you ought +to be looking forward to a marriage, and that is always a happy thing. +Are you envious, Mabyn?" + +The girl was silent for a moment or two. Then she said, with a sudden +bitterness in her tone, "Isn't it a fearful thing to have to be civil +to people whom you hate? Isn't it, when they come and establish a +claim on you through some one you care for? You look at them--yes, you +can look at them--and you've got to see them kiss some one that you +love; and you wonder she doesn't rush away for a bit of caustic and +cauterize the place, as you do when a mad dog bites you." + +"Mabyn," said the young man beside her, "you are a most unchristian +sort of person this morning. Who is it you hate in such a fashion? +Will you take the reins while I walk up the hill?" + +Mabyn's little burst of passion still burned in her cheeks and gave +a proud and angry look to her mouth, but she took the reins all the +same, and her companion leapt to the ground. The banks on each side of +the road going up this hill were tall and steep: here and there great +masses of wild flowers were scattered among the grass and the gorse. +From time to time he stopped to pick up a handful, until, when +they had got up to the high and level country again, he had brought +together a very pretty bouquet of wild blossoms. When he got into his +seat and took the reins again he carelessly gave the bouquet to Mabyn. + +"Oh, how pretty!" she said; and then she turned round: "Wenna, are you +very much engaged? Look at the pretty bouquet Mr. Trelyon has gathered +for you." + +Wenna's quiet face flushed with pleasure when she took the flowers, +and Mrs. Trelyon looked pleased and said they were very pretty. She +evidently thought that her son was greatly improved in his manners +when he condescended to gather flowers to present to a girl. Nay, was +he not at this moment devoting a whole forenoon of his precious time +to the unaccustomed task of taking ladies for a drive? Mrs. Trelyon +regarded Wenna with a friendly look, and began to take a greater +liking than ever to that sensitive and expressive face and to the +quiet and earnest eyes. + +"But, Mr. Trelyon," said Wenna, looking round, "hadn't we better turn? +We shall be at Trevenna directly." + +"Yes, you are quite right," said Master Harry: "you will be at +Trevenna directly, and you are likely to be there for some time. For +Mabyn and I have resolved to have luncheon there, and we are going +down to Tintagel, and we shall most likely climb to King Arthur's +Castle. Have you any objections?" + +Wenna had none. The drive through the cool and bright day had braced +up her spirits. She was glad to know that everything looked promising +about this scheme of hers. So she willingly surrendered herself to +the holiday, and in due time they drove into the odd and remote little +village and pulled up in front of the inn. + +So soon as the hostler had come to the horses' heads the young +gentleman who had been driving jumped down and assisted his three +companions to alight: then he led the way into the inn. In the doorway +stood a stranger, probably a commercial traveler, who, with his hands +in his pockets, his legs apart and a cigar in his mouth, had been +visiting those three ladies with a very hearty stare as they got out +of the carriage. Moreover, when they came to the doorway he did not +budge an inch nor did he take his cigar from his mouth; and so, as it +had never been Mr. Trelyon's fashion to sidle past any one, that young +gentleman made straight for the middle of the passage, keeping +his shoulders very square. The consequence was a collision. The +imperturbable person with his hands in his pockets was sent staggering +against the wall, while his cigar dropped on the stone. "What the +devil--!" he was beginning to say, when Trelyon got the three women +past him and into the small parlor. Then he went back: "Did you wish +to speak to me, sir? No, you didn't: I perceive you are a prudent +person. Next time ladies pass you, you'd better take your cigar out of +your mouth or somebody'll destroy that two-pennyworth of tobacco for +you. Good-morning." + +Then he returned to the little parlor, to which a waitress had been +summoned: "Now, Jinny, pull yourself together and let's have something +nice for luncheon--in an hour's time, sharp. You will, won't you? And +how about that Sillery with the blue star--not the stuff with the gold +head that some abandoned ruffian in Plymouth brews in his back garden. +Well, can't you speak?" + +"Yes, sir," said the bewildered maid. + +"That's a good thing--a very good thing," said he, putting the shawls +together on a sofa. "Don't you forget how to speak until you get +married. And don't let anybody come into this room. And you can let my +man have his dinner and a pint of beer. Oh, I forgot: I'm my own man +this morning, so you needn't go asking for him. Now, will you remember +all these things?" + +"Yes, sir; but what would you like for luncheon?" + +"My good girl, we should like a thousand things such as Tintagel never +saw, but what you've got to do is to give us the nicest things you've +got: do you see? I leave it entirely in your hands. Come along, young +people." + +And so he bundled his charges out again into the main street of the +village; and somehow it happened that Mabyn addressed a timid remark +to Mrs. Trelyon, and that Mrs. Trelyon, in answering it, stopped for +a moment; so that Master Harry was sent to Wenna's side, and these two +led the way down the wide thoroughfare. There were few people visible +in the old-fashioned place: here and there an aged crone came out to +the door of one of the rude stone cottages to look at the strangers. +Overhead the sky was veiled over with a thin fleece of white cloud, +but the light was intense for all that, and indeed the colors of the +objects around seemed all the more clear and marked. + +"Well, Miss Wenna," said the young man gayly, "how long are we to +remain good friends? What is the next fault you will have to find with +me? Or have you discovered something wrong already?" + +"Oh no," she said with a quiet smile, "I am very good friends with you +this morning. You have pleased your mother very much by bringing her +for this drive." + +"Oh, nonsense!" he said. "She might have as many drives as she chose; +but presently you'll find a lot of those parsons back at the house, +and she'll take to her white gowns again, and the playing of the organ +all the day long, and all that sham stuff. I tell you what it is: she +never seems alive, she never seems to take any interest in anything, +unless you're with her. Now, you will see how the novelty of this +luncheon-party in an inn will amuse her; but do you think she would +care for it if she and I were here alone?" + +"Perhaps you never tried?" Miss Wenna said gently. + +"Perhaps I knew she wouldn't come. However, don't let's have a fight, +Wenna: I mean to be very civil to you to-day--I do, really." + +"I am so much obliged to you," she said meekly. "But pray don't give +yourself unnecessary trouble." + +"Oh," said he, "I'd always be civil to you if you would treat me +decently. But you say far more rude things than I do--in that soft +way, you know, that looks as if it were all silk and honey. I do think +you've awfully little consideration for human failings. If one goes +wrong in the least thing, even in one's spelling, you say something +that sounds as pleasant as possible, and all the same it transfixes +one just as you stick a pin through a beetle. You are very hard, you +are--mean with those who would like to be friends with you. When it's +mere strangers and cottagers and people of that sort, who don't care +a brass farthing about you, then I believe you're all gentleness +and kindness; but to your real friends the edge of a saw is smooth +compared to you." + +"Am I so very harsh to my friends?" the young lady said in a resigned +way. + +"Oh, well," he said, with some compunction, "I don't quite say that, +but you could be much more pleasant if you liked, and a little more +charitable to their faults. You know there are some who would give a +great deal to win your approval; and perhaps when you find fault they +are so disappointed that they think your words are sharper than you +mean; and sometimes they think you might give them credit for trying +to please you, at least." + +"And who are these persons?" Wenna said, with another smile stealing +over her face. + +"Oh," said he rather shamefacedly, "there's no need to explain +anything to you: you always see it before one need put it in words." + +Well, perhaps it was in his manner or in the tone of his voice that +there was something which seemed at this moment to touch her deeply, +for she half turned and looked up at his face with her honest and +earnest eyes, and said to him kindly, "Yes, I do know without you +telling me; and it makes me happy to hear you talk so; and if I am +unjust to you, you must not think it intentional. And I shall try not +to be so in the future." + +Mrs. Trelyon was regarding with a kindly look the two young people +walking on in front of her. Whatever pleased her son pleased her, and +she was glad to see him enjoy himself in so light-hearted a fashion. +These two were chatting to each other in the friendliest manner: +sometimes they stopped to pick up wild flowers: they were as two +children together under the fair and light summer skies. + +They went down and along a narrow valley, until they suddenly stood +in front of the sea, the green waters of which were breaking in upon a +small and lonely creek. What strange light was this that fell from +the white skies above, rendering all the objects around them sharp its +outline and intense in color? The beach before them seemed of a pale +lilac, where the green waves broke in a semicircle of white. On their +right some masses of ruddy rock jutted out into the cold sea, and +there were huge black caverns into which the waves dashed and roared. +On their left and far above them towered a great and isolated rock, +its precipitous sides scored here and there with twisted lines of red +and yellow quartz; and on the summit of this bold headland, amid +the dark green of the sea-grass, they could see the dusky ruins--the +crumbling walls and doorways and battlements--of the castle that is +named in all the stories of King Arthur and his knights. The bridge +across to the mainland has, in the course of centuries, fallen away, +but there, on the other side of the wide chasm, were the ruins of the +other portions of the castle, scarcely to be distinguished in parts +from the grass-grown rocks. How long ago was it since Sir Tristram +rode out here to the end of the world, to find the beautiful Isoulde +awaiting him--she whom he had brought from Ireland as an unwilling +bride to the old king Mark? And what of the joyous company of knights +and ladies who once held high sport in the courtyard there? Trelyon, +looking shyly at his companion, could see that her eyes seemed +centuries away from him. She was quite unconscious of his covertly +staring at her, for she was absently looking at the high and bare +precipices, the deserted slopes of dark sea-grass and the lonely +and crumbling ruins. She was wondering whether the ghosts of those +vanished people ever came back to this lonely headland, where they +would find the world scarcely altered since they had left it. Did they +come at night, when the land was dark, and when there was a light +over the sea only coming from the stars? If one were to come at night +alone, and to sit down here by the shore, might not one see strange +things far overhead or hear some sound other than the falling of the +waves? + +"Miss Wenna," he said--and she started suddenly--"are you bold enough +to climb with me up to the castle? I know my mother would rather stay +here." + +She went with him mechanically. She followed him up the rude steps +cut in the steep slopes of slate, holding his hand where that was +possible, but her head was so full of dreams that she answered him +when he spoke only with a vague yes or no. When they descended again +they found that Mabyn had taken Mrs. Trelyon down to the beach, and +had inveigled her into entering a huge cavern, or rather a natural +tunnel, that went right through underneath the promontory on which the +castle is built. They were in a sort of green-hued twilight, a scent +of seaweed filling the damp air, and their voices raising an echo in +the great hall of rock. + +"I hope the climbing has not made you giddy," Mrs. Trelyon said in her +kind way to Wenna, noticing that she was very silent and distrait. + +"Oh no," Mabyn said promptly. "She has been seeing ghosts. We always +know when Wenna has been seeing ghosts: she remains so for hours." + +And, indeed, at this time she was rather more reserved than usual all +during their walk back to luncheon and while they were in the inn; +and yet she was obviously very happy, and sometimes even amused by +the childlike pleasure which Mrs. Trelyon seemed to obtain from these +unwonted experiences. + +"Come, now, mother," Master Harry said, "what are you going to do for +me when I come of age next month? Fill the house with guests--yes, you +promised that--with not more than one parson to the dozen? And when +they're all feasting and gabbling, and missing the targets with their +arrows, you'll slip quietly away, and I'll drive you and Miss Wenna +over here, and you'll go and get your feet wet again in that cavern, +and you'll come up here again and have an elegant luncheon, just like +this. Won't that do?" + +"I don't quite know about the elegance of the luncheon, but I'm sure +our little excursion has been very pleasant. Don't you think so, Miss +Rosewarne?" Mrs. Trelyon said. + +"Indeed I do," said Wenna, with her big, earnest eyes coming back from +their trance. + +"And here is another thing," remarked young Trelyon. "There's +a picture I've seen of the heir coming of age--he's a horrid, +self-sufficient young cad, but never mind--and it seems to be a day of +general jollification. Can't I give a present to somebody? Well, I'm +going to give it to a young lady who never cares for anything but what +she can give away again to somebody else; and it is--well, it is--Why +don't you guess, Mabyn?" + +"I don't know what you mean to give Wenna," said Mabyn naturally. + +"Why, you silly! I mean to give her a dozen sewing-machines--a baker's +dozen--thirteen. There! Oh, I heard you as you came along. It was all, +'Three sewing-machines will cost so much, and four sewing-machines +will cost so much, and five sewing-machines will cost so much. And a +penny a week from so many subscribers will be so much, and twopence a +week from so many will be so much;' and all this as if my mother could +tell you how much twice two was. My arithmetic ain't very brilliant, +but as for hers--And these you shall have, Miss Wenna--one baker's +dozen of sewing-machines, as per order, duly delivered, carriage +free--empty casks and bottles to be returned." + +"That is very kind of you, Mr. Trelyon," Wenna said--and all +the dreams had gone straight out of her head so soon as this was +mentioned--"but we can't possibly accept them. You know our scheme is +to make the sewing club quite self-supporting--no charity." + +"Oh, what stuff!" the young gentleman cried. "You know you will give +all your labor and supervision for nothing: isn't that charity? And +you know you will let off all sorts of people owing you subscriptions +the moment some blessed baby falls ill. And you know you won't charge +interest on all the outlay. But if you insist on paying me back for +my sewing-machines out of the overwhelming profits at the end of next +year, then I'll take the money. I'm not proud." + +"Then we will take six sewing-machines from you, if you please, +Mr. Trelyon, on those conditions," said Wenna gravely. And Master +Harry--with a look toward Mabyn which was just about as good as a +wink--consented. + +As they drove quietly back again to Eglosilyan, Mabyn had taken her +former place by the driver, and found him uncommonly thoughtful. He +answered her questions, but that was all; and it was so unusual to +find Harry Trelyon in this mood that she said to him, "Mr. Trelyon, +have you been seeing ghosts, too?" + +He turned to her and said, "I was thinking about something. Look here, +Mabyn: did you ever know any one, or do you know any one, whose face +is a sort of barometer to you? Suppose that you see her look pale and +tired or sad in any way, then down go your spirits, and you almost +wish you had never been born. When you see her face brighten up and +get full of healthy color, you feel glad enough to burst out singing +or go mad: anyhow, you know that everything's all right. What the +weather is, what people may say about you, whatever else may happen +to you, that's nothing: all you want to see is just that one person's +face look perfectly bright and perfectly happy, and nothing can +touch you then. Did you ever know anybody like that?" he added rather +abruptly. + +"Oh yes," said Mabyn, in a low voice: "that is when you are in love +with some one. And there is only one face in all the world that I look +to for all these things, there is only one person I know who tells you +openly and simply in her face all that affects her, and that is our +Wenna. I suppose you have noticed that, Mr. Trelyon?" + +But he did not make any answer. + + + + +CHAPTER XXI. + +CONFESSION. + + +The lad lay dreaming in the warm meadows by the side of a small and +rapid brook, the clear waters of which plashed and bubbled in the +sunlight as they hurried past the brown stones. His fishing-rod lay +beside him, hidden in the long grass and the daisies. The sun was hot +in the valley--shining on a wall of gray rock behind him, and throwing +purple shadows over the clefts; shining on the dark bushes beside +the stream and on the lush green of the meadows; shining on the trees +beyond, in the shadow of which some dark red cattle were standing. +Then away on the other side of the valley rose gently-sloping woods, +gray and green in the haze of the heat, and over these again was the +pale blue sky with scarcely a cloud in it. It was a hot day to be +found in spring-time, but the waters of the brook seemed cool and +pleasant as they gurgled by, and occasionally a breath of wind blew +over from the woods. For the rest, he lay so still on this fine, +indolent, dreamy morning that the birds around seemed to take no note +of his presence, and one of the large woodpeckers, with his scarlet +head and green body brilliant in the sun, flew close by him and +disappeared into the bushes opposite like a sudden gleam of color shot +by a diamond. + +"Next month," he was thinking to himself as he lay with his hands +behind his head, not caring to shade his handsome and well-tanned face +from the warm sun--"next month I shall be twenty-one, and most folks +will consider me a man. Anyhow, I don't know the man whom I wouldn't +fight or run or ride or shoot against for any wager he liked. But of +all the people who know anything about me, just that one whose opinion +I care for will not consider me a man at all, but only a boy. And that +without saying anything. You can tell, somehow, by a mere look, what +her feelings are; and you know that what she thinks is true. Of course +it's true--I am only a boy. What's the good of me to anybody? I could +look after a farm--that is, I could look after other people doing +their work--but I couldn't do any work myself. And that seems to me +what she is always looking at: 'What's the good of you, what are you +doing, what are you busy about?' It's all very well for her to be +busy, for she can do a hundred thousand things, and she is always at +them. What can I do?" + +Then his wandering day-dreamings took another turn: "It was an odd +thing for Mabyn to say--'_That is when you are in love with some +one_.' But those girls take everything for love. They don't know how +you can admire, almost to worshiping, the goodness of a woman, and how +you are anxious that she should be well and happy, and how you would +do anything in the world to please her, without fancying straight away +that you are in love with her, and want to marry her and drive about +in the same carriage with her. I shall be quite as fond of Wenna +Rosewarne when she is married, although I shall hate that little brute +with his rum and his treacle. The cheek of him, in asking her to marry +him, is astonishing. He is the most hideous little beast that could +have been picked out to marry any woman, but I suppose he has appealed +to her compassion, and then she'll do anything. But if there was +anybody else in love with her, if she cared the least bit about +anybody else, wouldn't I go straight to her and insist on her shunting +that fellow aside? What claim has he on any other feeling of hers but +her compassion? Why, if that fellow were to come and try to frighten +her, and if I were in the affair, and if she appealed to me even by a +look, then there would be short work with something or somebody." + +He got up hastily, with something of a gloomy and angry look on his +face. He did not notice that he had startled all the birds around from +out of the bushes. He picked up his rod and line in a morose +fashion, not seeming to care about adding to the half dozen small and +red-speckled trout he had in his basket. + +While he was thus irresolutely standing he caught sight of a girl's +figure coming rapidly along the valley under the shadow of some ash +trees growing by the stream. It was Wenna Rosewarne herself, and she +seemed to be hurrying toward him. She was carrying some black object +in her arms. + +"Oh, Mr. Trelyon," she said, "what am I to do with this little dog? I +saw him kicking in the road and foaming at the mouth; and then he got +up and ran, and I caught him--" + +Before she had time to say anything more the young man made a sudden +dive at the dog, caught hold of him and turned and heaved him into the +stream. He fell into a little pool of clear brown water: he spluttered +and paddled there for a second, then he got his footing and scrambled +across the stones up to the opposite bank, where he began shaking the +water from his coat among the long grass. + +"Oh, how could you be so disgracefully cruel?" she said, with her face +full of indignation. + +"And how could you be so imprudent?"' he said quite as vehemently. +"Why, whose is the dog?" + +"I don't know." + +"And you catch up some mongrel little cur in the middle of the +highway--He might have been mad." + +"I knew he wasn't mad," she said: "it was only a fit; and how could +you be so cruel as to throw him into the river?" + +"Oh," said the young man, coolly, "a clash of cold water is the best +thing for a dog that has a fit. Besides, I don't care what he had or +what I did with him, so long as you are safe. Your little finger is of +more consequence than the necks of all the curs in the country." + +"Oh, it is mean of you to say that," she retorted warmly. "You have no +pity for those wretched little things that are at every one's mercy. +If it were a handsome and beautiful dog, now, you would care for that, +or if it were a dog that was skilled in getting game for you, you +would care for that." + +"Yes, certainly," he said: "these are dogs that have something to +recommend them." + +"Yes, and every one is good to them: they are not in need of your +favor. But you don't think of the wretched little brutes that have +nothing to recommend them, that only live on sufferance, that every +one kicks and despises and starves." + +"Well," said he with some compunction, "look there! That new friend of +yours--he's no great beauty, you must confess--is all right now. The +bath has cured him. As soon as he's done licking his paws he'll be off +home, wherever that may be. But I've always noticed that about you, +Wenna: you're always on the side of things that are ugly and helpless +and useless in the world; and you're not very just to those who don't +agree with you. For after all, you know, one wants time to acquire +that notion of yours--that it is only weak and ill-favored creatures +that are worthy of the least consideration." + +"Yes," she said rather sadly, "you want time to learn that." + +He looked at her. Did she mean that her sympathy with those who were +weak and ill-favored arose from some strange consciousness that she +herself was both? His cheeks began to burn red. He had often heard her +hint something like that, and yet he had never dared to reason with +her or show her what he thought of her. Should he do so now? + +"Wenna," he said, blushing hotly, "I can't make you out sometimes. You +speak as if no one cared for you. Now, if I were to tell you--" + +"Oh, I am not so ungrateful," she said hastily. "I know that two or +three do; and--and, Mr. Trelyon, do you think you could coax that +little dog over the stream again? You see he has come back again--he +can't find his way home." + +Mr. Trelyon called to the dog: it came down to the river's side, and +whined and shivered on the brink. + +"Do you care a brass farthing about the little beast?" he said to +Wenna. + +"I must put him on his way home," she answered. + +Thereupon the young man went straight through the stream to the other +side, jumping the deeper portions of the channel: he caught up the dog +and brought it back to her; and when she was very angry with him for +this mad performance, he merely kicked some of the water out of his +trousers and laughed. + +Then a smile broke over her face also. "Is that an example of what +people would do for me?" she said shyly. "Mr. Trelyon, you must keep +walking through the warm grass till your feet are dry; or will you +come along to the inn, and I shall get you some shoes and stockings? +Pray do, and at once. I am rather in a hurry." + +"I'll go along with you, anyway," he said, "and put this little brute +into the highway. But why are you in a hurry?" + +"Because," said Wenna, as they set out to walk down the +valley--"because my mother and I are going to Penzance the day after +to-morrow, and I have a lot of things to get ready." + +"To Penzance?" said he with a sudden falling of the face. + +"Yes. She has been dreadfully out of sorts lately, and she has sunk +into a kind of despondent state. The doctor says she must have a +change--a holiday, really--to take her away from the cares of the +house--" + +"Why, Wenna, it's you who want the holiday--it's you who have the +cares of the house," Trelyon said warmly. + +"And so I have persuaded her to go to Penzance for a week or two, and +I go with her to look after her. Mr. Trelyon, would you be kind enough +to keep Rock for me until we come back? I am afraid of the servants +neglecting him." + +"You needn't be afraid of that: he's not one of the ill-favored--every +one will attend to him," said Trelyon; and then he added, after a +minute or two of silence, "The fact is, I think I shall be at Penzance +also while you are there. My cousin Juliott is coming here in about a +fortnight to celebrate the important event of my coming of age, and I +promised to go for her. I might as well go now." + +She said nothing. + +"I might as well go any time," he said rather impatiently. "I haven't +got anything to do. Do you know, before you came along just now, I was +thinking what a very useful person you were in the world, and what +a very useless person I was--about as useless as this little cur. I +think somebody should take me up and heave me into a river. And I was +wondering, too"--here he became a little more embarrassed and slow of +speech--"I was wondering what you would say if I spoke to you, and +gave you a hint that sometimes--that sometimes one might wish to cut +this lazy life if one only knew how, and whether so very busy a person +as yourself mightn't--don't you see?--give one some notion--some sort +of hint, in fact--" + +"Oh, but then, Mr. Trelyon," she said quite cheerfully, "you would +think it very strange if I asked you to take any interest in the +things that keep me busy. That is not a man's work. I wouldn't accept +you as a pupil." + +He burst out laughing. "Why," said he, "do you think I offered to mend +stockings and set sums on slates and coddle babies?" + +"As for setting sums on slates," she remarked with a quiet +impertinence, "the working of them out might be of use to you." + +"Yes, and a serious trouble too," he said candidly. "No, no--that +cottage business ain't in my line. I like to have a joke with the +old folks or a romp with the kids, but I can't go in for cutting out +pinafores. I shall leave my mother to do my share of that for me; and +hasn't she come out strong lately, eh? It's quite a new amusement for +her, and it's driven a deal of that organ-grinding and stuff out of +her head; and I've a notion some o' those parsons--" + +He stopped short, remembering who his companion was; and at this +moment they came to a gate which opened out on the highway, through +which the small cur was passed to find his way home. + +"Now, Miss Wenna," said the young man--"By the way, you see how I +remember to address you respectfully ever since you got sulky with me +about it the other day?" + +"I am sure I did not get sulky with you, and especially about that," +she remarked with much composure. "I suppose you are not aware that +you have dropped the 'Miss' several times this morning already?" + +"Did I, really? Well, then, I'm awfully sorry; but then you are so +good-natured you tempt one to forget; and my mother she always calls +you Wenna Rosewarne now in speaking to me, as if you were a little +school-girl, instead of being the chief support and pillar of all the +public affairs of Eglosilyan. And now, Miss Wenna, I sha'n't go down +the road with you, because my damp boots and garments would gather the +dust; but perhaps you wouldn't mind stopping two seconds here, and I'm +going to go a cracker and ask you a question: What should a fellow in +my position try to do? You see, I haven't had the least training for +any one of the professions, even if I had any sort of capacity--" + +"But why should you wish to have a profession?" she said simply. "You +have more money than is good for you already." + +"Then you don't think it ignominious," he said, with his face lighting +up considerably, "to fish in summer and shoot in autumn and hunt in +winter, and make that the only business of one's life?" + +"I should if it were the only business, but it needn't be, and you +don't make it so. My father speaks very highly of the way you look +after your property; and he knows what attending to an estate is. And +then you have so many opportunities of being kind and useful to the +people about you that you might do more good that way than by working +night and day at a profession. Then you owe much to yourself, because +if every one began with himself, and educated himself, and became +satisfied and happy with doing his best, there would be no bad conduct +and wretchedness to call for interference. I don't see why you should +be ashamed of shooting and hunting and all that, and doing them as +well as anybody else, or far better, as I hear people say. I don't +think a man is bound to have ambition and try to become famous: you +might be of much greater use in the world, even in such a little +place as Eglosilyan, than if you were in Parliament. I did say to Mrs. +Trelyon that I should like to see you in Parliament, because one has +a natural pride in any person one admires and likes very much, and one +wishes--" + +He saw the quick look of fear that sprang to her eyes--not a sudden +appearance of shy embarrassment, but of absolute fear--and he was +almost as startled by her blunder as she herself was. He hastily came +to her rescue. He thanked her in a few rapid and formal words for her +patience and advice; and, as he saw she was trying to turn away and +hide the mortification visible on her face, he shook hands with her +and let her go. + +Then he turned. He had been startled, it is true, and grieved to see +the pain her chance words had caused her. But now a great glow of +delight rose up within him, and he could have called aloud to the blue +skies and the silent woods because of the joy that filled his heart. +They were but chance words, of course. They were uttered with no +deliberate intention: on the contrary, her quick look of pain showed +how bitterly she regretted the blunder. Moreover, he congratulated +himself on his rapid piece of acting, and assured himself that she +would believe that he had not noticed that admission of hers. They +were idle words: she would forget them. The incident, so far as she +was concerned, was gone. + +But not so far as he was concerned. For now he knew that the person +whom, above all other persons in the world, he was most desirous to +please, whose respect and esteem he was most anxious to obtain, had +not only condoned much of his idleness out of the abundant charity of +her heart, but had further, and by chance, revealed to him that she +gave him some little share of that affection which she seemed to shed +generously and indiscriminately on so many folks and things around +her. He, too, was now in the charmed circle. He walked with a new +pride through the warm, green meadows, his rod over his shoulder: he +whistled as he went, or he sang snatches of "The Rose of Allandale." +He met two small boys out bird's-nesting: he gave them a shilling +apiece, and then inconsistently informed them that if he caught them +then or at any other time with a bird's nest in their hands he would +cuff their ears. Then he walked hastily home, put by his fishing-rod, +and shut himself up in his study with half a dozen of those learned +volumes which he had brought back unsoiled from school. + + + + +CHAPTER XXII. + +ON WINGS OF HOPE. + + +When Trelyon arrived late one evening at Penzance he was surprised +to find his uncle's coachman awaiting him at the station: "What's the +matter, Tobias? Is the old gentleman going to die? You don't mean to +say you are here for me?" + +"Yaaes, zor, I be," said the little old man with no great courtesy. + +"Then he is going to die if he sends out his horse at this time o' +night. Look here, Tobias: I'll put my portmanteau inside and come on +the box to have a talk with you--you're such a jolly old card, you +know--and you'll tell me all that's happened since I last enjoyed my +uncle's bountiful hospitality." + +This the young man did: and then the brown-faced, wiry and surly +little person, having started his horse, proceeded to tell his story +in a series of grumbling and disconnected sentences. He was not nearly +so taciturn as he looked: "The maaester he went suen to bed to-night: +'twere Miss Juliott sent me to the station, without tellin' en. He's +gettin' worse and worse, that's sure: if yue be for giving me half a +crown, like, or any one that comes to the house, he finds it out and +stops it out o' my wages: yes, he does, zor, the old fule!" + +"Tobias, be a little more respectful to my uncle, if you please." + +"Why, zor, yue knaw en well enough," said the man in the same surly +fashion. "And I'll tell yue this, Maaester Harry, if yue be after +dinner with en, and he has a bottle o' poort wine that he puts on +the mantelpiece, and he says to yue to let that aloaen, vor 'tis a +medicine-zart o' wine, don't yue heed en, but have that wine. 'Tis the +real old poort wine, zor, that yuer vather gied en--the dahmned old +pagan!" + +The young man burst out laughing, instead of reprimanding Tobias, who +maintained his sulky impassiveness of face. + +"Why, zor, I be gardener now, too: yaaes I be, to save the wages. +And he's gone clean mazed about that garden--yaaes, I think. Would yue +believe this, Maaester Harry, that he killed every one o' the blessed +strawberries last year with a lot o' wrack from the bache, because he +said it wued be as good for them as for the 'sparagus?" + +"Well, but the old chap finds amusement in pottering about the +garden--" said Master Harry. + +"The old fule!" repeated Tobias, in an under tone. + +"And the theory is sound about the seaweed and the strawberries; +just as his old notion of getting a green rose by pouring sulphate of +copper in at the roots." + +"Yaaes, that were another pretty thing, Maaester Harry, and he had the +tin labels all printed out in French, and he waited and waited, and +there bain't a fairly guede rose left in the garden. And his violet +glass for the cucumbers: he burned en up to once, although 'twere fine +to hear'n talk about the sunlight and the rays and such nonsenses. He +be a strange mahn, zor, and a dahmned close'n with his penny-pieces, +Christian and all as he calls his-sen. There's Miss Juliott, zor, +she's go-in' to get married, I suppose; and when she goes no one 'll +dare spake to 'n. Be yue going to stop long this time, Maaester Harry?" + +"Not at the Hollies, Tobias. I shall go down to the Queen's to-morrow: +I've got rooms there." + +"So much the better--so much the better," said the frank but +inhospitable retainer; and presently the jogtrot old animal between +the shafts was pulled up in front of a certain square old-fashioned +building of gray stone which was prettily surrounded with trees. They +had arrived at the Rev. Mr. Penaluna's house, and there was a young +lady standing in the light of the hall, she having opened the door +very softly as she heard the carriage drive up. + +"So here you are, Harry; and you'll stay with us the whole fortnight, +won't you? Come in to the dining-room--I have some supper ready for +you. Papa's gone to bed, and he desired me to give you his excuses, +and he hopes you'll make yourself quite at home, as you always do, +Harry." + +He did make himself quite at home, for, having kissed his cousin and +flung his topcoat down in the hall, he went into the dining-room and +took possession of an easy-chair. + +"Sha'n't have any supper, Jue, thank you. You won't mind my lighting +a cigar--somebody's been smoking here already. And what's the least +poisonous claret you've got?" + +"Well, I declare!" she said, but she got him the wine all the +same, and watched him light his cigar: then she took the easy-chair +opposite. + +"Tell us about your young man, Jue," he said. "Girls always like to +talk about that." + +"Do they?" she said. "Not to boys." + +"I shall be twenty-one in a fortnight. I am thinking of getting +married." + +"So I hear," she remarked quietly. + +Now he had been talking nonsense at random, mostly intent on getting +his cigar well lit, but this little observation rather startled him. +"What have you heard?" he said abruptly. + +"Oh, nothing--the ordinary stupid gossip," she said, though she was +watching him rather closely. "Are you going to stay with us for the +next fortnight?" + +"No, I have got rooms at the Queen's." + +"I thought so. One might have expected you, however, to stay with your +relations when you came to Penzance." + +"Oh, that's all gammon, Jue," he said: "you know very well your father +doesn't care to have any one stay with you--it's too much bother. +You'll have quite enough of me while I am in Penzance." + +"Shall we have anything of you?" she said with apparent indifference. +"I understood that Miss Rosewarne and her mamma had already come +here." + +"And what if they have?" he said with unnecessary fierceness. + +"Well, Harry," she said, "you needn't get unto a temper about it, but +people will talk, you know; and they say that your attentions to that +young lady are rather marked, considering that she is engaged to be +married; and you have induced your mother to make a pet of her. Shall +I go on?" + +"No, you needn't," he said with a strong effort to overcome his anger. +"You're quite right--people do talk, but they wouldn't talk so much +if other people didn't carry tales. Why, it isn't like you, Jue! I +thought you were another sort. And about this girl, of all girls in +the world!" + +He got up and began walking about the room, and talking with +considerable vehemence, but no more in anger. He would tell her what +cause there was for this silly gossip. He would tell her who this +girl was who had been lightly mentioned. And in his blunt, frank, +matter-of-fact way, which did not quite conceal his emotion, he +revealed to his cousin all that he thought of Wenna Rosewarne, and +what he hoped for her in the future, and what their present relations +were, and then plainly asked her if she could condemn him. + +Miss Juliott was touched: "Sit down, Harry: I have wanted to talk +to you, and I don't mean to heed any gossip. Sit down, please--you +frighten me by walking up and down like that. Now, I'm going to talk +common sense to you, for I should like to be your friend; and your +mother is so easily led away by any sort of sentiment that she isn't +likely to have seen with my eyes. Suppose that this Miss Rosewarne--" + +"No, hold hard a bit, Jue," he said imperatively. "You may talk till +the millennium, but just keep off her, I warn you." + +"Will you hear me out, you silly boy? Suppose that Miss Rosewarne +is everything that you believe her to be. I'm going to grant that, +because I'm going to ask you a question. You can't have such an +opinion of any girl, and be constantly in her society, and go +following her about like this, without falling in love with her. Now, +in that case would you propose to marry her?" + +"I marry her!" he said, his face becoming suddenly pale for a moment. +"Jue, you are mad! I am not fit to marry a girl like that. You don't +know her. Why--" + +"Let all that alone, Harry: when a man is in love with a woman he +always thinks he's good enough for her; and whether he does or not +he tries to get her for a wife. Don't let us discuss your comparative +merits: one might even put in a word for you. But suppose you drifted +into being in love with her--and I consider that quite probable--and +suppose you forgot, as I know you would forget, the difference in your +social position, how would you like to go and ask her to break her +promise to the gentleman to whom she is engaged?" + +Master Harry laughed aloud in a somewhat nervous fashion: "Him? Look +here, Jue: leave me out of it--I haven't the cheek to talk of myself +in that connection--but if there was a decent sort of fellow whom that +girl really took a liking to, do you think he would let that elderly +and elegant swell out in Jamaica stand in his way? He would be no +such fool, I can tell you. He would consider the girl first of all. +He would say to himself, 'I mean to make this girl happy; if any one +interferes, let him look out!' Why, Jue, you don't suppose any man +would be frightened by that sort of thing?" + +Miss Juliott did not seem quite convinced by this burst of scornful +oratory. She continued quietly, "You forget something, Harry. Your +heroic young man might find it easy to do something wild--to fight +with that gentleman in the West Indies, or murder him, or anything +like that, just as you see in a story--but perhaps Miss Rosewarne +might have something to say." + +"I meant if she cared for him," Trelyon said, looking down. + +"Granting that also, do you think it likely your hot-headed gentleman +would be able to get a young lady to disgrace herself by breaking her +plighted word and deceiving a man who went away trusting in her? +You say she has a very tender conscience--that she is so anxious to +consult every one's happiness before her own, and all that. Probably +it is true. I say nothing against her. But to bring the matter back to +yourself--for I believe you're hot-headed enough to do anything--what +would you think of her if you or anybody else persuaded her to do such +a treacherous thing?" + +"She is not capable of treachery," he said somewhat stiffly. "If +you've got no more cheerful things to talk about, you'd better go to +bed, Jue. I shall finish my cigar by myself." + +"Very well, then, Harry. You know your room. Will you put out the lamp +when you have lit your candle?" + +So she went, and the young man was left alone in no very enviable +frame of mind. He sat and smoked while the clock on the mantelpiece +swung its gilded boy and struck the hours and half hours with unheeded +regularity. He lit a second cigar, and a third; he forgot the wine. +It seemed to him that he was looking on all the roads of life that lay +before him, and they were lit up by as strange and new a light as +that which was beginning to shine over the world outside. New fancies +seemed to awake with the new dawn. For himself to ask Wenna Rosewarne +to be his wife! Could he but win the tender and shy regard of her eyes +he would fall at her feet and bathe them with his tears. And if this +wonderful thing were possible--if she could put her hand in his +and trust to him for safety in all the coming years they might live +together--what man of woman born would dare to interfere? There was a +blue light coming in through the shutters. He went to the window: +the topmost leaves of the trees were quivering in the cold air far up +there in the clearing skies, where the stars were fading out one by +one, and he could hear the sound of the sea on the distant beach, and +he knew that across the gray plain of waters the dawn was breaking, +and that over the sleeping world another day was rising that seemed to +him the first day of a new and tremulous life, full of joy and courage +and hope. + +[TO BE CONTINUED.] + + + + +ON THE VIA SAN BASILIO. + + +In Rome, 1851; a cold, dreary day in December--one of those days in +which a man's ambition seems to desert him entirely, leaving only its +grinning skeleton to mock him. Depressing as was the weather to a man +who had cheerfulness as a companion by which to repel its blustering +attacks, and raise his mind above the despondency it was calculated +to produce, how much more so to one whose hope had gone out as a +flickering lamp in a sudden gust of wind, and the sharp steel of whose +ambition had turned to pierce his own heart! + +Such a man, on the day mentioned, was walking along the Via San +Basilio. He was small in stature, poorly clad, and so thin, and +even cadaverous, that the casual observer might have been under +apprehension lest a gust of wind a little stronger than the average +might blow him entirely away; yet his air and manner were proud and +haughty, and what little evidences of feeling peered through the signs +of dissipation too apparent on his naturally attractive face were +those of genuine refinement. He was accompanied by a cicerone, or +servant, as villainous-looking a fellow as one often meets, even in +Italy, where an evil expression is so often seen stamped on handsome +features. + +Along the Via San Basilio the two men walked until they stood opposite +the door of No. 51. Sacred ground this, and historical as well. Art +had her votaries here, as the tourist of to-day will find she still +has, at whose shrines pilgrims from afar and from near worshiped, and +grew better and stronger for their ministrations. Crawford, then +at the acme of his fame, had his constantly-thronged studio in the +immediate vicinity, while those at No. 51 embraced, among others, that +of Tenerani, the famous Italian sculptor, whose work is always in such +fine dramatic taste, although he never sacrifices his love and +deep feeling of reverence for Nature, combining that with the most +delightful charms of Greek art. Among this artist's most noted works +will be remembered his "Descent from the Cross," which tourists +visiting the Torlonia chapel in the Lateran never gaze upon without +a thrill. The house was owned and also occupied by Bienaime, a French +sculptor who afterward became famous. + +In the immediate vicinity stands the famous Palazzo Barberini, begun +by Urban VIII. (Maffeo Barberini), who sat in the pontifical chair +from 1623 to 1644, and finished by Bernini in 1640. This palace +contains many paintings of historical interest by Raphael, Titian, +Guido, Claude and others. The one by the first-mentioned artist is a +Fornarina, and bears the autograph of the painter on the armlet. But +the picture that attracts the most attention here is one of world-wide +reputation, copies, engravings and photographs of which are everywhere +to be met with--Guido's Beatrice Cenci. A great divergence of opinion, +as is well known, exists in regard to the portrait. It bears the +pillar and crown of the Colonnas, to which family it probably +belonged. According to the family tradition, it was taken on the night +before her execution. Other accounts state that it was painted by +Guido from memory after he had seen her on the scaffold. Judging from +the position in which the poor girl's head is represented, one would +more readily give credence to the latter story, and think the artist's +memory had preserved her look and position as she turned her head for +a last look at the brutal, bellowing crowd behind. + +In the piazza of the palace is a very beautiful fountain, utilized +by one of the oldest Roman statues, representing a faun blowing water +from a conch-shell. + +But we must return to the Via San Basilio, and the two wayfarers we +left standing in front of No. 51. After gazing a moment at the number +to assure themselves that they were right, they entered, and knocked +at the first door, which was opened by the occupant of the apartment. +He was an artist and a man of very marked characteristics. Seven +years later Hawthorne wrote as follows of him: "He is a plain, homely +Yankee, quite unpolished by his many years' residence in Italy. He +talks ungrammatically; walks with a strange, awkward gait and stooping +shoulders; is altogether unpicturesque, but wins one's confidence +by his very lack of grace. It is not often that we see an artist +so entirely free from affectation in his aspect and deportment. +His pictures were views of Swiss and Italian scenery, and were most +beautiful and true. One of them, a moonlight picture, was really +magical--the moon shining so brightly that it seemed to throw a +light even beyond the limits of the picture; and yet his sunrises and +sunsets, and noontides too, were nowise inferior to this, although +their excellence required somewhat longer study to be fully +appreciated." + +After this introduction by our sweet and quaint romancer, the reader +will hardly need be told that the two strangers stood in the presence +of America's now illustrious artist, George L. Brown. But one seeing +him then, as he stood almost scowling at the two strangers, would +hardly have idealized him into the artist whose pencil has done so +much of late years to give American art a distinctive name through his +poetical delineations of the rare, sun-tinted atmosphere that hovers +over Italian landscapes. However, our apology for him must be that the +day was raw and blustering, and that he had no sooner caught sight +of the men through his window, as they hesitatingly entered the door, +than his suspicions were aroused. + +The Italian acted as spokesman, and inquired if there were any rooms +to let in the building. Brown, thinking this the easiest way of +ridding himself of the visitors, went in search of the landlord, who +came, and after a moment's conversation the whole party entered the +studio, much to its owner's displeasure. + +The cicerone did most of the talking, though now and then the other +made a remark or two in broken Italian. But this was only for the +first few moments. He soon became oblivious of all save art, of which +one could see at a glance he was passionately fond. One of Mr. Brown's +pictures--a large one he was then engaged on--particularly attracted +his attention. He drew closer and closer to the canvas, examining it +with a minuteness that showed the connoisseur, and finally remarked: +"It is very fine in color, sir, and the atmosphere is delicious. Why +have I not heard of you before?" examining the corner of the canvas +for the artist's name, but speaking in a tone and with an air that +gave Brown the impression he was indulging in the random flattery so +current in studios. So, ignoring the question, he asked with a slight +shrug of the shoulders, "Are you an artist?" + +"I paint a little," was the reply, with an air of modesty which Brown +mistook for the bashful half-assertion of some daubing amateur. + +Just then the cicerone came forward and announced that the bargain was +completed and the room ready for occupancy. + +"I shall be happy--no, _happy_ is not a good word for me--I shall be +glad to see you in my studio when I have moved in, and perhaps you may +see some things to please you." + +So saying, the stranger departed, leaving Brown not a whit better +impressed with him than at first. + +The next morning the two called again, when the gentleman made an +examination of the room selected the day before, having met Mr. Brown +in the hall-way and invited him in. On entering, the new occupant took +from his pocket a piece of chalk and a compass and made a number of +circles and figures on the floor to determine when the sun would shine +in the room. Brown watched him with a certain degree of curiosity and +amusement, and finally, concluding he was half crazy, returned to his +own studio. + +The next day the cicerone called alone to see about some repairs, when +Brown hailed him: "_Buono giorno. Che e questo_?" ("Good-day. Who is +that?") + +"_Non sapete_?" ("Don't you know?"), was the Italian's response. "Why, +that is the celebrated Brullof." + +Brown started as though shot. First there flashed through his brain +the remembrance of how cavalierly he had treated the distinguished +artist, and then a quick panorama of his recent history, which had +been the gossip of studios and art-circles for some time back. "I must +go to him," he said, "and apologize for not treating him with more +deference." + +"_Non, signore_," was the cicerone's response. "Never mind: let it +rest. He is a man of the world, and pays little heed to such things. +Besides, he is so overwhelmed with his private griefs that he has +probably noticed no slight." + +However, when the great Russian artist took possession of his studio +his American brother of the pencil made his apology, and received this +response; "Don't waste words on so trivial a matter. Do I not court +the contempt of a world that I despise to my heart's core? Say no more +about it. Run in and see me when agreeable; and if you have no better +callers than such a plaything of fate as I, maybe you will not refuse +me occasional admittance." + +The Russian artist now shunned notoriety as he had formerly courted +it. Little is known of his history beyond mere rumor, and that only in +artistic circles. He was born at St. Petersburg in 1799 or 1800, and +gave himself to the study of art at an early age, becoming an especial +proficient in color and composition. One of his most widely-known +works is "The Last Days of Pompeii," which created great enthusiasm a +quarter of a century ago. This, however, was painted during his career +of dissipation, and its vivid coloring seemed to have been drawn from +a soul morbid with secret woes and craving a nepenthe which never +came. + +The young artist was petted and idolized by the wealth and nobility +of St. Petersburg, where he married a beautiful woman, and became +court-painter to the czar Nicholas about the year 1830. For some years +no couple lived more happily, and no artist swayed a greater multitude +of fashion and wealth than he; but scandal began to whisper that +the czar was as fond of the handsome, brilliant wife of the young +court-painter as the cultivated people of St. Petersburg were of the +husband's marvelously colored works; and when at last the fact became +known to Brullof that the monarch who had honored him through an +intelligent appreciation of art had dishonored him through a guilty +passion for his wife, he left St. Petersburg, swore never again to +set foot on Russian soil or be recognized as a Russian subject, and, +plunging headlong into a wild career of dissipation, was thenceforth a +wanderer up and down the continent of Europe. + +It was when this career had borne its inevitable fruit, and he was but +a mere wreck of the polished gentleman of a few years previous, that +Brullof came to the Via San Basilio, where, as soon as the fact +became known, visitors began to call. Among the first were the Russian +ambassador and suite, who were driven up in a splendid carriage, with +liveried attendants; but after the burly Italian had announced to his +master who was in waiting, the door was closed, and with no message in +return the representatives of the mightiest empire on the globe +were left to withdraw with the best grace they could muster for the +occasion. Similar scenes were repeated often during the entire Roman +season. He saw but few of his callers--Russians, never. + +The Russian and the American artists became quite intimate during the +few months they were thrown together, and Mr. Brown has acknowledged +that he owes much of the success of his later efforts to hints +received from the self-exiled, dying Russian. + +"Mr. Brown," he said on one occasion, while examining the picture on +the artist's easel, "no one since Claude has painted atmosphere as you +do. But you must follow Calame's example, and make drawing more of +a study. Draw from Nature, and do it faithfully, and with your +atmosphere I will back you against the world. That is bad," pointing +to the huge limb of a tree in the foreground: "it bulges both ways, +you see. Now, Nature is never so. Look at my arm," speaking with +increased animation, and suddenly throwing off his coat and rolling +up his shirt-sleeve. "When you see a convexity, you will see concavity +opposite. Just so in Nature, especially in the trunks and limbs of +trees." + +This criticism made such an impression on Brown that it decided him +to go into more laborious work, and was the foundation of his habit +of getting up at daybreak and going out to sketch rocks, trees and +cattle, until he stands where he now does as a draughtsman. + +The painting which Brullof had first admired, and which had induced +him to compare Brown to Claude in atmospheric effects, was a view of +the Pontine Marshes, painted for Crawford the sculptor, and now in +possession, of his widow, Mrs. Terry, at Rome. + +During this entire season the penuriousness exhibited by Brullof is +one of the hardest phases of his character to explain. Though he was +worth at least half a million of dollars, his meals were generally of +the scantiest kind, purchased by the Italian cicerone, and cooked and +eaten in his room. Yet a kindness would touch the hidden springs of +his generosity as the staff of Moses did the rock of Horeb. + +Toward the close of the Roman season, Brullof, growing more and more +moody, and becoming still more of a recluse, painted his last picture, +which showed how diseased and morbid his mind had become. He called it +"The End of All Things," and made it sensational to the verge of that +flexible characteristic. It represented popes and emperors tumbling +headlong into a terrible abyss, while the world's benefactors +were ascending in a sort of theatrical transformation-scene. A +representation of Christ holding a cross aloft was given, and winged +angels were hovering here and there, much in the same manner as +_coryphees_ and lesser auxiliaries of the ballet. A capital portrait +of George Washington was painted in the mass of rubbish, perhaps as +a compliment to Brown. In contradistinction to the portrait of +Washington were seen prominently those of the czar Nicholas and the +emperor Napoleon; the former put in on account of the artist's own +private wrong, and the latter because at that time, just after the +_coup d'etat_, he was the execration of the liberty-loving world. + +In the spring the Russian artist gave up his studio, and went down +to some baths possessing a local reputation situated on the road to +Florence, where he died very suddenly. Much mystery overhangs his last +days, and absolutely no knowledge exists as to what became of his +vast property. His cicerone robbed him of his gold watch and all +his personal effects and disappeared. His remains lie buried in the +Protestant burying-ground outside the walls of Rome, near the Porto +di Sebastiano. His tomb is near that of Shelley and Keats, and +the monument erected to his memory is very simple, his head being +sculptured upon it in _alto relievo_, and on the opposite side an +artist's palette and brushes. + +EARL MARBLE. + + + + +A CHRISTMAS HYMN. + + The air was still o'er Bethlehem's plain, + As if the great Night held its breath, + When Life Eternal came to reign + Over a world of Death. + + The pagan at his midnight board + Let fall his brimming cup of gold: + He felt the presence of his Lord + Before His birth was told. + + The temples trembled to their base, + The idols shuddered as in pain: + A priesthood in its power of place + Knelt to its gods in vain. + + All Nature felt a thrill divine + When burst that meteor on the night, + Which, pointing to the Saviour's shrine, + Proclaimed the new-born light-- + + Light to the shepherds! and the star + Gilded their silent midnight fold-- + Light to the Wise Men from afar, + Bearing their gifts of gold-- + + Light to a realm of Sin and Grief-- + Light to a world in all its needs-- + The Light of life--a new belief + Rising o'er fallen creeds-- + + Light on a tangled path of thorns, + Though leading to a martyr's throne-- + Light to guide till Christ returns + In glory to His own. + + There still it shines, while far abroad + The Christmas choir sings now, as then, + "Glory, glory unto God! + Peace and good-will to men!" + +ROME, Christmas, 1871. + +T. BUCHANAN READ. + + + + +THE PARSEES. + + +Hanging in my study is a noteworthy portrait, generally the first +object observed by those who enter. It is an exquisite painting on +glass, the work of Lang Qua, the best artist China has produced in our +day, and it delineates the form and features of a singularly handsome +young man. But it is the quaint Parsee garb that first attracts +attention; and the weird romance that attaches to the history of the +Fire-worshipers gives this work of art its real value, rather than +its lines of beauty or the celebrity of the painter's name. This +delicately-featured portrait _may_ depict the countenance of Musaljee +Jamsetjee Jejeebhoy, the first-born son and heir of the late Sir +Jamsetjee Jejeebhoy, baronet, of Bombay, India. That he really sat for +this portrait I cannot, however, positively assert, since I obtained +the painting from an English officer, who bought it of the artist, but +had "forgotten the strange, outlandish name of the Indian nabob," as +he said. It is certainly the portrait of a _Parsee_--true to the life +in features and garb, and it bears a striking resemblance to the young +Musaljee when about eighteen years of age. He was not then a personage +of any great celebrity, though the worthy son of a most remarkable +sire, the latter long known and honored in Europe for his liberal and +enlightened charities, and especially for his munificent donations, +that saved the lives of thousands of British subjects, during the +terrible famines that occurred in India between the years 1840 and +1846. It was in grateful recognition of this noble philanthropy that +Queen Victoria conferred upon him the honor of a baronetcy, sending +out a nobleman to act as her proxy in the presentation of a sword +which had been handled by more than one British monarch. Sir Jamsetjee +was the first East Indian who ever received a title from a European +sovereign. During the terrible famines alluded to he not only +distributed daily from his own palace a plentiful supply of food to +all who came, but he made also large donations of provisions to the +English governor of Bombay for the supply of his starving troops. +When, subsequently, pestilence followed in the footsteps of famine, +this true-hearted philanthropist, overstepping all prejudices of creed +and clan, built and endowed at his own expense a free hospital for the +sick of all nations and religions. Temporary bamboo cottages at first +received the sick till there was time for the erection of the present +elegant structure, which is built in the Gothic style, and is capable +of accommodating some six or eight hundred patients, besides nurses +and attendants. The physicians have been from the beginning of the +enterprise all English, as are many of the nurses, and the supplies in +every department are the very best the country can furnish. Since the +death of the noble founder, the son, who inherits his name and title, +has continued to foster with loving devotion the institution +which stands as a lasting monument of the fame and virtues of his +illustrious sire. The conception of such a charity tells not only of a +generous heart, but of far-reaching intelligence, while the energy and +perseverance of both father and son in carrying on, year after year, +so vast a system of benefactions, challenge our warmest admiration. + +The name of the late Sir Jamsetjee stood for more than a score of +years at the very head of the list of merchant-princes and ship-owners +in Bombay, where he was born, and where his ancestors for many +generations resided. He came of an old and wealthy family, who trace +their genealogy back to the Parsee exodus of the eighth century; and +it is said that the "sacred fire" has never once during all that time +burned out upon their altar. Sir Jamsetjee himself, though probably +faithful in the observance of the actual requirements of his creed, +was assuredly less strict than the majority, and being a man of large +intellect, cultivated mind and great independence of character, he did +not hesitate to borrow from other nations any customs, institutions or +inventions that might tend to the improvement of his own people. +His stately mansion was built and furnished in European style; his +children, even his daughters, were carefully educated in foreign as +well as native lore; and his own associations were with refined and +cultivated people, without any regard to their nation or creed. It was +while visiting at his house, in familiar intercourse with his family, +and with other Parsees of similar position, that I gleaned many +items of interest concerning the history and practices of the +Fire-worshipers. Other facts were added from time to time during +several years of frequent association with these singular people, in +whose glorious though unsuccessful struggles for home and liberty it +is impossible not to feel an interest. + +As a race, the Parsees are intelligent, active and energetic. With +business capacities far above the average, they are usually successful +in amassing wealth, while they are extremely benevolent in dispensing +their gains for both public and private charities. For private +benefactions they have, however, little call among themselves, since a +Parsee pauper would be an unheard-of anomaly. Their style of living is +princely but peculiar. In the reception-rooms of the wealthy--and most +of the Parsees in the city of Bombay are wealthy--one finds a +rather quaint mingling of Oriental luxury and European +elegance--brightly-tinted Persian carpets placed in Eastern fashion +over divans strewn with embroidered cushions and jewel-studded +pillows, among which recline, with genuine Oriental indolence, some of +the members of the family; while in another part of the same room +half a dozen more may be grouped about a table of marble and rosewood, +occupying velvet chairs that have traveled unmistakably from London +or Paris. French mirrors and Italian statuettes may have for their +_vis-a-vis_ the exquisite mosaics, the massive gold vases and the +costly bijouterie of the Orient, strewn so profusely around as to +startle unaccustomed eyes; and a genuine Meissonier will be just as +likely to be placed side by side with a Persian houri as anywhere +else. The Parsees drive the finest Arab steeds, but on their equipages +there is a more lavish display of ornament than we should deem quite +in accordance with good taste. The same is true in regard to personal +decoration. They wear immense quantities of costly jewelry, and nearly +all their garments are of silk, generally richly embroidered in gold, +and often with the addition of precious stones. Even little children +wear only silk, infants from the very first being wrapped in long, +loose robes of plain white silk that are gradually displaced by others +more elaborate and costly; while the toilette of a Parsee lady in full +evening-dress is often of the value of a hundred thousand rupees (or +forty-five thousand dollars). The female costume consists of silk or +cotton skirts gathered full round the waist, and long, loose robes +of silk, lace or muslin, all more or less decorated according to the +wealth of the wearer. The dress of the men is composed of trousers and +shirts of white or colored silk and long caftans of muslin, with the +addition of a fanciful little scarf fringed at the ends, and worn +jauntily across one shoulder and under the other arm. Their caps are +made of pasteboard covered with gay-colored silk, embroidered and +studded with precious stones or pearls. The form of a Parsee's shirt +is a matter of vital importance, both in regard to respectability and +religion. It must have five seams, neither more nor less, and be made +to lap on the breast exactly in a certain way. Both sexes wear around +the body a double string, which they loosen when at prayer, and which +a Parsee is never, under any circumstances, permitted to dispense +with. No engagement or business transaction is legally binding if by +any chance this talismanic cord was left off by either party when the +contract was made. The cord is first placed on children when they have +completed their ninth year, and this serves to mark the most important +epoch of their lives. Before the investiture the eating of food with +Christians or heathen does not defile the juvenile Parsee, and girls +may even go about in public with their fathers; but after the bestowal +of the sacred cord the girls must be kept in seclusion and the boys +eat only with their own people. + +Only the most liberal Parsees will permit those of other creeds to eat +under the same roof with themselves, and even these never eat at the +table with their guests. The table is first covered for the visitors, +and they are waited on with the utmost assiduity, often by the members +of the family in addition to the servants. When the guests leave the +board not only is the cloth changed, but the table itself is washed +before being recovered: salts, castors and other similar articles are +all emptied and washed, and the table newly laid in every particular. +Small flat cakes are distributed round the board to do service as +plates, and the various dishes arranged in the centre within reach of +all. The family then wash hands and faces and the father says a short +prayer, after which all take their seats and the meal begins. Neither +knives nor forks are used, but the meat is torn from the bones with +the fingers only, and with the left hand each one dips, from time to +time, bread, meat or vegetables into the broth or gravy as he wishes, +and then tosses it into his mouth, without allowing his fingers to +touch his lips. This requires some dexterity, and children are not +permitted at the family board till they have learned thus to acquit +themselves. If, however, the fingers of any one, child or adult, +should chance to come in contact with the lips, though ever so +slightly, he is required to leave the table instantly and perform +his ablutions over again, or else to take the dish from which he was +eating to himself, and touch no other during the meal. In drinking +they exercise the same caution, adroitly throwing the liquid into the +mouth or throat without touching the lips with the cup or glass. The +left hand is the one with which food is always taken; and the reason +assigned is, that the right, having of necessity to perform most +labor, is more frequently brought in contact with things unclean. + +I once made a voyage with an American lady and gentleman in a Bombay +ship that was owned and commanded by a wealthy Parsee merchant, though +the real sailing-master and mate were Englishmen. Our party ate at one +table, and the Parsee nabob had his own in solitary state. I was then +quite a youthful wife, and, as my husband was not of the party, the +Parsee supposed me unmarried, and overwhelmed me with the most gallant +attentions, among which were frequent invitations to our party to dine +in his cabin. But, though he would stand at my side all the time I +was eating, fill my cup or glass with his own hands, and urge me to +partake of certain dishes that were favorites of his own, nothing +could induce him to eat or drink in our presence, even after we had +left the table. And I learned afterward that the costly service of +rare china, silver and glass from which we had eaten and drunk at his +table, though carefully laid aside, was never again used by the owner. +One evening, as we sat on the upper deck inhaling the balmy air, he +invited me to smoke. Of course I declined, and when he insisted I told +him that it was contrary to the customs of good society in our country +for ladies to use tobacco in any form. He laughed heartily, and said, +"Did you suppose I would ask a lady to pollute her fragrant breath +and dewy lips with so foul a thing as vile tobacco? Taste and see." He +brought his splendid hookah, which I found filled with the "fragrant +spices of Araby" perfumed with attar of roses, while a long slender +tube rested in a vessel of rose-water at my feet; and the fumes were +certainly as agreeable as harmless. But this, my first experiment in +smoking, cost my Parsee friend three hundred dollars, the estimated +value of his gold-mounted hookah, with its complicated array of tubes +and vessels of the same precious metal, none of which he durst ever +use again. + +As we sat chatting together in the bright moonlight our ears were +suddenly greeted by the sound of sweet music--wild, unearthly melody +that seemed to rise from the very depths of the ocean just below our +feet. At first it was only a soft trill or a subdued hum, as of a +single voice: then followed what seemed a full chorus of voices of +enchanting sweetness. Presently the melody died away in the distance, +only, however, to burst forth anew after a brief interval. All the +time we were being regaled with the music we could see nothing to +enlighten us as to its source, and were inclined to pronounce it a +trick played by our fun-loving sailing-master. He, however, denied all +agency in the matter, but counseled us to "keep a close look-out on +the lee bow" if we wanted to see a mermaid. We had noticed a sort of +thrilling motion on the lower deck, not unlike the sensation produced +by the charge of an electro-galvanic battery; and this, the Parsee +captain gravely assured us, was the mermaids' dance, and their efforts +to drag down our ship. "But I'll catch one of them yet--see if I +don't," he said energetically as he caught up something from the deck +and ran forward, and was presently, with two of the Lascars, leaning +over the bow. Half an hour afterward he returned, and with a merry +laugh laid in my lap two little brown fish, informing me that they +were singing-fish, and that the music we had heard had been produced +by shoals of these tiny vocalists then clinging to the bottom of our +ship. Our Parsee friend told me that the Arabs and Persians always +speak of the singing-fish as "tiny women of the sea;" but he had +never heard our version of their long hair, and their twining it about +hapless sailors to drag them down to their coral caverns beneath the +ocean's wave. He showed me how to preserve the fish by drying in the +sun after repeated anointings with an aromatic oil, which he gave me +for the purpose; and I have still in my cabinet these two specimens as +a reminder of the incident. + +The manner in which the Parsees dispose of their dead seems to us too +shocking to be tolerated by a people so gentle and refined. But they +have grown familiar with a custom that, generation after generation, +has been observed by their race till it has ceased to be repugnant. +They call it "consigning the dead to the element of air." For +this purpose they have roofless enclosures, the walls of which are +twenty-five or thirty feet high, and within are three biers--one each +for men, women and children. Upon these the bodies of the dead are +laid, and fastened down with chains or iron bands. Presently birds +of prey, so numerous within the tropics and always waiting to devour, +pounce upon the corpse and quickly tear the flesh from the bones, +while the skeleton remains intact. This is afterward deposited in +a pit dug within the same enclosure, and which remains open till +completely filled up with bones; after which another is dug, and +when the enclosure can conveniently contain no more pits a new one is +selected and prepared. None but priests and bearers of the dead may +enter, or even look into, these walled cemeteries. The priests, by +virtue of their holy office, are preserved from defilement, but the +bearers are men set apart for this express purpose, and they are +considered so unclean that they may not enter under the roof of any +other Parsee or salute him on the street. If in passing a bearer do +but touch one's clothes accidentally, he is subject to a heavy fine, +while he who has been thus contaminated must bathe his entire +person and burn every article of raiment he wore at the time of his +defilement. + +I was anxious to visit one of their temples, but this, Sir Jamsetjee +assured me, was impossible, as none but the initiated are allowed +even to approach the entrance, still less to get a glimpse of what is +passing within. He, however, volunteered the information that, so far +as the sanctuary itself was concerned, there was little to be seen, +only naked walls, bare floors, and an altar upon which burns the +sacred fire brought with the Parsees from Persia, and which, he said, +had never been extinguished since it was kindled by Zoroaster from the +sun four thousand years ago. Of the form of service I could not induce +the baronet to speak, but I learned afterward from my ship-friend that +the altar is enclosed by gratings, within which none but the priest +may enter. He goes in every day to tend "the eternal fire," when he +must remain for the space of an hour, repeating certain invocations, +with a bundle of rods in his hand to repel any unclean spirits that +should venture to approach the sacred fire. Meanwhile, the assembled +multitudes prostrate themselves without and offer up their silent +adoration. "Yet, after all," musingly said the Parsee, "the universe +is the throne of the invisible God, of whom fire is but the emblem, +and we worship Him most acceptably with our eyes fixed on the east +when the sun rides forth at morning in his celestial chariot of fire." +This form of worship those curious in such matters may see on any +bright morning at Bombay, where whole crowds of Parsee men, women and +children rush out at sunrise to greet the king of day and offer up +their morning oblations. I was not surprised at the avowed preference +of my Parsee friends for out-door worship, since it is well known that +the ancient Persians not only permitted few temples to be erected to +their gods, and held in abhorrence all painted and graven images, but +they laid it to the charge of the Greeks, as a daring impiety, that +"they shut up their gods in shrines and temples, like puppets in a +cabinet, when all created things were open to them and the wide world +was their dwelling-place." It was probably religious zeal, even more +than revenge against the Greeks, that induced the burning of the +temple at Athens by Xerxes, led on, as he may have been, by the +fanatical zeal of the Magi who accompanied him. + +Plutarch speaks of the Persians, in common with the Chaldeans and +Egyptians, as worshipers of the sun under the name of Mithra, whom +they regarded as standing between Ormuzd, "the author of good," and +Ahriman, "the author of evil," occupied alternately in aiding the +former and subduing the latter. So do the Parsees of our own day +regard him; and their only hope for the ultimate triumph of Ormuzd is +in constant sacrifices and prayers and propitiatory offerings to the +sun as the fire that is to burn out and utterly consume all evil +from our earth. Fire is to the Parsees now, as it has ever been, the +holiest of all holy things, carried about by princes and great men for +safety; by warriors, as that which is to give them the victory over +their foes; and by all, as their sole and ever-present deity. Sir +Jamsetjee assured me that the _intelligent_ Parsees regard the sun +and fire as only the symbols that are to remind them of the God +they worship. But there can be no doubt that the mass of the Parsees +literally worship the sun and the "sacred fire;" and hence arise the +utter repugnance many of them have to celebrating their religious +rites within closed walls, and the decided preference ever shown for +out-door worship. I have often heard them say that the Fire-god +shows his aversion to confinement by drooping when he is shut up, and +growing vigorous just in proportion as free scope is given him. +The sun appears everywhere on the shields and armor of the ancient +Persians, as on some of the old-time monuments that have come down +to us; while occasionally Mithra is depicted as a youthful hero, with +high Persian cap, his knee on a prostrate bull, into whose heart he +seems plunging a dagger--symbolically, "the power of evil" in +complete subjection to the victorious sun, and about to be for ever +annihilated. + +Zoroaster (called by the Persians _Zerduscht_) was not, the Parsees +say, the _founder_ of their sect, but only the reviser and perfecter +of the system as it now exists among them. Living in the reign of +Darius Hystaspes, he was the contemporary, probably an associate, +of the prophet Daniel. Before the advent of this reformer the Magi +acknowledged two great First Causes--i.e., the light and the darkness, +the former the author of all good, the latter of every evil, moral +and physical--and these they believed were at perpetual war with each +other. Zoroaster taught, as he may have learned from Daniel, that +there was One greater still, who created both the light and the +darkness, making both to subserve His own will. He also inculcated the +duty of building temples for the preservation of the sacred fire from +storm and tempest, when "by sudden extinction of the light the powers +of darkness do gain often a signal victory." The Parsees hold in +supreme veneration the name of Zoroaster as the most noted of all +their Magi for wisdom and virtue. They believe that the sacred fire +was lighted by him miraculously from the sun--that it has burned +steadily ever since, and can never go out till it has consumed all +evil from the earth and the good has become universally triumphant. +They claim also that from the reforms wrought by Zoroaster there was +never the slightest change in any of their observances until about +twelve centuries ago, when Persia was overrun and conquered by the +Mohammedan Arabs. But not the fiercest persecution could induce +the Fire-worshipers to change their religion for that of the +Koran. Preferring liberty and their altars in a foreign land to the +alternative of apostasy or persecution at home, the aboriginal Persian +inhabitants fled to other lands, settling immense colonies in Surat +and Bombay, where their descendants form in our day a large and +valuable element of the population. Their integrity, industry and +enterprise are proverbial all over the East; and while they live +strictly apart from all other races, the Parsees are never wanting in +sympathy and help for those who need them. Dwelling amid nations +who are almost universally destitute of veracity, the Parsees are +eminently truthful; surrounded by polygamists and sensualists, they +maintain habits of purity and virtue; and accustomed to every-day +association with those who make a boast of cheating, my memory fails +to recall the case of a single Fire-worshiper who was not strictly +upright and honorable in his dealings. + +Commencing with the worship of the sun, and of fire as his emblem, the +Parsee grew into a sort of reverence for the elements of air, earth +and water. The air must not be contaminated by foul odors, and of +necessity no filth could be tolerated anywhere in house, street or +suburb; and to this reverence for the purity of the atmosphere may +be traced the absolute cleanliness for which Fire-worshipers are +everywhere noted. As the earth must receive no defilement, the Parsees +would deem it sacrilege to deposit therein their dead for corruption +and decay; and hence have doubtless originated their strange rites +of sepulture, as they believe that the body is thus more readily and +rapidly reduced to its original elements. Streams of water, even the +tiniest rivulets, are deemed too holy to be desecrated by washing +or spitting in them, and still less would they make the water the +receptacle of offal of any sort. To each of these elements, as well as +to the fire, the Parsees still make oblations on their high-days. +It is true that their ceremonies now are less imposing than those +described by Xenophon, when a thousand head of cattle were immolated +at a single festival, four beautiful bulls presented to Jupiter, or +the sky, and a magnificent chariot, drawn by white horses crowned with +flowers and wearing a golden yoke, was offered to the sun; while the +king in his chariot was escorted by princes and great nobles, +two thousand spearmen marching on either side, and three +hundred sceptre-bearers, armed with javelins and mounted on +splendidly-caparisoned horses, bringing up the rear. But those +jubilant days have passed: the Fire-worshipers are in exile, and +have no king to lead them, either in battle against their foes or in +triumphal processions in honor of their gods. Yet is Parseeism not +dead, nor even on the decrease. Sacrifices, numerous and costly, are +still piled upon their altars, the finest cattle are dedicated to +their gods, the flesh being cut up and roasted for the people, while +the Magi cast the caul and a portion of the fat into the fire as +emblematic of the souls of the victims being imbibed by the gods, +while the grosser portions are rejected. + +The sacrifices and those who offer them are always crowned with +flowers, but the pontifical robes of the Magi, though of pure white +silk, are severely plain in style and utterly devoid of ornament. In +their lives the Magi claim to practice a rigid asceticism, making the +earth their bed and subsisting wholly on fruit, vegetables and +bread, besides submitting to frequent painful penances from fasting, +scourging and the endurance of fatiguing exercises. "Wine, women and +flesh" they are commanded to eschew as "special abominations to those +who aspire to minister before the gods." The most remarkable feast of +the ancient Parsees was one called by them the "sack-feast." On the +appointed day a condemned malefactor was clothed in royal robes, +seated on a kingly throne and the sceptre of regal power placed in +his hand. Princes and people bowed the knee in mock homage before +this king of a day, and he was suffered to glut his appetite with all +manner of sensual delights till the sun went down, and then he was +cruelly beaten with rods, and forthwith executed. (Were the crown and +sceptre, the purple robe and mock reverence, that were the antecedents +of the Redeemer's crucifixion, a reproduction of this barbarous +custom?) The modern Parsees, though recognizing this feast as a +legitimate part of their worship, say that they have not observed it +since their flight from Persia in the eighth century, because since +then, being under a foreign yoke, they have had no jurisdiction over +human life, and durst not sacrifice even those who chanced to be +in their power. This may be one reason for the renunciation of this +barbarous practice of the olden time, but there has been wonderful +progress in civilization during the last twelve hundred years; and +certain it is that scenes of cruelty that suited the ferocious +tastes of the eighth century could not possibly be repeated in the +nineteenth. + +FANNIE ROPER FEUDGE. + + + + +OUR MONTHLY GOSSIP. + +A SWEDISH PROVINCIAL THEATRE. + + +It is not so magnificent as the Scala and San Carlo, and still, after +seeing both those famous theatres, I must confess I preferred that +of Carlstad to either. It is small and different in form from the +generality: it reminded me, in fact, of a hall in a certain New +England town where I used to go to the panorama as a child. There +was a gallery like that in which the men and boys sat who tramped the +loudest and kissed their hands, to the confusion of their neighbors, +when the lights were turned down to enhance the effect of the burning +of Moscow; only, at my panorama the gallery was unfashionable on +account of the noisy male element, whereas at Carlstad it was the +dress-circle. We--a party of Americans, the only foreigners in the +house that night--occupied orchestra-stalls, as I presume the two or +three front benches in the parquet may be called. There was a white +cape in our vicinity, as well as one in the balcony; so our seats were +probably as fashionable as those in the first and only circle; but +behind us, stretching out to the doors and in under the gallery, was a +dense mass unrelieved by opera-cloaks of any description; and that was +the region of the unpretending---of those who came simply to enjoy, to +see and not to be seen. + +As we spent a good part of a day at Carlstad, I should, perhaps, +relate something more of the place than merely how we went to +the theatre there; but that delightful evening effaced all other +impressions, and after the interval that has since elapsed _Fleur +de The_ and our commissioner are the only things that have retained +somewhat of their original savor. + +The railway from Stockholm to Christiania ceased at Carlstad on Lake +Wener, which gave us a day's drive to Arvika to strike the track +again; and while we stood consulting where we were to get carriages, +and whether we should go directly on, there came up a flourishing +specimen of the genus _valet de place_, who took possession of us and +laid out a plan that he had apparently prepared over night for our +especial benefit. It is a way those persons have, and one that gives +them a tremendous advantage over travelers weakened by a long journey, +that they act as if they were there by appointment to meet you, or as +if you had telegraphed precisely what you wished to do, and they were +merely carrying out your intentions. "You want to go to the Black +Eagle Hotel: I take you there. You would like to dine: you can have +dinner at the hotel, or I shall show you a nice restaurant." We had +not expected to find a member of the great European brotherhood just +there in a little town in the heart of Sweden, and, taken unawares, +fell an easy prey. However, they do not invariably succeed in that +way: sometimes, if their officiousness is excessive, their English +very exasperating and the traveler a little fractious as well as +tired, they get the tables turned on them. A lady just arrived +at Genoa, when halfway to the hotel with one of these persuasive +personages snatched her bag out of his hand and walked into the rival +albergo because he said with an aggravating accent, "I sall get you +a ticket for de steam-er." "No you sha'n't, either: I have got +it myself," she said; and so they parted company, to his infinite +amazement. My friend--it was a friend of mine--turned back, on +second thoughts, to offer the man something for having carried her +belongings, but he put on offended dignity and declared that he didn't +want her money. She was rather sorry afterward that he didn't do +violence to his feelings and take it; and so, no doubt, was he. + +Our Carlstad commissioner beguiled the length of the way to the +inn, at which we were a little inclined to grumble, by pointing out +everything of note in our walk through the town. We had been reading +up in the train, and knew that Carlstad was the capital of a district, +had five thousand inhabitants, and was nearly destroyed by fire in +1865; but he, a son of the place, and seeing in his mind's eye its +rising glory when the railroad should be completed, did not let us +off with that. We had to look and admire just where he told us. "Wide +streets," he would say in his finely-chopped English. "Houses all very +high--new since the fire. See here! there's the telegraph-office." + +At which, to answer in the style he understood best, we must have +responded, "Oh, I say! Well. Very good! All right!" + +"You shall go to the theatre if you want to," he remarked at last, +in that sweet, protecting way peculiar to his class from the habitual +confounding of _can, shall_ and _will_, and that put us into good +humor directly. To go to the theatre would be just the thing. + +"Oh yes, everybody goes," he said. It was a Danish company--very good +actors--very pretty piece; but we rather expected to care more for the +_everybody_ than either the piece or the actors; and so it proved. + +We went early, and established ourselves in the orchestra-stalls, as +already stated, while our guardian accepted an unpretending seat +for himself, where he remained in readiness to tow us home after the +performance. And then the spectators began to come in, and positively +some of the very people who used to be at the panorama. I know there +was a lady in front of me, in Mechanic Hall, who wore her hair in +just such a little knot--_pug_ is, I think, the classic name for that +coiffure--and her dress cut as low in the throat and adorned with +precisely such a self-embroidered collar as the lady rejoiced in who +occupied the seat before me at the theatre. That she was one of the +fashionables of Carlstad could be seen in the lofty pose of that pug, +and in the curious structure of ribbon and lace that sat astride of +it and hung down at each side. Her husband, a small, rather dried-up +gentleman, had the look of a town oracle who was oppressed at home, +and her daughter was one of the prettiest girls in the house. The +overgrown boy, the son and heir, was not pretty: he sat beside his +sister and kept nudging her. I could not exactly understand what he +said in Swedish, but I know it must have been of this nature: "There's +Jim Davis over there. Look, sister, look!" + +Sister only glanced at him with a reproving air of "Don't push me so," +and then gazed steadfastly in the other direction; but she was not +left long in peace. Tom's elbow began again in a minute: "He's looking +right at you, all the time. You'd better turn round and bow to him." +And the color would creep up in her cheeks, do all she could to +prevent it, so that she had to lean across mamma and say something to +her father, just so as not to bow to Mr. Davis, which would have been +such a simple thing to do, after all. + +Everybody who came in nodded and spoke to everybody else, and then +shook hands across the seats; and we felt quite out of our element +under the inquiring but superior glances that fell to our lot. It was +all very well for us to make our little observations and smile at +each other on the sly: we had the consciousness all the while of not +belonging to the first society in Carlstad, and of being viewed as +intruders in that select circle. + +We had been studying one family party after another as the seats +filled around us, for the audience collected by families, when, with a +little rustle and stir attending her progress, and a whispering behind +her as she advanced, the Bride appeared, for she had arrived from +Stockholm by our train. It was the first time any one had seen her +since she started on the wedding-tour, and the bows and smiles she +dealt out on every side were not to be numbered. Our pretty girl got +one--they were school-friends--and the horrid boy another, which he +barely answered with a solemn nod of his head, being as shy of her, +apparently, in her blue silk and white cape, as his sister was of Mr. +Davis. It was really a very pretty dress of the Bride's, and one that +made our traveling costumes look uncommonly shabby: it was taken up +behind in the approved style, and only needed a bustle to have been +truly effective. Doubtless she had seen plenty of those articles in +Stockholm, only her husband said, "I hope, dear, you will never put on +one of those horrid things;" and she told him certainly not if he did +not like them; but I think she found afterward she needed one for +that blue dress, and sent for it at the first opportunity. The young +husband was not got up for show, knowing very well that no one would +mind him, but he looked beamingly happy; and if he was not in a +dress-coat with a flower in his buttonhole, like the _habitues_ of +the Comedie Francaise or the Italiens, he understood how they use an +opera-glass there. The glass was a new acquisition that he had brought +home with him, and after practicing with it at the Royal Theatre in +the capital, he was fully prepared to stand up between the acts, with +his arm behind him in a negligently graceful attitude, and study +the balcony. His acquaintances there must have found it rather +embarrassing, for it was not a usual thing in Carlstad to look at +one's friends through an opera-glass: he was the only person who did +it, and they probably all talked about it when they went home. + +We were so occupied with our surroundings that we hardly thought of +the piece, though it was given with considerable spirit, if I remember +rightly. The sailors were fine, jolly tars, and the Chinese ladies +and gentlemen toddled about in flowered dressing-gowns and talked +with their thumbs, as it would appear the inhabitants of the Celestial +Empire usually do; but the house did not allow itself to be betrayed +into unseemly enthusiasm. There was an involuntary laugh now and then, +and once somebody said _bravo_, but as a general thing a discreet +reticence prevailed, and the actors might have gone through the piece +on their heads in an extravagant desire to elicit signs of approval: +they would only have received a cool little round of applause when the +curtain fell. + +We, at all events, had no hesitation in telling the commissioner that +we had enjoyed ourselves immensely; and so, it appeared, had he. He +was even bold enough to call it a very fine company, and as we walked +back to the hotel at half-past nine in broad daylight, he told us what +they were going to play the next evening, possibly in the hope that we +should stay for it and he should get another seat. That was out of the +question, however, sorry as we were to disappoint him. He had to tuck +us into the carriage the following day, and let us drive away and +leave him bereft of his charges. "You shall have a good ride," were +his parting words, kind and fatherly as he was to the last; and so we +had. But we found no one again to care for us so tenderly as our +old friend, nor did any one take us to the theatre throughout the +remainder of the journey. G.H. + + + + +VENETIAN CAFFES. + + +It is years since so lovely an autumn as that of 1874 has been seen +in Europe: people say not since the last great comet year, and they +credit the erratic visitor of last summer with the exceptional beauty +of the weather. As in the case of other marked comet years, the +vintages of which still bring extraordinary prices, Italy has had +exceptionally fine harvests of all kinds this year. The grain has been +abundant, the vintage has been superb, the olives have escaped the +danger of unseasonable frosts, and the still more important crop of +foreigners seems to be pretty well assured. The charming weather in +October and November made the interesting blossoms sprout plentifully; +and boat-loads and train-loads came in with an abundance promising an +unusually fine winter for _la bella Italia_. Venice, indeed, may be +said to have pretty well housed her crop in this kind already. It has +been a magnificent one, and the Queen of the Adriatic admits that due +homage has been done to her. The _forestieri_ season sets in earlier +in her case than in her sister cities. The real "Carnival de Venice" +is in August, September and October now-a-days, let the calendar say +what it may. Some flaunting of gaudy-colored calico, some dancing on +the Piazza of St. Mark, there may be on the eve of Lent in obedience +to old usages, but the dancing that really glads the Italian heart is +the dancing for which the _forestiere_ pays the piper, and the true +Lenten time is that when his beneficent presence is wanting. + +Venice, then, has already brought her Carnival to a conclusion; and +it has been a splendid one. English, Americans, Germans, all came in +shoals--all thronged the galleries, the churches and the palaces in +the morning, sauntered or bathed on the outer shore of the Lido in the +afternoon, and met at Florian's in the evening. "What is Florian's?" +will be asked by those who have never been at Venice--by some such, +at least. For probably the fame of the celebrated _caffe_ may have +traveled across the Atlantic, just as many who have never crossed +it westward are no strangers to the name of Delmonico. Florian's, +however, in any case, deserves a word of recognition. It is the +principal, largest and most fashionable caffe on the Piazza di San +Marco. But the singular and curious specialty of the place is that it +has never been closed--no, not for five minutes--day or night, for +a period of more than a hundred and thirty years! Probably it is the +only human habitation of any sort on the face of the globe of which +that could be said. + +But the caffe in itself is in many respects a specialty of Venetian +life, and has been so since the days of Goldoni. The readers of his +comedies, so abundantly rich in local coloring, will not have failed +to observe that the caffe plays a larger part in the life of Venice +than is the case in any other city. Probably no Venetian passes +a single day without visiting once at least, if not oftener, his +accustomed caffe. Men of business write their letters and arrange +their meetings there. Men of pleasure know that they shall find their +peers there. Mere loafers take their seats there, and gaze at the +stream of life, as it flows past them, for hours together. And, most +marked specialty of all, Venice is the only city in Italy where the +native female aristocracy frequents the caffe. Indeed, I know no place +in all the Peninsula where so large an amount of Italian beauty may +be seen as among the fashionable crowd at Florian's on a brilliant +midsummer moonlight night. + +Venice is of all the cities in the world the one which those who have +never seen it know best. The peculiarities of it are so marked and so +unlike anything else in the world, and the graphic representations of +every part of the city are so numerous and so admirably accurate, that +every traveler finds it to be exactly what he was prepared to see, and +can hardly fancy that he sees the Queen of the Adriatic for the first +time. I may therefore assume, perhaps, that my readers are acquainted +with the appearance of that most matchless of city spaces, the Piazza +di San Marco. They will readily call to mind the long series of +arcades that form the two long sides of the parallellogram which has +the gorgeous front of St. Mark's church occupying the entirety of one +of the shorter sides. Well, about halfway up the length of the piazza +six of the arches on the right hand of one facing St. Mark's church +are occupied by the celebrated caffe. The six never-closed rooms, +corresponding each with one of the arches of the arcade, are very +small, and would not suffice to accommodate a twentieth part of the +throng which finds itself at Florian's quite as a matter of course +every fine summer's night. But nobody thinks of entering these +smartly-furnished little cabinets save for breakfast or during the +hours of the day. Some take their evening ice or coffee on the seats +under the arcade, either immediately in front of the cabinets +or around the pillars which support the arches, and thus have an +opportunity of observing the never-ceasing and ever-varying stream of +life that flows by them under the arcade. But the vast majority of the +crowd place themselves on chairs arranged around little tables set out +on the flags of the piazza. A hundred or so of these little tables +are placed in long rows extending far out into the piazza, and far on +either side beyond the extent of the six arches which are occupied by +the caffe itself. A London or New York policeman would have his very +soul revolted, and conclude that there must be something very rotten +indeed in the state of a city in which the public way could be thus +encumbered and no cry of "move on" ever heard. Assuredly, it is +public ground which Florian, in the person of his nineteenth-century +representative, thus occupies with his tables and chairs. Probably, +if a Venetian were asked by what right he does so, the question would +seem to him much as if one asked by what right the tide covers the +shallows of the lagoon. It always has been so. It is in the natural +order of things. And how could Venice live without Florian's? + +But it is not Florian's alone which is thus a trespasser on the domain +of the public. The other less celebrated caffes do the same thing. +One immediately opposite to Florian's, on the other side of the +piazza--Quadri's--has almost as large a spread of chairs and tables +as Florian himself. But it is a curious instance of the permanence of +habits at Venice, that though at Quadri's the articles supplied are +quite as good, and the prices exactly the same, the fashionable +world never deserts Florian's. The only difference between the +two establishments, except this one of their customers, that is +perceptible to the naked eye, is that at Quadri's beer is served, +while Florian ignores the existence of that plebeian beverage, which +assuredly was never heard of in Venice in the days when he began his +career and formed his habitudes. + +I am tempted to endeavor to give the reader some picture of the scene +on the piazza on a night when (as is the case almost every other +evening) a military band is playing in the middle of the open space, +and the cosmopolitan crowd is assembled in force--to describe the +wonderful surroundings of the scene, the charm of the quietude broken +by no sound of hoof or of wheel, the soft and tempered light, the gay +clatter, athwart which comes every fifteen minutes the solemn mellow +tone of the great clock of St. Mark with importunate warning that +another pleasant quarter of an hour has drifted away down the stream +of time. It is a scene that tempts the pen. But the well-dressed +portion of mankind is very similar in all countries and under all +circumstances, and perhaps my readers may be more interested in a few +traits of the popular life of Venice, which the magnificent Piazza +of St. Mark is not the best place for studying, for some of the +most characteristic phases of it are absolutely banished thence. The +strolling musician or singer, who may be heard every night in other +parts of the city, never plies his trade on the piazza. Mendicancy, +which is more rife at Venice, I am sorry to say, than in any other +Italian city, except perhaps Naples, is not tolerated on the piazza. + +But if we wish for a good specimen of the truly popular life of +Venice, it will not be necessary to wander far from the great centre +of the piazza. Coming down the Piazzetta, or Little Piazza, which +opens out of the great square at one end, and abuts on the open lagoon +opposite the island of St. George at the other, and turning round the +corner of the ducal palace, we cross the bridge over the canal, which +above our heads is bridged by the "Bridge of Sighs," with its "palace +and a prison on each hand," as Byron sings, and find ourselves on the +"Riva dei Schiavoni"--the quay at which the Slavonic vessels arrived, +and arrive still. The quay is a very broad one, by far the broadest in +Venice, paved with flagstones, and teeming with every characteristic +form of Venetian life from early morning till late into the night. +There are two or three hotels frequented by foreigners on the Riva, +for the situation facing the open lagoon is an exceptionally good one; +and there are three or four caffes at which the cosmopolitan and not +too aristocratic visitor may get an excellent cup of coffee (for the +Venetians, thanks to their long connection with the East, know +what coffee is, and will not take chiccory or other such detestable +substitutes in lieu of it) for the modest charge of thirteen +centimes--just over two cents--and study as he drinks it the moving +and ever-amusing scenes enacted before his eyes. His neighbor perhaps +will be an old gentleman, the very type of the old "pantaloon" whose +mask was in the old comedy supposed to be the impersonation of +Venice. There are the long, slender and rather delicately-cut features +terminating in a long, narrow and somewhat protruding chin; the high +cheek-bones, the lank and sombre cheeks, the high nose, the dark +bright eye under its bushy brow. He is very thin, very seedy, and +evidently _very_ poor. But he salutes you, as you take your seat +beside him, with the air of an ex-member of "The Ten;" his ancient +hat and napless coat are carefully brushed; his outrageously high +shirt-collar and voluminous unstarched neckcloth, after the fashion of +a former generation, though as yellow as saffron, are clean; and his +poor old boots as irreproachable as blacking--which can do much, but, +alas! not all things--can make them. His expenditure of a penny will +entitle him not only to a cup of coffee, as aforesaid, but also to a +glass of fresh water, which has been turned to an opaline color by +the shaking into it of a few drops of something which the waiter drops +from a bottle with some contrivance at its mouth, the effect of which +is to cause only a drop or two of the liquor, whatever it may be, to +come out at each shake. Our old friend is also entitled, in virtue of +his expenditure, to occupy the chair he sits on for as many hours as +he shall see fit to remain in it. And after the coffee, which must +be drunk while hot, has been despatched, the sippings of the opaline +mixture aforesaid may be protracted indefinitely while he enjoys the +cool evening-breezes from the lagoon, the perfection of _dolce far +niente_, and the amusement the life of the Riva never fails to afford +him. An itinerant vender of little models of gondolas and bracelets +and toys made out of shells comes by, seeking a customer among the +folk assembled at the caffe. He does not address Pantaloon, for of +course he knows that there is nothing to be done in that line with +him. But spying with a hawk's glance a _forestiere_ among the crowd, +he strolls up to him, holding up one of his gimcrack bracelets +daintily--and he thinks temptingly, poor fellow!--between his finger +and thumb. "Un franco! Un sol franco! e una beleza per una contesa!" +("One franc! only one franc! It would be beautiful on the arm of a +countess!") he murmurs in his soft lisping Venetian, which abolishes +all double consonants, and supplies their place by prolonging the soft +liquid sound of the preceding vowel. One franc! It is wonderful how +the thing, worthless as it is, can be made even by the most starving +fingers for such a price. Yet after dangling his toy for a minute, and +gazing, oh, so wistfully! the while out of his big haggard eyes, he +says, "Seventy-five centimes! half a franc!" and still lingers ere he +turns away with a sigh, a weary movement of his emaciated figure and a +longing look on his poor hollow face that make one feel that the +drama we are witnessing is not all comedy. But it is all supremely +interesting to our neighbor, Si'or Pantaleone. He has been keenly +watching the attempted deal, and no doubt wished that his countryman +might succeed. But there was no element of tragedy in the matter for +him, a condition of semi-starvation is too much an ordinary, every-day +and normal spectacle. He looked on more as a retired merchant might +look on at the progress of a bargain for the delivery of a shipload +of grain. Presently, a middle-aged woman and a girl of some fourteen +years station themselves in front of the audience seated outside the +caffe. The elder woman has a guitar, and the girl a violin and some +sheets of music in her hand. The woman has her wonderful wealth of +black hair grandly dressed and as shining as oil can make it. She +has large gilt earrings in her ears, a heavy coral necklace, and a +gaudy-colored shawl in good condition. Whatever might be beneath +and below this is in dark shadow--"et sic melius situm." She is not +starved, however, for, as she prepares to finger her guitar, she shows +a well-nourished and not ill-formed arm. The young girl has one of +those pale, delicate, oval faces so common in Venice: she also has a +good shawl--an amber-colored one--which so sets off the olive-colored +complexion of her face as to make her a perfect picture. This +couple do not in any degree assume an attitude of appealing _ad +misericordiam_. They pose themselves _en artistes_. The girl sets +about arranging her music in a business-like way, and then they play +the well-known air of "La Stella Confidente," the little violinist +really playing remarkably well. Then the elder woman comes round with +a little tin saucer for our contributions. No slightest word or look +of disappointment or displeasure follows the refusal of those who give +nothing. The saucer is presented to each in turn. I supposed that +the application to Si'or Pantaleone was an empty form. But no. That +retired gentleman could still find wherewithal to patronize the fine +arts, and dropped a centime--the fifth part of a cent--into the dish +with the air of a prince bestowing the grand cross of the Golden +Fleece. Then comes a dealer in ready-made trousers, which Pantaloon +examines curiously and cheapens. Then a body of men singing +part-songs, not badly, but to some disadvantage, as they utterly +ignore the braying of half a dozen trumpets which are coming along the +Riva in advance of a body of soldiers returning to some neighboring +barracks. Then there are fruit-sellers and fish-sellers and +hot-chestnut dealers, and, most vociferous of all, the cryers of +"Acqua! acqua! acqua fresca!" There, making its way among the numerous +small vessels from Dalmatia, Greece, etc. moored to the quay of the +Schiavoni, comes a boat from the Peninsular and Oriental steamer, +which arrived this morning from Alexandria, with four or five +Orientals on board. They come on shore, and proceed to saunter +along the Riva toward the Grand Piazza, while their dark faces and +brightly-colored garments add an element to the motley scene which is +perfectly in keeping with old Venetian reminiscences. + +T.A.T. + + + + +A NEW MEXICAN CHRISTMAS EVE. + + +It is Christmas Eve in Albuquerque. Blazing fagots of mesquite-roots +placed on the surrounding adobe walls illuminate the old church on +the plaza. There is a grand _baile_ at the fonda, to which we and our +"family are most respectfully invited." The sounds of music already +invite us to the ball-room. We enter. The floor is full; a hundred +couples are gliding through the graceful "Spanish dance," or "slow +waltz," as it is termed here. Not a few blue-and-gold United States +uniforms are to be seen in the throng. A full-uniformed major-general +of volunteers adds the eclat of his epaulettes to the occasion. The +ranchos have poured in their senoras and senoritas, and three rows of +the dark-eyed creatures sit ranged around the room. + +The Mexican women look their best in a ball-room. Their black eyes, +black hair and white teeth glisten in the light; they are dressed +in the gayest of gay colors; ponderous ornaments of gold, strongly +relieved by their dusk complexions, shed around them a rich barbaric +lustre. Not that they eschew adventitious means to blanch their +sun-shadowed tints. For days some of the senoras and senoritas have +worn a mask of a white clayey mixture to give them an ephemeral +whiteness for this occasion. Those who could procure nothing else have +worn a pasty vizard kneaded of common clay, to effect in some degree +a like result by protecting their faces from the sun and wind. Should +you visit New Mexico, and as you ride along slowly in the heat of +midday meet a senorita who gazes at you with a pair of jet black eyes +through a hideous, ghastly mask of mud or mortar, do not be frightened +from your accustomed propriety. The senorita is preparing her +_toilette de bal_. + +The New Mexican women cannot be considered pretty, generally speaking. +In artistic symmetry of feature, in purity of complexion, they are +not to be compared with our countrywomen. These can bear the searching +light of day, when delicacy of detail can be distinguished and +appreciated. Those look their best in the artificial light of the +ball-room. There the blue-black hair, the brilliant black eyes, the +well-traced eyebrows, the magnificently white and regular teeth, the +richly-developed forms, produce a general effect before which our +blond and delicate beauties seem pale and _fades_. But the Mexican's +coarser skin--her _teint basane_--is too plainly visible in the light +of the sun: you should see her only by the lamps. It is doubtless +rather from an instinct of coquetry than from any other feeling that +in the day-time the Mexican women shroud their dusky traits in the +folds of their _rebosas_, leaving only one pilot eye to look upon the +outer world. + +No introductions are necessary at the public bailes. Saunter around +the room, inspect the show of expectant partners, and when you see one +who suits your fancy ask her to dance, without more ado. If she be not +engaged she will at once accept your proffered arm. She will not +say anything. Ten to one she will not breathe a syllable during your +evolutions. Conversation is not the forte of the senoritas. But she +will smile and smile, and you will have no reason to complain of her +waltzing. The Mexican _caballero_, when he seeks a partner, will +not put himself out so far as to have any words about it. He merely +beckons the chosen one, as the sultan might throw the handkerchief, +and she comes to him at once. + +Each dance concluded, you lead your partner to a sort of bar where +refreshments are furnished, and ask her whether she will take _vino_ +or _dulces_--wine or candies? She will take _dulces_--"Gracias, +senor!" This is _de rigueur_. You pay for them of course, and +conduct her to her seat. She pours the _dulces_ into the awaiting +pocket-handkerchiefs of the old people, her _comadres_, and of her +younger brothers and sisters. + +In a little room adjoining the ball-room, with door invitingly open, +is the shrine of _monte_. The revelry of the ball-room is unheeded by +the preoccupied votaries of the changeful deity as they sit around the +green table watching the dealer as he turns the cards, and nervously +fingering their little piles of red or white "chips." We have no +business and no pleasure here. Let us merely look in and pass on. + +Waltzes, "round" and "slow," are the _pieces de resistance_ of a +Mexican baile: quadrilles are not relished by the dusky danseuses. +There are some New Mexican dances which do not lack prettiness. Of +these, the Cuna is the most popular. It commences with a see-saw +movement suggestive of its name--cuna- or cradle-dance. For the rest, +the waltz enters much into its composition. + +The orchestra generally consists of one or more violins and a guitar +or two. The New Mexican guitar is strung conversely: the base-string +is where we put the treble, and _vice versa_. The strings are +generally struck with the thumb-nail or with a piece of horn or wood +like the ancient _plectrum_. This produces a harsh metallic sound, +without any rotundity. Few New Mexican fiddlers or guitar-players are +capable of playing in any time except dancing time, and the character +of the baile, funeral and sacred music is the same. The only +distinction is the addition of a continuous _tremolo_ to the latter +two, which produces the same unpleasant effect on the nerves as a +comic song chanted by the shaky, cracked, piping and quavering voice +of senility. As the fiddles invariably play their parts in funerals as +well as on festive processions, it requires some familiarity with the +customs of the country to distinguish one from the other. The music +to-night is much better than the ordinary baile music. A native +harpist adds the music of his many strings; and not bad music either, +though he does not know a quaver from a semibreve, and his harp is of +his own manufacture. The sameness, however, caused by playing always +and everything in the same key is perceptible. But dancing critics are +not disposed to be very severe. + +The enjoyment of the evening is at high pressure. The dancers are +swinging, surging, spinning through the Spanish dance. Everybody who +can find a partner and a place on the floor--there are many who cannot +find the latter--is dancing. It is a gay, a brilliant scene. All is +going as merrily as a whole chime of marriage-bells when a deep and +solemn peal from the church close by breaks in over the music, the +laughter and the dancing. It is midnight! It is the _Noche Buena_, +and the bell summons the faithful to the midnight mass. The effect is +electric. The last twirl of the waltz is suspended, half executed. The +dancers stop as suddenly as if they were puppets moved and stilled by +the cunning of some wire-pulling hand. A general rush is made for the +church: in a moment the ball-room is empty. The church is filled as +instantaneously, and the wildly gay dancers of a moment ago are now +kneeling, hushed and down-bent, in devotional attitudes. + +The scene is impressive: the bright ball-toilettes contrasted in a +"dim religious light," the sudden change of place and mood, from gay +to grave, from ball-room to sanctuary, strikes a stranger's eye with +thrilling effect. At the conclusion of the service the dancers return +to the ball-room, to change from grave to gay, and dance _ad libitum_ +till daylight. + +J.T. + + + + +ENGLISH BIBLE TRANSLATIONS. + + +The first complete translation of the Bible into our language was +made about the year 1380 by John de Wycliffe, or Wickliffe. There are +several manuscript copies of it in the Bodleian and other European +libraries. This great work unlocked the Scriptures to the multitude, +or, as one of his antagonists, bewailing such an enterprise, worded +it, "the gospel pearl was cast abroad and trodden under foot." Long +before the appearance of this translation various versions of portions +of the Bible had appeared, specimens of which, of every century from +the reign of Alfred to Chaucer's time, are preserved in the British +Museum and elsewhere. Sir Thomas More says: "The Holy Byble was longe +before Wycliffis daies by virtuose and well-learned men translated +into the English tongue, and by good and godly people with devotion +and soberness well and reverently read." This statement is further +corroborated by Foxe, the martyrologist, who remarks: "If histories +be well examined, we shall find both before and after the Conquest, as +well before John Wickliffe was borne as since, the whole body of the +Scriptures by sundry men translated into this our country tongue." +Wycliffe's Bible was first printed at Oxford in 1850, previous to +which the New Testament appeared in 1721 and was reprinted in 1810. + +In 1526, William Tyndale completed and published in English his +translation of the New Testament. He also translated and printed +the Pentateuch and the book of Jonah, and was preparing them for +publication when he was put to death in Flanders, being strangled and +burnt for heresy. Tyndale's translation, with his latest revisions +(1534), was republished in the English Hexapla in 1841. A copy of his +translation of the Pentateuch which had belonged to Bishop Heber was +sold in 1854 for $795. Four years later another copy sold for within +twenty dollars of that amount. + +The first English translation of the entire Bible was made by Miles +Coverdale, who afterward became bishop of Exeter, and was printed in +folio in the year 1535. In 1538 a second edition of Coverdale's Bible +was printed at Paris, but the Inquisition interfered and committed the +whole edition of twenty-five hundred copies to the flames. No perfect +copy of Coverdale's version is known to exist, but one lacking +the original title-page and first leaf was sold in 1854 for $1725. +Another, at the Perkins' sale, in June, 1873, brought $2000. + +Two years after the appearance of the first edition of Coverdale's +Bible, John Rogers, the first martyr in Queen Mary's reign, published +his version of the Scriptures. He made some emendations, but the text +is chiefly that of Tyndale and Coverdale. It was printed by Grafton +and Whitchurch in 1537, and the title runs: "The Byble, which is all +the holy Scripture: in which are contayned the Olde and Newe Testament +truely and purely translated into Englysh by Thomas Matthew." For +safety, Rogers assumed the name of Matthew, whence it is known as +Matthew's Bible. Seven hundred and fifty dollars have been paid for a +copy. + +The third version of the Bible, known as Taverner's, was published +in 1539. Richard Taverner was a learned man who published many +translations during the sixteenth century. Horne says of his +translation, "This is neither a bare revisal of Cranmer's Bible nor +a new version, but a kind of intermediate work, being a correction of +what is called 'Matthew's Bible.'" + +The first edition of Cranmer's Bible, the printing of which was begun +in Paris in 1538 and completed in London in 1540--the Inquisition +having interposed by imprisoning the printers and burning the greater +part of the impression--is excessively rare. Cranmer's Bible--or the +Great Bible, as it was called--is Tyndale's, Coverdale's and Rogers's +translations most carefully revised throughout. This was the first +sound and authorized English version; and as soon as it was perfected +a proclamation was issued ordering it to be provided for every parish +church, under a penalty of forty shillings a month. A second edition +of Cranmer's Bible appeared in 1560, a copy of which brought, at a +recent sale in England, the sum of $610. + +The Genevan version of the Bible was made by several English exiles +at Geneva in Queen Mary's reign--viz., Cole, Coverdale, Gilby, Knox, +Sampson, Whittingham and Woodman--and was first printed in 1560. +It went through fifty editions in the course of thirty years. This +translation was very popular with the Puritan party. In this version +the first division into verses was made. It is commonly known as the +"Breeches Bible," from the peculiar rendering of Genesis iii. 7--" +breeches of fig-leaves." To the Geneva Bible we owe the beautiful +phraseology of the admired passage in Jeremiah viii. 22. Coverdale, +Matthew and Taverner render it, "For there is no more treacle at +Gilead?" Cranmer, "Is there no treason at Gilead?" The Genevan first +gave the poetic rendering, "Is there no balm in Gilead?" + +In the year 1568 another translation appeared, which is +indiscriminately known as "Matthew Parker's Bible," the "Bishops' +Bible" and the "Great English Bible." This version was undertaken and +carried on under the inspection of Matthew Parker, second Protestant +archbishop of Canterbury. Of the fifteen translators, six were +bishops, hence this edition is often called the Bishops' Bible, though +it is sometimes designated the Great English Bible, from its being a +huge folio volume. In 1569 it was published in octavo form. There is a +well-preserved copy of the first edition of Matthew Parker's Bible in +the possession of a gentleman residing in New York City. This was +the authorized version of the Scriptures for forty years, when it was +superseded by our present English Bible. + +The English Roman Catholic College at Rheims issued in the year 1582 +a translation of the New Testament, known as the "Rhemish New +Testament." It was condemned by the queen of England, and copies +imported into that country were seized and destroyed. In 1609 the +first volume of the Old Testament, and in the following year the +second volume, were published at Douay, hence ever since known as the +Douay Bible. Some years since Cardinal Wiseman remarked that the names +Rhemish and Douay, as applied to the current editions, are absolute +misnomers. The publishers of the edition chiefly used in this country +state that it is translated from the Latin Vulgate, "being the edition +published by the English College at Rheims A.D. 1582, and at Douay in +1609, as revised and corrected in 1750, according to the Clementine +edition of the Scriptures, by the Rt. Rev. Richard Challoner, +bishop of Debra, with his annotations for clearing up the principal +difficulties of Holy Writ." + +Theodore Beza translated the New Testament out of the Greek into the +Latin. This was first published in England in 1574, and afterward +frequently. In 1576 it was "Engelished" by Leonard Tomson, +under-secretary to Sir Francis Walsingham, and was afterward +frequently annexed to the Genevan Old Testament. The following is a +copy of the title-page of the New Testament, _verbatim et literatim_: +"The New Testament of our Lord Jesus Christ, translated out of Greeke +by Theod Beza: with brief summaries and expositions upon the hard +places by the said authour, _Ioach Amer and P Loseler Vallerius_. +Engelished by L Tomson. Together with the Annotations of _Fr Junius_ +upon the Revelation of S. John. Imprinted at London by the Deputies +of Christopher Barker, Printer to the Queene's Most Excellent +Majestie--1599." The volume opens with a primitive version of the +Psalms in verse, then follow the Old Testament, the Apocrypha and the +New Testament, as in Bibles of the present day. + +The version of the Scriptures now in use among Protestants was +translated by the authority of King James I., and published in 1611. +Fifty-four learned men were appointed to accomplish the work of +revision, but from death or other causes seven of the number failed +to enter upon it. The remaining forty-seven were ranged under six +divisions, different portions of the Bible being assigned to each +division. They entered upon their task in 1607, and after three years +of diligent labor the work was completed. This version was generally +adopted, and the former translations soon fell into disuse. The +authors of King James's version of the Bible included the most learned +divines of the day; one of whom was master of Latin, Greek, Hebrew, +Chaldee, Syriac and fifteen modern languages. + +Among other rare and highly-coveted editions of the Bible is one +printed in England in the seventeenth century, in which the important +word _not_ was omitted in the seventh commandment, from which +circumstance it has ever since been known as "The Adulterer's Bible." +Another edition, known as the Pearl Bible, appeared about the same +time, filled with errata, a single specimen of which will suffice: +"Know ye not the ungodly _shall inherit_ the kingdom of God?" Bibles +were once printed which affirmed that "all Scripture was profitable +for _de_struction;" while still another edition of the sacred volume +is known as the "Vinegar Bible," from the erratum in the title to the +twentieth chapter of St. Luke, in which "Parable of the Vineyard" is +printed "Parable of the Vinegar." + +J.G.W. + + + + +LITERATURE OF THE DAY. + + +Life and Labours of Mr. Brassey, 1805-1870. By Sir Arthur Helps, +K.C.B. Boston: Roberts Brothers. + +The "captains of industry," who constitute in our day so distinct and +notable a class of worthies, are doubtless as well entitled to have +their achievements recorded and their fame sounded throughout the +lands as were the doughty men of war who of old were deemed the only +fitting heroes of chronicle and epic. Few of them, however, can +hope to have their deeds commemorated by a "veray parfit, gentle +knight"--of the quill, not of the sword, albeit the letters which +he writes after his name would once have indicated the possession of +military rank and distinction. Sir Arthur Helps is not a man of few +words or of a very stern or passionate temperament. It is the graces +of chivalry, not its fiery ardor, that he cultivates and reflects, +and though "arms and the man" have often been his theme, the soft and +delicate strain was ever more suggestive of the pastoral pipe than +of the bardic lyre. Essayist, historian, biographer, novelist, he is +always intent to smooth away the asperities of his subject, and, like +some stately grandame enthroned in high-backed chair, he remembers +that his simple auditors are to be not merely entertained by the +matter of his discourse, but impressed by the suave tones and +high-bred prolixity of the speaker. With a dignified courtesy unknown +in these latter times--when biographers and historians do not scruple +to take liberties with their heroes to the extent even of designating +them by nicknames--the subject of the present memoir is introduced to +us as _Mr_. Brassey, a form not only adopted on the title-page, but +preserved in the body of the work, where we read that "Mr. Brassey +was born November 7, 1805," that "Mr. Brassey, at twelve years of age, +went to a school at Chester," and that, being afterward articled to +a surveyor, "Mr. Brassey was permitted by his master" to assist in +making certain surveys. It is only from a side whisper to the American +public, which is honored with a preface all to itself, that we are +permitted to learn that the great contractor owned to the Christian +name of Thomas. Besides the two prefaces there is a dedication to +the queen, an introduction telling how Sir Arthur Helps made the +acquaintance of Mr. Brassey and what impressions he received from the +interview, and a preliminary chapter containing a brief outline of +Mr. Brassey's character as "a man of business;" so that we get at the +substance of the book by a process like that which in a well-conducted +household precedes the carving and distribution of a Christmas cake, +any eagerness we might feel to "put in a thumb and pull out a plum" +being kept in check by a proper amount of ceremony and tissue-paper. + +Plums, however, there are, though not perhaps in full proportion to +the frosted coating, or of just the kind that are best agglutinated by +the biographical dough. Of anecdote or gossip, glimpses of "life and +manners" or personal details, there is nothing. Nor can we justly take +exception to this. On the contrary, it gives a unity to the subject by +excluding whatever had no relation to the enterprises with which Mr. +Brassey's name is connected, and which absorbed his time and thoughts +to a degree that can have left him but little opportunity for +intercourse with mankind except in a business capacity. It is these +enterprises--not in their entirety or with reference to the objects +with which they were designed, but as evidences and illustrations +of the working force, mental and physical, demanded for their +execution--that form the real subject of the book, the matter of which +has been chiefly furnished by the various agents entrusted with the +immediate supervision of the labor and outlay of the capital employed. +The details thus brought together afford perhaps a more vivid idea of +the industrial energy and activity of the nineteenth century, and +of the resources they have called into play, than could have been +obtained from a survey of any other field in which the like qualities +have been displayed. It was chiefly with railway enterprises, and this +almost from their inception, and to an extent far beyond the rivalry +of any other constructor, that Mr. Brassey was engaged; and the +railway system, not only by its own immense demands on capital, labor +and inventive skill, but still more by the stimulus and aid it has +given to industrial enterprises of every kind, must be regarded as the +main lever of a material progress that has outstripped the conceptions +and possibilities of all previous ages. With the development of a +system so different in its nature from the great undertakings of any +former period came the need of the contractor, entrusted with the +direction and laden with the full responsibility of works which no +government "boards" or similar machinery would have been competent to +carry through under the conditions imposed by the novel circumstances +of the movement and the exacting spirit by which it was impelled. To +attain the foremost place in the new career thus created demanded, +obviously, no ordinary powers--special knowledge of various kinds, +equal facility in mastering details and grasping a general plan, tact +in the choice and management of subordinates, courage and promptness +in encountering unforeseen obstacles and disasters, and skill and +clearheadedness in the general control of enormous and intricate +financial interests. To these qualities must be added in the present +case what is not so invariably associated with the names of succesful +contractors--a faithfulness and integrity which merited and received +the fullest confidence. Whether working at a gain or at a loss, Mr. +Brassey was ever resolute to execute his engagements to the letter, +and he declined to make demands for extra compensation when his +contracts proved unprofitable, though it was customary with him to +make good the losses of his sub-contractors. He amassed a colossal +fortune, not through excessive gains, but by a small profit--"as +nearly as possible three per cent."--which accrued to him from all his +enterprises taken as a whole, and the accumulations consequent on an +inexpensive mode of life. + +The railways constructed by Mr. Brassey, generally in partnership +with some other contractor, between the years 1834 and 1870, comprised +between six and seven thousand miles in all parts of the globe, +including Australia and in almost every civilized country except +Russia and the United States. "There were periods in his career during +which he and his partners were giving employment to 80,000 persons, +upon works requiring L 17,000,000 of capital for their completion." +Yet a large part of his time and of the time of his agents was +spent in the investigation of schemes which he either decided not to +undertake or for which he tendered unsuccessfully. It was necessary at +times to transport materials, a large staff of employes and an army +of laborers from one country to another. In some cases works were +prosecuted in regions occupied or threatened by hostile armies, in +others under all the embarrassments and gloom of a great financial +revulsion. In countries where commercial transactions were usually +very limited the great difficulty was to obtain coin for the payment +of wages, while in others there was the danger of the supply of labor +failing through the enticements of superabundant capital or the more +dazzling temptations of gold-digging. It is needless to mention the +usual accidents and impediments to which all such undertakings are +liable, and which the skill and ingenuity of the modern engineer never +fail to overcome; but it is certainly not a little remarkable, when +the multiplicity of Mr. Brassey's contracts is remembered, as well +as the early period from which they date, to find that they were +invariably completed within the specified time. + + + +Personal Reminiscences of Barham, Harness and Hodder. (Bric-a-Brac +Series, edited by Richard Henry Stoddard.) New York: Scribner, +Armstrong & Co. + +Why we should love so dearly a fresh anecdote of a literary celebrity, +a new quip by Talleyrand, a new stutter of Lamb's, a new impertinence +of Sheridan's, may be not hard to understand, but it is rather hard to +defend, any regard being paid to our dignity. The best stories about +that particular line of authors who have possessed _bonhomie_ and +become classic for it are long since told. What remains is the dregs. +Yet the other day we found ourselves smiling with real delight over +a new "bit" of Cowper. It was merely that his barber, being late with +the poet's wig, said, "Twill soon be here, it is upon the road;" and +that Cowper had smiled, with a "Very well, William," or a "Very fair, +Thomas." The _mot_, like most of the stories that crop up now, was not +good; it did not exhibit the author of "John Gilpin" in a brilliant +light; it was not even uttered by the poet--he had merely smiled at +it; yet it had the effect of rekindling the vapid embers about the +dear old hearthstone of Olney, and the shy, gentle creatures that used +to disport there among the hares when nobody was looking became for a +moment more real from the citation. Now, the question is, What is +the superiority of a new piece of gossip like this, which involves +no witticism and confers no wisdom, over the next bit of history that +will be exchanged between the heroines of the alley-gate? When Mrs. +Jones tells Mrs. Baker that Mrs. Briggs has delivered a daughter, and +that Mr. Briggs said he had rather she had given him a wooden leg, the +epigram is quite as good as a _Bric-a-Brac_ anecdote, the people are +quite as worthy as Cowper's barber, and the effect upon the history +of letters quite as close and important. With this demurrer, we will +apply ourselves for a moment to Mr. Stoddard's last collection, which +of course we relish as much as anybody. We could wish that, after +discharging his very well-executed duty of writing the preface, he +could find some further time for elucidating the text. The present +book being about three people, whose memoirs are taken from three +volumes, it is confusing to the reader to find on a page headed +"Rogers" or "Scott" a foot-note about what "my father" said or +what "my friend" remembered, without anything to point out that +the authority is other than Mr. Stoddard's father or friend. Other +peculiarities, too, suggest that the pretty little volume is clipped +instead of edited: on page 134 we find that "William, who had lived +many years with Hook, grew rich and saucy. The latter used to assert +of him that for the first three years he was as good a servant as ever +came into a house; for the next two a kind and considerate friend; +and afterward an abominably bad master." And on page 240, that when +_Rogers_ was condoled with about the death of an old servant, he +exclaimed, "Well, I don't know that I feel his loss so much, after +all. For the first _seven_ years he was an obliging servant; for the +second _seven_ years an agreeable companion; but for the last seven +years he was a tyrannical master." This duality of epigrams seems to +show a discrepancy somewhere; or are we to believe that the wits of +the Regency used to drive their jokes as hired hacks, like the livery +carriages employed by faded dowagers in Hampton Court? The rest of the +little book is perhaps free from duplicates. It is a good one to turn +over for an hour in the cars, which is perhaps all it claims to be. +The anecdotes are good old familiar anecdotes, but it is pleasant to +have them strung on a thread. We are reminded that the original +Bride of Lammermoor was a Miss Dalrymple; that the "laughing Tom" +of Thackeray's "Ballad of Bouillabaise" was Thomas Frazer, Paris +correspondent of the _Morning Chronicle_; that the dramatist of +_Nicholas Nickleby_, so savagely assaulted by Dickens in the course of +the work, was a Mr. Moncrief, who would never have prepared the story +for the stage if Dickens had intimated his objection. + + + + +_Books Received._ + + +The American Educational Annual: A Reference Book for all matters +pertaining to Education. Vol. I., 1875. New York: J.W. Schermerhorn & +Co. + +The Song-Fountain: A Vocal Music-book. By Wm. Tillinghast & D.P. +Horton. New York: J.W. Schermerhorn & Co. + +My. Sister Jennie: A Novel. By George Sand. Translated by T.S. +Crocker. Boston: Roberts Brothers. + +Democracy and Monarchy in France. By Charles Kendall Adams. New York: +Henry Holt & Co. + +Egypt and Iceland in the year 1874. By Bayard Taylor. New York: G.P. +Putnam's Sons. + +Elements of Geometry. By W.H.H. Phillips, Ph. D. New York: J.W. +Schermerhorn & Co. + +The Old Woman who Lived in a Shoe. By Amanda M. Duglas. Boston: +William F. Gill & Co. + +The Lily and the Cross: A Tale of Acadia. By Prof. James De Mille. +Boston: Lee & Shepard. + +Alleged Discrepancies of the Bible. By John W. Haley, M.A. Andover: +Warren F. Draper. + +History of the United States. By George Bancroft. Vol. X. Boston: +Little, Brown & Co. + +Roddy's Romance. By Helen Kendrick Johnson. New York: G.P. Putnam's +Sons. + +My Life on the Plains. By Gen. G.A. Custer, U.S.A. New York: Sheldon & +Co. + +American Wild-Fowl Shooting. By Joseph W. Long. New York: J.B. Ford & +Co. + +Hazel-Blossoms. By John Greenleaf Whittier. Boston: James R. Osgood & +Co. + +Losing to Win: A Novel. By Theodore Davies. New York: Sheldon & Co. + +Linley Rochford: A Novel. By Justin McCarthy. New York: Sheldon & Co. + +A First Book in German. By Dr. Emil Otto. New York: Henry Holt & Co. + +What of the Churches and Clergy? Springfield, Mass: D.E. Fisk & Co. + + + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Lippincott's Magazine of Popular +Literature and Science Vol. XV., No. 85. January, 1875., by Various + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LIPPINCOTT'S MAGAZINE *** + +***** This file should be named 13440.txt or 13440.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/3/4/4/13440/ + +Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Sandra Brown and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team. + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. 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