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diff --git a/old/13828.txt b/old/13828.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..4184054 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/13828.txt @@ -0,0 +1,8402 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature +and Science, Vol. XII, No. 29. August, 1873., 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. XII, No. 29. August, 1873. + +Author: Various + +Release Date: October 22, 2004 [EBook #13828] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LIPPINCOTT'S MAGAZINE *** + + + + +Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Patricia Bennett and the PG Online +Distributed Proofreading Team. + + + + + + + +LIPPINCOTT'S MAGAZINE + +OF + +_POPULAR LITERATURE AND SCIENCE_. + +Vol XII, No. 29. + +AUGUST, 1873. + + +TABLE OF CONTENTS + THE NEW HYPERION [Illustrated] By EDWARD STRAHAN. + II.--The Two Chickens. + OUR HOME IN THE TYROL [Illustrated] By MARGARET HOWITT. + CHAPTER VII. + CHAPTER VIII. + ON THE CHURCH STEPS By SARAH C. HALLOWELL. + CHAPTER I. + CHAPTER II. + CHAPTER III. + CHAPTER IV. + CHAPTER V. + INSIDE JAPAN By W.E. GRIFFIS. + JASON'S QUEST By CHARLES WARREN STODDARD. + I. + II. + III. + IV. + FOREBODINGS. + DEER-PARKS By REGINALD WYNFORD. + RAMBLES AMONG THE FRUITS AND FLOWERS OF THE TROPICS By FANNIE R. FEUDGE. + TWO PAPERS.--I. + A PRINCESS OF THULE By WILLIAM BLACK. + CHAPTER XII.--Transformation. + CHAPTER XIII.--By The Waters Of Babylon. + GOLD By ITA ANIOL PROKOP. + GLIMPSES OF GHOST-LAND By LUCY H. HOOPER. + AFTERNOON</a> By EMMA LAZARUS. + OUR MONTHLY GOSSIP. + Washington's Birthplace In 1873 By R.B.E. + Vicissitudes In High Life. + A Glass Of Old Madeira. + At A Matinee: A Monologue. By C.A.D. + NOTES. + LITERATURE OF THE DAY. + Books Received. + + +ILLUSTRATIONS + THE FLOWERS OF WAR. + THE INVADERS OF ROMIAINVILLE. + STORY OF AN OLD MAN AND AN ELDER. + MERCHANDISE IN THE TEMPLE. + FATHER JOLIET. + THE TWO CHICKENS. + LOVE LEFT ALONE. + "FOND OF CHICKEN." + THE WIFE. + THE LONE CRUSADE. + TENDER CHARITY. + NECESSITY KNOWING LAW. + THE FERRY. + JOVE'S THUNDER. + SCHOOL. + ON WITH THE DANCE! + ENDYMION. + HOW THE MODERN DOG TREATS LAZARUS. + THE LAUGHING LACKEY. + THE PRESENT. + THE CONVALESCENT. + THE DIVIDED BURDEN. + SHARE MY CUP. + BREAKING STONES. + SICKNESS AND COURTSHIP. + THE WAGON. + DINNER-TIME! + FIDELITY. + A LITTLE VISITOR. + FRANCINE. + "DON'T WRING MY HEART!" + VIEW OF TAUFERS VALLEY. + SCHLOSS TAUFERS. + HAPPY SOULS IN PARADISE. + CROSSING THE TORRENT. + + + + +THE NEW HYPERION. + +FROM PARIS TO MARLY BY WAY OF THE RHINE. + +II.--THE TWO CHICKENS. + + +[Illustration: THE FLOWERS OF WAR.] + +"Thou art no less a man because thou wearest no hauberk nor mail sark, +and goest not on horseback after foolish adventures." + +So I said, reassuring myself, thirty years ago, when, as Paul Flemming +the Blond, I was meditating the courageous change of cutting off my +soap-locks, burning my edition of Bulwer and giving my satin stocks to +my shoemaker: I mean, when I was growing up--or, in the more beauteous +language of that day, when Flemming was passing into the age of +bronze, and the flowers of Paradise were turning to a sword in his +hands. + +Well, I say it again, and I say it with boldness, you can wear a tin +botany-box as bravely as a hauberk, and foolish adventures can be +pursued equally well on foot. + +Stout, grizzled and short winded, I am just as nimble as ever in the +pretty exercise of running down an illusion. Yet I must confess, as I +passed the abattoirs of La Villette, whence blue-smocked butcher-boys +were hauling loads of dirty sheepskins, I could not but compare myself +to the honest man mentioned in one of Sardou's comedies: "The good +soul escaped out of a novel of Paul de Kock's, lost in the throng +on the Boulevard Malesherbes, and asking the way to the woods of +Romainville." + +[Illustration: THE INVADERS OF ROMIAINVILLE.] + +Romainville! And hereabouts its tufts of chestnuts should be, or were +wont to be of old. I am in the grimy quarter of Belleville. Scene of +factories, of steam-works and tall bleak mansions as it is to-day, +Belleville was once a jolly country village, separated on its hilltop +from Paris, which basked at its feet like a city millionaire sprawling +before the check apron and leather shoes of a rustic beauty. Inhabited +by its little circle of a few thousand souls, it looked around itself +on its eminence, seeing the vast diorama of the city on one side, +and on the other the Pres-Saint-Gervais, and the woods of Romainville +waving off to the horizon their diminishing crests of green. A jolly +old tavern, the Ile d'Amour, hung out its colored lamps among the +trees, and the orchestra sounded, and the feet of gay young lovers, +who now are skeletons, beat the floor. The street was a bower of +lilacs, and opposite the Ile d'Amour was the village church. + +Then the workmen of the Paris suburbs were invaders: they besieged the +village on Sundays in daring swarms, to be beaten back successfully by +the duties of every successive Monday. Now they are fixed there. They +are the colorless inhabitants of these many-storied houses. The town's +long holiday is over. Where the odorous avenues of lilacs stretched +along, affording bouquets for maman and the children and toothpicks +for ferocious young warriors from the garrisons, are odious lengths +of wall. Everything is changed, and from the gardens the grisettes of +Alfred de Musset are with sighing sent. Their haunts are laboratories +now, and the Ile d'Amour is a mayor's office. + +I, to whom the beer-scandals of the Rhine and the students' holidays +of the Seine were among the Childe-Harold enormities of a not +over-sinful youth, was sadly disappointed. Thinking of the groves of +an Eden, I ran against the furnaces of a Pandemonium. For a stroll +back toward my adolescence, Belleville was a bad beginning. I +determined to console myself with the green meadows of Saint-Gervais +and the pretty woods of Romainville. Attaining the latter was half +an hour's affair among long walls and melancholy houses: at +Saint-Gervais, a double file of walls and houses--at Romainville, +houses and walls again. In the latter, where formerly there were +scarcely three watches distributed amongst the whole village, I was +incensed to find the shop of a clockmaker: it was somewhat consoling, +though, to find it a clockmaker's of the most pronounced suburban +kind, with pairs of wooden shoes amongst the guard-chains in the +window, and pots of golden mustard ranged alternately with the +antiquated silver turnips. + +Before the church I found yet standing a knotty little elder tree, a +bewitched-looking vegetable. A beadle in a blouse, engaged in washing +one of the large altar-candles with soap and water at the public pump, +gave me the following history of the elder tree. I am passionately +fond of legends, and this is one quite hot and fresh, only a hundred +years old. Hear the tale of the elder of Romainville. + +The excellent cure of Romainville in the last century was a man of +such a charitable nature that his all was in the hands of the +poor. The grocer of the village, a potentate of terrific powers and +inexorable temper, finally refused to trust him with the supply of +oil necessary for the lamp in the sanctuary. Soon the sacred flame +sputtered, palpitated, flapped miserably over the crusted wick: the +cure, responsible before Heaven for the life of his lamp, tottered +away from the altar with groans of anguish. Arrived in the garden, he +threw himself on his knees, crying _Mea culpa_, and beating his bosom. +The garden contained only medicinal plants, shaded by a linden and an +elder: completely desperate, the unhappy priest fixed his moist eyes +on the latter, when lo! the bark opened, the trunk parted, and a jet +of clear aromatic liquid spouted forth, quite different from any sap +yielded by elder before. It was oil. A miracle! + +The report spread. The grocer came and humbly visited the priest in +his garden, his haughty hat, crammed with bills enough to have spread +agony through all the cottages of Romainville, humbly carried between +his legs. He came proposing a little speculation. In exchange for a +single spigot to be inserted in the tree, and the hydraulic rights +going with the same, he offered all the bounties dearest to the +priestly heart--unlimited milk and honey, livers of fat geese and pies +lined with rabbit. The priest, though hungry--hungry with the demoniac +hunger of a fat and paunchy man--turned his back on the tempter. + +[Illustration: STORY OF AN OLD MAN AND AN ELDER.] + +One day a salad, the abstemious relish yielded by his garden herbs, +was set on the table by Jeanneton. At the first mouthful the good cure +made a terrible face--the salad tasted of lamp-oil. The unhappy girl +had filled a cruet with the sacred fluid. From that day the bark +closed and the flow ceased. + +There is one of the best oil-stories you ever heard, and one of the +most recent of attested miracles. For my part, I am half sorry it is +so well attested, and that I have the authority of that beadle in the +blouse, who took my little two-franc piece with an expression of much +intelligence. I love the Legend. + +[Illustration: MERCHANDISE IN THE TEMPLE.] + +The environs of Paris are but chary of Legend. I treasure this +specimen, then, as if it had been a rare flower for my botany-box. + +But the botany-box indeed, how heavy it was growing! The umbrella, how +awkward! The sun, how vigorous and ardent! Who ever supposed it could +become so hot by half-past eight in the morning? + +[Illustration: FATHER JOLIET.] + +Certainly the ruthless box, which seemed to have taken root on my +back, was heavier than it used to be. Had its rotundity developed, +like its master's? I stopped and gathered a flower, meaning to analyze +it at my next resting-place. I opened my box: then indeed I perceived +the secret of its weightiness. It revealed three small rolls of +oatmeal toasted, a little roast chicken, a bit of ham, some mustard +in a cleaned-out inkstand! This now was the treachery of Josephine. +Josephine, who never had the least sympathy for my botanical +researches, and who had small comprehension of the nobler hungers and +thirsts of the scientific soul, had taken it on her to convert my box +into a portable meat-safe! + +Bless the old meddler, how I thanked her for her treason! The aspect +of the chicken, in its blistered and varnished brown skin, reminded +me that I was clamorously hungry. Shade of Apicius! is it lawful for +civilized mortals to be so hungry as I was at eight or nine in the +morning? + +At last I saw the end of that dusty, featureless street which +stretches from the barrier to the extremity of Romainville. I saw +spreading before me a broad plain, a kind of desert, where, by +carefully keeping my eyes straight ahead, I could avoid the sight of +all houses, walls, human constructions whatever. + +My favorite traveler, the celebrated Le Vaillant, to whom I am +indebted for so many facts and data toward my great theory of +Comparative Geography, says that in first reaching the solitudes of +Caffraria he felt himself elated with an unknown joy. No traced road +was before him to dictate his pathway--no city shaded him with its +towers: his fortune depended on his own unaided instincts. + +I felt the same delight, the same liberty. Something like the heavy +strap of a slave seemed to break behind me as I found myself quite +clear of the metropolis. Mad schemes of unanticipated journeys danced +through my head; I might amble on to Villemonble, Montfermeil, Raincy, +or even to the Forest of Bondy, so dear to the experimental botanist. +Had I not two days before me ere my compact with Hohenfels at Marly? +And in two days you can go from Paris to Florence. Meantime, from the +effects of famine, my ribs were sinking down upon the pelvic basin of +my frame. + +The walk, the open air, the sight of the fowl, whose beak now burned +into my bosom's core, had sharpened my appetite beyond bearing. Yet +how could I eat without some drop of cider or soft white wine to +drink? Besides, slave of convention that I have grown, I no longer +understand the business of eating without its concomitants--a shelter +and something to sit on. + +The plain became wearisome. There are two things the American-born, +however long a resident abroad, never forgives the lack of in +Europe. The first I miss when I am in Paris: it is the perpetual +street-mending of an American town. Here the boulevards, smeared with +asphaltum or bedded with crunched macadam, attain smoothness without +life: you travel on scum. But in the dear old American streets the +epidermis is vital: what strength and mutual reliance in the cobbles +as they stand together in serried ranks, like so many eye-teeth! How +they are perpetually sinking into prodigious ruts, along which the +ponderous drays are forced to dance on one wheel in a paroxysm +of agony and critical equipoise! But the perpetual state of +street-mending, that is the crowning interest. What would I not +sometimes give to exchange the Swiss sweeping-girls, plying their long +brooms desolately in the mud, for the paviors' hammers of America, +which play upon the pebbles like a carillon of muffled bells? As +for the other lack, it is the want of wooden bridges. Far away in my +native meadows gleams the silver Charles: the tramp of horses' hoofs +comes to my ear from the timbers of the bridge. _Here_, with a pelt +and a scramble your bridge is crossed: nothing addresses the heart +from its stony causeway. But the low, arched tubes of wood that span +the streams of my native land are so many bass-viols, sending out +mellow thunders with every passing wagon to blend with the rustling +stream and the sighing woods. Shall I never hear them again? + +A reminiscence more than ten years old came to give precision to my +ramblings in the past. Beyond the rustic pathway I was now following I +could perceive the hills of Trou-Vassou. Hereabouts, if memory served +me, I might find a welcome, almost a home, and the clasp of cordial if +humble hands. Here I might find folks who would laugh when I arrived, +and would be glad to share their luncheon with me But--ten years gone +by! + +[Illustration: THE TWO CHICKENS.] + +This computation chilled my hopes. What family remains ten years in a +spot--above all, a spot on that fluctuating periphery of Paris, where +the mighty capital, year after year, bursts belt after belt? Where +might they have gone? Francine!--Francine must be twenty-two. Married, +of course. Her husband, no doubt, has dragged her off to some +other department. Her parents have followed. March, volunteer, and +disentangle yourself from these profitless speculations! + +Ten minutes farther on, in the shade of the fort at Noisy-le-Sec, +I saw a red gable and the sign of a tavern. As a tourist I have a +passion for a cabaret: in practice, I find Vefours to unite perhaps a +greater number of advantages. + +[Illustration: LOVE LEFT ALONE.] + +Some soldiers of the Fortieth were drinking and laughing in a corner. +I took a table not far off, and drew my cold victuals out of my box of +japanned tin, which they doubtless took for a new form of canteen. The +red-fisted garcon, without waiting for orders, set up before me, like +ten-pins, a castor in wood with two enormous bottles, and a litre of +that rinsing of the vats which, under the name "wine of the country," +is so distressingly similar in every neighborhood. Resigned to +anything, I was about drawing out my slice of ham, the chicken seeming +to me just there somewhat too proud a bird and out of harmony with the +local color, when my glance met two gray eyes regarding my own in the +highest state of expansion. The lashes, the brows, the hair and the +necklace of short beard were all very thick and quite gray. The face +they garnished was that of the tavern-keeper. + +[Illustration: "FOND OF CHICKEN."] + +"Why, it is you, after all, Father Joliet!" I said, after a rapid +inspection of his figure. + +[Illustration: THE WIFE.] + +"Ah, it is Monsieur Flemming, the Americain-flamand!" cried the host, +striking one hand into the other at the imminent risk of breaking his +pipe. In a trice he trundled off my bottle of rinsings, and replaced +it by one of claret with an orange seal, set another glass, and posted +himself in front of me. + +I asked the waiter for two plates, and with a slight blush evoked the +chicken from my box. The soldiers of the Fortieth opened a battery of +staring and hungry eyes. + +"And how came you here?" asked I of Joliet. + +"It is I who am at the head of the hotel," he replied, proudly +pointing out the dimensions of the place by spreading his hands. +"My old establishment has sunk into the fosses of the fort: it was a +transaction between the government and myself." + +"And was the transaction a good one for you?" + +"Not so bad, not so bad," said he, winking his honest gray eyes with +a world of simple cunning. "It cannot be so very bad, since I owe +nothing on the hotel, and the cellar is full, and I am selling +wholesale and retail." + +The vanity which a minute since had expanded his hands now got into +his legs, and set them upright under his body. He stood upon them, +his eyes proudly lowered upon the seal of the claret. A pang of envy +actually crossed my mind. I, simple _rentier_, with my two little +establishments pressing more closely upon my resources with every +year's increase of house-rates, how could I look at this glorious +small freeholder without comparisons? + +"So, then, Father Joliet," said I, "you are rich?" + +"At least I depend no longer on my horse, and that thanks to you and +the government." + +"To me! What do you mean?" + +"Why, have you forgotten the two chickens?" + +[Illustration: THE LONE CRUSADE.] + +At the allusion to the chickens we caught each other's eye, and +laughed like a pair of augurs. But the mysterious fowls shall be +explained to the reader. + +[Illustration: TENDER CHARITY.] + +[Illustration: NECESSITY KNOWING LAW.] + +I need not explain that I have cast my lot with the Colonial Americans +of Paris, and taken their color. It is a sweet and luxurious mode of +life. The cooks send round our dinners quite hot, or we have faultless +servants, recommended from one colonist to another: these capital +creatures sometimes become so thoroughly translated into American +that I have known them shift around from flat to flat in colonized +households of the second and third stories without ever touching +French soil for the best part of a lifetime. At our receptions, +dancing-teas and so on we pass our time in not giving offence. +Federals and Confederates, rich cotton-spinners from Rhode Island and +farmers from thousand-acre granges in the West, are obliged to mingle +and please each other. Naturally, we can have no more political +opinions than a looking-glass. We entertain just such views as +_Galignani_ gives us every morning, harmonized with paste from a dozen +newspapers. Our grand national effort, I may say, the common +principle that binds us together as a Colony, is to forget that we +are Americans. We accordingly give our whole intellects to the task of +appearing like Europeans: our women succeed in this particularly well. +Miss Yuba Sequoia Smith, whose father made a fortune in water-rights, +is now afraid to walk a single block without the attendance of a +chambermaid in a white cap, though she came up from California quite +alone by the old Panama route. Everybody agrees that our ladies dress +well. Shall I soon forget how proud Mrs. Aquila Jones was when +a gentleman of the emperor's body-guard took her for Marguerite +Bellanger in the Bois? Our men, not having the culture of costume to +attend to, are perhaps a little in want of a stand-point. Still, +we can play billiards in the Grand Hotel and buy fans at the +Palais Royal. We go out to Saint-Cloud on horseback, we meet at the +minister's; and I contend that there was something conciliatory and +national in a Southern colonel offering to take Bigelow to see +Menken at the Gaite, or when I saw some West Pointers and a nephew of +Beauregard's lighting the pipe of peace at a handsome tobacconist's +in the Rue Saint-Honore. The consciousness that we have no longer a +nationality, and that nobody respects us, adds a singular calm, an +elevation, to our views. Composed as our cherished little society is +of crumbs from every table under heaven, we have succeeded in forming +a way of life where the crusty fortitude and integrity of patriotism +is unnecessary. Our circle is like the green palace of the magpies in +Musset's _Merle Blanc_, and like them we live "de plaisir, d'honneur, +de bavardage, de gloire et de chiffons." + +[Illustration: THE FERRY.] + +[Illustration: JOVE'S THUNDER.] + +I confess that there was a period, between the fresh alacrity of a +stranger's reception in the Colony and the settled habits I have +now fallen into, when I was rather uneasy. A society of migrators, a +system woven upon shooting particles, like a rainbow on the rain, +was odd. Residents of some permanency, like myself, were constantly +forming eternal friendships with people who wrote to them in a month +or two from Egypt. In this way a quantity of my friendships were +miserably lacerated, until I learned by practice just how much +friendship to give. At this period I was much occupied with vain +conciliations, concessions and the reconciling of inconsistencies. A +brave American from the South, an ardent disciple of Calhoun, was a +powerful advocate of State Rights, and advocated them so well that +I was almost convinced; when it appeared one day that the right of +States to individual action was to cease in cases where a living +chattel was to escape from the South to the North. + +[Illustration: SCHOOL.] + +In this case the State, in violation of its own +laws unrecognizant of that kind of ownership, was to account for the +property and give it back, in obedience to general Congressional order +and to the most advanced principles of Centralization. Before I +had digested this pill another was administered to me in that +small English section of our circle which gave us much pride and an +occasional son-in-law. This was by no less a person than my dear old +friend Berkley, now grown a ruddy sexagenarian, but still given to +eating breakfast in his bath-tub. The wealthy Englishman, who had +got rich by exporting china ware, was sound on the subject of free +commerce between nations. That any industry, no matter how young might +be the nation practicing it, or how peculiar the difficulties of its +prosecution, should ever be the subject of home protection, he stamped +as a fallacy too absurd to be argued. The journals venturing such +an opinion were childish drivelers, putting forth views long since +exploded before the whole world. He was still loud in this opinion +when his little book of epigrams, _The Raven of Zurich and Other +Rhymes_, came out, and being bright and saucy was reprinted in +America. The knowledge that he could not tax on a foreign soil his own +ideas, the plastic pottery of his brain, was quite too much for +his mental balance, and he took to inveighing against free trade +in literary manufactures without the slightest perception of +inconsistency, and with all the warmth, if not the eloquence, of Mr. +Dickens on the same theme. The gradual accumulation of subjects like +these--subjects _taboo_ in gentle society--soon made it apparent that +in a Colony of such diverse colors, where every man had a sore spot +or a grievance, and even the Cinderellas had corns in their little +slippers, harmony could only be obtained by keeping to general +considerations of honor, nobility, glory, and the politics of +Beloochistan; on which points we all could agree, and where Mr. +Berkley's witty eloquence was a wonder. + +[Illustration: ON WITH THE DANCE!] + +It is to my uneasy period, when I was sick with private griefs and +giddy with striving to reconcile incompatibilities, that the episode +of the Chickens belongs. I was looking dissatisfied out of one of +my windows. Hohenfels, disappointed of a promenade by an afternoon +shower, was looking dissatisfied out of the other. Two or three +people, waiting for four o'clock lunch, were lounging about. I had +just remarked, I believe, that I was a melancholy man, for ever +drinking "the sweet wormwood of my sorrows." A dark phantom, like that +of Adamastor, stood up between me and the stars. + +"Nonsense, you ingrate!" responded the baron from his niche, "you are +only too happy. You are now in the precise position to define my +old conception of the Lucky Dog. The Lucky Dog, you know, in my +vocabulary, is he who, free from all domestic cares, saunters up and +down his room in gown and slippers, drums on the window of a rainy +afternoon, and, as he stirs his evening fire, snaps his fingers at the +world, saying, 'I have no wife nor children, good or bad, to provide +for.'" + +[Illustration: ENDYMION.] + +I replied that I did not willingly give way to grief, but that the +main-spring of my life was broken. + +"Did you ever try," spoke up a buxom lady from a sofa--it was the +Frau Kranich, widow of the Frankfort banker, the same who used to give +balls while her husband was drugged to sleep with opium, and now for +a long time in Paris for some interminable settlement with Nathan +Rothschild--"Did you ever try the tonic of a good action? _I_ never +did, but they actually say it rejuvenates one considerably." + +I avowed that I had more faith in the study of Geography. +Nevertheless, to oblige her, I would follow any suggestion. + +[Illustration: HOW THE MODERN DOG TREATS LAZARUS.] + +"Benefit the next person who applies to you." + +"Madame, I will obey." + +At this moment a wagon of singular appearance drew up before my +windows. I knew it well enough: it was the vehicle of a handy, +convenient man who came along every other morning to pick up odd jobs +from me and my neighbors. He could tinker, carpenter, mend harness: +his wife, seated in the wagon by his side, was good at a button, or +could descend and help Josephine with her ironing. A visit at this +hour, however, was unprecedented. + +As Charles was beginning a conversation under the hood of the wagon, I +opened the window. "Come into the room," I said. + +Hohenfels maliciously opened his. "Come in," he added "Monsieur +Flemming is especially anxious to do you a benefit." + +The man, uncovering, was now standing in the little garden before +the house--a man with a face at once intelligent and candid, which is +unfortunately rare among the poor rascals of his grade. Although still +young, he was growing gray: his blouse, patched and re-sewed at all +the seams, was clean and whole. Poverty had tested him, but had as yet +picked no flaws in him. By this time my windows were alive with faces. + +The man, humble but not awkward, made two or three respectful bows. +"Monsieur," he said to me, "I hope you are fond of chickens. I am +desirous to sell you a fine pair." + +[Illustration: THE LAUGHING LACKEY.] + +Chickens for me! and what was it supposed I should do with them? +At this point the voice of the Frau Kranich was heard, clear and +malicious: "It is a bargain: bring them in." + +At the same time the canvas cover of the wagon puffed outward, giving +issue to a heavy sigh. + +The man went to a sort of great cage in lattice-work occupying the +back of the vehicle. Then he backed his wagon up to the sidewalk, and +we saw, sitting on the cage and framed by the oval of the wagon-cover, +a young woman of excellent features, but sadly pale. She now held the +two chickens in her lap, caressing them, laying their heads against +her cheek, and enwreathing them in the folds of her great shawl. I +could only close the bargain with the utmost speed, to be safe from +ridicule. + +"Your price?" I asked. + +"Fix it yourself, sir," said the man, determined to confuse me. "You +are doubtless thoroughly acquainted with poultry." + +"The nankeen--colored one," spoke up again the bell-like and +inexorable voice from the other window, "is a yellow Crevecoeur, +very well formed and lively-looking: the slate-colored one is a +Cochin-China, with only a few of the white feathers lacking from +the head. They are chef-d'oeuvres, and are worth fully forty francs +apiece." + +"Only look, sir, at their claws and bills, see their tongues, and +observe under their wings: they are young, wholesome and of fine +strain--" + +He was running on when I stopped him: "Here are a hundred francs for +you, brave man." + +The patchwork blouse cut a caper, a look of lively joy shot from +the man's eyes, where a tear was gathering, and the wagon, from its +bursting cover, gave utterance to a sob. + +"Why sell them," I asked, touched in spite of myself, "if you are so +attached to them? Is the money indispensable to you? I might possibly +make an advance." + +"Ah, you are a real Christian--you are now," said the honest Joliet, +polishing his eyeball with his coat-cuff. "The good woman holds by +them, it is true. Holy Virgin! it's she that has raised them, and I +may say brooded over them in the coop. The eggs were for our salad +when we had nothing better than nettles and sorrel. But, day in and +night in, we have no other lodging than our wagon, and the wife is +promising to give me a dolly; and if we don't take out the cage, where +will the cradle go, sir?" + +[Illustration: THE PRESENT.] + +The calculation appeared reasonable. I received the birds, and they +were the heroes, in their boudoir under the piano, of that night's +conversazione. + +[Illustration: THE CONVALESCENT.] + +[Illustration: THE DIVIDED BURDEN.] + +How hard it is for a life cast upon the crowded shores of the Old +World to regain the place once lost is shown by the history of my +honest friend Joliet. Born in 1812, of an excellent family living +twenty miles from Versailles, the little fellow lost his mother before +he could talk to her. When he was ten years old, his father, who had +failed after some land speculations, and had turned all he had into +money, tossed him up to the lintel of the doorway, kissed him, put a +twenty-franc gold-piece into his little pocket, and went away to +seek his fortune in Louisiana: the son never heard of him more. The +lady-president of a charitable society, Mademoiselle Marx, took pity +on the abandoned child: she fed him on bones and occasionally beat +him. She was an ingenious and inventive creature, and made her own +cat-o'-nine-tails: an inventor is for ever demonstrating the merits +of his implement. Soon, discovering that he was thankless and +unteachable, she made him enter, as youngest clerk, the law-office +of her admirer and attorney, Constabule. This gentleman, not finding +enough engrossing work to keep the lad out of mischief, allowed him to +sweep his rooms and blacken his boots. Little Joliet, after giving a +volatile air to a great many of his employer's briefs by making paper +chickens of them, showed his imperfect sense of the favors done him +by absconding. In fact, proud and independent, he was brooding over +boyish schemes of an honorable living and a hasty fortune. He soon +found that every profession required an apprenticeship, and that an +apprenticeship could only be bought for money. He was obliged, then, +to seek his grand fortune through somewhat obscure avenues. If I +were to follow my poor Joliet through all his transmigrations and +metempsychoses, as I have learned them by his hints, allusions and +confessions, I should show him by turns working a rope ferry, where +the stupid and indolent cattle, whose business it is to draw men, were +drawn by him; then letter-carrier; supernumerary and call-boy in a +village theatre; road-mender on a vicinal route; then a beadle, +a bell-ringer, and a sub-teacher in an infant school, where he +distributed his own ignorance impartially amongst his little patrons +at the end of a stick; after this, big drum in the New Year's +festivals, and ready at a moment's opportunity to throw down the +drumstick and plunge among the dancers, for Joliet was a well-hinged +lad, and the blood of nineteen years was tingling in his heels. After +fluttering thus from branch to branch, like the poor birdling that +cannot take its flight, discouraged by his wretched attempts at life, +he plunged straight before him, hoping for nothing but a turn of luck, +driving over the roads and fields, lending a hand to the farmers, +sleeping in stables and garrets, or oftener in the open air; +sometimes charitably sheltered in a kind man's barn, and perhaps--oh +bliss!--honestly employed with him for a week or two; at others rudely +repulsed as a good-for-nothing and vagabond. Vagabond! That truly was +his profession now. He forgot the charms of a fixed abode. He came +to like his gypsy freedom, the open air and complete independence. He +laughed at his misery, provided it shifted its place occasionally. + +[Illustration: SHARE MY CUP.] + +[Illustration: BREAKING STONES.] + +One day, when Hazard, his ungenerous guardian, seemed to have +quite forgotten him, he walked--on an empty stomach, as the doctors +say--past the lofty walls of a chateau. A card was placed at the gate +calling for additional hands at a job of digging. Each workman, it +was promised, had a right to a plate of soup before beginning. This +article tempted him. At the gate a lackey, laughing in his face, +told him the notice had been posted there six months: workmen were no +longer wanted. "Wait, though," said the servant, and in another minute +gave the applicant a horse!--a real, live horse in blood and bones, +but in bones especially. "There," said the domestic, "set a beggar +on horseback and see him ride to the devil!" And, laughing with that +unalloyed enjoyment which one's own wit alone produces, he retired +behind his wicket. + +[Illustration: SICKNESS AND COURTSHIP.] + +The horse thus vicariously fulfilling the functions of a plate of soup +was a wretched glandered beast--not old, but shunned on account of the +contagious nature of his disease. Having received the order to take +him to be killed at the abattoir, monsieur the valet, having better +things to do, gave the commission to Joliet, with all its perquisites. + +Joliet did not kill the steed: he cured it. He tended it, he drenched +it, he saved it. By what remedy? I cannot tell. I have never been a +farrier, though Joliet himself made me perforce a poulterer. Many a +bit of knowledge is picked up by those who travel the great roads. The +sharp Bohemian, by playing at all trades, brushing against gentry of +all sorts and scouring all neighborhoods, becomes at length a living +cyclopaedia. + +[Illustration: THE WAGON.] + +Joliet, like Democritus and Plato, saw everything with his own eyes, +learned everything at first hand. He was a keen observer, and in our +interviews subsequent to the affair of the chickens I was more than +once surprised by the extent of his information and the subtlety of +his insight. His wits were tacked on to a number of remote supports. +In our day, when each science has become so complicated, so obese, +that a man's lifetime may be spent in exercising round one of them, +there are hardly any generalizers or observers fit to estimate their +relativity, except among the two classes called by the world idlers +and ignorants--the poets and the Bohemians. + +Joliet, now having joined the ranks of the cavalry, found his account +in his new dignity. He became an orderly, a messenger. He carried +parcels, he transported straw and hay. If the burden was too heavy for +the poor convalescent, the man took his own portion with a good grace, +and the two mutually aided each other on the errand. Thanks to his +horse, the void left by his failure to learn a trade was filled up by +a daily and regular task: what was better, an affection had crept into +his heart. He loved his charge, and his charge loved him. + +This great hotel, the world, seemed to be promising entertainment then +for both man and beast, when an epoch of disaster came along--a season +of cholera. In the villages where Joliet's business lay the doors just +beginning to be hospitable were promptly shut against him. Where the +good townsmen had recognized Assistance in his person, they now saw +Contagion. + +[Illustration: DINNER-TIME!] + +If he had been a single man, he could have lain back and waited for +better times. But he now had two mouths to feed. He kissed his horse +and took a resolution. + +He had never been a mendicant. "Beggars don't go as hungry as I have +gone," said he. "But what will you have? Nobility obliges. My father +was a gentleman. I have broken stones, but never the _devoirs_ of my +order." + +He left the groups of villages among which his new industry had lain. +The cholera was behind him: trouble, beggary perhaps, was before him. +As night was coming on, Joliet, listlessly leading his horse, which he +was too considerate to ride, saw upon the road a woman whom he took +in the obscurity for a farmer's wife of the better class or a decent +villager. For an introduction the opportunity was favorable enough. +On her side, the _quasi_ farmer's wife, seeing in the dusk an honest +fellow dragging a horse, took him for a "gentleman's gentleman" at +the least, and the two accosted each other with that easy facility of +which the French people have the secret. Each presented the other with +a hand and a frank smile. + +[Illustration: FIDELITY.] + +Joliet, whom I have erred perhaps in comparing to Democritus, was +nevertheless a laugher and a philosopher. But his grand ha-ha! usually +infectious, was not shared on this occasion. The wanderer could not +show much merriment. A sewing-woman with a capacity for embroidery, +her needle had given her support, but now a sudden warning of +paralysis, and symptoms of cholera added to that, had driven her +almost to despair. She was without home, friend or profession. + +[Illustration: A LITTLE VISITOR.] + +Joliet set her incontinently on horseback, and walked by her side to +a good village cure's two miles off--the same who had assisted him to +his first communion, and for whom he subsequently became a beadle. The +kind priest opened his arms to the man, his heart to the woman, his +stable to the horse. For his second patient my Bohemian set in motion +all his stock of curative ideas. In a month she was well, and the cure +no longer had three pensioners, for of two of them he made one. + +Two poverties added may make a competence. Monsieur and Madame Joliet +were good and willing. The man began to wear a strange not +unbecoming air of solidity and good morals. The girls now saluted him +respectfully when he passed through a village. + +One thing, however, in the midst of his proud honeymoon perplexed him +much. Hardly married, and over head and ears in love, he knew not how +to invite his bride to some wretched garret, himself deserting her to +resume his former life in the open air. To give up the latter seemed +like losing existence itself. + +One morning, as he asked himself the difficult question, a pair of +old wheels at the door of a cartwright seemed of their own accord +to resolve his perplexity. He bought them, the payment to be made in +labor: for a week he blew the wheelwright's bellows. The wheels were +his own: to make a wagon was now the affair of a few old boards and a +gypsy's inventiveness. + +Thus was conceived that famous establishment where, for several years, +lived the independent monarch and his spouse, rolling over the roads, +circulating through the whole belt of villages around Paris, and +carrying in their ambulant home, like the Cossacks, their utensils, +their bed, their oven, their all. + +From town to town they carried packages, boxes and articles of barter. +At dinner-time the van was rolled under a tree. The lady of the house +kindled a fire in the portable stove behind a hedge or in a ditch. The +hen-coop was opened, and the sage seraglio with their sultan prudently +pecked about for food. At the first appeal they re-entered their cage. + +[Illustration: FRANCINE.] + +At the same appeal came flying up the dog of the establishment, a most +piteous-looking griffin, disheveled, moulted, staring out of one eye, +lame and wild. For devotion and good sense his match could be found +nowhere. Like his horse, his wife, his house and the pins in his +sleeve, Joliet had picked the collie up on the road. + +The arrival of a tiny visitor to the Bohemian's address made a +change necessary. Little Francine's dowry was provided by my humorous +acquisition of the yellow and slate-colored chickens. + +With his savings and my banknote Joliet determined to have a fixed +residence. He succeeded of course. The walls, the windows, the doors, +everything but the garden-patch, he picked up along the roads. + +[Illustration: "DON'T WRING MY HEART!"] + +Buried in eglantine and honeysuckle, soon no one would suspect the +home-made character of Joliet's chateau. It became the centre of my +botanizing excursions. Francine grew into a fair, slim girl, like the +sweetest and most innocent of Gavarni's sketches, and sold flowers to +the passers-by. + + * * * * * + +Such were the souvenirs I had of this brave tavern-keeper in his old +capacity of roadster and tramp. Now, after an hiatus of years, I +found him before me in a different character at the beginning of my +roundabout trips to Marly. + +But what had become of my favorite little rose-merchant? + +"Francine?" asked Joliet briskly, as if he was wondering whom I could +mean by such a name. "You mean my wife? Poor thing! She is dead." + +"I am speaking of your daughter, Father Joliet." + +"Oh, my daughter, my girl Francine? She went to live with her +godmother. It was ten years ago." + +"And you have not seen her since?" + +"Yes--yes--two years back. She has gone again." + +"To her godmother?" + +"No." + +"Why so?" + +"Her godmother would not receive her. Don't wring my heart so, sir!" + +EDWARD STRAHAN. + +[TO BE CONTINUED.] + + + + +OUR HOME IN THE TYROL. + +[Illustration: VIEW OF TAUFERS VALLEY.] + +CHAPTER VII. + + +We left the Hof one August Friday--we were not superstitious--a goodly +company, sufficient to freight the rumbling old stage-wagon which +jolted daily between Bruneck and Taufers, a distance of nine miles. At +this village the sedater portion of the party were to settle down with +books, pencils and drawing-paper until the Alpine visit should have +been paid. + +The valley of Taufers, running northward with a grand vista to the +north-west of the vast Zillerthal snow-fields, suggests at a distance +the idea of a stern, joyless district. When in the broader Pusterthal +the sunshine floods upland plain and slope, this important but narrow +tributary valley lies steeped in its gloomy shade, the dark sides of +the Sambock frowning grimly on the opposite shadowy Tesselberg. Great, +therefore, was the surprise of some of the party to find, as we drove +along, instead of melancholy solitude, prosperous villages basking in +sunshine, whilst little children skipped merrily, and men and women +worked amongst the golden stooks as if enjoying the labor of their +hands. Yes, strange to say, effulgent sunshine everywhere on acre +and meadow, and slanting down upon a wayside cottage garden, where +a freshly-painted Christ lay drying between tall sunflowers. This +cottage seemed the only shadow in this unexpectedly bright picture, +for, occupied by a religious image-maker, crucifixes and wooden saints +peeped wholesale out of the windows. Is it a want of sensibility in +these poor Tyrolese peasants which causes them to cling tenaciously to +such frightful material forms of religion, making them give prominence +to every conceivable sign of sacred sorrow and suffering? But the +jolting stage-wagon allowed us no time to analyze this painful, +ever-recurring feature of the Tyrol. When we next looked up we +saw above us, on a wooded crag, a square gray tower, which, once a +stronghold, appears, as if exhausted with old age, to be tottering +into the midst of lesser ruins. + +It was Neuhaus, once a fortress of the rigid old barons of Tuvers. +Hugo, the sixth lord, died there in 1309, and in the chapel, which +still stands, mass is said at stated periods for the salvation of his +soul and the souls of his relations. The whole place would undoubtedly +have been given over to the owls and the bats had not two adjacent +springs--one of iron, the other of chalk and alum--been considered, a +quarter of a century since, either as preventives or as cures for +the cholera, then raging. A chalet was therefore planted on the rocks +between the chapel and the castle, and a bath-house opened, which +would probably be still much frequented on account of the beauty of +the situation were the bath-owner only a little more attentive to the +comfort of his humble guests. + +The valley, apparently so gloomy, proved not only cheerful, but full +of romance and old-world memories. Other castles there were, +perched gracefully on their crags; and thus, much sooner than we +had anticipated, we found ourselves stopping at the Post in Taufers. +Rather Sand in Taufers, the single appellation being used chiefly for +the parent church, which, with a mortuary chapel and a house for +the "young and sick," stands apart. Sand and Moritz, two prosperous +villages, cluster with this group of buildings at the head of the +valley, gathering like fiefs at the foot of the fine old castle, still +one of the grandest feudal remains in ruin-bestrewn Tyrol. A third +village, Mueklen, though quite distinct, lies sufficiently near to +deserve being included in the circle. + +The Post, in prospect of the increase of custom occasioned by the +Pusterthal railway, had enlarged its borders during the past winter. +Nor had it been deceived in the speculation, for, although only one +up-and-down train in the day crawls along the valley, the news of the +comfortable inn in the midst of beautiful scenery had already brought +custom enough. Thus all our powers of persuasion were lost upon +the handsome sister of the young wirth, a noted beauty of the +neighborhood. "Their house was full already. Nine guests, who had +never sent word beforehand, were quite out of the question, but the +Herrschaft could be accommodated at the Elephant opposite, which was +related to the Post." + +So, crossing over to the Elephant, the house being entirely empty, +we found space and cleanliness, and might have found perfect comfort +withal, had not the landlord and landlady proved in a perpetual state +of somnolency, their few waking intervals being barely sufficient +for the supply of the simplest wants. In spite of these and +other unsatisfactory auspices, such as the tea being served in a +soup-tureen, the stayers voted to remain at the Elephant in our +absence, making up for all inward deficiencies by outdoor enjoyment. + +A country clown with an honest face, Ignaz by name, agreed for a +trifle to carry our bundles and ample provision of food to the Olm. He +made a serious matter of it, however, when he pertinaciously insisted +on four in the morning being the hour for starting. The dispute +finally ended by the agreement to allow Ignaz to carry our belongings +at the hour he chose, seeing that all the village was ready to take an +affidavit as to his honesty, and we being allowed the same freedom of +choice for ourselves. All having thus been comfortably arranged, we +sallied forth for an evening stroll. + +A turn in the quiet village street soon revealed the great massive +castle on its plateau of rock--shattered towers, broken battlements, +oriel and bay windows jutting out here and there, its bulwarks running +down the precipice, but not, as formerly, shutting in the narrow gorge +leading into the Ahrnthal, a busy, populous valley, closed in its turn +by the snow-clad bulk of the Tauern, down which, on the farther side, +the noted Kriml waterfall plunges. Remembering, from a visit paid to +the castle in the former year, that an easy winding road, shaded +by trees and commanding splendid mountain-views, led through the +fortifications by the back of the castle to the great gateway, we +chose it in preference to the steep, perpendicular path, which, always +taken by the natives, led equally to the drawbridge and main entrance. +To our extreme regret, however, we soon found our course impeded by +the huge trunks of mighty pine trees lying in a perfect pell-mell +above and on both sides of us. A glance up the hillside showed scores +more of these slain giants. To proceed was almost hopeless, and +we were forced to rest upon some timber and mark our future course +between piles oozing with turpentine. + +Whilst we were engaged in our calculations, an old crone, who had +been groping about in the crevices for chips and sticks, stopped, and +seeing us thus penned in by tree boles, eyed us with a compassionate +look. "Ja, ja!" said she, "with fallen trees all jumbled together it +is hard for the Herrschaft to move on; but it's harder for us poor +folks, who have seen the trees growing here ever since we were born, +to hear day and night the axe going hack, hack, and the trees come +thudding down. Sixteen strong Welschers from a distance do the work: +they knew well enough a Taufern would have looked long at the sixers +(ten-kreuzer pieces) before he would have shorn the mighty forests. +Look you!" and she pointed to the sky. "As far as you can see they are +felling." + +We looked, and sure enough the vast woods that clothed the lofty +mountainsides were being ruthlessly cleared away. We suggested that a +protest should be made. + +"Oh, na, na! The woods are none of ours. The graf de Ferraris too has +sold the estate to a gesellschaft from Vienna. They care nothing for +the castle, but are hungry for timber. The count lives a long way +off, and does not feel it, but it must eat the heart of his aged +lady mother to the fibres--she lives in the village--to know that +foreigners are sweeping down masses of trees by wholesale--trees that +have always kept the poor man's noodles boiling. And where are the +planks to come from for our houses, our barns, our stables? And how +can the cattle be kept from straying without fences of wood? Then, +too, avalanches of snow and of stones will fall, and maybe overwhelm +the village. Thanks to the Mother of God! they will drop on my grave, +but, Lord Jesus, the children and the children's children!" + +Having given us these sad scraps of information, and heaving a +big sigh, the poor old soul lifted up her bundle of chips and went +fumbling forward over her stumbling-blocks. + +Sad and true was the picture which she had drawn. Nor does it, +alas! belong exclusively to Taufers, but to the whole Tyrol. In many +instances the people are themselves eager for this reckless clearing. +They hope thereby to secure more pasturage, the feeding and rearing +of cattle being the great idea of wealth to the Tyroler. So they make +ready money of their timber, which now in the form of masts floats on +the Mediterranean and the Suez Canal. The Venetians, requiring timber, +have turned the once beautiful, richly-wooded Dalmatia into a dreary, +barren land. In the Tyrol it is not generally foreigners, but the +natives, who unhesitatingly sweep away woods, which, causing grass and +plants to grow, have enabled human habitations to be erected on spots +that would otherwise be but dreary wildernesses, the battle-fields of +chilling winds and scorching sunshine. The precious timber, which like +refuse they cart into the clumsy yawning craters called stoves, or +else sell out of the country for economy so called, might not only +supply the land for centuries with a proper amount of fuel, either as +wood or charcoal, but bring prosperity to many a sequestered village +if turned into tools and kitchen utensils, whilst still leaving +thousands of trees for export. "The supply has never failed yet," say +the Tyrolese: "why should we replant forests to have to cut them down +again, when the ground, too, is good for grass or corn?" So the axe +lies ruthlessly at the root of every tree, for a heavy reckoning +hereafter to the Tyroler. + +With a weighing and balancing over every step which we took worthy +of a diplomatist, we finally stood upon the drawbridge of the castle. +Here the savage customs of the rude days in which it was built +immediately impress the beholder. Traces remain of the ponderous iron +portcullis, heavy wooden bars, arrow-holes, and slits in the masonry +for the pouring of boiling water or oil upon adverse knight or lordly +freebooter. A steep path leads through two great entrance-gates into +the large inner court, which is erected upon the virgin rock. A roof +of old wooden shingles shelters the well, and ancient rotting timber +mingles everywhere with the impervious stone in the massive buildings +of the castle, conveying a sense of weakness and decay in the midst of +the strongest durability. + +Not only was the old castle dismantled, but apparently entirely +abandoned this summer evening. We were preparing to return without +seeing the interior when a little maiden arrived from the village, who +with flushed face and timid mien drew the castle key from under a +big stone, stood on tiptoe and turned the heavy lock, and the door +creaking on its hinges we were left to wander at our will through +old wainscoted rooms in the dreamy twilight. No spirit of modern +restoration had ever reached them: they were allowed to remain just +as inconvenient, but also just as quaint, as on the day of their +erection. There were gloomy recesses enough, but there were likewise +graceful carvings, mottoes, rare tracery and wood-work; while, strange +to say, in several chambers grotesque wooden birds were suspended from +the ceiling like malformed ducks, conveying at first no idea of the +Holy Dove which the old lords had desired to symbolize, yet probably +in those unquiet days their best conception of this emblem of peace. + +The barons not only fought, squabbled and feasted, but prayed too +in their fashion; so we came upon the chapel, disfigured by barbaric +effigies, tawdry ornamentation and flimsy modern artificial flowers. +It is still used for the weekly mass which, as at Neuhaus, is read +here for the peace of the turbulent lords of Tuvers. Still, within +the memory of man a hermit occupied some narrow chambers adjoining the +chapel. He had retired amongst these ruins of transitory greatness to +warn his fellow-creatures against carnal passions, prayed for the dead +and shrived the living. The old anchorite has passed, we hope, into +heavenly repose, but cinders, which may almost be called holy ashes, +still lie scattered on his deserted little hearth. + +The banqueting-hall, a fine though low room, supported on solid +rounded arches, contains innumerable flour-and corn-bins, which, +though dating from the Middle Ages, are still in perfect condition. +Here knight and baron caroused, here mummers have played and bears +have danced, whilst sword and spur clanked upon the rude stone floor. +In the ladies' bower above many a minne-singer has struck his lyre. +Nay, Oswald von Wolkenstein, a prince amongst troubadours, wearing +his golden chain and brilliant orders, has brought tears from many a +gentle eye as he sang to his harp his pathetic elegies, the cruelty of +Sabina his lady, and his adventures in England, Spain and Persia. +He was a noble, courtly knight, conversing in French, Moorish, +Catalonian, Castilian, German, Latin, Wendisch, Lombardic and Russian; +and his bones lie in the great cloister of Neustift, not half a day's +journey from Taufers. + +How often, too, has the shrill sound of the bugle called to feats +of arms in the court, to hawking and hunting in valley and +mountain-forest! How many a crusader against Turk, infidel, _Prussian_ +and _Hussite_ has crossed the wooden drawbridge upon his war-horse! +Yes, and what an excitement in the noble Catholic household when in +the adjoining Ahrnthal the peasants, becoming enamored of Lutheranism, +rose in the peasant war of 1525! How darkly, too, must they have +painted the fanatical bauer Barthlmae Duregger of St. Peter's in the +Ahrnthal, who, after being taken prisoner, escaped near their +postern gate to circulate threats of fire and murder throughout the +neighborhood, vowing to reduce Bruneck to ashes! Reappearing with a +band of twelve poachers and twenty-six laborers, and accompanied +by Peter Baszler of Antholz, he robbed and plundered the clergy, +stripping the worthy priest Andreas Spaat of all his worldly goods, +so that he died in the utmost poverty. Although much blood was shed +in their pursuit, this lawless, misguided man and his band were never +taken. Great as their sin would naturally seem to the noble family at +the castle, no less lamentable and equally worthy of torture and +death would the heretics of Bruneck appear. About the same time the +sacrilegious books, as they were called, of Zwingli and Luther were +sold there openly, conventicle hymns were sung in the streets, and the +priest Stephan Gobi preached against the holy doctrine of confession +and the invocation of saints; whilst the schoolmaster Bartholomew +Huber, though he could not find time to teach the children the +catechism, puzzled their innocent minds with Virgil's _Georgics_ and +Cicero's _Letters_. Toward the end of the sixteenth century the heresy +was suppressed, when the lords and ladies of Taufers Castle sang no +doubt a triumphant Te Deum in their chapel. The inmates were not then +barons of Tuvers proper, for the title having early become extinct +the castle passed into many noble hands, sometimes reaching those of +royalty. Such a booty never remained unoccupied, until, coming +into the possession of Hieronymus, count of Ferraris, in 1685, his +descendants gradually permitted it to fall into ruin, its evil days +culminating under the present count, who sold the estate a few years +since to a speculating company, who merely value it for the timber. +The rooms which still remain habitable are tenanted by peasants and by +the sixteen pitiless wood-cutters. + +Seven o'clock the next morning found Frau Anna, E----, the two +Margarets and our good Moidel bound full of life and spirits for the +Eder Olm. We had soon left the village of Moritz behind us, and were +climbing a shady wood-path, when we met a peasant-woman with her +daughter, and she exclaimed, "What! Herrschaft going to Rein! What big +eyes they will make over the stones!" + +Sure enough, very big eyes were made by some of the Herrschaft. After +ascending to a meadow amphitheatre, then resting in a sunny wood, +redolent of pine odors, near the foundations of a ruined stronghold, +the Burgkofel, we came upon a realm of gigantic boulders. Some, in +the shape of huge granite slabs, formed a rude, continuous broadway; +others, scarred and furrowed, but softened and beautified by golden +and silver lichen, torn by storms and snow from the cyclopean +mountain-walls, were scattered topsy-turvy on either hand; many had +become lodged in the river, where they carried on a steady defence +against the tumultuous Giessbach, which, having its rise in mountains +ten thousand feet high, leapt, foaming milky white, over and between +them, forming a long series of bold cascades for a distance of half a +dozen miles. The road continued by the boisterous rapids, hemmed in on +the other hand by woods and threatening mountain-walls. The thunder of +the waters prevented continuous conversation: we therefore admired in +silence the grandeur of the scene and the magnificent glimpses which +slight curves in the road afforded ever and anon of neighboring +mountain-peaks and wooded valleys below. + +No carriage of any kind can ascend this road. It would be difficult +indeed for horses; nevertheless, the herds of cattle traverse it +in the journey to and from the Olm, their hoofs being able to find +foothold on the rock. Moidel said that the cattle were so delighted +to go to the Alps for the summer after the winter's confinement in +the stall that they made the journey with a kind of joyful impatience, +going on still more eagerly as they approached the end. "Not so, +however," added Moidel, "with the pigs. I have often sat and cried on +these rocks at their perverse ways when I have had to bring them up. +They would only stand still and grunt while I begged and prayed and +pushed. When they reached the top a new spirit soon seized them: they +were here, there and everywhere--in a week's time leaping like goats, +as if they had taken to wine." + +We made the climb slowly, and noon was long passed when we reached +the saw-mills, the first houses in the mountain parish of St. Wolfgang +or Rein. The busy, purring mills stood on the edge of the Sarine at +the extremity of a flat mountain-valley intersected by innumerable +brooks, which, continually overflowing, turn it constantly into a +lake. The grass had been under water a week previously, but was now +sufficiently dry for us to sit and rest. Whilst we were so doing, +Ignaz, our _traeger_, stood before us, his empty basket on his back. + +"The barn is swept and garnished in readiness for the Herrschaft, and +their bundles and parcels are arranged there in beautiful order--many +bundles, and far heavier than they looked last night." Ignaz, however, +was of opinion that though the pay was small the gentry meant well +by him, and therefore he had not scrupled to take the food the worthy +farmer's wife had offered him, leaving the Christian soul to be repaid +by the gentlefolks when they came. And, moreover, he had advised the +landlord at Rein that the gentry were passing through, so that they +should not fail to find eatables ready, seeing hunger and weariness +were best consoled by food. + +After which communication we regarded Ignaz as much less a clown than +he looked. Pushing forward, we soon saw the little inn shining forth +a mile farther up the valley--a small white chalet, with the +pink-checked feather beds hanging to air in the upper gallery. + +Moidel looked grave over the dinner which the interposition of Ignaz +had prepared for us. "The place is called Rein (clean)," she said, +"but it is none of the cleanest. A Graf once reached Rein, and he +thought it so pastoral that he asked at the inn for a drink of new +milk, but the landlord shook his head and asked for other orders, +seeing there was none in the house. Then the Graf said he would take +cream, but the landlord shook his head and asked for other orders. +Fresh eggs? Yes, the landlord said there were eggs, and begged him to +step into the zechstube until they were boiled. When they came they +made the very room smell, and the Graf in disgust ordered wine. This +was speedily forthcoming, but with so dirty a glass that the Graf, +making a long face, angrily called for the reckoning and departed." + +After Moidel's tale, and certain recollections of our own concerning +the little hostel last year, we all approached the house with very +humble expectations. The wirth, already on the lookout, received +Moidel and two of the party as old friends, and hearing no nay he +marshaled us up stairs, and flinging open a bed-room door, looked +proudly triumphant as even Moidel uttered an exclamation of surprise. + +Whether constant reminders from his neighbors of the Graf's +unfortunate visit, or a wave of civilization from the Pusterthal had +reached this secluded mountain-inn, certain it is that twelve months +had wrought a marvelous change here. Whilst the rest of the house +remained rough, dirty and primitive, the landlord had devoted all +his powers of taste and judgment upon this upper chamber. Leaning +complacently against the door, he received our congratulations on the +pretty ceiling and walls of carved deal wainscot, on the grand new +bed, and the bouquet of fresh Edelweiss in a wash-basin, but showed +surprise that the fiery tigers and gliding serpents which in a couple +of gilt frames adorned the walls received no flattering comments from +our lips. He next displayed a visitors' book, containing already some +half dozen names, watching closely the astonishment it should produce +in us as he prepared the table for our meal. But even the study of the +names had to be interrupted, for he had purchased some steel knives +and forks, which were, he considered, to bring him great credit and +reputation; nor could he complete his work without hinting at the +superiority of his table-cloth and napkins. Fortunately, a call from +below that the pancakes were ready enabled us to have a little laugh +to ourselves. Linen being used in all peasant houses, he had discarded +it as vulgar, wearing himself an unbleached cotton shirt with an +incipient frill, and supplying his guests with a table-cloth and +napkins of the same material from an empty wash-basin. + +We had already discussed two dishes of hot pancakes--really worthy of +commendation--enjoyed an hour's rest, taken coffee, and were rising to +depart, when the landlady appeared with a hop, skip and jump. She was +a lively, voluble little woman, who, though she had attired herself +for us in two enormous cloth petticoats, a stuff bodice and yards of +Bohemian lace in frills and ruffles, by way of displaying the wealth +of her wardrobe, bobbed and curtseyed as if set on wires. Great was +the difficulty, between the amusing, friendly wife and the husband +proud of her and his inn, either to pay our bill or get away. They +declared there was no hurry about the reckoning, and pressed us still +to stay. Seeing our resolution, the wirth with a sigh produced a brown +painted board from under his arm, a piece of chalk from his pocket, +made the bill, gave us change out of a tea-cup, and amidst reiterated +invitations to return if not satisfied with the barn, we tore +ourselves away, their friendly good-byes and good wishes floating +after us. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII. + + +We now left the Reinthal and turned into the side-valley of +Bachernthal. It was the 17th of August, but the little plots of corn +still waved long and green, giving a feeling of early summer. We +were in a perfect paradise of an Alpine valley. Before us the great +near-lying mountains, the princely Hoch Gall and the Gross Lengstein +Glacier, shone like molten silver against the intense blue sky, whilst +the Schnebige Nock rose pure and isolated across the narrow valley, +suggesting to one of the party the simile of the swan-breasted maiden +of Northern mythology. + +After passing several chalets we came to that of the Eder Olm. It +belonged to the Hofbauer, and was occupied by his _paechter_ or bailiff +the year round. Here, too, was the barn which we were to use as +our night-quarters during our stay. It was a great wooden building, +divided into three compartments, one being two-thirds filled with hay, +on which we were intended to sleep. It was true that Josef the paechter +had succeeded by means of sweeping and a little arrangement in making +the barn really attractive; but, alas! alas! we had hardly begun +preparing our beds when the horrible discovery was made that under the +surface the hay was soaking wet. Josef could hardly be blamed for not +telling us, as in the Tyrol the people regard lying on wet or dewy +grass as a natural system of hydropathy. + +We had not shawls and cloaks enough to construct beds upon the barn +floor, and the paechter's house, though substantial, was but a dark +den, already stuffed full with wife and children. Must we, then, +really return to the inn at Rein with its ornamental snakes and lions? + +It was dusk out of doors, but pitch dark within, save for the dim, +uncertain light of a horn lantern, and, all regularly worn out with +our ten miles' climb, we sighed for bed. It was futile, however, +simply to exchange expressions of dismay; so, groping about, to our +joy we alighted suddenly upon several bundles of clean, fresh straw +stowed away in the farthest recess of the opposite division. In a +trice a dangerous corn-chopping machine had been removed, the straw +loosened and spread out, and, covered with shawls and water-proof, it +formed as comfortable a great bed of Ware as ever weary bones could +desire. Forming a row, the tired wanderers were soon sleeping +the sleep of five just persons, the sound of several neighboring +waterfalls soothing rather than disturbing slumber. + +In the early morning it was put to the vote and carried that eider +down and spring mattresses were useless innovations after luxurious +straw, and that whilst some benighted people might regard us as having +been in purgatory, we had been in paradise, and hoped to be there +again within twenty-four hours. And the barn, too! How poor in +comparison seemed a conventional house on this sweet Sunday morning! +We had prudently filled all the large apertures in the eaves and +wooden sides the night before with hay, but there were plenty of +crevices for the sun to peep in by, whilst with wafts of mountain-air +it entered freely by the folding barn door as Moidel gently passed in +and out, on breakfast matters intent. Corn- and grain-bins, sieves, +flails and ladders pleased us better for the nonce than formal +furniture, although none the less convenient did we find the great +square wooden table and the benches which the paechter had thoughtfully +placed on the threshing-floor which formed the central division. + +[Illustration: SCHLOSS TAUFERS.] + +On one side of the barn a small room had been boarded off. It +contained empty milk-pans, ox-bells, old ropes and cords, together +with two chests and two pairs of men's strong leather boots. +This, Moidel suggested, should be used as joint store-room and +dressing-room. Fortunately, however, we had applied it to neither +requirement, when a singular occurrence took place which might be +classed as a ghost-story at night or an optical delusion by day. The +great barn-door quietly opened, Moidel having gone out and shut it, +and two figures--one in soiled homespun shirt and _loden_ trousers, +wooden clogs, with a little black leather skull-cap on his head and a +pipe in his mouth; the other older, in leather breeches, brown knitted +worsted jacket, and an old black silk handkerchief tied round his +neck--glided in. We could have sworn that they were Jakob and the old +senner Franz, but no response came to our exclamation of recognition, +and in a second they had vanished into the said little room, where all +remained, however, as silent as before. Two of us now began even to +doubt, but the other two were positive, that figures had floated +in. Ten minutes later the mystery was solved by the identical Jakob, +attended by Franz, reappearing from the chamber, not, however, in +the hard-working dress in which they had entered, but in full +Sunday array, the leather boots upon their feet and broad-brimmed, +flower-bedecked beavers in their hands. Poor Jakob! sore must +have been his perplexity when, in the hope of slinking into his +wardrobe-room unobserved, we had come open-eyed upon him in his soiled +array. At the cost of apparent rudeness, arising chiefly from shyness, +he had silently disappeared, the old servant following his example. +Now, however, they could both freely welcome us to the Olm, expressing +the pleasure it would give them to accompany us to the senner huts on +their return with Moidel at ten o'clock from church. + +This was Jakob's first introduction to Frau Anna and E----. He eyed +them closely and silently for some minutes; then said, "I like them: +they look good!" and so they went to mass. + +The barn and chalet called Eder formed part of the Hofbauer's lower +Alp, where a little later in the season the cattle were brought down +for several weeks of pasturage before they descended to their winter +home. We were now bound in company with the returning church-goers for +the group of senner huts belonging to the larger still more elevated +tract, which the Hofbauer rented in company with five other bauers. +Leaving the meadows very shortly after quitting our night-quarters, +where we seemed already in the very bosom of the snow-mountains, we +began again to ascend through a wood of primeval pines and fir trees, +long gray moss hanging from their hoary branches like patriarchs' +beards, whilst round their stems, amidst a chaos of rocks, were spread +the softest carpets of moss and lichen. In the centre of the wood, +where an opening covered with the finest turf afforded an agreeable +resting-place, as usual a cross--that most familiar object in a +Tyrolese landscape--had been erected. In this instance, more striking +and melancholy than ever, for this general point of attraction to +peasants seemed here, in the very heart of the mountains, to be +forgotten and despised. Small in size, as if wood had been grudged +in this land of wood, the writing on the cross erased by storms, +the dissevered arms and limbs were painfully scattered on the sward +below--type indeed as of a powerless Saviour unable to save or to +bless. Indeed, so offensive and discordant did this pitiable emblem +appear, and in such mocking contrast to the sublimity of the scene, +that we spoke of it to Moidel, as, laden with our eatables, she came +slowly up behind. "Ah," she replied, "it is not that the cross is +left unregarded, nor is it age which has thus damaged it, but the wild +storms and lasting snows. A new cross is often erected, but it has not +long been exposed before it is again utterly defaced. The herdsmen +and senners, however, see the meaning under it, and it keeps them +straight, Fraeulein." + +Well-intentioned but slow of apprehension, these poor peasants cling +to a carved Christ, and feel a horrible alarm, as if you were offering +them a vacant creed, when you touch upon anything higher. Thus Moidel, +though very intelligent, looked somewhat grave and quiet until the +woods opened and she had to point out the senner huts. These were rude +but very picturesque log cabins, built in a clearing amongst a steep +chaos of rocks, with the glaciers and the majestic peak of the +Hoch Gall shining above all. Five were dwelling-houses, the rest +cattle-sheds and barns: our people's hut was the highest of the group, +and we had a long climb over the boulders before we reached it. + +Seeing us approaching, good old Franz, who had gone forward in +advance, fastened on his apron and fried marvelous monograms and +circles of cream batter, of which we, the guests, were soon partaking +in the best room, otherwise the store-room and dairy. The hut was +divided into two compartments, both entered by adjoining doors from +the outside. Seated on milking-stools in somewhat dangerous proximity +to pans of rich cream, balls of butter and cheeses, the salt and +meal-bin served as our dining table. In the kitchen, Franz, resting +from his successful culinary labors, sat with Moidel and Jakob by the +hearth, where huge blocks of stone kept the fire in compass, the smoke +curling out of the door, and enjoyed in return some of our ham, wine +and almond cake. + +[Illustration: HAPPY SOULS IN PARADISE.] + +The hut was close quarters, even for the two ordinary inmates: there +were, however, innumerable contrivances for stowing away all kinds of +useful things, besides notches in the thick wooden partition for hands +and feet when at night they crept to their burrow of hay under the +low eaves. Everything with the exception of the old stone floor was +scrupulously clean: without, the pigs dabbled in the mire between +the rugged rocks, and nettles grew, but beyond, mountains, woods and +illimitable space were spread in uninterrupted fullness. + +Resting after dinner at a little distance from the huts, we learned +from Jakob, who was full of excitement on the subject, that shortly +after we left the inn at Rein the preceding evening a gentleman +from Bohemia arrived. He immediately communicated to the wirth his +intention of ascending one of the three great mountains rising from +the Bachernthal, either the Hoch Gall (11,283 feet high), the Wild +Gall or the Schnebige Nock, both some thousand feet lower, but perhaps +even more attractive, as still possessing the charm of untrodden +summits. The wirth consequently sent for a fine, clever young fellow, +Johann Ausserkofer, a friend of Jakob's, and whose home we had passed +on the previous night before reaching the Eder Olm. He had ascended +the Hoch Gall with two gentlemen in the August of the former year, +and now recommended an attempt at the still virgin Wild Gall. The +arrangement being speedily made, for extra help and security Johann +fetched his younger brother, Josef, as a companion, and the little +party started by torchlight at two o'clock in the morning. + +Jakob now produced a telescope, through which he hoped we might detect +moving figures amongst the snow of the Wild Gall. In vain we strained +our eyes through the greasy old telescope, for neither moving figures +nor stationary black dots were visible. Even Jakob with his eagle +eye confessed to seeing no trace of man either amongst the irregular +ash-colored rocks or upon the snowy curves of the Wild Gall, which, +like a huge white-crested breaker at sea, upheaved itself in the air +as in the very act of turning. Quite as solitary and untrodden did +it look as its still more stately sister, the Hoch Gall, a mountain +deservedly the especial pride of the district, its lofty pinnacle +piercing the sky, whilst a vast sheet of thick, pure snow hung +straight and smooth down its concave sides, a huge mountain-buttress +linking the lower portion of this snow pyramid to the white, +glittering expanse of the Gross Lengstein Glacier--a buttress of +many thousand feet, standing prominently forth like an antediluvian +monster, on whose gigantic pachydermatous flanks the shattered, +blasted stems of dead uniform fir trees shone out a silvery gray, +mingling in color with the loose, glittering debris which had slidden +into the upland valley just below. Two silver threads descending from +the glaciers of the Hoch Gall wound through these fallen stones into +the green turf of the Bachernthal, but whether formed of snow or water +it would have been difficult to decide, had not ever and anon a sound +as of a distant train been borne upon the breeze, proving them to be +brooks, which helped to swell the roaring, tumbling Giessbach, whose +boisterous acquaintance we had already made. + +The Hoch Gall, which has been twice ascended, was first attempted in +1869 by a very adventurous, clever young Alpine climber, Karl Hofmann, +the only son of a well-known physician of Munich--a youth of whom it +is said that no study was too difficult, no danger too great, no +peak too high for him. Innumerable were the mountains which he scaled +between 1866 and 1870, and of which he wrote excellent, accurate +descriptions: then laying down his young life--he was but +twenty-three--on September 2, 1870, in the fierce battle of Sedan, his +spirit passed away to mightier slopes, to more delectable mountains. + +Again, in the August of 1871, after our first visit to the Olm, the +ascent was repeated by two other members of the Tyrolese Alpine Club, +Herr Richter and Herr Struedl. They brought with them two experienced +men--one the chief guide of the Gross Glockner, the other of the +Venediger Spitze--and, except for Hofmann's written description, had +to plan and calculate for themselves, there being no local knowledge +of the mountain attainable, as the two guides who accompanied the +young explorer were also dead. + +Although well provided with their own guides, they thought it right +to take some active young man of the neighborhood with them, in order +that he in his turn might help future climbers. At the recommendation +of the landlord of Rein--who on this important occasion commenced +his visitors' book--they chose for the purpose Jakob's friend, Johann +Ausserkofer. They started by torchlight one Monday morning, and after +a steep climb through a wild mountain-forest on the opposite side of +the Bachernthal, crossing a vast glacier and the crevasse between the +Hoch Gall and the Wild Gall, began the real ascent, which proved so +perpendicular as to be achieved principally with the aid of ropes. +After a toilsome nine hours and a quarter they had the good fortune to +reach the summit in safety. The weather was favorable, and the view, +in Richter's opinion, far surpassed the much-vaunted panorama from the +Kriml Tauern. A long rest, and raising a cromlech in memory of their +bold achievement, and then the steep descent over snow and glaciers +was effected, and St. Wolfgang reached after fourteen hours of toil +and great danger. + +[Illustration: CROSSING THE TORRENT.] + +At half-past four, Jakob, having crossed the valley in search of his +oxen, came upon the Bohemian gentleman--whose name afterward proved to +be Dr. Hecht--with the two Ausserkofers, and learned their adventures +in the ascent of the Wild Gall. After clambering over steep, slippery +glaciers they had begun the climb proper at five o'clock in the +morning, Dr. Hecht pushing forward in order to be the first human +being who had ever placed his foot upon the summit of the mountain. +He had indeed almost reached the highest point when a dark, terrific +chasm suddenly yawned beneath him, entirely cutting off all farther +progress. The three explorers, although considerably dejected by +the disagreeable check and the waste of labor and time which it +had involved, determining not to be baffled, resolved to make a +considerable detour. After having, with much trouble, reached a lower +plateau, they attacked the precipitous, almost invincible mountain +from another side, the still early hour of the day alone permitting +the renewal of the attempt. Leaving their telescope and provisions to +await their return, they boldly scrambled, crept and worked their way +up the scaly side, and finally reached the summit in safety. The view +thence they declared to be magnificent. They too raised a cromlech, +and then a giddy descent followed. However, all three were full of +spirits when Jakob met them, and the Ausserkofers declared that they +were ready henceforth to pilot any other tourist to the summit for a +moderate four or five gulden apiece. + +Jakob, as herdsman, had left us at three o'clock to look after the +cattle, we strolling with him as far as a wild old wood which formed a +strange contrast to this Sunday afternoon, as lovely an August day as +ever rejoiced the earth. The near yet unattainable Hoch Gall glittered +coldly white between the stems and branches of gigantic pines, which, +scathed and bleached by lightning and storm, rose in the form of +ruined towers or lay tumbled about in the wildest, dreariest confusion +amongst the rugged enormous rocks, fit emblems of the forest in +the Inferno inhabited by the souls of the lost. Nor was this stern, +forbidding scene enlivened when a melancholy man, carrying the dead +body of a goat across his shoulders, crossed the torrent on a fallen +tree and advanced slowly up the craggy path, followed by a little boy +timidly picking his way behind. + +"Ach, Mathies, in God's name, another goat!" said Moidel, lifting +her eyes from a little book, the life of the odd, humane Joseph II., +which, bought for a few kreuzers at a fair, was worth as many guldens +in the pleasure which it gave her. + +The man glanced from under his eyebrows, and answered with a sigh, +"_Gott hat's so woelln, Diendl_" ("God would have it so, maiden"); and +then he added in dialect, "It was a beautiful creature. I missed it in +the reckoning last night. After mass I strode far and wide searching +it, until an hour since I found the body hanging by a hind hoof from a +cleft in the Auvogl Nock. See, it has broken its leg in its struggles. +Ah, poor beast! A solitary, cruel death, _und hast ma g'nomma mei +Ruah_" ("and it has taken my rest from me"). + +"Poor Mathies! his half dozen goats are all that he has in the world. +He rents one of father's huts, but since he has brought them to the +Olm two or three are already dead." This Moidel explained to us as he +moved dejectedly forward. "Father, however, told him that our Olm was +bad for goats. They not only slip from the rocks, but grow thin and +weakly. Just the reverse of the cattle. Onkel Johann--there is no one +so deep as he in cattle--says that every blade of grass on our Olm is +worth half a pint of milk. And it's not the air, nor the water, +nor the winds that make it wholesome, but some law that he cannot +understand. Who can? There is Jagdhaus, a wonderfully fertile +_sennerei_ an hour beyond Rein. It is far finer than our Olm, which +is so mountainous that timid new-comers amongst the cattle must first +teach themselves to walk about; but at Jagdhaus, which is as large +as a village, all the land is smooth, fat pasturage for miles. Yet +a curse rests on the place for which neither priests nor farmers can +account. Some seasons, it is true, all goes well, but in others the +cattle are suddenly bitten, fall dead, and their flesh then turns +black and rustles like paper. Some say that it is an insect or animal +that attacks them; others, that it is caused by the grass which they +eat; and there are again others who are sure that it is a phantom +which, touching them, blasts them. And there seems reason in the idea, +because when the priest of Taufers, who has an Olm there, goes and +says mass and prays for the cattle, or when the _Sterniwitz_ (landlord +of the Stern), who has acres of pasturage and many heads of cattle at +Jagdhaus, pays a Capuchin to go thither and pray, the murrain ceases." + +In Moidel's tale we had almost forgotten our long walk back to the +barn and the arrangement for supper previously at the huts. Now, it +curiously happened that whilst waiting for the tea-pan--rather than +tea-kettle--to boil, I accidentally alighted upon a people's calendar, +published at Brixen for the current year, protruding its somewhat +greasy pages from behind a churn; and after turning over long +black-and red-lettered lists of fasts and feasts, came upon some +pertinent advice to the Tyrolese farmers by Adolph Trientl, concerning +_Milzbrand_. He described it as a dreadful pestilence, the scourge +of many a mountain-pasture. Hundreds of cattle, he tells them, are +sacrificed to it yearly. Even the deer and lesser game die from the +contagion, as well as human beings; death in the latter case being +occasioned either by eating the meat of diseased animals or by having +cuts or wounds which have come in contact with the victims. Even the +bite of a fly which has fed on the contaminated meat will propagate +the malady. Hides or reins made of the skins are known years after +to reproduce Milzbrand. Where the body of an affected animal has been +buried the ground becomes contagious for a long run of years, the +cattle pasturing there being attacked. The only remedy consists in +burning the contaminated body, and then keeping the live-stock from +the place where the victim fell. When Milzbrand appears the farmer +feels he has no option between sacrificing his cattle and abandoning +for a season his rich pastures. And yet a little attention might soon +cause a remedy, the evil often arising from the water of a particular +pool or brook, which if carefully guarded against makes the rest of +the Alp perfectly secure. + +When I ventured to quote from the calendar to Moidel, suggesting that +at Jagdhaus it might certainly be the water, she remained impervious +to any new views on the subject. "There was Milzbrand, and that might +arise from the water, for all she knew, but at Jagdhaus it was a rod +of God, which only prayer averted." + +Adolf Trientl appears to be a Tyrolese priest, who travels annually +through his native land watching closely the agriculture and domestic +economy, and trying, countenanced by government, to help his country +people to an easier working life, healthier houses and more profitable +land. To the credit of the clergy of Brixen, his practical often pithy +remarks are published in their church calendar. He and his colleagues +must, however, use almost supernatural patience and energy before they +can move a Tyroler one jot from the beaten path which his ancestors +have taken for a thousand years before him. The people are perfectly +content, it is pleaded, with the existing state of things: why should +they change their sowing or ploughing any more than the sun his course +or the mountains their position? Changes, like bad weather, breed +discontent. + +We had brought no books with us for our five days at the Olm, and in +the pauses of our out-door enjoyment the calendar, greasy rather from +contact with butter and milk than with fingers, afforded amusing, +profitable reading: a lecture may often be pleasant to hear when not +addressed to one's self. + +Moidel, Jakob and Franz, though they had looked with blind eyes on +the print, did not turn deaf ears when we spoke; only we had to manage +that all we said and thought did not come as a quoted sermon, but as +suggestions and inquiries from us, who did not know half as much about +a dairy and farm-life as they did. First of all, we tried to make them +believe that the staff of life need not of necessity be rye bread +of so hard and flinty a nature as to require in every house a square +wooden board and iron chopper to cut it. + +"Yes," said Moidel, "it is very hard for old people, who must needs +sop it, but while one's teeth are good the crunching is a pleasure. +And then it must needs be dry, because the oven can only be heated +once in three months. I wish it could come round oftener, for there +is no going to bed on baking nights, with some three hundred loaves to +pop into the oven." + +"How could the poor bake often," suggested Jakob, "when there is only +one oven amongst them in the village?" + +"Why," said we, looking very learned, "you have a common schoolmaster, +and a common swineherd, and a common goose-boy: why not have a common +baker, who knew how to make good, light dough, and could bake a good +batch of bread for each family weekly?" + +To Franz, eating good bread only a few days old appeared woeful +extravagance. "Bread," he said, "should be like rocks to last, not +like snow to melt away. The rye meal would fly before the wind at that +rate, and where would the poor man then be?" + +Butter and cheese-making, however, involved hours of deep discussion. +You would indeed have thought that man merely came into the world to +make butter and cheese. Personal experience after two summers in +the Tyrol had made us reflect very much upon the butter and cheese +question. Whether regarded as a luxury or a necessity, the Swiss +Gruyere and Emmenthal cheese and the fresh dainty pats of butter made +the contrast striking in the Tyrol. The milk and cream were rich and +delicious, but became simply loathsome when transformed into butter +or cheese. We wondered how and why it was that we could never obtain +perfectly palatable butter, until we discovered the universal practice +of churning it, without salt, into huge oblong balls, large as the +nave of a wheel, which naturally soon turn rancid. It does not on this +account lose its value to the natives, who use very little butter, +melting it down into a clarified dripping called Schmalz for their +endless fryings and frizzlings. This badly made butter is, however, +often adorned with the emblems of the Passion, such as the cross, +ladder, crown of thorns and nails. It was so at the Hofbauer's Olm. +It is considered to enhance the value of the butter _Kugel_ or ball, +especially when given to the priest in payment for masses said for +dead relations. The Ursuline Sisters were paid for Moidel's education +in butter. + +And the native cheese!--meagre cheese, as it is justly called--a +poor, insipid, not overclean curd cheese. The curds are often merely +squeezed in a cloth, then turned out and placed upon an upper shelf to +dry, where they look like the back portions of gigantic skulls until +damp and mould somewhat destroy the resemblance. The kind called fat +cheese is not much better. It is, however, made with greater care, and +dried in bands of pine bark in the Alpine kitchen. This distasteful +butter and cheese, the sole result of gallons of rich milk and cream +and many a long summer week upon the lofty Alp, becomes still +more distasteful when the milk and cream are kept in the one hot, +over-crowded sleeping-room, or in a dairy where the goatherd sleeps +amongst the milk-dishes. The mountain dwellings are dark and badly +constructed, and if furnished with a proper dairy, the prejudiced +housewife often refuses to use it, believing that cream will not set +unless the milk is warm; thus, much becomes sour, and is either thrown +away or turned into a still more inferior cheese. Or she purposely +lets the cream become rancid before she churns, that the children +may not take too great a fancy to the Schmalz, and thus it may last +longer! + +We had tasted already too much of this milky tree of knowledge not to +learn with pleasure from the Brixen calendar that in different parts +of the Tyrol co-operative _sennereien_ had been started with the +greatest success. A manager was employed in each who understood +perfectly the Swiss mode of cheese-making and the best manner of +churning. Thus, the most excellent produce was gained from the same, +or rather from a smaller, quantity of milk, when the reckless waste +was deducted. Each shareholder had the right of skimming the milk +from his own cows, taking what he required for his personal use, or +he might send his entire share of butter, cheese, whey and goats' milk +with the common stock to market, where such co-operative wares already +brought the highest price. Thus, the farmer gained both ways, not only +receiving more money, but saving in dairy utensils, house room and +fuel, and his wife in labor. + +Great was our glee over these enlightened and successful efforts; but +a friendly dispute immediately arose when one amongst us expressed a +surprise that the half dozen bauers who shared the Olm in common +did not manage matters on this improved principle. They would find +themselves richer, more care-free men. Moidel declared her inability +to form an opinion. Old Franz, however, had much to say. He thought +it would be foolish. Why need the Hofbauer mix himself up with others, +when he only wanted to make meagre cheese for family use, while if +there were any over it always brought its worth in kreuzers at the +market? And then the pounds and pounds of butter were all wanted for +Schmalz. It might be sweeter, it is true, if they could melt it down +at the hut, but then there was the fear of setting the place on fire, +and the home-melted Schmalz went fast enough, as Moidel knew. And as +for the artificial Schmalz which was being sold in the towns now, +it was made of palm-oil, fresh suet and butter, and colored with +the yellow dye called Orleans; and people praised this machine-made +Schmalz and talked of progress! But he hoped, so long as he handled a +frying-pan, to stick to good old Schmalz and good old ways. + +MARGARET HOWITT. + +[TO BE CONTINUED.] + + + + +ON THE CHURCH STEPS. + +CHAPTER I. + + +What a picture she was as she sat there, my own Bessie! and what a +strange place it was to rest on, those church steps! Behind us lay the +Woolsey woods, with their wooing fragrance of pine and soft rushes of +scented air; and the lakes were in the distance, lying very calm +in the cloud-shadows and seeming to wait for us to come. But to-day +Bessie would nothing of lakes or ledges: she would sit on the church +steps. + +In front of us, straight to the gate, ran a stiff little walk of white +pebbles, hard and harsh as some bygone creed. + +"Think of little bare feet coming up here, Bessie!" I said with a +shiver. "It is too hard. And every carriage that comes up the hill +sees us." + +"And why shouldn't they see us?" said my lady, turning full upon me. +"I am not ashamed to be here." + +"Churches should always have soft walks of turf; and lovers," I would +fain have added, "should have naught but whispering leaves about +them." + +But Bessie cut me short in her imperious way: "But we are not lovers +this morning: at least," with a half-relenting look at my rueful face, +"we are very good friends, and I choose to sit here to show people +that we are." + +"What do you care for _people_--the Bartons or the Meyricks?" as I +noticed a familiar family carriage toiling up the hill, followed by +a lighter phaeton. I recognized already in the latter vehicle the +crimson feather of Fanny Meyrick, and "the whip that was a parasol." + +"Shall I step out into the road this minute, and stop those ladies +like a peaceable highwayman, and tell them you have promised to marry +me, and that their anxiety as to our intimacy may be at rest? Give me +but leave and I will do it. It will make Mrs. Barton comfortable. Then +you and I can walk away into those beckoning woods, and I can have you +all to myself." + +Indeed she was worth having. With the witchery that some girls know, +she had made a very picture of herself that morning, as I have +said. Some soft blue muslin stuff was caught up around her in airy +draperies--nothing stiff or frilled about her: all was soft and +flowing, from the falling sleeve that showed the fair curve of her arm +to the fold of her dress, the ruffle under which her little foot +was tapping, impatiently now. A little white hat with a curling blue +feather shaded her face--a face I won't trust myself to describe, save +by saying that it was the brightest and truest, as I then thought, in +all the world. + +She said something rapidly in Italian--she is always artificial when +she uses a foreign tongue--and this I caught but imperfectly, but it +had a proverbial air about it of the error of too hasty assumptions. + +"Well, now I'll tell you something," she said as the carriages +disappeared over the top of the hill. "Fanny Meyrick is going abroad +in October, and we shall not see her for ever so long." + +Going abroad? Good gracious! That was the very thing I had to tell +her that morning--that I too was ordered abroad. An estate to be +settled--some bothering old claim that had been handed down from +generation to generation, and now springing into life again by the +lapsing of two lives on the other side. But how to tell her as she +looked up into my face with the half-pleading, half-imperious smile +that I knew so well? How to tell her _now_? + +So I said nothing, but foolishly pushed the little pebbles aside with +my stick, fatuously waiting for the subject to pass. Of course my +silence brought an instant criticism: "Why, Charlie, what ails you?" + +"Nothing. And really, Bessie, what is it to us whether Fanny Meyrick +go or stay?" + +"I shouldn't have thought it _was_ anything. But your silence, your +confusion--Charlie, you do care a little for her, after all." + +Two years ago, before Bessie and I had ever met, I had fluttered +around Fanny Meyrick for a season, attracted by her bright brown +eyes and the gypsy flush on her cheek. But there were other moths +fluttering around that adamantine candle too; and I was not long in +discovering that the brown eyes were bright for each and all, and that +the gypsy flush was never stirred by feeling or by thought. It was +merely a fixed ensign of health and good spirits. Consequently the +charm had waned, for me at least; and in my confessions to Bessie +since our near intimacy it was she, not I, who had magnified it into +the shadow even of a serious thought. + +"Care for her? Nonsense, Bessie! Do you want me to call her a mere +doll, a hard, waxen--no, for wax will melt--a Parian creature, such +as you may see by the dozens in Schwartz's window any day? It doesn't +gratify you, surely, to hear me say that of any woman." + +And then--what possessed me?--I was so angry at myself that I took +a mental _resume_ of all the good that could be said of Fanny +Meyrick--her generosity, her constant cheerfulness; and in somewhat +headlong fashion I expressed myself: "I won't call her a dolt and an +idiot, even to please you. I have seen her do generous things, and she +is never out of temper." + +"Thanks!" said Bessie, nodding her head till the blue feather +trembled. "It is as well, as Aunt Sloman says, to keep my shortcomings +before you." + +"When did Aunt Sloman say that?" I interrupted, hoping for a diversion +of the subject. + +"This morning only. I was late at breakfast. You know, Charlie, I was +_so_ tired with that long horseback ride, and of course everything +waited. Dear aunty never _will_ begin until I come down, but sits +beside the urn like the forlornest of martyrs, and reads last night's +papers over and over again." + +"Well? And was she sorry that she had not invited me to wait with +her?" + +"Yes," said Bessie. "She said all sorts of things, and," flushing +slightly, "that it was a pity you shouldn't know beforehand what you +were to expect." + +"I wish devoutly that I had been there," seizing the little hand +that was mournfully tapping the weatherbeaten stone, and forcing the +downcast eyes to look at me. "I think, both together, we could have +pacified Aunt Sloman." + +It _was_ a diversion, and after a little while Bessie professed she +had had enough of the church steps. + +"How those people do stare! Is it the W----s, do you think, Charlie? I +heard yesterday they were coming." + +From our lofty position on the hillside we commanded the road leading +out of the village--the road that was all alive with carriages on this +beautiful September morning. The W---- carriage had half halted to +reconnoitre, and had only not hailed us because we had sedulously +looked another way. + +"Let's get away," I said, "for the next carnage will not only stop, +but come over;" and Bessie suffered herself to be led through the +little tangle of brier and fern, past the gray old gravestones with +"Miss Faith" and "Miss Mehitable" carved upon them, and into the leafy +shadow of the waiting woods. + +Other lovers have been there before us, but the trees whisper no +secrets save their own. The subject of our previous discussion was not +resumed, nor was Fanny Meyrick mentioned, until on our homeward road +we paused a moment on the hilltop, as we always did. + +It is indeed a hill of vision, that church hill at Lenox. Sparkling +far to the south, the blue Dome lay, softened and shining in the +September sun. There was ineffable peace in the faint blue sky, and, +stealing up from the valley, a shimmering haze that seemed to veil the +bustling village and soften all the rural sounds. + +Bessie drew nearer to me, shading her eyes as she looked down into the +valley: "Charlie dear, let us stay here always. We shall be happier, +better here than to go back to New York." + +"And the law-business?" I asked like a brutal bear, bringing the +realities of life into my darling's girlish dream. + +"Can't you practice law in Foxcroft, and drive over there every +morning? People do." + +"And because they do, and there are enough of them, I must plod along +in the ways that are made for me already. We can make pilgrimages +here, you know." + +"I suppose so," said Bessie with a sigh. + +Just then Fanny Kemble's clock in the tower above us struck the +hour--one, two, three. + +"Bless me! so late? And there's that phaeton coming back over the hill +again. Hurry, Charlie! don't let them see us. They'll think that we've +been here all the time." And Bessie plunged madly down the hill, and +struck off into the side-path that leads into the Lebanon road. The +last vibrations of the bell were still trembling on the air as I +caught up with her again. + +But again the teasing mood of the morning had come over her. Quite out +of breath with the run, as we sat down to rest on the little porch of +Mrs. Sloman's cottage she said, very earnestly, "But you haven't once +said it." + +"Said what, my darling?" + +"That you are glad that Fanny is going abroad." + +"Nonsense! Why should I be glad?" + +"Are you sorry, then?" + +If I had but followed my impulse then, and said frankly that I was, +and why I was! But Mrs. Sloman was coming through the little hall: I +heard her step. Small time for explanation, no time for reproaches. +And I could not leave Bessie, on that morning of all others, hurt or +angry, or only half convinced. + +"No, I am not sorry," I said, pulling down a branch of honeysuckle, +and making a loop of it to draw around her neck. "It is nothing, +either way." + +"Then say after me if it is nothing--feel as I feel for one minute, +won't you?" + +"Yes, indeed." + +"Say, after me, then, word for word, 'I am glad, _very_ glad, that +Fanny Meyrick is to sail in October. I would not have her stay on this +side for _worlds_!" + +And like a fool, a baby, I said it, word for word, from those sweet +smiling lips: "I am glad, _very_ glad, that Fanny Meyrick is to sail +in October. I would not have her stay on this side for _worlds_!" + + + + +CHAPTER II. + + +The next day was Sunday, and I was on duty at an early hour, prepared +to walk with Bessie to church. My darling was peculiar among women in +this: her church-going dress was sober-suited; like a little gray nun, +almost, she came down to me that morning. Her dress, of some soft gray +stuff, fell around her in the simplest folds, a knot of brown ribbon +at her throat, and in her hat a gray gull's wing. + +I had praised the Italian women for the simplicity of their +church-attire: their black dresses and lace veils make a picturesque +contrast with the gorgeous ceremonials of the high altar. But there +was something in this quiet toilet, so fresh and simple and girl-like, +that struck me as the one touch of grace that the American woman can +give to the best even of foreign taste. Not the dramatic abnegation +indicated by the black dress, but the quiet harmony of a life atune. + +Mrs. Sloman was ready even before Bessie came down. She was a +great invalid, although her prim and rigid countenance forbore any +expression save of severity. She had no pathos about her, not a touch. +Whatever her bodily sufferings may have been--and Bessie dimly hinted +that they were severe to agony at times--they were resolutely shut +within her chamber door; and when she came out in the early morning, +her cold brown hair drawn smoothly over those impassive cheeks, she +looked like a lady abbess--as cold, as unyielding and as hard. + +There was small sympathy between the aunt and niece, but a great deal +of painstaking duty on the one side, and on the other the habit of +affection which young girls have for the faces they have always known. + +Mrs. Sloman had been at pains to tell me, when my frequent visits to +her cottage made it necessary that I should in some fashion explain to +her as to what I wanted there, that her niece, Bessie Stewart, was in +nowise dependent on her, not even for a home. "This cottage we rent +in common. It was her father's desire that her property should +not accumulate, and that she should have nothing at my hands but +companionship, and"--with a set and sickly smile--"advice when it was +called for. We are partners in our expenses, and the arrangement can +be broken up at any moment." + +Was this all? No word of love or praise for the fair young thing that +had brightened all her household in these two years that Bessie had +been fatherless? + +I believe there was love and appreciation, but it was not Mrs. +Sloman's method to be demonstrative or expansive. She approved of the +engagement, and in her grim way had opened an immediate battery of +household ledgers and ways and means. Some idea, too, of making me +feel easy about taking Bessie away from her, I think, inclined her to +this business-like manner. I tried to show her, by my own manner, that +I understood her without words, and I think she was very grateful to +be spared the expression of feeling. Poor soul! repression had become +such a necessity to her! + +So we talked on gravely of the weather, and of the celebrated Doctor +McQ----, who was expected to give us an argumentative sermon that +morning, until _my_ argument came floating in at the door like a calm +little bit of thistledown, to which our previous conversation had been +as the thistle's self. + +The plain little church was gay that morning. Carriage after carriage +drove up with much prancing and champing, and group after group of +city folk came rustling along the aisles. It was a bit of Fifth Avenue +let into Lenox calm. The World and the Flesh were there, at least. + +In the hush of expectancy that preceded the minister's arrival there +was much waving of scented fans, while the well-bred city glances took +in everything without seeming to see. I felt that Bessie and I +were being mentally discussed and ticketed. And as it was our first +appearance at church since--well, _since_--perhaps there was just a +little consciousness of our relations that made Bessie seem to retire +absolutely within herself, and be no more a part of the silken crowd +than was the grave, plain man who rose up in the pulpit. + +I hope the sermon was satisfactory. I am sure it was convincing to a +brown-handed farmer who sat beside us, and who could with difficulty +restrain his applauding comment. But I was lost in a dream of a near +heaven, and could not follow the spoken word. It was just a quiet +little opportunity to contemplate my darling, to tell over her +sweetness and her charm, and to say over and again, like a blundering +school-boy, "It's all mine! mine!" + +The congregation might have been dismissed for aught I knew, and +left me sitting there with her beside me. But I was startled into the +proprieties as we stood up to sing the concluding hymn. I was standing +stock-still beside her, not listening to the words at all, but with +a pleasant sense of everything being very comfortable, and an +old-fashioned swell of harmony on the air, when suddenly the book +dropped from Bessie's hand and fell heavily to the floor. I should +have said she flung it down had it been on any other occasion, so +rapid and vehement was the action. + +I stooped to pick it up, when with a decided gesture she stopped me. +I looked at her surprised. Her face was flushed, indignant, I thought, +and instantly my conscience was on the rack. What had I done, for my +lady was evidently angry? + +Glancing down once more toward the book, I saw that she had set her +foot upon it, and indeed her whole attitude was one of excitement, +defiance. Why did she look so hot and scornful? I was disturbed and +anxious: what was there in the book or in me to anger her? + +As quickly as possible I drew her away from the bustling crowd when +the service was concluded. Fortunately, there was a side-door through +which we could pass out into the quiet churchyard, and we vanished +through it, leaving Mrs. Sloman far behind. Over into the Lebanon +road was but a step, and the little porch was waiting with its cool +honeysuckle shade. But Bessie did not stop at the gate: she was in no +mood for home. And yet she would not answer my outpouring questions as +to whether she was ill, or what _was_ the matter. + +"I'll tell you in a minute. Come, hurry!" she said, hastening along up +the hill through all the dust and heat. + +At last we reached that rustic bit of ruin known popularly as the +"Shed." It was a hard bit of climbing, but I rejoiced that Bessie, so +flushed and excited at the start, grew calmer as we went; and when, +the summit reached, she sat down to rest on a broken board, her color +was natural and she seemed to breathe freely again. + +"Are they all hypocrites, do you think, Charlie?" she said suddenly, +looking up into my face. + +"They? who? Bessie, what have I done to make you angry?" + +"You? Nothing, dear goose! I am angry at myself and at everybody else. +Did it flash upon you, Charlie, what we were singing?" + +Then she quoted the lines, which I will not repeat here, but they +expressed, as the sole aspiration of the singer, a desire to pass +eternity in singing hymns of joy and praise--an impatience for the +time to come, a disregard of earth, a turning away from temporal +things, and again the desire for an eternity of sacred song. + +"Suppose I confess to you," said I, astonished at her earnestness, +"that I did not at all know what I was singing?" + +"That's just it! just what makes it so dreadful! _Nobody_ was thinking +about it--nobody! Nobody there wanted to give up earth and go straight +to heaven and sing. I looked round at all the people, with their new +bonnets, and the diamonds, and the footmen in the pews up stairs, and +I thought, What lies they are all saying! Nobody wants to go to heaven +at all until they are a hundred years old, and too deaf and blind and +tired out to do anything on earth. My heaven is here and now in my own +happiness, and so is yours, Charlie; and I felt so convicted of being +a story-teller that I couldn't hold the book in my hand." + +"Well, then," said I, "shall we have one set of hymns for happy +people, and another for poor, tired-out folks like that little +dressmaker that leaned against the wall?" For Bessie herself had +called my attention to the pale little body who had come to the church +door at the same moment with us. + +"No, not two sets. Do you suppose that she, either, wants to _sing_ on +for ever? And all those girls! Sorry enough they would be to have to +die, and leave their dancing and flirtations and the establishments +they hope to have! It wouldn't be much comfort to them to promise them +they should _sing_. Charlie, I want a hymn that shall give thanks that +I am alive, that I have _you_." + +"Could the dressmaker sing that?" + +"No;" and Bessie's eyes sought the shining blue sky with a wistful, +beseeching tenderness. "Oh, it's all wrong, Charlie dear. She ought to +tell us in a chant how tired and hopeless she is for this world; and +we ought to sing to her something that would cheer her, help her, even +in this world. Why must she wait for all her brightness till she dies? +So perfectly heartless to stand up along side of her and sing _that_!" + +"Well," I said, "you needn't wait till next Sunday to bring her your +words of cheer." + +In a minute my darling was crying on my shoulder. I could understand +the outburst, and was glad of it. + +All athrill with new emotions, new purposes, an eternity of love, +she had come to church to be reminded that earth was naught, that the +trials and tempests here would come to an end some day, and after, to +the patiently victorious, would come the hymns of praise. _Earth_ +was very full that morning to her and me; _earth_ was a place for +worshipful harmonies; and yet the strong contrast with the poor +patient sufferer who had passed into church with us was too much for +Bessie: she craved an expression that should comprehend alike her +sorrow and our abundant joy. + +The tempest of tears passed by, and we had bright skies again. Poor +Mrs. Sloman's dinner waited long that day; and it was with a guilty +sense that she was waiting too that we went down the hill at a +quickened pace when the church clock, sounding up the hillside, came +like a chiding voice. + +And a double sense of guiltiness was creeping over me. I must return +to New York to-morrow, and I had not told Bessie yet of the longer +journey I must make so soon. I put it by again and again in the short +flying hours of that afternoon; and it was not until dusk had fallen +in the little porch, as we sat there after tea, and I had watched the +light from Mrs. Sloman's chamber shine down upon the honeysuckles and +then go out, that I took my resolution. + +"Bessie," I said, leaning over her and taking her face in both my +hands, "I have something to tell you." + + + + +CHAPTER III. + + +"I have something to tell you;" and without an instant's pause I went +on: "Mr. D---- has business in England which cannot be attended to +by letter. One of us must go, and they send me. I must sail in two +weeks." + +It was a thunderbolt out of a clear sky, and Bessie gave a little gasp +of surprise: "So soon! Oh, Charlie, take me with you!" Realizing in +the next instant the purport of the suggestion, she flung away from my +hands and rushed into the parlor, where a dim, soft lamp was burning +on the table. She sat down on a low chair beside it and hid her face +on the table in her hands. + +Like a flash of lightning all the possibilities of our marriage before +many days--arranging it with Mrs. Sloman, and satisfying my partners, +who would expect me to travel fast and work hard in the short time +they had allotted for the journey,--all came surging and throbbing +through my brain, while my first answer was not given in words. + +When I had persuaded Bessie to look at me and to answer me in turn, +I hoped we should be able to talk about it with the calm judgment it +needed. + +"To leave my wife--my wife!"--how I lingered on the word!--"in some +poky lodgings in London, while I am spending my day among dusty boxes +and files of deeds in a dark old office, isn't just my ideal of our +wedding-journey; but, Bessie, if _you_ wish it so--" + +What was there in my tone that jarred her? I had meant to be +magnanimous, to think of her comfort alone, of the hurry and business +of such a journey--tried to shut myself out and think only of her in +the picture. But I failed, of course, and went on stupidly, answering +the quick look of question in her eyes: "If you prefer it--that is, +you know, I must think of you and not of myself." + +Still the keen questioning glance. What new look was this in her eyes, +what dawning thought? + +"No," she answered after a pause, slowly withdrawing her hand from +mine, "think of yourself." + +I had expected that she would overwhelm me in her girlish way with +saucy protestations that she would be happy even in the dull London +lodgings, and that she would defy the law-files to keep me long from +her. This sudden change of manner chilled me with a nameless fear. + +"If _I_ prefer it! If _I_ wish it! I see that I should be quite in +your way, an encumbrance. Don't talk about it any more." + +She was very near crying, and I wish to heaven she had cried. But she +conquered herself resolutely, and held herself cold and musing before +me. I might take her hand, might kiss her unresisting cheek, but she +seemed frozen into sudden thoughtfulness that it was impossible to +meet or to dispel. + +"Bessie, you know you are a little goose! What could I wish for in +life but to carry you off this minute to New York? Come, get your hat +and let's walk over to the parsonage now. We'll get Doctor Wilder to +marry us, and astonish your aunt in the morning." + +"Nonsense!" said Bessie with a slight quiver of her pretty, pouting +mouth. "Do be rational, Charlie!" + +I believe I was rational in my own fashion for a little while, but +when I ventured to say in a very unnecessary whisper, "Then you will +go abroad with me?" Bessie flushed to her temples and rose from the +sofa. She had a way, when she was very much in earnest, or very much +stirred with some passionate thought, of pacing the parlor with her +hands clasped tightly before her, and her arms tense and straining at +the clasping hands. With her head bent slightly forward, and her brown +hair hanging in one long tress over her shoulder, she went swiftly +up and down, while I lay back on the sofa and watched her. She would +speak it out presently, the thought that was hurting her. So I felt +secure and waited, following every movement with a lover's eye. But +I ought not to have waited. I should have drawn her to me and shared +that rapid, nervous walk--should have compelled her with sweet force +to render an account of that emotion. But I was so secure, so entirely +one with her in thought, that I could conceive of nothing but a +passing tempest at my blundering, stupid thoughtfulness for her. + +Suddenly at the door she stopped, and with her hand upon it said, +"Good-night, Charlie;" and was out of the room in a twinkling. + +I sprang from the sofa and to the foot of the stairs, but I saw only a +glimpse of her vanishing dress; and though I called after her in +low, beseeching tones, "Bessie! Bessie!" a door shut in the distant +corridor for only answer. + +What to do? In that decorous mansion I could not follow her; and my +impulse to dash after her and knock at her door till she answered me, +I was forced to put aside after a moment's consideration. + +I stood there in the quiet hall, the old clock ticking away a solemn +"I-told-you-so!" in the corner. I made one step toward the kitchen +to send a message by one of the maids, but recoiled at the suggestion +that this would publish a lovers' quarrel. So I retreated along the +hall, my footsteps making no noise on the India matting, and entered +the parlor again like a thief. I sat down by the table: "Bessie will +certainly come back: she will get over her little petulance, and know +I am here waiting." + +All about the parlor were the traces of my darling. A soft little coil +of rose-colored Berlin wool, with its ivory needle sheathed among the +stitches, lay in a tiny basket. I lifted it up: the basket was made +of scented grass, and there was a delicious sweet and pure fragrance +about the knitting-work. I took possession of it and thrust it into my +breast-pocket. A magazine she had been reading, with the palest slip +of a paper-knife--a bit of delicate Swiss wood--in it, next came in my +way. I tried to settle down and read where she had left off, but the +words danced before my eyes, and a strange tune was repeating in my +ears, "Good-night, Charlie--good-night and good-bye!" + +One mad impulse seized me to go out under her window and call to her, +asking her to come down. But Lenox nights were very still, and the +near neighbors on either side doubtless wide awake to all that was +going on around the Sloman cottage. + +So I sat still like an idiot, and counted the clock-strokes, and +nervously calculated the possibility of her reappearance, until I +heard, at last, footsteps coming along the hall in rapid tread. I +darted up: "Oh, Bessie, I knew you would come back!" as through the +open door walked in--Mary, Mrs. Sloman's maid! + +She started at seeing me: "Excuse me, sir. The parlor was so--I +thought there was no one here." + +"What is it, Mary?" I asked with assumed indifference. "Do you want +Miss Bessie? She went up stairs a few moments ago." + +"No, sir. I thought--that is--" glancing down in awkward confusion at +the key she held in her hand. She was retiring again softly when I saw +in the key the reason of her discomposure. + +"Did you come in to lock up, Mary?" I asked with a laugh. + +"Yes, sir. But it is of no consequence. I thought you had gone, sir." + +"Time I was, I suppose. Well, Mary, you shall lock me out, and then +carry this note to Miss Bessie. It is so late that I will not wait for +her. Perhaps she is busy with Mrs. Sloman." + +Something in Mary's face made me suspect that she knew Mrs. Sloman +to be sound asleep at this moment; but she said nothing, and waited +respectfully until I had scribbled a hasty note, rifling Bessie's +writing-desk for the envelope in which to put my card. Dear child! +there lay my photograph, the first thing I saw as I raised the dainty +lid. + +"Bessie," I wrote, "I have waited until Mary has come in with her +keys, and I suppose I must go. My train starts at nine to-morrow +morning, but you will be ready--will you not?--at six to take a +morning walk with me. I will be here at that hour. You don't know how +disturbed and anxious I shall be till then." + + + + +CHAPTER IV. + + +Morning came--or rather the long night came to an end at last--and at +twenty minutes before six I opened the gate at the Sloman cottage. +It was so late in September that the morning was a little hazy and +uncertain. And yet the air was warm and soft--a perfect reflex, I +thought, of Bessie last night--an electric softness under a brooding +cloud. + +The little house lay wrapped in slumber. I hesitated to pull the bell: +no, it would startle Mrs. Sloman. Bessie was coming: she would surely +not make me wait. Was not that her muslin curtain stirring? I would +wait in the porch--she would certainly come down soon. + +So I waited, whistling softly to myself as I pushed the withered +leaves about with my stick and drew strange patterns among them. Half +an hour passed. + +"I will give her a gentle reminder;" so I gathered a spray from the +honeysuckle, a late bloom among the fast-falling leaves, and aimed +it right at the muslin curtain. The folds parted and it fell into the +room, but instead of the answering face that I looked to see, all was +still again. + +"It's very strange," thought I. "Bessie's pique is not apt to last so +long. She must indeed be angry." + +And I went over each detail of our last night's talk, from her first +burst of "Take me with you!" to my boggling answers, my fears, so +stupidly expressed, that it would be anything but a picturesque +bridal-trip, and the necessity that there was for rapid traveling and +much musty, old research. + +"What a fool I was not to take her then and there! She _is_ myself: +why shouldn't I, then, be selfish? When I do what of all things I want +to, why can't I take it for granted that she will be happy too?" And +a hot flush of shame went over me to think that I had been about to +propose to her, to my own darling girl, that we should be married as +soon as possible _after_ I returned from Europe. + +Her love, clearer-sighted, had striven to forestall our separation: +why should we be parted all those weary weeks? why put the sea between +us? + +I had accepted all these obstacles as a dreary necessity, never +thinking for the moment that conventional objections might be +overcome, aunts and guardians talked over, and the whole matter +arranged by two people determined on their own sweet will. + +What a lumbering, masculine plan was mine! _After I returned from +Europe!_ I grew red and bit my lips with vexation. And now my dear +girl was shy and hurt. How should I win back again that sweet impulse +of confidence? + +Presently the household began to stir. I heard unbarring and +unbolting, and craftily retreated to the gate, that I might seem to be +just coming in, to the servant who should open the door. + +It was opened by a housemaid--not the Mary of the night before--who +stared a moment at seeing me, but on my asking if Miss Bessie was +ready yet to walk, promised smilingly to go and see. She returned in +a moment, saying that Miss Bessie begged that I would wait: she was +hurrying to come down. + +The child! She has slept too soundly. I shall tell her how insensate +she must have been, how serenely unconscious when the flower came in +at the window. + +The clock on the mantel struck seven and the half hour before Bessie +appeared. She was very pale, and her eyes looked away at my greeting. +Passively she suffered herself to be placed in a chair, and then, with +something of her own manner, she said hurriedly, "Don't think I got +your note, Charlie, last night, or I wouldn't, indeed I wouldn't, have +kept you waiting so long this morning." + +"Didn't Mary bring it to you?" I asked, surprised. + +"Yes: that is, she brought it up to my room, but, Charlie dear, I +wasn't there: I wasn't there all night. I did shut my door, though I +heard you calling, and after a little while I crept out into the entry +and looked over the stairs, hoping you were there still, and that I +could come back to you. But you were not there, and everything was so +still that I was sure you had gone--gone without a word. I listened +and listened, but I was too proud to go down into the parlor and see. +And yet I could not go back to my room, next Aunt Sloman's. I went +right up stairs to the blue room, and stayed there. Mary must have put +your note on my table when she came up stairs. I found it there this +morning when I went down." + +"Poor darling! And what did you do all night in the blue room? I am +afraid," looking at her downcast eyes, "that you did not sleep--that +you were angry at me." + +"At you? No, at myself," she said very low. + +"Bessie, you know that my first and only thought was of the hurry and +worry this journey would cost you. You know that to have you with me +was something that I had scarce dared to dream." + +"And therefore," with a flash of blue eyes, "for me to dare to dream +it was--" and again she hid her face. + +"But, my precious, don't you know that it was for _you_ to suggest +what I wanted all the time, but thought it would be too much to ask?" +For I had discovered, of course, in my morning's work among the dead +leaves on the porch, that I had desired it from the moment I had +known of my journey--desired it without acknowledging it to myself or +presuming to plan upon it. + +At this juncture breakfast was announced, and the folding doors thrown +open that led into the breakfast-parlor, disclosing Mrs. Sloman seated +by the silver urn, and a neat little table spread for three, so quick +had been the housemaid's intuitions. + +"Good-morning, Charles: come get some breakfast. You will hardly be in +time for your train," suggested Aunt Sloman in a voice that had in it +all the gloom of the morning. Indeed, the clouds had gathered heavily +during the parlor scene, and some large drops were rattling against +the window. + +I looked at my watch. After eight! Pshaw! I will let this train go, +and will telegraph to the office. I can take the night train, and thus +lose only a few hours. So I stayed. + +What rare power had Bessie in the very depths of her trouble, and with +her face pale and eyes so heavy with her last night's vigil--what gift +that helped her to be gay? Apparently not with an effort, not forced, +she was as joyous and frank as her sunniest self. No exaggeration of +laughter or fun, but the brightness of her every-day manner, teasing +and sparkling round Aunt Sloman, coquetting very naturally with me. +It was a swift change from the gloomy atmosphere we had left behind in +the parlor, and I basked in it delighted, and feeling, poor fool! that +the storm was cleared away, and that the time for the singing of birds +was come. + +I was the more deceived. I did not know all of Bessie yet. Her horror +of a scene, of any suspicion that there was discord between us, and +her rare self-control, that for the moment put aside all trouble, +folded it out of sight and took up the serene old life again for a +little space. + +"Aunt Maria," said Bessie, pushing aside her chair, "won't you take +care of Mr. Munro for a little while? I have a letter to write that I +want him to take to New York." + +Aunt Maria would be happy to entertain me, or rather to have me +entertain her. If I would read to her, now, would I be so kind, while +she washed up her breakfast cups? + +How people can do two things at once I am sure I cannot understand; +and while the maid brought in the large wooden bowl, the steam of +whose household incense rose high in the air, I watched impatient for +the signal to begin. When the tea-cups were all collected, and Aunt +Sloman held one by the handle daintily over the "boiling flood," +"Now," she said with a serene inclination of her head, "if you +please." + +And off I started at a foot-pace through the magazine that had been +put into my hands. Whether it was anything about the "Skelligs," or +"Miss Sedgwick's Letters," or "Stanley-Livingstone," I have not the +remotest idea. I was fascinated by the gentle dip of each tea-cup, +and watched from the corner of my eye the process of polishing each +glittering spoon on a comfortable crash towel. + +Then my thoughts darted off to Bessie. Was she indeed writing to her +old trustee? Judge Hubbard was a friend of my father's, and would +approve of me, I thought, if he did not agree at once to the hurried +marriage and ocean journey. + +"What an unconscionable time it takes her! Don't you think so, Mrs. +Sloman?" I said at last, after I had gone through three several papers +on subjects unknown. + +I suppose it was scarcely a courteous speech. But Mrs. Sloman smiled a +white-lipped smile of sympathy, and said, "Yes; I will go and send her +to you." + +"Oh, don't hurry her," I said falsely, hoping, however, that she +would. + +Did I say before that Bessie was tall? Though so slight that you +always wanted to speak of her with some endearing diminutive, she +looked taller than ever that morning; and as she stood before me, +coming up to the fireplace where I was standing, her eyes looked +nearly level into mine. I did not understand their veiled expression, +and before I had time to study it she dropped them and said hastily, +"Young man, I am pining for a walk." + +"In the rain?" + +"Pshaw! This is nothing, after all, but a Scotch mist. See, I am +dressed for it;" and she threw a tartan cloak over her shoulder--a +blue-and-green tartan that I had never seen before. + +"The very thing for shipboard," I whispered as I looked at her +admiringly. + +Her face was flushed enough now, but she made no answer save to stoop +down and pat the silly little terrier that had come trotting into the +room with her. + +"Fidget shall go--yes, he shall go walking;" and Fidget made a gray +ball of himself in his joy at the permission. + +Up the hill again we walked, with the little Skye terrier cantering in +advance or madly chasing the chickens across the road. + +"Did you finish your letter satisfactorily?" I asked, for I was +fretting with impatience to know its contents. + +"Yes. I will give it to you when you leave to-night." + +"Shall we say next Saturday, Bessie?" said I, resolving to plunge at +once into the sea of our late argument. + +"For what? For you to come again? Don't you always come on Saturday?" + +"Yes, but this time I mean to carry you away." + +A dead pause, which I improved by drawing her hand under my arm and +imprisoning her little gray glove with my other hand. As she did not +speak, I went on fatuously: "You don't need any preparation of gowns +and shawls; you can buy your _trousseau_ in London, if need be; and +we'll settle on the ship, coming over, how and where we are to live in +New York." + +"You think, then, that I am all ready to be married?" + +"I think that my darling is superior to the nonsense of other +girls--that she will be herself always, and doesn't need any +masquerade of wedding finery." + +"You think, then," coldly and drawing her hand away, "that I am +different from other girls?" and the scarlet deepened on her cheek. +"You think I say and do things other girls would not?" + +"My darling, what nonsense! You say and do things that other girls +_cannot_, nor could if they tried a thousand years." + +"Thanks for the compliment! It has at least the merit of dubiousness. +Now, Charlie, if you mention Europe once in this walk I shall be +seriously offended. Do let us have a little peace and a quiet talk." + +"Why, what on earth can we talk about until this is settled? I can't +go back to New York, and engage our passage, and go to see Judge +Hubbard--I suppose you were writing to him this morning?" + +She did not answer, but seemed bent on making the dainty print of her +foot in the moist earth of the road, taking each step carefully, as +though it were the one important and engrossing thing in life. + +"--Unless," I went on, "you tell me you will be ready to go back with +me this day week. You see, Bessie dear, I _must_ sail on the fixed +day. And if we talk it over now and settle it all, it will save no end +of writing to and fro." + +"Good-morning!" said a gay voice behind us--Fanny Meyrick's voice. She +was just coming out of one of the small houses on the roadside. "Don't +you want some company? I've been to call on my washerwoman, and I'm so +glad I've met you. Such an English morning! Shall I walk with you?" + + + + +CHAPTER V + + +If I could have changed places with Fidget, I could scarce have +expressed my disapproval of the new-comer more vehemently than he. +Miss Meyrick seemed quite annoyed at the little dog's uncalled-for +snapping and barking, and shook her umbrella at him in vain. I was +obliged to take him in hand myself at last, and to stand in the road +and order him to "Go home!" while the two young ladies walked on, +apparently the best of friends. + +When I rejoined them Fanny Meyrick was talking fast and unconnectedly, +as was her habit: "Yes, lodgings in London--the dearest old house in +Clarges street. Such a butler! He looks like a member of Parliament. +We stayed there once before for three days. I am just going to settle +into an English girl. Had enough of the Continent. Never do see +England now-a-days, nobody. All rush off. So papa is going to have a +comfortable time. Embassy? Oh, I know the general well." + +I looked beseechingly at Bessie. Why wouldn't she say that we too +would be there in London lodgings? Perhaps, then, Fanny Meyrick might +take the hint and leave us soon. + +But Bessie gave no sign, and I relapsed into a somewhat impatient +_resume_ of my own affairs. Yes: married quietly on Saturday; leave +here on Monday morning train; take, yes, Wednesday's steamer. I could +arrange it with my law-partners to be absent a little longer +perhaps, that there might be some little rest and romance about the +wedding-journey. + +Two or three times in the course of that morning--for she stayed with +us all the morning--Fanny Meyrick rallied me on my preoccupation and +silence: "He didn't use to be so, Bessie, years ago, I assure you. +It's very disagreeable, sir--not an improvement by any means." + +Then--I think without any malice prepense, simply the unreasoning +rattle of a belle of two seasons--she plunged into a description of +a certain fete at Blankkill on the Hudson, the occasion of our first +acquaintance: "He was so young, Bessie, you can't imagine, and blushed +so beautifully that all the girls were jealous as could be. We were +very good friends--weren't we?--all that summer?" + +"And are still, I hope," said I with my most sweeping bow. "What have +I done to forfeit Miss Meyrick's esteem?" + +"Nothing, except that you used to find your way oftener to Meyrick +Place than you do now. Well, I won't scold you for that: I shall make +up for that on the other side." + +What did she mean? She had no other meaning than that she would have +such compensation in English society that her American admirers would +not be missed. She did not know of my going abroad. + +But Bessie darted a quick glance from her to me, and back again to +her, as though some dawning suspicion had come to her. "I hope," +she said quietly, "that you may have a pleasant winter. It will be +delightful, won't it, Charlie?" + +"Oh, very!" I answered, but half noting the under-meaning of her +words, my mind running on deck state-rooms and the like. + +"Charlie," said Miss Meyrick suddenly, "do you remember what happened +two years ago to-day?" + +"No, I think not." + +Taking out a little book bound in Russia leather and tipped with gold, +she handed it to Bessie, who ran her eye down the page: it was open at +September 28th. + +"Read it," said Fanny, settling herself composedly in her shawl, and +leaning back against a tree with half-shut eyes. + +"'_September 28th_'" Bessie read, in clear tones which had a strange +constraint in them, "'Charlie Munro saved my life. I shall love +him for ever and ever. We were out in a boat, we two, on the +Hudson--moonlight--I was rowing. Dropt my oar into the water. Leaned +out after it and upset the boat. Charlie caught me and swam with me to +shore.'" + +A dead silence as Bessie closed the book and held it in her hand. + +"Oh," said I lightly, "that isn't worth chronicling--that! It was +no question of saving lives. The New York boat was coming up, if I +remember." + +"Yes, it was in trying to steer away from it that I dropped my oar." + +"So you see it would have picked us up, any how. There was nothing but +the ducking to remember." + +"Such a figure, Bessie! Imagine us running along the road to the gate! +I could scarcely move for my dripping skirts; and we frightened papa +so when we stepped up on the piazza out of the moonlight!" + +To stop this torrent of reminiscences, which, though of nothings, I +could see was bringing the red spot to Bessie's cheek, I put out my +hand for the book: "Let me write something down to-day;" and I hastily +scribbled: "_September_ 28. Charles Munro and Bessie Stewart, to sail +for Europe in ten days, ask of their friend Fanny Meyrick her warm +congratulations." + +"Will that do?" I whispered as I handed the book to Bessie. + +"Not at all," said Bessie scornfully and coldly, tearing out the leaf +as she spoke and crumpling it in her hand.--"Sorry to spoil your book, +Fanny dear, but the sentiment would have spoiled it more. Let us go +home." + +As we passed the hotel on that dreary walk home, Fanny would have +left us, but Bessie clung to her and whispered something in a pleading +voice, begging her, evidently, to come home with us. + +"If Mr. Munro will take word to papa," she said, indicating that +worthy, who sat on the upper piazza smoking his pipe. + +"We will walk on," said Bessie coldly. "Come, Fanny dear." + +Strange, thought I as I turned on my heel, this sudden fond intimacy! +Bessie is angry. Why did I never tell her of the ducking? And yet when +I remembered how Fanny had clung to me, how after we had reached +the shore I had been forced to remind her that it was no time for +sentimental gratitude when we both were shivering, I could see why +I had refrained from mentioning it to Bessie until our closer +confidences would allow of it. + +No man, unless he be a downright coxcomb, will ever admit to one woman +that another woman has loved him. To his wife--perhaps. But how much +Fanny Meyrick cared for me I had never sought to know. After +the dismal ending of that moonlight boat-row--I had been already +disenchanted for some time before--I had scarce called at Meyrick +Place more than civility required. The young lady was so inclined to +exaggerate the circumstance, to hail me as her deliverer, that I felt +like the hero of a melodrama whenever we met. And after I had met +Bessie there were pleasanter things to think about--much pleasanter. + +How exasperating girls can be when they try! I had had my _conge_ for +the walk home, I knew, and I was vexed enough to accept it and stay at +the hotel to dinner. + +"I will not be played upon in this way. Bessie knows that I stayed +over the morning train just to be with her, and piled up for to-morrow +no end of work, as well as sarcastic remarks from D. & Co. If she +chooses to show off her affection for Fanny Meyrick in these few hours +that we have together--Fanny Meyrick whom she _hated_ yesterday--she +may enjoy her friendship undisturbed by me." + +So I loitered with my cigar after dinner, and took a nap on the sofa +in my room. I was piqued, and did not care to conceal it. As the clock +struck five I bethought me it was time to betake me to the Sloman +cottage. A sound of wheels and a carriage turning brought me to the +window. The two young ladies were driving off in Fanny Meyrick's +phaeton, having evidently come to the hotel and waited while it was +being made ready. + +"Pique for pique! Serves me right, I suppose." + +Evening found me at the Sloman cottage, waiting with Mrs. Sloman by +the tea-table. Why do I always remember her, sitting monumental by the +silver urn? + +"The girls are very late to-night." + +"Yes." I was beginning to be uneasy. It was nearing train-time again. + +"Such lovely moonlight, I suppose, has tempted them, or they may be +staying at Foxcroft to tea." + +Indeed? I looked at my watch: I had ten minutes. + +A sound of wheels: the phaeton drove up. + +"Oh, Charlie," said Bessie as she sprang out, "you bad boy! you'll +miss your train again. Fanny here will drive you to the hotel. Jump +in, quick!" + +And as the moonlight shone full on her face I looked inquiringly into +her eyes. + +"The letter," I said, "for Judge Hubbard?" hoping that she would go to +the house for it, and then I could follow her for a word. + +"Oh! I had almost forgotten. Here it is;" and she drew it from her +pocket and held it out to me in her gloved hand. I pressed the hand +to my lips, riding-glove and all, and sprang in beside Fanny, who was +with some difficulty making her horse stand still. + +"Good-bye!" from the little figure at the gate. "Don't forget, Fanny, +to-morrow at ten;" and we were off. + +By the wretched kerosene lamp of the car, going down, I read my +letter, for it was for me: "I will not go to Europe, and I forbid you +to mention it again. I shall never, never forget that _I_ proposed +it, and that you--_accepted_ it. Come up to Lenox once more before you +go." + +This was written in ink, and was sealed. It was the morning's note. +But across the envelope these words were written in pencil: "Go to +Europe with Fanny Meyrick, and come up to Lenox, both of you, when you +return." + +SARAH C. HALLOWELL. + +[TO BE CONTINUED.] + + + + +INSIDE JAPAN. + + +A double pleasure rewards the pioneer who is the first to penetrate +into the midst of a new people. Besides the rare exhilaration felt in +treading soil virgin to alien feet, it acts like mental oxygen to look +upon and breathe in a unique civilization like that of Japan. To feel +that for ages millions of one's own race have lived and loved, enjoyed +and suffered and died, living the fullness of life, yet without the +religion, laws, customs, food, dress and culture which seem to us +to be the vitals of our social existence, is like walking through a +living Pompeii. + +I confess to a chronic desire to explore the Island Empire in which I +dwell. Having already, in the central provinces of Japan, trodden many +a path never before touched by foreign foot, I yearned to explore +the twin provinces of Kadzusa and Awa, which form the peninsula lying +between the Gulf of Yeddo and the Pacific Ocean. A timely holiday and +a passport from the Japanese foreign office enabled me to start toward +the end of March, the time when all Japan is glorious with blossoming +plum trees, and the camellia trees in forests of bloom are marshaled +by thousands on the mountain-slopes. + +I was glad to get away from Yeddo: I had a fit of anti-Caucasianism, +and wished to dwell a while amidst things purely Japanese. There +were too many foreigners in Yeddo. In that city of only eight hundred +thousand Japanese there are now full two hundred foreigners of all +nationalities; and of these, fifty or more are Americans. It was too +much like home and too little like Japan. Should I go to Yokohama, +the case was worse. Nearly twelve hundred of the sons of Japheth dwelt +there, and to reach that upstart European city one must travel on a +railway and see telegraph-poles all along the line. What _was_ the +use of living in Japan? Every young Japanese, too, in the capital is +brainful of "civilization," "progress," "reform," etc. I half suspect +a few cracks in the craniums belonging to some of the youths who wish +to introduce law, religion, steam, language, frock-coats and tight +boots by edict and ordinance. There was too much civilization. I +yearned for something more primitive, something more purely Japanese; +and tramping into the country I should find it. I should eat Japanese +food--profanely dubbed "chow-chow;" sleep in Japanese beds--on the +floor; talk Japanese--as musical as Italian; and live so much like an +old-time native that I should feel as one born on the soil. By that +time, returning to Yeddo as a Japanese of the period, I should of +course burn to adopt railways, telegraphs and balloons, codify the +laws, improve upon United States postage, coinage and dress-coats, and +finish off by annexing the English language after I had cut out all +irregularities and made all the crooked spelling straight. + +So, resolving to be a heathen for a week at least, I left Yeddo one +afternoon, though it took several hours to do so: the big city is one +of distances more magnificent than those of Washington. I started in +a _jin-riki-sha_, which baby-carriage on adult wheels has already been +described, so as to be tolerably familiar to all American readers. +The "team" of this "man-power carriage" consists of two men, pulling +tandem--one in the shafts, the other running ahead with a rope over +his shoulder, and, until the recent passage of a law commanding +decency, attired only in his cuticle and a loin-cloth two inches wide. +You take three coolies when you wish to be stylish, while four are +not an unknown sensation in Yeddo. With these and fresh relays you can +travel sixty, or even eighty, miles a day; and I have known one man to +run thirty miles on the stretch. + +Of all the modes of traveling in Japan, the jin-riki-sha is the most +pleasant. The _kago_ is excruciating. It is a flat basket, swung on +a pole and carried on the shoulders of two men. If your neck does +not break, your feet go hopelessly to sleep. Headaches seem to lodge +somewhere in the bamboos, to afflict every victim entrapped in it. To +ride in a kago is as pleasant as riding in a washtub or a coffin slung +on a pole. In some mountain-passes stout native porters carry you +pickapack. Crossing the shallow rivers, you may sit upon a platform +borne on men's shoulders as they wade. Saddle-horses are not to be +publicly hired, but pack-horses are pleasant means of locomotion. +These animals and their leaders deserve a whole chapter of description +for themselves. Fancy a brass-bound peaked pack-saddle rising a foot +above the animal's back, with a crupper-strap slanting down to clasp +the tail. The oft-bandied slur, that in Japan everything goes by +contraries, has a varnish of truth on it when we notice that the most +gorgeous piece of Japanese saddlery is the crupper, which, even on +a pack-horse, is painted crimson and gilded gloriously. The man who +leads the horse is an animal that by long contact and companionship +with the quadruped has grown to resemble him in disposition and +ejaculation: at least, the equine and the human seem to harmonize well +together. This man is called in Japanese "horse side." He is dressed +in straw sandals and the universally worn _kimono_, or blue cotton +wrapper-like dress, which is totally unfitted for work of any kind, +and which makes the slovens of Japan--a rather numerous class--always +look as if they had just got out of bed. At his waist is the usual +girdle, from which hangs the inevitable bamboo-and-brass pipe, the +bowl of which holds but a pellet of the mild fine-cut tobacco of the +country. The pipe-case is connected with a tobacco-pouch, in which +are also flint, steel and tinder. All these are suspended by a cord, +fastened to a wooden or ivory button, which is tucked up through the +belt. On his head, covering his shaven mid-scalp and right-angled +top-knot, is a blue cotton rag--not handkerchief, since such an +article in Japan is always made of paper. This head-gear is usually +fastened over the head by twisting the ends under the nose. With a +rope six feet long he leads his horse, which trusts so implicitly +to its master's guidance that we suspect the prevalence of blindness +among the Japanese pack-horses arises from sheer lack of the exercise +of their eyesight. These unkempt brutes are strangers to curry-combs +and brushes, though a semi-monthly scrubbing in hot water keeps them +tolerably clean. Their shoes are a curiosity: the hoofs are not shod +with iron, but with straw sandals, tied on thrice or oftener daily. +Grass is scarce in Japan, and oats are unknown. The nags live on +beans, barley, and the stalks, leaves and tops of succulent plants, +with only an occasional wisp of hay or grass. + +In certain districts horses of one or the other sex, as the law +determines, are kept exclusively. Horses of the gentler sex in Japan +are usually led by women. During part of my journey to the place which +I am about to describe the leader of the mare I bestrode was a maiden +of some forty summers--a neat, spare, vinegar-faced sylph, who had +evidently long since left the matrimonial market, and had devoted +herself to making one horse happy for the rest of her pilgrimage. That +she was neither wife nor widow I discovered, not by asking questions, +but by the manner in which her hair was dressed. Japanese virgins and +wives have each distinct coiffures, by which, apart from the shaven +eyebrows and the teeth dyed black of the married women, the _musume_ +or young maiden may be known. The widow who has resolved never to +marry again (always too old or ugly) is distinguished by her smooth +skull, every hair of which is shaved off. A lady of rank may also be +known by her coiffure; and many other distinctions are thus noted. + +I waited three-quarters of an hour for my horse and its leader to +appear at the post-relay at which I sat down, and was stared at during +that time by about three hundred pairs of eyes. The populace of +each village turned out _en masse_ to see the foreigner, and they +diligently improved their time in examining him from crown to +boot-sole. Like everything else in the rural districts of Japan, my +guide was not in a hurry, and could not understand why a foreigner +should be. But finally arriving, she bowed very low and invited me +to climb up on the saddle, and off we started for a mountain ride of +eight miles. + +A Japanese pack-horse, at his best, seems always swaying between two +opinions: his affection for the bestower of his beans and that for the +repose of the stable mutually attract him. On this occasion the little +woman gently led the horse over the rough places and down the steep +paths with the ejaculation, _Mite yo! Mite yo!_ but when the beast +stopped too long to meditate or to chew the bit, as if vainly trying +to pick its teeth, a lively jerk of the rope and a "You old beast! +come on," started the animal on its travels. Finally, when the +creature stopped to deliberate upon the propriety of going forward at +all, the vials of the wrath of the Japanese spinster exploded, and I +was tempted to believe her affections had been blighted. But when we +met any of her friends on the road, or passed the wayside shops or +farm-houses, the scolder of horses was the lady who wished all _Ohaio_ +("Good-morning"), or remarked that the weather was very fine; and when +joked for carrying a foreigner, replied, "Yes, it is the first time I +have had the honor." + +I need not trouble the reader with many details of geography. My +trip lasted eight days, during which I passed over two hundred miles, +two-thirds of the way on foot. I made the entire circuit of the lower +half of the peninsula, but shall dwell only on my visit to Kanozan +(Deer Mountain), famous for its lovely scenery, temple and Booddhist +monastery. From the top of the mountain there are visible innumerable +valleys, nearly the whole of the Gulf of Yeddo, and the white-throned +Foosiyama, called the highest mountain in Japan and the most beautiful +in the world. We spent the night previous in Kisaradzu, the capital +of the now united provinces, and a neat little city, just beginning to +introduce foreign civilization. Its streets were lighted with Yankee +lamps and Pennsylvania petroleum. Postal boxes after the Yankee custom +were erected and in use. Gingham umbrellas were replacing those made +of oiled paper. Barbers' poles, painted white with the spiral red +band, were set up, and within the shops Young Japan had his queue +cut off and his hair dressed in foreign style. Ignorant of the +significance of the symbolic relic of the old days, when the barber +was doctor and dentist also, and made his pole represent a bandage +wound around a broken limb, the Japanese barber has, in many cases, +added a green or blue band. Not being an adept in the use of that +refractory language which Young Japan would so like to flatten out and +plane down for vernacular use, the Japanese barber is not always happy +in executing the English legend for his sign-board. The following are +specimens: + + "A HAIR-DRESSING SALOON FOR + JAPANES AND FOREIGNER." + + "SHOP OF HAIR." + + "HAIRS CUT IN THE ENGLISH + AND FRENCH FASHION." + +Passing out of Kisaradzu, and winding up to Kanozan over the narrow +bridle-path, we pass the usual terraced rice-fields watered by +descending rivulets, and the usual thatched and mud-walled cottages, +which characterize every landscape in Japan, besides long rows of +tall _tsubaki_ (camellia) trees, forty feet high and laden with their +crimson and white splendors. Along the road are the little wayside +shrines and sacred portals of red wood which tell where the worshipers +of the Shintoo faith adore their gods and offer their prayers without +image, idol or picture. The far more numerous images and shrines +of Booddha the sage, Amida the queen of heaven, and hundred-armed +Kuannon, tell of the popular faith of the masses of Japan in the +gentle doctrines of the Indian sage. The student of comparative +religions is interested in noticing how a code of morals founded +upon atheistic humanitarianism, in its origin utterly destitute +of theology, has developed into a colossal system of demonology, +dogmatics, eschatology, myths and legends, with a pantheon more +populous than that of old Rome. Many of the images by the wayside are +headless, cloven by frost, overturned by earthquakes, and so pitted +by time as to resemble petrified smallpox patients rather than +divinities. Nature neither respects dogma nor worships the gods made +by men, and the moss and the lichens have muffled up the idols and +eaten the substance of the sacred stone. Here Booddha wears a robe +of choicest green, and there the little saxafrage waves its white +blossoms from the shoulder of Amida, rending asunder her stone body. +Even the little stone columns which contain a guiding hand pointing +out the road to Kanozan are dedicated to Great Shaka (Booddha). +Passing one of the larger temples, we meet a company of pilgrims. +Actual sight and reasoning from experience in other lands agree in +telling me that they are women, and most of them old women. They +return my salute, politely striving to conceal their wonder at the +first _to-jin_ they have ever looked upon. + +I would wager that these people, like most of the rustics in Japan, +have always believed the foreigners from Europe and America to be +certainly ruffians, and most probably beasts. Many of them, +without having heard; of Darwin or Monboddo, believe all the "hairy +foreigners" to be descendants of dogs. Their first meeting with a +foreigner sweeps away the cobwebs of prejudice, and they are ashamed +of their former ignorance. In extorting from Japanese friends their +first ideas about foreigners, I have been forcibly reminded of some +popular ideas concerning the people of China and Japan which are still +entertained at home, especially by the queens of the kitchen and the +lords of the hod. + +After the fashion in Japan, I inquire of the pilgrims whence they came +and whither they are going. Leaning upon their staves and unslinging +their huge round, conical hats, they give me to know that they have +come on foot from Muja, nearly one hundred and fifty miles distant, +and that they will finish their pilgrimage at Kominato--where the +great founder of the Nichiren sect (one of the last developments of +Booddhism in Japan) was born--twenty-seven miles beyond the point +at which we met. I inform them that I have come over seven thousand +miles, and will also visit Nichiren's birthplace. "_Sayo de gozarimos! +Naru hodo?_" ("Indeed, is it possible?") + +I have reached their hearts through the gates of surprise. A foreigner +visiting Nichiren's birthplace! And coming seven thousand miles too! +The old ladies become loquacious. They pour out their questions +by dozens. Do you have Booddhist temples in America? Of course the +Nichiren sect flourishes there? When I politely answer No to both +questions, a look of disappointed surprise and pity steals over both +the ruddy and the wrinkled faces. "Then he is a heathen!" says the +expression on their faces. How strange that no Booddhist temples exist +in the foreigner's country! Ah, perhaps, then, the Shintoo religion is +the religion of the foreigner's country? "No? _Naru hodo!_ Then what +_do_ you believe in?" + +It did not take long to answer that question. There is no country in +the world in which Christianity has been more publicly and universally +advertised. For three centuries, in every city, village and hamlet and +on every highway, the names of Christianity and its Founder have been +proclaimed on the edict-boards and in the public law-books of the +empire as belonging to a corrupt and hateful doctrine; which should +a man believe, he would be punished on earth by fines, imprisonment, +perhaps death, and in _jigoku_ (hell) by torments eternal. "Whosoever +believeth in Christ shall be damned--whosoever believeth not shall be +saved," was the formula taught by the priests for centuries. I pointed +to the board on which hung the edicts prohibiting Christianity, and +told them I believed in that doctrine, and that Christ was the One +adored and loved by us. A volley of _naru hodos_, spoken with bated +breath, greeted this announcement, and I could only understand the +whispered "Why, that is the sect whose followers will go to hell!" +The old ladies could not walk fast, and we soon parted, after many +a strange question concerning morals, customs and the details of +civilization in the land of the foreigner. Be it said, in passing, +that the present liberal and enlightened government of Japan, in spite +of priestly intolerance and the bigotry of ignorance, resisting even +to blood, has decided upon the recission of the slanderous falsehoods +against the faith of Christendom; and Japan, though an Asiatic nation, +will soon grant toleration to all creeds. + +The path wound up through higher valleys, revealing bolder scenery. +Afar off, in the sheen of glorified distance, the water slanted to the +sky. The white bosoms of the square-sailed junks heaved with breezy +pulses, the mountains were thrones of stainless blue, the floods +of sunny splendor and the intense fullness of light, for which the +cloudless sky of Japan is remarkable, told the reason for the naming +of Niphon, of which "Japan" is but the foreigner's corruption, +"Great Land of the Fountain of Light." Anon we entered the groves +of mountain-pines anchored in the rocks, and with girths upon which +succeeding centuries had clasped their zones. They seemed like +Nature's senators in council as they whispered together and murmured +in the breeze that reached us laden with music and freighted with +resinous aroma. Reaching a hamlet called Mute ("six hands"), I sit +outside an inn on one of the benches which are ever ready for the +traveler, and shaded overhead by a screen of boughs. A young girl +brings me water, the ever-ready cup of tea, and fire for the pipe +which I am supposed to smoke. A short rest, another hour's climb and +walk, and we are in the village of Kanozan, which is scarcely more +than a street of hotels. Situated on the ridge of the mountain, it +rises like an island in a sea of pines. + +In imagining a Japanese hotel, good reader, please dismiss all +architectural ideas derived from the Continental or the Fifth Avenue. +Our hotels in Japan, outwardly at least, are wooden structures, two +stories high, often but one. Their roofs are usually thatched, though +the city caravansaries are tiled. They are entirely open on the front +_ground_ floor, and about six feet from the sill or threshold rises a +platform about a foot and a half high, upon which the proprietor may +be seen seated on his heels behind a tiny railing ten inches high, +busy with his account-books. If it is winter he is engaged in the +absorbing occupation of all Japanese tradesmen at that time of +year--warming his hands over a charcoal fire in a low brazier. The +kitchen is usually just next to this front room, often separated +from the street only by a latticed partition. In evolving a Japanese +kitchen out of his or her imagination, the reader must cast away the +rising conception of Bridget's realm. Blissful, indeed, is the thought +as I enter the Japanese hotel that neither the typical servant-girl +nor the American hotel-clerk is to be found here. The landlord comes +to meet me, and, falling on his hands and knees, bows his head to the +floor. One or two of the pretty girls out of the bevy usually seen +in Japanese hotels comes to assist me and take my traps. Welcomes, +invitations and plenty of fun greet me as I sit down to take off my +shoes, as all good Japanese do, and as those filthy foreigners don't +who tramp on the clean mats with muddy boots. I stand up unshod, and +am led by the laughing girls along the smooth corridors, across an +arched bridge which spans an open space in which is a rookery, garden, +and pond stocked with goldfish, turtles and marine plants. The room +which my fair guides choose for me is at the rear end of the house, +overlooking the grand scenery for which Kanozan is justly famous all +over the empire. Ninety-nine valleys are said to be visible from +the mountain-top on which the hotel is situated, and I suspect that +multiplication by ten would scarcely be an exaggeration. A world of +blue water and pines, and the detailed loveliness of the rolling +land, form a picture which I lack power to paint with words. The water +seemed the type of repose, the earth of motion. + +Enjoying to the full that rapture of first vision which one never +feels twice, I turned and entered the room, which made up in neatness +what it lacked in luxury. Furniture in a Japanese house there is +none. Like all the others, the floor of my room was covered with soft +matting two inches thick, made into sections six feet long and three +feet wide, and bound with a black border. The dimensions of a room may +always be expressed by the number of mats. The inside of the mats is +of rice straw, the outside is of the finest and smoothest matting. +There are no chairs, stools, sofas or anything to sit down upon, +though, having long since forgotten the fact, we find a ready seat on +the floor. On one side of the room, occupying one-half of its space, +is the _tokonoma_, a little platform anciently used for the bed, two +feet wide and five or six inches high. In one corner is a large vase +containing four or five boughs broken from a plum tree crowded with +blossoms, and a large bunch of white, crimson and dappled camellias, +both single and double. In the centre is the sword-rack, found in +every samurai's house, yet now obsolete, since Japan's chivalry have +laid aside their two swords. On the other half of the room, occupying +the same side as the tokonoma, is a series of peculiar shelves like +those of an open Japanese cabinet, though larger; and at the top of +these is a little closet closed by sliding doors. The other three +sides of the room are of sliding partitions six feet high, made of +fine white wood, latticed in small squares and covered with paper, +through which mellow, softened light fills the room. On the plastered +wall above the latticed sliding doors hangs a framed tablet on which +are written Chinese characters, which, having the Japanese letters +at the side, tell in terse and poetical phrase that "This room is the +chamber of peaceful meditation, into which the moonlight streams." +Some of the lattice and other work is handsomely carved and wrought, +and a paper screen along the wall which separates this room from the +next is covered with verses of Japanese poetry. Were it cold weather, +a brazier, with some live coals in it, would be brought for us to +toast our hands and feet and to shiver over, as stoves and hard coal +are not Japanese institutions. First of all, however, at present, one +of the _musumes_ brings me a _tobacco-bon_ or tray, in which is fire +to light my pipe, the Japanese scarcely having a conception of a man +who does not smoke. + +My description of a Japanese room will answer, in the main, for any +in Japan _as it was_--from the artisan's to the emperor's. Even +the palaces of the mikado in Kioto never contained tables, chairs, +bedsteads or any such inconvenient and space-robbing thing. The tables +upon which they ate, played chess or wrote were six inches or a foot +high. A Japanese of the old style thinks the cumbrous furniture in our +Western dwellings impertinent and unnecessary. In the eye of aesthetic +Japanese a room crowded with luxurious upholstery is a specimen of +barbaric pomp, delighting the savage and unrefined eye of the hairy +foreigners, but shocking to the purged vision and the refined taste +of one born in great Niphon. No such tradesman as an upholsterer or +furniture-dealer exists in Japan. The country is a paradise for young +betrothed couples who would wed with light purses. One sees love in a +cottage on a national scale here. That terrible lion of expense, the +furnishing of a house, that stands ever in the way of so many loving +pairs desirous of marriage and a home of their own, is a bugbear not +known in Japan. A chest of drawers for clothing, a few mats, two or +three quilts for a bed on the floor, some simple kitchen utensils, +and the house is furnished. Why should we litter these neatly matted +rooms, why cover with paint and gilding virgin wood of faultless +grain, or mar the sweet simplicity and airy roominess of our +(Japanese) chambers by loading them with all kinds of unnecessary +luxuries? + +These reflections are broken in upon by Miss Cherry-blossom, one of +the maids, who glides in, kneels upon the floor, and sets down a tiny +round tray with a baby tea-pot and a cup the size of an egg. Pouring +out some tea, enough to half fill one of these porcelain thimbles, she +sets it in the socket of another yet tinier tray, and bowing her head +coquettishly, begs me to drink. Having long since learned to quaff +Japan's fragrant beverage guiltless of milk or sugar, I drain the cup. +Miss Cherry-blossom, sitting upright upon her heels, folds her dress +neatly under her knees, gives her loose robe a twitch, revealing to +advantage her white-powdered neck, the prized point of beauty in a +Japanese maiden, and then asks the usual questions as to whence +I came, whither I am going, and to what country I belong. These, +according to the Japanese code of etiquette, are all polite questions; +and in return, violating no dictum which the purists of Kioto or Yeddo +have laid down, I inquire her age ("Your honorable years, how many?"). +The answer, "_Ju-hachi_," makes known that she is eighteen years of +age. Chatting further, I learn what things there are to be seen in the +neighborhood, whether foreigners have been there before, the distance +to the next village, the history of the old temple near by, etc. All +this is told with many a laugh and a little pantomime--she naturally +committing the mistake of speaking louder and faster to the foreigner +who cannot fully understand her dialect or allusions--when a new +character appears upon the scene. + +A very jolly, matronly-looking woman, evidently the landlady, pulls +aside one of the sliding paper doors, and bowing low on her hands and +knees, smiles cavernously with her jet-black teeth, which, like all +correct and cleanly women in Japan, she dyes on alternate days. She +asks concerning dinner, and whether it is the honorable wish of the +visitor to eat Japanese food. The answer being affirmative, both +matron and maiden disappear to prepare the meal, evidently thinking it +a fine joke. No such thing as a common dining-room exists in Japanese +hotels. Caste has hitherto been too strictly observed to allow of such +an idea. Every guest eats in his own room, sitting on his calves and +heels. The preparations are simple, though of course I speak now of +every-day life. + +Miss Peach-blossom appears, bearing in her hand a table four inches +high, one foot square, and handsomely lacquered red and black. Behind +her comes a young girl carrying a rice-box and plate of fish. Most +gracefully she sets it down with the apology, "I have kept you long +waiting," and the invitation, "Please take up." + +On the table are four covered bowls, two very small dishes containing +pickles and soy, and a little paper bag in which is a pair of +chopsticks. The place of each article is foreordained by gastronomic +etiquette, and rigidly observed. In the first bowl is soup, in the +second a boiled mixture consisting of leeks, mushrooms, lotus-root +and a kind of sea-weed. In a third are boiled buckwheat cakes or +dumplings, and _tofu_ or bean-curd. In the porcelain cup is rice. In +an oblong dish, brought in during the meal, is a broiled fish in soy. +Lifting off the covers and adjusting my chopsticks deftly, I begin. +The bowl of rice is first attacked, and quickly finished. The +attendant damsel proffers her lacquered waiter, and uncovering the +steaming tub of rice paddles out another cupful. It is etiquette to +dispose of unlimited cups of rice and soup, but a deadly breach of +good manners to ask to have the other two bowls replenished. Of course +at the hotels whatever the larder affords can be ordered. Boiled eggs, +cracked and peeled before you by the tapering fingers of the damsels, +are considered choice articles of food. Raw fish, thinly sliced and +eaten with radish, sauce, ginger sprouts, etc., is highly enjoyed by +the Japanese, who are surprised to find the dish disliked by their +foreign guests. A member of one of the embassies sent to Europe +confessed that amid the luxuries of continental tables, he longed for +the raw fish and grated radish of his native land. Some articles of +our own diet, especially cheese and butter, are as heartily detested +by the Japanese as their raw fish is by us. The popular idea at home, +that the Japanese live chiefly on mice and crawfish, and that the +foreigners are in chronic danger of starvation, is matched by that of +some Japanese, who, finding that the "hairy foreigners" do not eat +the food of human beings--_i.e._ Japanese--wonder what they do eat. A +member of the present embassy in Europe, when first leaving his native +land, was thus addressed by his anxious mother: "Now, Yazirobe, you +are going to those strange countries, where I am afraid you will get +very little to eat: do take some rice with you." I confess that on +first landing in Japan I could not relish Japanese diet and cookery. +Barring eggs and rice, everything tasted like starch or sawdust. The +flavors seemed raw and earthy, or suggested dishcloths not too well +scalded. I suspect that a good deal of Philadelphia and Caucasian +pride lined the alimentary canal of the writer. Now, after a ten-mile +tramp, a Japanese meal tastes very much as it does to one native and +to the diet born. + +Besides the young damsel who presides, there is another, less neatly +dressed. Her apron is suggestive of the kitchen, and altogether she +seems a Cinderella by the fireplace. This damsel is evidently a supe +or scullion. She is not so self-possessed as her superior companion, +and while observing the foreigner with a mild stare, unskillfully +concealing her mirth, she finally explodes when he makes a _faux pas_ +with the chopsticks and drops a bit of fish on the clean matting. +Thereupon she is dispatched to the kitchen for a floor-cloth, and +severely lectured for laughing aloud, and is told to stay among the +pots and pans till she learns better manners. + +Dinner over, a siesta on the soft mats is next in order. These mats +seem made for sleep and indolence. No booted foot ever defiles them. +Every one leaves his clogs on the ground outside, and glides about in +his mitten-like socks, which have each a special compartment for the +great toe. My waiting damsel having gone out, and there being no such +things as bells, I do as the natives and clap my hands. A far-off +answer of _Hei--i--i_ is returned, and soon the shuffling of feet +is heard again. The housewife appears with the usual low bow, and, +smiling so as to again display what resembles a mouthful of coal, she +listens to the request for a pillow. Opening the little closet before +spoken of, she produces the desired article. It is not a ticking bag +of baked feathers enclosed in a dainty, spotless case of white linen, +but a little upright piece of wood, six inches high and long, and one +wide, rounded at the bottom like the rockers of a cradle. On the +top, lying in a groove, is a tiny rounded bag of calico filled with +rice-chaff, about the size of a sausage. The pillow-case is a piece of +white paper wrapped around the top, and renewed in good hotels daily +for each guest. One can rest about four or six inches of the side of +his _os occipitis_ on a Japanese pillow, and if he wishes may rock +himself to sleep, though the words suggest more than the facts +warrant. By sleeping on civilized feathers one gets out of training, +and the Japanese pillows feel very hard and very much in one place. +The dreams which one has on these pillows are characteristic. In my +first some imps were boring gimlet-holes in the side of my skull, +until they had honeycombed it and removed so much brain that I felt +too light-headed to preserve my equilibrium. On the present occasion, +after falling asleep, I thought that the pillow on which I lay pressed +its shape into my head, and the skull, to be repaired, was being +trepanned. My head actually tumbling off the pillow was the cause of +the fancied operation being suddenly arrested. A short experience in +traveling among the Japanese has satisfied me that they are one of +the most polite, good-natured and happy nations in the world. By +introducing foreign civilization into their beautiful land they may +become richer: they need not expect to be happier. + +W.E. GRIFFIS. + + + + +JASON'S QUEST. + + +I. + +This is a story of love for love, and how it came to naught. In it +there shall be no marrying from mercenary motives; the manoeuvering +mother-in-law is suppressed; Nature takes her course; and in the +climax I strive to prove how sad a thing it is that men are modest and +women weak. + +Still, I do not lose faith in humanity, but hope for better things in +the broad, bright future. I would respectfully call attention to +the moral of this tale, and, as for the heroes and heroines of the +hereafter, I cheerfully leave them to regulate their affairs upon a +different basis; which basis, I devoutly believe, will be one of the +inevitable results of time. + +But, lo! the heroine approaches and the story begins! + + * * * * * + +Life with some of us is but the grouping of a few brilliant or sombre +tableaux, which are like the famous lines in an epic that immortalize +the whole. Maud's life was such a one, and her years had been rather +unpicturesque until now, when the shadows began to deepen and the +lights to grow more intense. In fact, she seemed to be approaching +some sort of a climax, and she began to grow nervous about it, being +just woman enough to dwell somewhat anxiously upon her anticipated +_debut_, and to hope for at least a decent appearance in her +extremity. + +The good-hearted, commonplace people of a pleasant country down the +coast--which I will call Dreamland for convenience' sake--thought +of Maud only as a gentle and humane little lady, with a comfortable +income and a character above reproach. So Maud abode in peace with her +maids at the seaside cottage, spending the still hours of Dreamland +between her rose-garden on the sunny slope to the southward and the +conservatory of lily-like nuns on the hill toward the sea. + +Maud was unhappy in a world which had treated her very kindly indeed, +and it was simply because she had a dove's heart, that was always +fluttering in a strange place, and the face of a nun, that was for +ever getting looked at by all sorts of people, much as it disliked +that kind of treatment from the best of them. + +The only reason why Maud preferred such a dull place as Dreamland to +the splendid metropolis up the coast was that she might have a quiet +time of it, and not be annoyed by the impudent metropolitans. In fact, +she was tired of her lovers--all save one, a fine young fellow named +Jason, but better known in Dreamland as John. I have mentioned, I +believe, that Maud was in very good circumstances: I am sorry to +add that Jason wasn't. He was rich only in his untried youth and the +promises of a glorious manhood. + +Jason loved Maud, and she knew it as well as she ever knew anything in +her life--she knew it without his having told her. Had she not divined +it by the infallible intuition of the heart, she might have lived +believing herself unloved, for Jason hadn't the remotest idea of +mentioning the fact. He could barely live comfortably by himself, +frugal as he was; and he would not go to her empty-handed, though +Heaven knows she had enough for two, and was dying to share it with +him. He went his way, and the way was tedious enough in those days. +Like a mirage, happiness glimmered before him, but his upright and +patient steps brought him no nearer to its alluring vista. + +Youth is impatient and sanguine, and Jason, in his impetuous and +hopeful youth, besought the oracle, whose prophetic utterances seemed +to imply that his future and his fortune lay in some distant land, +and that it would be wise for him to seek it at once. Jason, like his +illustrious predecessor, resolved to go over the sea in search of the +golden fleece. It was the most adventurous thing he ever did, and Maud +thought it a hopeless and a willful act; yet she could do nothing +but hold her peace, while her poor heart was as near to breaking +as possible--much nearer to breaking than it is usually safe for a +maiden's heart to be. + +So Jason gathered his mates--a reckless lot they were, too--and, +having laden his barque and swung into the stream, his men said their +final adieux, receiving quantities of pincushions and bookmarks, so +indispensable to Argonauts, as testimonials of eternal fidelity from +the maids of Dreamland. + +Jason strode to the cottage and kissed the hand of Maud as if it +were the hand of a princess; after which, with much embarrassment, he +plucked a rose from her garden, while a pang pierced his heart till it +ached again, and a thorn probed his finger till a drop of blood +fell upon a myrtle leaf; which leaf Maud coveted, and keeps to this +day--hugged to her in her grave-clothes. + +It is of course best that this life should not be perfect, for the +life to come might suffer by comparison; yet it is one of the cruelest +decrees of Nature--if Nature has really decreed what seems so wholly +against her--that a woman's heart must bide its time and be silent in +the presence of its natural mate while every attribute of her being +implores his recognition; and that the truest men are too honorable +or too proud to yield themselves, having no offering but their honest +love to lay at the feet of their mistresses. If it were not so, the +princess would not have mourned in her garden for her flown mate, and +there would have been much happiness on short notice. + +Driven forth by the propitious winds, the barque fled from the shore, +while Maud, seated among her roses, with weeping and wringing of +hands, poured out upon the winds the burden of her love. + +Why didn't Jason catch a syllable of that fervent prayer, reef, and +come home to her? Then I need not have written this history, and all +would have been well in Dreamland. But he didn't. He heard nothing +but the sibilant waters as they rushed under his keel: he thought of +nothing but the rose that was withering in the secret locker of his +cabin, and of the wound in his heart that was gaping and as fresh as +ever. So the night-winds hurried him onward, and the darkness absorbed +the outlines of the dear Dreamland coast. + +Maud watched the barque while it lessened and lessened in the +distance, and the clouds blew over her, and it grew chilly and damp in +the rose-garden--as chilly and damp as though it were not the abode of +a princess who was beloved of the noblest of men. She watched the sail +till it faded suddenly beyond the headland, and between it and her +loomed the dark towers of the convent. Out on that troubled sea, +seeking the golden fleece in some remote kingdom, tossed on the +treacherous waves for her sake, in her white and radiant dreams she +beheld Jason. Yet ever between him and her, hiding the lessening +barque from the slope of the rose-garden, loomed the dark towers of +the convent. + + + + +II. + + +Jason and his fellows coursed the seas, scanning with eager eyes +the cloudy belt of the horizon, hopefully seeking some signs of the +Fortunate Islands, of whose indescribable beauty and untold wealth +they had heard many surmises. Day after day they pressed on between +the same blank sky and the same blank sea, but there was no token to +gladden the eyes of the watchers. Jason grew impatient at last: he had +called upon nearly all the saints in the calendar, and was growing to +be a very poor sort of a Catholic, inasmuch as he doubted the efficacy +of his prayers and the ability of saints to answer them. He didn't +realize that there might be good reasons for their not being answered +under the existing circumstances; which is a matter worthy of the +consideration of all of us. + +The fact was, the Fortunate Islands were not one-half so wonderful as +had been represented; and the saints knew it well enough. Had Jason +invested there, as he purposed doing at the time of his embarkment, +he might have sunk all that he possessed--which was little enough +to float, as one would think--and then Maud might have tended her +rose-garden and carried fruit-offerings to the sweet-faced nuns +till she was gray and limping, for all Jason's fine notions of +independence--namely, a good income from the rise of stocks in the +Fortunate Islands, and two souls and two hearts doing the same sort of +thing at the same time, with complete and unqualified success, in that +sweet rose-garden on the sunny slope to the southward. + +That was the way life went with Captain Jason of the Argonauts, called +John, for short, in Dreamland, while the crew growled a good deal at +their ill-luck, and began to fear that if things went on in that way +much longer they would have more fasts than Fridays in the week. Those +were trying times for all of them, and when land was made at last, and +it proved to be a temptation and a snare, Jason ordered a special fast +and a mass for the salvation of the souls in imminent peril. Out in +the world at last, thousands of miles from the unsophisticated +people of Dreamland, Jason beheld the dread Symplegades rocking their +enormous bulks upon the waves, and liable at any moment to swing +together with a terrific and deadly crash. Probably they were whales +at play: it may have been two currents of the sea rushing into +each other's arms: at all events, it was something deluding, though +temporary, and perhaps the selfsame difficulty experienced by the +original J. when he went after the original fleece. + +My hero was young and unschooled in the world's wickedness, but he +knew that where two opposing elements come together with much force, +whatever happens to lie between them must suffer. What should be done +was a question of no little importance to the Argonauts. Most of +them were in favor of running the risk of a collision and letting the +vessel drive straight through. Jason thought this a judgment worthy +of young men whose lady-loves give expression to their most sacred +sentiments by gifts of pincushions and bookmarks. But he had something +to consider more than they--yea, more than any other living man--in +exemplification of the pleasing fallacy that besets all lovers in all +ages. Blessed be God that it is so! + +The original Jason in the fable let loose a dove upon the waters, and +the dove lost only a tail-feather or two when the clashing islands +clashed their worst, and in the moment of the rebound the Argo swept +through in safety. The modern J. thought of this in his predicament, +and having turned it in his mind, he concluded that whereas the +pioneer Argonaut did not meet his princess till after his encounter +with the elements, he was not worthy of consideration; for had he +known her and loved her as some one knew and loved some one else +at that moment, most likely he would not have valued his life so +slightly. He clewed up his canvas like a wise mariner, and lay to +while the Symplegades butted one another with their foreheads of +adamant, and the sea was white with terror all about them. Jason +was no coward: he would have braved the passage had he alone been +concerned in the result; but for Maud in her rose-garden and for the +future, dear to him as his hope of heaven, he paused and trembled. + +It is a pity there should be so little pausing and trembling among +the clashing islands when life hangs in the balance and the odds are +against it. But there always has been and always will be this little, +because we believe that nothing but experience is capable of teaching +us, and experience invariably teaches it all wrong end to, so that we +begin our lesson with a disaster and conclude it with a slow recovery. + +During Jason's hour of deliberation his guardian angel, who was the +only one having his interests really at heart, and who loved him +unselfishly,--this angel advised him in the similitude of a dream to +"luff a little and go round the obstacles." Jason luffed, and passed +on with colors flying; which was doubtless much better than trying to +squeeze through the floating islands in the midst of an exceedingly +disagreeable sea. + +Then came the land beyond, the long-sought kingdom, full of arts and +wiles. Jason was beset with ten thousand temptations, and was more +than once upon the point of falling into a snare, when, however, he +seemed to behold the apparition of his withered rose, which bloomed +and blushed again at such times, and gave out a faint fragrance, so +like a breath from that Eden on the sunny slope that he paused and +grew strong, and was saved. + +His troubles were not yet over. There was the bargaining for the +golden fleece, and the tempting offer of the dragons' teeth which +he was to sow. They were the lusts of the body, that, once planted, +spring up an armed force of bloody and persistent accusers. But +that precious rose! How it blossomed over and over for his especial +benefit, a perpetual warning and an unfailing talisman--a very +profitable sort of blossom to wear in one's button-hole in these +times! But such blossoms are scarce indeed. + +In due course of time that potent charm got him the golden fleece in a +very natural and business-like way, and, rejoicing in his possessions, +Jason returned to his vessel and trimmed his sails for home. + +Merry the hearts that sailed with him, and fresh the winds that wafted +them onward, while, as is usual at sea, nothing occurred during the +voyage worth mentioning an hour after its occurrence. Jason in his new +joy had almost forgotten that withered token. In deep remorse at his +thoughtlessness, he sought his treasure, and, horror of horrors! every +leaf had fallen from the stem, the blossom was annihilated for ever. +He dwelt upon this episode morbidly, as upon a presentiment: he +pictured in his mind the hill-slope cottage deserted, the rose-garden +wasted and full of tares, and the bleak wind blowing whither it listed +through those avenues of beauty, for desolation possessed them all. He +groaned in spirit and wrestled with his new and invisible adversary, +beseeching the Most Merciful, from the bitterness of his suspense, a +speedy deliverance or a happy death. + + + + +III. + + +There were thistles and tares in the unkept rose-garden, and +the cottage was abandoned to a sisterhood of doves, who mourned +perpetually for their lost princess. The place was desolate, yet there +had been no sudden desertion of it. For many months no news had been +heard of the Argonauts. They were considerably overdue: the sages of +Dreamland shook their grizzly heads. They were just as sage and shaky +in those days as in these degenerate times. The maids of the hamlet +wept for a season, then turned from sorrowing, dried their tears, took +unto themselves new lovers, and the world wagged well in Dreamland. + +But Maud was a truer soul than any amongst them: she prayed hourly +for Jason's prosperity, and was trusting and hopeful until it seemed +almost that something had whispered to her the fate of the voyagers. +Then she mourned night and day: she went into retirement with the +sweet-faced nuns at the headland, whose secluded life had ever been +very grateful to her. She gave out of her bounty to all who asked, and +rested not then, but sought the sick and the suffering, and they were +comforted, and blessed her who had blessed them. They began to think +her half an angel in Dreamland, and it seemed as though she were not +made for this world at all. The same thing happens now occasionally, +and in this way we acknowledge our shortcomings before our fellow-men +and women when we find some one considerably above the average who +shames us into confessing it. I hope the Recording Angel is within +hearing at these precious moments. + +The world certainly possessed no charms for one of Maud's temperament: +it never did possess any for her. She was as out of place in it as a +mourning dove in a city mob. Her spirit sought tranquillity, and she +found it in the serene and changless convent life. You and I might +seek in vain for anything like peace of spirit in such a place: we +might find it a stale and profitless imprisonment; and perhaps it +speaks badly for both of us that it is so. The violet finds its silent +cell in the earth-crevice by the hidden spring a sufficient refuge, +and rejoices in it, but the sea-grass that has all its life tossed in +the surges would think that a very dull sort of existence. There are +human violets in the world, and human sunflowers and poppies, and +doves also, and apes and alligators; and some of them come within one +of being inhuman; and sometimes that _one_ drops out, and the inhuman +swallows up the human. + +Maud was the mourning dove seeking its bower of shade: she used to +fancy herself a nun, and followed the prescribed duties of the house +as faithfully as Sister Grace herself. She knelt in the little chapel +of the convent till her back ached and her knees were lame, but it was +a never-failing joy in time of trouble, and her time of tremble had +come. Maud said many prayers before an altar of exceeding loveliness, +where fresh flowers seemed to breathe forth an unusual fragrance. +There was a statue of the Virgin, said to possess some miraculous +qualities: tradition whispered that on two or three occasions the +expression on the face of the statue had been seen to change visibly. +Maud heard of this, and was very eager to witness the miracle, for it +was thought to be nothing less than miraculous by the good Sisters. +She bowed before the altar for hours, and dreamed of the marble face +till she seemed to see its features smiling upon her and its small, +slim hand beckoning her back to prayer. She grew nervous and pale and +almost ill with watching and waiting, and at last was found prostrate +and insensible at the foot of the statue, overcome with excitement +and exhaustion. When she grew better she vowed she had seen the head +bowing to her, and the hands spread over her in benediction: no one +could deny it, for she was alone in the chapel. After that there was +a feast of lilies at the convent, and Maud became Sister Somebody or +other, and never again set foot beyond the great gates of the convent +wall. + +The consecration was doubtless a blessing to her, for she was happy in +her new home, and found a sphere of usefulness that employed her hours +to the best advantage. Moreover, she grew to be a sensible nun, and +ceased to look for supernatural demonstrations in the neighborhood of +the chapel. She grew hearty, and was cheerful, and sang at her work, +and prayed with more honesty and less sentiment. Her life was as +placid as a river whose waters are untroubled by tempestuous winds, +and upon her bosom light cares, like passing barges, left but a +momentary wake. + +As Maud mused in her cell one day, through the narrow barred window +she caught a glimpse of the burnished sea bearing upon its waves a +weather-beaten barque inward bound. There was danger that her mind +might wander off, piloted by her dreamy and worshipful eyes. She +arose, drew across the opening a leathern curtain, and returned with +undisturbed complacence to her prayers. + + + + +IV. + + +Jason, having among his freights the veritable golden fleece, still +coursed the seas, but beheld with rapture the fair outlines of the +Dreamland coast traced in the far blue and mysterious horizon. The +wind freshened: hour after hour they were nearing port, and as the +whole familiar picture grew more and more distinct, Jason saw the +convent towers looming like a great shadow, and afterward the sunny +slope whereon the rose-garden grew. + +The manner of his quitting the barque before she was fairly within +communication with the shore was hardly worthy of his calling. I +forbear to dwell upon this exhibition of human weakness, for almost +any one in Jason's shoes would have been equally regardless of the +regulations, and in consequence proportionally unseamanlike. + +With soiled garments and unshorn beard Jason ran to the hill. No one +of the idlers in port recognized the returned wanderer, and he assured +himself of the fact before venturing upon his visit to the dove-cot +where Maud dwelt, for he wished to gaze upon her from afar, and in +silence to worship her, unknown and unregarded. When he reached the +wicket, breathless with haste and excitement, he at once beheld the +ruin of his hopes--the thistles in the paths, the roses overgrown and +choked with weeds, the sad and general decay. Jason smote his breast +in a paroxysm of despair, while the doves fluttered out from the porch +of the cottage in amazement at the approach of a human foot to their +domains. + +What could it mean? he asked himself again and again, while suspicions +taunted him almost to madness. Up and down that disordered garden he +paced like a ghostly sentinel; the doves fluttered to and fro, and +were dismayed; the night-winds came in from the chilly sea, and the +dews gathered in his beard. Through the deepening dusk he beheld the +lights of the little town below him: across the solemn silence floated +the clear notes of the vesper-bell. Jason turned toward the tower on +the headland. A single ray of light stealing from one of the high, +narrow windows shot through the mist toward heaven. "The ladder +of Jacob's dream," said Jason: "on it the angels are ascending and +descending in their visitations. Oh that I, like Jacob, might receive +intelligence from these!" + +With the heaviest heart that ever burdened man he returned to the town +and entered the open doors of the church, seeking a few moments of +repose. An alien in his own land and unwelcomed of any, Jason sought +the good priest and learned the fate of Maud. She was dead to the +world and to him. It was but the realization of his fears, and he +was in some measure prepared for it; yet the best part of the man was +killed with the force of that blow. His only hope was gone. He set +his house in order, like one about to leave it, never to return: +his golden fleece was made over to enrich the convent, and, as the +magnanimous offering of a homelesss and nameless voyager, it delights +the happy creatures within those walls, and the shrine of the Virgin +was made more wonderfully beautiful than it is possible to conceive. + +That night Jason walked in the shadow of the lofty walls and poured +out his sorrowful prayers upon the winds that swept about them. Once +in his agony he beat at the massive gates, demanding in the name of +God and of mercy admittance for a lost soul that had no shelter save +under that roof, and no salvation away from it; but his bleeding hands +made no impression upon the ponderous doors, and the silent inmates +at prayer heard nothing save their own whispers, or dreamed in their +cells of heaven and of peace. + +So the cry of that hopeless soul rang up to the stars unanswered, and +the night frowned down upon him with impenetrable darkness. + +End of the tragedy of Jason's Quest, which might easily have been a +pleasant comedy if Maud had only spoken her mind in the right place. +Will women never learn--since God has given them the same instincts +with man, to love, to trust, to doubt, to hate and to make themselves +at times disagreeable, even with a more complete success than men in +each of these lines of dramatic business--that God must have intended +also that they should have the equal right to choose the particular +object upon which they may exercise those various offices of love, +trust, etc., etc.? I shall never cease to wonder why they are +persistently and stupidly silent through six thousand years, content +to let their hearts wither and die within them, or surrender at +last to the wretched apology for a lover who offers himself as a +substitute, and is surprised at rinding himself accepted. + +To be sure, it is less dramatic. Jason might have come back and +married Maud: there would have been a pretty wedding and some +delightful hours before things grew dull and commonplace, as they must +have done ultimately. That rose-garden would have come to grief +when once the children got to playing in it; Jason, on some tedious +afternoon, when overhauling old letters and the like, would have +thrown out that withered rose (of precious memory), quite forgetful +of its significance; Maud would have lost her myrtle leaf in +house-cleaning. Yet what were the odds? A withered rose and a myrtle +leaf are scarcely worth the keeping. + +You will remember how it turned out in the days of the gods: Jason +wearied of Medea and the children; Medea was disgusted with such +conduct, and behaved like a savage; there was general unhappiness in +the family; and I blush for my sex--which is Jason's--whenever I think +of it. Now, if my Jason had married his Maud, it would have scarcely +been worth noticing beyond the simple register in the _Daily +Dreamlander_, after having been thrice published from the pulpit +between the Gospel and the Creed--"Jason to Maud." + +As Jason was not heard of after the windy night under the wall of the +convent, there were many surmises concerning his disappearance. It was +thought that he had again embarked upon some voyage of discovery. +I believe he had, and it was a desperate one for him. The other +Argonauts married such maids as were left unmarried, and they did +well to do so. Some of the old sweethearts regretted their haste, and +looked enviously upon the new brides of Dreamland; but most of them +were satisfied with their children, and contented with such husbands +as Heaven had sent them. + +Life grew slow in the little drowsy seaport; the old tales of +the Symplegades were stale and tedious; the Argonauts had become +spiritless and corpulent and lazy. One night a great gale swept in +from the sea: the earth fairly trembled under the repeated shocks +of the breakers. Old people looked troubled and young people looked +scared, and on the worst night of all the convent bell was heard to +toll, and then everybody feared something dreadful was happening to +the nuns, and everybody lay still and hoped it would soon be over. +The nuns wondered who rang the bell; and when every one had denied all +knowledge of it, it was known that most likely the devil had rung it, +for it was a dreadful night, and such a one as he best likes to be out +in. + +In the morning, when the wind and the sea had gone down somewhat, +the wreckers found a stark corpse among the rocks under the headland, +lying with its face to the tower. It was dreadfully mangled: no +one could identify it as being any one in particular, and it +was impossible to know whether death had occurred by accident or +intentionally; so it was shrouded and put away out of Christian burial +in the common field of the unfortunate. The nuns sang a _requiem_, as +was their custom, and Maud prayed earnestly for all followers of the +sea; and the echo of her _miserere_ is the saddest line in the story +of Jason's Quest. + +CHARLES WARREN STODDARD. + + + + +FOREBODINGS. + + + What weight is this which presses on my soul? + Powerless to rise, I sink amidst the dust: + The days in solemn cycle o'er me roll, + While, praying, I can only wait and trust. + + --Trust the dear Hand that all my life has led + Through pastures green, by waters pure and still: + If now He leads me through dark ways and dread, + Shall I dare murmur, whatsoe'er His will? + + + + +DEER-PARKS. + + +There is nothing in England at the present day much more distinctly +an institution of that country than its deer-parks. Although it +seems probable that the Saxons had some sort of enclosed or partially +enclosed chases where deer were hunted or taken in the toils, the +regular and systematic enclosure of parks would appear to have come +in with the Normans. According to the old Norman law, no subject +could form a park without a grant from the Crown, or immemorial +prescription, which was held presumptive evidence of such a grant. + +On the Continent there would appear to have been much more strictness +in this respect than in England. "In April, 1656," says Reresby in his +travels, "I returned to Saumur, where I stayed two months: then I went +to Thouars in Brittany, where the duke of Tremouille hath his best +house. Thouars is looked upon as one of the best manors in all +France, not so much for profit (a great extent of land there sometimes +affording not much rent), but for greatness of tenure; five hundred +gentlemen, it is said, holding their lands from it. Going to wait on +the duke, I found him very kind when I told him my country, the late +earl of Derby having married his sister. [1] He commanded me to dine +with him, and the next time mounted me upon one of his horses to wait +on him a-hunting in his park, which, not being two miles about, I +thought of little compass to belong to so great a person, till I found +that few are allowed to have any there save the princes of the blood. +So true is it that there are more parks in England than in all Europe +besides." + +A large park would appear to have been among the many luxuries of the +princely Medici, for Reresby says: "Ten miles from Florence the duke +hath another country-house, nothing so considerable in itself as in +its situation, standing betwixt several hills on one side, covered +with vines and olive trees, and a valley divided into many walks by +rows of trees leading different ways: one leads to a park where the +great duke hath made a paddock course by the direction of Signior +Bernard Gascoigne, an Italian, who, having served our late king in +his wars, carried the pattern from England. Near to this house, +Poggio-Achaiano, is another park, the largest in Italy, or rather +chase, said to be thirty miles in compass." + +Foremost amongst English parks is Windsor. The immense tracts by which +Windsor was formerly surrounded consisted of park and forest. Windsor +Forest has gradually diminished in size. In the time of Charles I. it +contained twelve parishes, and probably covered not less than 100,000 +acres. According to a survey in 1789-92, it amounted to 59,600 acres, +of which the enclosed property of the Crown amounted to 5454. Like all +the other forests in England, it has been much encroached on, and now +consists of only some 1450 acres adjoining Windsor Great Park. The +rest of the land formerly composing it has been sold or leased. Enough +of the forest remains, in conjunction with the park, to enable the +visitor to make many delightful excursions. The most agreeable way +of seeing this sylvan country is on horseback. Perhaps nowhere in the +world can one get a more delicious canter. By a little management it +is easy to take a ride of twenty-five miles without more than a couple +of miles off the turf. In 1607 the Great Park was stated at 3650 +acres: it consists now of about one thousand acres less. + +The principal royal park in modern days, next to Windsor, is Richmond. +This covers more than two thousand acres, and, thanks to the railway, +may almost be regarded as a lung of London, being only eight miles +distant from the city. Richmond Park is as replete as Windsor with +historical association, and came into especial importance in the reign +of Charles I. That king, who was excessively addicted to the sports of +the field, had a strong desire to make a great park, for red as well +as fallow deer, between Richmond and Hampton Court, where he had large +wastes of his own, and great parcels of wood, which made it very fit +for the use he designed it for; but as some parishes had rights of +commonage in the wastes, and many gentlemen and farmers had good +houses and farms intermingled with them which they had inherited or +held on lease, and as, without including all these, the park would not +be large enough for Charles's satisfaction, the king, who was willing +to pay a very high price, expected people to gratify him by parting +with their property. Many did so, but--like the blacksmith of Brighton +who utterly refused to be bought out when George IV. was building his +hideous pavilion, and the famous miller of Potsdam, that Mordecai at +the gate of Sans Souci--"a gentleman who had the best estate, with a +convenient house and gardens, would by no means part with it, and made +a great noise as if the king would take away men's estates at his own +pleasure." The case of this gentleman and his many minor adherents +soon caused a regular row. The lord treasurer, Juxon, bishop of +London, who accompanied Charles to the scaffold, and other ministers +were very averse to the scheme, not only on account of the hostile +feeling it had evoked, but because the purchase of the land and making +a brick wall of ten miles around it, which was what the king wanted, +was a great deal too costly for his depleted exchequer. However, +Charles, with his usual fatal obstinacy, would not hear of abandoning +the scheme, and told Lord Cottington, who did his utmost to dissuade +him from it, "he was resolved to go through with it, and had already +caused brick to be burned and much of the wall to be built." This +beginning of the wall before people consented to part with their land +or common rights, increased the public feeling on the subject, and, +happening at a time when public opinion was growing strongly +against arbitrary rule, was no doubt one of the circumstances which +contributed to Charles's fall. + +George II. and Queen Caroline lived much at Richmond, and the +interview between Jeanie Deans and Her Majesty took place here. +Jeanie, it will be remembered, told her ducal friend that she thought +the park would be "a braw place for the cows"--a sentiment similar +to that of Mr. Black's Highland heroine, Sheila, who pronounced it "a +beautiful ground for sheep." + +The practice of hunting deer in a park, now quite a thing of the past, +appears to have been very prevalent at Richmond during this reign, and +apparently was attended with considerable risk. In a chronicle of 1731 +we read: + +"_August_ 13, 1731. The royal family hunted a stag in Richmond new +park: in the midst of the sport, Sir Robert Walpole's horse fell with +him just before the queen's chaise, but he was soon remounted, and Her +Majesty ordered him to bleed by way of precaution. + +"_Aug_. 28, 1731. The royal family hunted in Richmond Park, when the +Lord Delaware's lady and Lady Harriet d'Auverquerque, daughter to the +earl of Grantham, were overturned in a chaise, which went over them, +but did no visible hurt. Mr. Shorter, one of the king's huntsmen, had +a fall from his horse, and received a slight contusion in his head. + +"_Sept_. 13, 1731. Some of the royal family and persons of quality +hunted a stag in Richmond Park. A stag gored the horse of Coulthorp +Clayton, Esq., and threw him. The Lady Susan Hamilton was unhorsed. + +"_Sept_. 14, being Holy Rood Day, the king's huntsmen hunted their +free buck in Richmond new park with bloodhounds, according to custom." + +It will be noted that this sport took place at a season when no +hunting is now done in England. + +There are two other small royal parks within a walk of Richmond--Bushy +and Hampton Court. Both contain magnificent trees. + +The New Forest is now the only royal appanage of the kind, and the +House of Hanover has never made use of it for hunting purposes, +although the Stuart kings were very fond of going there. It was to +enjoy this territory that Charles II. commenced the magnificent +palace at Winchester, the finished portions of which are now used as +barracks. Nell Gwyn's quarters at the deanery are still shown. Up to +1779 there was a great tract of royal forest-ground near London, on +the Essex side, known as Enfield Chase, containing numbers of deer. If +we remember rightly, it is alluded to in _The Fortunes of Nigel_. + +There are many more parks in the south than in the north of England--a +circumstance which is remarkable, having regard to the wilder +character of the ground in the former. + +According to a valuable work on parks published a few years ago by +Mr. Shirley, a large landed proprietor, there are three hundred and +thirty-four parks still stocked with deer in the different counties +of England, and red deer are found in about thirty-one. It is +supposed that the oldest is that attached to Eridge Castle, near that +celebrated and most ancient of English watering-places, Tonbridge +Wells, in Sussex. It is very extensive, and there are no less than +ninety miles of grass drives cut through the park and woods. Almost +the largest park is that attached to the present duke of Marlborough's +famous seat, Blenheim. A large proportion of this magnificent demesne +formed part of Woodstock Chase, a favorite hunting-seat of British +sovereigns from an early date up to the time of Queen Anne. It was +then granted by the Crown to the hero of Blenheim, far more fortunate +in respect of the nation's gift than the hero of Waterloo, whose grant +of lands lay in a swamp which it cost him a little fortune to drain. +Next to Blenheim, in point of size, stands Tatton in Cheshire, +the seat of Lord Egerton. It contains 2500 acres, and the portion +appropriated to deer is far larger than at Blenheim. Tatton is from +ten to eleven miles around. + +Another extensive park, 1500 acres, is that at Stowe, the duke of +Buckingham's. When in 1848 the family misfortunes reached a climax +which necessitated the sale of everything in Stowe House, the deer +in the park were sold off. But twenty-five years have rolled by, and +restored in a great degree the prosperity of the family. The duke is +again living at his splendid ancestral seat, is by degrees restoring +to their former home as the opportunity offers many of its scattered +treasures, and has restocked the park with deer. + +Two parks pre-eminently famous for the magnificence of their oak +timber are Keddleston, Lord Scarsdale's, in Derbyshire, and Bagot's +Park, Lord Bagot's, in Staffordshire. The latter, which contains a +thousand acres, is a very ancient enclosure. It contains, besides the +deer, a herd of wild goats said to have been presented by Richard II. +to an ancestor of the present owner. + +Parks vary from a paddock of twenty-one acres to twenty-eight hundred, +but the most usual dimensions are from one hundred and fifty to four +hundred acres. For a _multum in parvo_ of beautiful park scenery the +traveler in search of these charming specimens of the picturesque may +be advised to take a tour in Herefordshire and Worcestershire; and +if he be a horseman he will do well to ride through the country. +"Anyone," says Mr. Shirley, "who ascends the steep crest of the +Malvern Hills in Worcestershire, and looks down from the summit of +the ridge on the western side of the hills upon the richly wooded and +beautifully undulating country which lies stretched beneath as far as +the mountains of South Wales, would at once be struck with the 'bosky' +nature of the scenery, and its perfect adaptation for the formation of +deer-parks and sylvan residences." + +Grimsthorpe, Lady Aveland's (inherited from the dukes of Ancaster, +extinct); Thoresby, Earl Manvers's, formerly the duke of Kingston's, +father of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu; and Knowsley, Lord Derby's, are +also very large parks. + +A writer on Grimsthorpe in 1774 says: "On a former visit I was told +that the park was sixteen miles and three quarters in circumference, +and esteemed the largest in England: since then it has, nevertheless, +been somewhat enlarged, but different spots in it are cultivated." + +A few parks have been created and others restocked during the present +century. In Norfolk, Lord Kimberley, the present secretary of state +for the colonies, has restored the deer which were removed during the +present century, saying, it is reported, that "a place is not a place +without deer"--a sentiment shared by many of his countrymen regarding +an ancient grand-seigneur home. In the same county a new park has +been created at Sandringham, the seat of the prince of Wales, the deer +having been brought from Windsor. Sandringham Park and Woods were half +a century ago a sandy waste, but fell into judicious hands and were +admirably planted. The modern history of the place is remarkable. +Toward the close of the century it became the property of a French +refugee, Mr. Matou. This gentleman having been driven from his native +country by the Revolution, conceived somehow the idea of importing +from Sicily immense quantities of rabbit skins, which were used for +making hats of a cheap kind which passed for beaver. In this way he +acquired a large fortune. In England he mixed in the best society, and +became very intimate with Earl Cowper, first husband of the well-known +Lady Palmerston, and at his death bequeathed Sandringham to the +Honorable Spencer Cowper, that nobleman's younger son, who married +Lady Blessington's stepdaughter, Lady Harriet Gardiner, after her +divorce from Count d'Orsay. When the prince of Wales was casting round +for a country-seat, Sandringham was selected. Lord Palmerston was then +in office, and some ill-natured things were said as to the sale of his +stepson's place having been a much better thing for Mr. Cowper than +for the prince of Wales. Vast sums have since been spent here. + +Where a deer-park has long existed on his paternal estate, it goes +to an Englishman's heart to give it up. An incident in point occurred +about twenty years ago. In a secluded part of Devonshire, approached +by the narrow, high-hedged, tortuous lanes characteristic of that part +of the country, stands a magnificent old Tudor mansion known as Great +Fulford Hall. Here for upward of six hundred years have been seated +the Fulfords, a family of Saxon origin, the rivals of the Tichbornes +in antiquity. The mansion of Fulford was garrisoned by Charles I., and +taken by a detachment of Cromwell's army in 1645. The marks they left +behind them may be seen to this day. The Fulfords have supporters to +their arms, a very rare circumstance in the case of commoners. These +supporters are two Saracens, and were granted in consideration of +services in the Crusades. "Sir Baldwin de Fulford fought a combat +with a Saracen, for bulk and bigness an unequal match (as the +representation of him cut in the wainscot at Fulford doth plainly +shew), whom yet he vanquished, and rescued a lady." This gentleman's +granddaughter was the mother of Henry VIII.'s favorite, Russell, first +earl of Bedford, and the Fulfords are connected with a hundred other +ancient and honorable houses. But for a long time the heads of the +house have failed "to marry money;" and when this happens for two +or three generations in the case of a country gentleman with a large +family to portion off, the result must usually be impecuniosity. Thus, +when the late Mr. Fulford succeeded to the family property in 1847, +he found himself the owner of a majestic old dilapidated mansion, +surrounded by a deer-park, which had been gradually growing less until +the portion of the park devoted to this purpose was little more than a +big field. + +Like his ancestor in the time of "the troubles," Mr. Baldwin Fulford +was a Conservative, and had been very useful to his party. It was +intended, therefore, to reward his services when the time came by a +county office, which would have placed him at ease pecuniarily. When +this office fell vacant the Tories were "in," and all seemed secure +for Mr. Fulford's interest. But there's many a slip 'twixt cup and +lip. A gentleman applied to the prime minister for the place for a +friend of his, whose services to the party he duly dilated on. +"I understood," said his lordship, "that Mr. Fulford's claims are +considered paramount." "Mr. Fulford!" was the rejoinder. "I scarcely +thought that such a place as this would be an object to Mr. Fulford--a +gentleman of great position, with a deer-park and all that sort of +thing." "A deer-park! You surprise me. I understood that Mr. Fulford's +circumstances were extremely reduced. This alters the matter." +Unfortunately, the, minister committed himself too far to draw back +before making inquiries, when he learned that a deer-park having +existed at Fulford for some four or five centuries, its owner had +kept as a memento of grand old days a little remnant of the herd in +a paddock, as before mentioned. He never recovered the blow of this +disappointment. The heir to the property is, we believe, a son of the +late bishop of Montreal. The family motto is "Bear up"--one eminently +suited to its present condition, and we may hope that it will be +followed so successfully that this ancient stock, which has held for +so long a high place among the worthies of Devon, may once more win +the smiles of Fortune. + +Many of the most picturesque parks are but little known, lying as +they do remote from railway stations. Mr. Nesfield, the great +landscape-gardener, considers that Longleat, the marquis of Bath's, +near Warminster, has greater natural advantages than any park in +England, and that these have been made the most of. + +Lord Stamford's park of Bradgate, in Leicestershire, is in the highest +degree interesting. It is mostly covered with the common fern or +brakes, and the projecting bare and abrupt rocks rising here and +there, with a few gnarled and shivered oaks in the last stage of +decay, present a scene of wildness and desolation in striking contrast +to some of the beautiful adjoining valleys and fertile country. + +Another gem of its kind is Ugbrook. This is situated a few miles from +the Newton-Abbot station of the South Devon Railway, and lies in a +rocky nook on the confines of Dartmoor. Macaulay, whose brother was +vicar of the neighboring parish of Bovey-Tracey, knew it well, +and tells us in his _History_ that Clifford (a member of the Cabal +ministry) retired to the woods of Ugbrook. He was a lucky man to have +such paternal acres to retire to, but probably the visitor to-day sees +this park in a condition which Charles's minister would indeed have +enjoyed. There is no place in England where a man may feel more +grateful to those who have gone before him for their taste and +forethought in creating a sylvan paradise. Although not very large, +this park contains almost every variety of scenery. There is a grove +gloomy from the heavy shadows of the magnificent trees which compose +it, glorious avenues of lime and beech, and monarch-like trees, which, +standing alone amid an expanse of sward, show to the fullest advantage +their superb proportions. Entering the park on one side, the road +winds beside a river, to which the bank gently slopes on the one hand, +whilst on the other it rises precipitately, clad with the greenest +foliage. An especial feature of this place is what is known as "the +riding park," a stretch of smooth turf extending some miles, from +which you may get a view over thirty miles, with the rocky heights of +Dartmoor Forest, where the autumn manoeuvres take place this year, on +the one hand, and the Haldon Hills on the other. This ancient heritage +is still the property of the Cliffords, the present peer being eighth +baron in direct descent from the lord treasurer. The Cliffords have +always remained constant to the Roman Catholic faith, and a Catholic +chapel adjoins the mansion. + +A discriminating foreign tourist writes of Lord Hill's park, +Hawkstone, in Shropshire, which, also lying rather off the beaten +track, is comparatively little known: "I must in some respects give +Hawkstone the preference over all I have seen. It is not art nor +magnificence nor aristocratic splendor, but Nature alone to which it +is indebted for this pre-eminence, and in such a degree that were I +gifted with the power of adding to its beauty, I should ask, What can +I add? Imagine a spot so commandingly placed that from its highest +point you can let your eye wander over fifteen counties. Three sides +of this wide panorama rise and fall in constant change of hill and +dale like the waves of an agitated sea, and are bounded at the horizon +by the strangely formed, jagged outline of the Welsh mountains, which +at either end descend to a fertile plain shaded by thousands of lofty +trees, and in the obscure distance, where it blends with the sky, is +edged with a white misty line--the Atlantic Ocean." + +Moor Park, in Hertfordshire, is remarkable for the following tradition +concerning it: In Charles II.'s reign it was bought by the duke of +Monmouth, whose widow--she who + + In pride of youth, in beauty's bloom, + Had wept o'er Monmouth's bloody tomb-- + +is said to have ordered the heads of the trees in the park to be cut +off on being informed of her husband's execution. This tradition is +strengthened by the condition of many of the oaks here, which are +decayed from the top. The duchess sold the place in 1720, thirty-five +years after the duke's death. This is the Moor Park of apricot fame, +but not the one where Sir William Temple lived when Swift was his +secretary. + +Most of the oldest and finest trees in England are naturally to be +found in the deer-parks. At Woburn, the duke of Bedford's, is the +largest ash--ninety feet high and twenty-three feet six inches in +circumference at the base. The Abbot's Oak, on which the last abbot +was hung, stands, or lately stood, here. It is remarkable that oaks +are more often struck by lightning than any other trees. At Tortworth, +Lord Ducie's, in Gloucestershire, is a chestnut asserted to have been +a boundary tree in the time of King John. So late as 1788 it produced +great quantities of chestnuts. At five feet from the ground this tree +measured fifty feet in circumference. + +The lover of fine trees should wander through the glades of Lord +Leigh's park at Stoneleigh, in Warwickshire, where tall and shapely +oaks grow with such symmetry that you do not guess their size, and are +surprised to discover on measuring them how great it is. + + Oh, how I love these solitudes + And places silent as the night-- + There where no thronging multitudes + Disturb with noise their sweet delight! + Oh, how mine eyes are pleased to see + Oaks that such spreading branches bear, + Which, from old Time's nativity, + And th' envy of so many years, + Are still green, beautiful and fair + As at the world's first day they were! + +Writing of the confines of the ancient forest of Sherwood, Mr. Howitt +says of those sylvan delights: "The great woods have fallen under the +axe, and repeated enclosures have reduced the open forests, but at +the Clipstone end still remains a remnant of its ancient woodlands, +unrifled except of deer--a specimen of what the whole once was, and a +specimen of consummate beauty and interest. The part called Bilhaghe +is a forest of oaks, and is clothed with the most impressive aspect +of age that can be presented to the eye in these kingdoms. Stonehenge +does not give you a feeling of greater eld, because it is not composed +of a material so easily acted on by the elements. But the hand of Time +has been on these woods, and has stamped them with a most imposing +character. The tempests, lightnings, winds and wintry violence of a +thousand years have flung their force on these trees, and there they +stand, trunk after trunk, scathed, hollow, gray, gnarled, stretching +out their bare, sturdy arms, or their mingled foliage and ruin, a life +in death. All is gray and old. The ground is gray beneath, the trees +are gray with clinging lichens--the very heather and fern that spring +beneath them have a character of the past. If you turn aside and step +amongst them, your feet sink in a depth of moss and dry vegetation +that is the growth of ages, or rather that ages have not been able to +destroy. You stand and look round, and in the height of summer all +is silent: it is like the fragment of a world worn out and forsaken. +These were the trees under which King John pursued the red deer six +hundred years ago, these were the oaks beneath which Robin Hood led +up his bold band of outlaws.... Advance up this long avenue, which the +noble owner of the forest tract has cut through it, and, looking right +and left as you proceed, you will not be able long to refrain from +turning into the tempting openings that present themselves. Enter +which you please, you cannot be wrong. These winding tracks, just +wide enough for a couple of people on horseback or in a pony phaeton, +carpeted with a mossy turf which springs under your feet with a +delicious elasticity, and closed in with shadowy trunks and flowery +thickets--are they not lovely?" + +In the time of Elizabeth the largest park in Warwickshire, and one +of the very finest in England, was that which surrounded the castle +rendered classic ground by the immortal limning of Scott--Kenilworth. +In a survey taken in the time of James I. it is stated that "the +circuit of the castle mannours, parks and chase lying round together +contain at least nineteen or twenty miles in a pleasant country, the +like both for strength, state and pleasure not being within the realme +of England." Kenilworth came to an end in Cromwell's time, a period +very unfavorable to these sylvan paradises. He had the park cut up and +divided amongst various grantees. How much damage was done to the +park interest by the civil wars the following extract from the Life of +Margaret, duchess of Newcastle, attests: "Of eight parks which my +lord had before the wars, there was but one left that was not quite +destroyed--viz. Welbeck Park of about four miles compass; for my +lord's brother, Sir Charles Cavendish, who bought out the life of my +lord in that lordship, saved most part of it from being cut down; and +in Blore Park there were some few deer left. The rest of the parks +were totally defaced and destroyed, both wood, pales and deer; amongst +which was also Clipston Park of seven miles compass, wherein my lord +had taken much delight formerly, it being rich of wood, and containing +the greatest and tallest timber trees of all the woods he shad; +insomuch that only the pale-row was valued at two thousand pounds. It +was watered by a pleasant river that runs through it, full of fish and +otters; was well stocked with deer, full of hares, and had great +store of partridges, poots, pheasants, etc., besides all sorts of +water-fowl; so that this park afforded all manner of sports, for +hunting, hawking, coursing, fishing, etc., for which my lord esteemed +it very much. And although his patience and wisdom is such that +I never perceived him sad or discontented for his own losses and +misfortunes, yet when he beheld the ruins of that park I observed him +troubled, though he did little express it, only saying he had been +in hopes it would not have been so much defaced as he found it, there +being not one timber tree in it left for shelter." + +The number of deer-parks in Scotland and Ireland is small. The +principal park in the former is that of the duke of Buccleuch at +Dalkeith Palace, near Edinburgh. At Hamilton, belonging to the duke of +that ilk, are wild cattle similar to those at Chillingham. + +A wonderfully picturesque Irish park is Rockingham, the Hon. L. King +Harinan's, in the county Roscommon. The traveler will observe this +beautiful and very extensive demesne as he goes from Boyle to Sligo. +It is at the foot of the Curlew Mountains, and contains a magnificent +sheet of water surrounding an island on which stands an ancient +castle, still inhabitable. At Strokestown, in the same county, is a +small park, where Mr. Mahon, its former owner, planted many years ago +all sorts of forest trees, to see how far the deer would eat them: the +only tree they entirely avoided was the beech. + +There is nothing grander in the three kingdoms than Lord Waterford's +seat, Curraghmore. Taken with the adjoining woods, the demesne +contains five thousand acres. The special feature of this superb place +is grandeur; "not that arising from the costly and laborious exertions +of man, but rather the magnificence of Nature. The beauty of +the situation consists in the lofty hills, rich vales and almost +impenetrable woods, which deceive the eye and give the idea of +boundless forests. The variety of the scenery is calculated to please +in the highest degree, and to gratify every taste." + +At Lyme Park, the splendid old seat of the Leghs in Cheshire, "a very +remarkable custom," says Lysons, "of driving the red deer, which has +not been practiced in any other park, either in England or abroad, was +established about a century ago by an old park-keeper, who occupied +that position for seventy years, dying at over one hundred years of +age. It was his custom in May and June, when the animals' horns were +tender, to go on horseback, with a rod in his hand, round the hills +of this extensive park, and, having collected the deer, to drive them +before him like a herd of common horned cattle, sometimes even opening +a gate for them to pass through. When they came to a place before the +hall called the Deer-Clod, they would stand in a collected body as +long as the spectators thought fit; the young ones following their +dams, and the old stags rising one against another and combating with +their fore feet, not daring at this season of the year to make use of +their horns. At the command of the keeper they would then move forward +to a large piece of water and swim through the whole length of it, +after which they were allowed to disperse." + +Following the example of the abbots, many of the bishops formerly had +deer-parks, and up to 1831 the bishop of Durham, a prince-palatine +in his diocese, had a park at his country-seat, still his residence, +Bishops-Auckland; but now the only prelate enjoying this distinction +is the bishop of Winchester, at Farnham Castle, in Hampshire. + +"There are some," says a writer in an early number of the _Westminster +Review_, "who enclose immense possessions with walls and gates, and +employ keepers with guns to guard every avenue to the vast solitudes +by which they choose to be surrounded. Let such men pitch their +tents in the deserts of Sahara or the wild prairies of America. What +business have they here in the midst of a civilized community, +linked together by chains of mutual obligation and dependence?" These +observations apply to few private parks now-a-days. Permission to +drive, ride or walk through them is rarely refused. Almost the only +cases where there is much strictness in this respect are those of +parks situated near a great watering place, such as Brighton or +Tonbridge Wells. Thus, at the former, Lord Chichester's rule is that +all persons on horseback or in carriages may pass through his ground, +but foot-passengers are not allowed. The late Lord Abergavenny, a man +of very shy and retiring disposition, was the least liberal park-owner +in England. The gates of his superb demesne of Eridge very rarely +revolved on their hinges; and this was the more remarkable, inasmuch +as he did not reside there more than three months in the year. The +story was told that at his accession to the property he had been +more liberal, but that one day he was seated at luncheon alone when, +suddenly looking up, he observed to his horror three proletarians +flattening their noses against the window-pane, and gaping with +exasperating interest at the august spectacle of a live lord at +luncheon. To pull the bell and issue an order for the immediate +removal of the intruders was, in the graphic language of the dime +novel, the work of a moment; and from that hour the gates of Eridge +were so rigorously sealed that it was often a matter of difficulty +even for invited guests to obtain admittance. + +It may seem very ill-natured sometimes to refuse admittance on +easy terms to such places, and to act apparently in a sort of +dog-in-the-manger spirit. But it should be borne in mind that the +privilege when accorded has not unfrequently been abused, more +especially by the "lower middle class" of the English people, whose +manners are often very intrusive. Such persons will approach close +to the house, peer into the windows of private apartments, or push +in amongst the family and guests while engaged in croquet or other +out-door amusements. Another common offence is leaving a disgusting +_debris_ lying about after a picnic in grounds which it costs the +owners thousands of pounds yearly to keep in order. The sentiment from +which such places are kept up is not that of vulgar display. They +are hallowed by associations which are well depicted by the late Lord +Lytton in an eloquent passage in _Earnest Maltravers_: + +"It is a wild and weird scene, one of those noble English parks at +midnight, with its rough forest-ground broken into dell and valley, +its never-innovated and mossy grass overrun with fern, and its +immemorial trees, that have looked upon the birth, and look yet upon +the graves, of a hundred generations. Such spots are the last proud +and melancholy trace of Norman knighthood and old romance left to the +laughing landscapes of cultivated England. They always throw something +of shadow and solemn gloom upon minds that feel their associations, +like that which belongs to some ancient and holy edifice. They are the +cathedral aisles of Nature, with their darkened vistas, and columned +trunks, and arches of mighty foliage. But in ordinary times the gloom +is pleasing, and more delightful than all the cheerful lawns and sunny +slopes of the modern taste." + +REGINALD WYNFORD. + +[Footnote 1: This was the famous Charlotte de la Tremouille, so +admirably portrayed by Scott in _Peveril of the Peak_. Her direct +male heirs terminated in her grandson, the tenth earl, and she is now +represented in the female line by the duke of Atholl, who through her +claims descent from the Greek emperors.] + + + + +RAMBLES AMONG THE FRUITS AND FLOWERS OF THE TROPICS. + +TWO PAPERS.--I. + + +"Well, Abdallah, what have you in view that can tempt one to a ramble +on such a breezeless morning as this?" was my question of the turbaned +exquisite who had just presented himself on the balcony where we sat +at sunrise inhaling the fragrant breath of a thousand flowers. We +were at Singapore, that little ocean gem at the foot of the Malayan +peninsula, where, fair as a pearl, she nestles in the crested coronet +of the deep blue sea. The whole island is but twenty-seven miles long, +with a width varying from three to twelve; but in no other area of +such limited dimensions can the tourist find so much of enchanting +beauty and picturesqueness, or such a variety of tropical products, as +in this "garden of the East." Without mountains, but with its central +peak of Bookit Tima rising about six hundred feet above the sea, the +scenery is diversified with richly-wooded hills, evergreen dales, +and luxuriant jungle-growth drooping over and reflecting its graceful +fringes in many a little babbling brook. The fruits of the island are +varied and luscious, the foliage perennial, and its myriads of flowers +so gorgeously tinted, so redolent of balmy odors, that one is fairly +bewildered with the superabundance of sweets. Of course we were +nothing loath to tarry a few weeks on this fairy isle, and we gladly +availed ourselves of the opportunity thus afforded to enrich our +herbariums and sketchbooks with new specimens by making occasional +excursions to the jungles, and now and then a picnic to some of the +thirty smaller islands that surround Singapore. But as the foreign +tourist in those enervating tropical regions is not slow to acquire +the Oriental love of ease and inveterate aversion to fatigue even in +pleasure-seeking, we usually left our Mussulman comprador to seek out +objects of interest and report to us beforehand, thus saving us from +the weariness of many a bootless expedition, and catering to the +precise tastes and desires of each of us in the way of adding to our +treasures. + +On the morning in question Abdallah had just brought in the invariable +morning coffee, served in the purest and tiniest of porcelain cups; +and while we listlessly sipped the fragrant Mocha he seemed scanning +our faces with more than usual interest, evidently expecting just such +a question as I had asked. What a picture he was as he stood there +in flowing robes and huge turban, with his jet black moustache and +bronze-brown complexion, one small hand placed over the heart in token +of his absolute devotion to the foreign sahibs, and his lithe, supple +form leaning forward in the most obsequious attitude imaginable! His +answer was characteristic: + +"Well, Madam Sahib, I find much beautiful flower, but not all where +lady sahib can go, unless she can ride in sampan. Some roads too small +for palanquin, and lady sahib's satin slipper must not be soiled with +dust or mud. But I engage one big sampan with six men to pull, and, if +the foreign sahibs all please, we make one grand picnic to Pulo Nanas +(Pineapple Island) and Pulo Panjan. They can ride first to where boat +is waiting, visit Pulo Nanas, take breakfast under orange tree, see +much fine fruit trees, and then go to Pulo Panjan, where I gave orders +for dinner to be served for the sahibs." + +"But pray tell us who is to serve it," laughingly responded one of our +party. "Are we to have monkeys or wild squirrels for caterers? It must +be one or the other, as I am sure I have been informed that neither of +those islands are inhabited by human beings." + +"No man there, true, sahib," was our Mussulman's ready rejoinder. +"But I send small boat with two men to pull, and two cooks, with rice, +fowls, and everything wanted for breakfast and dinner. I believe they +already at Pulo Nanas, cooking breakfast; the palanquins are also at +the door; and so, if it be the sahibs' pleasure, it is better to start +before the sun gets very high." + +All this certainly promised well for us pleasure-seekers, and was no +doubt quite as satisfactory an arrangement for our scheming comprador, +who always took care to add to every charge a very liberal commission +for his own valuable services. We well knew that he was cheating us +on a grand scale, but of what avail was such knowledge? We should +gain nothing by discharging one who had at least the merit of being +good-looking, well-mannered and pleasant-speaking, only to engage +another less civil and probably no more honest. And in India all +disbursements for personal and household expenses are made through +these compradors or stewards--not of necessity, but because it is +the custom of the country, and in the East one never rebels against +established usage. + +Our preparations were soon made: sketchbooks, drawing materials and +covered baskets for specimens were transferred to the keeping of +our faithful Mussulman, and we set out, anticipating a day of rare +enjoyment. We were fortunate in securing the company of Mr. M----, +the accomplished president of the Anglo-Chinese College, who had +spent some thirty years in Singapore, and was well acquainted with its +localities and objects of interest. He was like a complete volume with +illustrations on everything pertaining to the East, could answer all +manner of unheard-of questions about things that everybody else had +forgotten, and had always ready an appropriate anecdote or story just +to the point. His very dress was characteristic. It consisted of loose +trousers of gray linen, and an old-fashioned white hunting-coat with +Quaker collar, and huge pockets that would have answered very well +for the saddle-bags of an itinerant surgeon. These were designed +as receptacles for such stray "specimens" in botany, geology or +conchology as he might chance to discover _en route_; while thrust +into a smaller breast-pocket he carried a brace of huntsman's pistols, +with antique powder-horn and shot-pouch slung over the shoulder. His +hat was a Panama with low, round crown and a rim nearly as large as +an ordinary umbrella. A Chinese youth, an orphan adopted by Mr. M---- +years before, accompanied his patron in a full suit of yellow nankin +made _a la Chinoise_, with broad-brimmed straw hat, long, braided +queue, and the inevitable Chinese fan. The rest of us donned our white +linen "fatigue suits," and leghorn hats of such vast dimensions as +bade the wearers have no thought for umbrellas. Thus equipped, we +were ready for all sorts of emergencies--climbing rocks, diving into +jungles or wading through muddy creeks. + +The drive was for the most part through spice plantations and groves +of orange and palm, and, without delays, would have brought us in an +hour's time to the coast. But we could not consent to press onward +to the goal ahead without pausing for at least a glimpse of the many +objects of interest on the way. First we strolled over a plantation +of black pepper cultivated by Chinamen. The vine is a creeper with +a knotty stem that if unpruned will reach the height of near thirty +feet, but in order to render the vines more productive they are kept +down to about a dozen or fifteen feet, and each is trained over a +separate pole or prop. At each joint of the stem the plant puts out +its fibrous tendrils, grasping the prop, and so climbing to the top. +Whenever a vine happens to trail on the ground these tendrils, like +strawberry "runners," shoot into the earth, but then they bear no +fruit. The branches are short, brittle and easily broken, the leaves +deep-green, heart-shaped and very abundant, and the blossom a cluster +of small white flowers, almost destitute of odor. The fruit hangs in +long clusters of some forty or fifty grains each, somewhat after the +fashion of the wild grape, though much more diminutive in size. Until +after it has reached its full size it is green, when at maturity of +a bright red, and black only after it has become thoroughly dry. When +the berries begin to redden the bunches are gathered and spread upon +mats in the sun to dry: then the corns soon wither, turn black and +drop from the stems, becoming thus the shriveled black pepper known in +commerce. What is known among us as white pepper was formerly supposed +to be a different species from the black; but the sole difference is +in the curing, that intended for white pepper being placed in baskets +under water until sufficiently swollen for the exterior pellicle to +rub off by rolling in the hands after being again dried in the sun. +The plants are propagated by cuttings, which are generally placed some +six feet apart, sometimes being trained over the trunk of an old tree, +and at others over a strong stake. The vines commence bearing the +third year, and continue to do so for a dozen or more, when they +are rooted up, new ones having been previously planted to take their +places. + +We next called at two gambier plantations, both owned and conducted by +Chinamen who came to the island a few years before as common coolies. +The gambier (_Funis uncatis_) was formerly called terra japonica, from +being supposed to be an earth and to come from Japan. It is grown +on sandy soil or dry hills, and requires very little labor in +cultivation. It is a slender-stemmed, vine-like shrub with oval-shaped +leaves and pale purplish flowers in clusters. The seeds germinate in +forty days, and the seedlings are transplanted when about nine inches +high. When full grown they reach a height of ten feet or more, and +after the first year the leaves and branches are regularly gathered +and prepared for the market. Men and boys were engaged in plucking +the leaves and conveying them, in mat-bags suspended on each end of a +bamboo staff, to the boiling-ground. Here they were boiled until the +water was evaporated, and the inspissated juice deposited, which we +afterward saw drying in little squares. It is a powerful astringent, +having one-tenth more tannin than any other substance known. It is +used by the natives as a dye, also as a salve for wounds and for +chewing with betel-nut and tobacco, besides being largely exported +to Europe for tanning leather and for dyeing. All through the gambier +plantations, and in every department of the labor of preparing it +for the boiler, I observed that not a female was to be seen, and on +inquiring the reason was gravely told that gambier plants would not +flourish if touched by a woman! "Sensitive plants" indeed, so readily +to discern the difference between the handling of the two sexes! + +Our next call was at a coffee plantation, where we saw sixty thousand +young and healthy coffee trees, and two-thirds of them in a bearing +condition, yielding in the aggregate not less than fifty thousand +pounds of dry coffee per annum. The trees are beautifully formed, and +rise naturally to the height of sixteen feet or more, but when under +culture are kept at five or six feet for the convenience of collecting +the ripe fruit. They are planted in rows, the leaves grow opposite +each other, and many sessile flowers are produced at their insertion. +The blossoms are pure white, and when the plants are in full bloom +nothing can exceed their beauty or fragrance, the branches looking +as if frosted with snow, while the air is filled with the delicate +perfume. But the scene is brief as enchanting: the flowers fade a few +hours after they are full blown, to be succeeded by tiny berries that +are at first green, then a yellowish red, and finally ripen into a +rich crimson or purple; after which, unless gathered at once, they +shrivel and drop from the tree. This is about seven months after the +blooms make their appearance. The pulp is torn off and separated +from the seeds by means of a machine, and the grains, after being +thoroughly washed, are dried in the sun and put up in bags. Chek +Kongtwau, the Chinese proprietor of the plantation, not only walked +with us over his grounds, and answered all our questions with +exemplary patience, but insisted that we should go into the house, be +presented to his wife and partake of a lunch. He regaled us with tea +and coffee of his own growing and curing, excellent turtle steaks, +boiled rice, and curry made of shrimps and cucumbers stewed together. +For vegetables there were the Malay lobak, a tender white radish, and +the cocoa-nut bud stewed in the milk of the ripe fruit; and as dessert +we had placed before us, for the first time, the far-famed durian, so +universal a favorite among Orientals as to command a higher price than +any other fruit in market, yet so abominably disgusting in smell that +the olfactories of few strangers can tolerate its approach. To me the +odor seemed precisely that supposed to be produced by the admixture of +garlic and assafoetida; and as a plate piled with the rich golden pulp +was placed before me by our hostess, I came so near fainting as to be +compelled to seek the open air. The old Chinaman followed me, and +when he had learned the cause of my indisposition, laughed heartily, +saying, "Wait a year or two. You have not been in the country long +enough to appreciate this rare luxury. But when you have become +initiated into a knowledge of its surpassing excellences, never an +orange, pineapple or other fruit will you touch when a durian can be +had." + +Just as we were re-entering our palanquins, Chek Kongtwau inquired +whether we had yet seen the anoo palm or sago tree, of which he said +there was but a solitary specimen in the island, most of the sago +manufactured at Singapore being brought in its crude state from the +swamps of Sumatra. He told us the famous tree was several miles from +his house, out of our direct route, but if we had time to visit it he +would undertake to guide us safely through the jungle to and from the +tree. We found it standing in solitary grandeur in a low swamp, and +lifting its long pinnated leaves from the extreme top of a trunk full +thirty feet high and twenty-eight inches in diameter. Its general +appearance is not unlike the cocoa-nut palm. Our conductor called the +sago tree _sibla_, but the Malays give it the name of _rumbiga_. They +say that each tree, if kept properly pruned down, will produce at +least five hundred pounds of pith per annum; but it soon degenerates +if suffered to grow to any considerable height. The pith is soaked +in large troughs of running water until it dissolves and afterward +settles, the sand and heavy dirt sinking beneath it, and the fibres +and scum floating on top. After being separated from these impurities +the sago is dried, and then granulated by passing it through +perforated plates till it becomes smooth and polished like so many +pearls, when it is packed in boxes and bags for sale. We did not see +the process that day, of course, but afterward at the large factory on +the river a few miles above the settlement. + +One more plantation, a grove of the stately areca-nut or betel trees, +we determined to visit before taking the boat. The smooth road was +bordered everywhere with the beautiful melastoma or Singapore rose, of +perennial foliage and always in bloom, underneath acacias and palms; +and the very earth was carpeted with beauty and fragrance enough to +have formed the bridal-couch of a fairy queen. Over such a highway +three miles were quickly made, and we alighted at the entrance of a +narrow lane that led to the abode of Cassim Mootoo, the Malay owner +and cultivator of the betel-nut plantation. At the outer door a stone +monster of huge proportions and uncouth features kept guard against +the uncanny spirits that are supposed to frequent out-of-the-way lanes +and dreary passages. The planter received us pleasantly, accepted our +apologies for troubling him, and offered to show us over the grounds. +He was far less courtly in manners than the Chinese coffee-cultivator, +to whom we should scarcely have ventured to offer a fee, while out of +the Malay's cunning eyes there gleamed the evident expectation of a +snug bonus of silver rupees, which he received as a matter of course +when we bade him adieu, and having counted them over and jingled +them for a moment in his fingers, he thrust them into his pouch as he +re-entered the house. + +We found the areca trees planted in rows, and growing to the height of +some forty feet, with straight, branchless trunks, terminated at the +top with ten or twelve pinnated leaves, each of which is full five +feet long. The fruit grows in clusters immediately below the tuft +of leaves. The outer shell is of a bright golden hue, that gradually +deepens to crimson as the fruit matures, and when opened shows a +brown, astringent nut about the size of a nutmeg. This is the portion +chewed with chunam and tobacco all over the East; and its use is so +universal that one seldom meets a man, woman or child of any Oriental +nation whose mouth is not filled, always and everywhere, with the +execrable mixture. Pepper leaves are sprinkled with chunam (lime) and +rolled up: a slice of betel-nut with a quid of tobacco is placed in +the mouth first, and then the rolled-up leaf is bitten off, and all +masticated together. When a visitor calls the betel-box is immediately +passed to him; and as in regard to the eating of salt in Western Asia, +so, in the eastern and southern portions, those who have once partaken +of betel-nut together are ever after sworn to faithful and undying +friendship. The use of the areca-nut preserves the teeth from decay, +but keeps them stained of a disgusting brick-red color. + +On the outer edge of Cassim's plantation, where the soil was damp, we +noticed several long rows of the nepah palm, generally known as attap, +and extensively used for thatching houses in the East. It has the same +huge pinnated leaves as most of the other palms, but is destitute of +the long straight trunk, the leaves commencing from near the root, and +the entire height being seldom more than twelve or fourteen feet. We +saw also a few specimens of the hutan, a strange-looking palmate shrub +with leaves fifteen feet long, which are generally used by the Malays +for sails, in lieu of canvas, for their piratical proas. But the +strangest of all the palms we saw was the talipat, so called from the +Bali word _talipoin_, a priest; and the name was originally derived +from the fact that the sacred fans used by Booddhist priests in +their religious ceremonies are formed of its leaves. This fan is a +prescribed item of clerical costume, and no conscientious Booddhist +priest ever appears without this long-handled fan held directly in +front of his face, to prevent the sacred countenance from coming in +contact with anything unclean. The sacred books of the Booddhists and +Brahmins are also written on the talipat palm leaves, as are many +of their historical records and scientific works. This mammoth tree +sometimes reaches the height of nearly two hundred feet, and its trunk +the circumference of twelve feet. It lives to the age of nearly a +century, but blossoms only a single time; during the whole period of +its existence. The flower, some thirty feet in length, bursts with a +loud explosion at maturity, and in dying scatters the seeds that are +to produce the next generation of trees. A single leaf will sometimes +measure forty feet in circumference; and it is no unusual sight on the +Malabar coast, where storms are so fierce and sudden, to see ten or +fifteen men finding shelter in a boat over which is spread a single; +palm leaf, which effectually shields all from both wind and rain. When +the storm has subsided the huge leaf may be folded up like a lady's +fan, and is so light as to be readily carried by a man under one arm. +The talipat never grows wild, it is said, as do most of the other +palms; and it reaches its greatest perfection in the island of Ceylon. +All that I ever met with were under cultivation, being tended and +nursed with the utmost care. Indeed, half a dozen talipat palm trees +are a fortune in themselves, the leaves being very profitable as +merchandise, while a crop may be gathered every year during a long +life, and then the tree be of sufficient value to be bequeathed to the +heirs of the owner. + +Bidding adieu to our Malayan host, we once more entered the +palanquins, and in a little while were set down on the coast, where +lay our sampan with flag hoisted and pennons gayly flaunting in the +breeze. First we passed Battu Bliah, "the sailing rock"--so called +from its fancied resemblance to a ship under widespread canvas; then +around an abrupt projection of Erskine's Hill, in a narrow passage +between Singapore and Baltan Mateo, we came in full view of +the promontory upon the highest point of which is built the +palace-bungalow of the old sultan-rajah who held sway over the island +previous to its purchase by Sir Stamford Raffles for the British +government, in 1819. The old rajah has passed away, but the bungalow +is still occupied by his son, a pensioner on the English Crown, and +one of the most daring pirates in all that region--successful enough +to have achieved a fame for prowess, but too crafty ever to be caught. + +At Pulo Nanas, where we were to lunch, we found the cloth was already +laid on the green grass under the protecting shadow of a huge orange +tree, whose ripe golden fruit offered a dainty dessert. We took our +seats with the "professor" at the head, and were soon discussing the +merits of boiled chicken, fried fish, omelette, oysters, turtle eggs +and sundry fruits and confections with the zest created by seven hours +of active exercise in the open air. Then came the reaction, inclining +every one more to repose than research, and the hours would probably +have been dreamed away barren of adventures, had it not been for our +indomitable professor. We had missed him but a moment, when suddenly +he reappeared, holding at arm's length what seemed in the distance +about a dozen brown, scaly snakes a yard long, all strung together. +Simultaneously the entire company sprang to their feet and started for +a race as this regiment of frightful reptiles was thrust into their +midst by the radiant "dominie," whose face was fairly aglow with +mischief. "Where did they come from? What are you going to do with +them?" exclaimed everybody at once, turning to look at the monsters as +they lay passive and motionless where the professor had thrown them. +"Give them to Saint Patrick, to keep company with those he drove out +of the Emerald Isle; or we'll have them for dinner if you prefer," +was the laughing response. Reassured by the non-combatant air of the +dreaded reptiles, we ventured a nearer approach, and our astonishment +may readily be imagined when we found not snakes, but simply a cluster +of the pendent blossoms of the rattan tree (_Arundo bambos_), one of +the strangest of all the floral products of the tropics. They hang +from the tree in clusters usually of ten or twelve, each a yard or +more in length, looking like a soldier's aigrettes suspended among the +green leaves, or perhaps still more like a string of chestnut-colored +scales threaded through the centre. Waving to and fro in the summer +breeze, as I afterward saw them, intertwined with the graceful +tendrils of the beautiful passion-flower with its rare feathery +chalice of purple and gold, and flanked on every side by ferns of +exquisite symmetry, reflecting their dainty fringes in the clear +waters, the _tout ensemble_ is one of radiant loveliness, seemingly +too fair to be hidden away among lonely jungles. + +Consigning our newly acquired treasure to the keeping of the +comprador, we sauntered forth in search of other discoveries, and were +richly rewarded by finding several perfect specimens of the monkey-cup +or pitcher-plant (_Nepenthes distillatoria_). This plant is found in +moist places, such as are suited to the growth of ferns, mangroves +and palmate shrubs. It has pendent from each leaf a natural pitcher or +elongated cup, growing perfectly upright and capable of holding a pint +or more of liquid. It is provided also with a natural cover, which +when closed prevents the ingress of leaves or rubbish falling from +other trees. The most curious circumstance connected with this strange +plant is, that it is nearly always found full of pure, sparkling +water, and that the lid closes of itself as soon as the receptacle is +full, and opens whenever it is empty. The water is thus protected from +dust, and kept always fit for the use of thirsty travelers, as well as +of the immense troops of monkeys that inhabit tropical jungles. When +the dainty cup has been drained of its refreshing contents, this +wonderful little plant again throws wide the portals of its exhausted +receptacle for the free entrance of rain or dew. Another plant, one +we had often heard of, and sought for without success, the so-called +oyster tree, was found, and proved to be nothing very wonderful after +all. It is simply an ordinary oyster or other shell-fish, that, tired +of lying in the mud, concludes by way of variety to try swinging +in the air for a while, and so fastens itself to the long, pendent +branches of the mangroves that grow luxuriantly on the shores of most +tropical islands. + +There seeming to be no more objects of interest to detain us at Pulo +Nanas, and our chuliahs having already gone on to prepare dinner at +Pulo Panjan, we rallied our forces and followed suit. It was already +four o'clock, and so near the equinoctial line, where there is no +twilight, it is dark soon after six; but then Pulo Panjan was on our +route homeward, and we should have time at least to dine and gather +some of the beautiful flowers for which the island is famous, as well +as to taste the white pineapple, a rare and exquisite variety that +grows here in great abundance. Both rind and pulp are of a pale +straw-color; hence the name, to distinguish this species from the +ordinary golden-colored fruit, which is far inferior to the white. +Those we obtained were magnificent specimens--large and juicy, with a +flavor to tempt the appetite of the veriest epicure. Abdallah peeled +them in such a way as to remove the bur entire, and brought them +to our grassy "board" on pure white porcelain plates garnished with +wreaths of fragrant flowers. Never were the gods feasted on nectar +and ambrosia more divinely luscious than the white pines and golden +mangoes, the rich juicy grapes and sparkling sherbet, with which +we were regaled on that bright summer eve at the base of the old +flagstaff towering above our heads. + +We had not much time for roaming, but gathered whole handfuls of the +lotus or water-lily, with its pale-blue, golden or rose-tinted blooms +gleaming up from the sparkling waters like the fabled charms of +mermaid or sea-nymph. There are many varieties of this exquisite +flower--blue, pink, carnation, bright yellow, royal purple fringed +with gold, and, more beautiful than all, pure, virgin white, with +the faintest possible rose tinge in the centre of each section of the +corolla, a just perceptible blush, as of its own conscious loveliness. +This last variety is the royal flower of Siam: it is borne before +the king at weddings, funerals and all state festivals, and the royal +reception-rooms are always beautifully decorated with the young buds +arranged in costly vases of exquisite workmanship. The costly silk and +lace canopies over the cradles of the infants of the king's family +are also made in the form of a lotus reversed; and it is said that in +cases of fever or eruptive diseases the leaves of the fresh lotus are +spread over the royal couches, as being not only sanitary, but more +agreeable to the invalid than the ordinary linen or silk bedding. +Guided by the rare rich perfume of its waxen buds, we found a choice +specimen of the bride-like moon-creeper, and bore if off, vine, blooms +and all, to a place among the floral adornments of our own home. + +We reached home at eight o'clock, after a cruise, by sea and by land, +of thirteen hours; but the day had been so replete with enjoyment that +we scarcely felt conscious of fatigue, and were off again the next +morning, soon after sun-rise, for a ride to Bookit Tima ("hill of +tin"), the central and loftiest peak of Singapore Island. It is nine +miles from the city, with a smooth road to the very summit, so that +we might go either in pony palanquins or on horseback. We chose the +latter, as affording us better opportunity for observation and +the collection of "specimens," and, as we could readily gain the +mountain-top in season for a nine o'clock breakfast, the heat would +not be oppressive. Abdallah despatched the chuliahs, each with a stout +load of provisions, table-ware and cooking-utensils, at dawn, and +when we arrived our _dejeuner_ was ready to be served. The viands were +tempting and the cookery faultless, but we could scarce do justice to +either, so eager were we to begin our explorations on the summit and +sides of this beautiful hill, or rather hills, for there are twin +peaks closely connected, and each presenting an enchanting view of +verdant fields and fertile valleys, of the neighboring city, the wide +expanse of blue waters beyond, and the shipping in the harbor. Having +satisfied ourselves with gazing at the distant prospect, we began to +descend in search of adventures, sending our ponies ahead to await +us at the base of the mountain, where we were to dine. Onward +we strolled, gradually descending, every step marked by +novelties--flowers, grasses, weeds and shrubs vieing with each other +in varied and glad-some beauty. At length we sat down to rest beneath +a huge bombax or cotton tree (_Bombax ceiba_), its widespread branches +and thick foliage shielding us effectually from the noonday sun, a +fragrant blossom falling occasionally into our laps or pelting us over +head and shoulders, while with every passing zephyr the fleecy down +from the ripe bolls floated hither and thither, looking for all the +world like a snow-storm, except that the sun was shining luminously +in the clear heavens. This tree must have been sixty feet in height, +a grand, noble type of a green old age after scores of years well +and usefully spent, still vigorous and productive. We met specimens +afterward even taller and larger than this, and they are said +sometimes to reach the height of a hundred feet. The timber is light +and porous, and is in great demand for boats. Lower down, the various +palms, especially the cocoa-nut and cabbage, were all about us. The +former is found in nearly every tropical clime, and is of all trees +the one most indispensable to the East Indian, furnishing him with +meat, drink, medicine, clothing, lodging and fuel. The ripe kernel of +the nut, besides being eaten, has expressed from it an excellent oil, +that feeds all the lamps in an Oriental house, supplies the table with +a most palatable substitute for butter, and the belle with a choice +article of perfumery; the green nut affords a delicious beverage +to the thirsty traveler; the fibrous covering of the nut is readily +converted into strong and durable cordage, and the polished shells +into drinking-cups, ladles and spoons; the leaves are frequently used +for thatch, the wood for lathing and musical instruments, and the sap +for toddy, an intoxicating drink very common in the East. The tree is +graceful and pretty, with a tuft of large pinnated leaves at the top, +and nestled cosily in their midst are the clusters of fruit. It grows +to the height of forty or fifty feet, is long-lived, and bears fruit +nearly the whole year round. The cabbage palm is much less common in +a wild state, and few planters will take the trouble to cultivate +it, since a whole tree must be destroyed to obtain a single dish. The +edible part consists of snow-white flakes found just inside the bark +near the top of the tree. When stewed in the expressed juice of the +cocoa-nut it constitutes one of the most luscious dishes I have ever +eaten. The tree is tall and large, and the pinnated leaves very long. + +In the moist portions of the jungle toward the foot of the hill were +whole groves of the fragrant pandanus, ferns of infinite variety, and +a species of wild mignonette with a perfume like that of commingled +strawberries and lemon. Now and then we paused beneath the thick +green foliage of the _Magnolia grandiflora_, as it towered in stately +grandeur above its sister flowers, acknowledged queen of the parterre, +and dispensing with genuine Oriental profusion its rare and delicious +perfume. A step farther and our gaze was riveted by the modest purity +of the spotless japonica, the fragrant tuberose and Cape jessamine, +the graceful passion-flower, with its royal beauty and storied +reminiscences, the peerless dauk-male, fragrant and fair, the _Kalla +Indica_, with its five long petals of heavenly blue, the gold-plant +of the Chinese, and crimson boon-gah-riah of the Malays, the last two +consecrated symbols in the religious rites of those nations. What a +medley of sweets, flaunting their gay colors in the bright tropical +sunshine! Then the innumerable company of roses--tea, moss, perpetual, +cluster, climbing, variegated, and a score of others--how fair, fresh +and fragrant they are, peerless, queen-like still, even amid such a +gorgeous array of ripe floral charms! These, and a thousand others for +which we have no names in our language, are scattered profusely over +those sunny lands of dreamy beauty, vieing with each other in rare, +rich perfume, exquisite grace of form and matchless blending of their +warm, ripe colors. + +The next day we dined at Dr. Almeida's, and in his magnificent garden +found several choice specimens of both the _Victoria regia_ and the +_Rafflesia Arnoldi_, the two largest flowers in the world, each bloom +measuring two feet in diameter. But the rarest of all the doctor's +treasures was the night-blooming cereus. There were six blooms in full +maturity--four on one stalk and two on another--creamy, waxen flowers +of exquisite form, the leaves of the corolla of a pale golden hue +and the petals intensely white. The calyx rises from a long, hollow +footstalk, which is formed of rough plates overlapping each other like +tiles on a roof. From the centre of this footstalk rises a bundle of +filaments that encircle the style, stamens springing also from the +insertion of the leaves of the corolla, lining it with delicate beauty +and waving their slender forms with exquisite grace. But the +real charm of the cereus is its wondrous perfume, exhaled just at +night-fall, and readily discernible over the circuit of a mile. The +peculiar odor cannot be understood by mere description, but partakes +largely of that of sweet lilies, violets, the tuberose and vanilla. +After the bud appears the growth is very rapid, often two or three +inches a day--that is, in the height of the stalk, the flower +expanding proportionately. When fully grown it begins to unfold +its charms as the twilight deepens into night, and reaches perfect +maturity about an hour before midnight: at three o'clock its glory is +already beginning to wane, though scarcely perceptibly; but at dawn +it is fading rapidly, and by sun-rise only a wilted, worthless wreck +remains, good for nothing but to be "cast out and trodden under foot +of men." + +FANNIE R. FEUDGE. + + + + +A PRINCESS OF THULE. + +BY WILLIAM BLACK, AUTHOR OF "THE STRANGE ADVENTURES OF A PHAETON." + + +CHAPTER XII. + +TRANSFORMATION. + + +Had Sheila, then, Lavender could not help asking himself, a bad +temper, or any other qualities or characteristics which were apparent +to other people, but not to him? Was it possible that, after all, +Ingram was right, and that he had yet to learn the nature of the girl +he had married? It would be unfair to say that he suspected something +wrong about his wife--that he fancied she had managed to conceal +something--merely because Mrs. Lavender had said that Sheila had a bad +temper; but here was another person who maintained that when the days +of his romance were over he would see the girl in another light. + +Nay, as he continued to ask himself, had not the change already begun? +He grew less and less accustomed to see in Sheila a beautiful wild +sea-bird that had fluttered down for a time into a strange home in +the South. He had not quite forgotten or abandoned those imaginative +scenes in which the wonderful sea-princess was to enter crowded +drawing-rooms and have all the world standing back to regard her and +admire her and sing her praises. But now he was not so sure that that +would be the result of Sheila's entrance into society. As the date of +a certain dinner-party drew near he began to wish she was more like +the women he knew. He did not object to her strange sweet ways of +speech, nor to her odd likes and dislikes, nor even to an unhesitating +frankness that nearly approached rudeness sometimes in its scorn +of all compromise with the truth; but how would others regard these +things? He did not wish to gain the reputation of having married an +oddity. + +"Sheila," he said on the morning of the day on which they were going +to this dinner-party, "you should not say _like-a-ness_. There are +only two syllables in _likeness_. It really does sound absurd to hear +you say _like-a-ness_." + +She looked up to him with a quick trouble in her eyes. When had he +spoken to her so petulantly before? And then she cast down her eyes +again, and said submissively, "I will try not to speak like that. When +you go out I take a book and read aloud, and try to speak like you; +but I cannot learn all at once." + +"_I_ don't mind," he said. "But you know other people must think it +so odd. I wonder why you should always say _gyarden_ for _garden_ now, +when it is just as easy to say _garden_?" + +Once upon a time he had said there was no English like the English +spoken in Lewis, and had singled out this very word as typical of one +peculiarity in the pronunciation. But she did not remind him of that. +She only said in the same simple fashion, "If you will tell me my +faults I will try to correct them." + +She turned away from him to get an envelope for a letter she had been +writing to her father. He fancied something was wrong, and perhaps +some touch of compunction smote him, for he went after her and took +her hand, and said, "Look here, Sheila. When I point out any trifles +like that, you must not call them faults, and fancy I have any serious +complaint to make. It is for your own good that you should meet the +people who will be your friends on equal terms, and give them as +little as possible to talk about." + +"I should not mind their talking about me," said Sheila with her eyes +still cast down, "but it is your wife they must not talk about; and if +you will tell me anything I do wrong I will correct it." + +"Oh, you must not think it is anything so serious as that. You will +soon pick up from the ladies you will meet some notion of how you +differ from them; and if you should startle or puzzle them a little at +first by talking about the chances of the fishing or the catching of +wild-duck, or the way to reclaim bogland, you will soon get over all +that." + +Sheila said nothing, but she made a mental memorandum of three things +she was not to speak about. She did not know why these subjects should +be forbidden, but she was in a strange land and going to see strange +people, whose habits were different from hers. Moreover, when her +husband had gone she reflected that these people, having no fishing +and no peat-mosses and no wild-duck, could not possibly be interested +in such affairs; and thus she fancied she perceived the reason why she +should avoid all mention of those things. + +When in the evening Sheila came down dressed and ready to go out, +Lavender had to admit to himself that he had married an exceedingly +beautiful girl, and that there was no country gawkiness about her +manner, and no placid insipidity about her proud and handsome face. +For one brief moment he triumphed in his heart, and had some wild +glimpse of his old project of startling his small world with this +vision from the northern seas. But when he got into the hired +brougham, and thought of the people he was about to meet, and of the +manner in which they would carry away such and such impressions of the +girl, he lost faith in that admiration. He would much rather have +had Sheila unnoticeable and unnoticed--one who would quietly take her +place at the dinner-table, and attract no more special attention than +the flowers, for example, which every one would glance at with some +satisfaction, and then forget in the interest of talking and dining. +He was quite conscious of his own weakness in thus fearing social +criticism. He knew that Ingram would have taken Sheila anywhere in her +blue serge dress, and been quite content and oblivious of observation. +But then Ingram was independent of those social circles in which a +married man must move, and in which his position is often defined for +him by the disposition and manners of his wife. Ingram did not know +how women talked. It was for Sheila's own sake, he persuaded himself, +that he was anxious about the impression she should make, and that he +had drilled her in all that she should do and say. + +"Above all things," he said, "mind you take no notice of me. Another +man will take you in to dinner, of course, and I shall take in +somebody else, and we shall not be near each other. But it's after +dinner, I mean: when the men go into the drawing-room don't you come +and speak to me or take any notice of me whatever." + +"Mayn't I look at you, Frank?" + +"If you do you'll have half a dozen people all watching you, saying +to themselves or to each other, 'Poor thing! she hasn't got over her +infatuation yet. Isn't it pretty to see how naturally her eyes turn +toward him?'" + +"But I shouldn't mind them saying that," said Sheila with a smile. + +"Oh, you mustn't be pitied in that fashion. Let them keep their +compassion to themselves." + +"Do you know, dear," said Sheila very quietly, "that I think you +exaggerate the interest people will take in me? I don't think I can be +of such importance to them. I don't think they will be watching me as +you fancy." + +"Oh, you don't know," he said. "I know they fancy I have done +something romantic, heroic and all that kind of thing, and they are +curious to see you." + +"They cannot hurt me by looking at me," said Sheila simply. "And they +will soon find out how little there is to discover." + +The house being in Holland Park they had not far to go; and just as +they were driving up to the door a young man, slight, sandy-haired and +stooping, got out of a hansom and crossed the pavement. + +"By Jove!" said Lavender, "there is Redburn, I did not know he knew +Mrs. Lorraine and her mother. That is Lord Arthur Redburn, Sheila: +mind, if you should talk to him, not to call him 'my lord.'" + +Sheila laughed and said, "How am I to remember all these things?" + +They got into the house, and by and by Lavender found himself, with +Sheila on his arm, entering a drawing-room to present her to certain +of his friends. It was a large room, with a great deal of gilding and +color about it, and with a conservatory at the farther end; but the +blaze of light had not so bewildering an effect on Sheila's eyes as +the appearance of two ladies to whom she was now introduced. She had +heard much about them. She was curious to see them. Many a time had +she thought over the strange story Lavender had told her of the woman +who heard that her husband was dying in a hospital during the war, and +started off, herself and her daughter, to find him out; how there was +in the same hospital another dying man whom they had known some years +before, and who had gone away because the girl would not listen to +him; how this man, being very near to death, begged that the girl +would do him the last favor he would ask of her, of wearing his name +and inheriting his property; and how, some few hours after the strange +and sad ceremony had been performed, he breathed his last, happy in +holding her hand. The father died next day, and the two widows were +thrown upon the world, almost without friends, but not without means. +This man Lorraine had been possessed of considerable wealth, and the +girl who had suddenly become mistress of it found herself able to +employ all possible means in assuaging her mother's grief. They began +to travel. The two women went from capital to capital, until at +last they came to London; and here, having gathered around them +a considerable number of friends, they proposed to take up their +residence permanently. Lavender had often talked to Sheila about +Mrs. Lorraine--about her shrewdness, her sharp sayings, and the odd +contrast between this clever, keen, frank woman of the world and the +woman one would have expected to be the heroine of a pathetic tale. + +But were there two Mrs. Lorraines? That had been Sheila's first +question to herself when, after having been introduced to one +lady under that name, she suddenly saw before her another, who was +introduced to her as Mrs. Kavanagh. The mother and daughter were +singularly alike. They had the same slight and graceful figure, which +made them appear taller than they really were, the same pale, fine +and rather handsome features, the same large, clear gray eyes, and +apparently the same abundant mass of soft fair hair, heavily plaited +in the latest fashion. They were both dressed entirely in black, +except that the daughter had a band of blue round her slender waist. +It was soon apparent, too, that the manner of the two women was +singularly different; Mrs. Kavanagh bearing herself with a certain +sad reserve that almost approached melancholy at times, while her +daughter, with more life and spirit in her face, passed rapidly +through all sorts of varying moods, until one could scarcely tell +whether the affectation lay in a certain cynical audacity in her +speech, or whether it lay in her assumption of a certain coyness and +archness, or whether there was any affectation at all in the matter. +However that might be, there could be no doubt about the sincerity of +those gray eyes of hers. There was something almost cruelly frank +in the clear look of them; and when her face was not lit up by some +passing smile the pale and fine features seemed to borrow something +of severity from her unflinching, calm and dispassionate habit of +regarding those around her. + +Sheila was prepared to like Mrs. Lorraine from the first moment she +had caught sight of her. The honesty of the gray eyes attracted her. +And, indeed, the young widow seemed very much interested in the young +wife, and, so far as she could in that awkward period just before +dinner, strove to make friends with her. Sheila was introduced to +a number of people, but none of them pleased her so well as Mrs. +Lorraine. Then dinner was announced, and Sheila found that she was +being escorted across the passage to the room on the other side by the +young man whom she had seen get out of the hansom. + +This Lord Arthur Redburn was the younger son of a great Tory duke; +he represented in the House a small country borough which his father +practically owned; he had a fair amount of ability, an uncommonly high +opinion of himself, and a certain affectation of being bored by the +frivolous ways and talk of ordinary society. He gave himself credit +for being the clever member of the family; and if there was any +cleverness going, he had it; but there were some who said that his +reputation in the House and elsewhere as a good speaker was mainly +based on the fact that he had an abundant assurance and was not easily +put out. Unfortunately, the public could come to no decision on +the point, for the reporters were not kind to Lord Arthur, and the +substance of his speeches was as unknown to the world as his manner of +delivering them. + +Now, Mrs. Lorraine had intended to tell this young man something about +the girl whom he was to take in to dinner, but she herself had been +so occupied with Sheila that the opportunity escaped her. Lord Arthur +accordingly knew only that he was beside a very pretty woman, who was +a Mrs. Somebody--the exact name he had not caught--and that the few +words she had spoken were pronounced in a curious way. Probably, he +thought, she was from Dublin. + +He also arrived at the conclusion that she was too pretty to know +anything about the Deceased Wife's Sister bill, in which he was, for +family reasons, deeply interested, and considered it more likely that +she would prefer to talk about theatres and such things. + +"Were you at Covent Garden last night?" he said. + +"No," answered Sheila. "But I was there two days ago, and it is +very pretty to see the flowers and the fruit; and then they smell so +sweetly as you walk through." + +"Oh yes, it is delightful," said Lord Arthur. "But I was speaking of +the theatre." + +"Is there a theatre in there?" + +He stared at her, and inwardly hoped she was not mad. + +"Not in among the shops, no. But don't you know Covent Garden +Theatre?" + +"I have never been in any theatre, not yet," said Sheila. + +And then it began to dawn upon him that he must be talking to Frank +Lavender's wife. Was there not some rumor about the girl having come +from a remote part of the Highlands? He determined on a bold stroke: +"You have not been long enough in London to see the theatres, I +suppose." + +And then Sheila, taking it for granted that he knew her husband very +well, and that he was quite familiar with all the circumstances of the +case, began to chat to him freely enough. He found that this Highland +girl of whom he had heard vaguely was not at all shy. He began to feel +interested. By and by he actually made efforts to assist her frankness +by becoming equally frank, and by telling her all he knew of the +things with which they were mutually acquainted. Of course by this +time they had got up into the Highlands. The young man had himself +been in the Highlands--frequently, indeed. He had never crossed to +Lewis, but he had seen the island from the Sutherlandshire coast. +There were very many deer in Sutherlandshire, were there not? Yes, he +had been out a great many times, and had had his share of adventures. +Had he not gone out before daylight, and waited on the top of a hill, +hidden by some rocks, to watch the mists clear along the hillsides and +in the valley below? Did not he tremble when he fired his first shot, +and had not something passed before his eyes so that he could not see +for a moment whether the stag had fallen or was away like lightning +down the bed of the stream? Somehow or other, Lord Arthur found +himself relating all his experiences, as if he were a novice begging +for the good opinion of a master. She knew all about it, obviously, +and he would tell her his small adventures if only that she might +laugh at him. But Sheila did not laugh. She was greatly delighted to +have this talk about the hills and the deer and the wet mornings. +She forgot all about the dinner before her. The servants whipped off +successive plates without her seeing anything of them: they received +random answers about wine, so that she had three full glasses standing +by her untouched. She was no more in Holland Park at that moment than +were the wild animals of which she spoke so proudly and lovingly. If +the great and frail masses of flowers on the table brought her any +perfume at all, it was a scent of peat-smoke. Lord Arthur thought that +his companion was a little too frank and confiding, or rather that she +would have been had she been talking to any one but himself. He rather +liked it. He was pleased to have established friendly relations with +a pretty woman in so short a space; but ought not her husband to give +her a hint about not admitting all and sundry to the enjoyment of +these favors? Perhaps, too, Lord Arthur felt bound to admit to himself +there were some men who more than others inspired confidence in women. +He laid no claims to being a fascinating person, but he had had his +share of success, and considered that Sheila showed discrimination +as well as good-nature in talking so to him. There was, after all, +no necessity for her husband to warn her. She would know how to guard +against admitting all men to a like intimacy. In the mean time he +was very well pleased to be sitting beside this pretty and agreeable +companion, who had an abundant fund of good spirits, and who showed no +sort of conscious embarrassment in thanking you with a bright look +of her eyes or by a smile when you told her something that pleased or +amused her. + +But these flattering little speculations were doomed to receive +a sudden check. The juvenile M.P. began to remark that a shade +occasionally crossed the face of his fair companion, and that she +sometimes looked a little anxiously across the table, where Mr. +Lavender and Mrs. Lorraine were seated, half hidden from view by a +heap of silver and flowers in the middle of the board. But though they +could not easily be seen, except at such moments as they turned to +address some neighbor, they could be distinctly enough heard when +there was any lull in the general conversation. And what Sheila heard +did not please her. She began to like that fair, clear-eyed young +woman less. Perhaps her husband meant nothing by the fashion in which +he talked of marriage and the condition of a married man, but she +would rather have not heard him talk so. Moreover, she was aware that +in the gentlest possible fashion Mrs. Lorraine was making fun of her +companion, and exposing him to small and graceful shafts of ridicule; +while he seemed, on the whole, to enjoy these attacks. + +The ingenuous self-love of Lord Arthur Redburn, M.P., was severely +wounded by the notion that, after all, he had been made a cat's-paw +of by a jealous wife. He had been flattered by this girl's exceeding +friendliness; he had given her credit for a genuine impulsiveness +which seemed to him as pleasing as it was uncommon; and he had, with +the moderation expected of a man in politics who hoped some day to +assist in the government of the nation by accepting a junior lordship, +admired her. But was it all pretence? Was she paying court to him +merely to annoy her husband? Had her enthusiasm about the shooting of +red-deer been prompted by a wish to attract a certain pair of eyes at +the other side of the table? Lord Arthur began to sneer at himself for +having been duped. He ought to have known. Women were as much women +in a Hebridean island as in Bayswater. He began to treat Sheila with a +little more coolness, while she became more and more preoccupied with +the couple across the table, and sometimes was innocently rude in +answering his questions somewhat at random. + +When the ladies were going into the drawing-room, Mrs. Lorraine +put her hand within Sheila's arm and led her to the entrance to the +conservatory. "I hope we shall be friends," she said. + +"I hope so," said Sheila, not very warmly. + +"Until you get better acquainted with your husband's friends you will +feel rather lonely at being left as at present, I suppose." + +"A little," said Sheila. + +"It is a silly thing altogether. If men smoked after dinner I could +understand it. But they merely sit, looking at wine they don't drink, +talking a few common-places and yawning." + +"Why do they do it, then?" said Sheila. + +"They don't do it everywhere. But here we keep to the manners and +customs of the ancients." + +"What do you know about the manners of the ancients?" said Mrs. +Kavanagh, tapping her daughter's shoulder; as she passed with a sheet +of music. + +"I have studied them frequently, mamma," said the daughter with +composure, "--in the monkey-house at the Zoological Gardens." + +The mamma smiled, and passed on to place the music on the piano. +Sheila did not understand what her companion had said; and indeed +Mrs. Lorraine immediately turned, with the same calm, fine face and +careless eyes, to ask Sheila whether she would not, by and by, sing +one of those northern songs of which Mr. Lavender had told her. + +A tall girl, with her back hair tied in a knot and her costume copied +from a well-known pre-Raphaelite drawing, sat down to the piano and +sang a mystic song of the present day, in which the moon, the stars +and other natural objects behaved strangely, and were somehow mixed up +with the appeal of a maiden who demanded that her dead lover should be +reclaimed from the sea. + +"Do you ever go down to your husband's studio?" said Mrs. Lorraine. + +Sheila glanced toward the lady at the piano. + +"Oh, you may talk," said Mrs. Lorraine, with the least expression of +contempt in the gray eyes. "She is singing to gratify herself, not +us." + +"Yes, I sometimes go down," said Sheila in as low a voice as she could +manage without falling into a whisper, "and it is such a dismal place. +It is very hard on him to have to work in a big bare room like that, +with the windows half blinded. But sometimes I think Frank would +rather have me out of the way." + +"And what would he do if both of us were to pay him a visit?" said +Mrs. Lorraine. "I should so like to see the studio! Won't you call for +me some day and take me with you?" + +Take her with her, indeed! Sheila began to wonder that she did not +propose to go alone. Fortunately, there was no need to answer the +question, for at this moment the song came to an end, and there was a +general movement and murmur of gratitude. + +"Thank you," said Mrs. Lorraine to the lady who had sung, and who was +now returning to the photographs she had left--"thank you very much. +I knew some one would instantly ask you to sing that song: it is the +most charming of all your songs, I think, and how well it suits your +voice, too!" + +Then she turned to Sheila again: "How did you like Lord Arthur +Redburn?" + +"I think he is a very good young man." + +"Young men are never good, but they may be very amiable," said +Mrs. Lorraine, not perceiving that Sheila had blundered on a wrong +adjective, and that she had really meant that she thought him honest +and pleasant. + +"You did not speak at all, I think, to your neighbor on the right: +that was wise of you. He is a most insufferable person, but mamma +bears with him for the sake of his daughter, who sang just now. He is +too rich. And he smiles blandly, and takes a sort of after-dinner view +of things, as if he coincided with the arrangements of Providence. +Don't you take coffee? Tea, then. I have met your aunt--I mean, Mr. +Lavender's aunt: such a dear old lady she is!" + +"I don't like her," said Sheila. + +"Oh, don't you, really?" + +"Not at present, but I shall try to like her." + +"Well," said Mrs. Lorraine calmly, "you know she has her +peculiarities. I wish she wouldn't talk so much about Marcus Antoninus +and doses of medicine. I fancy I smell calomel when she comes near. +I suppose if she were in a pantomime, they'd dress her up as a phial, +tie a string round her neck and label her 'POISON.' Dear me, how +languid one gets in this climate! Let us sit down. I wish I was as +strong as mamma." + +They sat down together, and Mrs. Lorraine evidently expected to be +petted and made much of by her new companion. She gave herself pretty +little airs and graces, and said no more cutting things about anybody. +And Sheila somehow found herself being drawn to the girl, so that she +could scarcely help taking her hand, and saying how sorry she was to +see her so pale and fine and delicate. The hand, too, was so small +that the tiny white fingers seemed scarcely bigger than the claws of +a bird. Was not that slender waist, to which some little attention was +called by a belt of bold blue, just a little too slender for +health, although the bust and shoulders were exquisitely and finely +proportioned? + +"We were at the Academy all the morning, and mamma is not a bit tired. +Why has not Mr. Lavender anything in the Academy? Oh, I forgot" she +added, with a smile. "Of course, he has been very much engaged. But +now I suppose he will settle down to work." + +Sheila wished that this fragile-looking girl would not so continually +refer to her husband; but how was any one to find fault with her when +she put a little air of plaintiveness into the ordinarily cold gray +eyes, and looked at her small hand as much as to say, "The fingers +there are very small, and even whiter than the glove that covers them. +They are the fingers of a child, who ought to be petted." + +Then the men came in from the dining-room. Lavender looked round to +see where Sheila was--perhaps with a trifle of disappointment that she +was not the most prominent figure there. Had he expected to find all +the women surrounding her and admiring her, and all the men going up +to pay court to her? Sheila was seated near a small table, and Mrs. +Lorraine was showing her something. She was just like anybody else. If +she was a wonderful sea-princess who had come into a new world, no one +seemed to observe her. The only thing that distinguished her from +the women around her was her freshness of color and the unusual +combination of black eyelashes and dark blue eyes. Lavender had +arranged that Sheila's first appearance in public should be at a very +quiet little dinner-party, but even here she failed to create any +profound impression. She was, as he had to confess to himself again, +just like anybody else. + +He went over to where Mrs. Lorraine was, and sat down beside her. +Sheila, remembering his injunctions, felt bound to leave him there; +and as she rose to speak to Mrs. Kavanagh, who was standing by, +that lady came and begged her to sing a Highland song. By this time +Lavender had succeeded in interesting his companion about something or +other, and neither of them noticed that Sheila had gone to the piano, +attended by the young politician who had taken her in to dinner. Nor +did they interrupt their talk merely because some one played a few +bars of prelude. But what was this that suddenly startled Lavender to +the heart, causing him to look up with surprise? He had not heard the +air since he was in Borva, and when Sheila sang + + Hark, hark! the horn + On mountain-breezes borne! + Awake, it is morn, + Awake, Monaltrie!-- + +all sorts of reminiscences came rushing in upon him. How often had +he heard that wild story of Monaltrie's flight sung out in the small +chamber over the sea, with a sound of the waves outside and a scent of +sea-weed coming in at the door and the windows! It was from the shores +of Borva that young Monaltrie must have fled. It must have been in +Borva that his sweetheart sat in her bower and sang, the burden of all +her singing being "Return, Monaltrie!" And then, as Sheila sang now, +making the monotonous and plaintive air wild and strange-- + + What cries of wild despair + Awake the sultry air? + Frenzied with anxious care, + She seeks Monaltrie-- + +he heard no more of the song. He was thinking of bygone days in Borva, +and of old Mackenzie living in his lonely house there. When Sheila had +finished singing he looked at her, and it seemed to him that she was +still that wonderful princess whom he had wooed on the shores of the +Atlantic. And if those people did not see her as he saw her, ought he +to be disappointed because of their blindness? + +But if they saw nothing mystic or wonderful about Sheila, they at all +events were considerably surprised by the strange sort of music she +sang. It was not of a sort commonly heard in a London drawing-room. +The pathos of its minor chords, its abrupt intervals, startling +and wild in their effect, and the slowly subsiding wail in which it +closed, did not much resemble the ordinary drawing-room "piece." Here, +at least, Sheila had produced an impression; and presently there was +a heap of people round the piano, expressing their admiration, asking +questions and begging her to continue. But she rose. She would rather +not sing just then. Whereupon Lavender came out to her and said, +"Sheila, won't you sing that wild one about the farewell--that has the +sound of the pipes in it, you know?" + +"Oh yes," she said directly. + +Lavender went back to his companion. + +"She is very obedient to you," said Mrs. Lorraine with a smile. + +"Yes, at present," he said; and he thought meanly of himself for +saying it the moment the words were uttered. + + Oh, soft be thy slumbers, by Tigh-na-linne's waters; + Thy late-wake was sung by Macdiarmid's fair daughters; + But far in Lochaber the true heart was weeping + Whose hopes are entombed in the grave where thou'rt sleeping. + +So Sheila sang; and it seemed to the people that this ballad was even +more strange than its predecessor. When the song was over, Sheila +seemed rather anxious to get out of the crowd, and indeed walked away +into the conservatory to have a look at the flowers. + +Yes, Lavender had to confess to himself, Sheila was just like anybody +else in this drawing-room. His sea-princess had produced no startling +impression. He forgot that he had just been teaching her the necessity +of observing the ways and customs of the people around her, so that +she might avoid singularity. + +On one point, at least, she was resolved she would attend to his +counsels: she would not make him ridiculous by any show of affection +before the eyes of strangers. She did not go near him the whole +evening. She remained for the most part in that half conservatory, +half ante-room at the end of the drawing-room; and when any one talked +to her she answered, and when she was left alone she turned to the +flowers. All this time, however, she could observe that Lavender and +Mrs. Lorraine were very much engrossed in their conversation; that +she seemed very much amused, and he at times a trifle embarrassed; +and that both of them had apparently forgotten her existence. Mrs. +Kavanagh was continually coming to Sheila and trying to coax her back +into the larger room, but in vain. She would rather not sing any more +that night. She liked to look at flowers. She was not tired at all, +and she had already seen those wonderful photographs about which +everybody was talking. + +"Well, Sheila, how did you enjoy yourself?" said her husband as they +were driving home. + +"I wish Mr. Ingram had been there," said Sheila. + +"Ingram! He would not have stopped in the place five minutes, unless +he could play the part of Diogenes and say rude things to everybody +all round. Were you at all dull?" + +"A little." + +"Didn't somebody look after you?" + +"Oh yes, many persons were very kind. But--but--" + +"Well?" + +"Nobody seemed to be better off than myself. They all seemed to be +wanting something to do; and I am sure they were all very glad to come +away." + +"No, no, no, Sheila. That is only your fancy. You were not much +interested, that is evident; but you will get on better when you know +more of the people. You were a stranger--that is what disappointed +you--but you will not always be a stranger." + +Sheila did not answer. Perhaps she contemplated with no great hope or +longing the possibility of her coming to like such a method of getting +through an evening. At all events, she looked forward with no great +pleasure to the chance of her having to become friends with Mrs. +Lorraine. All the way home Sheila was examining her own heart to try +to discover why such bitter feelings should be there. Surely that girl +was honest: there was honesty in her eyes. She had been most kind to +Sheila herself. And was there not at times, when she abandoned the +ways and speech of a woman of the world, a singular coy fascination +about her, that any man might be excused for yielding to, even as any +woman might yield to it? Sheila fought with herself, and resolved that +she would cast forth from her heart those harsh fancies and indignant +feelings that seemed to have established themselves there. She would +_not_ hate Mrs. Lorraine. + +As for Lavender, what was he thinking of, now that he and his young +wife were driving home from their first experiment in society? He +had to confess to a certain sense of failure. His dreams had not been +realized. Every one who had spoken to him had conveyed to him, as +freely as good manners would admit, their congratulations and their +praises of his wife. But the impressive scenes he had been forecasting +were out of the question. There was a little curiosity about her on +the part of those who knew her story, and that was all. Sheila bore +herself very well. She made no blunders. She had a good presence, she +sang well, and every one could see that she was handsome, gentle and +honest. Surely, he argued with himself, that ought to content the most +exacting. But, in spite of all argument, he was not content. He did +not regret that he had sacrificed his liberty in a freak of romance; +he did not even regard the fact of a man in his position having dared +to marry a penniless girl as anything very meritorious or heroic; but +he had hoped that the dramatic circumstances of the case would be +duly recognized by his friends, and that Sheila would be an object of +interest and wonder and talk in a whole series of social circles. But +the result of his adventure was different. There was only one married +man the more in London, and London was not disposed to pay any +particular heed to that circumstance. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII. + +BY THE WATERS OF BABYLON. + + +If Frank Lavender had been told that his love for his wife was in +danger of waning, he would have laughed the suggestion to scorn. He +was as fond of her and as proud of her as ever. Who knew as well as +himself the tenderness of her heart, the delicate sensitiveness of her +conscience, the generosity of self-sacrifice she was always ready to +bestow? and was he likely to become blind, so that he should fail to +see how fair and frank and handsome she was? He had been disappointed, +it is true, in his fancies about the impression she would produce on +his friends; but what a trifle was that! The folly of those fancies +was his own. For the rest, he was glad that Sheila was not so +different from the other women whom he knew. He hit upon the profound +reflection, as he sat alone in his studio, that a man's wife, like +his costume, should not be so remarkable as to attract attention. +The perfection of dress was that you should be unconscious of its +presence: might that not be so with marriage? After all, it was better +that he had not bound himself to lug about a lion whenever he visited +people's houses. + +Still, there was something. He found himself a good deal alone. Sheila +did not seem to care much for going into society; and although he did +not much like the notion of going by himself, nevertheless one had +certain duties toward one's friends to perform. She did not even +care to go down to the Park of a forenoon. She always professed her +readiness to go, but he fancied it was a trifle tiresome for her; and +so, when there was nothing particular going on in the studio, he would +walk down through Kensington Gardens himself, and have a chat with +some friends, followed generally by luncheon with this or the other +party of them. Sheila had been taught that she ought not to come so +frequently to that studio. Bras would not lie quiet. Moreover, if +dealers or other strangers should come in, would they not take her +for a model? So Sheila stayed at home; and Mr. Lavender, after having +dressed with care in the morning--with very singular care, indeed, +considering that he was going to his work--used to go down to his +studio to smoke a cigarette. The chances were that he was not in a +humor for working. He would sit down in an easy-chair and kick his +heels on the floor for a time, watching perhaps the sunlight come in +through the upper part of the windows and paint yellow squares on +the opposite wall. Then he would go out and lock the door behind him, +leaving no message whatever for those crowds of importunate dealers +who, as Sheila fancied, were besieging him with offers in one hand and +purses of gold in the other. + +One morning, after she had been indoors for two or three days, and had +grown hopelessly tired of the monotony of watching that sunlit square, +she was filled with an unconquerable longing to go away, for however +brief a space, from the sight of houses. The morning was sweet and +clear and bright, white clouds were slowly crossing a fair blue sky, +and a fresh and cool breeze was blowing in at the open French windows. + +"Bras," she said, going down stairs and out into the small garden, "we +are going into the country." + +The great deer-hound seemed to know, and rose and came to her with +great gravity, while she clasped on the leash. He was no frisky animal +to show his delight by yelping and gamboling, but he laid his long +nose in her hand, and slowly wagged the down-drooping curve of his +shaggy tail; and then he placidly walked by her side up into the hall, +where he stood awaiting her. + +She would go along and beg of her husband to leave his work for a day +and go with her for a walk down to Richmond Park. She had often heard +Mr. Ingram speak of walking down, and she remembered that much of the +road was pretty. Why should not her husband have one holiday? + +"It is such a shame," she had said to him that morning as he left, +"that you will be going into that gloomy place, with its bare walls +and chairs, and the windows so that you cannot see out of them!" + +"I must get some work done somehow, Sheila," he said, although he did +not tell her that he had not finished a picture since his marriage. + +"I wish I could do some of it for you," she said. + +"You! All the work you're good for is catching fish and feeding ducks +and planting things in gardens. Why don't you come down and feed the +ducks in the Serpentine?" + +"I should like to do that," she answered. "I will go any day with +you." + +"Well," he said, "you see, I don't know until I get along to the +studio whether I can get away for the fore-noon; and then if I were to +come back here, you would have little or no time to dress. Good-bye, +Sheila." + +"Good-bye," she had said to him, giving up the Serpentine without much +regret. + +But the forenoon had turned out so delightful that she thought she +would go along to the studio, and hale him out of that gaunt and dingy +apartment. She should take him away from town: therefore she might put +on that rough blue dress in which she used to go boating in Loch Roag. +She had lately smartened it up a bit with some white braid, and she +hoped he would approve. + +Did the big hound know the dress? He rubbed his head against her +arm and hand when she came down, and looked up and whined almost +inaudibly. + +"You are going out, Bras, and you must be a good dog and not try to +go after the deer. Then I will send a very good story of you to Mairi; +and when she comes to London after the harvest is over, she will bring +you a present from the Lewis, and you will be very proud." + +She went out into the square, and was perhaps a little glad to get +away from it, as she was not sure of the blue dress and the small hat +with its sea-gull's feather being precisely the costume she ought to +wear. When she got into the Uxbridge road she breathed more freely, +and in the lightness of her heart she continued her conversation +with Bras, giving that attentive animal a vast amount of information, +partly in English, partly in Gaelic, which he answered only by a low +whine or a shake of his shaggy head. + +But these confidences were suddenly interrupted. She had got down to +Addison Terrace, and was contentedly looking at the trees and chatting +to the dog, when by accident her eye happened to light on a brougham +that was driving past. In it--she beheld them both clearly for a brief +second--were her husband and Mrs. Lorraine, so engaged in conversation +that neither of them saw her. Sheila stood on the pavement for a +couple of minutes absolutely bewildered. All sorts of wild fancies and +recollections came crowding in upon her--reasons why her husband was +unwilling that she should visit his studio, why Mrs. Lorraine never +called on her, and so forth and so forth. She did not know what to +think for a time; but presently all this tumult was stilled, and she +had resolved her doubts and made up her mind as to what she should do. +She would not suspect her husband--that was the one sweet security +to which she clung. He had made use of no duplicity: if there were +duplicity in the case at all, he could not be the author of it. The +reasons for his having of late left her so much alone were the true +reasons. And if this Mrs. Lorraine should amuse him and interest him, +who ought to grudge him this break in the monotony of his work? Sheila +knew that she herself disliked going to those fashionable gatherings +to which Mrs. Lorraine went, and to which Lavender had been accustomed +to go before he was married. How could she expect him to give up all +his old habits and pleasures for her sake? She would be more generous. +It was her own fault that she was not a better companion for him; and +was it for her, then, to think hardly of him because he went to the +Park with a friend instead of going alone? + +Yet there was a great bitterness and grief in her heart as she turned +and walked on. She spoke no more to the deer-hound by her side. There +seemed to be less sunlight in the air, and the people and carriages +passing were hardly so busy and cheerful and interesting as they had +been. But all the same, she would go to Richmond Park, and by herself; +for what was the use in calling in at the studio? and how could she go +back home and sit in the house, knowing that her husband was away at +some flower-show or morning concert, or some such thing, with that +young American lady? + +She knew no other road to Richmond than that by which they had driven +shortly after her arrival in London; and so it was that she went down +and over Hammersmith Bridge, and round by Mortlake, and so on by East +Sheen. The road seemed terribly long. She was an excellent walker, +and in ordinary circumstances would have done the distance without +fatigue; but when at length she saw the gates of the Park before her, +she was at once exceedingly tired and almost faint from hunger. Here +was the hotel in which they had dined: should she enter? The place +seemed very grand and forbidding: she had scarcely even looked at it +as she went up the steps with her husband by her side. However, she +would venture, and accordingly she went up and into the vestibule, +looking rather timidly about. A young gentleman, apparently not a +waiter, approached her and seemed to wait for her to speak. It was a +terrible moment. What was she to ask for? and could she ask it of this +young man? Fortunately, he spoke first, and asked her if she wished to +go into the coffee-room, and if she expected any one. + +"No, I do not expect any one," she said; and she knew that he would +perceive the peculiarity of her accent; "but if you will be kind +enough to tell me where I may have a biscuit--" + +It occurred to her that to go into the Star and Garter for a biscuit +was absurd; and she added wildly, "--or anything to eat." + +The young man obviously regarded her with some surprise; but he was +very courteous, and showed her into the coffee-room and called a +waiter to her. Moreover, he gave permission for Bras to be admitted +into the room, Sheila promising that he would lie under the table +and not budge an inch. Then she looked round. There were only three +persons in the room--one, an old lady seated by herself in a far +corner, the other two being a couple of young folks too much engrossed +with each other to mind any one else. She began to feel more at home. +The waiter suggested various things for lunch, and she made her choice +of something cold. Then she mustered up courage to ask for a glass of +sherry. How she would have enjoyed all this as a story to tell to her +husband but for that incident of the morning! She would have gloried +in her outward bravery, and made him smile with a description of +her inward terror. She would have written about it to the old man in +Borva, and bid him consider how she had been transformed, and what +strange scenes Bras was now witnessing. But all that was over. She +felt as if she could no longer ask her husband to be amused by her +childish experiences; and as for writing to her father, she dared +not write to him in her present mood. Perhaps some happier time would +come. Sheila paid her bill. She had heard her husband and Mr. Ingram +talk about tipping waiters, and knew that she ought to give something +to the man who had attended on her. But how much? He was a very +august-looking person, with formally-cut whiskers and a severe +expression of face. When he had brought back the change to her she +timidly selected a half crown and offered it to him. There was a +little glance of surprise: she feared she had not given him enough. +Then he said "Thank you!" in a vague and distant fashion, and she +knew that she had not given him enough. But it was too late. Bras was +summoned from under the table, and again she went out into the fresh +air. + +"Oh, my good dog!" she said to him as they together walked up to the +gates and into the Park, "this is a very extravagant country. You have +to pay half a crown to a servant for bringing you a piece of cold pie, +and then he looks as if he was not paid enough. And Duncan, who will +do everything about the house, and will give us all our dinners, it +is only a pound a week he will get, and Scarlett has to be kept out of +that. And wouldn't you like to see poor old Scarlett again?" + +Bras whined as if he understood every word. + +"I suppose now she is hanging out the washing on the gooseberry +bushes, and you know the song she always used to sing then? Don't you +know that Scarlett carried me about long before you were born, for you +are a mere infant compared with me? and she used to sing to me-- + + Ged' bheirte mi' bho'n bhas so, + Mho Sheila bheag og! + +And that is what she is singing just now in the garden; and Mairi +she is bringing the things out of the washing-house. Papa is over in +Stornoway this morning, arranging his accounts with the people there; +and perhaps he is down at the quay, looking at the Clansman, and +wondering when she is to bring me into the harbor. The castle is all +shut up, you know, with cloths over all the wonderful things, and the +curtains all down, and most of the shutters shut. Do you think papa +has got my letter in his pocket, and does he read it over and over +again, as I read all his letters to me over and over again? Ah--h! You +bad dog!" + +Bras had forgotten to listen to his mistress in the excitement of +seeing in the distance a large herd of deer under certain trees. +She felt by the leash that he was trembling in every limb with +expectation, and straining hard on the collar. Again and again she +admonished him in vain, until she had at last to drag him away down +the hill, putting a small plantation between him and the herd. Here +she found a large, umbrageous chestnut tree, with a wooden seat round +its trunk, and so she sat down in the green twilight of the leaves, +while Bras came and put his head in her lap. Out beyond the shadow +of the tree all the world lay bathed in sunlight, and a great silence +brooded over the long undulations of the Park, where not a human +being was within sight. How strange it was, she fell to thinking, that +within a short distance there were millions of men and women, while +here she was absolutely alone! Did they not care, then, for the +sunlight and the trees and the sweet air? Were they so wrapped up in +those social observances that seemed to her so barren of interest? + +"They have a beautiful country here," she said, talking in a rambling +and wistful way to Bras, and scarcely noticing the eager light in his +eyes, as if he were trying to understand. "They have no rain and no +fog; almost always blue skies, and the clouds high up and far away. +And the beautiful trees they have too! you never saw anything like +that in the Lewis, not even at Stornoway. And the people are so rich +and beautiful in their dress, and all the day they have only to think +how to enjoy themselves and what new amusement is for the morrow. But +I think they are tired of having nothing to do; or perhaps, you know, +they are tired because they have nothing to fight against--no hard +weather and hunger and poverty. They do not care for each other as +they would if they were working on the same farm, and trying to save +up for the winter; or if they were going out to the fishing, and very +glad to come home again from Caithness to find all the old people very +well and the young ones ready for a dance and a dram, and much joy and +laughing and telling of stories. It is a very great difference there +will be in the people--very great." + +Bras whined: perhaps he understood her better now that she had +involuntarily fallen into something of her old accent and habit of +speech. + +"Wouldn't you like, Bras, to be up in Borva again--only for this +afternoon? All the people would come running out; and it is little +Ailasa, she would put her arms round your neck; and old Peter +McTavish, he would hear who it was, and come out of his house groping +by the wall, and he would say, 'Pless me! iss it you, Miss Sheila, +indeed and mir-over? It iss a long time since you hef left the Lewis.' +Yes, it is a long time--a long time; and I will be almost forgetting +what it is like sometimes when I try to think of it. Here it is always +the same--the same houses, the same soft air, the same still sunlight, +the same things to do and places to see--no storms shaking the windows +or ships running into the harbor, and you cannot go down to the +shore to see what has happened, or up the hill to look how the sea +is raging. But it is one day we will go back to the Lewis--oh yes, we +will go back to the Lewis!" + +She rose and looked wistfully around her, and then turned with a sigh +to make her way to the gates. It was with no especial sort of gladness +that she thought of returning home. Here, in the great stillness, she +had been able to dream of the far island which she knew, and to fancy +herself for a few minutes there: now she was going back to the dreary +monotony of her life in that square, and to the doubts and anxieties +which had been suggested to her in the morning. The world she was +about to enter once more seemed so much less homely, so much less full +of interest and purpose, than that other and distant world she had +been wistfully regarding for a time. The people around her had neither +the joys nor the sorrows with which she had been taught to sympathize. +Their cares seemed to her to be exaggerations of trifles--she could +feel no pity for them: their satisfaction was derived from sources +unintelligible to her. And the social atmosphere around her seemed +still and close and suffocating; so that she was like to cry out at +times for one breath of God's clear wind--for a shaft of lightning +even--to cut through the sultry and drowsy sameness of her life. + +She had almost forgotten the dog by her side. While sitting under the +chestnut she had carelessly and loosely wound the leash round his neck +in the semblance of a collar, and when she rose and came away she let +the dog walk by her side without undoing the leash and taking proper +charge of him. She was thinking of far other things, indeed, when she +was startled by some one calling to her, "Look out, miss, or you'll +have your dog shot!" + +She turned and caught a glimpse of what sent a thrill of terror to her +heart. Bras had sneaked off from her side--had trotted lightly over +the breckans, and was now in full chase of a herd of deer which were +flying down the slope on the other side of the plantation. He rushed +now at one, now at another: the very number of chances presented to +him proving the safety of the whole herd. But as Sheila, with a swift +flight that would have astonished most town-bred girls, followed the +wild chase and came to the crest of the slope, she could see that the +hound had at length singled out a particular deer--a fine buck with +handsome horns that was making straight for the foot of the valley. +The herd, that had been much scattered, were now drawing together +again, though checking nothing of their speed; but this single buck +had been driven from his companions, and was doing his utmost to +escape from the fangs of the powerful animal behind him. + +What could she do but run wildly and breathlessly on? The dog was now +far beyond the reach of her voice. She had no whistle. All sorts of +fearful anticipations rushed in on her mind, the most prominent of all +being the anger of her father if Bras were shot. How could she go back +to Borva with such a tale? and how could she live in London without +this companion who had come with her from the far North? Then what +terrible things were connected with the killing of deer in a royal +park! She remembered vaguely what Mr. Ingram and her husband had been +saying; and while these things were crowding in upon her, she felt +her strength beginning to fail, while both the dog and the deer had +disappeared altogether from sight. + +Strange, too, that in the midst of her fatigue and fright, while she +still managed to struggle on with a sharp pain at her heart and a +sort of mist before her eyes, she had a vague consciousness that her +husband would be deeply vexed, not by the conduct or the fate of Bras, +but by her being the heroine of so mad an adventure. She knew that he +wished her to be serious and subdued and proper, like the ladies +whom she met, while an evil destiny seemed to dog her footsteps +and precipitate her into all sorts of erratic mishaps and "scenes." +However, this adventure was likely soon to have an end. She could go +no farther. Whatever had become of Bras, it was in vain for her to +think of pursuing him. When she at length reached a broad and smooth +road leading through the pasture, she could only stand still and press +her two hands over her heart, while her head seemed giddy, and she did +not see two men who had been standing on the road close by until they +came up and addressed her. + +Then she started and looked round, finding before her two men who were +apparently laborers of some sort, one of them having a shovel over his +shoulder. + +"Beg your pardon, miss, but wur that your dawg?" + +"Yes," she said eagerly. "Could you get him? Did you see him go by? Do +you know where he is?" + +"Me and my mate saw him go by, sure enough; but as for getting +him--why the keepers'll have shot him by this time." + +"Oh no!" cried Sheila, almost in tears, "they must not shoot him. It +was my fault. I will pay them for all the harm he has done. Can't you +tell me which way he will go past?" + +"I don't think, miss," said the spokesman quite respectfully, "as you +can go much furder. If you would sit down and rest yourself, and keep +an eye on this 'ere shovel, me and my mate will have a hunt arter the +dawg." + +Sheila not only accepted the offer gratefully, but promised to give +them all the money she had if only they would bring back the dog +unharmed. She made this offer in consequence of some talk between her +husband and her father which she had overheard. Lavender was speaking +of the civility he had frequently experienced at the hands of Scotch +shepherds, and of the independence with which they refused to accept +any compensation even for services which cost them a good deal of +time and trouble. Perhaps it was to please Sheila's father, but at any +rate, the picture the young man drew of the venality and the cupidity +of folks in the South was a desperately dark one. Ask the name of a +village, have your stick picked up for you from the pavement, get into +a cab or get out of it, and directly there was a touch of the cap and +an unspoken request for coppers. Then, as the services rendered +rose in importance, so did the fees--to waiters, to coachmen, to +game-keepers. These things and many more sank into Sheila's heart. She +heard and believed, and came down to the South with the notion that +every man and woman who did you the least service expected to be paid +handsomely for it. What, therefore, could she give those two men if +they brought back her deer-hound but all the money she had? + +It was a hard thing to wait here in the greatest doubt and uncertainty +while the afternoon was visibly waning. She began to grow afraid. +Perhaps the men had stolen the dog, and left her with this shovel as +a blind. Her husband must have come home, and would be astonished and +perplexed by her absence. Surely, he would have the sense to dine +by himself, instead of waiting for her; and she reflected with some +glimpse of satisfaction that she had left everything connected with +dinner properly arranged, so that he should have nothing to grumble +at. + +"Surely," she said to herself as she sat there, watching the light +on the grass and the trees getting more and more yellow--"surely I am +very wicked or very wretched to think of his grumbling in any case. +If he grumbles, it is because I will attend too much to the affairs of +the house, and not amuse myself enough. He is very good to me, and I +have no right to think of his grumbling. And I wish I cared to amuse +myself more--to be more of a companion to him; but it is so difficult +among all those people." + +The reverie was interrupted by the sound of footsteps on the grass +behind, and she turned quickly to find the two men approaching her, +one of them leading the captive Bras by the leash. Sheila sprang to +her feet with a great gladness. She did not care even to accuse the +culprit, whose consciousness of guilt was evident in his look and +in the droop of his tail. Bras did not once turn his eyes to his +mistress. He hung down his head, while he panted rapidly, and she +fancied she saw some smearing of blood on his tongue and on the side +of his jaw. Her fears on this head were speedily confirmed. + +"I think, miss, as you'd better take him out o' the Park as soon as +may be, for he's got a deer killed close by the Robin Hood Gate, in +the trees there; and if the keepers happen on it afore you leave the +Park, you'll get into trouble." + +"Oh, thank you!" said Sheila, retaining her composure bravely, but +with a terrible sinking of the heart; "and how can I get to the +nearest railway station?" + +"You're going to London, miss?" + +"Yes." + +"Well, I suppose the nearest is Richmond; but it would be quieter for +you--don't you see, miss?--if you was to go along to the Roehampton +Gate and go to Barnes." + +"Will you show me the gate?" said Sheila, choosing the quieter route +at once. + +But the men themselves did not at all like the look of accompanying +her and this dog through the Park. Had they not already condoned a +felony, or done something equally dreadful, in handing to her a dog +that had been found keeping watch and ward over a slain buck? They +showed her the road to the Roehampton Gate, and then they paused +before continuing on their journey. + +The pause meant money. Sheila took out her purse. There were three +sovereigns and some silver in it, and the entire sum, in fulfillment +of her promise, she held out to him who had so far conducted the +negotiations. + +Both men looked frightened. It was quite clear that either good +feeling or some indefinite fear of being implicated in the killing of +the deer caused them to regard this big bribe as something they could +not meddle with; and at length, after a pause of a second or two, the +spokesman said with great hesitation, "Well, miss, you've kep' your +word; but me and my mate--well, if so be as it's the same to you--'d +rather have summut to drink your health." + +"Do you think it is too much?" + +The man looked at his neighbor, who nodded. + +"It was only for ketchin' of a dawg, miss, don't you see?" he remarked +slowly, as if to impress upon her that they had had nothing to do with +the deer. + +"Will you take this, then?" and she offered them half a crown each. + +Their faces lightened considerably: they took the money, and with a +formal expression of thanks moved off, but not before they had taken a +glance round to see that no one had been a witness of this interview. + +And so Sheila had to walk away by herself, knowing that she had been +guilty of a dreadful offence, and that at any moment she might be +arrested by the officers of the law. What would the old King of Borva +say if he saw his only daughter in the hands of two policemen? and +would not all Mr. Lavender's fastidious and talkative and wondering +friends pass about the newspaper report of her trial and conviction? +A man was approaching her. As he drew near her heart failed her, for +might not this be the mysterious George Ranger himself, about whom her +husband and Mr. Ingram had been talking? Should she drop on her knees +at once and confess her sins, and beg him to let her off? If Duncan +were with her or Mairi, or even old Scarlett Macdonald, she would not +have cared so much, but it seemed so terrible to meet this man alone. + +However, as he drew near he did not seem a fierce person. He was an +old gentleman with voluminous white hair, who was dressed all in black +and carried an umbrella on this warm and bright afternoon. He regarded +her and the dog in a distant and contemplative fashion, as though he +would probably try to remember some time after that he had really +seen them; and then he passed on. Sheila began to breathe more freely. +Moreover, here was the gate, and once she was in the high road, who +could say anything to her? Tired as she was, she still walked rapidly +on; and in due time, having had to ask the way once or twice, she +found herself at Barnes Station. + +By and by the train came in: Bras was committed to the care of the +guard, and she found herself alone in a railway-carriage for the first +time in her life. Her husband had told her that whenever she felt +uncertain of her where-abouts, if in the country, she was to ask for +the nearest station and get a train to London; if in town, she was to +get into a cab and give the driver her address. And, indeed, Sheila +had been so much agitated and perplexed during this afternoon that +she acted in a sort of mechanical fashion, and really escaped the +nervousness which otherwise would have attended the novel experience +of purchasing a ticket and of arranging about the carriage of a dog in +the break-van. Even now, when she found herself traveling alone, and +shortly to arrive at a part of London she had never seen, her crowding +thoughts and fancies were not about her own situation, but about the +reception she should receive from her husband. Would he be vexed +with her? Or pity her? Had he called with Mrs. Lorraine to take her +somewhere, and found her gone? Had he brought home some bachelor +friends to dinner, and been chagrined to find her not in the house? + +It was getting dusk when the slow four-wheeler approached Sheila's +home. The hour for dinner had long gone by. Perhaps her husband had +gone away somewhere looking for her, and she would find the house +empty. + +But Frank Lavender came to meet his wife in the hall, and said, "Where +have you been?" + +She could not tell whether there was anger or kindness in his voice, +and she could not well see his face. She took his hand and went into +the dining-room, which was also dusk, and standing there told him all +her story. + +"This is too bad, Sheila!" he said in a tone of deep vexation. "By +Jove! I'll go and thrash that dog within an inch of his life." + +"No," she said, drawing herself up; and for one brief second--could he +but have seen her face--there was a touch of old Mackenzie's pride and +firmness about the ordinarily gentle lips. It was but for a second. +She cast down her eyes and said meekly, "I hope you won't do that, +Frank. The dog is not to blame. It was my fault." + +"Well, really, Sheila," he said, "you are very thoughtless. I wish you +would take some little trouble to act as other women act, instead of +constantly putting yourself and me into the most awkward positions. +Suppose I had brought any one home to dinner, now? And what am I to +say to Ingram? for of course I went direct to his lodgings when I +discovered you were nowhere to be found. I fancied some mad freak had +taken you there; and I should not have been surprised. Indeed, I don't +think I should be surprised at anything you do. Do you know who was in +the hall when I came in this afternoon?" + +"No," said Sheila. + +"Why that wretched old hag who keeps the fruit-stall. And it seems you +gave her and all her family tea and cake in the kitchen last night." + +"She is a poor old woman," said Sheila humbly. + +"A poor old woman!" he said impatiently. "I have no doubt she is a +lying old thief, who would take an umbrella or a coat if only she +could get the chance. It is really too bad, Sheila, your having all +those persons about you, and demeaning yourself by amending on them. +What must the servants think of you?" + +"I do not heed what any servants think of me," she said. + +She was now standing erect, with her face quite calm. + +"Apparently not," he said, "or you would not go and make yourself +ridiculous before them." + +Sheila hesitated for a moment, as if she did not understand; and then +she said, as calmly as before, but with a touch of indignation about +the proud and beautiful lips, "And if I make myself ridiculous by +attending to poor people, it is not my husband who should tell me so." + +She turned and walked out, and he was too surprised to follow her. She +went up stairs to her own room, locked herself in and threw herself on +the bed. And then all the bitterness of her heart rose up as if in a +flood--not against him, but against the country in which he lived, and +the society which had contaminated him, and the ways and habits that +seemed to create a barrier between herself and him, so that she was +a stranger to him, and incapable of becoming anything else. It was a +crime that she should interest herself in the unfortunate creatures +round about her--that she should talk to them as if they were human +beings like herself, and have a great sympathy with their small hopes +and aims; but she would not have been led into such a crime if she +had cultivated from her infancy upward a consistent self-indulgence, +making herself the centre of a world of mean desires and petty +gratifications. And then she thought of the old and beautiful days up +in the Lewis, where the young English stranger seemed to approve of +her simple ways and her charitable work, and where she was taught to +believe that in order to please him she had only to continue to be +what she was then. There was no great gulf of time between that period +and this; but what had not happened in the interval? She had not +changed--at least she hoped she had not changed. She loved her husband +with her whole heart and soul: her devotion was as true and constant +as she herself could have wished it to be when she dreamed of the +duties of a wife in the days of her maidenhood. But all around her was +changed. She had no longer the old freedom--the old delight in living +from day to day--the active work, and the enjoyment of seeing where +she could help and how she could help the people around her. When, +as if by the same sort of instinct that makes a wild animal retain +in captivity the habits which were necessary to its existence when +it lived in freedom, she began to find out the circumstances of such +unfortunate people as were in her neighborhood, some little solace was +given to her; but these people were not friends to her, as the poor +folk of Borvabost had been. She knew, too, that her husband would be +displeased if he found her talking with a washerwoman over her family +matters, or even advising one of her own servants about the disposal +of her wages; so that, while she concealed nothing from him, these +things nevertheless had to be done exclusively in his absence. And was +she in so doing really making herself ridiculous? Did he consider her +ridiculous? Or was it not merely the false and enervating influences +of the indolent society in which he lived that had poisoned his mind, +and drawn him away from her as though into another world? + +Alas! if he were in this other world, was not she quite alone? What +companionship was there possible between her and the people in this +new and strange land into which she had ventured? As she lay on the +bed, with her head hidden down in the darkness, the pathetic wail of +the captive Jews seemed to come and go through the bitterness of her +thoughts, like some mournful refrain: "By the rivers of Babylon, there +we sat down; yea we wept when we remembered Zion." She almost heard +the words, and the reply that rose up in her heart was a great +yearning to go back to her own land, so that her eyes were filled with +tears in thinking of it, and she lay and sobbed there in the dusk. +Would not the old man living all by himself in that lonely island be +glad to see his little girl back again in the old house? And she would +sing to him as she used to sing, not as she had been singing to those +people whom her husband knew. "For there they that carried us away +captive required of us a song; and they that wasted us required of us +mirth, saying, Sing us one of the songs of Zion." And she had sung in +the strange land, among the strange people, with her heart breaking +with thoughts of the sea and the hills and the rude and sweet and +simple ways of the old bygone life she had left behind her. + +"Sheila!" + +She thought it was her father calling to her, and she rose with a +cry of joy. For one wild moment she fancied that outside were all the +people she knew--Duncan and Scarlett and Mairi--and that she was once +more at home, with the sea all around her, and the salt, cold air. + +"Sheila, I want to speak to you." + +It was her husband. She went to the door, opened it, and stood there +penitent and with downcast face. + +"Come, you must not be silly," he said with some kindness in his +voice. "You have had no dinner. You must be hungry." + +"I do not care for any: there is no use troubling the servants when I +would rather lie down," she said. + +"The servants! You surely don't take so seriously what I said about +them, Sheila? Of course you don't need to care what the servants +think. And in any case they have to bring up dinner for me, so you may +as well come and try." + +"Have you not had dinner?" she said timidly. + +"Do you think I could sit down and eat with the notion that you might +have tumbled into the Thames or been kidnapped, or something?" + +"I am very sorry," she said in a low voice, and in the gloom he felt +his hand taken and carried to her lips. Then they went down stairs +into the dining-room, which was now lit up by a blaze of gas and +candles. + +During dinner of course no very confidential talking was possible, +and indeed Sheila had plenty to tell of her adventures at Richmond. +Lavender was now in a more amiable mood, and was disposed to look +on the killing of the roebuck as rather a good joke. He complimented +Sheila on her good sense in having gone in at the Star and Garter for +lunch; and altogether something like better relations was established +between them. + +But when dinner was finally over and the servants dismissed, Lavender +placed Sheila's easy-chair for her as usual, drew his own near hers, +and lit a cigarette. + +"Now, tell me, Sheila," he said, "were you really vexed with me when +you went up stairs and locked yourself in your room? Did you think I +meant to displease you or say anything harsh to you?" + +"No, not any of those things," she said calmly: "I wished to be +alone--to think over what had happened. And I was grieved by what you +said, for I think you cannot help looking at many things not as I +will look at them. That is all. It is my bringing up in the Highlands, +perhaps." + +"Do you know, Sheila, it sometimes occurs to me that you are not quite +comfortable here? And I can't make out what is the matter. I think you +have a perverse fancy that you are different from the people you meet, +and that you cannot be like them, and all that sort of thing. Now, +dear, that is only a fancy. There need be no difference if only you +will take a little trouble." + +"Oh, Frank!" she said, going over and putting her hand on his +shoulder, "I cannot take that trouble. I cannot try to be like those +people. And I see a great difference in you since you have come back +to London, and you are getting to be like them and say the things they +say. If I could only see you, my own darling, up in the Lewis again, +with rough clothes on and a gun in your hand, I should be happy. You +were yourself up there, when you were helping us in the boat, or when +you were bringing home the salmon, or when we were all together at +night in the little parlor, you know--" + +"My dear, don't get so excited. Now sit down, and I will tell you all +about it. You seem to have the notion that people lose all their finer +sentiments simply because they don't, in society, burst into raptures +over them. You mustn't imagine all those people are selfish and +callous merely because they preserve a decent reticence. To tell you +the truth, that constant profession of noble feelings you would like +to see would have something of ostentation about it." + +Sheila only sighed. "I do not wish them to be altered," she said by +and by, with her eyes grown pensive: "all I know is, that I could +not live the same life. And you--you seemed to be happier up in the +Highlands than you have ever been since." + +"Well, you see, a man ought to be happy when he is enjoying a holiday +in the country along with the girl he is engaged to. But if I had +lived all my life killing salmon and shooting wild-duck, I should have +grown up an ignorant boor, with no more sense of--" + +He stopped, for he saw that the girl was thinking of her father. + +"Well, look here, Sheila. You see how you are placed--how we are +placed, rather. Wouldn't it be more sensible to get to understand +those people you look askance at, and establish better relations with +them, since you have got to live among them? I can't help thinking +you are too much alone, and you can't expect me to stay in the house +always with you. A husband and wife cannot be continually in each +other's company, unless they want to grow heartily tired of each +other. Now, if you would only lay aside those suspicions of yours, you +would find the people just as honest and generous and friendly as any +other sort of people you ever met, although they don't happen to be +fond of expressing their goodness in their talk." + +"I have tried, dear--I will try again," said Sheila. + +She resolved that she would go down and visit Mrs. Lavender next day, +and try to be interested in the talk of such people as might be there. +She would bring away some story about this or the other fashionable +woman or noble lord, just to show her husband that she was doing her +best to learn. She would drive patiently round the Park in that close +little brougham, and listen attentively to the moralities of Marcus +Aurelius. She would make an appointment to go with Mrs. Lavender to +a morning concert; and she would endeavor to muster up courage to ask +any ladies who might be there to lunch with her on that day, and go +afterward to this same entertainment. All these things and many more +Sheila silently vowed to herself she would do, while her husband sat +and expounded to her his theories of the obligations which society +demanded of its members. + +But her plans were suddenly broken asunder. + +"I met Mrs. Lorraine accidentally to-day," he said. + +It was his first mention of the young American lady. Sheila sat in +mute expectation. + +"She always asks very kindly after you." + +"She is very kind." + +He did not say, however, that Mrs. Lorraine had more than once made +distinct propositions, when in his company, that they should call in +for Sheila and take her out for a drive or to a flower-show, or some +such place, while Lavender had always some excuse ready. + +"She is going to Brighton to-morrow, and she was wondering whether you +would care to run down for a day or two." + +"With her?" said Sheila, recoiling from such a proposal instinctively. + +"Of course not. I should go. And then at last, you know, you would see +the sea, about which you have been dreaming for ever so long." + +The sea! There was a magic in the very word that could, almost at +any moment, summon tears into her eyes. Of course she accepted +right gladly. If her husband's duties were so pressing that the +long-talked-of journey to Lewis and Borva had to be repeatedly and +indefinitely postponed, here at least would be a chance of looking +again at the sea--of drinking in the freshness and light and color of +it--of renewing her old and intimate friendship with it that had been +broken off for so long by her stay in this city of perpetual houses +and still sunshine. + +"You can tell her you will go when you see her to-night at Lady +Mary's. By the way, isn't it time for you to begin to dress?" + +"Oh, Lady Mary's!" repeated Sheila mechanically, who had quite +forgotten about her engagement for that evening. + +"Perhaps you are too tired to go," said her husband. + +She was a little tired, in truth. But surely, just after her promises, +spoken and unspoken, some little effort was demanded of her; so she +bravely went to dress, and in about three-quarters of an hour was +ready to drive down to Curzon street. Her husband had never seen her +look so pleased before in going out to any party. He flattered himself +that his lecture had done her good. There was fair common sense in +what he had said, and although, doubtless, a girl's romanticism was +a pretty thing, it would have to yield to the actual requirements of +society. In time he should educate Sheila. + +But he did not know what brightened the girl's face all that night, +and put a new life into the beautiful eyes, so that even those who +knew her best were struck by her singular beauty. It was the sea that +was coloring Sheila's eyes. The people around her, the glare of the +candles, the hum of talking, and the motion of certain groups dancing +over there in the middle of the throng,--all were faint and visionary, +for she was busily wondering what the sea would be like the next +morning, and what strange fancies would strike her when once more +she walked on sand and heard the roar of waves. That, indeed, was +the sound that was present in her ears while the music played and +the people murmured around her. Mrs. Lorraine talked to her, and was +surprised and amused to notice the eager fashion in which the girl +spoke of their journey of the next day. The gentleman who took her in +to supper found himself catechised about Brighton in a manner which +afforded him more occupation than enjoyment. And when Sheila drove +away from the house at two in the morning she declared to her husband +that she had enjoyed herself extremely, and he was glad to hear it; +and she was particularly kind to himself in getting him his slippers, +and fetching him that final cigarette which he always had on reaching +home; and then she went off to bed to dream of ships and flying clouds +and cold winds, and a great and beautiful blue plain of waves. + +[TO BE CONTINUED.] + + + + +GOLD. + + + A day of bright reflections on the pond, + And wavering shadows over moss and frond: + A wayward breeze, the summer's latest born, + Teased the stiff grain and bent the stately corn, + Or rocked the bird-nests in the prickly thorn. + + Above, the lavish sun filled air with gold; + Again, below, on mimic waves it rolled, + And hid in lily cups. Her netted hair + Gleamed in the splendor, bright beyond compare, + Forming about her head a nimbus rare. + + The velvet mullen raised its yellow head, + The buttercups like precious ore were spread: + Like golden shuttles flung by spirit hands, + Weaving invisible their magic strands, + Darted quick orioles in joyous bands. + + Fond helianthus turned her fervent face, + Meek antirrhinum paled and grew apace; + Late dandelions, robed in cloth of gold, + With golden-rod, upsprung from out the mould, + And pensive, gold-eyed daisies pranked the wold. + + As snowy, gold-rimmed cloudlets hide the sky, + So hid her eyelid's golden fringe her eye: + As every growing beauty of the earth + But figures forth great Nature's hidden worth, + So my love's charms from her pure heart had birth. + + Pure heart of gold to me that day was given, + And promise true as gold made earth a heaven; + Then far away fled every doubt forlorn; + We felt for us the Golden Age reborn, + And envied none their gold from labor torn. + +ITA ANIOL PROKOP. + + + + +GLIMPSES OF GHOST-LAND. + + +It is no longer the fashion to scoff at tales of the supernatural. +On the contrary, there is a growing tendency to investigate subjects +which were formerly pooh-poohed by most persons claiming to be well +informed and capable of reasoning. It is, however, without propounding +any theory or advancing any opinion that I record a few instances of +apparently supernatural, or at least inexplicable, occurrences. I can +vouch for the truth of nearly all the stories I am about to relate, +one of them only not being either my personal experience or narrated +to me by some one of the actors in the scene. + +My first story shall be one that was told to me by an aged lady who +was one of the friends of my youth, and who often mentioned this +strange incident of her placid, yet busy life. She was a sensible, +practical woman, the last person in the world likely to be led astray +by an overheated imagination or deceived by hallucinations. Her early +youth had been passed in the country, her father being a wealthy +farmer. She had formed a close intimacy with the daughter of a +gentleman living at some distance from her father's farm, and the two +were seldom apart. An invitation given to my friend (whom I shall call +Mrs. L----) to visit some relatives in a neighboring city caused a +brief separation between the two girls, and they parted with many +protestations of enduring affection. On the day appointed for Mrs. +L----'s return she set out at the prescribed hour. The latter part +of her journey was to be performed on horseback. On a bright sunny +afternoon in June she found herself, about five o'clock, drawing +near her father's house. Suddenly in the broad road before her she +perceived a female form walking rapidly toward her, and, to her +delight, recognized her friend coming, as she thought, to meet her. + +"I will make her go back with me and take tea," was Mrs. L----'s +thought as she whipped up her horse in her haste to greet the dear +one, who was all the more beloved on account of their temporary +separation. But as she approached the figure, and before she had had +time to speak, or indeed to do more than notice that her friend looked +very pale and ill, her horse, an unusually quiet, steady animal, +seemed struck with sudden terror, reared, shied, and finally plunged +into a hollow by the roadside, from which she had some difficulty +in extricating him. When she did succeed in bringing him back to the +level road she found, to her astonishment, that the young girl had +disappeared. Around her lay the open fields, before her and behind +her the road--all in the bright lustre of the summer afternoon--but no +trace of the figure could she see. Completely mystified, she hastened +home, there to learn that her friend had died suddenly that very +morning. + +The next incident I shall narrate was told me by a German gentleman +whose mother was the heroine of the tale. His father had been +appointed to some public office in a small German town, and among +the emoluments of the place was the privilege of residing in a large, +old-fashioned, but very handsome mansion. The husband and wife set off +in high spirits to inspect their new abode, to which some portion of +their furniture had already been transferred. They went from room +to room, inspecting and planning, till they came to an apartment +the ceiling of which was elaborately decorated with plaster Cupids, +baskets of flowers, etc., modeled in high relief, and with a +centre-piece of unusual size and magnificence. A small table, the only +article of furniture the room contained, was placed directly under +this centre-piece. The young wife, rather weary of her researches, was +standing beside this table, and was leaning on it while she went on +talking with her husband, when suddenly a loud, imploring voice called +from down stairs, "Caroline! Caroline! come down to me--come!" + +"Who can that be?" asked the husband in amazement. "I fastened all the +doors and windows before we left the lower rooms." + +Again came the loud call, this time with an accent of agonized +entreaty: "Caroline! oh, Caroline! come down--_do_ come!" + +The young couple hesitated no longer, but hastened down stairs. There +was no one there. Doors and windows were securely fastened, and the +old house looked as solitary as when they had first entered it. + +"Very strange!" said the gentleman. "But now that we _are_ down here, +Caroline, suppose we take a look at the garden?" So they sallied forth +to examine that portion of their new domain, but scarcely had they +entered it when they were startled by a loud crash within the house. +Looking up, they saw volumes of what appeared to be smoke issuing from +the window of the room they had just quitted, and fearing that the +room was on fire, they quickly returned to it. There was no fire: what +had appeared to be smoke was only a cloud of dust, for the massive and +elaborately ornamented ceiling had fallen, and the heavy centre-piece +had crushed to fragments the table against which the young wife had so +lately been leaning. But for the warning voice her destruction would +have been inevitable. My informant went on to state that the pieces +of the shattered table were preserved as sacred relics by his parents, +and that his mother always declared that she had recognized in the +mysterious voice that of a dear relative long before deceased. + +It was once my fortune to pass some weeks in a "haunted house." I was +quite young then, a mere school-girl in fact, and the friend whom I +came to visit was also very young; and both of us were too gay and +frolicsome to care much for whatever was strange or startling in our +surroundings. Not that we ever saw anything--my friend herself, the +daughter of the house, had never done so--but the sounds we heard were +sufficiently odd and inexplicable to fill us with astonishment, if not +with terror. Twice during my visit I was roused from a sound slumber +by a loud, heavy crash, resembling that which might be caused by +the overthrow of a marble-topped washstand or bureau, or some other +equally ponderous piece of furniture. The room actually vibrated, and +yet a close scrutiny of that and the adjoining apartments failed to +reveal any cause for the peculiar noise. It was a sound which could +not possibly have been produced by cracking furniture, falling bricks, +scampering rats, or any other of the numerous causes of supposed +ghostly sounds. The room overhead was used as a linen-room, and was +always kept locked; and besides, the noise (which I afterward heard +on another occasion in broad daylight, when I was wide awake) was +unmistakably _in_ the room where we found ourselves. My friend told me +that she had heard it very often--so often, in fact, that she had +got quite used to it, and no longer felt any emotion save that of +curiosity. + +There was another room in which (also in broad daylight) I heard a +strange crackling sound like the rustling of a large sheet of stiff +paper or parchment turned slowly in the reader's hands. This noise +also was one of frequent occurrence. Among the things seen by other +members of the family was a light that glided over walls and ceiling +in points inaccessible to outside light or reflection. Then there was +a lady in black silk who had more than once been seen gliding about +the house, but who always disappeared when accosted or followed. Three +slow, solemn raps sometimes sounded at dead of night at the door of +one member of the family, a skeptical and irascible old gentleman. + +But, strange to say, all these uncanny sights and sounds portended +nothing, and seemed to be utterly without a purpose or a cause. The +house was a cheerful modern one, and the father of my friend was +its first occupant; so there was nothing in the past to which these +unearthly occurrences could refer. Nor were they warnings of coming +misfortune. Neither death nor disaster ever followed in their train, +and in due course of time the family ceased to trouble their heads +about them--were not at all frightened, and scarcely even annoyed. +There were other sounds which I did not myself hear, but of which I +was told--stealthy footsteps that paced a certain corridor at dead +of night; a sharp, rattling noise like hail dashing against the +window-panes, and one or two other trifling yet equally unaccountable +occurrences. Once, too, a young lady visiting the house heard in the +next room to that in which she was loud and lamentable sounds, as of +a woman weeping bitterly and in sore distress. She listened in +considerable perplexity for some time, fearing to intrude on the +sorrows of some member of the family; but at last she resolved to go +and proffer aid, if not consolation. As he approached the door between +the two rooms the sound suddenly ceased, and, to her amazement, she +found the adjoining apartment not only empty, but with the door locked +and bolted on the inside. + +I once knew a young lady who, on going to pay a visit to a friend who +had recently moved into a new house, was asked to walk up stairs, +and on complying saw an old woman preceding her up the staircase. +Supposing her to be one of the servants, she took but little notice +of her, though struck by the peculiarity of her gait, a sort of jerky +limp, as though one leg was shorter than the other. In the course of +conversation with her friend she mentioned the old woman, and asked if +she was the housekeeper. "Housekeeper? no," said the lady: "we have no +such person about our house. You must have been mistaken." The visitor +then described the person she had seen, and when she mentioned the +peculiar limp her hostess seemed startled. After a pause she said: +"No such person lives here _now_, but the woman who took care of this +house before we rented it was exactly such a person as you describe, +and was lame in just such a manner. But she died here about six weeks +ago--I think in this very room--so your eyes must certainly have +deceived you." The lady still persisted that she had seen the old +woman; so the servants were called and the house thoroughly searched, +but no intruder was discovered. + +I have known several instances of persons who have seen the "fetch" or +apparition of a living person, called in Germany the "Doppelgaenger;" +yet, though such appearances are usually supposed to portend the death +or illness of the person thus strangely "doubled," I have never +yet heard of a case where any unpleasant consequences followed. For +instance, an old friend of mine, a gentleman of undoubted veracity, +once told me that on one occasion he entered his house about +five o'clock in the afternoon, and ran up stairs to his mother's +bed-chamber, where he saw her standing near the centre of the room, +clad in a loose white gown and engaged in combing out her long black +hair. He remained looking at her for some moments, expecting that +she would speak to him, but she did not take notice in any way of his +presence, and neither spoke nor looked at him. He then addressed her, +but, receiving no reply, became indignant and went down stairs, where, +to his amazement, he found his mother seated by the parlor window, +dressed and _coiffee_ as usual. It was some years before he would +trust himself to tell her of what he had seen, fearing that she might +consider it an omen of approaching death, and indeed, though not a +superstitious man, he was inclined so to view it himself; but his +mother lived for many years after the appearance of her wraith. I also +knew a young gentleman to whom the unpleasant experience of beholding +his own double was once vouchsafed. He had been spending a quiet +evening with some young ladies, and returned home about eleven +o'clock, let himself into the house with his latch-key and proceeded +to his own room, where he found the gas already lighted, though turned +down to a mere blue spark. He turned it up, and the full light of the +jet shone on his bed, which stood just beside the burner, and there, +extended at full length, lay--himself. His first idea was of a +burglar or some such intruder. But his second glance dispelled that +impression. He stood for some moments gazing at the prostrate figure +with feelings which must have been anything but agreeable: he noticed +little peculiarities of his own dress and features, and marked the +closed eyelids and easy respiration of slumber. At length, plucking up +courage, he attempted to pass his hand under the pillow to draw out a +small revolver which he usually kept there, and as he did so he felt +the pressure of the pillow as though weighed down by a reclining head. +This completely unnerved him. He went out of the room, locking the +door on the outside, and spent the remainder of the night on a sofa in +the parlor. He did not re-enter his chamber till broad daylight, when, +to his delight, he found that his ghostly visitor had vanished. + +The next story on my list was narrated to me by one of the most +sensible and intelligent women I ever met--a lady of great strength +of character, joined to a fine and highly cultivated mind. During +her childhood my friend (whom I shall call Mrs. X----) dwelt with her +parents in a large, roomy house in the vicinity of one of our inland +cities. The house was a double one, a solid, substantial structure +built of stone, and had been purchased by her father a short time +before the occurrences which I am about to relate. A wide lawn at the +back of the mansion sloped down to the bank of a small stream, +along the verge of which, without intervening bank or path, ran the +terminating wall of the grounds. The stables were also situated at the +foot of this lawn, and the back windows of these stables looked out on +the water. Mrs. X---- had several brothers and sisters, all of whom, +as well as herself, were still children at the period of which she +spoke. + +One summer evening her parents accepted an invitation to take tea with +a friend, and went out, leaving the children at play in the library, a +room which opened on the main hall on the ground floor. The front +door was open, and as it grew dark a large hanging lamp which fully +illuminated the hall was lighted, so that every part of it, as well as +the staircase, was fully illuminated. Late in the evening the children +were disturbed at their play in the library by the sound of heavy +footsteps ascending the outer steps and then pacing along the hall. +Imagining that it was their parents who had returned earlier than +they expected, they rushed to the door to greet them, but to their +astonishment they could see no one, though the heavy steps were +still heard traversing the hall, ascending the staircase, and finally +resounding on the floor of a room overhead. The children summoned the +servants, who merely laughed at their story, till one of the maids, +who had been busy up stairs, came down and said that her master and +mistress must surely have returned, as she had heard them walking +along the entry and afterward entering one of the rooms. Upon this, +one of the men-servants went up stairs and made a careful search, but +without rinding any one. In the midst of the excitement the lady and +gentleman of the house returned home, and upon hearing the story the +gentleman himself instituted a second and more vigorous search, which, +like the first, was wholly without result. + +Some time after this the children were playing under their nurse's +care on the lawn at the back of the house one gray, dismal afternoon +in the early autumn. The attention of the whole party was suddenly +attracted by the figure of a man passing slowly outside of the +stone wall that stretched along the foot of the lawn, and finally +disappearing behind the stable. As he did so a tremendous uproar arose +among the horses in the stable, and on examination one of them, a +remarkably fine and docile animal, whose stall happened to be next the +window that opened on the water, was found to be in a perfect ecstasy +of terror, plunging, rearing and struggling to get loose in a manner +that rendered the task of releasing and removing him anything but an +easy or even a safe one. After the horse was got out of the stable and +led away, the question arose, What had frightened him? Could the man +they had seen passing behind the stable have done anything to terrify +him? Then, for the first time, it dawned on the minds of the whole +party that no human being could have walked where they had seen the +passing figure, as the wall rose straight from the verge of the water, +and there was no pathway between the wall and the stream, which in +that spot was deep, though not very wide. Strange to say, the horse +could never be induced to re-enter that stable, but always manifested +signs of wild alarm and excitement when brought even to the door, +though in all other respects he was perfectly gentle and tractable. + +Owing to the size of the family, one of the large garret-rooms +had been fitted up as a bed-room for one of the younger boys, who +preferred having a chamber of his own to sharing the apartment of +one of his brothers. He had not occupied it long before he began to +complain of frightful dreams, and more than once he came trembling +down stairs and took refuge in his mother's room, terrified by +something horrible--_what_, he could not define, but something that +came into his room at night and roused him from his slumbers. Thinking +that the child was merely nervous and excitable, she changed the +arrangements, put him to sleep in the bed-room of one of his brothers, +and gave up the apartment in the garret to one of the servants. But +in a very short time the complaints were renewed: the girl could not +sleep on account of that vague, strange horror, which often drove her +shrieking and half awakened from her bed. So the lady had the room +dismantled, and used it as a lumber-room, and during the remaining +years of her occupancy of the house was troubled no more. + +As time passed on, the increasing exigencies of his growing family +induced Mrs. X----'s father to purchase a house in town, and he +accordingly rented his country-mansion to a childless pair, a +clergyman and his wife. The new residents had not been long installed +when a series of ghostly disturbances began in real earnest. I believe +that nothing more was ever _seen_, but the kitchen at night, when all +the family had retired, would at times become the seat of an appalling +uproar of inarticulate voices and clashing dishes and dragging +furniture. If any one was bold enough to venture down stairs, the +noise would suddenly cease, and the kitchen itself never showed any +trace of these unearthly revels, every plate, dish, cup and chair +remaining in its accustomed place. Then, too, the footsteps of the +invisible intruder were heard again, and often while the minister was +writing in his study the steps would be heard coming through the door +and across the room, and the unseen visitor would seat himself in +the chair that usually stood opposite to that of the clergyman at the +writing-table, when a sound as of the pages of a large book with stiff +paper leaves being slowly turned would usually ensue. The minister +often addressed his invisible companion, but never received any reply +to his questions or his appeals. + +On hearing these strange stories, Mrs. X----'s father determined upon +trying to trace out the history of the house before it came into his +possession. He learned that it had originally been occupied by the +person who built it, a man of low origin, who, being looked upon as +a pillar of the Church by the congregation to which he belonged, +had been entrusted with the task of collecting certain sums due to +it--whether actual income or subscriptions I do not now recollect. At +all events, he never paid over the money, but launched out into sundry +extravagances rather unusual for a man in his station of life, amongst +which was the erection of this large and handsome house. But from the +time the house was finished a blight seemed to fall upon his life. He +gave up all his religious and regular habits, frequented evil company, +took to drinking, and finally, in a fit of delirium tremens, hanged +himself in the very garret room of which I have before spoken. The +scenes at his funeral were said to baffle description. The corpse +was laid out in the kitchen, and thither all his late boon-companions +repaired and turned the sad ceremonial into a hideous orgy. Among +other horrible deeds, they took the corpse from the coffin, propped it +up in a chair and poured whisky down its throat. + +The incidents which I have related happened when Mrs. X---- was a +child, and she is now in the prime of womanhood. When she finished +her story I recollected that scarce a year ago I had read in a +Philadelphia paper an extract from one of the journals of the town +near which this house stood, giving an account of an investigation +which was then taking place of the cause of sundry strange +disturbances occurring in this very house. The extract closed with the +history of its builder and first occupant, tallying exactly with what +she related to me, though with fewer details. So, after all these +years, the perturbed spirit still refuses to rest. + +The narrative with which I shall conclude this chapter of ghostly +experiences is one for the truth of which I am not prepared to vouch, +as I was neither an actor in its scenes nor was it related to me by +one who was. Yet were the incidents of any other than a supernatural +nature I should consider the authority from which I learned them as +unquestionable. + +A few years ago a lady in quest of summer lodgings for herself, her +sister and her children (her husband being absent) was offered a +large, old-fashioned house in the vicinity of one of our seashore +resorts on highly advantageous terms. Having inspected the house and +found it, though old, in good repair, she engaged it joyfully, and +a few weeks after the date of her first negotiations she was settled +there with her family. For some time nothing occurred to mar the peace +of the household. The children enjoyed the fresh sea-breezes, their +pleasant sports on the beach and the large airy rooms, while the +ladies sewed and read and looked after household matters and took long +walks after the fashion of most people during the summer season by the +seaside. One night, when the mother was about to retire to rest, one +of her younger children, a bright little boy, called to her from his +sleeping-room. Fearing that he was ill, she hastened to him. + +"Mamma," he said very earnestly, "I wish you would tell that strange +woman to keep out of my room." + +"What woman, dear?" asked his mother, convinced that he had been +dreaming. + +"I don't know her name, and I can't see her face because she wears a +big sun-bonnet, but she comes and stands at the foot of my bed, and +she frightens me." + +"Well, never mind, dear. Go to sleep, and if ever she troubles you +again, come into my room and sleep with me," answered the mother, +still thinking that the child had been wakened by an uneasy dream. The +little fellow, thus soothed and consoled, soon fell asleep, and +slept soundly till morning. But a few nights afterward the child +came running into his mother's room at dead of night, panting and +terrified, and exclaiming, "Mamma! mamma! she has come again!" His +mother took him into her arms, and soon caressed away his fears, but +thinking that the child's uneasiness was caused by his sleeping alone, +she had his bed moved into her own chamber, and fitted up the vacant +apartment as a guest-chamber. Soon after this the servants began +to complain of strange sights and sounds for which they could not +account, and one burning July day the sister, who was seated by the +parlor window, happened to say, "Oh, I am so warm!" when a voice, +seemingly from the cellar, made answer, "And _I_ am so cold!" Struck +with amazement, she called, but no one replied, and subsequent +investigation proved that there was no one in the cellar at that +moment, nor could there have been, as its only door was always kept +locked. + +I cannot now recall the details of various strange occurrences which +afterward took place, but will pass on to the final one, which may be +considered as the denoument of the whole story. The lady of the house, +a strong-minded, practical woman, had always sternly rejected the +theory that the odd incidents that annoyed her had any supernatural +origin; so, disregarding them wholly, she sent an invitation to an +old friend of hers, a clergyman, to pay her a visit of some weeks' +duration. Her invitation was accepted, and in due time her guest +arrived and was put in possession of the spare bed-room. Night coming +on, the whole household retired to rest. Early in the morning the +active hostess rose to see that all was in order for the further +entertainment of her guest, when, on going into the parlor to unfasten +the shutters, what was her amazement to find him there extended on the +sofa, and looking very ill, as though he had passed a wretched night! +In answer to her anxious questioning he stated that on retiring to +rest he had fallen into a profound slumber, from which he suddenly +woke, and saw a woman wearing a large sun-bonnet, which completely +concealed her face, standing beside his bed, the moonlight which shone +into the room rendering every detail of her figure distinctly visible. +Supposing that she was one of the servants who had come to his room to +see that he was perfectly comfortable and wanted nothing, he spoke to +her. What she replied, or how he first became convinced that the Thing +before him was no form of flesh and blood, I cannot now remember; but +I recollect two particulars of the interview: one was, that she told +him to look for her in the cellar; the other, that he asked her why +she wore a sun-bonnet, and she answered, "Because the lime has +spoilt my face." At this his failing senses forsook him, and when +consciousness returned his ghostly visitor had disappeared. + +His hostess heard him in silence. As soon as breakfast was over she +requested him to accompany her to the cellar. Careful examination soon +revealed a spot where some of the stones with which it was paved had +been removed and afterward replaced. Assistants with proper tools were +procured, the stones were lifted, and after a few minutes of vigorous +digging a mass of lime was disclosed, in which was found imbedded +a quantity of calcined fragments of bone, which medical authority +afterward pronounced to be portions of a human skeleton. These poor +remains were carefully removed, placed in a box and interred in a +neighboring cemetery, and the "woman in a sun-bonnet" was seen no +more. + +Subsequent investigation into the history of the old house revealed +the following facts. It had originally been occupied by a retired +sea-captain and his only son, the latter a wild, reckless youth of +evil character and confirmed bad habits. A young girl went to live +there as a servant, and for some months seemed well contented with her +place, but afterward she became gloomy and unhappy, and was frequently +seen in tears by the neighbors. At last she disappeared, and it was +given out by her employers that she had gone to visit some friends at +a distance, but she did not return, and suspicion was already directed +toward the old man and his son, when one morning the house was found +to be shut up, its inhabitants having found it expedient to remove +as silently and secretly as possible. The girl was never heard of +afterward. The discovery of the bones led to the supposition that the +younger man had seduced her, had afterward murdered her to conceal his +original crime, and that he had then buried the body in the cellar, +taking the precaution to cover it with quicklime. + +As I said at the beginning of this article, I neither wish to propound +any theories nor to deduce any conclusions from the relations I have +given. I can only reiterate my statement that they came to me from +sources the reliability of which I cannot question. I have carefully +excluded everything relating to the supernatural which I ever heard +from the lips of ignorant and superstitious persons, and have only +recorded such incidents as bore an added weight of evidence in the +shape of the sense, intelligence and unquestionable veracity of their +relators. + +LUCY H. HOOPER. + + + + +AFTERNOON. + + + Small, shapeless drifts of cloud + Sail slowly northward in the soft-hued sky, + With blue half-tints and rolling summits bright, + By the late sun caressed; slight hazes shroud + All things afar; shineth each leaf anigh + With its own warmth and light. + + O'erblown by Southland airs, + The summer landscape basks in utter peace: + In lazy streams the lazy clouds are seen; + Low hills, broad meadows, and large, clear-cut squares + Of ripening corn-fields, rippled by the breeze, + With shifting shade and sheen. + + Hark! and you may not hear + A sound less soothing than the rustle cool + Of swaying leaves, the steady wiry drone + Of unseen crickets, sudden chirpings clear + Of happy birds, the tinkle of the pool, + Chafed by a single stone. + + What vague, delicious dreams, + Born of this golden hour of afternoon, + And air balm-freighted, fill the soul with bliss, + Transpierced like yonder clouds with lustrous gleams, + Fantastic, brief as they, and, like them, spun + Of gilded nothingness! + + All things are well with her. + 'Tis good to be alive, to see the light + That plays upon the grass, to feel (and sigh + With perfect pleasure) the mild breezes stir + Among the garden roses, red and white, + With whiffs of fragrancy. + + There is no troublous thought, + No painful memory, no grave regret, + To mar the sweet suggestions of the hour: + The soul, at peace, reflects the peace without, + Forgetting grief as sunset skies forget + The morning's transient shower. + +EMMA LAZARUS. + + + + +OUR MONTHLY GOSSIP. + +WASHINGTON'S BIRTHPLACE IN 1873. + + +Was George Washington born in Great Britain or America? Absurd as +this question must sound to an American, it has been gravely discussed +within the last few months by a writer in the London _Notes and +Queries_, who has the effrontery to say that Washington's own brief +assertion in a letter to the effect that he was born in Virginia +cannot be conclusive. "No man's unsupported testimony," he adds, "as +to the place of his birth would be taken in evidence in a court of +justice, for his knowledge of the event must necessarily be from +hearsay or from records." This is silly enough. I did not see the +whole article, or learn by what arguments the writer endeavored +to substantiate his doubts, if he really had any, as to the true +birthplace of the _Pater Patriae_, but, feeling some interest in the +matter, I cut out the slip containing the quotation just given, +and enclosed it in a letter to a prominent gentleman living in +Westmoreland not far from Wakefield, the estate on which the +birthplace--or rather the site of it--is situated, with a request that +he would reply to it. He did so promptly and almost indignantly. + +"I am amazed," says he, "at the contents of the printed slip you send +me. That any man of ordinary intelligence, living within the bounds +of civilization, could be ignorant of or doubt the fact that General +Washington was born in America, I did not for a moment suppose." He +goes on to say that if Washington's biography, written by so many +competent hands, and founded upon sources the most authentic, and +particularly the Lives of Marshall, Sparks and Irving, were not +sufficient to convince incredulity itself, he is at a loss to know +what would. Certainly, he would not attempt the task himself. In +addition to the well-known biographies, traditions and memoranda +attest the fact beyond the possibility of enlightened doubt. +Other credible and corroborative records are not wanting. "Had the +question," he concludes, "been asked of Dr. Livingstone by some +savage in the depths of the African jungles, it would not have been +surprising; but to come from a writer in _London_, it is inexpressibly +marvelous, and looks like a relapse into barbarism." + +Among the memoranda alluded to is a fac-simile of the entry of the +birth of Washington in the Bible of his mother, which is given in +Howe's _Historical Collections of Virginia_, as follows: + +"_George Washington son to Augustine and Mary his Wife was Born 11'th +Day of February_ 173-1/2 _about_ 10 _in the Morning and was Baptized +the_ 3'th (sic) _of April following M'r Beverley Whiting and Cap'n +Christopher Brooks godfathers and M'rs Mildred Gregory God-mother."_ + +There are no marks of punctuation, and Howe states that the original +entry is supposed to have been made by Washington's mother. If so, the +handwriting, not very unlike Washington's own, is unusually masculine, +compact, even and clear for a woman's. Howe's book was published in +1836. At that time the old family Bible, a much dilapidated quarto +with the title-page missing, and covered with the striped Virginia +cloth so common in old days, was in the possession of George +W. Bassett, Esq., of Farmington, Hanover county, who married a +grand-niece of Washington. At that time, too, the birthplace, which +had been destroyed previous to the Revolution, was much more plainly +marked than it is now. From its associations, and from its natural +beauties as well, the place was doubly interesting. Standing half +a mile from the junction of Pope's Creek with the Potomac River, +it commanded a view of the Maryland shore and of the course of the +Potomac for many miles. The house was a low-pitched, single-storied +frame dwelling, with four rooms on the first floor, and a huge chimney +at each end on the outside--the style of the better class of houses of +those days. A stone, placed there to mark its site by G.W.P. Custis, +bore the simple inscription: + +"HERE, ON THE 11TH OF FEBRUARY (O.S.), 1732, GEORGE WASHINGTON WAS +BORN." + +Such was its appearance in 1834 or '35, when Howe visited it. Its +present condition may be gathered from what the writer of the letter +in response to the London querist has to say about the site itself, +that being all that is left of a place so memorable and so deserving +of perpetuation: + +"I have had no opportunity to obtain the sketch I promised you. +Indeed, there is virtually no material to make a sketch of. The +birthplace is now simply an old field lying waste, with indistinct +vestiges of a human habitation. An old chimney stands which belonged +to an outhouse (kitchen or laundry), some remains of a cellar, and the +foundations of a house in which tradition states Washington was born. +There was a stone slab, with a simple inscription, placed on the spot +some sixty years ago by G. W: P. Custis, to denote the place, but it +was long ago removed from its original position, mutilated and broken, +so that only a fragment remains." + +That a place of such interest--one might call it sacred--should be +left to decay and obliteration is no new thing in Virginia. Enemies +might well declare that neglect of her mighty dead is characteristic +of the old commonwealth. The truth is, she has a great many dead to +care for, and of late years all her time has been absorbed in the care +of her living. But something has been done, or attempted to be done, +to rescue Washington's birthplace from oblivion. As far back as 1858 +an act was passed by the General Assembly of Virginia, accepting from +Lewis Washington a grant of the "site of the birthplace of George +Washington, and the home and graves of his progenitors in America," +and appropriating five thousand dollars "to enclose the same in an +iron fence," etc. Hon. Henry A. Wise, governor of Virginia at the time +this act was passed, entered with zeal and alacrity upon the work, the +execution of which was entrusted to him by the Legislature--went in +person to Westmoreland, examined carefully the sites, negotiated with +the owner of the adjacent farm for right of way, adopted a plan for +the enclosures and tablets, and began a correspondence with mechanics +and artisans at the North with a view to the speedy completion of the +work, and--just then his term expired, the war soon followed, and the +matter was of course dropped. + +The money appropriated, together with the accrued interest, is now +in the treasury of Virginia, and although Governor Walker in his late +message did not bring the subject to the attention of the Legislature, +the long-delayed work will be consummated sooner or later, and "a neat +iron fence" with a few plain slabs will be erected on the hallowed +spot. But it strikes the present writer that five thousand dollars, or +even ten thousand dollars, form rather a small sum for such an object, +and that "a neat iron fence" is not exactly the thing that the place +and its memories demand. But not a dollar more may be expected of +Virginia at this time. She owes too much, and has too little. If one +of the many Northern gentlemen who are lavishing their hundreds of +thousands on colleges and other charities would come to Westmoreland +and put something a little better than a "neat iron fence" around the +birthplace of Washington, he would do a noble deed for himself and for +both sections of his lately estranged country. + +R.B.E. + + + + +VICISSITUDES IN HIGH LIFE. + + +The London papers lately recorded the death of a lady who was the +representative and last descendant, save one sister, of a house famous +in English history. This was Lady Langdale, widow of Bickersteth, +first and last Lord Langdale, and sister of Harley, last earl of +Oxford. Lady Langdale had but one child, who married Count Teleki, a +Hungarian nobleman, and pre-deceased her mother, dying childless. Lord +Langdale was the son of Mr. Bickersteth, surgeon, of Kirby-Lonsdale, +Westmoreland. He was brought up to his father's vocation, and +traveled, as physician, with the earl of Oxford. + +Impressed, no doubt, with Mr. Bickersteth's extraordinary abilities, +Lord Oxford advised him to go to college and read for the law, which +offered greater prizes than the medical profession. Accordingly, +he entered at Cambridge, and in 1808 graduated as senior wrangler. +Twenty-seven years later, in 1835, he married the daughter and heiress +of his friend and patron, and the year following was created a peer. + +His brother Edward was the celebrated evangelical leader in the Church +of England. Bred to the law, he abandoned that profession for holy +orders. Their nephew, son of their brother John, is the present bishop +of Ripon. + +The Harleys have been seated for six or seven centuries in +Herefordshire, at Brampton-Bryan and Egwood, properties which in part +remained in Lady Langdale's possession. By marriage! with the heiress +of the Vaughans in the fifteenth century, they became possessed of +Wigmore Castle, the ancient heritage of the extinct earls of Mortimer, +and great estates which added to their consequence. + +When Charles II. made a batch of peers on his restoration, the +Harley of that day displayed a rare modesty. The king offered him a +viscounty, but he declined the honor, "lest his zeal and services +for the restoration of the ancient government should be reproached as +proceeding from ambition, and not conscience;" and so scrupulous was +he that his being made a knight of the Bath even was done without his +knowledge, he being then at Dunkirk, and Charles inserting with his +own hand his name in the list. But his son was destined for a higher +dignity, for he it was who became in the tenth year of the reign of +Charles II.'s niece, Queen Anne, earl of Oxford and Mortimer, being +the famous Harley of that reign, linked in our memories with St. John +Lord Bolingbroke, the Mashams, Marlboroughs, Swift, Addison, Pope, and +the host of brilliant men which makes the reign of one of the feeblest +women who ever sat on a throne a period of almost pre-eminent interest +in English annals to men of cultivated mind subject to the influence +of association. By Elizabeth Foley, daughter of the first Lord Foley, +of Witley Court (sold, about thirty-five years ago, with the bulk +of the Foley estates, for L990,000 to Lord Dudley, who married Lady +Mordaunt's sister), the famous lord treasurer, Oxford, had one +son, the second earl. He was the friend of Swift, to whom the dean +addressed so many letters. A man of literary tastes, he spent a +portion of his immense fortune in forming the finest library of the +period, and it is to him the student is indebted for the magnificent +collection known as the "Harleian," which subsequently became, by +purchase, the property of the nation, and is deposited in the British +Museum. He married the greatest heiress of the day, Lady Henrietta +Cavendish-Holies, only daughter and heir of the duke of Newcastle (of +the Holies creation--the present duke, a Pelham-Clinton, derives from +a different descent). He left but one daughter. She married the second +duke of Portland, grandson of Dutch William's pet page Bentinck, whom +he imported into England, and loaded with honors and emolument until +even the House of Commons of _that_ day cried out loudly, "Enough! +stop!" Through this lady the Bentincks got Welbeck, the duke of +Portland's chief seat to-day. + +Meanwhile, the Oxford honors and patrimonial estates in Herefordshire +passed to the second earl's first cousin, and so on, in regular +succession, until the earldom became extinct by the death of Lady +Langdale's brother a few years ago. One of Lady Langdale's sisters +married a General Bacon. At the time of the marriage he was but a poor +captain, and his wealth did not much increase, whilst his family did, +and his wife, the once beautiful Lady Charlotte, Byron's "Ianthe"--to +whom he addressed the famous lines which form the prelude of _Childe +Harold_, beginning, + + Not in those climes where I have late been straying-- + +had to see her daughter a governess in the family of a Cornishman, +once a common miner! One of her daughters is now married to the son +of Lord Mount Edgecumbe's agent. It seems that the sisters could not +forgive the mesalliance, as they deemed it, for Lady Langdale's will +shows no bequest to the Bacons. + +Lady Langdale had another sister, who married a son of Doctor +Vernon-Harcourt, long archbishop of York, grandfather of "Historicus," +the well-known political letter-writer of the London _Times_. This +lady died about the same time as Lady Langdale. One sister only, the +wife of a foreign nobleman, survives. She is the last of the Harleys +of the great minister's line. + + + + +A GLASS OF OLD MADEIRA. + + +We had met in Europe some dozen years ago--I from Massachusetts, +he from Carolina. We both looked grave for an instant as a friend +presented us to each other, naming our respective residences, and then +both laughed cheerily, and were good friends ever after. We enjoyed +_Tartuffe_ and the _Mariage de Figaro_ in company with each other at +the Theatre Francois, heard Mario, Grisi, Gratiano and Borghi Mamo in +Verdi's _Trovatore_ at the Opera Italien, danced with _les filles +de l'Opera_ at Cellarius's saloons, and had many a midnight +carouse afterward at the Maison Dore. Nor had our time always been +unprofitably spent. Toward Easter we journeyed together to Rome, and +stood side by side before the masterpieces of Raphael and Domenichino +in the Vatican, strolled by moonlight amid the ruins of the Coliseum, +and drank out of the same cup from the Fountain of Trevi; often +visited Crawford's studio, where then stood the famous group which +now adorns the frieze of the Capitol at Washington, and by actual +observation agreed in thinking his Indian not unworthy of comparison +with the famous statue of the Dying Gladiator. We stood together on +the Tarpeian Rock, and, looking down upon the mutilated Column of +Trajan and all the ruins of ancient Rome, read out of the same copy of +Horace the famous ode beginning, "Exegi monumentum aere perennius." +We were both passionately fond of sculpture and of painting, and often +sat for hours before the glorious Descent from the Cross of Daniel da +Volterra in the Chiesa della Trinita dei Monti, the principal figure +in which is said to have been sketched by Michael Angelo, and which, +although less widely known, appeared to our minds equal in execution +and superior in grandeur to any other painting in the world. + +After our return to this country I happened to go South one winter, +and spent a month with my friend on his plantation in the low country +of Carolina. It seemed to be our fate to meet amid the ruins of +the past. But the war had not then occurred, and we had many a hunt +together, in which, after a glorious burst of the hounds through the +open savannas, I brought down more than one noble buck. On other days +we would drive with the ladies along the broad beach upon which stood +the summer residences of the neighboring planters. And sometimes we +would stroll lazily about the lanes of his estate, basking in the +mellow sunshine in the midst of February, and chatting of Capri and +Sorrento in a climate equal to that of Italy. + +And we met again the other day in the streets of a Northern city. He +looked older certainly, and very careworn, but his eye was as bright +as ever and his voice as cheery. + +"Come and dine with me," he said after we had given each other a +hurried account of our present abodes and occupations. "You will find +me in rather modest and decidedly airy lodgings, and I cannot offer +you either wild-ducks or venison. A rasher of bacon and a glass of +madeira as we chat over old times: what say you to the bill-of fare? +You remember the old French adage, 'Quand on n'a pas ce que l'on aime, +faut bien aimer ce que l'on a.'" + +"A quelle heure, mon ami?" + +"Four o'clock." + +And at five that afternoon we were seated together, the remnants +of our frugal repast removed, and on the scrupulously polished old +mahogany table which separated us stood a cut-glass decanter of +old Carolina madeira, the bouquet of which filled the room with its +fragrance. + +"Fill your glass, Harry: 'tis not the fragrance of the wine, but the +sentiment connected with it, which prevents me from offering you a +pipe. The odor of the best Virginia would seem to me a desecration. +There are only a dozen bottles left in that cupboard. I never uncork +one except for a near friend. 'Tis out of fashion now: hock and +champagne have taken its place; but, do you know, I like it the better +on that account. It reminds me of the past, and, though still a young +man, it is one of my greatest pleasures to dwell on the picture which +a glass of it never fails to recall to my imagination. You remember +Woodlawn? For five-and-twenty years, during the whole of a long +minority and subsequent travels abroad, those old bottles stood +wreathed with cobwebs in the garret of the old mansion. You drank one +with me in 1859. The rest were buried at the commencement of the war, +and this is one of the few which survived it. There are not many of +your compatriots to whom I would tell the story of its preservation, +for it illustrates a feature of feudal attachment which they +persistently refuse to believe possible. + +"You remember the stately old negro who occupied the porter's lodge at +Woodlawn, and who told you with such pride that he and his ancestors +had always occupied a favored post near the great house? You remember, +too, his grand air, fashioned after the gentlemen of the olden time, +the contemporaries of Washington, Rutledge and Pinckney? And in what +awe and reverence his fellow-servants stood of him! Well, when the war +fairly began, and all hope of amicable adjustment was exhausted, I did +what every true man on either side was bound to do--raised a company +for the service, removed my family to an up-country farm, and left Old +John in charge of my residence and interests in the low country. The +Federal gunboats soon appeared upon the coast, entered the bay and +ran up the rivers. Many of the younger people went off with them, but +during the long and dreary four years which ensued Old John remained +staunch at his post, cultivating the land as best he might, and +sending constantly supplies of money and provisions to his mistress. +At last the whole thing broke down: Lee surrendered, Johnston +surrendered. Troops as well as gunboats swarmed in all directions. Not +only regular soldiers, but raw negro levies, occupied the towns and +were posted through the country. Stories were circulated that I was +killed, that I was captured; and the latter statement was true. There +were rumors that the land was to be divided among the negroes, and one +dark night in the early summer of 1865 some drunken sailors, escaped +from the gunboats lying in the bay, raised a mob of negroes from the +various plantations and gutted nearly every house in the parish. Among +others they came to mine eager for wine, and John was pointed out by +some of the neighboring negroes as knowing where it was concealed. The +sailors threatened his life: he refused to tell. They held a pistol to +his head, but the old man remained staunch in his refusal. Provoked by +his fidelity, at length they brutally beat him with the butts of their +pistols until his gray hairs were dabbled in gore, and went off to +other plunder, telling their followers to take what they wanted from +my residence. But, bruised, bleeding and crippled though he was, Old +John still defended his master's property, and sitting on the front +steps of the house kept the whole crowd at bay by the firmness and +dignity of his attitude. I heard of the affair first from a white man +who lived in the neighborhood, and it was not until I asked him about +it that he told me himself. The next day he gave to my own people +the furniture remaining in the house to keep until I came back, but +positively refused to allow them to take of the crops that had been +gathered any more than was required for their subsistence, and this +he regularly shared out to them at stated intervals. And when, after +a long imprisonment and much enfeebled myself, I landed one evening at +the wharf which leads up to the house, the first figure which met my +sight was the old man faithfully guarding the barns. His eyesight was +too dim for him to see me, but as soon as he heard my voice he seized +my hand with passionate fervor, pressing it repeatedly to his lips and +bedewing it with tears. Can you wonder if he has shared my fortunes +ever since? But not at Woodlawn. The negroes generally were wild with +the notion of freedom, and utterly ignorant of the practical meaning +of the term. To me they were always civil and affectionate, but I +preferred that some other than myself should teach them its rugged +lesson, and immediately leased the place for a term of years to one +better fitted than I to derive profit from it under the new system. +The gentlemen and the negroes are the two classes upon whom the first +results of the fearful revolution in society caused by the war fell +with heaviest weight. Both were totally unprepared for it, and both +have so far suffered cruelly. A year ago Old John died, faithful +and cared for to the last. A few months ago the lease I had executed +expired, and I visited the estate again. All the glamour of the past +had disappeared. The home of my fathers knew me no more, and I have +sold it. Cuffee, whom you remember as my body-servant, who followed +me through the war, and bore me on his back from the battlefield upon +which I was severely wounded, and who would have come with me here +had circumstances permitted of my retaining his services,--Cuffee has +taken to politics, and now represents the county in the Legislature +of the State; and the last figure that I remember seeing as I left +the place was that of old Sary, the sick nurse, her long black hair +streaming in the wind (you remember she was an Indian half-breed), her +feet bare, her petticoat ragged and limp, standing in the lane +which leads from the house--her arms akimbo, a sort of miniature Meg +Merrilies--screaming out to me, 'You left you own plantashun.' Yes, +I have left my own plantation, and am grubbing out a modest and +sometimes a rather precarious existence elsewhere. But for all that, +it is more wholesome than mouldering among the ruins of a past that +can never return. The fight has been fairly fought, and New England +has won the day. Germany is up, France is down; Italy united, the pope +existing on sufferance in the palace where erstwhile emperors did him +homage. I don't quarrel with Fortune. Nay, in many things I dare say +the world has benefited by the change. And so, when I take my children +sometimes to look at Crawford's famous group, I even enjoy the spirit +of pride with which they look upon the figure of America, and the zest +with which they enjoy the vigorous onslaught of the pioneer on the +forest tree; but my own eyes seek the Indian chieftain reclining in +mute despair on the right of the group, and I have a strange sympathy +with the fortune which his very attitude so forcibly indicates. Our +battle of Dorking has been fought, and, whatever may be the fate of +the next generation, all that is left to me of home or of country are +the golden drops which sparkle in this tiny glass." + +RAMBLER. + + + + +AT A MATINEE: A MONOLOGUE. + + +Oh Dear! I meant to be very early, people do look so cross when you +squeeze by them. I don't think it is exactly proper, either, when +they are men. Here is my seat, No. 10: that girl has piled all her +waterproofs on it. Why don't she take them away quicker? and I wish +she wouldn't grope about my feet for her overshoes. + +I never sat right next to the orchestra before. What a convenient +railing to hang my umbrella on! Provoking it should rain so to-day. +There now! my waterproof is all disposed of, and I know my dress is +all right, so I shall enjoy myself. + +What a ridiculous girl beside me! _Such_ a bunch of curls! The two +young men on the other side look like gentlemen: the one this way +especially nice--lovely eyes and moustache. I'll look round the house +as far as I can without moving. Can't see much, though, for I'm so +near the front. Why on earth didn't brother Bob put me where I could +see the people? + +Why, there's Lucy Morris! I can't bear that girl: her hair is almost +the color of mine. A vacant seat beside her, too; so she came with +some one. Wonder who it is? I hope she won't see me. + +Oh, how funny! The musicians come up out of a hole just like the tame +rats at the Museum, nasty things!--the rats, I mean. The man right +in front of me has a trombone. I know what it is, because the name +is written on his music. I'm so glad, for I never knew exactly what a +trombone was until now. And what a funny instrument! He doesn't blow +at all for ever so long, and then suddenly comes in with two or three +toots. + +But, good gracious! there's Dick Livingstone! I saw him come in at +that door. I'm so glad I came! He asked me night before last at Mrs. +Harris's if I was coming to the matinee, and of course I said "Yes," +though I didn't have the slightest idea of doing so until he spoke. +But what--! He has taken the seat by that Lucy Morris, and has given +her a programme. I hate that girl! + +There goes the curtain. What a stupid play! Why did I come? The damp +will ruin my dress. Oh, that horrid girl! Well, of all the ridiculous +acting I ever saw, this is the worst! I should think they would be +ashamed to put such people on the stage. He is opening her fan. A fan +to-day! absurd! I _won't_ look again. How that man rants! I'm sure I +don't know why I came: I might have known how poor it would be. +Even _I_ can see that Leicester and Mortimer have dresses at least +a hundred years apart. I wonder if their legs are stuffed? Oh dear! +that's hardly proper. What Dick can see to admire in that girl is +beyond my comprehension. Such airs and graces!--all put on; and how +she makes eyes at him! I can feel it behind my back. + +How absurdly Queen Elizabeth is dressed! and what a fright she is! And +I wore my new hat, too: he said he liked blue so much. I could just +cry, I am so provoked. It's all her fault, I know. Oh! the play! Yes, +Dudley is making love. Ridiculous! There, the curtain's down at +last, and--what--! Dick is getting up: he looks as if he were saying +good-bye. There's Lucy's uncle: he sits down beside her--he must have +brought her. Oh, what a relief! After all, it was very natural for +Dick to take the vacant seat, he is so thoughtful always. Lucy can +talk pretty well sometimes, too. If she only had some idea of dress! +There! I'm sure Dick saw me, but of course I shall take no notice. + +Upon my word, the young man next me is admiring the girl's hair on the +other side of me. It's hideous--red as a carrot, and stuck on at that. +Thank Goodness! my hair hasn't a tinge of red in it--pure _blonde +cendre_--but I have to pay awfully to match it. Wish I could tell that +young fellow her hair is all stuck on. Hark! the nice one says, + +"Why, it is all her own--I see it growing" "S-s-s-h!" says the other: +"she'll hear you." "Loveliest hair I ever saw," continues No. 1: "pure +gold, not a tinge of red--" It's _my_ hair they are discussing. What a +nice fellow he is! I'll just turn a little away, so he can study +that curl which really does grow out of my head. It is worth all +the trouble it gives me, for it makes the others seem so natural. I +declare, he is looking right at me: suppose he should speak? I should +_die_! Nonsense! he is bowing to a lady in the dress-circle. I know +he'd like to do something for me. Brother Bob says girls can't be too +careful. I might drop something. Not my handkerchief--that _would_ be +improper--but my opera-glass case: nothing could be said against that. +Oh my! I haven't used my glasses yet, I'm so near the stage. I'll +look round the house; so here goes. "Thank you, sir," with my sweetest +smile and such a nice flutter. I saw him nudge his friend. + +There goes the curtain again. Mary queen of Scots: I thought she was +prettier. Oh, the act is really over; I actually forgot everything but +the stage. My eyes are all wet. But it won't do to cry: they would be +red. I don't quite like some of the words they use, though--they make +one feel queer. Now, why couldn't they say "illegitimate child"? It +means just the same; besides, it's longer. + +I wonder how Dick Livingstone liked it? _Mr_. Livingstone, I should +say. Brother Bob doesn't think it nice for girls to speak of young men +by their first names. But then brothers are so particular about their +own sisters, though, Goodness knows, they flirt enough with other +people's. Bob and Kate Harris, for example, and yet he preaches at +_me_! + +Oh, the young men are going out. They push by as well as they can, +but still they crowd unpleasantly. I am sure I've seen that nice one +somewhere. They are going to stay away, too, I think, for they have +taken their over-coats. If only Dick--Mr. Livingstone, I mean-- + +Oh, there's the curtain again. It's really quite interesting. I was +mistaken about the actors: they do very well indeed. Queen Elizabeth +is excellent, and so are they all. It shows how careful one ought to +be not to judge too hastily. That's what mother always says. I won't +do so again. + +Well, that play is over--now for the comedy. Some one says it is still +raining. I hate a waterproof, my figure looks so well in this suit. +I might carry my cloak over my arm, but then I'm afraid the rain will +ruin my dress. I _must_ wear the waterproof and be a dowdy. I don't +believe, after all, that it would hurt the underskirt, and then, with +the umbrella up, I should have to take his arm. I shouldn't like +to get this dress spoiled, either. I know mother wouldn't give me +another. Brother Bob says men don't care so much about women's dress: +they like to see a sensible girl. I don't believe that; besides, I +have thick boots, and I'm sure that's sensible. I don't care: I won't +wear the waterproof unless it is a perfect deluge. My goodness! I +don't see Dick anywhere! Suppose, after all, he didn't come to meet +me? and I gave him that flower at Mrs. Leslie's, too! I wish the thing +was over. + +But oh, what a pretty dress! and how sweet she is! I had no idea she +could be so cunning, after being such a tragedy queen. The man on the +stage actually kissed her. Bob says they don't really kiss, though. + +I'm sorry it's over. Oh dear! I don't like being alone in such a +crowd. Brother Bob wouldn't have let me come, I know, only he thought +I should meet the Davidsons. No matter: I'll never tell him. I do +believe Dick hasn't stayed, after all. I'll just put on my waterproof +and thick veil, and go home and have a good cry. + +Oh, Mr. Livingstone, how you startled me! I had no idea you were here. +Yes, I am by myself: certainly you may escort me home. Take a walk in +this pouring rain? Why, it's all sunshine! + +C.A.D. + + + + +NOTES. + + +Wellnigh half a century has elapsed since the discovery of the +beautiful Venus of Milo (the exact year was 1825), and yet now, for +the first time, the endless discussions regarding two doubtful and +interesting points in its history have been set at rest. These two +points are--first, the original pose of the statue; and, secondly, the +reason of its being armless. After so many years of dispute over +these questions, it occurred at length to M. Jules Ferry to do what of +course ought to have been done long ago--namely, go to the very spot +whence the statue was exhumed, and there talk with all the surviving +witnesses of the exhumation. M. Ferry not long since put his idea into +execution, went to Milo, took into consultation with him M. Brest, +son of the consul who procured the statue for France, and found and +cross-questioned two Greeks who were present at the unearthing of +the statue. M. Ferry has collected the details of his labors in an +elaborate communication to the Academie des Beaux Arts, but a brief +indication of the results obtained may be made as follows: + +First, then, the Venus was found in 1825 at the foot of a little hill, +where it had been covered up by successive crumblings of the earth +above. The proprietor of the ground, wishing to clear a little more +of the soil for his planting, chanced to strike the statue with his +shovel. "It was on its base, erect," said the two Greek peasants to +the French minister. "With one hand she held together her draperies, +and in the other an apple"--the same, doubtless, that Paris had just +given her. Such, very briefly, is the clear, short, definite, decisive +story which puts an end to ten thousand disquisitions and hypotheses +about the pose. The evidence thus given is that of people who actually +saw what they describe. But, secondly, what of those "long-lost arms"? +and how came they to be lost? The body of the Venus was formed of +two blocks, and the arms were afterward fastened upon the trunk. When +discovered, it was intact. M. Brest, the French consul, instantly +bought the Venus for five hundred dollars, while the Turkish +government on its part hurried off a small vessel to bring it away, +offering the owner of the farm fivefold the French price, or something +like two thousand five hundred dollars. A French _aviso_, sent by M. +de Riviere, the ambassador at Constantinople, arrived on the scene at +the very moment when the Turks had got possession of the statue, and +were embarking it on their vessel. A dispute arose at once, and in the +material as well as legal confusion the arms of the Venus, which had +been detached for safer transportation, were missed. The people of +the neighborhood got up a story that the arms were carried off by the +Turkish vessel out of chagrin and spite, but this seems to be mere +surmise where all else is clear. + + * * * * * + +The story of Demosthenes and the pebbles is familiar. Less familiar, +we venture to say, is the theory that declamation is sometimes the +cause of stammering; or, rather, that stuttering impels a man to +talkativeness, and the yielding to this tendency fixes the habit of +stammering and makes it worse. Hence it might plausibly be argued that +it is the rostrum, or the very emotion of speaking in public, which +makes some orators become stammerers. At all events, in Paris an +institution has been founded expressly to remedy stuttering; and M. +Chervin, its director, not long ago presented before a meeting of the +learned societies at the Sorbonne some interesting statistics on his +specialty. These statistics seem to show that stuttering is in direct +proportion with the habit of speaking, and that the more one speaks +the more one stutters. This is certainly an unexpected result of the +restoration of freedom of speech in France. M. Chervin mentions a +village of eighteen hundred souls where everybody, without exception, +undeniably stutters. What strange dialogues, says Jules Claretie (who +cites these points in _l'Independance Belge_), must take place there! +A very curious fact is, that stammering is less frequent in the north +of France than in the south. In the north-east it is least known, and +most in the south-east. For example, all things being equal, for six +stammerers in Paris there would be twenty-five in Lyons and seventy in +Marseilles. The admitted garrulity or fluency of southern speaking +is often the cause or the preface to stammering. Thus, comically +concludes M. Claretie, oratorical habits threaten to make stammering +become the order of the day, and for one Vergniaud there will be ten +stutterers, and ten more stutterers for one General Foy. Nevertheless, +in earlier days, Camille Desmoulins stammered, and yet spoke but +little at the Convention. It does not appear that Charles Lamb was +a garrulous person, and in the familiar experience of daily life we +rarely find stutterers to be rapid talkers. Still, this latter +fact really helps M. Chervin's theory, since we may conclude it +is precisely because stammerers find that a very rapid utterance +increases their defect that they force themselves to speak +deliberately, and also not to tire the vocal muscles. Hence, apart +from the jesting inference which M. Claretie, in French journalist's +fashion, is bent son twisting out of the scientific statistics, there +would appear to be a mutual influence, perfectly comprehensible, +of rapidity in utterance and a tendency to stammering. We could not +safely go on to generalize that only voluble people become stutterers, +or that all stutterers are unusually garrulous and unusually eager in +enunciation; but we may conclude that if they are thus careless and +rattling in delivery, their peculiarity will be likely to grow more +marked, and that accordingly a natural tendency to the same defect is +developed by the same habits or necessities of much and rapid talking. + + * * * * * + +Two illustrations of nineteenth-century precocity, rather superior +to the generality of anecdotes regarding the wisdom of the rising +generation, we find in recent French papers. One of them is originated +by the _Moulin-a-Parole_. Madame de B. was visiting, with her baby, +her friend Madame X. After chattering three-quarters of an hour, +without giving anybody else a chance to put in a word, Madame X. +pauses, when Baby immediately takes up the burden of conversation. +Madame X., getting tired at last, says, "Why do you talk so much, +mignonne? It isn't nice for a little girl like you to do so." "Oh," +replies Baby very graciously, "it is only so that mamma may rest!" A +little lad furnishes the other instance of the premature sagacity of +modern childhood. A famous merchant has four children, three daughters +and a boy named Arthur. Two of the former die successively of +consumption, and at the funeral of the second a friend of the family +comes to offer his compliments of condolence, and, patting little +Arthur's head, tells the poor lad the house must seem lonely to him +now. "Yes," briskly replies Arthur, whom his father has brought up +to accurate ideas, "here we children are reduced _fifty per cent_." +Worthy to take charge of these children would have been the prudent +bonne of whom _Charivari_ speaks. The morning after engaging herself +to Madame R. she hastened to that lady with her finger wrapped in a +handkerchief, and in an agitated voice asked if the _converts_ were +real silver. "Why so, Nannette?" "Because, I just pricked my finger +with a fork, and I know that if it is plated copper I ought to take +the precaution of having the place bled." "Don't be alarmed," replies +the lady, smiling despite herself at the young girl's innocence, "my +plate is all solid." "Ah," says the bonne with a sigh of relief, "I +am so glad!" The day after, the simple young lady disappeared with all +the silver. It is not every bonne that would take such precautions. + + * * * * * + +Paris has always been famous among modern cities for its genius and +industry in adding variety to its cuisine, either by the audacious +invention of new dishes or the felicitous combination of old +ones--either by discovering new sources of food or new methods of +preparing it. It was a curious incident in the late history of +the city that what had been a fashionable whim became a hard +necessity--that after Saint-Hilaire and the hippophagists had +struggled to introduce horseflesh as regular provender, the siege of +Paris made horseflesh a prized rarity. But the zest resulting from +the enforced diet of dogs, cats, rats and monkeys in bombardment days +appears to have been so great that we now hear of an enterprise worthy +to have a Brillat-Savarin to celebrate it--namely, the formation of +a society under the presidency of the naturalist Lespars, designed to +bring into vogue as eatable a great class of living creatures whose +presence now inspires ordinary persons only with disgust. A naturalist +who devotes himself to eating such creatures with a motive so +philanthropic deserves our praise, though we may not be able to +personally imitate his heroic example. Among the choice dishes +mentioned by one paper as selected to figure at the first public +banquet of M. Lespars are a plate of white worms, a bushel of +grasshoppers, and a broil of magpies seasoned with the slugs that +infest certain green berries. One regards this announcement with more +or less incredulity; but little doubt seems to hang over the assertion +that the dormouse has just been introduced into the list of French +game-dishes. The puzzle for the cooks seems to be with regard to the +proper sauce for the new delicacy; but this matter does not trouble +the little chimney-sweeps, who find the animal so long associated in +poetry and in fact chiefly with their own humble career, now rising +to the dignity of game, and commanding a price for the table. Piedmont +has thus far furnished the larger part of the displays of _marmottes_ +in Paris stalls. The chief trouble in making rats, magpies and other +delicacies of that sort really popular amongst the poorer classes is +that the latter do not possess adroit cooks to disguise the original +flavor under aromatic adjuncts, nor yet the money to buy the necessary +spices and side-dishes, nor the high grade of champagne wines with +which the wealthy and noble patrons of "food reform" commonly wash +down unpalatable viands. + + + + +LITERATURE OF THE DAY. + + +Rousseau. By John Morley. 2 vols. London: Chapman & Hall. + +It was in the natural course of things that modern criticism, +ever aiming at a wider comprehension, a keener analysis, a greater +independence of judgment and expression, should test itself anew on a +subject affording so full a scope and so sure a touchstone as the life +and writings of Rousseau. The character of Rousseau, with its strange +blending of delicate beauty and repulsive infirmity, requires to be +handled with the firm but tender and sympathetic touch which the nurse +or the physician lays upon a child afflicted with sores. His career, +with its alternations of obscurity and conspicuousness, of tumult and +torpidity, of wretchedness and rapture, must be followed with an +eye keen to detect the springs and alive to the subtle play of +circumstance and impulse. His influence, if not more profound, more +varied, extensive and direct than that of any thinker and writer since +Luther, is to be traced in the whole history of his own and of later +times, under manifold aspects and amid momentous changes of spirit and +of form. In the case of most men who have helped to mould the +ideas and direct the tendencies of an age, it would be difficult to +determine what each has contributed to the general result, or to say +with certainty that the work performed by one would not, if he had +been wanting, have been equally accomplished by others. On the other +hand, there are a few master-spirits--men not of an age but for +all time--whose power has been so deeply infused, so generally +and silently absorbed, that it would be vain to inquire how it has +operated in detail. We cannot indicate the course or fix the limits +of its action: we perceive only that without it our intellectual life +must have been dormant or extinct. Rousseau belongs to neither of +these classes. His power was not general but specific, not creative +but stimulative, not a source of perennial light but the torch of +a conflagration; yet it was original and independent, it did not +co-operate but clashed with that of his contemporaries, and while it +acted upon minds far higher and broader than his own, it received no +aid except from disciples and imitators. Of the French Revolution +we may say with precision and confidence that it owed primarily its +peculiar character--its austere ideals and wild distortions, its +illimitable aspirations and chaotic endeavors--to the extent to which +the nation had become imbued with his spirit and theories. In regard +to literature, it is not sufficient to point to a long list of +celebrated writers, from Chateaubriand and De Stael to Lamartine and +George Sand, whose works have reflected the characteristic hues of +his sentiment and style; or to adduce particular instances of his +influence upon writers of higher and more contrasted genius, such +as Goethe and Byron, Schiller and Richter: what is to be noted, as +underlying all such examples and illustrations, is the fact that a +literature distinguished from that which had immediately preceded +it by earnestness, simplicity and depth, by spontaneous and vivid +conceptions and freedom from conventional restraints, had its +beginning with him, appealing to emotions and ideas which he was the +first to call into renewed and general activity. In education, in art, +in modifications of religious opinion and of social life, the same +force, if less measurable and distinct, is everywhere apparent either +as an active participant or a strong original impulse. + +It need hardly be said that, as productions of genius, the writings of +Rousseau cannot hold any rank proportionate to the effect which they +thus produced. They are not among the treasures that constitute our +intellectual capital, the possessions which we could not lose without +becoming bankrupt. They are rather among the instruments which, +having served their purpose, may be laid aside, however interesting as +mementoes or admirable as curiosities. Their highest qualities--their +fervor, simplicity and grace--do not of themselves disclose the secret +of their power. From the point of view of mere literary criticism we +are apt to be more observant of their defects than their beauties. By +the side of earlier and later models they are seen to be deficient in +the very qualities--force of passion and depth of thought--by which +they startled or enthralled contemporary readers. + +If we turn to the man himself, we might imagine at the first glance +that none could have been less fitted for the position of a leader of +thought, a founder of systems and schools, the apostle of a new era. +The career for which Nature seemed to have destined him, and which, in +truth, he may almost be said to have followed, was that of a vagabond, +or at the best a recluse. Of all the advantages we desire and +anxiously seek for our children, Rousseau enjoyed none. Poverty, +degradation and neglect weighed upon him from his birth. The evil +in him was unchecked, the good unfostered, by any training hand. The +opportunity and the faculty of acquiring any substantial nutriment +from books seemed alike denied him. His intercourse with mankind +through all his earlier and the greater part of his later life was +confined to the ignorant, and with these alone was he ever able +to hold any harmonious relations or any grateful interchange of +sentiment. Physically, mentally and morally diseased, weak yet stern, +sensitive but unpliant, equally devoid of courage and of tact, he +could not come in contact with the world without suffering a shock +and swift recoil that drove him back to the refuge of solitude--to the +mute companionship of external Nature or the brooding contemplation of +himself. Even the ideals which, despite his practical aberrations +from them, he yet intensely worshiped, had, in his conception of them, +little connection with the activities of life: truth, simplicity, +order, purity and peace were ideas that occupied his soul only to fill +it with a horror of reality, with yearnings for an idyllic repose, +with dreams of a state which he persuaded himself had been the +original condition of the race, in which virtue and right must prevail +through the mere absence of occasion for wrong or temptation to evil. + +Yet it is not in some radiance breaking through this cloudy +environment, it is not in this or that faculty overcoming all +obstacles, it is in the entirety of his nature as originally formed, +and as moulded or marred by circumstance and fate, that we shall find +the secret of that spell which he exercised over men of all classes +and characters. The culture which might have sweetened and perhaps +ennobled his life would have unfitted him for his mission. It would +have brought him more or less into harmony with his age; and it was by +his utter and vehement opposition to its habits and opinions that +he turned the stream into a different channel. Not only his finer +intuitions and purer tastes, but his unsatisfied desires, his errors, +his remorse, urged him to make war upon it, as the step-mother that +had sought to enervate or brutalize his mind while defrauding him of +his inheritance. He held up the image of its corruption, shallowness +and false refinement, and that of a life of simple manners and +unperverted instincts. That he depicted this as the real life of +a primitive epoch only gave greater pungency to the contrast. +The eighteenth century, aroused to the consciousness of its own +degeneracy, its false and artificial existence, readily accepted an +idealized Geneva, an idealized Sparta, as the type of a primitive +community, the model on which society was to be refashioned. What the +"pure word of God" had been to the Reformers, that "Nature" became to +the revolutionists in all departments of thought and action, in poetry +and music as in philosophy and politics--a shibboleth to rally and +unite all the elements of discontent and aspirations for change, a +universal test by which to try all doctrines and systems. In either +case, as was soon discovered, the test would itself admit of diverse +interpretations; but in the mean while the solvent had taken effect, +the authority of custom and tradition had been overthrown, old +organizations had crumbled into dust. + +That the agitation thus evoked should have produced many grotesque, +many frightful results, cannot seem strange. Long before the lower +strata had been reached the surface was in a state of ebullition. +Polite society was delightfully thrilled with a feeling of its own +depravity, and found in the novel sensation the zest that had been +wanting to its jaded powers of enjoyment. Nor was it awakened from its +illusions by the first eruption from below. In a transport of delirium +it threw away, as if they had been idle gems, of use only when cast +into the public treasury, the privileges and prerogatives that had +formed the basis of the monarchy. Thenceforth the only effort was to +secure a _tabula rasa_ on which to rear that new and perfect state +of which the model was at hand, if only the proper materials could be +found and the foundations be laid. Of the men who acquired a temporary +mastery, three only, by the massive force of practical genius, were +able to free themselves from the fascination of the common ideal. But +Mirabeau and Danton were overborne by the full tide, and Napoleon, +when he arrested it in its languor, turned it into depths from +which it emerged the other day to sweep away his column in the Place +Vendome. + +In thus glancing at the vast proportions of the subject, we have +wandered far from the range of Mr. Morley's work, which has a special +purpose with well-defined limits. It is not a complete biography of +Rousseau, much less a history of his times. It gives no full or vivid +portraiture of character, no adequate narrative of events, no summary +even of results. It is an analytical study, an examination of the life +and works of Rousseau with a view to determine their precise nature +and quality, rather than their relative value or bearings. Within +these limits it exhibits ample knowledge and skill, combined with +a searching but tolerant judgment. Without labored discussion or +passionate apology, it clears away entangling prejudices and current +misconceptions, to assume a position from which undistorted views may +be obtained. At times, indeed, Mr. Morley carries his impartiality +to the verge of indifference. His certificate of Grimm's "integrity" +rests on very slender grounds, and the Memoirs of Madame d'Epinay +are subjected to no such scrutiny as the circumstances of their +composition and preservation call for, before their statements can be +accepted as authority. But whatever minor defects may be found in the +book, the general spirit and execution are admirable. It is full of +interest and suggestiveness both for readers to whom the subject may +not be unfamiliar, and for those who may hitherto have neglected to +explore it. Above all, it is valuable as marking the line to which +English criticism has advanced, its capacity for treating complicated +and delicate questions with clearness, frankness and entire fairness. + + * * * * * + +Pascarel: Only a Story. By "Ouida," author of "Tricotrin," +"Folle-Farine," "Under Two Flags," etc. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott +& Co. + +The genius of "Ouida" is _sui generis_, and must in part create the +standards by which it is to be judged. Her works are so different from +the common type of modern novels that they demand to be looked at from +a different point of view. The present standard of excellence in prose +fiction seems to be the conformity of character and incident to what +is actually seen in life. It is a good test for all mere stories, but +is manifestly _not_ the test by which to gauge the recent works of +"Ouida." She does not aim at this pre-Raphaelite delineation of men +and things as they are. Her characters are idealizations: her later +books are prose-poems, not only in the affluence and rhythm of their +style, but in the allegoric form and purpose which, pervade them. This +characteristic is plain enough in _Tricotrin_ and _Folle-Farine_, but +finds its most marked expression in _Pascarel_. "Only an Allegory" +would be a more expressive sub-title for the book than "Only a Story," +for the story is the mere thread which sustains and binds together a +series of parables and crystallized truths. Most of these, indeed, +she has embodied in former works, but nowhere as in _Pascarel_ is the +author's design to teach them made so manifest. + +The book is almost wholly free from that extravagance of expression +and recklessness of all established codes of taste which have diverted +attention from her purpose, and led to a false estimate of the +character and tendency of her writings. It has none of the hindrances, +for instance, which prevent many from seeing the magnificence of the +conception in _Folle-Farine_. Its object is to enforce the lesson that +the only true greatness is that which loses sight of self--that Love, +and Love alone, is, both in its insight and its purpose, divine. +"Love sees as God sees, and with infinite wisdom has infinite pardon." +"Laughter and love are all that are really worth having in the world," +but to gain them "one must seek them first for others, with a wish +pure from the greed of self." "The world owes nothing to so personal +a passion as ambition." "The first fruits of a man's genius are always +pure of greed." What makes a great artist is the "vital, absolute +absorption of personality in his love of art." The experience of the +donzella (which constitutes what there is of the story), a nobler, +and, we think, a _truer_, type of womanhood than Viva, yet with a like +over-estimate of the advantages of wealth and position, brings her +to the conviction that Pascarel is right. These truths, however, find +their most effective illustration in the wealth of Italian tradition +and history with which the pages abound. "Here is the secret of +Florence, sublime aspiration--the aspiration which gave her citizens +force to live in poverty and clothe themselves in simplicity, so as +to give up their millions of florins to bequeath miracles in stone +and metal and color to the future." "In her throes of agony she kept +always within her that love of the ideal, impersonal, consecrate, void +of greed, which is the purification of the individual life and +the regeneration of the body politic." "Her great men drew their +inspiration from the very air they breathed, and the men who knew they +were not great had the patience and unselfishness to do their minor +work for her zealously and perfectly." The workmen who chiseled the +stones and the boys who ground the colors "did their part mightily +and with reverence." The unrivaled works of art which are the true +greatness of Italy owe their existence to the self-forgetfulness of +their makers. So the love of Italy is in its essence a love for that +which is best and noblest in human nature--"the consecration of self +to an object higher than self." This love, however, to be true, must +be more than perception or sentiment--it must bear fruit in _likeness_ +to that which it admires. "Each gift which men receive imposes a +corresponding duty." "We are Italians," says Pascarel after recounting +the glories of Italian achievement: "great as the heritage is, so +great the duty likewise." As a companion-book of Italian travel, +_Pascarel_ has a special value, suffused as it is throughout with +the blended charm of picturesque beauty and magical associations that +belongs to the country and the people. + + * * * * * + +_Books Received_. + +The Great Events of History, from the Creation of Man till the Present +Time. By William Francis Collier, LL.D., Trinity College, Dublin. +Edited by an experienced American Teacher, New York: J.W. Schermerhorn +& Co. + +Words and their Uses, Past and Present: A Study of the English +Language. By Richard Grant White. New edition, revised and corrected. +New York: Sheldon & Co. + +Manual of Land Surveying, with Tables. By David Murray, A.M., +Ph.D., Professor of Mathematics in Rutgers College. New York: J.W. +Schermerhorn & Co. + +The Greatest Plague of Life; or, The Adventures of a Lady in Search of +a Good Servant. Philadelphia: T.B. Peterson & Brothers. + +Snatches of Song. By Jeanie Morison (Mrs. Campbell of Ballochyle). +London: Longmans, Green & Co. + +The Life and Times of Philip Schuyler. By Benson J. Lossing, LL.D. New +York: Sheldon & Co. + +Lewis Arundel: A Novel. By Frank E. Smedley. Philadelphia: T.B. +Peterson & Brothers. + +Our Forest Home. By the author of "Robert Joy's Victory." Illustrated. +Boston: Henry Hoyt. + +Philip Earnscliffe: A Novel. By Mrs. Annie Edwards. New York: Sheldon +& Co. + +Heart's Delight. By Mrs. Caroline E.K. Davis. Illustrated. Boston: +Henry Hoyt. + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Lippincott's Magazine of Popular +Literature and Science, Vol. XII, No. 29. August, 1873., by Various + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LIPPINCOTT'S MAGAZINE *** + +***** This file should be named 13828.txt or 13828.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/3/8/2/13828/ + +Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Patricia Bennett and the PG 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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