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diff --git a/18374.txt b/18374.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..cdaf255 --- /dev/null +++ b/18374.txt @@ -0,0 +1,5037 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Argosy, by Various + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Argosy + Vol. 51, No. 4, April, 1891 + +Author: Various + +Editor: Charles W. Woods + +Release Date: May 11, 2006 [EBook #18374] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ARGOSY *** + + + + +Produced by Paul Murray, Taavi Kalju and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + + + + + _"Laden with Golden Grain"_ + + * * * * * + + THE + ARGOSY. + + + EDITED BY + CHARLES W. WOOD. + + * * * * * + + + VOLUME LI. + + _January to June, 1891._ + + * * * * * + + + RICHARD BENTLEY & SON, + 8, NEW BURLINGTON STREET, LONDON, W. + + Publishers in Ordinary to Her Majesty. + + _All rights reserved._ + + + LONDON: + PRINTED BY OGDEN, SMALE AND CO. LIMITED, + GREAT SAFFRON HILL, E.C. + + + + + +_CONTENTS._ + + +THE FATE OF THE HARA DIAMOND. Illustrated by M.L. GOW. + + Chap. I. My Arrival at Deepley Walls Jan + II. The Mistress of Deepley Walls Jan + III. A Voyage of Discovery Jan + IV. Scarsdale Weir Jan + V. At Rose Cottage Feb + VI. The Growth of a Mystery Feb + VII. Exit Janet Hope Feb + VIII. By the Scotch Express Feb + IX. At "The Golden Griffin" Mar + X. The Stolen Manuscript Mar + XI. Bon Repos Mar + XII. The Amsterdam Edition of 1698 Mar + XIII. M. Platzoff's Secret--Captain Ducie's Translation of + M. Paul Platzoff's MS Mar + XIV. Drashkil-Smoking Apr + XV. The Diamond Apr + XVI. Janet's Return Apr + XVII. Deepley Walls after Seven Years Apr + XVIII. Janet in a New Character May + XIX. The Dawn of Love May + XX. The Narrative of Sergeant Nicholas May + XXI. Counsel taken with Mr. Madgin May + XXII. Mr. Madgin at the Helm Jun + XXIII. Mr. Madgin's Secret Journey Jun + XXIV. Enter Madgin Junior Jun + XXV. Madgin Junior's First Report Jun + + * * * * * + +THE SILENT CHIMES. By JOHNNY LUDLOW (Mrs. HENRY WOOD). + + Putting Them Up Jan + Playing Again Feb + Ringing at Midday Mar + Not Heard Apr + Silent for Ever May + + * * * * * + +THE BRETONS AT HOME. By CHARLES W. WOOD, F.R.G.S. With + 35 Illustrations Jan, Feb, Mar, Apr, May, Jun + + * * * * * + +About the Weather Jun +Across the River. By HELEN M. BURNSIDE Apr +After Twenty Years. By ADA M. TROTTER Feb +A Memory. By GEORGE COTTERELL Feb +A Modern Witch Jan +An April Folly. By GILBERT H. PAGE Apr +A Philanthropist. By ANGUS GREY Jun +Aunt Phoebe's Heirlooms: An Experience in Hypnotism Feb +A Social Debut Mar +A Song. By G.B. STUART Jan +Enlightenment. By E. NESBIT Feb +In a Bernese Valley. By ALEXANDER LAMONT Feb +Legend of an Ancient Minster. By JOHN GRAEME Mar +Longevity. By W.F. AINSWORTH, F.S.A. Apr +Mademoiselle Elise. By EDWARD FRANCIS Jun +Mediums and Mysteries. By NARISSA ROSAVO Feb +Miss Kate Marsden Jan +My May Queen. By JOHN JERVIS BERESFORD, M.A. May +Old China Jun +On Letter-Writing. By A.H. JAPP, LL.D. May +Paul. By the Author of "Adonais, Q.C." May +"Proctorised" Apr +Rondeau. By E. NESBIT Mar +Saint or Satan? By A. BERESFORD Feb +Sappho. By MARY GREY Mar +Serenade. By E. NESBIT Jun +Sonnets. By JULIA KAVANAGH Jan, Feb, Apr, Jun +So Very Unattractive! Jun +Spes. By JOHN JERVIS BERESFORD, M.A. Apr +Sweet Nancy. By JEANIE GWYNNE BETTANY May +The Church Garden. By CHRISTIAN BURKE May +The Only Son of his Mother. By LETITIA MCCLINTOCK Mar +To my Soul. From the French of Victor Hugo Jun +Unexplained. By LETITIA MCCLINTOCK Apr +Who Was the Third Maid? Jan +Winter in Absence Feb + + * * * * * + +_POETRY._ + +Sonnets. By JULIA KAVANAGH Jan, Feb, Apr, Jun +A Song. By G.B. STUART Jan +Enlightenment. By E. NESBIT Feb +Winter in Absence Feb +A Memory. By GEORGE COTTERELL Feb +In a Bernese Valley. By ALEXANDER LAMONT Feb +Rondeau. By E. NESBIT Mar +Spes. By JOHN JERVIS BERESFORD, M.A. Apr +Across the River. By HELEN M. BURNSIDE Apr +My May Queen. By JOHN JERVIS BERESFORD, M.A. May +The Church Garden. By CHRISTIAN BURKE May +Serenade. By E. NESBIT Jun +To my Soul. From the French of Victor Hugo Jun +Old China Jun + + * * * * * + +_ILLUSTRATIONS._ + +By M.L. Gow. + + "I advanced slowly up the room, stopped, and curtsied." + + "I saw and recognised the mysterious midnight visitor." + + "He came back in a few minutes, but so transformed in outward + appearance that Ducie scarcely knew him." + + "Behold!" + + "Sister Agnes knelt for a few moments and bent her head in silent + prayer." + + "He put his hand to his side, and motioned Mirpah to open the letter." + + * * * * * + +Illustrations to "The Bretons at Home." + + + + +[Illustration: "BEHOLD!"] + + + + +THE ARGOSY. + +_APRIL, 1891._ + + + + +THE FATE OF THE HARA DIAMOND. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV. + +DRASHKIL-SMOKING. + + +"It must and shall be mine!" + +So spoke Captain Ducie on the spur of the moment as he wrote the last +word of his translation of M. Platzoff's MS. And yet there was a keen +sense of disappointment working within him. His blood had been at fever +heat during the latter part of his task. Each fresh sentence of the +cryptogram as he began to decipher it would, he hoped, before he reached +the end of it, reveal to him the hiding-place of the great Diamond. Up +to the very last sentence he had thus fondly deluded himself, only to +find that the abrupt ending of the MS. left him still on the brink of +the secret, and left him there without any clue by which he could +advance a single step beyond that point. He was terribly disappointed, +and the longer he brooded over the case the more entirely hopeless was +the aspect it put on. + +But there was an elasticity of mind about Captain Ducie that would not +allow him to despair utterly for any length of time. In the course of a +few days, as he began to recover from his first chagrin, he at the same +time began to turn the affair of the Diamond over and over in his mind, +now in one way, now in another, looking at it in this light and in that; +trying to find the first faint indications of a clue which, judiciously +followed up, might conduct him step by step to the heart of the mystery. +Two questions naturally offered themselves for solution. First: Did +Platzoff habitually carry the Diamond about his person? Second: Was it +kept in some skilfully-devised hiding-place about the house? These were +questions that could be answered only by time and observation. + +So Captain Ducie went about Bon Repos like a man with half-a-dozen pairs +of eyes, seeing, and not only seeing but noting, a hundred little things +such as would never have been observed by him under ordinary +circumstances. But when, at the end of a week, he came to sum up and +classify his observations, and to consider what bearing they had upon +the great mystery of the hiding-place of the Diamond, he found that they +had no bearing upon it whatever; that for anything seen or heard by him +the world might hold no such precious gem, and the Russian's letter to +Signor Lampini might be nothing more than an elaborate hoax. + +When the access of chagrin caused by the recognition of this fact had in +some degree subsided, Ducie was ready enough to ridicule his own foolish +expectations. "Platzoff has had the Diamond in his possession for years. +For him there is nothing of novelty in such a fact. Yet here have I been +foolish enough to expect that in the course of one short week I should +discover by some sign or token the spot where it is hidden, and that too +after I knew from his own confession that the secret was one which he +guarded most jealously. I might be here for five years and be not one +whit wiser at the end of that time as regards the hiding-place of the +Diamond than I am now. From this day I give up the affair as a bad job." + +Nevertheless, he did not quite do that. He kept up his habit of seeing +and noting little things, but without any definite views as to any +ulterior benefit that might accrue to him therefrom. Perhaps there was +some vague idea floating in his mind that Fortune, who had served him so +many kind turns in years gone by, might befriend him once again in this +matter--might point out to him the wished-for clue, and indicate by what +means he could secure the Diamond for his own. + +The magnitude of the temptation dazzled him. Captain Ducie would not +have picked your pocket, or have stolen your watch, or your horse, or +the title-deeds of your property. He had never put another man's name to +a bill instead of his own. You might have made him trustee for your +widow or children, and have felt sure that their interests would have +been scrupulously respected at his hands. Yet with all this--strange +contradiction as it may seem--if he could have laid surreptitious +fingers on M. Platzoff's Diamond, that gentleman would certainly never +have seen his cherished gem again. But had Platzoff placed it in his +hands and said, "Take this to London for me and deposit it at my +bankers'," the commission would have been faithfully fulfilled. It +seemed as if the element of mystery, of deliberate concealment, made all +the difference in Captain Ducie's unspoken estimate of the case. +Besides, would there not be something princely in such a theft? You +cannot put a man who steals a diamond worth a hundred and fifty thousand +pounds in the category of common thieves. Such an act verges on the +sublime. + +One of the things seen and noticed by Captain Ducie was the absence, +through illness, of the mulatto, Cleon, from his duties, and the +substitution in his place of a man whom Ducie had never seen before. +This stranger was both clever and obliging, and Platzoff himself +confessed that the fellow made such a good substitute that he missed +Cleon less than he at first feared he should have done. He was indeed +very assiduous, and found time to do many odd jobs for Captain Ducie, +who contracted quite a liking for him. + +Between Ducie and Cleon there existed one of those blind unreasoning +hatreds which spring up full-armed and murderous at first sight. Such +enmities are not the less deadly because they sometimes find no relief +in words. Cleon treated Ducie with as much outward respect and courtesy +as he did any other of his master's guests; no private communication +ever passed between the two, and yet each understood the other's +feelings towards him, and both of them were wise enough to keep as far +apart as possible. Neither of them dreamed at that time of the strange +fruit which their mutual enmity was to bear in time to come. Meanwhile, +Cleon lay sick in his own room, and Captain Ducie was rather gladdened +thereby. + + * * * * * + +M. Platzoff rarely touched cigar or pipe till after dinner; but, +whatever company he might have, when that meal was over, it was his +invariable custom to retire for an hour or two to the room consecrated +to the uses of the Great Herb, and his guests seldom or never declined +to accompany him. To Captain Ducie, as an inveterate smoker, these +_seances_ were very pleasant. + +On the very first evening of the Captain's arrival at Bon Repos, M. +Platzoff had intimated that he was an opium smoker, and that at no very +distant date he would enlighten Ducie as to the practice in question. +About a week later, as they sat down to their pipes and coffee, said +Platzoff, "This is one of my big smoke-nights. To-night I go on a +journey of discovery into Dreamland--a country that no explorations can +exhaust, where beggars are the equals of kings, and where the Fates that +control our actions are touched with a fine eccentricity that in a more +commonplace world would be termed madness. But there nothing is +commonplace." + +"You are going to smoke opium?" said Ducie, interrogatively. + +"I am going to smoke drashkil. Let me, for this once, persuade you to +follow my example." + +"For this once I would rather be excused," said Ducie, laughingly. + +Platzoff shrugged his shoulders. "I offer to open for you the golden +gates of a land full of more strange and wondrous things than were ever +dreamed of by any early voyager as being in that new world on whose +discovery he was bent; I offer to open up for you a set of experiences +so utterly fresh and startling that your matter-of-fact English +intellect cannot even conceive of such things. I offer you all this, and +you laugh me down with an air of superiority, as though I were about to +present you with something which, however precious it might be in my +eyes, in yours was utterly without value." + +"If I sin at all," said Ducie, "it is through ignorance. The subject is +one respecting which I know next to nothing. But I must confess that +about experiences such as you speak of there is an intangibility--a +want of substance--that to me would make them seem singularly +valueless." + +"And is not the thing we call life one tissue of intangibilities?" asked +the Russian. "You can touch neither the beginning nor the end of it. Do +not its most cherished pleasures fly you even as you are in the very act +of trying to grasp them? Do you know for certain that you--you +yourself--are really here?--that you do not merely dream that you are +here? What do you know?" + +"Your theories are too far-fetched for me," said Ducie. "A dream can be +nothing more than itself--nothing can give it backbone or substance. To +me such things are of no more value than the shadow I cast behind me +when I walk in the sun." + +"And yet without substance there could be no shadow," snarled the +Russian. + +"Do your experiences in any way resemble those recorded by De Quincey?" + +"They do and do not," answered Platzoff. "I can often trace, or fancy +that I can, a slight connecting likeness, arising probably from the fact +that in the case of both of us a similar, or nearly similar, agent was +employed for a similar purpose. But, as a rule, the intellectual +difference between any two men is sufficient to render their experiences +in this respect utterly dissimilar." + +"It does not follow, I presume, that all the visions induced by the +imbibing of opium, or what you term drashkil, are pleasant ones?" + +"By no means. You cannot have forgotten what De Quincey has to say on +that score. But whether they are pleasant or the contrary, I accept them +as so much experience, and in so far I am satisfied. You look +incredulous, but I tell you, sir, that what I see, and what I +undergo--subjectively--while under the influence of drashkil make up for +me an experience as real, that dwells as vividly in my memory and that +can be brought to mind like any other set of recollections, as if it +were built up brick by brick, fact by fact, out of the incidents of +everyday life. And all such experiences are valuable in this wise: that +whatever I see while under the influence of drashkil I see, as it were, +with the eyes of genius. I breathe a keener atmosphere; I have finer +intuitions; the brain is no longer clogged with that part of me which is +mortal; in whatever imaginary scenes I assist, whether actor or +spectator, matters not; I seem to discern the underlying meaning of +things--I hear the low faint beating of the hidden pulses of the world. +To come back from this enchanted realm to the dull realities of everyday +life is like depriving some hero of fairyland of his magic gifts and +reducing him to the level of common humanity." + +"At which pleasant level I pray ever to be kept," said Ducie; "I have no +desire to soar into those regions of romance where you seem so +thoroughly at home." + +"So be it," said Platzoff drily. "The intellects of you English have +been nourished on beef and beer for so many generations that there is no +such thing as spiritual insight left among you. We must not expect too +much." This was said not ill-naturedly, but in that quiet jeering tone +which was almost habitual with Platzoff. + +Ducie maintained a judicious silence and went on puffing gravely at his +meerschaum. Platzoff touched the gong and Cleon entered, for this +conversation took place before the illness of the latter. The Russian +held up two fingers, and Cleon bowed. Then Cleon opened a mahogany box +in one corner of the room, and took out of it a pipe-bowl of red clay, +into which he fitted a flexible tube five or six yards in length and +tipped with amber. The bowl was then fixed into a stand of black oak +about a foot high and there held securely, and the mouthpiece handed to +Platzoff. Cleon next opened an inlaid box, and by means of a tiny silver +spatula he cut out a small block of some black, greasy-looking mixture, +which he proceeded to fit into the bowl of the pipe. On the top of this +he sprinkled a little aromatic Turkish tobacco, and then applied an +allumette. When he saw that the pipe was fairly alight, he bowed and +withdrew. + +While these preparations were going on Platzoff had not been silent. "I +have spoken to you of what I am about to smoke, both as opium and +drashkil," he said. "It is not by any means pure opium. With that great +drug are mixed two or three others that modify and influence the chief +ingredient materially. I had the secret of the preparation from a Hindoo +gentleman while I was in India. It was imparted to me as an immense +favour, it being a secret even there. The enthusiastic terms in which he +spoke of it have been fully justified by the result, as you would +discover for yourself if you could only be persuaded to try it. You +shake your head. Eh bien! mon ami; the loss is yours, not mine." + +"Some of what you have termed your 'experiences' are no doubt very +singular ones?" said Ducie, interrogatively. + +"They are--very singular," answered Platzoff. "In my last +drashkil-dream, for instance, I believed myself to be an Indian fakir, +and I seemed to realise to the full the strange life of one of those +strange beings. I was stationed in the shade of a large tree just +without the gate of some great city where all who came and went could +see me. On the ground, a little way in front of me, was a wooden bowl +for the reception of the offerings of the charitable. I had kept both my +hands close shut for so many years that the nails had grown into the +flesh, and the muscles had hardened so that I could no longer open them; +and I was looked upon as a very holy man. The words of the passers-by +were sweet in my ears, but I never spoke to them in return. Silent and +immovable, I stood there through the livelong day--and in my vision it +was always day. I had the power of looking back, and I knew that, in the +first instance, I had been led by religious enthusiasm to adopt that +mode of life. I should be in the world but not of it; I should have +more time for that introspective contemplation the aim and end of which +is mental absorption in the divine Brahma; besides which, people would +praise me, and all the world would know that I was a holy man. But the +strangest part of the affair remains to be told. In the eyes of the +people I had grown in sanctity from year to year; but in my own heart I +knew that instead of approaching nearer to Brahma, I was becoming more +depraved, more wicked, with a great inward wickedness, as time went on. +I struggled desperately against the slough of sin that was slowly +creeping over me, but in vain. It seemed to me as if the choice were +given me either to renounce my life of outward-seeming sanctity, and +becoming as other men were, to feel again that inward peace which had +been mine long years before; or else, while remaining holy in the eyes +of the multitude, to feel myself sinking into a bottomless pit of +wickedness from which I could never more hope to emerge. My mental +tortures while this struggle was going on I can never forget: they are +as much a real experience to me as if they had made up a part of my +genuine waking life. And still I stood with closed hands in the shade of +the tree; and the people cried out that I was holy, and placed their +offerings in my bowl; and I could not make up my mind to abnegate the +title they gave me and become as they were. And still I grew in inward +wickedness, till I loathed myself as if I were some vile reptile; and so +the struggle went on, and was still going on when I opened my eyes and +found myself again at Bon Repos." + +As Platzoff ceased speaking, Cleon applied the light, and Ducie in his +eagerness drew a little nearer. Platzoff was dressed a la Turk, and sat +with cross legs on the low divan that ran round the room. Slowly and +deliberately he inhaled the smoke from his pipe, expelling it a moment +later, in part through his nostrils and in part through his lips. The +layer of tobacco at the top of the bowl was quickly burnt to ashes. By +this time the drug below was fairly alight, and before long a thick +white sickly smoke began to ascend in rings and graceful spires towards +the roof of the room. Cleon was gone, and a solemn silence was +maintained by both the men. Platzoff's eyes, black and piercing, were +fixed on vacancy; they seemed to be gazing on some picture visible to +himself alone. Ducie was careful not to disturb him. His inhalations +were slow, gentle and regular. After a time, a thin film or glaze began +to gather over his wide-open eyes, dimming their brightness, and making +them seem like the eyes of someone dead. His complexion became livid, +his face more cadaverous than it naturally was. Then his eyes closed +slowly and gently, like those of an infant dropping to sleep. For a +little time longer he kept on inhaling the smoke, but every minute the +inhalations became fainter and fewer in number. At length the hand that +held the pipe dropped nervelessly by his side, the amber mouthpiece +slipped from between his lips, his jaw dropped, and, with an almost +imperceptible sigh, his head sank softly back on to the cushions +behind, and M. Paul Platzoff was in the opium-eater's paradise. + +Ducie, who had never seen anyone similarly affected, was frightened by +his host's death-like appearance. He was doubtful whether Platzoff had +not been seized with a fit. In order to satisfy himself he touched the +gong and summoned Cleon. That incomparable domestic glided in, noiseless +as a shadow. + +"Does your master always look as he does now after he has been smoking +opium?" asked the Captain. + +"Always, sir." + +"And how long does it take him to come round?" + +"That depends, sir, on the strength of the dose he has been smoking. The +preparation is made of different strengths to suit him at different +times; but always when he has been smoking drashkil I leave him +undisturbed till midnight. If by that time he has not come round +naturally and of his own accord, I carry him to bed and then administer +to him a certain draught, which has the effect of sending him into a +natural and healthy sleep, from which he awakes next morning thoroughly +refreshed." + +"Then you will come to-night at twelve, and see how your master is by +that time?" said Ducie. + +"It is part of my duty to do so," answered Cleon. + +"Then I will wait here till that time," said the Captain. Cleon bowed +and disappeared. + +So Ducie kept watch and ward for four hours, during the whole of which +time Platzoff lay, except for his breathing, like one dead. As the last +stroke of midnight struck Cleon reappeared. His master showed not the +slightest symptom of returning consciousness. Having examined him +narrowly for a moment or two, he turned to Ducie. + +"You must pardon me, sir, for leaving you alone," he said, "but I must +now take my master off to bed. He will scarcely wake up for conversation +to-night." + +"Proceed as though I were not here," said Ducie. "I will just finish +this weed, and then I too will turn in." + +Platzoff's private rooms, forming a suite four in number, were on the +ground floor of Bon Repos. From the main corridor the first that you +entered was the smoking-room already described. Next to that was the +dressing-room, from which you passed into the bed-room. The last of the +four was a small square room, fitted up with book-shelves, and used as a +private library and study. + +Cleon, who was a strong, muscular fellow, lifted Platzoff's shrivelled +body as easily as he might have done that of a child, and so carried him +out of the room. + +Ducie met his host at the breakfast-table next morning. The latter +seemed as well as usual, and was much amused when Ducie told him of his +alarm, and how he had summoned Cleon under the impression that Platzoff +had been taken dangerously ill. + +Platzoff rarely indulged in the luxury of drashkil-smoking oftener than +once a week. His constitution was delicate, and a too frequent use of so +dangerous a drug would have tended to shatter still further his already +enfeebled health. Besides, as he said, he wished to keep it as a luxury, +and not, by a too frequent indulgence in it, to take off the fine edge +of enjoyment and render it commonplace. Ducie had several subsequent +opportunities of witnessing the process of drashkil-smoking and its +effects, but one description will serve for all. On every occasion the +same formula was gone through, precisely as first seen by Ducie. The +pipe was charged and lighted by Cleon (after he became ill, by the new +servant Jasmin). Precisely at midnight Cleon returned, and either +conducted or carried his master to bed, as the necessities of the case +might require. It was his knowledge of the latter fact that stood Ducie +in such good stead later on, when he came to elaborate the details of +his scheme for stealing the Great Hara Diamond. + +But as yet his scheme was in embryo. His visit was drawing to a close, +and he was still without the slightest clue to the hiding-place of the +Diamond. + + + + +CHAPTER XV. + +THE DIAMOND. + + +Captain Ducie had been six weeks at Bon Repos; his visit would come to a +close in the course of three or four days, but he was still as ignorant +of the hiding-place of the Diamond as on that evening when he learned +for the first time that M. Platzoff had such a treasure in his +possession. + +Since the completion of his translation of the stolen MS. he had dreamed +day and night of the Diamond. It was said to be worth a hundred and +fifty thousand pounds. If he could only succeed in appropriating it, +what a different life would be his in time to come! In such a case, he +would of course be obliged to leave England for ever. But he was quite +prepared to do that. He was without any tie of kindred or friendship +that need bind him to his native land. Once safe in another hemisphere, +he would dispose of the Diamond, and the proceeds would enable him to +live as a gentleman ought to live for the remainder of his days. Truly, +a pleasant dream. + +But it was only a dream after all, as he himself in his cooler moments +was quite ready to acknowledge. It was nothing but a dream even when +Platzoff wrung from him an unreluctant consent to extend his visit at +Bon Repos for another six weeks. If he stayed for six months, there +seemed no likelihood that at the end of that time he would be one whit +wiser on the one point on which he thirsted for information than he was +now. Still, he was glad for various reasons to retain his pleasant +quarters a little while longer. + +Truth to tell, in Captain Ducie M. Platzoff had found a guest so much +to his liking that he could not make up his mind to let him go again. +Ducie was incurious, or appeared to be so; he saw and heard, and asked +no questions. He seemed to be absolutely destitute of political +principles, and therein he formed a pleasant contrast both to M. +Platzoff himself and to the swarm of foreign gentlemen who at different +times found their way to Bon Repos. He was at once a good listener and a +good talker. In fine, he made in every way so agreeable, and was at the +same time so thorough a gentleman that Platzoff was as glad to retain +him as he himself was pleased to stay. + +Three out of the Captain's second term of six weeks had nearly come to +an end when on a certain evening, as he and Platzoff sat together in the +smoke-room, the latter broached a subject which Ducie would have wagered +all he possessed--though that was little enough--that his host would +have been the last man in the world even to hint at. + +"I think I have heard you say that you have a taste for diamonds and +precious stones," remarked Platzoff. Ducie had hazarded such a remark on +one or two occasions as a quiet attempt to draw Platzoff out, but had +only succeeded in eliciting a little shrug and a cold smile, as though +for him such a statement could have no possible interest. + +"If I have said so to you I have only spoken the truth," replied Ducie. +"I am passionately fond of gems and precious stones of every kind. Have +you any to show me?" + +"I have in my possession a green diamond said to be worth a hundred and +fifty thousand pounds," answered the Russian quietly. + +The simulated surprise with which Captain Ducie received this +announcement was a piece of genuine comedy. His real surprise arose from +the fact of Platzoff having chosen to mention the matter to him at all. + +"Great heaven!" he exclaimed. "Can you be in earnest? Had I heard such a +statement from the lips of any other man than you, I should have +questioned either his sanity or his truth." + +"You need not question either one or the other in my case," answered +Platzoff, with a smile. "My assertion is true to the letter. Some +evening when I am less lazy than I am now, you shall see the stone and +examine it for yourself." + +"I take it as a great proof of your friendship for me, monsieur," said +Ducie warmly, "that you have chosen to make me the recipient of such a +confidence." + +"It _is_ a proof of my friendship," said the Russian. "No one of my +political friends--and I have many that are dear to me, both in England +and abroad--is aware that I have in my possession so inestimable a gem. +But you, sir, are an English gentleman, and my friend for reasons +unconnected with politics; I know that my secret will be safe in your +keeping." + +Ducie winced inwardly, but he answered with grave cordiality, "The +event, my dear Platzoff, will prove that your confidence has not been +misplaced." + +After this, the Russian went on to tell Ducie that the MS. lost at the +time of the railway accident had reference to the great Diamond; that it +contained secret instructions, addressed to a very dear friend of the +writer, as to the disposal of the Diamond after his, Platzoff's, death; +all of which was quite as well known to Ducie as to the Russian himself; +but the Captain sat with his pipe between his lips, and listened with an +appearance of quiet interest that impressed his host greatly. + +That night Ducie's mind was too excited to allow of sleep. He was about +to be shown the great Diamond; but would the mere fact of seeing it +advance him one step towards obtaining possession of it? Would Platzoff, +when showing him the stone, show him also the place where it was +ordinarily kept? His confidence in Ducie would scarcely carry him as far +as that. In any case, it would be something to have seen the Diamond, +and for the rest, Ducie must trust to the chapter of accidents and his +own wits. On one point he was fully determined--to make the Diamond his +own at any cost, if the slightest possible chance of doing so were +afforded him. He was dazzled by the magnitude of the temptation; so much +so, indeed, that he never seemed to realise in his own mind the foulness +of the deed by which alone it could become his property. Had any man +hinted that he was a thief, either in act or intention, he would have +repudiated the term with scorn--would have repudiated it even in his own +mind, for he made a point of hoodwinking and cozening himself, as though +he were some other person whose good opinion must on no account be +forfeited. + +Captain Ducie awaited with hidden impatience the hour when it should +please M. Platzoff to fulfil his promise. He had not long to wait. Three +evenings later, as they sat in the smoking-room, said Platzoff: +"To-night you shall see the Great Hara Diamond. No eyes save my own have +seen it for ten years. I must ask you to put yourself for an hour or two +under my instructions. Are you minded so to do?" + +"I shall be most happy to carry out your wishes in every way," answered +Ducie. "Consider me as your slave for the time being." + +"Attend, then, if you please. This evening you will retire to your own +rooms at eleven o'clock. Precisely at one-thirty a.m., you will come +back here. You will be good enough to come in your slippers, because it +is not desirable that any of the household should be disturbed by our +proceedings. I have no further orders at present." + +"Your lordship's wishes are my commands," answered Ducie, with a mock +salaam. + +They sat talking and smoking till eleven; then Ducie left his host as +if for the night. He lay down for a couple of hours on the sofa in his +dressing-room. Precisely at one-thirty he was on his way back to the +smoke-room, his feet encased in a pair of Indian mocassins. A minute +later he was joined by Platzoff in dressing-gown and slippers. + +"I need hardly tell you, my dear Ducie," began the latter, "that with a +piece of property in my possession no larger than a pigeon's egg, and +worth so many thousands of pounds, a secure place in which to deposit +that property (since I choose to have it always near me) is an object of +paramount importance. That secure place of deposit I have at Bon Repos. +This you may accept as one reason for my having lived in such an +out-of-the-world spot for so many years. It is a place known to myself +alone. After my death it will become known to one person only--to the +person into whose possession the Diamond will pass when I shall be no +longer among the living. The secret will be told him that he may have +the means of finding the Diamond, but not even to him will it become +known till after my decease. Under these circumstances, my dear Ducie, +you will, I am sure, excuse me for keeping the hiding-place of the +Diamond a secret still--a secret even from you. Say--will you not?" + +With a malediction at his heart, but with a smile on his lips, Captain +Ducie made reply. "Pray offer no excuses, my dear Platzoff, where none +are needed. What I want is to see the Diamond itself, not to know where +it is kept. Such a piece of information would be of no earthly use to +me, and it would involve a responsibility which, under any +circumstances, I should hardly care to assume." + +"It is well; you are an English gentleman," said the Russian, with a +ceremonious inclination of the head, "and your words are based on wisdom +and truth. It is necessary that I should blindfold you: oblige me with +your handkerchief." + +Ducie with a smile handed over his handkerchief, and Platzoff proceeded +to blindfold him--an operation which was rapidly and effectually +performed by the deft fingers of the Russian. + +"Now, give me your hand and come with me, but do not speak till you are +spoken to." + +So Ducie laid a finger in the Russian's thin, cold palm, and the latter, +taking a small bronze hand-lamp, conducted his bandaged companion from +the room. + +In two minutes after leaving the smoke-room Ducie's geographical ideas +of the place were completely at fault. Platzoff led him through so many +corridors and passages, turning now to the right hand, and now to the +left--he guided him up and down so many flights of stairs, now of stone +and now of wood, that he lost his reckoning entirely and felt as though +he were being conducted through some place far more spacious than Bon +Repos. He counted the number of stairs in each flight that he went up or +down. In two or three cases the numbers tallied, which induced him to +think that Platzoff was conducting him twice over the same ground, in +order perhaps the more effectually to confuse his ideas as to the +position of the place to which he was being led. + +After several minutes spent thus in silent perambulation of the old +house, they halted for a moment while Platzoff unlocked a door, after +which they passed forward into a room, in the middle of which Ducie was +left standing while Platzoff relocked the door, and then busied himself +for a minute in trimming the lamp he had brought with him, which had +been his only guide through the dark and silent house, for the servants +had all gone to bed more than an hour ago. + +Ducie, thus left to himself for a little while, had time for reflection. +The floor on which he was standing was covered with a thick, soft +carpet, consequently he was in one of the best rooms in the house. The +atmosphere of this room was penetrated with a very faint aroma of +pot-pourri, so faint that unless Captain Ducie's nose had been more than +ordinarily keen he would never have perceived it. To the best of his +knowledge there was only one room in Bon Repos that was permeated with +the peculiar scent of pot-pourri. That room was M. Platzoff's private +study, to which access was obtained through his bed-room. Ducie had been +only twice into this room, but he remembered two facts in connection +with it. First, the scent already spoken of; secondly, that besides the +door which opened into it from the bed-room, there was another door +which he had noticed as being shut and locked both times that he was +there. If the room in which they now were was really M. Platzoff's +study, they had probably obtained access to it through the second door. + +While silently revolving these thoughts in his mind, Captain Ducie's +fingers were busy with the formation of two tiny paper pellets, each no +bigger than a pea. Unseen by Platzoff, he contrived to drop these +pellets on the carpet. + +"I must really apologise," said the Russian, next moment, "for keeping +you waiting so long; but this lamp will not burn properly." + +"Don't hurry yourself on my account," said Ducie. "I am quite jolly. My +eyes are ready bandaged; I am only waiting for the axe and the block." + +"We are not going to dispose of you in quite so summary a fashion," said +the Russian. "One minute more and your eyesight shall be restored to +you." + +Ducie's quick ears caught a low click, as though someone had touched a +spring. Then there was a faint rumbling, as though something were being +rolled back on hidden wheels. + +"Lend me your hand again, and bend that tall figure of yours. Step +carefully. There is another staircase to descend--the last and the +steepest of all." + +Keeping fast hold of Platzoff's hand, Ducie followed slowly and +cautiously, counting the steps as he went down. They were of stone, and +were twenty-two in number. At the bottom of the staircase another door +was unlocked. The two passed through, and the door was shut and relocked +behind them. + +"Be blind no longer!" said Platzoff, taking off the handkerchief and +handing it to Ducie, with a smile. A few seconds elapsed before the +latter could discern anything clearly. Then he saw that he was in a +small vaulted chamber about seven feet in height, with a flagged floor, +but without furniture of any kind save a small table of black oak on +which Platzoff's lamp was now burning. The atmosphere of this dungeon +had struck him with a sudden chill as he went in. At each end was a +door, both of iron. The one that had opened to admit them was set in the +thick masonry of the wall; the one at the opposite end seemed built into +the solid rock. + +"Before we go any farther," said Platzoff, "I may as well explain to you +how it happens that a respectable old country house like Bon Repos has +such a suspicious-looking hiding-place about its premises. You must know +that I bought the house, many years ago, of the last representative of +an old North-country family. He was a bachelor, and in him the family +died out. Three years after I had come to reside here the old man, at +that time on his death-bed, sent me a letter and a key. The letter +revealed to me the secret of the place we are now exploring, of which I +had no previous knowledge; the key is that of the two iron doors. It +seems that the old man's ancestors had been deeply implicated in the +Jacobite risings of last century. The house had been searched several +times, and on one occasion occupied by Hanoverian troops. As a provision +against such contingencies, this hiding-place (a natural one as far as +the cavern beyond is concerned, which has probably existed for thousands +of years) was then first connected with the interior of the house, and +rendered practicable at a moment's notice; and here on several occasions +certain members of the family, together with their plate and +title-deeds, lay concealed for weeks at a time. The old gentleman gave +me a solemn assurance that the secret existed with him alone; all who +had been in any way implicated in the earlier troubles having died long +ago. As the property had now become mine by purchase, he thought it only +right that before he died these facts should be brought to my knowledge. +You may imagine, my dear Ducie, with what eagerness I seized upon this +place as a safe depository for my diamond, which, up to this time, I had +been obliged to carry about my person. And now, forward to the heart of +the mystery!" + +Having unlocked and flung open the second iron door, Platzoff took up +his lamp, and, closely followed by Ducie, entered a narrow winding +passage in the rock. After following this passage, which tended slightly +downwards for a considerable distance, they emerged into a large +cavernous opening in the heart of the hill. + +Platzoff's first act was, by means of a long crook, to draw down within +reach of his hand a large iron lamp that was suspended from the roof by +a running chain. This lamp he lighted from the hand-lamp he had brought +with him. As soon as released, it ascended to its former position, about +ten feet from the ground. It burned with a clear white flame that +lighted up every nook and cranny of the place. The sides of the cave +were of irregular formation. Measuring by the eye, Ducie estimated the +cave to be about sixty yards in length, by a breadth, in the widest +part, of twenty. In height it appeared to be about forty feet. The floor +was covered with a carpet of thick brown sand, but whether this covering +was a natural or an artificial one Ducie had no means of judging. The +atmosphere of the place was cold and damp, and the walls in many places +dripped with moisture; in other places they scintillated in the +lamplight as though thousands of minute gems were embedded in their +surface. + +In the middle of the floor, on a pedestal of stones loosely piled +together, was a hideous idol, about four feet in height, made of wood, +and painted in various colours. In the centre of its forehead gleamed +the great Diamond. + +"Behold!" was all that Platzoff said, as he pointed to the idol. Then +they both stood and gazed in silence. + +Many contending emotions were at work just then in Ducie's breast, chief +of which was a burning, almost unconquerable desire to make that +glorious gem his own at every risk. In his ear a fiend seemed to be +whispering. + +"All you have to do," it seemed to say, "is to grip old Platzoff tightly +round the neck for a couple of minutes. His thread of life is frail and +would be easily broken. Then possess yourself of the Diamond and his +keys. Go back by the way you came and fasten everything behind you. The +household is all a-bed, and you could get away unseen. Long before the +body of Platzoff would be discovered, if indeed it were ever discovered, +you would be far away and beyond all fear of pursuit. Think! That tiny +stone is worth a hundred and fifty thousand pounds." + +This was Ducie's temptation. It shook him inwardly as a reed is shaken +by the wind. Outwardly he was his ordinary quiet, impassive self, only +gazing with eyes that gleamed on the gleaming gem, which shone like a +new-fallen star on the forehead of that hideous image. + +The spell was broken by Platzoff, who, going up to the idol, and passing +his hand through an orifice at the back of the skull, took the Diamond +out of its resting-place, close behind the hole in the forehead, through +which it was seen from the front. With thumb and forefinger he took it +daintily out, and going back to Ducie dropped it into the outstretched +palm of the latter. + +Ducie turned the Diamond over and over, and held it up before the light +between his forefinger and thumb, and tried the weight of it on his +palm. It was in the simple form of a table diamond, with only sixteen +facets in all, and was just as it had left the fingers of some Indian +cutter, who could say how many centuries ago! It glowed with a green +fire, deep, yet tender, that flashed through its facets and smote the +duller lamplight with sparkles of intense brilliancy. This, then, was +the wondrous gem which for reign after reign was said to have been +regarded as their choicest possession by the great lords of Hyderabad. +Ducie seemed to be examining it most closely; but, in truth, at that +very moment he was debating in his own mind the terrible question of +murder or no murder, and scarcely saw the stone itself at all. + +"Ami, you do not seem to admire my Diamond!" said the Russian presently, +with a touch of pathos in his voice. + +Ducie pressed the Diamond back into Platzoff's hands. "I admire it so +much," said he, "that I cannot enter into any commonplace terms of +admiration. I will talk to you to-morrow respecting it. At present I +lack fitting words." + +The Russian took back the stone, pressed it to his lips, and then went +and replaced it in the forehead of the idol. + +"Who is your friend there?" said Ducie, with a desperate attempt to +wrench his thoughts away from that all-absorbing temptation. + +"I am not sufficiently learned in Hindu mythology to tell you his name +with certainty," answered Platzoff. "I take him to be no less a +personage than Vishnu. He is seated upon the folds of the snake Jesha, +whose seven heads bend over him to afford him shade. In one hand he +holds a spray of the sacred lotus. He is certainly hideous enough to be +a very great personage. Do you know, my dear Ducie," went on Platzoff, +"I have a very curious theory with regard to that Hindu gentleman, +whoever he may be. Many years ago he was worshipped in some great +Eastern temple, and had priests and acolytes without number to attend to +his wants; and then, as now, the great Diamond shone in his forehead. By +some mischance the Diamond was lost or stolen--in any case, he was +dispossessed of it. From that moment he was an unhappy idol. He derived +pleasure no longer from being worshipped, he could rest neither by night +nor day--he had lost his greatest treasure. When he could no longer +endure this state of wretchedness he stole out of the temple one fine +night unknown to anyone, and set out on his travels in search of the +missing Diamond. Was it simple accident or occult knowledge, that +directed his wanderings after a time to the shop of a London curiosity +dealer, where I saw him, fell in love with him, and bought him? I know +not: I only know that he and his darling Diamond were at last re-united, +and here they have remained ever since. You smile as if I had been +relating a pleasant fable. But tell me, if you can, how it happens that +in the forehead of yonder idol there is a small cavity lined with gold +into which the Diamond fits with the most exact nicety. That cavity was +there when I bought the idol and has in no way been altered since. The +shape of the Diamond, as you have seen for yourself, is rather +peculiar. Is it therefore possible that mere accident can be at the +bottom of such a coincidence? Is not my theory of the Wandering Idol +much more probable as well as far more poetical? You smile again. You +English are the greatest sceptics in the world. But it is time to go. We +have seen all there is to be seen, and the temperature of this place +will not benefit my rheumatism." + +So the lamp was put out and Idol and Diamond were left to darkness and +solitude. In the vaulted room, at the entrance to the winding way that +led to the cavern, Ducie's eyes were again bandaged. Then up the +twenty-two stone stairs, and so into the carpeted room above, where was +the scent of pot-pourri. From this room they came, by many passages and +flights of stairs, back to the smoking-room, where Ducie's bandage was +removed. One last pipe, a little desultory conversation, and then bed. + +M. Platzoff being out of the way for an hour or two next afternoon, +Captain Ducie contrived to pay a surreptitious visit to his host's +private study. On the carpet he found one of the two paper pellets which +he had dropped from his fingers the previous evening. There, too, was +the same faint, sickly smell that had filled his nostrils when the +handkerchief was over his eyes, which he now traced to a huge china jar +in one corner, filled with the dried leaves of flowers gathered long +summers before. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI. + +JANET'S RETURN. + + +"There he is! there is dear Major Strickland!" + +The tidal train was just steaming into London Bridge station on a +certain spring evening as the above words were spoken. From a window of +one of the carriages a bright young face was peering eagerly, a face +which lighted up with a smile of rare sweetness the moment Major +Strickland's soldierly figure came into view. A tiny gloved hand was +held out as a signal, the Major's eye was caught, the train came to a +stand, and next moment Janet Hope was on the platform with her arms +round the old soldier's neck and her lips held up for a kiss. + +The publicity of this transaction seemed slightly to shock the +sensibilities of Miss Close, the English teacher in whose charge Janet +had come over; but she was won to a quite different view of the affair +when the Major, after requesting to be introduced to her, shook her +cordially by the hand, said how greatly obliged he was to her for the +care she had taken of "his dear Miss Hope," and invited her to dine next +day with himself and Janet. Then Miss Close went her way, and the Major +and Janet went theirs in a cab to a hotel not a hundred miles from +Piccadilly. + +Janet's first words as they got clear of the station were: + +"And now you must tell me how everybody is at Deepley Walls." + +"Everybody was quite well when I left home except one person--Sister +Agnes." + +"Dear Sister Agnes!" said Janet, and the tears sprang to her eyes in a +moment. "I am more sorry than I can tell to hear that she is ill." + +"Not ill exactly, but ailing," said the Major. "You must not alarm +yourself unnecessarily. She caught a severe cold one wet evening about +three months ago as she was on her way home from visiting some poor sick +woman in the village, and she seems never to have been quite well +since." + +"I had a letter from her five days ago, but she never hinted to me that +she was not well." + +"I can quite believe that. She is not one given to complaining about +herself, but one who strives to soothe the complaints of others. The +good she does in her quiet way among the poor is something wonderful. I +must tell you what an old bed-ridden man, to whom she had been very +kind, said to her the other day. Said he, 'If everybody had their rights +in this world, ma'am, or if I was king of fairyland, you should have a +pair of angel's wings, so that everybody might know how good you are.' +And there are a hundred others who would say the same thing." + +"If I had not had her dear letters to hearten me and cheer me up, I +think that many a time I should have broken down utterly under the +dreadful monotony of my life at the Pension Clissot. I had no holidays, +in the common meaning of the word; no dear friends to go and see; none +even to come once in a way to see me, were it only for one happy hour. I +had no home recollections to which I could look back fondly in memory, +and the future was all a blank--a mystery. But the letters of Sister +Agnes spoke to me like the voice of a dear friend. They purified me, +they lifted me out of my common work-a-day troubles and all the petty +meannesses of school-girl existence, and set before me the example of a +good and noble life as the one thing worth striving for in this weary +world." + +"Tut, tut, my dear child!" said the Major, "you are far too young to +call the world a weary world. Please heaven, it shall not be quite such +a dreary place for you in time to come. We will begin the change this +very evening. We shall just be in time to get a bit of dinner, and then, +heigh! for the play." + +"The play, dear Major Strickland!" said Janet, with a sudden flush and +an eager light in her eyes; "but would Sister Agnes approve of my going +to such a place?" + +"I scarcely think, poverina, that Sister Agnes would disapprove of any +place to which I might choose to take you." + +"Forgive me!" cried Janet; "I did not intend you to construe my words in +that way." + +"I have never construed anything since I was at school fifty years ago," +answered the Major, laughingly. "Can you tell me now from your heart, +little one, that you would not like to go to the play?" + +"I should like very, very much to go, and after what has been said I +will never forgive you if you do not take me." + +"The penalty would be too severe. It is agreed that we shall go." + +"To me it seems only seven days instead of seven years since I was last +driven through London streets," resumed Janet, as they were crawling up +Fleet Street. "The same shops, the same houses, and even, as it seems to +me, the same people crowding the pathways; and, to complete the +illusion, the same kind travelling companion now as then." + +"To me the illusion seems by no means so complete. To London Bridge, +seven years ago, I took a simple child of twelve: to-day I bring back a +young lady of nineteen--a woman, in point of fact--who, I have no doubt, +understands more of flirtation than she does of French, and would rather +graduate in coquetry than in crochet-work." + +"Take care then, sir, lest I wing my unslaked arrows at you." + +"You are too late in the day, dear child, to practise on me. I am your +devoted slave already--bound fast to the wheel of your triumphant car. +What more would you have?" + +The hotel was reached at last, and the Major gave Janet a short quarter +of an hour for her toilette. When she got downstairs dinner was on the +point of being served, and she found covers laid for three. Before she +had time to ask a question, the third person entered the room. He was a +tall, well-built man of six or seven and twenty. He had light-brown +hair, closely cropped, but still inclined to curl, and a thick beard and +moustache of the same colour. He had blue eyes, and a pleasant smile, +and the easy, self-possessed manner of one who had seen "the world of +men and things." His left sleeve was empty. + +Janet did not immediately recognise him, he looked so much older, so +different in every way; but at the first sound of his voice she knew who +stood before her. He came forward and held out his hand--the one hand +that was left him. + +"May I venture to call myself an old friend, Miss Hope? And to trust +that even after all these years I am not quite forgotten?" + +"I recognise you by your voice, not by your face. You are Mr. George +Strickland. You it was who saved my life. Whatever else I may have +forgotten, I have not forgotten that." + +"I am too well pleased to find that I live in your memory at all to +cavil with your reason for recollecting me." + +"But--but, I never heard--no one ever told me--" Then she stopped with +tears in her eyes, and glanced at his empty sleeve. + +"That I had left part of myself in India," he said, finishing the +sentence for her. "Such, nevertheless, is the case. Uncle there says +that the yellow rascals were so fond of me that they could not bear to +part from me altogether. For my own part, I think myself fortunate that +they did not keep me there _in toto_, in which case I should not have +had the pleasure of meeting you here to-day." + +He had been holding her hand quite an unnecessary length of time. She +now withdrew it gently. Their eyes met for one brief instant, then Janet +turned away and seated herself at the table. The flush caused by the +surprise of the meeting still lingered on her face, the tear-drops still +lingered in her eyes; and as George Strickland sat down opposite to her +he thought that he had never seen a sweeter vision, nor one that +appealed more directly to his imagination and his heart. + +Janet Hope at nineteen was very pleasant to look upon. Her face was not +one of mere commonplace prettiness, but had an individuality of its own +that caused it to linger in the memory like some sweet picture that once +seen cannot be readily forgotten. Her eyes were of a tender, luminous +grey, full of candour and goodness. Her hair was a deep, glossy brown; +her face was oval, and her nose a delicate aquiline. On ordinary +occasions she had little or no colour, yet no one could have taken the +clear pallor of her cheek as a token of ill-health; it seemed rather a +result of the depth and earnestness of the life within her. + +In her wardrobe there was a lack of things fashionable, and as she sat +at dinner this evening she had on a dress of black alpaca, made after a +very quiet and nun-like style; with a thin streak of snow-white collar +and cuff round throat and wrist; but without any ornament save a +necklace of bog-oak, cut after an antique pattern, and a tiny gold +locket in which was a photographic likeness of Sister Agnes. + +That was a very pleasant little dinner-party. In the course of +conversation it came out that, a few days previously, Captain George had +been decorated with the Victoria Cross. Janet's heart thrilled within +her as the Major told in simple, unexaggerated terms of the special deed +of heroism by which the great distinction had been won. The Major told +also how George was now invalided on half-pay; and her heart thrilled +with a still sweeter emotion when he went on to say that the young +soldier would henceforth reside with him at Eastbury--at Eastbury, which +was only two short miles from Deepley Walls! The feeling with which she +heard this simple piece of news was one to which she had hitherto been +an utter stranger. She asked herself, and blushed as she asked, whence +this new sweet feeling emanated? But she was satisfied with asking the +question, and seemed to think that no answer was required. + +When dinner was over, they set out for the play. Janet had never been +inside a theatre before, and for her the experience was an utterly novel +and delightful one. + +On the third day after Janet's arrival in London they all went down to +Eastbury together--the Major, and she and George. But in the course of +those three days the Major took Janet about a good deal, and introduced +her to nearly all the orthodox sights of the Great City--and a strange +kaleidoscopic jumble they seemed at the time, only to be afterwards +rearranged by memory as portions of a bright and sunny picture the like +of which she scarcely dared hope ever to see again. + +Captain Strickland parted from the Major and Janet at Eastbury station. +The two latter were bound for Deepley Walls, for the Major felt that his +task would have been ill-performed had he failed to deliver Janet into +Lady Chillington's own hands. As they rumbled along the quiet country +roads--which brought vividly back to Janet's mind the evening when she +saw Deepley Walls for the first time--the Major said: "Do you remember, +poppetina, how seven years ago I spoke to you of a certain remarkable +likeness which you then bore to someone whom I knew when I was quite a +young man, or has the circumstance escaped your memory?" + +"I remember quite well your speaking of the likeness, and I have often +wondered since who the original was of whom I was such a striking copy. +I remember, too, how positively Lady Chillington denied the resemblance +which you so strongly insisted upon." + +"Will her ladyship dare to deny it to-day?" said the Major sternly. "I +tell you, child, that now you are grown up, the likeness seen by me +seven years ago is still more clearly visible. When I look into your +eyes I seem to see my own youth reflected there. When you are near me I +can fancy that my lost treasure has not been really lost to me--that she +has merely been asleep, like the princess in the story-book, and that +while time has moved on for me, she has come back out of her enchanted +slumber as fresh and beautiful as when I saw her last. Ah, poverina! you +cannot imagine what a host of recollections the sight of your sweet face +conjures up whenever I choose to let my day-dreams have way for a little +while." + +"I remember your telling me that my parents were unknown to you," +answered Janet. "Perhaps the lady to whom I bear so strong a resemblance +was my mother." + +"No, not your mother, Janet. The lady to whom I refer died unmarried. +She and I had been engaged to each other for three years; but death came +and claimed her a fortnight before the day fixed for our wedding; and +here I am, a lonely old bachelor still." + +"Not quite lonely, dear Major Strickland," murmured Janet, as she lifted +his hand and pressed it to her lips. + +"True, child, not quite lonely. I have George, whom I love as though he +were a son of my own. And there is Aunt Felicity, as the children used +to call her, who is certainly very fond of me, as I also am of her." + +"Not forgetting poor me," said Janet. + +"Not forgetting you, dear, whom I love as a daughter." + +"And who loves you very sincerely in return." + +A few minutes later they drew up at Deepley Walls. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII. + +DEEPLY WALLS AFTER SEVEN YEARS. + + +Major Strickland rang the bell, and the door was opened by a servant who +was strange to Janet. + +"Be good enough to inform Lady Chillington that Major Strickland and +Miss Hope have just arrived from town, and inquire whether her ladyship +has any commands." + +The servant returned presently. "Her ladyship will see Major Strickland. +Miss Hope is to go to the housekeeper's room." + +"I will see you again, poverina, after my interview with her ladyship," +said the Major, as he went off in charge of the footman. + +Janet, left alone, threaded her way by the old familiar passages to the +housekeeper's room. Dance was not there, being probably in attendance on +Lady Chillington, and Janet had the room to herself. Her heart was heavy +within her. There was a chill sense of friendlessness, of being alone in +the world upon her. Were these cold walls to be the only home her youth +would ever know? A few slow salt tears welled from her eyes as she sat +brooding over the little wood fire, till presently there came a sound of +footsteps, and the Major's hand was laid caressingly upon her shoulder. + +"What, all alone!" he said; "and with nothing better to do than read +fairy tales in the glowing embers! Is there no one in all this big house +to attend to your wants? But Dance will be here presently, I have no +doubt, and the good old soul will do her best to make you comfortable. I +have been to pay my respects to her ladyship, who is in one of her +unamiable moods this evening. I, however, contrived to wring from her a +reluctant consent to your paying Aunt Felicity and me a visit now and +then at Eastbury, and it shall be my business to see that the promise is +duly carried out." + +"Then I am to remain at Deepley Walls!" said Janet. "I thought it +probable that my visit might be for a few weeks only, as my first one +was." + +"From what Lady Chillington said, I imagine that the present arrangement +is to be a permanent one; but she gave no hint of the mode in which she +intended to make use of your services, and that she will make use of you +in some way, no one who knows her can doubt. And now, dear, I must say +good-bye for the present; good-bye and God bless you! You may look to +see me again within the week. Keep up your spirits, and--but here comes +Dance, who will cheer you up far better than I can." + +As the Major went out, Dance came in. The good soul seemed quite +unchanged, except that she had grown older and mellower, and seemed to +have sweetened with age like an apple plucked unripe. A little cry of +delight burst from her lips the moment she saw Janet. But in the very +act of rushing forward with outstretched arms, she stopped. She stopped, +and stared, and then curtsied as though involuntarily. "If the dead are +ever allowed to come back to this earth, there is one of them before me +now!" she murmured. + +Janet caught the words, but her heart was too full to notice them just +then. She had her arms round Dance's neck in a moment, and her bright +young head was pressed against the old servant's faithful breast. + +"Oh, Dance, Dance, I am so glad you are come!" + +"Hush, dear heart! hush, my poor child! you must not take on in that +way. It seems a poor coming home for you--for I suppose Deepley Walls is +to be your home in time to come--but there are those under this roof +that love you dearly. Eh! but you are grown tall and bonny, and look as +fresh and sweet as a morning in May. Her ladyship ought to be proud of +you. But she gets that cantankerous and cross-grained in her old age +that you never know what will suit her for two minutes at a time. For +all that, her spirit is just wonderful, and she is a real lady, every +inch of her. And you, Miss Janet, you are a thorough lady; anybody can +see that, and her ladyship will see it as soon as anybody. She will like +you none the worse for being a gentlewoman. But here am I preaching away +like any old gadabout, and you not as much as taken your bonnet off yet. +Get your things off, dearie, and I'll have a cup of tea ready in no +time, and you'll feel ever so much better when you have had it." + +Dance could scarcely take her eyes off Janet's face, so attracted was +she by the likeness which had rung from her an exclamation on entering +the room. + +But Janet was tired, and reserved all questions till the morrow; all +questions, except one. That one was-- + +"How is Sister Agnes?" + +Dance shook her head solemnly. "No worse and no better than she has been +for the last two months. There is something lingering about her that I +don't like. She is far from well, and yet not exactly what we call ill. +Morning, noon and night she seems so terribly weary, and that is just +what frightens me. She has asked after you I don't know how many times, +and when tea is over you must go and see her. Only I must warn you, dear +Miss Janet, not to let your feelings overcome you when you see her--not +to make a scene. In that case your coming would do her not good, but +harm." + +Janet recovered her spirits in a great measure before tea was over. She +and Dance had much to talk about, many pleasant reminiscences to call up +and discuss. As if by mutual consent, Lady Chillington's name was not +mentioned between them. + +As soon as tea was over, Dance went to inquire when Sister Agnes would +see Miss Hope. The answer was, "I will see her at once." + +So Janet went with hushed footsteps up the well-remembered staircase, +opened the door softly, and stood for a moment on the threshold. Sister +Agnes was lying on a sofa. She put her hand suddenly to her side and +rose to her feet as Janet entered the room. A tall, wasted figure robed +in black, with a thin, spiritualised face, the natural pallor of which +was just now displaced by a transient flush that faded out almost as +quickly as it had come. The white head-dress had been cast aside for +once, and the black hair, streaked with silver, was tied in a simple +knot behind. The large dark eyes looked larger and darker than they had +ever looked before, and seemed lit up with an inner fire that had its +source in another world than ours. + +Sister Agnes advanced a step or two and held out her arms. "My darling!" +was all she said as she pressed Janet to her heart, and kissed her again +and again. They understood each other without words. The feeling within +them was too deep to find expression in any commonplace greeting. + +The excitement of the meeting was too much for the strength of Sister +Agnes. She was obliged to lie down again. Janet sat by her side, +caressing one of her wasted hands. + +"Your coming has made me very, very happy," murmured Sister Agnes after +a time. + +"Through all the seven dreary years of my school life," said Janet, "the +expectation of some day seeing you again was the one golden dream that +the future held before me. That dream has now come true. How I have +looked forward to this day none save those who have been circumstanced +as I have can more than faintly imagine." + +"Are you at all acquainted with Lady Chillington's intentions in asking +you to come to Deepley Walls?" + +"Not in the least. A fortnight ago I had no idea that I should so soon +be here. I knew that I could not stay much longer at the Pension +Clissot, and naturally wondered what instructions Madame Delclos would +receive from Lady Chillington as to my disposal. The last time I saw her +ladyship, her words seemed to imply that, after my education should be +finished, I should have to trust to my own exertions for earning a +livelihood. In fact, I have looked upon myself all along as ultimately +destined to add one more unit to the great tribe of governesses." + +"Such a fate shall not be yours if my weak arm has power to avert it," +said Sister Agnes. "For the present your services are required at +Deepley Walls, in the capacity of 'companion' to Lady Chillington--in +brief, to occupy the position held by me for so many years, but from +which I am now obliged to secede on account of ill-health." + +Janet was almost too astounded to speak. + +"Companion to Lady Chillington! I! Impossible!" was all that she could +say. + +"Why impossible, dear Janet?" asked Sister Agnes, with her low, sweet +voice. "I see no element of impossibility in such an arrangement. The +duties of the position have been filled by me for many years; they have +now devolved upon you, and I am not aware of anything that need preclude +your acceptance of them." + +"We are not all angels like you, Sister Agnes," said Janet. "Lady +Chillington, as I remember, is a very peculiar woman. She has no regard +for the feelings of others, especially when those others are her +inferiors in position. She says the most cruel things she can think of +and cares nothing how deeply they may wound. I am afraid that she and I +would never agree." + +"That Lady Chillington is a very peculiar woman I am quite ready to +admit. That she will say things to you that may seem hard and cruel, and +that may wound your feelings, I will also allow. But granting all this, +I can deduce from it no reason why the position should be refused by +you. Had you gone out as governess, you would probably have had fifty +things to contend against quite as disagreeable as Lady Chillington's +temper and cynical remarks. You are young, dear Janet, and life's battle +has yet to be fought by you. You must not expect that everything in this +world will arrange itself in accordance with your wishes. You will have +many difficulties to fight against and overcome, and the sooner you make +up your mind to the acceptance of that fact, the better it will be for +you in every way. If I have found the position of companion to Lady +Chillington not quite unendurable, why should it be found so by you? +Besides, her ladyship has many claims upon you--upon your best services +in every way. Every farthing that has been spent upon you from the day +you were born to the present time has come out of her purse. Except mere +life itself, you owe everything to her. And even if this were not so, +there are other and peculiar ties between you and her, of which you know +nothing (although you may possibly be made acquainted with them +by-and-by), which are in themselves sufficient to lead her to expect +every reasonable obedience at your hands. You must clothe yourself with +good temper, dear Janet, as with armour of proof. You must make up your +mind beforehand that however harsh her ladyship's remarks may sometimes +seem, you will not answer her again. Do this, and her words will soon be +powerless to sting you. Instead of feeling hurt or angry, you will be +inclined to pity her--to pray for her. And she deserves pity, Janet, if +any woman in this sinful world ever did. To have severed of her own +accord those natural ties which other people cherish so fondly; to see +herself fading into a dreary old age, and yet of her own free will to +shut out the love that should attend her by the way and strew flowers on +her path; to have no longer a single earthly hope or pleasure beyond +those connected with each day's narrow needs or with the heaping +together of more money where there was enough before--in all this there +is surely room enough for pity, but none for any harsher feeling." + +"Dear Sister Agnes, your words make me thoroughly ashamed of myself," +said Janet, with tearful earnestness. "Arrogance ill becomes one like me +who have been dependent on the charity of others from the day of my +birth. Whatever task may be set me either by Lady Chillington or by you, +I will do it to the best of my ability. Will you for this once pardon my +petulance and ill-temper, and I will strive not to offend you again?" + +"I am not offended, darling; far from it. I felt sure that you had +good-sense and good-feeling enough to see the matter in its right light +when it was properly put before you. But have you no curiosity as to the +nature of your new duties?" + +"Very little at present, I must confess," answered Janet, with a wan +smile. "The chief thing for which I care just now is to know that so +long as I remain at Deepley Walls I shall be near you; and that of +itself would be sufficient to enable me to rest contented under worse +inflictions than Lady Chillington's ill-temper." + +"You ridiculous Janet! Ah! if I only dared to tell you everything. But +that must not be. Let us rather talk of what your duties will be in your +new situation." + +"Yes, tell me about them, please," said Janet, "and you shall see in +time to come that your words have not been forgotten." + +"To begin: you will have to go to her ladyship's room precisely at eight +every morning. Sometimes she will not want you, in which case you will +be at liberty till after breakfast. Should she want you it will probably +be to read to her while she sips her chocolate, or it may be to play a +game of backgammon with her before she gets up. A little later on you +will be able to steal an hour or so for yourself, as while her ladyship +is undergoing the elaborate processes of the toilette, your services +will not be required. On coming down, if the weather be fine, she will +want the support of your arm during her stroll on the terrace. If the +weather be wet, she will probably attend to her correspondence and +book-keeping, and you will have to fill the parts both of amanuensis and +accountant. When Mr. Madgin, her ladyship's man of business, comes up to +Deepley Walls, you will have to be in attendance to take notes, write +down instructions, and so on. By-and-by will come luncheon, of which, as +a rule, you will partake with her. After luncheon you will be your own +mistress for an hour while her ladyship sleeps. The moment she wakes you +will have to be in attendance, either to play to her, or else to read to +her--perhaps a little French or Italian, in both of which languages I +hope you are tolerably proficient. Your next duty will be to accompany +her ladyship in her drive out. When you get back, will come dinner, but +only when specially invited will you sit down with Lady Chillington. +When that honour is not accorded you, you and I will dine here, darling, +by our two selves." + +"Then I hope Lady Chillington will not invite me oftener than once a +month," cried impulsive Janet. + +"The number of your invitations to dinner will depend upon the extent of +her liking for you, so that we shall soon know whether or no you are a +favourite. She may or may not require you after dinner. If she does +require you, it may be either for reading or music, or to play +backgammon with her; or even to sit quietly with her without speaking, +for the mere sake of companionship. One fact you will soon discover for +yourself--that her ladyship does not like to be long alone. And now, +dearest, I think I have told you enough for the present. We will talk +further of these things to-morrow. Give me just one kiss and see what +you can find to play among that heap of old music on the piano. Madame +Delclos used to write in raptures of your style and touch. We will now +prove whether her eulogy was well founded." + +Janet found that she was not to occupy the same bed-room as on her first +visit to Deepley Walls, but one nearer that of Sister Agnes. She was not +sorry for this, for there had been a secret dread upon her of having to +sleep in a room so near that occupied by the body of Sir John +Chillington. She had never forgotten her terrible experience in +connection with the Black Room, and she wished to keep herself entirely +free from any such influences in time to come. The first question she +asked Dance when they reached her bed-room was-- + +"Does Sister Agnes still visit the Black Room every midnight?" + +"Yes, for sure," answered Dance. "There is no one but her to do it. Her +ladyship would not allow any of the servants to enter the room. Rather +than that, I believe she would herself do what has to be done there. +Sister Agnes would not neglect that duty if she was dying." + +Janet said no more, but then and there she made up her mind to a certain +course of action of which nothing would have made her believe herself +capable only an hour before. + +Early next forenoon she was summoned to an interview with Lady +Chillington. Her heart beat more quickly than common as she was ushered +by Dance into the old woman's dressing-room. + +Her ladyship was in demi-toilette--made up in part for the day, but not +yet finished. Her black wig, with its long corkscrew curls, was +carefully adjusted; her rouge and powder were artistically laid on, her +eyebrows elaborately pointed, and in so far she looked as she always +looked when visible to anyone but her maid. But her figure wanted +bracing up, so to speak, and looked shrunken and shrivelled in the old +cashmere dressing-robe, from which at that early hour she had not +emerged. Her fingers--long, lean and yellow--were decorated with some +half-dozen valuable rings. Increasing years had not tended to make her +hands steadier than Janet remembered them as being when she last saw her +ladyship; and of late it had become a matter of some difficulty with her +to keep her head quite still: it seemed possessed by an unaccountable +desire to imitate the shaking of her hands. She was seated in an +easy-chair as Janet entered the room. Her breakfast equipage was on a +small table at her elbow. + +As the door closed behind Janet, she stood still and curtsied. + +Lady Chillington placed her glass to her eye, and with a lean forefinger +beckoned to Janet to draw near. Janet advanced, her eyes fixed steadily +on those of Lady Chillington. A yard or two from the table she stopped +and curtsied again. + +"I hope that I have the happiness of finding your ladyship quite well," +she said, in a low, clear voice, in which there was not the slightest +tremor or hesitation. + +"And pray, Miss Hope, what can it matter to you whether I am well or +ill? Answer me that, if you please." + +"I owe so much to your ladyship, I have been such a pensioner on your +bounty ever since I can remember anything, that mere selfishness alone, +if no higher motive be allowed me, must always prompt me to feel an +interest in the state of your ladyship's health." + +"Candid, at any rate. But I wish you clearly to understand that whatever +obligation you may feel yourself under to me for what is past and gone, +you have no claim of any kind upon me for the future. The tie between us +can be severed by me at any moment." + +"Seven years ago your ladyship impressed that fact so strongly on my +mind that I have never forgotten it. I have never felt myself to be +other than a dependent on your bounty." + +"A very praiseworthy feeling, young lady, and one which I trust you will +continue to cherish. Not that I wish other people to look upon you as a +dependent. I wish--" She broke off abruptly, and stared helplessly round +the room. Suddenly her head began to shake. "Heaven help me! what do I +wish?" she exclaimed; and with that she began to cry, and seemed all in +a moment to have grown older by twenty years. + +Janet, in her surprise, made a step or two forward, but Lady Chillington +waved her fiercely back. "Fool! fool! why don't you go away?" she cried. +"Why do you stare at me so? Go away, and send Dance to me. You have +spoilt my complexion for the day." + +Janet left the room and sent Dance to her mistress, and then went off +for a ramble in the grounds. The seal of desolation and decay was set +upon everything. The garden, no longer the choice home of choice +flowers, was weed-grown and neglected. The greenhouses were empty, and +falling to pieces for lack of a few simple repairs. The shrubs and +evergreens had all run wild for want of pruning, and in several places +the dividing hedges were broken down, and through the breaches sheep had +intruded themselves into the private grounds. Even the house itself had +a shabby out-at-elbows air, like a gentleman fallen upon evil days. +Several of the upper windows were shuttered, some of the others showed a +broken pane or two. Here and there a shutter had fallen away, or was +hanging by a solitary hinge, suggesting thoughts of ghostly flappings +to and fro in the rough wind on winter nights. Doors and window frames +were blistering and splitting for want of paint. Close by the sacred +terrace itself lay the fragments of a broken chimney-pot, blown down +during the last equinoctial gales and suffered to lie where it had +fallen. Everywhere were visible tokens of that miserly thrift which, +carried to excess, degenerates into unthrift of the worst and meanest +kind, from which the transition to absolute ruin is both easy and +certain. + +For a full hour Janet trod the weed-grown walks with clasped hands and +saddened eyes. At the end of that time Dance came in search of her. Lady +Chillington wanted to see her again. + +(_To be continued._) + + + + +SPES. + + + "When we meet," she said. We never + Met again--the world is wide: + Leagues of sea, then Death did sever + Me from my betrothed Bride. + When we parted, long ago-- + Long it seems in sorrow musing-- + Fair she stood, with face aglow, + In my heart a hope infusing. + Now I linger at the grave, + While the winds of Winter rave. + + "When we meet," the words are ringing + Clear as when they left her lips, + Clear as when her faith upspringing + Fronted life and life's eclipse-- + Rest, dear heart, dear hands, dear feet, + Rest; in spite of Death's endeavour, + Thou art mine; we soon shall meet, + Ocean, Death be passed for ever. + Thus I linger by the grave, + Cherishing the hope she gave. + +JOHN JERVIS BERESFORD, M.A. + +(Author of "Last Year's Leaves.") + + + + +LONGEVITY. + +BY W.F. AINSWORTH, F.S.A. + + +Disdain of the inevitable end is said to be the finest trait of mankind. +Some profess to be weary of life, of its pains and penalties, its +anxieties and sufferings, and to look upon death as a relief. Such +states of mind are not real; they are either assumed or affected. No one +can really hold the unsparing leveller--dreaded of all--in contempt. As +to pretended wearisomeness of life, laying aside the love of life and +fear of death, which are common to all mankind, there are habits and +ties of affection, joys and hopes that never depart from us and make us +cling to existence. + +There are, no doubt, pains and sufferings which make many almost wish +for the time being for death as a release; but these pass away. Time +assuages all grief, as Nature relieves suffering beyond endurance by +fainting and insensibility. Man may nerve himself to death or become +resigned to it and meet it even with cheerfulness; and he may, in all +sincerity of heart, offer up his life to his Maker to save that of a +beloved one; but there is a latent--an unacknowledged--yet an +irrepressible reserve in such frames of mind. + +Few men can prepare for death, or offer themselves up for a sacrifice, +without feelings of a mixed nature playing a part in the act; whether +forced or springing from self-abnegation. As to suicide, it is +inevitably accompanied by certain--albeit various and different--degrees +of mental alienation or disease. No one who is in a really healthy state +of mind, whose faculties are perfectly balanced, or who is at peace with +God and man, commits suicide. The temporary exaltation of grief, +despondency or disappointment produces as utter a state of insanity as +disease itself. + +Man, as a rule, desires to live. It is part of his nature to do so; and +exceptions to the rule are rare and unnatural--so much so that they in +all cases imply a certain degree of mental alienation. Even the +weariness, lassitude and despondency which lead some to talk of death as +a release is mainly to be met with in the pampered and the idle. Such +feelings, no doubt, take possession also of the poor and the lowly; but +that, mostly, when there is no work or no incitement to it. There is +always joy and happiness in work and in doing one's duty. + +It is then the normal condition to wish to live, and a most abnormal one +to wish to die; and with many there is even a further aspiration, and +that is to prolong a life which, with all its drawbacks, is to so many a +desirable state of things. + +Examples of rare longevity are carefully treasured up and even placed on +record. As whenever a human being is carried away, causes from which we +are supposed to be free, or against which we take precautions, are +complacently sought for, so instances of longevity are studied to +discover what habits and manners, what system of diet, or conduct, and +which environing circumstances, have most tended to ensure such a +result. + +Numerous treatises have been written on the subject, both in this +country and on the continent; but it cannot be said that the result has +been eminently satisfactory. When carefully inquired into, it has been +found that the most contradictory state of things has been in existence. +It is not always to the strong that long life is given, nor is such, as +often supposed, hereditary. Riches and the comforts and luxuries they +place at man's disposal no more conduce to long life than poverty. Even +moderation and temperance, so universally admitted as essentials to +health and long life, are found to have their exceptions in +well-attested cases of prolongation of life with the luxurious and +self-indulgent and even in the intemperate and the inebriate. Strange to +say, even health is not always conducive to long life. There is a common +proverb (and most proverbs are founded upon experience) about creaking +hinges, and so it is that people always ailing have been known to live +longer than the strong, the hearty, and the healthy. The latter have +overtaxed their strength, their spirits, and their health. Even vitality +itself, stronger in some than others, may in excess conduce to the +premature wearing out and decay of the faculties and powers. + +It is not surprising, then, that great difficulties have had to be +encountered in fixing any general laws by which longevity can be +assured; yet such are in existence, and like all the gracious gifts of a +most merciful Creator, are at the easy command and disposal of mankind. + +They are to be found in implicit obedience to the Laws of God and +Nature. These imply the use and not the misuse or abuse of all the +powers and faculties given to us by an all-wise and all-merciful +Providence. If human beings would only abide by these laws they would +not only enjoy long health and long life but they would also pass that +life in comfort and happiness. + +With respect to the physical, intellectual and moral man, work is the +essential factor in procuring health and happiness. Idleness is the bane +of both. Man and woman were born to work either by hand or brain. Man in +the outer world, woman in the home. The man who lives without an object +in life is not only not doing his duty to God, but he is a curse to +himself and others. But work, like everything else, should be limited. +Many cannot do this, and overtax both their physical and intellectual +energies. The employment of labour should be regulated by the +capabilities of the working-classes, not by the economy or profits to be +obtained by extra labour; and legislation, if paternal, as it should be, +ought to protect the toiler in all instances--not in the few in which +it attempts to ameliorate his condition. So with every pursuit or +avocation, the leisure essential to health and happiness is too often +sacrificed to cupidity, and when this is the case there can be no +longevity. + +Exercise is beneficial to man; but it should not be taken in excess, or +in too trying a form. It is very questionable if what are called +"Athletic Sports" are not too often as hurtful as they are beneficial. +It is quite certain that they cannot be indulged in with impunity after +a certain time of life. + +Sustenance is essential alike to life and longevity, but it is trite to +say it must be in moderation, and as far as possible select. So in the +case of temperance, moderation is beneficial, excess hurtful. Total +abstainers defeat the very object they propose to advocate when they +propose to do away with all because excess is hurtful. Extremes are +always baneful, and the monks of old were wise in their generation when +they denounced gluttony and intemperance as cardinal vices. The physical +powers are as a rule subject to the will, which is the exponent of our +passions and propensities and of our moral and intellectual impulses. +Were it not so we could not curb our actions, restrain our appetites, or +keep within that moderation which is essential to health, happiness and +longevity. + +Our passions and propensities are imparted to us for a wise purpose, and +are therefore beneficial in their use. It is only in their neglect, +misuse or abuse that they become hurtful. A French author has +pertinently put it thus: "The passions act as winds to propel our +vessel, our reason is the pilot that steers her; without the winds she +would not move, without the pilot she would be lost." + +Even our affections, so pure and beautiful in themselves, may, by abuse, +be made sources of mischief, evil and disease. The abuses are too well +known to require repetition here. The powers of energy and resistance, +beneficial in themselves, in their abuse bring about the spirit of +contradiction, violence and combat. + +It seems passing strange that even our moral feelings should be liable +to abuse; but it is so, even with the best. Benevolence and charity may +be misplaced or be in excess of our means. They assume the shape of +vices in the form of prodigality and extravagance. The honest desire to +acquire the necessities of life or the means for moral and intellectual +improvement may in excess become cupidity or covetousness, and lead even +to the appropriation of what is not our own. Kleptomania is met with in +the book-worm or the antiquarian, as well as in the feminine lover of +dress or those in poverty and distress. Firmness may become obstinacy; +the justifiable love of self may, by abuse, become pride; and a proper +and chaste wish for the approbation of others may be turned into the +most absurd of vanities. Even religion itself may be carried to +uncharitableness, fanaticism and persecution. Still more strange it must +appear that even the intellectual faculties should be liable to abuse; +but it is part of the pains and penalties of the constitution of man +that it should be so. It is so to teach us that moderation is wisdom and +the only conduct that leads to health and happiness. + +The abuse of the moral faculties is directly injurious; that of the +intellectual faculties mostly so in an indirect manner. Such abuses are +more hurtful by the influence they have upon the conduct than they have +upon the intellect itself. If a man's judgment is unsound, for example, +it leads to deleterious consequences, not only to himself, but to +others. If the powers of observation are weak, and a person is deficient +in the capacity of judging of form, distance or locality, he will be +incapacitated from success in many pursuits of life without his +suffering thereby, except in an indirect manner. The imagination, the +noblest manifestation of intellect, may, without judgment, be allowed to +run riot, or abused by its exaltation; and with the faculty of wonder +may lead to superstition, fanaticism and folly. The intellectual +faculties may be altogether weak or almost wanting. In such cases we +have foolishness merging into idiocy. + +The examples here given of use, as opposed to neglect, misuse, or abuse, +are simply illustrative of the point in question. They might be extended +in an indefinite degree, especially if it were proposed to enter into +details. They will, however, suffice for the purpose in view, which is +to show that the use of all the powers and faculties granted to us by +the Creator is intended for our benefit, and is conducive to health, +happiness and longevity, but that their neglect or their abuse leads to +misery, pain, affliction, disaster and disease. + +The lesson to be conveyed is that moderation is essential in all things. +Why is it that the sickly and the ailing sometimes survive the strong +and hearty? Because suffering has taught the former moderation, whilst +the sense of power leads the latter to excesses which too often prove +fatal. Everyone has, in his experience, known instances of the kind. + +But the use and not the neglect or abuse of the faculties is the +observance of the laws of God and Nature. If neglect and misuse of our +faculties lead to loss of power, so their abuse leads to bad conduct and +its pains and penalties. What has been here termed moderation, as a +medium between neglect, use and abuse, is really obedience to the laws +of God and Nature. + +The whole secret of health, happiness and longevity lies then in this +simple observance, if it can only be fully understood, appreciated in +all its importance, and carried out in all the smallest details of life. +As such perfection is rare, and somewhat difficult to attain--the trials +and temptations of life being so great--so are none of the results here +enumerated often arrived at; but that is no reason why man should not +endeavour to reach as near perfection as possible, and enjoy as much +health and happiness as he can. One of the most common and one of the +greatest errors is to suppose that happiness is to be obtained by the +pursuit of pleasure and excitement. The temporary enjoyment created by +such is inevitably followed by reaction--lassitude and weariness--and +human nature is palled by the surfeit of amusement as much as it is by +the luxuries of the table. There cannot be a more humiliating spectacle +than that of the man of the world, as he is called, or the woman of +fashion or pleasure. Blase is too considerate an expression. Such +persons are worn-out prematurely in body, mind and intellect--they are +soulless and unsympathetic--the wrecks of the noble creatures God +created as man and woman in all the simplicity of their nature. + +It is surely worth while, then, considering whether the enjoyment of +health and happiness is not worth a little study and a little sacrifice +of the vain and imaginary pleasures of the world. There is no doubt that +some amount of restraint and some power of self-control are requisite to +ensure moderation. But the disdain of many pleasures is a chief part of +what is commonly called wisdom. + +It is with waking and sleeping, with talking and walking, with eating +and drinking, with toil and labour, with all the acts of life, that +moderation or obedience to the laws of Nature requires some little +sacrifice in their observance; but it is quite certain that without this +obedience there is neither health nor happiness nor longevity. + + + + +SONNET. + + + Who said that there were slaves? There may be men + In bondage, bought or sold: there are no slaves + Whilst God looks down, whilst Christ's most pure blood laves + The black man's sins; whilst within angel ken + He bears his load and drags his iron chain. + The slaves are they whom, on His Judgment Day, + God shall renounce for aye and cast away. + Oh, Jesus Christ! Thou wilt give justice then! + A drop of blood shall seem a swelling sea, + More piercing than a cry the lowest moan. + Come down, ye mountains! in your gloom come down, + And bury deep the sinner's agony! + Master and slave have past; Time, thou art gone: + Eternity begins--Christ rules alone! + +JULIA KAVANAGH. + + + + +THE SILENT CHIMES. + +NOT HEARD. + + +That oft-quoted French saying, a mauvais-quart-d'heure, is a pregnant +one, and may apply to small as well as to great worries of life: most of +us know it to our cost. But, rely upon it, one of the very worst is that +when a bride or bridegroom has to make a disagreeable confession to the +other, which ought to have been made before going to church. + +Philip Hamlyn was finding it so. Standing over the fire, in their +sitting-room at the Old Ship Hotel at Brighton, his elbow on the +mantelpiece, his hand shading his eyes, he looked down at his wife +sitting opposite him, and disclosed his tale: that when he married her +fifteen days ago he had not been a bachelor, but a widower. There was no +especial reason for his not having told her, save that he hated and +abhorred that earlier period of his life and instinctively shunned its +remembrance. + +Sent to India by his friends in the West Indies to make his way in the +world, he entered one of the most important mercantile houses in +Calcutta, purchasing a lucrative post in it. Mixing in the best society, +for his introductions were undeniable, he in course of time met with a +young lady named Pratt, who had come out from England to stay with her +elderly cousins, Captain Pratt and his sister. Philip Hamlyn was caught +by her pretty doll's face, and married her. They called her Dolly: and a +doll she was, by nature as well as by name. + +"Marry in haste and repent at leisure," is as true a saying as the +French one. Philip Hamlyn found it so. Of all vain, frivolous, heartless +women, Mrs. Dolly Hamlyn turned out to be about the worst. Just a year +or two of uncomfortable bickering, of vain endeavours on his part, now +coaxing, now reproaching, to make her what she was not and never would +be--a reasonable woman, a sensible wife--and Dolly Hamlyn fled. She +decamped with a hair-brained lieutenant, the two taking sailing-ship for +England, and she carrying with her her little one-year-old boy. + +I'll leave you to guess what Philip Hamlyn's sensations were. A calamity +such as that does not often fall upon man. While he was taking steps to +put his wife legally away for ever and to get back his child, and +Captain Pratt was aiding and abetting (and swearing frightfully at the +delinquent over the process), news reached them that Heaven's vengeance +had been more speedy than theirs. The ship, driven out of her way by +contrary winds and other disasters, went down off the coast of Spain, +and all the passengers on board perished. This was what Philip Hamlyn +had to confess now: and it was more than silly of him not to have done +it before. + +He touched but lightly upon it now. His tones were low, his words when +he began somewhat confused: nevertheless his wife, gazing up at him with +her large dark eyes, gathered an inkling of his meaning. + +"Don't tell it me!" she passionately interrupted. "Do not tell me that I +am only your second wife." + +He went over to her, praying her to be calm, speaking of the bitter +feeling of shame which had ever since clung to him. + +"Did you divorce her?" + +"No, no; you do not understand me, Eliza. She died before anything could +be done; the ship was wrecked." + +"Were there any children?" she asked in a hard whisper. + +"One; a baby of a year old. He was drowned with his mother." + +Mrs. Hamlyn folded her hands one over the other, and leaned back in her +chair. "Why did you deceive me?" + +"My will was good to deceive you for ever," he confessed with emotion. +"I hate that past episode in my life; hate to think of it: I wish I +could blot it out of remembrance. But for Pratt I should not have told +you now." + +"Oh, he said you ought to tell me?" + +"He did: and blamed me for not having told you already." + +"Have you any more secrets of the past that you are keeping from me?" + +"None. Not one. You may take my honour upon it, Eliza. And now let us--" + +She had started forward in her chair; a red flush darkening her pale +cheeks, "Philip! Philip! am I legally married? Did you describe yourself +as a _bachelor_ in the license?" + +"No, as a widower. I got the license in London, you know." + +"And no one read it?" + +"No one save he who married us: Robert Grame, and I don't suppose he +noticed it." + +Robert Grame! The flush on Eliza's cheeks grew deeper. + +"Did you _love_ her?" + +"I suppose I thought so when I married her. It did not take long to +disenchant me," he added with a harsh laugh. + +"What was her Christian name?" + +"Dolly. Dora, I believe, by register. My dear wife, I have told you all. +In compassion to me let us drop the subject, now and for ever." + +Was Eliza Hamlyn--sitting there with pale, compressed lips, sullen eyes, +and hands interlocked in pain--already beginning to reap the fruit she +had sown as Eliza Monk by her rebellious marriage? Perhaps so. But not +as she would have to reap it later on. + +Mr. and Mrs. Hamlyn spent nearly all that year in travelling. In +September they came to Peacock's Range, taking it furnished for a term +of old Mr. and Mrs. Peveril, who had not yet come back to it. It stood +midway, as may be remembered, between Church Leet and Church Dykely, so +that Eliza was close to her old home. Late in October a little boy was +born: it would be hard to say which was the prouder of him, Philip +Hamlyn or his wife. + +"What would you like his name to be?" Philip asked her one day. + +"I should like it to be Walter," said Mrs. Hamlyn. + +"_Walter!_" + +"Yes, I should. I like the name for itself, but I once had a dear little +brother named Walter, just a year younger than I. He died before we came +home to England. Have you any objection to the name?" + +"Oh, no, no objection," he slowly said. "I was only thinking whether you +would have any. It was the name given to my first child." + +"That can make no possible difference--it was not my child," was her +haughty answer. So the baby was named Walter James; the latter name also +chosen by Eliza, because it had been old Mr. Monk's. + +In the following spring Mr. Hamlyn had to go to the West Indies. Eliza +remained at home; and during this time she became reconciled to her +father. + +Hubert brought it about. For Hubert lived yet. But he was just a shadow +and had to take entirely to the house, and soon to his room. Eliza came +to see him, again and again; and finally over Hubert's sofa peace was +made--for Captain Monk loved her still, just as he had loved Katherine, +for all her rebellion. + +Hubert lingered on to the summer. And then, on a calm evening, when one +of the glorious sunsets that he had so loved to look upon was illumining +the western sky, opening up to his dying view, as he had once said, the +very portals of Heaven, he passed peacefully away to his rest. + + +II. + +The next change that set in at Leet Hall concerned Miss Kate Dancox. +That wilful young pickle, somewhat sobered by the death of Hubert in the +summer, soon grew unbearable again. She had completely got the upper +hand of her morning governess, Miss Hume--who walked all the way from +Church Dykely and back again--and of nearly everyone else; and Captain +Monk gave forth his decision one day when all was turbulence--a resident +governess. Mrs. Carradyne could have danced a reel for joy, and wrote to +a governess agency in London. + +One morning about this time (which was already glowing with the tints +of autumn) a young lady got out of an omnibus in Oxford Street, which +had brought her from a western suburb of London, paid the conductor, and +then looked about her. + +"There!" she exclaimed in a quaint tone of vexation, "I have to cross +the street! And how am I to do it?" + +Evidently she was not used to the bustle of London streets or to +crossing them alone. She did it, however, after a few false starts, and +so turned down a quiet side street and rang at the bell of a house in +it. A slatternly girl answered the ring. + +"Governess-agent--Mrs. Moffit? Oh, yes; first-floor front," said she +crustily, and disappeared. + +The young lady found her way upstairs alone. Mrs. Moffit sat in state in +a big arm-chair, before a large table and desk, whence she daily +dispensed joy or despair to her applicants. Several opened letters and +copies of the daily journals lay on the table. + +"Well?" cried she, laying down her pen, "what for you?" + +"I am here by your appointment, madam, made with me a week ago," said +the young lady. "This is Thursday." + +"What name?" cried Mrs. Moffit sharply, turning over rapidly the leaves +of a ledger. + +"Miss West. If you remember, I--" + +"Oh, yes, child, my memory's good enough," was the tart interruption. +"But with so many applicants it's impossible to be at any certainty as +to faces. Registered names we can't mistake." + +Mrs. Moffit read her notes--taken down a week ago. "Miss West. Educated +in first-class school at Richmond; remained in it as teacher. Very good +references from the ladies keeping it. Father, Colonel in India." + +"But--" + +"You do not wish to go into a school again?" spoke Mrs. Moffit, closing +the ledger with a snap, and peremptorily drowning what the applicant was +about to say. + +"Oh, dear, no, I am only leaving to better myself, as the maids say," +replied the young lady smiling. + +"And you wish for a good salary?" + +"If I can get it. One does not care to work hard for next to nothing." + +"Or else I have--let me see--two--three situations on my books. Very +comfortable, I am instructed, but two of them offer ten pounds a-year, +the other twelve." + +The young lady drew herself slightly up with an involuntary movement. +"Quite impossible, madam, that I could take any one of them." + +Mrs. Moffit picked up a letter and consulted it, looking at the young +lady from time to time, as if taking stock of her appearance. "I +received a letter this morning from the country--a family require a +well-qualified governess for their one little girl. Your testimonials +as to qualifications might suit--and you are, I believe, a +gentlewoman--" + +"Oh, yes; my father was--" + +"Yes, yes, I remember--I've got it down; don't worry me," impatiently +spoke the oracle, cutting short the interruption. "So far you might +suit: but in other respects--I hardly know what to think." + +"But why?" asked the other timidly, blushing a little under the intent +gaze. + +"Well, you are very young, for one thing; and they might think you too +good-looking." + +The girl's blush grew red as a rose; she had delicate features and it +made her look uncommonly pretty. A half-smile sat in her soft, dark +hazel eyes. + +"Surely that could not be an impediment. I am not so good-looking as all +that!" + +"That's as people may think," was the significant answer. "Some families +will not take a pretty governess--afraid of their sons, you see. This +family says nothing about looks; for aught I know there may be no sons +in it. 'Thoroughly competent'--reading from the letter--'a gentlewoman +by birth, of agreeable manners and lady-like. Salary, first year, to be +forty pounds.'" + +"And will you not recommend me?" pleaded the young governess, her voice +full of soft entreaty. "Oh, please do! I know I should be found fully +competent, and I promise you that I would do my very best." + +"Well, there may be no harm in my writing to the lady about you," +decided Mrs. Moffit, won over by the girl's gentle respect--with which +she did not get treated by all her clients. "Suppose you come here again +on Monday next?" + +The end of the matter was that Miss West was engaged by the lady +mentioned--no other than Mrs. Carradyne. And she journeyed down into +Worcestershire to enter upon the situation. + +But clever (and generally correct) Mrs. Moffit made one mistake, +arising, no doubt, from the chronic state of hurry she was always in. +"Miss West is the daughter of the late Colonel William West," she wrote, +"who went to India with his regiment a few years ago, and died there." +What Miss West had said to her was this: "My father, a clergyman, died +when I was a little child, and my uncle William, Colonel West, the only +relation I had left, died three years ago in India." Mrs. Moffit somehow +confounded the two. + +This might not have mattered on the whole. But, as you perceive, it +conveyed a wrong impression at Leet Hall. + +"The governess I have engaged is a Miss West; her father was a military +man and a gentleman," spake Mrs. Carradyne one morning at breakfast to +Captain Monk. "She is rather young--about twenty, I fancy; but an older +person might never get on at all with Kate." + +"Had good references with her, I suppose?" said the Captain. + +"Oh, yes. From the agent, and especially from the ladies who have +brought her up." + +"Who was her father, do you say?--a military man?" + +"Colonel William West," assented Mrs. Carradyne, referring to the letter +she held. "He went to India with his regiment and died there." + +"I'll refer to the army-list," said the Captain; "daresay it's all +right. And she shall keep Kate in order, or I'll know the reason why." + + * * * * * + +The evening sunlight lay on the green plain, on the white fields from +which the grain had been reaped, and on the beautiful woods glowing with +the varied tints of autumn. A fly was making its way to Leet Hall, and +its occupant, looking out of it on this side and that, in a fever of +ecstasy, for the country scene charmed her, thought how favoured was the +lot of those who could live out their lives amidst its surroundings. + +In the drawing-room at the Hall, watching the approach of this same fly, +stood Mrs. Hamlyn, a frown upon her haughty face. Philip Hamlyn was +still detained in the West Indies, and since her reconciliation to her +father, she would go over with her baby-boy to the Hall and remain there +for days together. Captain Monk liked to have her, and he took more +notice of the baby than he had ever taken of baby yet. For when Kate was +an infant he had at first shunned her, because she had cost Katherine +her life. This baby, little Walter, was a particularly forward child, +strong and upright, walked at ten months old, and much resembled his +mother in feature. In temper also. The young one would stand sturdily in +his little blue shoes and defy his grandpapa already, and assert his own +will, to the amused admiration of Captain Monk. + +Eliza, utterly wrapt in her child, saw her father's growing love for him +with secret delight; and one day when he had the boy on his knee, she +ventured to speak out a thought that was often in her heart. + +"Papa," she said, with impassioned fervour, "_he_ ought to be the heir, +your own grandson; not Harry Carradyne." + +Captain Monk simply stared in answer. + +"He lies in the _direct_ succession; he has your own blood in his veins. +Papa, you ought to see it." + +Certainly the gallant sailor's manners were improving. For perhaps the +first time in his life he suppressed the hot and abusive words rising to +his tongue--that no son of that man, Hamlyn, should come into Leet +Hall--and stood in silence. + +"_Don't_ you see it, papa?" + +"Look here, Eliza: we'll drop the subject. When my brother, your uncle, +was dying, he wrote me a letter, enjoining me to make Emma's son the +heir, failing a son of my own. It was right it should be so, he said. +Right it is; and Harry Carradyne will succeed me. Say no more." + +Thus forbidden to say more, Eliza Hamlyn thought the more, and her +thoughts were not pleasant. At one time she had feared her father might +promote Kate Dancox to the heirship, and grew to dislike the child +accordingly. Latterly, for the same reason, she had disliked Harry +Carradyne; hated him, in fact. She herself was the only remaining child +of the house, and her son ought to inherit. + +She stood this evening at the drawing-room window, this and other +matters running in her mind. Miss Kate, at the other end of the room, +had prevailed on Uncle Harry (as she called him) to play a game at toy +ninepins. Or perhaps he had prevailed on her: anything to keep her +tolerably quiet. She was in her teens now, but the older she grew the +more troublesome she became; and she was remarkably small and +childish-looking, so that strangers took her to be several years younger +than she really was. + +"This must be your model governess arriving, Aunt Emma," exclaimed Mrs. +Hamlyn, as the fly came up the drive. + +"I hope it is," said Mrs. Carradyne; and they all looked out. "Oh, yes, +that's an Evesham fly--and a ramshackle thing it appears." + +"I wonder you did not send the carriage to Evesham for her, mother," +remarked Harry, picking up some of the ninepins which Miss Kate had +swept off the table with her hand. + +Mrs. Hamlyn turned round in a blaze of anger. "Send the carriage to +Evesham for the governess! What absurd thing will you say next, Harry?" + +The young man laughed in good humour. "Does it offend one of your +prejudices, Eliza?--a thousand pardons, then. But really, nonsense +apart, I can't see why the carriage should not have gone for her. We are +told she is a gentlewoman. Indeed, I suppose anyone else would not be +eligible, as she is to be made one of ourselves." + +"And think of the nuisance it will be! Do be quiet, Harry! Kate ought to +have been sent to school." + +"But your father would not have her sent, you know, Eliza," spoke Mrs. +Carradyne. + +"Then--" + +"Miss West, ma'am," interrupted Rimmer, the butler, showing in the +traveller. + +"Dear me, how very young!" was Mrs. Carradyne's first thought. "And what +a lovely face!" + +She came in shyly. In her whole appearance there was a shrinking, timid +gentleness, betokening refinement of feeling. A slender, lady-like girl, +in a plain, dark travelling suit and a black bonnet lined and tied with +pink, a little lace border shading her nut-brown hair. The bonnets in +those days set off a pretty face better than do these modern ones. +That's what the Squire tells us. + +Mrs. Carradyne advanced and shook hands cordially; Eliza bent her head +slightly from where she stood; Harry Carradyne stood up, a pleasant +welcome in his blue eyes and in his voice, as he laughingly +congratulated her upon the ancient Evesham fly not having come to grief +en route. Kate Dancox pressed forward. + +"Are you my new governess?" + +The young lady smiled and said she believed so. + +"Aunt Eliza hates governesses; so do I. Do you expect to make me obey +you?" + +The governess blushed painfully; but took courage to say she hoped she +should. Harry Carradyne thought it the very loveliest blush he had ever +seen in all his travels, and she the sweetest-looking girl. + +And when Captain Monk came in he quite took to her appearance, for he +hated to have ugly people about him. But every now and then there was a +look in her face, or in her eyes, that struck him as being familiar--as +if he had once known someone who resembled her. Pleasing, soft dark +hazel eyes they were as one could wish to see, with goodness in their +depths. + + +III. + +Months passed away, and Miss West was domesticated in her new home. It +was not all sunshine. Mrs. Carradyne, ever considerate, strove to render +things agreeable; but there were sources of annoyance over which she had +no control. Kate, when she chose, could be verily a little elf, a demon; +as Mrs. Hamlyn often put it, "a diablesse." And she, that lady herself, +invariably treated the governess with a sort of cool, indifferent +contempt; and she was more often at Leet Hall than away from it. The +Captain, too, gave way to fits of temper that simply terrified Miss +West. Reared in the quiet atmosphere of a well-trained school, she had +never met with temper such as this. + +On the other hand--yes, on the other hand, she had an easy place of it, +generous living, was regarded as a lady, and--she had learnt to love +Harry Carradyne for weal or for woe. + +But not--please take notice--not unsolicited. Tacitly, at any rate. If +Mr. Harry's speaking blue eyes were to be trusted and Mr. Harry's +tell-tale tones when with her, his love, at the very least, equalled +hers. Eliza Hamlyn, despite the penetration that ill-nature generally +can exercise, had not yet scented any such treason in the wind: or there +would have blown up a storm. + +Spring was to bring its events; but first of all it must be said that +during the winter little Walter Hamlyn was taken ill at Leet Hall when +staying there with his mother. The malady turned out to be gastric +fever, and Mr. Speck was in constant attendance. For the few days that +the child lay in danger, Eliza was almost wild. The progress to +convalescence was very slow, lasting many weeks; and during that time +Captain Monk, being much with the little fellow, grew to be fond of him +with an unreasonable affection. + +"I'm not sure but I shall leave Leet Hall to him," he suddenly observed +to Eliza one day, not observing that Harry Carradyne was standing in the +recess of the window. "Halloa! are you there, Harry? Well, it can't be +helped. You heard what I said?" + +"I heard, Uncle Godfrey: but I did not understand." + +"Eliza thinks Leet Hall ought to go in the direct line--through her--to +this child. What should you say to that?" + +"What could he say to it?" imperiously demanded Eliza. "He is only your +nephew." + +Harry looked from one to the other in a sort of bewildered surprise: and +there came a silence. + +"Uncle Godfrey," he said, starting out of a reverie, "you have been good +enough to make me your heir. It was unexpected on my part, unsolicited; +but you did do it, and you caused me to leave the army in consequence, +to give up my fair prospects in life. I am aware that this deed is not +irrevocable, and certainly you have the right to do what you will with +your own property. But you must forgive me for saying that you should +have made quite sure of your intentions beforehand: before picking me +up, if it be only to throw me down again." + +"There, there, we'll leave it," retorted Captain Monk testily. "No +harm's done to you yet, Mr. Harry; I don't know that it will be." + +But Harry Carradyne felt sure that it would be; that he should be +despoiled of the inheritance. The resolute look of power on Eliza's +face, bent on him as he quitted the chamber, was an earnest of that. +Captain Monk was not the determined man he had once been; that was over. + +"A pretty kettle of fish, this is," ruefully soliloquised Harry, as he +marched along the corridor. "Eliza's safe to get her will; no doubt of +that. And I? what am I to do? I can't repurchase and go back amongst +them again like a returned shilling; at least, I won't; and I can't turn +Parson, or Queen's Counsel, or Cabinet Minister. I'm fitted for nothing +now, that I see, but to be a gentleman-at-large; and what would the +gentleman's income be?" + +Standing at the corridor window, softly whistling, he ran over ways and +means in his mind. He had a pretty house of his own, Peacock's Range, +formerly his father's, and about four hundred a-year. After his mother's +death it would not be less than a thousand a-year. + +"That means bread and cheese at present. Later--Heyday, young lady, +what's the matter?" + +The school-room door, close by, had opened with a burst, and Miss Kate +Dancox was flying down the stairs--her usual progress the minute +lessons were over. Harry strolled into the room. The governess was +putting the littered table straight. + +"Any admission, ma'am?" cried he quaintly, making for a chair. "I should +like to ask leave to sit down for a bit." + +Alice West laughed, and stirred the fire by way of welcome; he was a +very rare visitor to the school-room. The blaze, mingling with the rays +of the setting sun that streamed in at the window, played upon her sweet +face and silky brown hair, lighted up the bright winter dress she wore, +and the bow of pink ribbon that fastened the white lace round her +slender, pretty throat. + +"Are you so much in need of a seat?" she laughingly asked. + +"Indeed I am," was the semi-grave response. "I have had a shock." + +"A very sharp one, sir?" + +"Sharp as steel. Really and truly," he went on in a different tone, as +he left the chair and stood up by the table facing her; "I have just +heard news that may affect my whole future life; may change me from a +rich man to a poor one." + +"Oh, Mr. Carradyne!" Her manner had changed now. + +"I was the destined inheritor, as you know--for I'm sure nobody has been +reticent upon the subject--of these broad lands," with a sweep of the +hand towards the plains outside. "Captain Monk is now pleased to inform +me that he thinks of substituting for me Mrs. Hamlyn's child." + +"But would not that be very unjust?" + +"Hardly fair--as it seems to me. Considering that my good uncle obliged +me to give up my own prospects for it." + +She stood, her hands clasped in sympathy, her face full of earnest +sadness. "How unkind! Why, it would be cruel!" + +"Well, I confess I felt it to be so at the first blow. But, standing at +the outside window yonder to pull myself together, a ray or two of light +crept in, showing me that it may be for the best after all. 'Whatever +_is_, is right,' you know." + +"Yes," she slowly said--"if you can think so. But, Mr. Carradyne, should +you not have anything at all?--anything to live upon after Captain +Monk's death?" + +"Just a trifle, I calculate, as the Americans say--and it is calculating +I have been--that I need not altogether starve. Would you like to know +how much it will be?" + +"Oh, please don't laugh at me!"--for it suddenly struck the girl that he +was laughing, perhaps in reproof, and that she had spoken too freely. "I +ought not to have asked that; I was not thinking--I was too sorry to +think." + +"But I may as well tell you, if you don't mind. I have a very pretty +little place, which you have seen and heard of, called by that +delectable title Peacock's Range--" + +"Is Peacock's Range yours?" she interrupted, in surprise. "I thought it +belonged to Mr. Peveril." + +"Peacock's Range is mine and was my father's before me, Miss Alice. It +was leased to Peveril for a term of years, but I fancy he would be glad +to give it up to-morrow. Well, I have Peacock's Range and about four +hundred pounds a-year." + +Her face brightened. "Then you need not talk about starving," she said, +gaily. + +"And, later, I shall have altogether about a thousand a-year. Though I +hope it will be very long before it falls to me. Do you think two people +might venture to set up at Peacock's Range, and keep, say, a couple of +servants upon four hundred a-year? Could they exist upon it?" + +"Oh, dear, yes," she answered eagerly, quite unconscious of his drift. +"Did you mean yourself and some friend?" + +He nodded. + +"Why, I don't see how they could spend it all. There'd be no rent to +pay. And just think of all the fruit and vegetables in the garden +there!" + +"Then I take you at your word, Alice," he cried impulsively, passing his +arm round her waist. "You are the 'friend.' My dear, I have long wanted +to ask you to be my wife, and I did not dare. This place, Leet Hall, +encumbered me: for I feared the opposition that I, as its heir, should +inevitably meet." + +She drew away from him, with doubting, frightened eyes. Mr. Harry +Carradyne brought all the persuasion of his own dancing blue ones to +bear upon her. "Surely, Alice, you will not say me nay!" + +"I dare not say yes," she whispered. + +"What are you afraid of?" + +"Of it altogether; of your friends. Captain Monk +would--would--perhaps--turn me out. And there's Mrs. Carradyne!" + +Harry laughed. "Captain Monk can have no right to any voice in my +affairs, once he throws me off; he cannot expect to have a finger in +everyone's pie. As to my mother--ah, Alice, unless I am much mistaken, +she will welcome you with love." + +Alice burst into tears: emotion was stirring her to its depths. +"_Please_ to let it all be for a time," she pleaded. "If you speak it +would be sure to lead to my being turned away." + +"I _will_ let it be for a time, my darling, so far as speaking of it +goes: for more reasons than one it may be better. But you are my +promised wife, Alice; always recollect that." + +And Mr. Harry Carradyne, bold as a soldier should be, took a few kisses +from her unresisting lips to enforce his mandate. + + +IV. + +Some time rolled on, calling for no particular record. Mr. Hamlyn's West +Indian property, which was large and lucrative, had been giving him +trouble of late; at least, those who had the care of it gave it, and he +was obliged to go over occasionally to see after it in person. Between +times he stayed with his wife at Peacock's Range; or else she joined him +in London. Their town residence was in Bryanstone Square; a very pretty +house, but not a large one. + +It had been an unfavourable autumn; cold and wet. Snow had fallen in +November, and the weather continued persistently dull and dreary. One +gloomy afternoon towards the close of the year, Mrs. Hamlyn, shivering +over her drawing-room fire, rang impatiently for more coal to be piled +upon it. + +"Has Master Walter come in yet?" she asked of the footman. + +"No, ma'am. I saw him just now playing in front there." + +She went to the window. Yes, running about the paths of the Square +garden was the child, attended by his nurse. He was a sturdy little +fellow. His mother, wishing to make him hardy, sent him out in all +weathers, and the boy throve upon it. He was three years old now, but +looked older; and he was as clever and precocious as some children are +at five or six. Her heart thrilled with a strange joy only at the sight +of him: he was her chief happiness in life, her idol. Whether he would +succeed to Leet Hall she knew not; since the one time he mentioned it, +Captain Monk had said no more upon the subject, for or against it. + +Why need she have longed for it so fervently? to the setting at naught +the expressed wishes of her deceased uncle and to the detriment of Harry +Carradyne? It was just covetousness. As his father's eldest son (there +were no younger ones yet) the boy would inherit a fine property, a large +income; but his doting mother must give him Leet Hall as well. + +Her whole heart went out to the child as she watched him playing there. +A few snowflakes were beginning to fall, and dusk would soon be drawing +on, but she would not call him in. Standing thus at the window, it +gradually grew upon her to notice that something was standing back +against the opposite rails, looking fixedly at the houses. A young, fair +woman apparently, with a profusion of light hair; she was draped in a +close dark cloak which served to conceal her figure, just as the thick +veil she wore concealed her face. + +"I believe it is _this_ house she is gazing at so attentively--and at +_me_," thought Mrs. Hamlyn. "What can she possibly want?" + +The woman did not move away and Mrs. Hamlyn did not move; they remained +staring at one another. Presently Walter burst into the room, laughing +in glee at having distanced his nurse. His mother turned, caught him in +her arms and kissed him passionately. Wilful though he was by +disposition, and showing it at times, he was a lovable, generous child, +and very pretty: great brown eyes and auburn curls. His life was all +sunshine, like a butterfly's on a summer's day; his path as yet one of +roses without their thorns. + +"Mamma, I've got a picture-book; come and look at it," cried the eager +little voice, as he dragged his mother to the hearthrug and opened the +picture-book in the light of the blaze. "Penelope bought it for me." + +She sat down on a footstool, the book on her lap and one arm round him, +her treasure. Penelope waited to take off his hat and pelisse, and was +told to come for him in five minutes. + +"It's not my tea-time yet," cried he defiantly. + +"Indeed, then, Master Walter, it is long past it," said the nurse. "I +couldn't get him in before, ma'am," she added to her mistress. "Every +minute I kept expecting you'd be sending one of the servants after us." + +"In five minutes," repeated Mrs. Hamlyn. "And what's _this_ picture +about, Walter? Is it a little girl with a doll?" + +"Oh, dat bootiful," said the eager little lad, who was not yet as quick +in speech as he was in ideas. "It says she--dere's papa!" + +In came Philip Hamlyn, tall, handsome, genial. Walter ran to him and was +caught in his arms. He and his wife were just a pair for adoring the +child. + +But nurse, inexorable, appeared again at the five minutes' end, and +Master Walter was carried off. + +"You came home in a cab, Philip, did you not? I thought I heard one +stop." + +"Yes; it is a miserable evening. Raining fast now." + +"Raining!" she repeated, rather wondering to hear it was not snowing. +She went to the window to look out, and the first object her eyes caught +sight of was the woman; leaning in the old place against the railings, +in the growing dusk. + +"I'm not sorry to see the rain; we shall have it warmer now," remarked +Mr. Hamlyn, who had drawn a chair to the fire. "In fact, it's much +warmer already than it was this morning." + +"Philip, step here a minute." + +His wife's tone had dropped to a half-whisper, sounding rather +mysterious, and he went at once. + +"Just look, Philip--opposite. Do you see a woman standing there?" + +"A woman--where?" cried he, looking of course in every direction but the +right one. + +"Just facing us. She has her back against the railings." + +"Oh, ay, I see now; a lady in a cloak. She must be waiting for someone." + +"Why do you call her a lady?" + +"She looks like one--as far as I can see in the gloom. Does she not? Her +hair does, any way." + +"She has been there I cannot tell you how long, Philip; half-an-hour, +I'm sure; and it seems to me that she is _watching_ this house. A lady +would hardly do that." + +"This house? Oh, then, Eliza, perhaps she's watching for one of the +servants. She might come in, poor thing, instead of standing there in +the rain." + +"Poor thing, indeed!--what business has any woman to watch a house in +this marked manner?" retorted Eliza. "The neighbourhood will be taking +her for a female detective." + +"Nonsense!" + +"She has given me a creepy feeling; I can tell you that, Philip." + +"But why?" he exclaimed. + +"I can't tell you why; I don't know why; it is so. Do not laugh at me +for confessing it." + +Philip Hamlyn did laugh; heartily. "Creepy feelings" and his imperiously +strong-minded wife could have but little affinity with one another. + +"We'll have the curtains drawn, and the lights, and shut her out," said +he cheerily. "Come and sit down, Eliza; I want to show you a letter I've +had to-day." + +But the woman waiting outside there seemed to possess for Eliza Hamlyn +somewhat of the fascination of the basilisk; for she never stirred from +the window until the curtains were drawn. + +"It is from Peveril," said Mr. Hamlyn, producing the letter he had +spoken of from his pocket. "The lease he took of Peacock's Range is not +yet out, but he can resign it now if he pleases, and he would be glad to +do so. He and his wife would rather remain abroad, it seems, than return +home." + +"Yes. Well?" + +"Well, he writes to me to ask whether he can resign it; or whether I +must hold him to the promise he made me--that I should rent the house to +the end of the term. I mean the end of the lease; the term he holds it +for." + +"Why does he want to resign it? Why can't things go on as at present?" + +"I gather from an allusion he makes, though he does not explicitly state +it, that Mr. Carradyne wishes to have the place in his own hands. What +am I to say to Peveril, Eliza?" + +"Say! Why, that you must hold him to his promise; that we cannot give up +the house yet. A pretty thing if I had no place to go down to at will in +my own county!" + +"So far as I am concerned, Eliza, I would prefer to stay away from the +county--if your father is to continue to treat me in the way he does. +Remember what it was in the summer. I think we are very well here." + +"Now, Philip, I have _said_. I do not intend to release our hold on +Peacock's Range. My father will be reconciled to you in time as he is to +me." + +"I wonder what Harry Carradyne can want it for?" mused Philip Hamlyn, +bowing to the imperative decision of his better half. + +"To live in it, I should say. He would like to show his resentment to +papa by turning his back on Leet Hall. It can't be for anything else." + +"What cause of resentment has he? He sent for him home and made him his +heir." + +"_That_ is the cause. Papa has come to his senses and changed his mind. +It is our darling little Walter who is to be the heir of Leet Hall, +Philip--and papa has so informed Harry Carradyne." + +Philip Hamlyn gazed at his wife in doubt. He had never heard a word of +this; instinct had kept her silent. + +"I hope not," he emphatically said, breaking the silence. + +"_You hope not?_" + +"Walter shall never inherit Leet Hall with my consent, Eliza. Harry +Carradyne is the right and proper heir, and no child of mine, as I hope, +must or shall displace him." + +Mrs. Hamlyn treated her husband to one of her worst looks, telling of +contempt as well as of power; but she did not speak. + +"Listen, Eliza. I cannot bear injustice, and I do not believe it ever +prospers in the long run. Were your father to bequeath--my dear, I beg +of you to listen to me!--to bequeath his estates to little Walter, to +the exclusion of the true heir, rely upon it the bequest would _never +bring him good_. In some way or other it would not serve him. Money +diverted by injustice from its natural and just channel does not carry a +blessing with it. I have noted this over and over again in going through +life." + +"Anything more?" she contemptuously asked. + +"And Walter will not need it," he continued persuasively, passing her +question as unheard. "As my son, he will be amply provided for." + +A very commonplace interruption occurred, and the subject was dropped. +Nothing more than a servant bringing in a letter for his master, just +come by hand. + +"Why, it is from old Richard Pratt!" exclaimed Mr. Hamlyn, as he turned +to the light. + +"I thought Major Pratt never wrote letters," she remarked. "I once heard +you say he must have forgotten how to write." + +He did not answer. He was reading the note, which appeared to be a short +one. She watched him. After reading it through he began it again, a +puzzled look upon his face. Then she saw it flush all over, and he +crushed the note into his pocket. + +"What is it about, Philip?" + +"Pratt wants a prescription for gout that I told him of. I'm sure I +don't know whether I can find it." + +He had answered in a dreamy tone with thoughts preoccupied, and quitted +the room hastily, as if to search for it. + +Eliza wondered why he should flush up at being asked for a prescription, +and why he should have suddenly lost himself in a reverie. But she had +not much curiosity as to anything that concerned old Major Pratt--who +was at present staying in lodgings in London. + +Downstairs went Mr. Hamlyn to the little room he called his library, +seated himself at the table under the lamp, and opened the note again. +It ran as follows: + + "DEAR PHILIP HAMLYN,--The other day, when calling here, you spoke + of some infallible prescription to cure gout that had been given + you. I've symptoms of it flying about me--and be hanged to it! + Bring it to me yourself to-morrow; I want to see you. _I suppose + there was no mistake in the report that that ship did go + down?_--and that none of the passengers were saved from it? + + "Truly yours, + + "RICHARD PRATT." + +"What can he possibly mean?" muttered Philip Hamlyn. + +But there was no one to answer the question, and he sat buried in +thought, trying to answer it himself. Starting up from the useless task, +he looked in his desk, found the infallible prescription, and then +snatched his watch from his pocket. + +"Too late," he decided impatiently; "Pratt would be gone to bed. He goes +at all kinds of unearthly hours when out of sorts." So he went upstairs +to his wife again, the prescription displayed in his hand. + +Morning came, bringing the daily routine of duties in its train. Mrs. +Hamlyn had made an engagement to go with some friends to Blackheath, to +take luncheon with a lady living there. It was damp and raw in the early +portion of the day, but promised to be clear later on. + +"And then my little darling can go out to play again," she said, hugging +the child to her. "In the afternoon, nurse; it will be drier then; it is +really too damp this morning." + +Parting from him with fifty kisses, she went down to her comfortable and +handsome carriage, her husband placing her in. + +"I wish you were coming with me, Philip! But, you see, it is only ladies +to-day. Six of us." + +Philip Hamlyn laughed. "I don't wish it at all," he answered; "they +would be fighting for me. Besides, I must take old Pratt his +prescription. Only picture his storm of anger if I did not." + +Mrs. Hamlyn was not back until just before dinner: her husband, she +heard, had been out all day, and was not yet in. Waiting for him in the +drawing-room listlessly enough, she walked to the window to look out. +And there she saw with a sort of shock the same woman standing in the +same place as the previous evening. Not once all day long had she +thought of her. + +"This is a strange thing!" she exclaimed. "I am _sure_ it is this house +that she is watching." + +On the impulse of the moment she rang the bell and called the man who +answered it to the window. He was a faithful, attached servant, had +lived with them ever since they were married, and previously to that in +Mr. Hamlyn's family in the West Indies. + +"Japhet," said his mistress, "do you see that woman opposite? Do you +know why she stands there?" + +Japhet's answer told nothing. They had all seen her downstairs yesterday +evening as well as this, and wondered what she could be watching the +house for. + +"She is not waiting for any of the servants, then; not an acquaintance +of theirs?" + +"No, ma'am, that I'm sure she's not. She is a stranger to us all." + +"Then, Japhet, I think you shall go over and question her," spoke his +mistress impulsively. "Ask her who she is and what she wants. And tell +her that a gentleman's house cannot be watched with impunity in this +country--and she will do well to move away before the police are called +to her." + +Japhet looked at his mistress and hesitated; he was an elderly man and +cautious. "I beg your pardon, madam," he began, "for venturing to say as +much, but I think it might be best to let her alone. She'll grow tired +of stopping there. And if her motive is to attract pity, and get alms +sent out, why the fact of speaking to her might make her bold enough to +ask for them. If she comes there to-morrow again, it might be best for +the master to take it up himself." + +For once in her life Mrs. Hamlyn condescended to listen to the opinion +of an inferior, and Japhet was dismissed without orders. Close upon +that, a cab came rattling down the square, and stopped at the door. Her +husband leaped out of it, tossed the driver his fare--he always paid +liberally--and let himself in with his latch-key. To Mrs. Hamlyn's +astonishment, she had seen the woman dart from her standing-place to the +middle of the road, evidently to look at or to accost Mr. Hamlyn. But +his movements were too quick: he was within in a moment and had closed +the outer door. She then walked rapidly away, and disappeared. + +Eliza Hamlyn stood there lost in thought. The nurse came in to take the +child; Mr. Hamlyn had gone to his room to dress for dinner. + +"Have you seen the woman who has been standing out there yesterday +evening and this, Penelope?" she asked of the nurse, speaking upon +impulse. + +"Oh, yes, ma'am. She has been there all the blessed afternoon. She came +into the garden to talk to us." + +"Came into the garden to talk to you?" repeated Mrs. Hamlyn. "What did +she talk about?" + +"Chiefly about Master Walter, ma'am. She seemed to be much taken with +him; she clasped him in her arms and kissed him, and said how old was +he, and was he difficult to manage, and that he had his father's +beautiful brown eyes--" + +Penelope stopped abruptly. Mistaking the hard stare her mistress was +unconsciously giving her for one of displeasure, she hastened to excuse +herself. The fact was, Mrs. Hamlyn's imagination was beginning to run +riot. + +"I couldn't help her speaking to me, ma'am, or her kissing the child; +she took me by surprise. That, was all she said--except that she asked +whether you were likely to be going into the country soon, away from the +house here. She didn't stay five minutes with us, but went back to stand +by the railings again." + +"Did she speak as a lady or as a common person?" quite fiercely demanded +Mrs. Hamlyn. "Is she young?--good-looking?" + +"Oh, I think she is a lady," replied the girl, her accent decisive. "And +she's young, as far as I could see, but she had a thick veil over her +face. Her hair is lovely, just like silken threads of pale gold," +concluded Penelope as Mr. Hamlyn's step was heard. + +He took his wife into the dining-room, apologising for being late. She, +giving full range to the fancies she had called up, heard him in silence +with a hardening, haughty face. + +"Philip, you know who that woman is," she suddenly exclaimed during a +temporary absence of Japhet from the dining-room. "What is it that she +wants with you?" + +"I!" he returned, in a surprise very well feigned if not real. "What +woman? Do you mean the one who was standing out there yesterday?" + +"You know I do. She has been there again--all the blessed afternoon, as +Penelope expresses it. Asking questions of the girl about you--and +me--and Walter; and saying the child has your beautiful brown eyes. _I +ask you who is she?_" + +Mr. Hamlyn laid down his knife and fork to gaze at his wife. He looked +quite at sea. + +"Eliza, I assure you I know nothing about it. Or about her." + +"Indeed! Don't you think it may be some acquaintance, old or new? +Possibly someone you knew in the days gone by--come over seas to see +whether you are yet in the land of the living? She has wonderful hair, +which looks like spun gold." + +All in a moment, as the half-mocking words left her lips, some idea +seemed to flash across Philip Hamlyn, bringing with it distress and +fear. His face turned to a burning red and then grew white as the hue of +the grave. + +JOHNNY LUDLOW. + + + + +THE BRETONS AT HOME. + +BY CHARLES W. WOOD, F.R.G.S., AUTHOR OF "THROUGH HOLLAND," "LETTERS FROM +MAJORCA," ETC. ETC. + + +Amongst the many advantages possessed by Morlaix may be mentioned the +fact of its being a central point from which a number of interesting +excursions may be made. It is one of the chief towns of the Finistere, a +Department crowded with churches, and here will be found at once some of +the best and worst examples of ecclesiastical architecture in Brittany. + +Of the churches of Morlaix we have said nothing. Interesting and +delightful as it is in its old houses, it fails in its churches. Those +worthy of note were destroyed at the Revolution, that social scourge +which passed like a blight over the whole country, leaving its traces +behind it for ever. + +[Illustration: A BRETON CALVARY.] + +The church of St. Melaine is the only one deserving a passing notice. It +is in the third Pointed style, and, built on an eminence, is approached +by a somewhat imposing flight of steps. A narrow thoroughfare leads up +to it, and the nearer houses are inhabited by the priests and other +members of the religious community. + +The porch and windows are Flamboyant, and a little of the stained glass +is good. The interior is divided into three naves by wooden partitions, +consisting of pillars without capitals supporting pointed arches. The +wall-plates represent monks in grotesque attitudes: portraits, perhaps, +of those who inhabited the Priory of St. Melaine of Rennes, to which the +church originally belonged. The basin for holy water between the porches +has a very interesting cover; but still more remarkable is the cover to +the font, an imposing and elegantly sculptured octagonal work of art of +the Renaissance period, raised and lowered by means of pulleys. The +organ case is also good; and having said so much, there is nothing left +to record in favour of St. Melaine. The general effect of the church is +poor and mean, and the most vivid impression left upon the mind is that +caused by the sharp climb up the narrow street and flight of steps, with +little reward beyond one's trouble for the pains of mounting. + +But other churches in the neighbourhood of Morlaix are well worth +visiting; churches typical of the Finistere, with their wonderful +calvaries, mortuaries and triumphal arches. + +"These," said Monsieur Hellard, our host of the Hotel d'Europe, who had, +by this time, fully atoned for the transgressions of that one and almost +fatal night--"these must on no account be neglected. Morlaix, more than +any other town in the Finistere, as it seems to me, is surrounded by +objects of intense interest; monuments of antiquity, both secular and +religious." + +"Yet you are not the chief town of the Finistere," we observed. + +"True," he replied; "Quimper is our chief town; we are only second in +rank; but in many ways we are more interesting than Quimper." + +"You are partial," cried H.C., but very amiably. "What about Quimper's +wonderful cathedral? Where can you match that architectural dream in +Morlaix?" + +"There, indeed, I give in," returned our host, meekly. "Morlaix has +nothing to boast of in the way of churches, thanks to the revolution. +But in the neighbourhood, each within the limits of a day's excursion, +we have St. Thegonnec, Guimiliau, St. Jean-du-Doigt--and last and +greatest of all--Le Folgoet. Besides these, we have a host of minor but +interesting excursions." + +"The minor must be left to the future," we replied; "for the present we +must confine ourselves to the major monuments." + +"One can't do everything," chimed in Madame Hellard, who came up at the +moment. "I never recommend small excursions unless you are making a long +stay in the neighbourhood. It becomes too tiring. We had a charming +English family with us last year; a milord, very rich--they are all +rich--with a sweetly amiable wife, who made herself in the hotel quite +one of ourselves, and would chatter with us in my bureau by the hour +together. Mon cher"--to her husband--"do you remember how they enjoyed +the regatta, and seeing all the natives turn out in their Sunday +clothes; and how Madame laughed at the old women who fried the pancakes +upon their knees in the open air; and the boys and girls who took them +up hot and buttery in their fingers and devoured them like savages? Do +you remember?" + +Monsieur Hellard apparently did remember, and shook with laughter at the +recollection of that or of something equally droll. + +"I shall never forget Madame's look of astonishment," he cried, "as the +pancakes were turned out of the poele, and disappeared wholesale like +lightning." 'Ah, madame,' I said, 'you have yet to learn the capacious +appetites of our Breton boys and girls. It is one of the few things in +which they are not slow and phlegmatic.' + +"'And have not improved in,' laughed Madame. 'These habits are the +remains of barbarism.' + +"'Madame,' I replied, 'you must not forget that we are descended from +the Ancient Britons.' Ah! that was a clencher, Madame laughed, but she +said no more." + +"Until she returned," added our hostess. "Then she whispered to me: +'Madame Hellard, those pancakes looked extremely good, and as they are +peculiar to Brittany, you must give us some for dinner. I must taste +your _crepes_.' + +"'Madame la Comtesse,' I returned, 'Brittany has many peculiarities; we +cannot deny it; would that they were all as innocent as these crepes. My +chef is not a Breton, and he will not make them, perhaps, quite a la +maniere des notres; but I will superintend him for once. You shall have +our famous dish.' And if you wish to know how she liked them," concluded +Madame, laughing, "ask Catherine, la-haut. Three times a week at least +we had pancakes on the menu. But nothing delights us more than when we +please our guests. We like them to be at home here, and to feel that +they may do as they please and order what they like." + +To the truth of which self-commendation we bore good testimony. + +"Now about the excursions," said M. Hellard. "I recommend you to go +to-morrow to St. Thegonnec and Guimiliau, the next day to St. +Jean-du-Doigt and Plougasnou, and the third day to Landerneau and Le +Folgoet. The two first by carriage, the last by train." + +So it was arranged, and we were about to separate when in came our +hostess of that little auberge by the river-side, _A la halte des +Pecheurs_, carrying a barrel of oysters. She had walked all the way, and +though the sun shone brilliantly, she was armed with a huge cotton +umbrella that would have roofed a fair-sized tent. + +"Madame Mirmiton!" cried M. Hellard; "and with a barrel of oysters, too! +You are welcome as fine weather at the _Fete-Dieu_! But why you and not +your husband?" + +"Ah, monsieur!" replied Madame Mirmiton: "Figurez-vous, my husband was +running after that naughty girl of mine, stumbled over the cat and +sprained his ankle. He will be quite a week getting well again." + +"And the cat?" asked our host, comically. + +"Pauvre Minette!" answered Madame Mirmiton, with tears in her voice. +"She flew up the chimney. We have never seen her since--two days ago." + +"Well, whether you or your bon homme bring them, these oysters are +equally a propos. I am sure ces messieurs will enjoy our natives for +dejeuner. I have it!" he cried, striking his forehead. "You shall have +an early dejeuner, and start immediately after for St. Thegonnec, +instead of delaying it until to-morrow. You will have plenty of time, +and must profit by the fine weather. I will order dejeuner at once, and +the carriage in an hour." + +So are there times when our days, and occasionally the whole course of +our lives, are apparently changed by the turning of a straw. + +Having mentioned the oysters, we ought also to record their excellence. +Catherine flew about the salle a manger, served us with her own hands, +and gave us her whole attention, for we had the room to ourselves. She +was proud of our praise. + +"There is nothing better than our lobsters and oysters," she remarked. +"I always say so, and Mirmiton always brings us the best of the good. +But to-day it was Madame who came in. Ah! _the Cat_!" laughing +satirically. "The cat comes in for everything, everywhere. She is a +domestic animal invented for two reasons: to catch mice and to furnish +an excuse for whatever happens. I dare affirm it was a glass too much +and not the cat that caused the bon homme to sprain his ankle." + +But we who had heard Madame Mirmiton's chapter and verse, were of a +different opinion. Every rule has an exception, and the cat is certainly +in fault--sometimes. + +We started for St. Thegonnec. Monsieur packed us into the victoria, a +heavy vehicle well matched by the horse and the man. We should certainly +not fly on the wings of the wind. + +"Take umbrellas," cried Madame Hellard, prudently, from the doorway. +"Remember your drenching that day, and what fatal consequences _might_ +have happened." + +But we saw no necessity for umbrellas to-day, for there was not a cloud +in the sky. + +"Still, to please you, I will take my macintosh," said H.C.; "it is +hanging up in the hall." + +But the macintosh had disappeared. A traveller who had left by the last +train had good-naturedly appropriated it to his own use and service. It +was that admirable macintosh that has already adorned these pages, with +the cape finished off with fish-hooks for carrying old china, brown +paper parcels and headless images; and as the invention was not yet +patented, the loss was serious. H.C. lamented openly. + +"I only hope," he said, "that the man who has taken it will put it on +inside out, and that all the fish-hooks will stick into him." The most +revengeful saying his gentle mind had ever uttered. + +"C'est encore le chat!" screamed Catherine, who was leaning out of a +first-floor window of the salle a manger, quite undaunted by Madame +Hellard's reproving "Voyons, voyons, Catherine!" + +But Catherine was loyal, for all her mild sarcasm, and we knew that if +ever the delinquent turned up again he would have a mauvais quart +d'heure at her hands, whilst M. Hellard would certainly enforce +restitution. + +Some months later on, at a subsequent visit we paid to Morlaix, we asked +after the fate of the macintosh and its borrower. + +"Ah, monsieur," cried our host, sadly, "his punishment was even greater +than we could have wished; two months afterwards the poor fellow died of +la grippe." + +But to return. We started for St. Thegonnec. It was a longish drive; the +road undulated a good deal, and the horse seemed to think that whether +going up hill or down a funereal pace was the correct thing. It took us +half our time to rouse our sleepy driver to a sense of his duty. At last +we tried a severe threat. "If you are not back again by table d'hote +time, you shall have no pourboire," we said, in solemn and determined +tones. The effect was excellent. We had no more trouble, but the +unfortunate horse had a great deal of whip. + +There was very little to notice in the country we passed through. The +most conspicuous objects were the large stone crucifixes erected here +and there by the roadside or where two roads met: ancient and beautiful; +and throwing, as we have remarked, a religious tone and atmosphere over +the country. It was wonderfully picturesque to see, as we occasionally +did, a Brittany peasant kneeling at the foot of one of these old +crosses, the pure white Brittany cap standing out conspicuously against +the dark grey stone: a figure wrapped in devotion, apparently lost to +the sense of all outward things. It all adds a charm to one's wanderings +in Brittany. + +St. Thegonnec at last, announced some time before we reached it by its +remarkable church, which is very visible in the flatness of the +surrounding country. The small town numbers some three thousand +inhabitants, but has almost the primitive look of a village. Many of the +people still wear the costumes of the place, especially on a Sunday, +when the interior of the church at high mass looks very picturesque and +imposing. + +The dress of the women is peculiar, and at first sight they might almost +be taken for nuns or sisters of mercy: a dress which leaves scope for a +certain refinement rather contradicted by the physical appearance of the +women themselves. Men and women, in fact, belong for the most part to +the peasantry, and pass their simple lives labouring in the fields, +beating out flax, cultivating their little gardens, so that such an +official as the gravedigger becomes an important personage amongst them. +We came across him, at his melancholy work, but could make no more of +him than we made of the people of Roscoff. He understood no word of +French, but spoke his own native tongue, the language of la Bretagne +Bretonnante, as Froissart has it, in contradistinction to la Bretagne +douce. Nothing, certainly, can be softer and more beautiful than the +pure French language; but that of Brittany is hard and guttural, without +beauty or refinement of any sort. + +The men of St. Thegonnec dress very differently from the women, but the +costume is also very characteristic. It is entirely black, and consists +of wide breeches, pleated and strapped at the knee; a square tunic; a +scarf tied round the waist, with loose ends; a large hat, and shoes with +buckles. + +[Illustration: OLD HOUSE ST. POL DE LEON.] + +To-day few inhabitants were visible. We seemed to be in possession of +the place, together with the old gravedigger, who stopped his work and +escorted us about, but was too stupid to understand even the most +intelligent signs. + +The church is very elaborate and fanciful, cruciform and sixteenth +century, in the Renaissance style, much decorated with sculptures in +dark Kersanton stone. The word _Kersanton_ is Breton for St. Anthony's +House; therefore we may suppose that the Saint had his house, and +possibly his pig-stye, built of this same stone. For, as we know, St. +Anthony had a weakness for pigs, and was famous for recovering one of +his favourites from the devil, who had stolen it: recovered it not quite +undamaged, as the animal was restored with his tail on fire: a base +return for the Saint's politeness, who had offered his petition in +poetical terms to which his audience could scarcely have been +accustomed. + + "Rendez-moi mon cochon, s'il-vous-plait, + Il faisait toute ma felicite," + +chanted the Saint, and to restore the pig with his tail on fire was +conduct worthy only of fallen spirits. + +But let us leave the Saint's pigs and return to our sheep. + +The Kersanton stone, of which so many churches in Brittany are built, +possesses many virtues, but one great drawback. It defies the ravages of +time, yet is admirable for carving, yielding easily to the chisel. But +time has no influence upon it. Centuries pass, yet still it remains the +same: ever youthful, ever hard and cold. It knows nothing of the beauty +of age; it does not crumble or decay, or wear away into softened +outlines; it takes no charm of tone; no lights and shadows. A dark +grey-green it was originally, and so it remains. Thus, in point of +effect, a church built of Kersanton stone two centuries ago might, as +far as appearance goes, almost have been built yesterday. This is a +great defect; and interferes very much with the charm of some of +Brittany's best churches. It is hard, cold and severe, without +refinement, poetry or romance. + +In some cases it atones somewhat by its richness and elaborateness of +sculpture, as in the case of St. Thegonnec. The west front of this +church is Gothic, of the fourteenth century. One of the turrets has a +small, elegant spire, and at the S.W. angle there is a very effective +domed tower bearing the date 1605. + +You enter the churchyard by a triumphal arch, in Renaissance dated 1587. +It is large and massive, with a great amount of detail substantially +introduced, its summit crowned by a number of crosses. On the frieze St. +Thegonnec is represented conducting a waggon drawn by an ox: a facsimile +of the waggon that is said to have assisted in carrying the stone to +build the church. St. Thegonnec is the patron saint of all animals, and +to him the peasants appeal for success and good-luck in such matters. + +Adjoining the triumphal arch is a Flamboyant ossuary or mortuary chapel, +dated 1581, richly gabled, in perfect preservation, and of two storeys. +The first consists of semicircular arches supported by small pillars +with Corinthian capitals. A short staircase within leads to a crypt +converted into a small chapel, in which is an entombment formed of +life-size figures carved in wood, gilded and painted, bearing date 1702. +The calvary in the churchyard, a remarkable monument, completes the +history, by a multitude of small statues representing all the principal +episodes of the Passion. Its date is 1610. Even the crosses are +surmounted by statuettes, as if the designer had not known how to heap +up sufficient richness of ornamentation. The carved pulpit in the +interior of the church is also remarkable. + +We could only devote an hour to St. Thegonnec; Guimiliau had still to be +seen, and we wished to be back in Morlaix by a certain time, for "the +night cometh." Fortunately the drive was not a long one. + +Guimiliau is a village not half the size of St. Thegonnec, and is even +less civilized. Into the inn, which no doubt is respectable, but was +rough and primitive, we did not venture. The driver and the landlord +were apparently on excellent terms, and whilst they fraternised over +their glasses, we inspected the church. + +The place takes its name from Miliau, a king of the Cornouaille, who was +treacherously murdered by his brother Rivod, who then proclaimed himself +king about the year 531. The church and the people canonised him, and he +has become the patron saint of many a Breton village. + +The church of Guimiliau dates chiefly from the sixteenth century. The +aisles and the south porch are Renaissance, richly ornamented by +delicate sculptures representing scenes from the Old and New Testament; +statues of the Apostles. The triumphal arch and ossuary are very +inferior to St. Thegonnec, but the calvary is a magnificent monument, +unequalled in Brittany, richly sculptured and ornamented. It rests on +five arches, and you ascend to the platform by a short staircase in the +interior. Here are crosses bearing the Saviour, and the thieves, +quaintly carved, but with a great deal of religious feeling. The +Evangelists, each with his particular attribute portrayed, are placed at +the angles: and the whole history of the Life of Christ is represented +by a countless number of small figures or personages dressed in costumes +of the sixteenth century. The effect is occasionally grotesque, but very +wonderful. A procession armed with drums and other instruments precedes +the _Bearing of the Cross_; and another scene which does not belong to +the Divine Life, but was introduced as an accessory, represents Catel +Gollet (the lost Catherine) precipitated by devils in the form of +grotesques into the jaws of a fiery dragon emblematical of Purgatory. + +Catel Gollet was one who concealed a sin in confession, was condemned to +suffer, and returning miraculously in 1560 announced her condemnation to +her companions in these terms: + + Voici ma main, cause de mon malheur, + Et voici ma langue detestable! + Ma main qui a fait le peche, + Et ma langue qui l'a nie. + +The bas-relief represents the Adoration of the Magi, and bears date +1588, whilst the upper part bears that of 1581. + +The interior of the church possesses some wonderful and almost matchless +carved wood, which surprised and delighted us. There were sixteenth +century statues, full of expression, of St. Herve and St. Miliau; an +elaborate and beautiful pulpit, a font with a canopy supported by +twisted columns, magnificently carved and thirty feet high, dated 1675; +a matchless organ case, with three bas-reliefs, representing David, St. +Cecilia and a Triumphal March, the latter reproduced from one of +Alexander's battles by Lebrun. + +In short, Guimiliau was a treasury of sculptured wood, which alone would +have made it remarkable amongst churches. It was almost impossible to +leave its fascination, and I fear that we more than envied the church +its possession. It also came with a surprise, for we had heard nothing +of this treasure of refined carving, and had anticipated nothing more +than the wonderful calvary. It still lives in our imagination, almost as +a dream; a dream of beauty and genius. + +We lingered as long as we dared, but knew that we should not travel back +at express speed, and that our coachman, after his indulgence in Breton +beer or spirit, would probably be more sleepy than ever. + +The sun was declining as we left Guimiliau, the church and its monuments +forming a very singular composition against the background of the sky as +we turned and gave it a farewell look. One scarcely analysed the reason, +but there was almost an effect of heathendom about it, as if it dated +from some remote age, when visible objects were worshipped, and the sun +and the moon and dragons and grotesques took a prominent place in +religion. + +The sun was declining and twilight was beginning to creep over the land. +It threw out in greater relief the wayside crosses that we passed on the +road, solemnising the scene, and insensibly leading the mind to +contemplation; all the beauty, all the mystery of our faith, the lights +and shadows of our earthly pilgrimage, so typified by the days and +nights of creation; and the "one far-off divine event" which concerns us +all. + +When we entered Morlaix the sun had set; table d'hote was not over, and +we knew that Catherine had our places and our welfare in her special +keeping; and the driver having done his best on the road, and having +fallen asleep not more than five times on his box, we forgot our +threat, and dismissed him with a _pourboire_, for which he returned us a +Breton benediction. + +[Illustration: BRITTANY PEASANTS.] + +Once again the next day was kindly, the sun shone, the sky was +unclouded. These are rare days in Brittany, which, surrounded on three +sides by water, lives in an atmosphere that is always damp and too often +gloomy and depressing. + +Mindful of our host's wise counsel to profit by the fine weather, we +started for St. Jean-du-Doigt. + +This time our drive lay in a different direction. Yesterday it had been +inland, to-day it was towards the sea-coast. The country for some time +was sad and barren-looking, but as we approached St. Jean and the coast +it became more interesting and fertile. + +Lanmeur, a small town not far from St. Jean, lies in a rather sad and +solitary plain, and is said to occupy the site of a city of great +antiquity. Here runs the river Douron, a small stream that, considerably +higher up, separates the Department of Finistere from Les Cotes du Nord. +The ancient city was named _Kerfeunteun_, and possessed a wonderful +church which was destroyed by the Normans in the eleventh century, but +of which the crypt still remains. In the centre of this crypt springs a +fountain or well, dedicated to St. Melar, a Breton prince put to death +in the year 538, by that same Rivod who murdered his brother Miliau, and +then had himself proclaimed king. The crypt also contains a statue of +St. Melar of the fourteenth century, representing him minus a hand and +foot, which Rivod had had cut off before putting him to death, in order +that he should not be able to mount a horse or use a sword. Of the +church built in the eleventh century only a few arches in the nave and +the south porch remain. The rest of the existing building is modern. + +The coast beyond Lanmeur is extremely broken, rugged and rocky, full of +small bays and sharp points of land jutting out into the sea. The whole +neighbourhood is interesting. Especially remarkable is the Pointe de Beg +an Fri, the fine and rugged rocks of Primel and of Plougasnou; whilst on +the land the pointed roofs of many an old manor rise above the trees. + +St. Jean-du-Doigt is four miles from all this. It is a very pretty and +fertile village watered by the Dounant, which passes through it on its +way to the Bay of St. Jean, where it loses itself in the sea. + +The village lies between two high and barren hills, which shelter it +from the cold winds, and make the valley laughing and fertile. Here you +find well-grown elm trees, and hedges full of the whitethorn, +honeysuckle and wild vines; hedges surrounding rich and productive +orchards, amongst which, here and there, you will see rising the +thatched roof of the small cottages inhabited by the Breton peasantry. + +As at Roscoff, so the moment we reached St. Jean-du-Doigt, we felt its +fascination. Its situation between the hills is extremely picturesque. +Approaching, its rich gateway, leading to the churchyard, stands before +you with fine effect; and beyond it rises the church. + +The gateway is Flamboyant gothic, of great beauty and refinement. The +church is fifteenth century gothic. Its wooden roof is beautifully +carved and painted. The interior has no transept, but is composed of +three naves under one roof. The west aisle has been shortened to make +room for the tower; and in the north nave is a closed-up pointed +doorway, which must have belonged to the earlier chapel dedicated to St. +Meriadec. The apsis is terminated by a straight wall. The three naves +are separated below the choir by prismatic pillars supporting light and +bold arches. + +The tower is pierced on the four sides by two long, narrow lancet +windows, ending in a platform bearing a Flamboyant balustrade, above +which rise four bell-turrets in lead, supporting a tall leaden spire. + +The churchyard contains two remarkable objects: a mortuary chapel of the +date 1577, open on three sides, with a stone altar at the end. The other +is an exquisite Renaissance fountain of lead, with admirable figures, +the goal of many a pilgrimage. It is a rare work of art, composed of +three trenchers or shallow basins united by a slender column, of which +the base enters a large reservoir in the form of a basin resting on a +pedestal, the water issuing from lions' mouths. The overflow from the +upper basins is discharged into the larger basins below by means of a +cordon or garland, consisting of angels' heads, full of grace and +beauty. The summit of the fountain is crowned by an image of the FATHER +ETERNAL, leaning forward to watch the Baptism of the SON by John the +Baptist. These figures are all in lead, as also are the innumerable +heads of the angels pouring out water from the three upper stages. The +exquisite composition is said to have been the work of an Italian +artist, and was given by Anne of Brittany. + +The whole village scene is picturesque and striking. You feel at home at +once; it is marked by a certain refinement, a delicious quietness and +repose in which there is something singularly soothing. Lying in a +hollow, it seems to have carefully withdrawn from the outer world. It is +warm and sunny, and marked and beautified by a wealth of flowers. +Surrounding the churchyard are some of the small houses of this mediaeval +village. + +The inn opposite the gothic gateway looks the very picture of +cleanliness and quiet comfort. Through an open window you see a table +spread with a snow-white cloth, a capital ensign for an inn, promising +much that is loyal. The whole of the exterior is a wealth of blossom, +roses and wisteria covering the white walls, framing the casements, +overflowing to the roof. + +[Illustration: ST. THEGONNEC.] + +On the churchyard walls sat some of the village girls knitting; and as +we took them with our instantaneous cameras, some rushed shyly across +the road and disappeared in the small houses; whilst others, made of +bolder material, placed themselves in becoming attitudes, and looked the +very image of conscious vanity. The men came and talked to us +freely--an exception amongst Breton folk; but it was often difficult to +understand their mixture of languages. They were rather less rough and +sturdy-looking than the ordinary type of Breton, and had somewhat the +look of having descended from the mediaeval days of their village, +becoming pale and long drawn out in the process. Probably the sheltered +position of the village has much to do with it. + +[Illustration: ST. JEAN-DU-DOIGT.] + +St. Jean-du-Doigt takes its name from the fact of the church possessing +the index finger of the right hand of St. John the Baptist, carefully +preserved in a sheath of gold, silver and enamel, a work of art executed +in 1429. The church considers it its greatest possession, and it has +been the object of many a pilgrimage. The treasures of St. Jean-du-Doigt +are unusually rich and beautiful. + +The chief village fete of the year, that in Holland and Belgium would be +called Kermesse, in some parts of France Ducasse, is in Brittany called +_Pardon_. These are the occasions when the little country is seen at its +best, and when all the costume that has come down to the present day +exhibits itself. The Bretons take their pleasures somewhat sadly it is +true, but even owls sometimes become excited and frivolous, and the +Breton, if ever gay and lively, is so at his Pardon. + +The Pardon of St. Jean-du-Doigt is, however, not all merriment. It is in +some ways one of their saddest days, and it is certainly not all +picturesqueness. + +On the 23rd June, the day of the Pardon, many of the beggars of +Brittany, the extreme poor afflicted with lameness and all sorts of +unsightly diseases, make a pilgrimage to the church. A religious service +is held, during which they press forward and crowd upon each other that +the priest may touch their eyes with the finger of St. John, which is +supposed to possess miraculous powers of healing. + +Before this, they have all crowded round the fountain in the cemetery, +to bathe their eyes and faces in the water, which also has miraculous +charms. Then a procession is formed, and begins slowly winding its way +to the top of one of the hills: a long procession, consisting of +inhabitants, beggars, afflicted, and priests of the church carrying +banners, crosses and other signs and symbols. The scene is best seen +from the platform of the tower, where you may escape contact with the +crowd and enjoy the lovely surrounding view, listen to the surging +multitude on one side, and--rather in imagination--the surging of the +sea in the Bay of St. Jean on the other. + +The object of this procession is a stake or bonfire that has been placed +on the summit of one of the hills. This is in communication with the +steeple of the church by means of a long wire--and the distance is +considerable. At a given signal a firework is launched from the steeple, +runs along the wire, and sets light to the stake. As soon as the flames +burst forth there is a general discharge of musketry, drums in the +fields beat loudly, the smoke of incense, mingling with the smoke of +gunpowder, ascends heavenwards, and the priests sing what is called the +"Hymn of the Holy Finger." + +_Les Miraclou_--as those are called who have been miraculously cured the +previous year by bathing in the water of the fountain, or touching the +finger of St. John--of course play an important part in the procession. + +To-day it was our fate to see a very different but hardly less effective +ceremony. As we were sitting quietly near the beautiful gateway, the +hills in front of us, contemplating the sylvan scene and waiting for +our driver, suddenly a small procession appeared coming down the road +that wound round the hill out into the world. It was a funeral, and +nothing could have been more striking than this concourse of priests and +crosses and mourners, some carrying their sad burden, thrown out in +conspicuous relief by the green hills and valleys around. + +Mournfully and sadly the little group approached. First the priests, +then the sad burden, then the women, the chief mourners wearing long +cloaks, with hoods thrown over their heads, which made them look like +nuns, and followed by quite a large company of men walking bareheaded. + +Absolute and solemn silence reigned everywhere, broken only by the +measured tread of the men carrying the coffin, which grew more and more +audible as they approached; that measured tread that is one of the +saddest of sounds. At the gate of the cemetery they paused a moment, +then slowly defiled up the churchyard, and disappeared into the church; +the chief mourner, who was the widow of the dead man, weeping silently +but bitterly. + +We were ready to leave, and when the last mourner had disappeared within +the church, followed by some of the village people, we turned to our +driver and gave him the signal for departure. We left St. Pol very +reluctantly. There was an indescribable charm about it, as there is +about certain places and certain people. St. Thegonnec, Guimiliau--as +far as the villages were concerned, we were glad to turn our backs upon +them; nothing attracted us; we had nothing in common with them; the +charm was wanting. But at St. Jean-du-Doigt it was the very opposite; we +longed to take up a short abode there, and felt that the days would be +well spent and full of happiness. But time forbade the indulgence, as +time generally forbids all such luxuries to the workers in the world. +Only those whose occupation in life is the pursuit of pleasure can, like +Dr. Syntax, go off in search of the picturesque, and wander about at +their own sweet desire like a will-o'-the-wisp. Such luxuries were not +ours; and so it came to pass that, very soon after we had seen the sad +procession winding down the hill, we were winding up it; looking back +with "long lingering gaze" at the lovely spot which was fast +disappearing from view. + +"I knew you would be charmed with St. Jean-du-Doigt," said Madame +Hellard; "everyone is so. _Le paysage est si riant_. A pity you could +not be there for the _Pardon_." + +We hardly agreed with her. + +"I assure you," she continued, "seen from the tower, where you are +removed from the crowd and the beggars and the sick folk, it is most +interesting and picturesque. Am I not right, cher ami?" turning to her +husband. + +"You are always right," replied Monsieur gallantly. + +"Oh, that is prejudice," laughed Madame. "But le Pardon of St +Jean-du-Doigt, with its procession winding up the hill, its bonfire, its +religious observances, is quite exceptionally interesting. I am sure +when I saw the _dragon_ go off from the tower and set fire to the +_bucher_, and heard the charge of musketry and roll of drums, I could +have thrown myself off the platform with emotion." + +"A mercy for me you did not," replied our host, who was evidently in a +very amiable mood that morning. The fair was over and many had left the +hotel, and he had more time for repose. + +"I hope monsieur has come back with an appetite," said Catherine, +referring to H.C., when we had taken our seats at the table d'hote. We +were early, and the first in the room. "It is of no use running about +the country and exhausting our fresh air if one is to remain as thin as +a leg of a stork and as pale as Pierrot." + +[Illustration: MAKING PANCAKES AT THE REGATTA.] + +"Where is our vis-a-vis?" we asked, pointing to the empty chair opposite +and the very conspicuous vacuum it presented. + +"He is gone, thank goodness--with last year's swallows," cried +Catherine. "But, alas, he will come back again--like the swallows. Some +people bear a charmed life." + +"You will find him improved, perhaps." + +"_Enlarged_," retorted Catherine, "and with a more capacious +appetite--if that be possible; that will be the only change. They say +there are limits to all things--I shall never believe it now." + +And then the few who were now in the hotel came in, and dinner began; +and Catherine's presence filled the room, cap streamers seemed floating +about in all directions; and her voice was every now and then heard +proclaiming LA SUITE. + +And later on, in the darkness, we went out according to our custom, and +revelled in the old-world streets, the latticed windows, still lighted +up, waiting for the curfew--real or figurative, public or domestic. For +we all have our curfews, only they are not proclaimed from some ancient +tower; and, alas, they are, like Easter, a movable institution; whereby +it comes to pass that we too often waste the midnight oil and burn the +candle at both ends, and before our time fall into the "sere and yellow +leaf." + + + + +ACROSS THE RIVER. + + + Here we sat beside the river + Long ago, my Love and I, + Where the willows droop and quiver + 'Twixt the water and the sky. + We were wrapped in fragrant shadow, + 'Twas the quiet vesper time, + And the bells across the meadows + Mingled with the ripple's chime. + With no thought of ill betiding, + "Thus," we said, "life's years shall be + For us twain a river gliding + To a calm, eternal sea." + + I am sitting by the river + Where we used to sit of old, + And the willows droop and quiver + 'Gainst a sky of burning gold; + But my Love long since went onward, + Down the river's shining tide, + To the land that is far sunward, + With the angels to abide; + And in pastures fair and vernal, + In the coming by-and-bye, + Far across the sea eternal + We shall meet--my Love and I. + +HELEN M. BURNSIDE. + + + + +AN APRIL FOLLY. + +BY GILBERT H. PAGE. + + +April 1, 1890. 58A, Lincoln's Inn Fields.--I execrate my fellow men--and +women! To-day I was over at Catherine's. Not an unusual occurrence with +me, but on a more than usually important mission. I needn't note down +how I achieved it. Am I likely to forget my impotent speeches? Still, +she had given me plenty of excuse for supposing she liked me, and I said +so. And then Catherine laughed her exasperating little laugh that always +dries up all sentiment on the spot, and makes my blood boil with anger. +"I _like_ you?" she repeated mockingly; "not at all! not in the least! +What can you be dreaming of?" + +I did for a moment dream of rolling her elaborately curled head in the +dust of the drawing-room carpet; but I restricted myself to saying a few +true and exceedingly bitter things, and departed without giving her time +to reply; and herewith I register a vow on the tablets of my heart: "If +ever again I make a single friendly overture to that young woman, may I +cut off the hand that so betrays me!" + +By-the-bye, it is April Fools' Day, an appropriate date by which to +remember my folly. + +April 2.--My feelings are still exceedingly sore. Oh for a cottage in +some wilderness--some vast contiguity of shade--whither I might retire, +like a stricken hart from the herd, and sulk majestically! The very +thing! There rises before me an opportune vision of a certain lonely +farm-house I wot of down by a lonely sea. I discovered it last summer +while staying at Shoreford. I had ridden westward across the marsh lands +of Windle, over the cliffs that form the coastline between this and +Rexingham; and being thirsty, had followed some cows through a +rick-yard, in the hopes of obtaining a glass of milk. + +There, behind the hayricks, I had come upon my first view of Down End +Farm; and the picture of its grey stone, lichened walls, red roof, cosy +kitchen and comely mistress, had remained painted on my brain. So, too, +I retained a scrap of my conversation with Mrs. Anderson, and her casual +mention of the London family then occupying her best rooms. "We don't +have many folk at Down End, it being so out of the way, sir; but the +gentleman here now says he do like it, just on account of the solitude +and quiet." + +There was no particular reason at the time why these words should have +so impressed me. Solitude was the last thing I desired then, having gone +down to Shoreford for my holiday, merely because Catherine was spending +the summer there too. But now that everything is over between us, the +solitary farm comes as balm to my wounded spirit. Let me see; to-day is +Tuesday the 2nd. Good Friday is the day after to-morrow; I could get +away to-morrow evening. All right! I'll go out and telegraph to Mrs. +Anderson, and pay for her reply. + +April 4. Down End Farm.--I reached this last night. At seven o'clock I +found myself driving up from Rexingham station, with the crimson flaming +brands of the sunset behind me, and the soft mysterious twilight closing +in on all sides. It was almost dark when we got to the top of Beacon +Point Hill, and quite dark for a time as we began to descend the other +side, for the road here is cut down between steep red gravel banks, +crowned with sombre fir trees. When these were passed and we reached the +remembered stack-yard gate, there was clear heaven again above my head, +its exquisite ever-darkening blue already gemmed with the more brilliant +stars. The Plough faintly outlined above, and beautiful spica hanging +low over Windle Flats. A cheerful glow-worm of red earth-light gleamed +from the farm-house windows as we drove round to the inner gate, while +at the sound of the wheels the kitchen door opened, and my hostess came +down the flagged pathway between the sleepy flowers to bid me welcome. + +How delightful the first evening in country quarters always is. How +comfortable the wood fire that flamed and sputtered on the parlour +hearth, how inviting the meal of tea, new-laid eggs, homemade breads and +jams, honey and hot scones spread out upon a spotless cloth around a +centre piece of daffodils and early garden flowers. For a rejected +suitor I felt singularly cheerful; for a blighted being I made a most +excellent meal; and for the desperate misogynist I had determined on +becoming I surely felt too much placid satisfaction at Mrs. Anderson's +homely talk. + +But it was really pleasant to lie back in the capacious leathern chair, +while this good woman cleared away the tea-things, and lazily eyeing the +fire, listen to the history of herself and her family, of her husband, +her children, her landlord, of her courtship, her marriage, her +troubles, of the death of her mother in the room overhead the year +before last, and of the wedding of her eldest boy Robert which is to +take place this summer as soon as the corn is carried. + +Such openness of disposition, so often found among people of Mrs. +Anderson's class, is very refreshing, and it is convenient too. You know +at once where you stand. I wish it were the custom in society. I should +then have learned from Catherine's own lips how many fellows she had +already sent to the right-about, and I should have given her no +opportunity of adding to their number. + +I came down very late to breakfast this morning--my first breakfast in +the country is always luxuriously late--and I found a tall and pretty +young girl busy building up the fire in my sitting-room. I guessed at +once she was the "Annie" of whom I heard a long and pleasing account +last night. Annie is the image of what her mother must have been twenty +years ago. She has the same agreeable blue eyes, the same soft straw +coloured hair. But while Mrs. Anderson wears hers in bands at each side +of the head, Annie's is drawn straight back to display the smoothest of +white foreheads, the freshest of freckled little faces in the world. She +is about seventeen, and a sweet girl, I feel sure. Could no more play +with a man's feelings than she could torture one of the creatures +committed to her care. She has charge of the poultry, she tells me, and +is allowed half the profits. Mem.--I shall eat a great many eggs. + +April 5.--I have done an excellent thing in exchanging the hollow shams +of society for the healing powers of nature. I shall live to forget +Catherine and to be happy yet. And there was after all something +artificial about that girl. Pretty, certainly, but with the beauty of +the stage; now little Annie here is pretty with the beauty of the sky +and meadows. + +I am delighted with this place. There is nothing like the country in +early spring. Suppose I were never to go back to town again, but stay +with the Andersons, see them through the lambing season, lend a hand at +tossing the hay, swing a scythe at corn cutting (and probably cut off my +own legs into the bargain), drink a health at son Robert's wedding, and +then during the winter--yes, during the long dark winter evenings when +the wind raves round the old house and whistles down the chimneys, when +the boom of the sea echoes all along the coast as it breaks against the +cliffs--then to sit in the cosy sitting-room, with the curtains drawn +along the low windows, a famous fire flashing and glaring upon the +hearth, one's limbs pleasantly weary with the day's labour, one's cheeks +tingling from exposure to the keen air; would not this be an agreeable +exchange for the feverish anxieties and stagnant pleasures of London +life? + +After a time, a considerable time no doubt, it would possibly occur to +Catherine to wonder what had become of me. + +April 6.--Easter Sunday. I am writing in my sitting-room window. I raise +my eyes and see first the broad window-sill, whereon stand pots of musk +and geranium, not yet in flower; then through the clear latticed panes, +the bee-haunted garden, descending by tiny grassy terraces to the +kitchen-garden with its rows of peas and beans, its beds of lettuce and +potatoe, its neat patches of parsley and thyme; then a field beyond. I +note the double meandering hedge-line that indicates the high road, and +beyond again the ground rises in sun-bathed pastures and ploughed land +to the gorse-covered cliff edge with its background of pure sky; a +little to the right, yet still in full view from my window, is an abrupt +dip in the cliff, which shows a great wedge of glittering sea. It is +here that my eyes always ultimately rest, until they ache with the +dazzle and the beauty, and then by a natural transition I think +of--Catherine. + +At this moment she is probably dressing to go to church, and is +absorbed in the contemplation of a new hat. I should think she had as +many hats on her head as hairs--no, I don't mean that; it suggests +visions of "ole clo'es"--I mean she must have almost as many hats as +hairs on her head. + +How inexpressibly mean and petty this devotion to rags and tags and +gewgaws seems when one stands in the face of the Immensities and the +Eternities! Yet it would appear as though the feminine mind were really +incapable of impression by such Carlylean sublimities, for I saw Annie +start for church awhile since in a most terrible combination of maroon +and magenta. Her best clothes evidently, cachemire and silk, with two +flowers and a feather in her hat, her charming baby prettiness as much +crushed and eclipsed as bad taste and a country town dressmaker could +accomplish. What I like to see Annie in is the simple stuff gown she +wears of a morning, with the big bib apron of white linen, and the +spotless white collar caressing her creamy throat. I would lock her best +clothes up in that delightful carved oak chest that stands upstairs on +the landing and throw the key into the sea; and little Annie would let +me do it; she is evidently the most docile of child-women. Catherine, +now, had I ever ventured on adverse criticism of her garments, would +have thrown me into the sea instead. + +April 7.--Bank holiday, and wet, of course. The weather is never +propitious on the feast of St. Lubbock. The old Saints apparently owe a +grudge to this latest addition to the calendar. How beastly it must be +in town, with the slushy streets and the beshuttered shops! How +depressing for Paterfamilias who arose at seven in the morning to set +off with his wife and his brats and the family food-basket to catch some +early excursion train! How much more depressing for him who has no train +to catch, and nothing at all to do but worry through twelve mortal +pleasure hours! + +St. Lubbock's malevolent influence doesn't fortunately extend down here, +where everything seems to work in time-worn ruts. I walked over the +fields opposite. There were a great many new-dropped lambs in the second +meadow. They didn't appear to mind the drizzle, but kneeling with their +little front legs doubled under them, they sucked vigorously at their +mothers, while their long tails danced and quivered in the air. + +There was one lamb lying quietly on its side. The ewe stood by, staring +down at it with a sort of quiescent curiosity from her brown, stupid, +white-lashed eyes. When I went over to her I saw the lamb was dying; its +lips moved incessantly, its little body kept rising and falling with its +laboured breath, now and then it made a violent effort to get up, but +always fell back in the same position. I passed back through the same +field about an hour after. There was the lamb still dying, still +breathing painfully, still moving its lips as before, but the mother, +tired of the spectacle, had walked off, and was calmly munching +mangel-wurzel in another part of the field. + +I sentimentalised and moralised--naturally; and naturally, too, I +thought of Catherine. Strange there should be that vein of hardness +running through the entire female sex. + +As the rain still continued this afternoon, I proposed to Mrs. Anderson +she should show me the house. The excellent creature, busy with the +dairy, offered me Annie as her substitute. We went from cellar to +garret, and the child's companionship and her ingenuous prattle +successfully beguiled a couple of hours. The house in reality consists +of two houses placed at right angles to each other. The older part, +built between two and three hundred years ago, is inhabited by the +Andersons themselves. It consists of a long, low kitchen, with an +enormous hearth-place, an oaken settle, smoke-browned rafters, and a +bricked floor. + +In the centre of the room is a massive but worm-eaten table, capable of +seating twenty persons at least. It was built up in the kitchen itself +some two hundred years ago, since no earthly ingenuity could have coaxed +it through the low windows or narrow door. + +Two of these, latticed like those of my sitting room, with the door +between them, face west; but long before the sun is down the wooded +eminence opposite has intercepted all his beams. Outside is also a +garden, full of forget-me-not, daffodil, and other humble flowers. Here +Scot, the watch-dog, lies dreaming in his kennel, and beyond the gate +the cocks and hens lay dolefully in the rain, or bunch themselves up, +lumps of dirty feather, under the shelter of the wood shed. + +Upstairs are three sleeping rooms, and the attics, with curious dormer +windows, still higher. We come down again to the first floor. A long +matted passage runs from one end of the house to the other. It sinks +half a step where the newer portion is joined on. This part, containing +in all four rooms, two here and two below, was built in July, 1793, as a +rudely scratched tablet on the wall outside informs me. + +I sit with Annie on the carved chest at the southern end of the passage. +The window behind us gives an extensive view of grey rain and grey sea. +But I prefer to look at the smiling, freckled face that speaks so +eloquently of sunny days. The wet, trailing fingers of the briar-rose +climbing over the porch tap at the casement, the loose branch of the +plane-tree creaks in the wind, the distant sea moans and murmurs; but I +prefer to listen to my little friend's artless and occasionally "h-less" +English, as she tells me how the Andersons have always been tenants of +Down End since her great-grandfather came to the county and added on the +living-house to the farm-house for his young wife. + +"July, 1793." The date takes my fancy. I can see the Anderson of those +days, large-boned, sinewy, stooping, with a red, fiery beard, like his +present representative, stolid, laborious, contented, building his house +here facing the coasts of France, nearly as ignorant of, and quite as +indifferent to, the wild work going on over there in Paris town as +little Annie herself can be. King, Dictator, Emperor, King, Emperor, +Commune, have come and gone, but the sturdy race of farmers sprung from +great-grandfather Anderson still carry on the same way of life in the +same identical spot. + +"But I'm not amusing you," says Annie, regretfully. "If only it would +leave off raining we might go out and have a ride on the tin-tan." It +takes me some little time, and a closely-knit series of questions, to +discover that tin-tan is Southshire for see-saw; and I think how +Catherine would laugh at the spectacle of my bobbing up and down on one +end of a plank and this little country damsel at the other. Her +detestable laughter; but, thank Heaven! I need never suffer from it +again. + +April 8.--Gloomy again to-day. Ink-coloured rain clouds hanging close +over the hills, their fringe-like lower edges showing ragged across a +pale sky, against which the hills themselves rise dark and sharp. Now +and again a shower of rain falls, but not energetically; the wind blows, +the clouds shift, the rain ceases, and the sky darkens or gleams with a +watery brightness alternately. Looking over the wide landscape and +leaden sea, here and there a patch of sunshine falls, while I myself +walk in gloom; now the sails of a ship catch the radiance, now a +farmstead, now a strip of sand over by Windle Flats. + +I feel slightly bored. Annie went into Rexingham this morning with +Robert and the early milk cart. She is to spend the day with an aunt, +and return with the empty cart this evening. Twice a day the Andersons +send in their milk to Rexingham, and winter and summer son Robert must +rise at 3 a.m. to see to the milking, harness Dolly or Dobbin, and jog +off his seven miles. Seven miles there, and seven miles back, morning +and evening; that is twenty-eight miles in all, and ever the self-same +bit of road in every weather. So that a farmer's life has its seamy side +also. But then, to get back of a night! To find a good little wife like +Annie waiting for you at the upper gate or by the house door. To eat +your supper and smoke your pipe, with your feet on the mantel-piece if +you pleased, and no possibility of being ordered into dress clothes to +go to some vile theatre or idiotic dance--above all, to know that +Catherine knew you were perfectly happy without her--by the bye, I +wonder she has not written to me! Not that I want her to, of course. +This would entail a few frozen conventional lines back by way of answer. +But I am surprised she can endure thus easily the neglect of even the +most insignificant of her subjects. I felt sure she would write to ask +why I did not call on Sunday. She trusts, no doubt, to the greatness of +my folly to bring me again, unasked, to her feet. Her confidence is for +once misplaced. + +April 9.--A great improvement in the weather. I was awakened by the sun +pouring in at my window, and looked out on to a light, bright blue sky, +full of white cumuli that cast down purple shadows upon a grey-green +sea. I draped myself in the white dimity window curtain, and watched +Annie making her way up between the lettuce rows, with her hands full of +primroses. She came from the orchard, where the green tussucked grass at +the foot of the apple trees is starred with these lovely little flowers. + +I must have a talk with Annie in the orchard one day. It would be just +the background to show off her particular style of beauty. I like to +suit my scenery to the drama in hand. Catherine would be quite out of +place in an orchard, where she might stain her gown, or a harmless +beetle or spider terrify her into fits. + +There appears to be only one post a day here; but Mrs. Anderson tells me +that by walking up to Orton village I might find letters awaiting +to-morrow's morning delivery. I was ass enough to go over this +afternoon, and of course found nothing. + +As I passed the barn on my way in, my ear was saluted by much laughter +and shouting. I came upon Annie giving her little brothers a swing. Both +great doors of the barn were turned back upon the outside wall and the +swing hanging by long ropes to the rafters, and holding two chubby +urchins together on the seat, swung out now into the sunshine, now back +into the gloom, while Annie stood and pushed merrily. Three tiny calves, +penned off in a loose box at one end of the building, stared over the +low partition with soft, astonished eyes. It was a charming little +picture. + +"There, Tim! I can only give you six more!" cries Annie. "I've got to go +and make the puddings" (she said "puddens," but what matter?). Before +she goes she pulls a handful of grass from the threshold and offers it +to the calves. While they tug it this way and that to get it from her +hand, she endeavours to plant a kiss on the moist black muzzle of the +smallest, but he promptly and ungallantly backs and the grass falls to +the ground. At the same moment the children discover me, and an awed +silence succeeds to their chatter. Not to embarrass them, I move off and +fall a-musing as to whether Catherine could make a pudding to save her +life? It is pretty certain it would cost a man his to have to eat it; +does not even her violin playing, to which she has given indubitable +time and attention, set one's teeth on edge to listen to? + +Yet why this bitterness? Let me erase Catherine and her deficiencies +from my mind for ever. + +April 10.--Again no letter! Very well! I know what I will do. I am +almost certain I will do it. But first I will go down to the beach and +give it a couple of hours' sober reflection. No one shall say I acted +hastily, ill-advisedly, or in pique. + +I cross over to the cliff edge. Here the gorse is aflame with blossom; +the short dry grass is full of tiny insect life. Various larks are +singing; each one seems to sing the same song differently; perhaps each +never sings the same arrangement twice! + +I go down the precipitous coastguards' stairs. At every step it grows +hotter. Down on the beach it is very hot, but there is shade to be +found among the boulders at the cliff's base. I sit down and stare along +the vacant shore; at the ships floating on the sea; at the clouds +floating in the sky; there is no sound but the little grey-green waves +as they break and slosh upon the stones. + +I think of Catherine and Annie, and I remark that the breakwaters are +formed of hop-poles, twined together and clasped with red-rusted iron +girdles; the wood has been washed by the tides white and clean as bones. +I wonder whether I shall ask Annie to be my wife, and I wonder also +whence came those--literally--millions of wine bottle corks that strew +the beach to my right. From a wreck? from old fishing nets? or merely +from the natural consumption of beer at the building of the breakwater? + +Coming back to Down End, I find a travelling threshing machine at work +in the rick-yard. I had heard the monotonous thrumming of its wheels a +good way off. The scene is one of great animation, the machine is drawn +up against the conical-shaped haystack, its black smoke stretches out in +serpentine coils against the sky. A dozen men are busy about her: those +who work her, old Anderson, son Robert--a dreadful lout he is too, quite +unlike his sister--various other louts of the same calibre, the two +little boys, very much in everyone's way, and Mrs. Anderson and Annie, +who have just brought out jugs of ale. I naturally stop to say a few +words to Annie and watch the threshing. Anderson is grinding out some of +last year's oats for the cattle. + +Son Robert comes to take a pull out of Annie's jug. "That's prime, +measter, ain't it?" he says to me, and wipes his mouth with the back of +his hand. I go in thoughtfully. Is son Robert exactly the sort of man I +should care to call brother-in-law? + +April 11, 12.--These two days I have been casting up the pros and cons +of a marriage with Annie. Shall it be--or not be? I suffer from a +Hamlet-like perplexity. On the one hand I get a good, an amiable, an +adoring little wife, who would forestall my slightest wish, who would +warm my slippers for me, for whom I should be the Alpha and Omega of +existence. She would never argue with me, never contradict me, never +dream of laughing _at_ me; would never laugh at all unless I allowed +her, for she would give into my keeping, as a good wife should, the key +of her smiles and of her tears. But of course I should wish her to +laugh. I should wish the dear little creature to remain as merry and +thoughtless as possible. Dear Annie! what surprise and delight will +shine in your innocent blue eyes when I tell you my story! Your +childlike gratitude will be almost embarrassing. Last, and perhaps most +weighty pro of all--when Catherine hears of it she will be filled with +regret; yes, she may act indifference as gaily as she pleases, I am +convinced that in her heart of hearts she will be sorry. + +Now for the cons; they, too, are many. As I said before, I should not +like son Robert to call me brother. I should find honest old Anderson +pere rather a trial with his red beard, his broken nails, the yawning +chasm between his upper teeth; even Mrs. Anderson, so comely and +pleasant here in her own farm-house, would suffer by being transplanted +to Lincoln's Inn. So might little Annie herself. A lapsed "h" in a +country hay-field has much less significance than when lost at a London +dinner-table. How is it, I wonder, that while the dear child generally +speaks of 'ay and 'ouse, she invariably besmirches with the strongest of +aspirates the unfortunate village of H'Orton? Still, it would be easy to +correct this, delightful to educate her during our quiet evenings, to +read with her all my favourite prose writers and poets! And, even +supposing she couldn't learn, is classical English in the wife an +infallible source of married happiness? Let me penetrate below externals +and examine into the realities of things. + +I spend most of Friday and Saturday in this examination without making +any sensible progress until supper on Saturday night, when I casually +mention to Annie, who is laying the table, that I am bound to leave Down +End on the following Monday, as term begins on the 15th. + +"Must you really go? Well, we shall miss you, surely," says Annie. And I +am not mistaken; there is a wistfulness in her blue eyes, a poignant +regret in her voice that goes to my heart. + +No, Annie! that decides me; I have suffered too much from blighted +affection ever to inflict the same pangs on another. I am too well read +myself in Love's sad, glad book to mistake the signs written in your +innocent face. Without vanity I can see how different I must appear in +your eyes to all the farm hands and country bumpkins you have hitherto +met; without fatuity I can understand how unconsciously almost to +yourself you have given me your young affections. Well, to-morrow you +shall know you have won back mine in exchange. + +If Catherine could but guess what is impending! + +April 13 (Sunday).--Annie in the maroon and magenta gown, carrying a +clean folded handkerchief and a Church Service in her hand, has gone up +to church. + +The bells are still ringing, and I am wandering through the little Copse +on the right of the farm. This wood, or plantation rather flourishes +down hill, fills up the narrow, interlying valley, and courageously +climbs the eminence beyond. As I descend, it become more and more +sheltered. The wind dies away and the church bells are heard no longer. +I am following a cart-track used by the woodcutters. It is particularly +bad walking. The last cart must have passed through in soft weather, the +ruts are cut so deep, and these are filled with water from the last +rains. The new buds are but just "exploding" into leaf; here and there +the Dryades have laid down a carpet of white anemone flowers to dance +on; trailing brambles lie across the track, with October's bronze and +purple-green leaves, still hale and hearty, making an exquisite +contrast with the young, brilliant, fan-folded shoots just springing at +their base. + +I will find an opportunity to speak to Annie this very afternoon. She is +likely to be less busy to-day than at other times. I need not trouble +much as to how I shall tell her. She is sure to listen to me in a sweet, +bewildered silence. She will have no temptation to laugh at the most +beautiful and sacred of earthly themes. There is, to my mind, something +incurably frivolous about a woman who laughs when a man is in earnest. I +have tried over and over again to impress this upon Catherine, but it +never had any other effect but to increase her amusement. She is a young +woman entirely without the bump of veneration, and _this_, I should say, +far more than an elegant pronunciation, is the desideratum in a wife. + +Sunday evening. I am in the mental condition of "Truthful James." I ask +myself: "Do I wake? Do I dream?" I inquire at set intervals whether the +Caucasian is played out? So far as I represent the race, I am compelled +to reply in the affirmative. This is what has happened. I was smoking my +post-prandial cigar in the terraced garden, lying back in a comfortable +basket-chair fetched out from the sitting-room, when a shadow fell upon +the grass, and Mrs. Anderson appeared in her walking things to know if +there was anything I was likely to want, as she and "Faaether" and the +little boys were just starting for _H_'Orton. + +"Don't trouble about me," said I; "go and enjoy yourself. No one better +deserves it than you, Mrs. Anderson." And I add diplomatically: "Doesn't +Miss Annie also go with you?" + +"Annie's over Fuller's Farm way," says the good woman smiling; and I +smile too, for no particular reason. "She mostly walks up there of a +Sunday afternoon." + +I know Fuller's Farm. I have passed it in my rambles. You skirt the +copse, cross the sunny upland field, drop over the stile to the right, +and find yourself in Fuller's Lane. The farm is a little further on, a +comfortable homestead, smaller than Down End, but built of the same +grey, lichened stone, and with the same steep roof and dormer windows. + +I gave the Andersons ten minutes start, then rose, unlatched the gate, +and followed Annie. I reached the upland field. It was dotted with +sheep: ewes and lambs; long shadows sloped across it; a girl stood at +the further gate. This was Annie, but alas! someone was with her; a +loutish figure that I at first took to be that of son Robert. But as I +came nearer, I saw it was not Robert but his equally loutish friend, the +young fellow I had seen working with him by the threshing machine. That +day, in his working clothes, he had looked what he was, a strong and +honest young farmer. To-day, in his Sunday broadcloth, with a brilliant +blue neck scarf, a brass horseshoe pin, and a large bunch of primroses +in his button-hole, he looked a blot, an excrescence, on the sunny +earth. Personally, he might have been tall, but for a pronounced stoop; +fair, but that he was burnt brick colour; smooth-faced, but for the +multitude of lines and furrows, resulting from long exposure to the open +air. His voice I couldn't help admitting was melodious and manly, yet +the moment he caught sight of me he shuffled his feet like an idiot, and +blushed like a girl. He whispered something to his companion, dropped +over the stile like a stone from a catapult, and vanished from view. + +Annie advanced to meet me, blushing sweetly. She had put a finishing +touch to the magenta costume by a large pink moss rosebud. She looked at +it with admiration. + +"Me and my young man have changed nosegays," she remarked simply; "he +asked me to give him my primroses, and he gave me this. They do grow +beautiful roses up at Fuller's." + +"Your what?" said I dismayed. "Who did you say?" + +"My young man," repeated Annie; "Edward Fuller, from the next farm. He +and me have been keeping company since Christmas only, but I've known +him all my life. We always sat together in school; he used to do my sums +for me, and I've got still a box full of slate pencil ends which he had +touched." + +So my card castle came to the cloth. Here was a genuine case of true +idyllic boy and girl love, that had strengthened and ripened with mature +years. Annie had no more given me a thought--what an ass, what an idiot +I am! But really, I think Catherine's cruelty has turned my brain. I am +become ready to plunge into any folly. + +And it would have been folly. After the first second's surprise and +mortification, I felt my spirits rise with a leap. I was suddenly +dragged back from moral suicide. The fascinating temptation was placed +for ever beyond my reach. And it was Edward Fuller who thus saved me! +Good young man! I fall upon your neck in spirit, and kiss you like a +brother. + +I am still free! who knows what to-morrow may bring. + +April 14.--To-morrow is here and has brought a letter from Catherine. I +find it lying by my plate when I come down to breakfast. I take it up, +look at the superscription, partly in Catherine's well-known writing, +partly in my landlady's spider scrawl--for it had gone first to my +London rooms. I turn it over, feel it, decide it contains one sheet of +paper only, and put it resolutely down. After breakfast is time enough +to read it; nothing she can say shall ever move me more. + +I pour out my coffee; my resolutions waver and dissipate themselves like +the steam rising from my cup. I tear the letter open, and find myself in +Heaven straightway. And these are the winged words that bore me there:-- + +"Why do you not come and see me? Why are you so blind? It is true I do +not _like_ you! But I love you with all my heart. Ah! could you not +guess? did you not know?" + + + + +"PROCTORISED." + + +What a ghostly train from the forgotten past rises before me as I write +the word that heads this sketch! The memory dwells again upon that +terrible quarter of an hour in the Proctor's antechamber, where the +brooding demon of "fine" and "rustication" seemed to dwell, and where +the disordered imagination so clearly traced above the door Dante's +fearful legend--Abandon hope all ye that enter here. + +How eagerly each delinquent scanned the faces of his fellow-victims as +they came forth from the Proctorial presence, vainly trying to gather +from their looks some forecast of his impending fate; and how jealously +(if a "senior") he eyed the freshman who was going to plead a first +offence! + +And then the interview that followed--not half so terrible as was +expected. The good-natured individual who stood before the fire, in +blazer and slippers, was barely recognisable as the terrible official of +yesterday's encounter; while the sleek attendant at the Proctor's elbow +seemed more like a waiter than the pertinacious and fleet-footed +"bull-dog." What a load was raised from the mind as the Proctor made a +mild demand for five shillings, and the "bull-dog" pointed to a plate +into which you gladly tossed the half-crowns. And then you quitted the +room which you vowed never again to enter, feeling that you had been let +down very easily. For you knew full well that beneath the Proctor's +suave demeanour lurked a sting which too often took the painful form of +rustication from the University. + +But let us accompany the Proctor as he makes his nightly rounds with his +faithful body-guard, and look once more upon the ceremony of +"proctorisation." + +What an imposing figure he is! The silk gown adorned with velvet +sleeves; the white bands round his neck denoting the sanctity of his +office; his sturdy attendants: are they not calculated to overawe the +frivolous undergraduate? + +Following him through the streets, into billiard-room and restaurant, +one moralises on the sad necessity that compels this splendid dignitary +to play the part of a common policeman. But there is little time for +thought. On we go, on our painful mission. Suddenly the keen-eyed +"bull-dog" crosses the street, for an undergraduate has just come forth +from a tobacconist's shop. He is wearing cap and gown, and--oh, heinous +offence--he puffs the "herba nicotiana." + +The Proctor steps forward (for smoking in Academical dress is sternly +forbidden) and, producing a note-book, vindicates thus the dignity of +the law. + +"Are you a member of this University, sir?" The offender murmurs that +he is. "Your name and college, sir. I must trouble you to call upon me +at nine a.m. to-morrow." Then, with raised cap and ceremonious bow, the +Proctor leaves his victim to speculate mournfully on what the morrow +will bring forth. + +Forward! and we move on once more in quest of offenders against the +"statutes." What curious reading some of these statutes afford! We seem +to get a whiff from bygone ages as we read the enactment condemning the +practice of wearing the hair long as unworthy the University; and +equally curious is the provision that forbids the student to carry any +weapon save a bow and arrow. + +But let us continue our journey. Tramp, tramp, tramp! No wonder we find +the streets empty: our echoing footsteps give the alarm. But soon we +make another capture. This time the undergraduate seeks refuge in +flight, but in vain. "Fast" though he is, the bull-dog is faster; and +the Proctor enters another name in his note-book. Let him who runs read. + +On we go; now visiting the railway station--favourite hunting-ground of +the Proctor--now waiting while the theatre discharges its contents; for +there the gownless student abounds and the Proctor's heart grows merry. + +Here a prisoner states that he is Jones, of Jesus. Vain subterfuge! +Though there be many Welshmen at Jesus College, and many of its alumni +bear the name of Jones, yet are you not of their number. So says the +Proctor, a don of Jesus; and the pseudo Jones wishes that he had not +been born. + +Twelve o'clock now strikes, and our nightly vigil draws to a close. +Still we move forward, amid the jangling rivalry of a thousand bells. +Soon the Proctor adds yet another to the list of victims. This one leads +us a pretty dance from Carfax to Summertown, and then declares he is not +a member of the University. The Proctor smiles as a vision of Theodore +Hook flashes across his mind; but, alas! the "bull-dog" recognises the +prisoner as an old offender. + +Unhappy man! Your dodge does not "go down," although beyond a doubt you +will; for the Proctor will visit your double offence with summary +rustication. + +F.D.H. + + + + +UNEXPLAINED. + +BY LETITA MCCLINTOCK. + + +"All ghost stories may be explained," said Mrs. Marchmont, smiling +rather scornfully, and addressing a large circle of friends and +neighbours who, one Christmas evening, were seated round her hospitable +hearth. + +"Ah! you think so? Pardon me, if I cannot agree with you," said Mr. +Henniker, a well-known Dublin barrister, of burly frame and jovial +countenance, famed for his wit and flow of anecdote. + +The ladies of the party uttered exclamations in various keys, while the +men looked attentive and interested. All that Mr. Henniker pleased to +say was wont to command attention, in Dublin at least. + +"So you think all ghost stories may be explained? What would Mrs. +Marchmont say to our old woman in the black bonnet, Angela?" And the +barrister turned to his quiet little wife, who rarely opened her lips. +She was eager enough now. + +"I wish I could quite forget that old woman, John, dear," she said, with +a shiver. + +"Won't you tell us, dear Mrs. Henniker? Please--please do!" cried the +ladies in chorus. + +"Nay; John must tell that tale," said the wife, shrinking into herself, +as it were. + +No one knew how it happened that the conversation had turned upon +mesmerism, spiritualism and other themes trenching upon the +supernatural. Perhaps the season, suggesting old-fashioned tales, had +something to do with it; or maybe the whistling wind, mingling with the +pattering of hail and rattle of cab-wheels, led the mind to brood over +uncanny legends. Anyhow, all the company spoke of ghosts: some to mock, +others to speculate; and here was the witty lawyer prepared to tell a +grave tale of his own experience. + +His jovial face grew stern. Like the Ancient Mariner, he addressed +himself to one in company, but all were silent and attentive. + +"You say all ghost stories may be explained, Mrs. Marchmont. So would I +have said a year ago; but since we last met at your hospitable fireside, +my wife and I have gone through a very astonishing experience. We 'can a +tale unfold.' No man was better inclined to laugh at ghost stories than +I. + + * * * * * + +"Well, to begin my true tale. We wished for a complete change of scene +last February, and Angela thought she would like to reside in the same +county as her sisters and cousins and aunts--" + +"Dorsetshire, I believe, Mrs. Henniker?" interrupted the lady of the +house. + +Angela nodded. + +"I intended to take a house for my family, leave them comfortably +settled in it, and run backwards and forwards between Dorsetshire and +Dublin. Well, it so happened that I did leave them for a single day +during the three months of my tenancy of the Hall. I had seen a +wonderful advertisement of a spacious dwelling-house, with offices, +gardens, pleasure grounds--to be had for fifty pounds per annum. I went +to the agent to make inquiries. + +"'Is this flourishing advertisement correct?' asked I. + +"'Perfectly.' + +"'What! so many advantages are to be had for fifty pounds a year?' + +"'Most certainly. I advise you to go and see for yourself.' + +"I took the agent's advice, and Angela was enchanted with the +description I was able to give her on my return. A charming little park, +beautifully planted with rare shrubs and trees--a bowery, secluded spot, +so shut in by noble elms as to seem remote from the world. The +house--such a mansion as in Ireland would be called Manor-house or +Castle--large, lofty rooms thoroughly furnished, every modern +improvement. My wife, as surprised as myself that a place of the kind +should be going for a mere song, begged me to see the agent again, and +close with him. It was done at once. I would have taken the Hall for a +year, but Mr. Harold advised me not to do so. 'Take it by the quarter, +or at longest by the half-year,' he recommended. + +"I replied that it appeared such a desirable bargain that I wished to +take it by the year. His answer to this was a reiteration of his first +advice. I can't tell you how he influenced me, for he really said no +more than I tell you; but I yielded to his evident wish without knowing +why I did so, and I closed with him for six months, not a year." + +"Glamour, Mr. Henniker!" + +"It would seem so, Mrs. Marchmont. We went to the Hall, and Angela was +delighted with it. The snowdrops lay in snowy masses about the +grounds--the garden gave promise of beauty as the season advanced. How +the children ran over the house! how charmed we were with every nook and +corner of it! Our own bed-room was a comfortable, large room, opening +into a very roomy dressing-room, in which my wife placed two cribs for +our youngest boys, Hal and Jack--" + +"Don't forget to say that our bed-chamber opened from a sitting-room," +interrupted Mrs. Henniker. + +"Well, for three weeks we all slept the sleep of the just in our really +splendid suite of apartments. Not a grumble from our servants--nothing +but satisfaction with our rare bargain. I was on the eve of returning to +dear, dirty Dublin and the Four Courts, when--" + +"When? We are all attention, Mr. Henniker." + +"Angela and I were sitting in the drawing-room under the bed-chamber I +have described, when a loud cry startled us, 'Mother, mother, mother!' + +"The little boys were in bed in the dressing-room. Angela dropped her +tea-cup and dashed out of the room, forgetting that there was no light +in the rooms above us. + +"I caught up a candle and followed her quickly. We found the children +sobbing wildly. Jack's arms were almost strangling his mother, while he +cried in great excitement, 'Oh, the old woman in the black bonnet! The +old woman in the black bonnet! Oh--oh--oh!' + +"I thought a little fatherly correction would be beneficial, but Angela +would not suffer me to interfere. She tried to soothe the little +beggars, and in a few minutes they were coherent enough in their story. +A frightful old woman, wearing a black bonnet, had been in the room. She +came close to them and bent over their cribs, with her dreadful face +near to theirs. + +"'How did you see her?' we asked. 'There was no candle here." + +"She had light about her, they said; at any rate, they saw her quite +well. An exhaustive search was made. No trace of a human being was to be +found. I refrained from speaking to the other children, who slept in an +upper story, though I softly entered their rooms and examined presses +and wardrobes, and peeped behind dark corners, laughing in my sleeve all +the while. Of course we both believed that Hal had been frightened by a +dream, and that his little brother had roared from sympathy. 'Don't +breathe a word of this to the servants,' whispered Mrs. Henniker. 'I'm +not such a fool, my dear,' I replied. 'But pray search the lower +regions, and see if Jane and Nancy have any visitor in the kitchen,' she +continued. 'She came through your door, mother, from the sitting-room,' +sobbed Hal, with eyes starting out of his head. + +"'Who, love?' asked his mother. + +"'The old woman in the black bonnet. Oh, don't go away, mother.' + +"So Angela had to spend the remainder of the evening between the +children's cribs. + +"'What can we do to-morrow evening?' asked she. 'I have it! Lucy shall +be put to bed beside Jack.' Lucy was our youngest, aged two. + +"All went well next night. There was no alarm to summon us from our +papers and novels, and we went to bed at eleven, Angela remarking that +the three cherubs were sleeping beautifully, and that it had been a good +move to let Lucy bear the other two company. I was roused out of sound +sleep by wild shrieks from the three children. + +"'What! more bad dreams? This sort of thing must be put a stop to,' I +said; and I confess I was very angry with the young rascals. My wife was +fumbling for the match-box. 'Hush!' she whispered, 'there _is_ somebody +in the room.' And _I_, too, at that instant, felt the presence of some +creature besides ourselves and the children. The candle lighted, we +again reconnoitred--nothing to be seen in dressing-room, bed-room, or +_the drawing-room beyond_, the door of which was shut. But the curious +sense of a presence near us--stronger than any feeling of the kind I had +ever previously experienced--was gone. You have all felt the presence of +another person unseen. You may be writing--you have not heard the door +open, but though your back is towards the visitor, you know somehow that +he has entered." + +"Quite true, Mr. Henniker--but there is nothing unnatural or unpleasant +in that sensation." + +"Nothing, of course; I merely instance it to give you some idea of what +we felt on that occasion. We were astonished to find the sitting-room +untenanted. Meanwhile poor Hal, Jack and Lucy shrieked in chorus 'Oh, +the old woman in the black bonnet! Oh, take her away!' + +"Poor Angela, trembling, hung over the cribs trying to soothe the +children. It was a good while before they could tell what had happened. +'She came again,' said Hal, 'and she came close, close to me, and she +put her _cold_ face down near my cheek till she touched me, and I don't +like her--oh, I don't like her, mother!' + +"'Did she go to Jack and Lucy too?' + +"'Yes, yes; and she made _them_ cry as well.' + +"'Why do you not like her? Is it the black bonnet? You dreamt of a black +bonnet last night, you know,' said I, half-puzzled, half-provoked. + +"'She's so frightful,' cried Hal. + +"'How could you see her? There was no candle.' + +"This question perplexed the little boys. They persisted that she had a +light about her somewhere. I need hardly say that there was no comfort +for us the rest of the night. 'If anyone is trying to frighten us out of +the place, I'll be even with him yet,' said I. My wife believed that a +trick had been played upon the children, and she was most indignant. + +"Next day the cribs were removed to the upper story, and Charlotte and +Joanna, our daughters of twelve and fourteen, were put to sleep in the +dressing-room. We predicted an end to the annoyance we had been +suffering. The nurse was a quick-tempered woman, who would not stand any +nonsense, and Hal's bad dreams would be sternly driven away. We settled +ourselves to our comfortable light reading by the drawing-room fire. +Suddenly there was a commotion overhead; an outcry--surprised more than +terrified, it sounded to us. Angela laid her book down quickly and +listened with all her ears. Fast-flying footsteps were heard above; the +clapping of a door; then--scurry, scurry--the patter of bare feet down +the staircase. We hurried across the hall, and saw Charlotte in her +nightgown returning slowly up the kitchen stairs, with a puzzled +expression on her honest face. + +"'What on earth are you doing, child?' cried Angela. + +"'I was giving chase to a hideous old woman in a black bonnet, who chose +to intrude upon us,' panted Charlotte. 'I saw her in our room; I jumped +out of bed and pursued her through your room and the sitting-room. Then +I saw her before me going downstairs, and I ran after her; but the door +at the foot of the kitchen staircase was shut. She certainly could not +have had time to open it, and I really don't know where she can have +gone to!' + +"This was Charlotte's explanation of her mad scurry downstairs. Her +downright sensible face was puzzled and angry. + +"'So you see the little ones must have been tormented by that old +wretch, whoever she is. They didn't dream it, father, as you thought. +Wouldn't I like to punish her!'" + +"What a brave girl!" cried Mrs. Marchmont. + +"Brave? Oh, Charlotte's as bold as a lion! She went back to bed; and +when we followed her, in a couple of hours, she was sleeping soundly. +But I can't say either of _us_ slept so well. If a trick was being +played upon us, it was carried out in so clever a manner as to baffle me +completely. I need not say that I made careful search of every cranny +about the handsome house and offices; and if there was a secret passage +or a door in the wall anywhere, it escaped me. We had peace for a +fortnight, and then the annoyance recommenced. + +"Angela's nerve was shaken at last, and she began to whisper, 'There are +more things in heaven and earth, Horatio'--" + +"John, you are making a story!" interrupted Mrs. Henniker. + +"It is every word true. I am coming to an end. Angela, in spite of her +disclaimer, _did_ believe in a ghost in a black bonnet. Charlotte +believed in her, but did not care about her ghostship. The nurse and +cook and housemaid declared they were meeting the horrible appearance +constantly; and they were all three in a mortal funk. As to the +children, they would not leave off clinging to their mother, and +fretting and trembling when evening came. The milkman, the baker and the +butcher, all told the servants that we would not be long at the Hall, +for nobody ever remained more than a month or two. This was cheerful and +encouraging for me!" + +"But you had never seen the charming old woman all this time?" + +"No; but I saw her in the broad daylight. I had a good long look at her, +and a more diabolical face I never saw--no, not even in the dock. I was +writing letters in the study about twelve o'clock one morning, when I +suddenly looked up, to see the appearance that had excited such a +turmoil in my family standing near the table. A frightful face--a +short-set woman dressed in black--gown, shawl, bonnet--this was the +impression I received. But she looked quite human--quite everyday--there +was nothing ghostly in her air--only the evil face curdled one's blood. +I stared at her, and then I took up a folded newspaper and threw it at +her. My motive in so doing was to frighten her who had frightened my +wife so much. Courtesy such a creature need not expect from me, being, +as her villainous countenance proved, one of the criminal class. The +newspaper fell upon the floor, after apparently going through the +figure, and there was a vacuum where it had been. I was not much shaken, +however, although my theory of a human trickster dressed like a woman +seemed overturned." + +"Did you tell Mrs. Henniker what you had seen?" + +"Naturally I did. At this period we talked of nothing else. She saw the +apparition twice herself. Once she entered our dressing-room and saw the +figure bending over a sleeping child (it faded as she looked); another +time she was with me in the drawing-room, when she laid down her book +and whispered, 'See, see, near the door!' There, sure enough was the +appearance that had visited me in the study in clear daylight. I did not +make her out quite as distinctly now because our candles did not light +up that end of the long room, or my older eyes were not as good as +Angela's." + +"What did Mrs. Henniker do?" + +"She started up and ran to catch the old woman in the black bonnet." + +"And did she catch her?" + +"She caught a _shiver_--nothing more! + +"After this I resolved to give up the Hall at once, sacrificing four +months' rent for the sake of my wife and children, whose nerves would +have soon become shattered had we remained. I went to Mr. Harold and +told him how disagreeable the place was to us. He was grave and very +guarded in manner, confessing that no tenant stayed more than a couple +of months at the Hall--that his client certainly made considerably in +consequence--that he had done his utmost to find out what was wrong with +the house, but all in vain. Mr. J---- would not speak about it, and when +strenuously urged to explain, replied emphatically--'_I shall never tell +you the story of that house._' + +"We dismissed the servants with handsome presents at once on our return +to Dublin, so desirous were we that the children should never be +reminded of their terror. I think they have not heard the old woman in +the black bonnet spoken of since we left the Hall, and the younger ones +have probably forgotten her. As to us, we can only say that the mystery +is unexplained." + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Argosy, by Various + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ARGOSY *** + +***** This file should be named 18374.txt or 18374.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/1/8/3/7/18374/ + +Produced by Paul Murray, Taavi Kalju and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + +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. 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