1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140
141
142
143
144
145
146
147
148
149
150
151
152
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
164
165
166
167
168
169
170
171
172
173
174
175
176
177
178
179
180
181
182
183
184
185
186
187
188
189
190
191
192
193
194
195
196
197
198
199
200
201
202
203
204
205
206
207
208
209
210
211
212
213
214
215
216
217
218
219
220
221
222
223
224
225
226
227
228
229
230
231
232
233
234
235
236
237
238
239
240
241
242
243
244
245
246
247
248
249
250
251
252
253
254
255
256
257
258
259
260
261
262
263
264
265
266
267
268
269
270
271
272
273
274
275
276
277
278
279
280
281
282
283
284
285
286
287
288
289
290
291
292
293
294
295
296
297
298
299
300
301
302
303
304
305
306
307
308
309
310
311
312
313
314
315
316
317
318
319
320
321
322
323
324
325
326
327
328
329
330
331
332
333
334
335
336
337
338
339
340
341
342
343
344
345
346
347
348
349
350
351
352
353
354
355
356
357
358
359
360
361
362
363
364
365
366
367
368
369
370
371
372
373
374
375
376
377
378
379
380
381
382
383
384
385
386
387
388
389
390
391
392
393
394
395
396
397
398
399
400
401
402
403
404
405
406
407
408
409
410
411
412
413
414
415
416
417
418
419
420
421
422
423
424
425
426
427
428
429
430
431
432
433
434
435
436
437
438
439
440
441
442
443
444
445
446
447
448
449
450
451
452
453
454
455
456
457
458
459
460
461
462
463
464
465
466
467
468
469
470
471
472
473
474
475
476
477
478
479
480
481
482
483
484
485
486
487
488
489
490
491
492
493
494
495
496
497
498
499
500
501
502
503
504
505
506
507
508
509
510
511
512
513
514
515
516
517
518
519
520
521
522
523
524
525
526
527
528
529
530
531
532
533
534
535
536
537
538
539
540
541
542
543
544
545
546
547
548
549
550
551
552
553
554
555
556
557
558
559
560
561
562
563
564
565
566
567
568
569
570
571
572
573
574
575
576
577
578
579
580
581
582
583
584
585
586
587
588
589
590
591
592
593
594
595
596
597
598
599
600
601
602
603
604
605
606
607
608
609
610
611
612
613
614
615
616
617
618
619
620
621
622
623
624
625
626
627
628
629
630
631
632
633
634
635
636
637
638
639
640
641
642
643
644
645
646
647
648
649
650
651
652
653
654
655
656
657
658
659
660
661
662
663
664
665
666
667
668
669
670
671
672
673
674
675
676
677
678
679
680
681
682
683
684
685
686
687
688
689
690
691
692
693
694
695
696
697
698
699
700
701
702
703
704
705
706
707
708
709
710
711
712
713
714
715
716
717
718
719
720
721
722
723
724
725
726
727
728
729
730
731
732
733
734
735
736
737
738
739
740
741
742
743
744
745
746
747
748
749
750
751
752
753
754
755
756
757
758
759
760
761
762
763
764
765
766
767
768
769
770
771
772
773
774
775
776
777
778
779
780
781
782
783
784
785
786
787
788
789
790
791
792
793
794
795
796
797
798
799
800
801
802
803
804
805
806
807
808
809
810
811
812
813
814
815
816
817
818
819
820
821
822
823
824
825
826
827
828
829
830
831
832
833
834
835
836
837
838
839
840
841
842
843
844
845
846
847
848
849
850
851
852
853
854
855
856
857
858
859
860
861
862
863
864
865
866
867
868
869
870
871
872
873
874
875
876
877
878
879
880
881
882
883
884
885
886
887
888
889
890
891
892
893
894
895
896
897
898
899
900
901
902
903
904
905
906
907
908
909
910
911
912
913
914
915
916
917
918
919
920
921
922
923
924
925
926
927
928
929
930
931
932
933
934
935
936
937
938
939
940
941
942
943
944
945
946
947
948
949
950
951
952
953
954
955
956
957
958
959
960
961
962
963
964
965
966
967
968
969
970
971
972
973
974
975
976
977
978
979
980
981
982
983
984
985
986
987
988
989
990
991
992
993
994
995
996
997
998
999
1000
1001
1002
1003
1004
1005
1006
1007
1008
1009
1010
1011
1012
1013
1014
1015
1016
1017
1018
1019
1020
1021
1022
1023
1024
1025
1026
1027
1028
1029
1030
1031
1032
1033
1034
1035
1036
1037
1038
1039
1040
1041
1042
1043
1044
1045
1046
1047
1048
1049
1050
1051
1052
1053
1054
1055
1056
1057
1058
1059
1060
1061
1062
1063
1064
1065
1066
1067
1068
1069
1070
1071
1072
1073
1074
1075
1076
1077
1078
1079
1080
1081
1082
1083
1084
1085
1086
1087
1088
1089
1090
1091
1092
1093
1094
1095
1096
1097
1098
1099
1100
1101
1102
1103
1104
1105
1106
1107
1108
1109
1110
1111
1112
1113
1114
1115
1116
1117
1118
1119
1120
1121
1122
1123
1124
1125
1126
1127
1128
1129
1130
1131
1132
1133
1134
1135
1136
1137
1138
1139
1140
1141
1142
1143
1144
1145
1146
1147
1148
1149
1150
1151
1152
1153
1154
1155
1156
1157
1158
1159
1160
1161
1162
1163
1164
1165
1166
1167
1168
1169
1170
1171
1172
1173
1174
1175
1176
1177
1178
1179
1180
1181
1182
1183
1184
1185
1186
1187
1188
1189
1190
1191
1192
1193
1194
1195
1196
1197
1198
1199
1200
1201
1202
1203
1204
1205
1206
1207
1208
1209
1210
1211
1212
1213
1214
1215
1216
1217
1218
1219
1220
1221
1222
1223
1224
1225
1226
1227
1228
1229
1230
1231
1232
1233
1234
1235
1236
1237
1238
1239
1240
1241
1242
1243
1244
1245
1246
1247
1248
1249
1250
1251
1252
1253
1254
1255
1256
1257
1258
1259
1260
1261
1262
1263
1264
1265
1266
1267
1268
1269
1270
1271
1272
1273
1274
1275
1276
1277
1278
1279
1280
1281
1282
1283
1284
1285
1286
1287
1288
1289
1290
1291
1292
1293
1294
1295
1296
1297
1298
1299
1300
1301
1302
1303
1304
1305
1306
1307
1308
1309
1310
1311
1312
1313
1314
1315
1316
1317
1318
1319
1320
1321
1322
1323
1324
1325
1326
1327
1328
1329
1330
1331
1332
1333
1334
1335
1336
1337
1338
1339
1340
1341
1342
1343
1344
1345
1346
1347
1348
1349
1350
1351
1352
1353
1354
1355
1356
1357
1358
1359
1360
1361
1362
1363
1364
1365
1366
1367
1368
1369
1370
1371
1372
1373
1374
1375
1376
1377
1378
1379
1380
1381
1382
1383
1384
1385
1386
1387
1388
1389
1390
1391
1392
1393
1394
1395
1396
1397
1398
1399
1400
1401
1402
1403
1404
1405
1406
1407
1408
1409
1410
1411
1412
1413
1414
1415
1416
1417
1418
1419
1420
1421
1422
1423
1424
1425
1426
1427
1428
1429
1430
1431
1432
1433
1434
1435
1436
1437
1438
1439
1440
1441
1442
1443
1444
1445
1446
1447
1448
1449
1450
1451
1452
1453
1454
1455
1456
1457
1458
1459
1460
1461
1462
1463
1464
1465
1466
1467
1468
1469
1470
1471
1472
1473
1474
1475
1476
1477
1478
1479
1480
1481
1482
1483
1484
1485
1486
1487
1488
1489
1490
1491
1492
1493
1494
1495
1496
1497
1498
1499
1500
1501
1502
1503
1504
1505
1506
1507
1508
1509
1510
1511
1512
1513
1514
1515
1516
1517
1518
1519
1520
1521
1522
1523
1524
1525
1526
1527
1528
1529
1530
1531
1532
1533
1534
1535
1536
1537
1538
1539
1540
1541
1542
1543
1544
1545
1546
1547
1548
1549
1550
1551
1552
1553
1554
1555
1556
1557
1558
1559
1560
1561
1562
1563
1564
1565
1566
1567
1568
1569
1570
1571
1572
1573
1574
1575
1576
1577
1578
1579
1580
1581
1582
1583
1584
1585
1586
1587
1588
1589
1590
1591
1592
1593
1594
1595
1596
1597
1598
1599
1600
1601
1602
1603
1604
1605
1606
1607
1608
1609
1610
1611
1612
1613
1614
1615
1616
1617
1618
1619
1620
1621
1622
1623
1624
1625
1626
1627
1628
1629
1630
1631
1632
1633
1634
1635
1636
1637
1638
1639
1640
1641
1642
1643
1644
1645
1646
1647
1648
1649
1650
1651
1652
1653
1654
1655
1656
1657
1658
1659
1660
1661
1662
1663
1664
1665
1666
1667
1668
1669
1670
1671
1672
1673
1674
1675
1676
1677
1678
1679
1680
1681
1682
1683
1684
1685
1686
1687
1688
1689
1690
1691
1692
1693
1694
1695
1696
1697
1698
1699
1700
1701
1702
1703
1704
1705
1706
1707
1708
1709
1710
1711
1712
1713
1714
1715
1716
1717
1718
1719
1720
1721
1722
1723
1724
1725
1726
1727
1728
1729
1730
1731
1732
1733
1734
1735
1736
1737
1738
1739
1740
1741
1742
1743
1744
1745
1746
1747
1748
1749
1750
1751
1752
1753
1754
1755
1756
1757
1758
1759
1760
1761
1762
1763
1764
1765
1766
1767
1768
1769
1770
1771
1772
1773
1774
1775
1776
1777
1778
1779
1780
1781
1782
1783
1784
1785
1786
1787
1788
1789
1790
1791
1792
1793
1794
1795
1796
1797
1798
1799
1800
1801
1802
1803
1804
1805
1806
1807
1808
1809
1810
1811
1812
1813
1814
1815
1816
1817
1818
1819
1820
1821
1822
1823
1824
1825
1826
1827
1828
1829
1830
1831
1832
1833
1834
1835
1836
1837
1838
1839
1840
1841
1842
1843
1844
1845
1846
1847
1848
1849
1850
1851
1852
1853
1854
1855
1856
1857
1858
1859
1860
1861
1862
1863
1864
1865
1866
1867
1868
1869
1870
1871
1872
1873
1874
1875
1876
1877
1878
1879
1880
1881
1882
1883
1884
1885
1886
1887
1888
1889
1890
1891
1892
1893
1894
1895
1896
1897
1898
1899
1900
1901
1902
1903
1904
1905
1906
1907
1908
1909
1910
1911
1912
1913
1914
1915
1916
1917
1918
1919
1920
1921
1922
1923
1924
1925
1926
1927
1928
1929
1930
1931
1932
1933
1934
1935
1936
1937
1938
1939
1940
1941
1942
1943
1944
1945
1946
1947
1948
1949
1950
1951
1952
1953
1954
1955
1956
1957
1958
1959
1960
1961
1962
1963
1964
1965
1966
1967
1968
1969
1970
1971
1972
1973
1974
1975
1976
1977
1978
1979
1980
1981
1982
1983
1984
1985
1986
1987
1988
1989
1990
1991
1992
1993
1994
1995
1996
1997
1998
1999
2000
2001
2002
2003
2004
2005
2006
2007
2008
2009
2010
2011
2012
2013
2014
2015
2016
2017
2018
2019
2020
2021
2022
2023
2024
2025
2026
2027
2028
2029
2030
2031
2032
2033
2034
2035
2036
2037
2038
2039
2040
2041
2042
2043
2044
2045
2046
2047
2048
2049
2050
2051
2052
2053
2054
2055
2056
2057
2058
2059
2060
2061
2062
2063
2064
2065
2066
2067
2068
2069
2070
2071
2072
2073
2074
2075
2076
2077
2078
2079
2080
2081
2082
2083
2084
2085
2086
2087
2088
2089
2090
2091
2092
2093
2094
2095
2096
2097
2098
2099
2100
2101
2102
2103
2104
2105
2106
2107
2108
2109
2110
2111
2112
2113
2114
2115
2116
2117
2118
2119
2120
2121
2122
2123
2124
2125
2126
2127
2128
2129
2130
2131
2132
2133
2134
2135
2136
2137
2138
2139
2140
2141
2142
2143
2144
2145
2146
2147
2148
2149
2150
2151
2152
2153
2154
2155
2156
2157
2158
2159
2160
2161
2162
2163
2164
2165
2166
2167
2168
2169
2170
2171
2172
2173
2174
2175
2176
2177
2178
2179
2180
2181
2182
2183
2184
2185
2186
2187
2188
2189
2190
2191
2192
2193
2194
2195
2196
2197
2198
2199
2200
2201
2202
2203
2204
2205
2206
2207
2208
2209
2210
2211
2212
2213
2214
2215
2216
2217
2218
2219
2220
2221
2222
2223
2224
2225
2226
2227
2228
2229
2230
2231
2232
2233
2234
2235
2236
2237
2238
2239
2240
2241
2242
2243
2244
2245
2246
2247
2248
2249
2250
2251
2252
2253
2254
2255
2256
2257
2258
2259
2260
2261
2262
2263
2264
2265
2266
2267
2268
2269
2270
2271
2272
2273
2274
2275
2276
2277
2278
2279
2280
2281
2282
2283
2284
2285
2286
2287
2288
2289
2290
2291
2292
2293
2294
2295
2296
2297
2298
2299
2300
2301
2302
2303
2304
2305
2306
2307
2308
2309
2310
2311
2312
2313
2314
2315
2316
2317
2318
2319
2320
2321
2322
2323
2324
2325
2326
2327
2328
2329
2330
2331
2332
2333
2334
2335
2336
2337
2338
2339
2340
2341
2342
2343
2344
2345
2346
2347
2348
2349
2350
2351
2352
2353
2354
2355
2356
2357
2358
2359
2360
2361
2362
2363
2364
2365
2366
2367
2368
2369
2370
2371
2372
2373
2374
2375
2376
2377
2378
2379
2380
2381
2382
2383
2384
2385
2386
2387
2388
2389
2390
2391
2392
2393
2394
2395
2396
2397
2398
2399
2400
2401
2402
2403
2404
2405
2406
2407
2408
2409
2410
2411
2412
2413
2414
2415
2416
2417
2418
2419
2420
2421
2422
2423
2424
2425
2426
2427
2428
2429
2430
2431
2432
2433
2434
2435
2436
2437
2438
2439
2440
2441
2442
2443
2444
2445
2446
2447
2448
2449
2450
2451
2452
2453
2454
2455
2456
2457
2458
2459
2460
2461
2462
2463
2464
2465
2466
2467
2468
2469
2470
2471
2472
2473
2474
2475
2476
2477
2478
2479
2480
2481
2482
2483
2484
2485
2486
2487
2488
2489
2490
2491
2492
2493
2494
2495
2496
2497
2498
2499
2500
2501
2502
2503
2504
2505
2506
2507
2508
2509
2510
2511
2512
2513
2514
2515
2516
2517
2518
2519
2520
2521
2522
2523
2524
2525
2526
2527
2528
2529
2530
2531
2532
2533
2534
2535
2536
2537
2538
2539
2540
2541
2542
2543
2544
2545
2546
2547
2548
2549
2550
2551
2552
2553
2554
2555
2556
2557
2558
2559
2560
2561
2562
2563
2564
2565
2566
2567
2568
2569
2570
2571
2572
2573
2574
2575
2576
2577
2578
2579
2580
2581
2582
2583
2584
2585
2586
2587
2588
2589
2590
2591
2592
2593
2594
2595
2596
2597
2598
2599
2600
2601
2602
2603
2604
2605
2606
2607
2608
2609
2610
2611
2612
2613
2614
2615
2616
2617
2618
2619
2620
2621
2622
2623
2624
2625
2626
2627
2628
2629
2630
2631
2632
2633
2634
2635
2636
2637
2638
2639
2640
2641
2642
2643
2644
2645
2646
2647
2648
2649
2650
2651
2652
2653
2654
2655
2656
2657
2658
2659
2660
2661
2662
2663
2664
2665
2666
2667
2668
2669
2670
2671
2672
2673
2674
2675
2676
2677
2678
2679
2680
2681
2682
2683
2684
2685
2686
2687
2688
2689
2690
2691
2692
2693
2694
2695
2696
2697
2698
2699
2700
2701
2702
2703
2704
2705
2706
2707
2708
2709
2710
2711
2712
2713
2714
2715
2716
2717
2718
2719
2720
2721
2722
2723
2724
2725
2726
2727
2728
2729
2730
2731
2732
2733
2734
2735
2736
2737
2738
2739
2740
2741
2742
2743
2744
2745
2746
2747
2748
2749
2750
2751
2752
2753
2754
2755
2756
2757
2758
2759
2760
2761
2762
2763
2764
2765
2766
2767
2768
2769
2770
2771
2772
2773
2774
2775
2776
2777
2778
2779
2780
2781
2782
2783
2784
2785
2786
2787
2788
2789
2790
2791
2792
2793
2794
2795
2796
2797
2798
2799
2800
2801
2802
2803
2804
2805
2806
2807
2808
2809
2810
2811
2812
2813
2814
2815
2816
2817
2818
2819
2820
2821
2822
2823
2824
2825
2826
2827
2828
2829
2830
2831
2832
2833
2834
2835
2836
2837
2838
2839
2840
2841
2842
2843
2844
2845
2846
2847
2848
2849
2850
2851
2852
2853
2854
2855
2856
2857
2858
2859
2860
2861
2862
2863
2864
2865
2866
2867
2868
2869
2870
2871
2872
2873
2874
2875
2876
2877
2878
2879
2880
2881
2882
2883
2884
2885
2886
2887
2888
2889
2890
2891
2892
2893
2894
2895
2896
2897
2898
2899
2900
2901
2902
2903
2904
2905
2906
2907
2908
2909
2910
2911
2912
2913
2914
2915
2916
2917
2918
2919
2920
2921
2922
2923
2924
2925
2926
2927
2928
2929
2930
2931
2932
2933
2934
2935
2936
2937
2938
2939
2940
2941
2942
2943
2944
2945
2946
2947
2948
2949
2950
2951
2952
2953
2954
2955
2956
2957
2958
2959
2960
2961
2962
2963
2964
2965
2966
2967
2968
2969
2970
2971
2972
2973
2974
2975
2976
2977
2978
2979
2980
2981
2982
2983
2984
2985
2986
2987
2988
2989
2990
2991
2992
2993
2994
2995
2996
2997
2998
2999
3000
3001
3002
3003
3004
3005
3006
3007
3008
3009
3010
3011
3012
3013
3014
3015
3016
3017
3018
3019
3020
3021
3022
3023
3024
3025
3026
3027
3028
3029
3030
3031
3032
3033
3034
3035
3036
3037
3038
3039
3040
3041
3042
3043
3044
3045
3046
3047
3048
3049
3050
3051
3052
3053
3054
3055
3056
3057
3058
3059
3060
3061
3062
3063
3064
3065
3066
3067
3068
3069
3070
3071
3072
3073
3074
3075
3076
3077
3078
3079
3080
3081
3082
3083
3084
3085
3086
3087
3088
3089
3090
3091
3092
3093
3094
3095
3096
3097
3098
3099
3100
3101
3102
3103
3104
3105
3106
3107
3108
3109
3110
3111
3112
3113
3114
3115
3116
3117
3118
3119
3120
3121
3122
3123
3124
3125
3126
3127
3128
3129
3130
3131
3132
3133
3134
3135
3136
3137
3138
3139
3140
3141
3142
3143
3144
3145
3146
3147
3148
3149
3150
3151
3152
3153
3154
3155
3156
3157
3158
3159
3160
3161
3162
3163
3164
3165
3166
3167
3168
3169
3170
3171
3172
3173
3174
3175
3176
3177
3178
3179
3180
3181
3182
3183
3184
3185
3186
3187
3188
3189
3190
3191
3192
3193
3194
3195
3196
3197
3198
3199
3200
3201
3202
3203
3204
3205
3206
3207
3208
3209
3210
3211
3212
3213
3214
3215
3216
3217
3218
3219
3220
3221
3222
3223
3224
3225
3226
3227
3228
3229
3230
3231
3232
3233
3234
3235
3236
3237
3238
3239
3240
3241
3242
3243
3244
3245
3246
3247
3248
3249
3250
3251
3252
3253
3254
3255
3256
3257
3258
3259
3260
3261
3262
3263
3264
3265
3266
3267
3268
3269
3270
3271
3272
3273
3274
3275
3276
3277
3278
3279
3280
3281
3282
3283
3284
3285
3286
3287
3288
3289
3290
3291
3292
3293
3294
3295
3296
3297
3298
3299
3300
3301
3302
3303
3304
3305
3306
3307
3308
3309
3310
3311
3312
3313
3314
3315
3316
3317
3318
3319
3320
3321
3322
3323
3324
3325
3326
3327
3328
3329
3330
3331
3332
3333
3334
3335
3336
3337
3338
3339
3340
3341
3342
3343
3344
3345
3346
3347
3348
3349
3350
3351
3352
3353
3354
3355
3356
3357
3358
3359
3360
3361
3362
3363
3364
3365
3366
3367
3368
3369
3370
3371
3372
3373
3374
3375
3376
3377
3378
3379
3380
3381
3382
3383
3384
3385
3386
3387
3388
3389
3390
3391
3392
3393
3394
3395
3396
3397
3398
3399
3400
3401
3402
3403
3404
3405
3406
3407
3408
3409
3410
3411
3412
3413
3414
3415
3416
3417
3418
3419
3420
3421
3422
3423
3424
3425
3426
3427
3428
3429
3430
3431
3432
3433
3434
3435
3436
3437
3438
3439
3440
3441
3442
3443
3444
3445
3446
3447
3448
3449
3450
3451
3452
3453
3454
3455
3456
3457
3458
3459
3460
3461
3462
3463
3464
3465
3466
3467
3468
3469
3470
3471
3472
3473
3474
3475
3476
3477
3478
3479
3480
3481
3482
3483
3484
3485
3486
3487
3488
3489
3490
3491
3492
3493
3494
3495
3496
3497
3498
3499
3500
3501
3502
3503
3504
3505
3506
3507
3508
3509
3510
3511
3512
3513
3514
3515
3516
3517
3518
3519
3520
3521
3522
3523
3524
3525
3526
3527
3528
3529
3530
3531
3532
3533
3534
3535
3536
3537
3538
3539
3540
3541
3542
3543
3544
3545
3546
3547
3548
3549
3550
3551
3552
3553
3554
3555
3556
3557
3558
3559
3560
3561
3562
3563
3564
3565
3566
3567
3568
3569
3570
3571
3572
3573
3574
3575
3576
3577
3578
3579
3580
3581
3582
3583
3584
3585
3586
3587
3588
3589
3590
3591
3592
3593
3594
3595
3596
3597
3598
3599
3600
3601
3602
3603
3604
3605
3606
3607
3608
3609
3610
3611
3612
3613
3614
3615
3616
3617
3618
3619
3620
3621
3622
3623
3624
3625
3626
3627
3628
3629
3630
3631
3632
3633
3634
3635
3636
3637
3638
3639
3640
3641
3642
3643
3644
3645
3646
3647
3648
3649
3650
3651
3652
3653
3654
3655
3656
3657
3658
3659
3660
3661
3662
3663
3664
3665
3666
3667
3668
3669
3670
3671
3672
3673
3674
3675
3676
3677
3678
3679
3680
3681
3682
3683
3684
3685
3686
3687
3688
3689
3690
3691
3692
3693
3694
3695
3696
3697
3698
3699
3700
3701
3702
3703
3704
3705
3706
3707
3708
3709
3710
3711
3712
3713
3714
3715
3716
3717
3718
3719
3720
3721
3722
3723
3724
3725
3726
3727
3728
3729
3730
3731
3732
3733
3734
3735
3736
3737
3738
3739
3740
3741
3742
3743
3744
3745
3746
3747
3748
3749
3750
3751
3752
3753
3754
3755
3756
3757
3758
3759
3760
3761
3762
3763
3764
3765
3766
3767
3768
3769
3770
3771
3772
3773
3774
3775
3776
3777
3778
3779
3780
3781
3782
3783
3784
3785
3786
3787
3788
3789
3790
3791
3792
3793
3794
3795
3796
3797
3798
3799
3800
3801
3802
3803
3804
3805
3806
3807
3808
3809
3810
3811
3812
3813
3814
3815
3816
3817
3818
3819
3820
3821
3822
3823
3824
3825
3826
3827
3828
3829
3830
3831
3832
3833
3834
3835
3836
3837
3838
3839
3840
3841
3842
3843
3844
3845
3846
3847
3848
3849
3850
3851
3852
3853
3854
3855
3856
3857
3858
3859
3860
3861
3862
3863
3864
3865
3866
3867
3868
3869
3870
3871
3872
3873
3874
3875
3876
3877
3878
3879
3880
3881
3882
3883
3884
3885
3886
3887
3888
3889
3890
3891
3892
3893
3894
3895
3896
3897
3898
3899
3900
3901
3902
3903
3904
3905
3906
3907
3908
3909
3910
3911
3912
3913
3914
3915
3916
3917
3918
3919
3920
3921
3922
3923
3924
3925
3926
3927
3928
3929
3930
3931
3932
3933
3934
3935
3936
3937
3938
3939
3940
3941
3942
3943
3944
3945
3946
3947
3948
3949
3950
3951
3952
3953
3954
3955
3956
3957
3958
3959
3960
3961
3962
3963
3964
3965
3966
3967
3968
3969
3970
3971
3972
3973
3974
3975
3976
3977
3978
3979
3980
3981
3982
3983
3984
3985
3986
3987
3988
3989
3990
3991
3992
3993
3994
3995
3996
3997
3998
3999
4000
4001
4002
4003
4004
4005
4006
4007
4008
4009
4010
4011
4012
4013
4014
4015
4016
4017
4018
4019
4020
4021
4022
4023
4024
4025
4026
4027
4028
4029
4030
4031
4032
4033
4034
4035
4036
4037
4038
4039
4040
4041
4042
4043
4044
4045
4046
4047
4048
4049
4050
4051
4052
4053
4054
4055
4056
4057
4058
4059
4060
4061
4062
4063
4064
4065
4066
4067
4068
4069
4070
4071
4072
4073
4074
4075
4076
4077
4078
4079
4080
4081
4082
4083
4084
4085
4086
4087
4088
4089
4090
4091
4092
4093
4094
4095
4096
4097
4098
4099
4100
4101
4102
4103
4104
4105
4106
4107
4108
4109
4110
4111
4112
4113
4114
4115
4116
4117
4118
4119
4120
4121
4122
4123
4124
4125
4126
4127
4128
4129
4130
4131
4132
4133
4134
4135
4136
4137
4138
4139
4140
4141
4142
4143
4144
4145
4146
4147
4148
4149
4150
4151
4152
4153
4154
4155
4156
4157
4158
4159
4160
4161
4162
4163
4164
4165
4166
4167
4168
4169
4170
4171
4172
4173
4174
4175
4176
4177
4178
4179
4180
4181
4182
4183
4184
4185
4186
4187
4188
4189
4190
4191
4192
4193
4194
4195
4196
4197
4198
4199
4200
4201
4202
4203
4204
4205
4206
4207
4208
4209
4210
4211
4212
4213
4214
4215
4216
4217
4218
4219
4220
4221
4222
4223
4224
4225
4226
4227
4228
4229
4230
4231
4232
4233
4234
4235
4236
4237
4238
4239
4240
4241
4242
4243
4244
4245
4246
4247
4248
4249
4250
4251
4252
4253
4254
4255
4256
4257
4258
4259
4260
4261
4262
4263
4264
4265
4266
4267
4268
4269
4270
4271
4272
4273
4274
4275
4276
4277
4278
4279
4280
4281
4282
4283
4284
4285
4286
4287
4288
4289
4290
4291
4292
4293
4294
4295
4296
4297
4298
4299
4300
4301
4302
4303
4304
4305
4306
4307
4308
4309
4310
4311
4312
4313
4314
4315
4316
4317
4318
4319
4320
4321
4322
4323
4324
4325
4326
4327
4328
4329
4330
4331
4332
4333
4334
4335
4336
4337
4338
4339
4340
4341
4342
4343
4344
4345
4346
4347
4348
4349
4350
4351
4352
4353
4354
4355
4356
4357
4358
4359
4360
4361
4362
4363
4364
4365
4366
4367
4368
4369
4370
4371
4372
4373
4374
4375
4376
4377
4378
4379
4380
4381
4382
4383
4384
4385
4386
4387
4388
4389
4390
4391
4392
4393
4394
4395
4396
4397
4398
4399
4400
4401
4402
4403
4404
4405
4406
4407
4408
4409
4410
4411
4412
4413
4414
4415
4416
4417
4418
4419
4420
4421
4422
4423
4424
4425
4426
4427
4428
4429
4430
4431
4432
4433
4434
4435
4436
4437
4438
4439
4440
4441
4442
4443
4444
4445
4446
4447
4448
4449
4450
4451
4452
4453
4454
4455
4456
4457
4458
4459
4460
4461
4462
4463
4464
4465
4466
4467
4468
4469
4470
4471
4472
4473
4474
4475
4476
4477
4478
4479
4480
4481
4482
4483
4484
4485
4486
4487
4488
4489
4490
4491
4492
4493
4494
4495
4496
4497
4498
4499
4500
4501
4502
4503
4504
4505
4506
4507
4508
4509
4510
4511
4512
4513
4514
4515
4516
4517
4518
4519
4520
4521
4522
4523
4524
4525
4526
4527
4528
4529
4530
4531
4532
4533
4534
4535
4536
4537
4538
4539
4540
4541
4542
4543
4544
4545
4546
4547
4548
4549
4550
4551
4552
4553
4554
4555
4556
4557
4558
4559
4560
4561
4562
4563
4564
4565
4566
4567
4568
4569
4570
4571
4572
4573
4574
4575
4576
4577
4578
4579
4580
4581
4582
4583
4584
4585
4586
4587
4588
4589
4590
4591
4592
4593
4594
4595
4596
4597
4598
4599
4600
4601
4602
4603
4604
4605
4606
4607
4608
4609
4610
4611
4612
4613
4614
4615
4616
4617
4618
4619
4620
4621
4622
4623
4624
4625
4626
4627
4628
4629
4630
4631
4632
4633
4634
4635
4636
4637
4638
4639
4640
4641
4642
4643
4644
4645
4646
4647
4648
4649
4650
4651
4652
4653
4654
4655
4656
4657
4658
4659
4660
4661
4662
4663
4664
4665
4666
4667
4668
4669
4670
4671
4672
4673
4674
4675
4676
4677
4678
4679
4680
4681
4682
4683
4684
4685
4686
4687
4688
4689
4690
4691
4692
4693
4694
4695
4696
4697
4698
4699
4700
4701
4702
4703
4704
4705
4706
4707
4708
4709
4710
4711
4712
4713
4714
4715
4716
4717
4718
4719
4720
4721
4722
4723
4724
4725
4726
4727
4728
4729
4730
4731
4732
4733
4734
4735
4736
4737
4738
4739
4740
4741
4742
4743
4744
4745
4746
4747
4748
4749
4750
4751
4752
4753
4754
4755
4756
4757
4758
4759
4760
4761
4762
4763
4764
4765
4766
4767
4768
4769
4770
4771
4772
4773
4774
4775
4776
4777
4778
4779
4780
4781
4782
4783
4784
4785
4786
4787
4788
4789
4790
4791
4792
4793
4794
4795
4796
4797
4798
4799
4800
4801
4802
4803
4804
4805
4806
4807
4808
4809
4810
4811
4812
4813
4814
4815
4816
4817
4818
4819
4820
4821
4822
4823
4824
4825
4826
4827
4828
4829
4830
4831
4832
4833
4834
4835
4836
4837
4838
4839
4840
4841
4842
4843
4844
4845
4846
4847
4848
4849
4850
4851
4852
4853
4854
4855
4856
4857
4858
4859
4860
4861
4862
4863
4864
4865
4866
4867
4868
4869
4870
4871
4872
4873
4874
4875
4876
4877
4878
4879
4880
4881
4882
4883
4884
4885
4886
4887
4888
4889
4890
4891
4892
4893
4894
4895
4896
4897
4898
4899
4900
4901
4902
4903
4904
4905
4906
4907
4908
4909
4910
4911
4912
4913
4914
4915
4916
4917
4918
4919
4920
4921
4922
4923
4924
4925
4926
4927
4928
4929
4930
4931
4932
4933
4934
4935
4936
4937
4938
4939
4940
4941
4942
4943
4944
4945
4946
4947
4948
4949
4950
4951
4952
4953
4954
4955
4956
4957
4958
4959
4960
4961
4962
4963
4964
4965
4966
4967
4968
4969
4970
4971
4972
4973
4974
4975
4976
4977
4978
4979
4980
4981
4982
4983
4984
4985
4986
4987
4988
4989
4990
4991
4992
4993
4994
4995
4996
4997
4998
4999
5000
5001
5002
5003
5004
5005
5006
5007
5008
5009
5010
5011
5012
5013
5014
5015
5016
5017
5018
5019
5020
5021
5022
5023
5024
5025
5026
5027
5028
5029
5030
5031
5032
5033
5034
5035
5036
5037
5038
5039
5040
5041
5042
5043
5044
5045
5046
5047
5048
5049
5050
5051
5052
5053
5054
5055
5056
5057
5058
5059
5060
5061
5062
5063
5064
5065
5066
5067
5068
5069
5070
5071
5072
5073
5074
5075
5076
5077
5078
5079
5080
5081
5082
5083
5084
5085
5086
5087
5088
5089
5090
5091
5092
5093
5094
5095
5096
5097
5098
5099
5100
5101
5102
5103
5104
5105
5106
5107
5108
5109
5110
5111
5112
5113
5114
5115
5116
5117
5118
5119
5120
5121
5122
5123
5124
5125
5126
5127
5128
5129
5130
5131
5132
5133
5134
5135
5136
5137
5138
5139
5140
5141
5142
5143
5144
5145
5146
5147
5148
5149
5150
5151
5152
5153
5154
5155
5156
5157
5158
5159
5160
5161
5162
5163
5164
5165
5166
5167
5168
5169
5170
5171
5172
5173
5174
5175
5176
5177
5178
5179
5180
5181
5182
5183
5184
5185
5186
5187
5188
5189
5190
5191
5192
5193
5194
5195
5196
5197
5198
5199
5200
5201
5202
5203
5204
5205
5206
5207
5208
5209
5210
5211
5212
5213
5214
5215
5216
5217
5218
5219
5220
5221
5222
5223
5224
5225
5226
5227
5228
5229
5230
5231
5232
5233
5234
5235
5236
5237
5238
5239
5240
5241
5242
5243
5244
5245
5246
5247
5248
5249
5250
5251
5252
5253
5254
5255
5256
5257
5258
5259
5260
5261
5262
5263
5264
5265
5266
5267
5268
5269
5270
5271
5272
5273
5274
5275
5276
5277
5278
5279
5280
5281
5282
5283
5284
5285
5286
5287
5288
5289
5290
5291
5292
5293
5294
5295
5296
5297
5298
5299
5300
5301
5302
5303
5304
5305
5306
5307
5308
5309
5310
5311
5312
5313
5314
5315
5316
5317
5318
5319
5320
5321
5322
5323
5324
5325
5326
5327
5328
5329
5330
5331
5332
5333
5334
5335
5336
5337
5338
5339
5340
5341
5342
5343
5344
5345
5346
5347
5348
5349
5350
5351
5352
5353
5354
5355
5356
5357
5358
5359
5360
5361
5362
5363
5364
5365
5366
5367
5368
5369
5370
5371
5372
5373
5374
5375
5376
5377
5378
5379
5380
5381
5382
5383
5384
5385
5386
5387
5388
5389
5390
5391
5392
5393
5394
5395
5396
5397
5398
5399
5400
5401
5402
5403
5404
5405
5406
5407
5408
5409
5410
5411
5412
5413
5414
5415
5416
5417
5418
5419
5420
5421
5422
5423
5424
5425
5426
5427
5428
5429
5430
5431
5432
5433
5434
5435
5436
5437
5438
5439
5440
5441
5442
5443
5444
5445
5446
5447
5448
5449
5450
5451
5452
5453
5454
5455
5456
5457
5458
5459
5460
5461
5462
5463
5464
5465
5466
5467
5468
5469
5470
5471
5472
5473
5474
5475
5476
5477
5478
5479
5480
5481
5482
5483
5484
5485
5486
5487
5488
5489
5490
5491
5492
5493
5494
5495
5496
5497
5498
5499
5500
5501
5502
5503
5504
5505
5506
5507
5508
5509
5510
5511
5512
5513
5514
5515
5516
5517
5518
5519
5520
5521
5522
5523
5524
5525
5526
5527
5528
5529
5530
5531
5532
5533
5534
5535
5536
5537
5538
5539
5540
5541
5542
5543
5544
5545
5546
5547
5548
5549
5550
5551
5552
5553
5554
5555
5556
5557
5558
5559
5560
5561
5562
5563
5564
5565
5566
5567
5568
5569
5570
5571
5572
5573
5574
5575
5576
5577
5578
5579
5580
5581
5582
5583
5584
5585
5586
5587
5588
5589
5590
5591
5592
5593
5594
5595
5596
5597
5598
5599
5600
5601
5602
5603
5604
5605
5606
5607
5608
5609
5610
5611
5612
5613
5614
5615
5616
5617
5618
5619
5620
5621
5622
5623
5624
5625
5626
5627
5628
5629
5630
5631
5632
5633
5634
5635
5636
5637
5638
5639
5640
5641
5642
5643
5644
5645
5646
5647
5648
5649
5650
5651
5652
5653
5654
5655
5656
5657
5658
5659
5660
5661
5662
5663
5664
5665
5666
5667
5668
5669
5670
5671
5672
5673
5674
5675
5676
5677
5678
5679
5680
5681
5682
5683
5684
5685
5686
5687
5688
5689
5690
5691
5692
5693
5694
5695
5696
5697
5698
5699
5700
5701
5702
5703
5704
5705
5706
5707
5708
5709
5710
5711
5712
5713
5714
5715
5716
5717
5718
5719
5720
5721
5722
5723
5724
5725
5726
5727
5728
5729
5730
5731
5732
5733
5734
5735
5736
5737
5738
5739
5740
5741
5742
5743
5744
5745
5746
5747
5748
5749
5750
5751
5752
5753
5754
5755
5756
5757
5758
5759
5760
5761
5762
5763
5764
5765
5766
5767
5768
5769
5770
5771
5772
5773
5774
5775
5776
5777
5778
5779
5780
5781
5782
5783
5784
5785
5786
5787
5788
5789
5790
5791
5792
5793
5794
5795
5796
5797
5798
5799
5800
5801
5802
5803
5804
5805
5806
5807
5808
5809
5810
5811
5812
5813
5814
5815
5816
5817
5818
5819
5820
5821
5822
5823
5824
5825
5826
5827
5828
5829
5830
5831
5832
5833
5834
5835
5836
5837
5838
5839
5840
5841
5842
5843
5844
5845
5846
5847
5848
5849
5850
5851
5852
5853
5854
5855
5856
5857
5858
5859
5860
5861
5862
5863
5864
5865
5866
5867
5868
5869
5870
5871
5872
5873
5874
5875
5876
5877
5878
5879
5880
5881
5882
5883
5884
5885
5886
5887
5888
5889
5890
5891
5892
5893
5894
5895
5896
5897
5898
5899
5900
5901
5902
5903
5904
5905
5906
5907
5908
5909
5910
5911
5912
5913
5914
5915
5916
5917
5918
5919
5920
5921
5922
5923
5924
5925
5926
5927
5928
5929
5930
5931
5932
5933
5934
5935
5936
5937
5938
5939
5940
5941
5942
5943
5944
5945
5946
5947
5948
5949
5950
5951
5952
5953
5954
5955
5956
5957
5958
5959
5960
5961
5962
5963
5964
5965
5966
5967
5968
5969
5970
5971
5972
5973
5974
5975
5976
5977
5978
5979
5980
5981
5982
5983
5984
5985
5986
5987
5988
5989
5990
5991
5992
5993
5994
5995
5996
5997
5998
5999
6000
6001
6002
6003
6004
6005
6006
6007
6008
6009
6010
6011
6012
6013
6014
6015
6016
6017
6018
6019
6020
6021
6022
6023
6024
6025
6026
6027
6028
6029
6030
6031
6032
6033
6034
6035
6036
6037
6038
6039
6040
6041
6042
6043
6044
6045
6046
6047
6048
6049
6050
6051
6052
6053
6054
6055
6056
6057
6058
6059
6060
6061
6062
6063
6064
6065
6066
6067
6068
6069
6070
6071
6072
6073
6074
6075
6076
6077
6078
6079
6080
6081
6082
6083
6084
6085
6086
6087
6088
6089
6090
6091
6092
6093
6094
6095
6096
6097
6098
6099
6100
6101
6102
6103
6104
6105
6106
6107
6108
6109
6110
6111
6112
6113
6114
6115
6116
6117
6118
6119
6120
6121
6122
6123
6124
6125
6126
6127
6128
6129
6130
6131
6132
6133
6134
6135
6136
6137
6138
6139
6140
6141
6142
6143
6144
6145
6146
6147
6148
6149
6150
6151
6152
6153
6154
6155
6156
6157
6158
6159
6160
6161
6162
6163
6164
6165
6166
6167
6168
6169
6170
6171
6172
6173
6174
6175
6176
6177
6178
6179
6180
6181
6182
6183
6184
6185
6186
6187
6188
6189
6190
6191
6192
6193
6194
6195
6196
6197
6198
6199
6200
6201
6202
6203
6204
6205
6206
6207
6208
6209
6210
6211
6212
6213
6214
6215
6216
6217
6218
6219
6220
6221
6222
6223
6224
6225
6226
6227
6228
6229
6230
6231
6232
6233
6234
6235
6236
6237
6238
6239
6240
6241
6242
6243
6244
6245
6246
6247
6248
6249
6250
6251
6252
6253
6254
6255
6256
6257
6258
6259
6260
6261
6262
6263
6264
6265
6266
6267
6268
6269
6270
6271
6272
6273
6274
6275
6276
6277
6278
6279
6280
6281
6282
6283
6284
6285
6286
6287
6288
6289
6290
6291
6292
6293
6294
6295
6296
6297
6298
6299
6300
6301
6302
6303
6304
6305
6306
6307
6308
6309
6310
6311
6312
6313
6314
6315
6316
6317
6318
6319
6320
6321
6322
6323
6324
6325
6326
6327
6328
6329
6330
6331
6332
6333
6334
6335
6336
6337
6338
6339
6340
6341
6342
6343
6344
6345
6346
6347
6348
6349
6350
6351
6352
6353
6354
6355
6356
6357
6358
6359
6360
6361
6362
6363
6364
6365
6366
6367
6368
6369
6370
6371
6372
6373
6374
6375
6376
6377
6378
6379
6380
6381
6382
6383
6384
6385
6386
6387
6388
6389
6390
6391
6392
6393
6394
6395
6396
6397
6398
6399
6400
6401
6402
6403
6404
6405
6406
6407
6408
6409
6410
6411
6412
6413
6414
6415
6416
6417
6418
6419
6420
6421
6422
6423
6424
6425
6426
6427
6428
6429
6430
6431
6432
6433
6434
6435
6436
6437
6438
6439
6440
6441
6442
6443
6444
6445
6446
6447
6448
6449
6450
6451
6452
6453
6454
6455
6456
6457
6458
6459
6460
6461
6462
6463
6464
6465
6466
6467
6468
6469
6470
6471
6472
6473
6474
6475
6476
6477
6478
6479
6480
6481
6482
6483
6484
6485
6486
6487
6488
6489
6490
6491
6492
6493
6494
6495
6496
6497
6498
6499
6500
6501
6502
6503
6504
6505
6506
6507
6508
6509
6510
6511
6512
6513
6514
6515
6516
6517
6518
6519
6520
6521
6522
6523
6524
6525
6526
6527
6528
6529
6530
6531
6532
6533
6534
6535
6536
6537
6538
6539
6540
6541
6542
6543
6544
6545
6546
6547
6548
6549
6550
6551
6552
6553
6554
6555
6556
6557
6558
6559
6560
6561
6562
6563
6564
6565
6566
6567
6568
6569
6570
6571
6572
6573
6574
6575
6576
6577
6578
6579
6580
6581
6582
6583
6584
6585
6586
6587
6588
6589
6590
6591
6592
6593
6594
6595
6596
6597
6598
6599
6600
6601
6602
6603
6604
6605
6606
6607
6608
6609
6610
6611
6612
6613
6614
6615
6616
6617
6618
6619
6620
6621
6622
6623
6624
6625
6626
6627
6628
6629
6630
6631
6632
6633
6634
6635
6636
6637
6638
6639
6640
6641
6642
6643
6644
6645
6646
6647
6648
6649
6650
6651
6652
6653
6654
6655
6656
6657
6658
6659
6660
6661
6662
6663
6664
6665
6666
6667
6668
6669
6670
6671
6672
6673
6674
6675
6676
6677
6678
6679
6680
6681
6682
6683
6684
6685
6686
6687
6688
6689
6690
6691
6692
6693
6694
6695
6696
6697
6698
6699
6700
6701
6702
6703
6704
6705
6706
6707
6708
6709
6710
6711
6712
6713
6714
6715
6716
6717
6718
6719
6720
6721
6722
6723
6724
6725
6726
6727
6728
6729
6730
6731
6732
6733
6734
6735
6736
6737
6738
6739
6740
6741
6742
6743
6744
6745
6746
6747
6748
6749
6750
6751
6752
6753
6754
6755
6756
6757
6758
6759
6760
6761
6762
6763
6764
6765
6766
6767
6768
6769
6770
6771
6772
6773
6774
6775
6776
6777
6778
6779
6780
6781
6782
6783
6784
6785
6786
6787
6788
6789
6790
6791
6792
6793
6794
6795
6796
6797
6798
6799
6800
6801
6802
6803
6804
6805
6806
6807
6808
6809
6810
6811
6812
6813
6814
6815
6816
6817
6818
6819
6820
6821
6822
6823
6824
6825
6826
6827
6828
6829
6830
6831
6832
6833
6834
6835
6836
6837
6838
6839
6840
6841
6842
6843
6844
6845
6846
6847
6848
6849
6850
6851
6852
6853
6854
6855
6856
6857
6858
6859
6860
6861
6862
6863
6864
6865
6866
6867
6868
6869
6870
6871
6872
6873
6874
6875
6876
6877
6878
6879
6880
6881
6882
6883
6884
6885
6886
6887
6888
6889
6890
6891
6892
6893
6894
6895
6896
6897
6898
6899
6900
6901
6902
6903
6904
6905
6906
6907
6908
6909
6910
6911
6912
6913
6914
6915
6916
6917
6918
6919
6920
6921
6922
6923
6924
6925
6926
6927
6928
6929
6930
6931
6932
6933
6934
6935
6936
6937
6938
6939
6940
6941
6942
6943
6944
6945
6946
6947
6948
6949
6950
6951
6952
6953
6954
6955
6956
6957
6958
6959
6960
6961
6962
6963
6964
6965
6966
6967
6968
6969
6970
6971
6972
6973
6974
6975
6976
6977
6978
6979
6980
6981
6982
6983
6984
6985
6986
6987
6988
6989
6990
6991
6992
6993
6994
6995
6996
6997
6998
6999
7000
7001
7002
7003
7004
7005
7006
7007
7008
7009
7010
7011
7012
7013
7014
7015
7016
7017
7018
7019
7020
7021
7022
7023
7024
7025
7026
7027
7028
7029
7030
7031
7032
7033
7034
7035
7036
7037
7038
7039
7040
7041
7042
7043
7044
7045
7046
7047
7048
7049
7050
7051
7052
7053
7054
7055
7056
7057
7058
7059
7060
7061
7062
7063
7064
7065
7066
7067
7068
7069
7070
7071
7072
7073
7074
7075
7076
7077
7078
7079
7080
7081
7082
7083
7084
7085
7086
7087
7088
7089
7090
7091
7092
7093
7094
7095
7096
7097
7098
7099
7100
7101
7102
7103
7104
7105
7106
7107
7108
7109
7110
7111
7112
7113
7114
7115
7116
7117
7118
7119
7120
7121
7122
7123
7124
7125
7126
7127
7128
7129
7130
7131
7132
7133
7134
7135
7136
7137
7138
7139
7140
7141
7142
7143
7144
7145
7146
7147
7148
7149
7150
7151
7152
7153
7154
7155
7156
7157
7158
7159
7160
7161
7162
7163
7164
7165
7166
7167
7168
7169
7170
7171
7172
7173
7174
7175
7176
7177
7178
7179
7180
7181
7182
7183
7184
7185
7186
7187
7188
7189
7190
7191
7192
7193
7194
7195
7196
7197
7198
7199
7200
7201
7202
7203
7204
7205
7206
7207
7208
7209
7210
7211
7212
7213
7214
7215
7216
7217
7218
7219
7220
7221
7222
7223
7224
7225
7226
7227
7228
7229
7230
7231
7232
7233
7234
7235
7236
7237
7238
7239
7240
7241
7242
7243
7244
7245
7246
7247
7248
7249
7250
7251
7252
7253
7254
7255
7256
7257
7258
7259
7260
7261
7262
7263
7264
7265
7266
7267
7268
7269
7270
7271
7272
7273
7274
7275
7276
7277
7278
7279
7280
7281
7282
7283
7284
7285
7286
7287
7288
7289
7290
7291
7292
7293
7294
7295
7296
7297
7298
7299
7300
7301
7302
7303
7304
7305
7306
7307
7308
7309
7310
7311
7312
7313
7314
7315
7316
7317
7318
7319
7320
7321
7322
7323
7324
7325
7326
7327
7328
7329
7330
7331
7332
7333
7334
7335
7336
7337
7338
7339
7340
7341
7342
7343
7344
7345
7346
7347
7348
7349
7350
7351
7352
7353
7354
7355
7356
7357
7358
7359
7360
7361
7362
7363
7364
7365
7366
7367
7368
7369
7370
7371
7372
7373
7374
7375
7376
7377
7378
7379
7380
7381
7382
7383
7384
7385
7386
7387
7388
7389
7390
7391
7392
7393
7394
7395
7396
7397
7398
7399
7400
7401
7402
7403
7404
7405
7406
7407
7408
7409
7410
7411
7412
7413
7414
7415
7416
7417
7418
7419
7420
7421
7422
7423
7424
7425
7426
7427
7428
7429
7430
7431
7432
7433
7434
7435
7436
7437
7438
7439
7440
7441
7442
7443
7444
7445
7446
7447
7448
7449
7450
7451
7452
7453
7454
7455
7456
7457
7458
7459
7460
7461
7462
7463
7464
7465
7466
7467
7468
7469
7470
7471
7472
7473
7474
7475
7476
7477
7478
7479
7480
7481
7482
7483
7484
7485
7486
7487
7488
7489
7490
7491
7492
7493
7494
7495
7496
7497
7498
7499
7500
7501
7502
7503
7504
7505
7506
7507
7508
7509
7510
7511
7512
7513
7514
7515
7516
7517
7518
7519
7520
7521
7522
7523
7524
7525
7526
7527
7528
7529
7530
7531
7532
7533
7534
7535
7536
7537
7538
7539
7540
7541
7542
7543
7544
7545
7546
7547
7548
7549
7550
7551
7552
7553
7554
7555
7556
7557
7558
7559
7560
7561
7562
7563
7564
7565
7566
7567
7568
7569
7570
7571
7572
7573
7574
7575
7576
7577
7578
7579
7580
7581
7582
7583
7584
7585
7586
7587
7588
7589
7590
7591
7592
7593
7594
7595
7596
7597
7598
7599
7600
7601
7602
7603
7604
7605
7606
7607
7608
7609
7610
7611
7612
7613
7614
7615
7616
7617
7618
7619
7620
7621
7622
7623
7624
7625
7626
7627
7628
7629
7630
7631
7632
7633
7634
7635
7636
7637
7638
7639
7640
7641
7642
7643
7644
7645
7646
7647
7648
7649
7650
7651
7652
7653
7654
7655
7656
7657
7658
7659
7660
7661
7662
7663
7664
7665
7666
7667
7668
7669
7670
7671
7672
7673
7674
7675
7676
7677
7678
7679
7680
7681
7682
7683
7684
7685
7686
7687
7688
7689
7690
7691
7692
7693
7694
7695
7696
7697
7698
7699
7700
7701
7702
7703
7704
7705
7706
7707
7708
7709
7710
7711
7712
7713
7714
7715
7716
7717
7718
7719
7720
7721
7722
7723
7724
7725
7726
7727
7728
7729
7730
7731
7732
7733
7734
7735
7736
7737
7738
7739
7740
7741
7742
7743
7744
7745
7746
7747
7748
7749
7750
7751
7752
7753
7754
7755
7756
7757
7758
7759
7760
7761
7762
7763
7764
7765
7766
7767
7768
7769
7770
7771
7772
7773
7774
7775
7776
7777
7778
7779
7780
7781
7782
7783
7784
7785
7786
7787
7788
7789
7790
7791
7792
7793
7794
7795
7796
7797
7798
7799
7800
7801
7802
7803
7804
7805
7806
7807
7808
7809
7810
7811
7812
7813
7814
7815
7816
7817
7818
7819
7820
7821
7822
7823
7824
7825
7826
7827
7828
7829
7830
7831
7832
7833
7834
7835
7836
7837
7838
7839
7840
7841
7842
7843
7844
7845
7846
7847
7848
7849
7850
7851
7852
7853
7854
7855
7856
7857
7858
7859
7860
7861
7862
7863
7864
7865
7866
7867
7868
7869
7870
7871
7872
7873
7874
7875
7876
7877
7878
7879
7880
7881
7882
7883
7884
7885
7886
7887
7888
7889
7890
7891
7892
7893
7894
7895
7896
7897
7898
7899
7900
7901
7902
7903
7904
7905
7906
7907
7908
7909
7910
7911
7912
7913
7914
7915
7916
7917
7918
7919
7920
7921
7922
7923
7924
7925
7926
7927
7928
7929
7930
7931
7932
7933
7934
7935
7936
7937
7938
7939
7940
7941
7942
7943
7944
7945
7946
7947
7948
7949
7950
7951
7952
7953
7954
7955
7956
7957
7958
7959
7960
7961
7962
7963
7964
7965
7966
7967
7968
7969
7970
7971
7972
7973
7974
7975
7976
7977
7978
7979
7980
7981
7982
7983
7984
7985
7986
7987
7988
7989
7990
7991
7992
7993
7994
7995
7996
7997
7998
7999
8000
8001
8002
8003
8004
8005
8006
8007
8008
8009
8010
8011
8012
8013
8014
8015
8016
8017
8018
8019
8020
8021
8022
8023
8024
8025
8026
8027
8028
8029
8030
8031
8032
8033
8034
8035
8036
8037
8038
8039
8040
8041
8042
8043
8044
8045
8046
8047
8048
8049
8050
8051
8052
8053
8054
8055
8056
8057
8058
8059
8060
8061
8062
8063
8064
8065
8066
8067
8068
8069
8070
8071
8072
8073
8074
8075
8076
8077
8078
8079
8080
8081
8082
8083
8084
8085
8086
8087
8088
8089
8090
8091
8092
8093
8094
8095
8096
8097
8098
8099
8100
8101
8102
8103
8104
8105
8106
8107
8108
8109
8110
8111
8112
8113
8114
8115
8116
8117
8118
8119
8120
8121
8122
8123
8124
8125
8126
8127
8128
8129
8130
8131
8132
8133
8134
8135
8136
8137
8138
8139
8140
8141
8142
8143
8144
8145
8146
8147
8148
8149
8150
8151
8152
8153
8154
8155
8156
8157
8158
8159
8160
8161
8162
8163
8164
8165
8166
8167
8168
8169
8170
8171
8172
8173
8174
8175
8176
8177
8178
8179
8180
8181
8182
8183
8184
8185
8186
8187
8188
8189
8190
8191
8192
8193
8194
8195
8196
8197
8198
8199
8200
8201
8202
8203
8204
8205
8206
8207
8208
8209
8210
8211
8212
8213
8214
8215
8216
8217
8218
8219
8220
8221
8222
8223
8224
8225
8226
8227
8228
8229
8230
8231
8232
8233
8234
8235
8236
8237
8238
8239
8240
8241
8242
8243
8244
8245
8246
8247
8248
8249
8250
8251
8252
8253
8254
8255
8256
8257
8258
8259
8260
8261
8262
8263
8264
8265
8266
8267
8268
8269
8270
8271
8272
8273
8274
8275
8276
8277
8278
8279
8280
8281
8282
8283
8284
8285
8286
8287
8288
8289
8290
8291
8292
8293
8294
8295
8296
8297
8298
8299
8300
8301
8302
8303
8304
8305
8306
8307
8308
8309
8310
8311
8312
8313
8314
8315
8316
8317
8318
8319
8320
8321
8322
8323
8324
8325
8326
8327
8328
8329
8330
8331
8332
8333
8334
8335
8336
8337
8338
8339
8340
8341
8342
8343
8344
8345
8346
8347
8348
8349
8350
8351
8352
8353
8354
8355
8356
8357
8358
8359
8360
8361
8362
8363
8364
8365
8366
8367
8368
8369
8370
8371
8372
8373
8374
8375
8376
8377
8378
8379
8380
8381
8382
8383
8384
8385
8386
8387
8388
8389
8390
8391
8392
8393
8394
8395
8396
8397
8398
8399
8400
8401
8402
8403
8404
8405
8406
8407
8408
8409
8410
8411
8412
8413
8414
8415
8416
8417
8418
8419
8420
8421
8422
8423
8424
8425
8426
8427
8428
8429
8430
8431
8432
8433
8434
8435
8436
8437
8438
8439
8440
8441
8442
8443
8444
8445
8446
8447
8448
8449
8450
8451
8452
8453
8454
8455
8456
8457
8458
8459
8460
8461
8462
8463
8464
8465
8466
8467
8468
8469
8470
8471
8472
8473
8474
8475
8476
8477
8478
8479
8480
8481
8482
8483
8484
8485
8486
8487
8488
8489
8490
8491
8492
8493
8494
8495
8496
8497
8498
8499
8500
8501
8502
8503
8504
8505
8506
8507
8508
8509
8510
8511
8512
8513
8514
8515
8516
8517
8518
8519
8520
8521
8522
8523
8524
8525
8526
8527
8528
8529
8530
8531
8532
8533
8534
8535
8536
8537
8538
8539
8540
8541
8542
8543
8544
8545
8546
8547
8548
8549
8550
8551
8552
8553
8554
8555
8556
8557
8558
8559
8560
8561
8562
8563
8564
8565
8566
8567
8568
8569
8570
8571
8572
8573
8574
8575
8576
8577
8578
8579
8580
8581
8582
8583
8584
8585
8586
8587
8588
8589
8590
8591
8592
8593
8594
8595
8596
8597
8598
8599
8600
8601
8602
8603
8604
8605
8606
8607
8608
8609
8610
8611
8612
8613
8614
8615
8616
8617
8618
8619
8620
8621
8622
8623
8624
8625
8626
8627
8628
8629
8630
8631
8632
8633
8634
8635
8636
8637
8638
8639
8640
8641
8642
8643
8644
8645
8646
8647
8648
8649
8650
8651
8652
8653
8654
8655
8656
8657
8658
8659
8660
8661
8662
8663
8664
8665
8666
8667
8668
8669
8670
8671
8672
8673
8674
8675
8676
8677
8678
8679
8680
8681
8682
8683
8684
8685
8686
8687
8688
8689
8690
8691
8692
8693
8694
8695
8696
8697
8698
8699
8700
8701
8702
8703
8704
8705
8706
8707
8708
8709
8710
8711
8712
8713
8714
8715
8716
8717
8718
8719
8720
8721
8722
8723
8724
8725
8726
8727
8728
8729
8730
8731
8732
8733
8734
8735
8736
8737
8738
8739
8740
8741
8742
8743
8744
8745
8746
8747
8748
8749
8750
8751
8752
8753
8754
8755
8756
8757
8758
8759
8760
8761
8762
8763
8764
8765
8766
8767
8768
8769
8770
8771
8772
8773
8774
8775
8776
8777
8778
8779
8780
8781
8782
8783
8784
8785
8786
8787
8788
8789
8790
8791
8792
8793
8794
8795
8796
8797
8798
8799
8800
8801
8802
8803
8804
8805
8806
8807
8808
8809
8810
8811
8812
8813
8814
8815
8816
8817
8818
8819
8820
8821
8822
8823
8824
8825
8826
8827
8828
8829
8830
8831
8832
8833
8834
8835
8836
8837
8838
8839
8840
8841
8842
8843
8844
8845
8846
8847
8848
8849
8850
8851
8852
8853
8854
8855
8856
8857
8858
8859
8860
8861
8862
8863
8864
8865
8866
8867
8868
8869
8870
8871
8872
8873
8874
8875
8876
8877
8878
8879
8880
8881
8882
8883
8884
8885
8886
8887
8888
8889
8890
8891
8892
8893
8894
8895
8896
8897
8898
8899
8900
8901
8902
8903
8904
8905
8906
8907
8908
8909
8910
8911
8912
8913
8914
8915
8916
8917
8918
8919
8920
8921
8922
8923
8924
8925
8926
8927
8928
8929
8930
8931
8932
8933
8934
8935
8936
8937
8938
8939
8940
8941
8942
8943
8944
8945
8946
8947
8948
8949
8950
8951
8952
8953
8954
8955
8956
8957
8958
8959
8960
8961
8962
8963
8964
8965
8966
8967
8968
8969
8970
8971
8972
8973
8974
8975
8976
8977
8978
8979
8980
8981
8982
8983
8984
8985
8986
8987
8988
8989
8990
8991
8992
8993
8994
8995
8996
8997
8998
8999
9000
9001
9002
9003
9004
9005
9006
9007
9008
9009
9010
9011
9012
9013
9014
9015
9016
9017
9018
9019
9020
9021
9022
9023
9024
9025
9026
9027
9028
9029
9030
9031
9032
9033
9034
9035
9036
9037
9038
9039
9040
9041
9042
9043
9044
9045
9046
9047
9048
9049
9050
9051
9052
9053
9054
9055
9056
9057
9058
9059
9060
9061
9062
9063
9064
9065
9066
9067
9068
9069
9070
9071
9072
9073
9074
9075
9076
9077
9078
9079
9080
9081
9082
9083
9084
9085
9086
9087
9088
9089
9090
9091
9092
9093
9094
9095
9096
9097
9098
9099
9100
9101
9102
9103
9104
9105
9106
9107
9108
9109
9110
9111
9112
9113
9114
|
<!DOCTYPE html
PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN"
"http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd">
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en">
<head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=US-ASCII" />
<title>Lay Morals, by Robert Louis Stevenson</title>
<style type="text/css">
/*<![CDATA[ XML blockout */
<!--
P { margin-top: .75em;
margin-bottom: .75em;
}
P.gutsumm { margin-left: 5%;}
P.poetry {margin-left: 3%; }
H1, H2 {
text-align: center;
margin-top: 2em;
margin-bottom: 2em;
}
H3, H4, H5 {
text-align: center;
margin-top: 1em;
margin-bottom: 1em;
}
BODY{margin-left: 10%;
margin-right: 10%;
}
table { border-collapse: collapse; }
table {margin-left:auto; margin-right:auto;}
td { vertical-align: top; border: 1px solid black;}
td p { margin: 0.2em; }
.blkquot {margin-left: 4em; margin-right: 4em;} /* block indent */
.smcap {font-variant: small-caps;}
.pagenum {position: absolute;
left: 92%;
font-size: small;
text-align: right;
font-weight: normal;
color: gray;
}
img { border: none; }
img.dc { float: left; width: 50px; height: 50px; }
div.gapspace { height: 0.8em; }
div.gapline { height: 0.8em; width: 30%; }
div.gapshortdoubleline { height: 0.3em; width: 20%;
margin-left: 40%; border-top: 1px solid;
border-bottom: 1px solid; }
div.gapdoubleline { height: 0.3em; width: 50%;
margin-left: 25%; border-top: 1px solid;
border-bottom: 1px solid;}
div.gapshortline { height: 0.3em; width: 20%; margin-left:40%;
border-top: 1px solid; }
.citation {vertical-align: super;
font-size: .8em;
text-decoration: none;}
img.floatleft { float: left;
margin-right: 1em;
margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.5em; }
img.floatright { float: right;
margin-left: 1em; margin-top: 0.5em;
margin-bottom: 0.5em; }
img.clearcenter {display: block;
margin-left: auto;
margin-right: auto; margin-top: 0.5em;
margin-bottom: 0.5em}
-->
/* XML end ]]>*/
</style>
</head>
<body>
<pre>
The Project Gutenberg eBook, Lay Morals, by Robert Louis Stevenson, Edited
by Sidney Colvin
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: Lay Morals
and Other Papers
Author: Robert Louis Stevenson
Editor: Sidney Colvin
Release Date: October 20, 2010 [eBook #373]
First Posted: November 1995
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)
***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LAY MORALS***
</pre>
<p>Transcribed from the Chatto and Windus 1911 edition by David
Price, email ccx074@pglaf.org</p>
<h1>LAY MORALS</h1>
<p style="text-align: center">And Other Papers</p>
<p style="text-align: center"><span class="smcap">by</span><br />
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON</p>
<p> </p>
<p style="text-align: center">
<a href="images/p0b.jpg">
<img alt=
"Graphic"
title=
"Graphic"
src="images/p0s.jpg" />
</a></p>
<p style="text-align: center">A NEW EDITION<br />
WITH A PREFACE BY<br />
MRS. STEVENSON</p>
<div class="gapspace"> </div>
<p style="text-align: center">LONDON<br />
CHATTO & WINDUS<br />
1911</p>
<div class="gapspace"> </div>
<p style="text-align: center"><!-- page iv--><a
name="pageiv"></a><span class="pagenum">p. iv</span><i>All rights
reserved.</i></p>
<h2><!-- page v--><a name="pagev"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
v</span>PREFACE<br />
BY MRS. ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON <a name="citation0"></a><a
href="#footnote0" class="citation">[0]</a></h2>
<p>In<span class="smcap"> </span>our long voyage on the yacht
<i>Casco</i>, we visited many islands; I believe on every one we
found the scourge of leprosy. In the Marquesas there was a
regular leper settlement, though the persons living there seemed
free to wander where they wished, fishing on the beach, or
visiting friends in the villages. I remember one afternoon,
at Anaho, when my husband and I, tired after a long quest for
shells, sat down on the sand to rest awhile, a native man stepped
out from under some cocoanut trees, regarding us hesitatingly as
though fearful of intruding. My husband waved an invitation
to the stranger to join us, offering his cigarette to the man in
the island fashion. The cigarette was accepted and, after a
puff or two, courteously passed back again according to native
etiquette. The hand that held it was the maimed hand of a
leper. To my consternation my husband took the cigarette
and smoked it out. Afterwards when we were alone <!-- page
vi--><a name="pagevi"></a><span class="pagenum">p. vi</span>and I
spoke of my horror he said, ‘I could not mortify the
man. And if you think I <i>liked</i> doing it—that
was another reason; because I <i>didn’t</i> want
to.’</p>
<p>Another day, while we were still anchored in Anaho Bay, a
messenger from round a distant headland came in a whale-boat with
an urgent request that we go to see a young white girl who was
ill with some mysterious malady. We had supposed that, with
the beach-comber ‘Charley the red,’ we were the only
white people on our side of the island. Though there was
much wind that day and the sea ran high, we started at once,
impelled partly by curiosity and partly by the pathetic nature of
the message. Fortunately we took our luncheon with us,
eating it on the beach before we went up to the house where the
sick girl lay. Our hostess, the girl’s mother, met us
with regrets that we had already lunched, saying, ‘I have a
most excellent cook; here he is, now.’ She turned, as
she spoke, to an elderly Chinaman who was plainly in an advanced
stage of leprosy. When the man was gone, my husband asked
if she had no fear of contagion. ‘I don’t
believe in contagion,’ was her reply. But there was
little doubt as to what ailed her daughter. She was
certainly suffering from leprosy. We could only advise that
the girl be taken to the French post at Santa Maria Bay where
there was a doctor.</p>
<p>On our return to the <i>Casco</i> we confessed to each <!--
page vii--><a name="pagevii"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
vii</span>other with what alarm and repugnance we touched the
miserable girl. We talked long that evening of Father
Damien, his sublime heroism, and his martyrdom which was already
nearing its sad end. Beyond all noble qualities my husband
placed courage. The more he saw of leprosy, and he saw much
in the islands, the higher rose his admiration for the simple
priest of Molokai. ‘I must see Molokai,’ he
said many times. ‘I must somehow manage to see
Molokai.’</p>
<p>In January 1889, we arrived in Honolulu, settling in a
pleasant cottage by the sea to rest until we were ready to return
to England. The <i>Casco</i> we sent back to San Francisco
with the captain. But the knowledge that every few days
some vessel was leaving Honolulu to cruise among islands we had
not seen, and now should never see, was more than we could
bear. First we engaged passage on a missionary ship, but
changed our minds—my husband would not be allowed to smoke
on board, for one reason—and chartered the trading schooner
<i>Equator</i>. This was thought too rough a voyage for my
mother-in-law, as indeed it would have been; so she was sent,
somewhat protesting, back to Scotland.</p>
<p>My husband was still intent on seeing Molokai. After the
waste of much time and red tape, he finally received an official
permission to visit the leper settlement. It did not occur
to him it would be necessary <!-- page viii--><a
name="pageviii"></a><span class="pagenum">p. viii</span>to get a
separate official permission to <i>leave</i> Molokai; hence he
was nearly left behind when the vessel sailed out. He only
saved himself by a prodigious leap which landed him on board the
boat, whence nothing but force could dislodge him. By the
doctor’s orders he took gloves to wear as a precautionary
measure against contagion, but they were never worn. At
first he avoided shaking hands, but when he played croquet with
the young leper girls he would not listen to the Mother
Superior’s warning that he must wear gloves. He
thought it might remind them of their condition.
‘What will you do if you find you have contracted
leprosy?’ I asked. ‘Do?’ he replied;
‘why, you and I would spend the rest of our lives in
Molokai and become humble followers of Father
Damien.’ As Mr. Balfour says in the Life of
Stevenson, he was as stern with his family as he was with
himself, and as exacting.</p>
<p>He talked very little to us of the tragedy of Molokai, though
I could see it lay heavy on his spirits; but of the great work
begun by Father Damien and carried on by his successors he spoke
fully. He had followed the life of the priest like a
detective until there seemed nothing more to learn. Mother
Mary Ann, the Mother Superior, he could never mention without
deep emotion. One of the first things he did on his return
to Honolulu was to send her a grand piano for the use of her
girls—<!-- page ix--><a name="pageix"></a><span
class="pagenum">p. ix</span>the girls with whom he had played
croquet. He also sent toys, sewing materials, small tools
for the younger children, and other things that I have
forgotten. After his death a letter was found among his
papers, of which I have only the last few lines. ‘I
cannot suppose you remember me, but I won’t forget you, nor
God won’t forget you for your kindness to the blind white
leper at Molokai.’</p>
<p>During my husband’s absence I had made every preparation
for our voyage on the <i>Equator</i>, so but little time was lost
before we found ourselves on board, our sails set for the
south. The <i>Equator</i>, which had easily lived through
the great Samoan hurricane, made no such phenomenal runs as the
<i>Casco</i>, but we could trust her, and she had no
‘tricks and ways’ that we did not understand.
We liked the sailors, we loved the ship and her captain, so it
was with heart-felt regret we said farewell in the harbour of
Apia after a long and perfect cruise.</p>
<p>After reading the letters that awaited us in Apia, we looked
over the newspapers. Our indignation may be imagined when
we read in one item that, owing to the publication of a letter by
a well-known Honolulu missionary, depicting Father Damien as a
dirty old peasant who had contracted leprosy through his immoral
habits, the project to erect a monument to his memory would be
abandoned. ‘I’ll not believe it,’ <!--
page x--><a name="pagex"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
x</span>said my husband, ‘unless I see it with my own eyes;
for it is too damnable for belief!’</p>
<p>But see it he did, in spite of his incredulity, for in Sydney,
a month or two later, the very journal containing the letter
condemnatory of Father Damien was among the first we chanced to
open. I shall never forget my husband’s ferocity of
indignation, his leaping stride as he paced the room holding the
offending paper at arm’s-length before his eyes that burned
and sparkled with a peculiar flashing light. His cousin Mr.
Balfour, in his <i>Life of Robert Louis Stevenson</i>, says:
‘his eyes . . . when he was moved to anger or any fierce
emotion seemed literally to blaze and glow with a burning
light.’ In another moment he disappeared through the
doorway, and I could hear him, in his own room, pulling his chair
to the table, and the sound of his inkstand being dragged towards
him.</p>
<p>That afternoon he called us together—my son, my
daughter, and myself—saying that he had something serious
to lay before us. He went over the circumstances
succinctly, and then we three had the incomparable experience of
hearing its author read aloud the defence of Father Damien while
it was still red-hot from his indignant soul.</p>
<p>As we sat, dazed and overcome by emotion, he pointed out to us
that the subject-matter was libellous in the highest degree, and
the publication of the <!-- page xi--><a name="pagexi"></a><span
class="pagenum">p. xi</span>article might cause the loss of his
entire substance. Without our concurrence he would not take
such a risk. There was no dissenting voice; how could there
be? The paper was published with almost no change or
revision, though afterwards my husband said he considered this a
mistake. He thought he should have waited for his anger to
cool, when he might have been more impersonal and less
egotistic.</p>
<p>The next day he consulted an eminent lawyer, more from
curiosity than from any other reason. Mr. Moses—I
think that was his name—was at first inclined to be
jocular. I remember his smiling question: ‘Have you
called him a hell-hound or an atheist? Otherwise there is
no libel.’ But when he looked over the manuscript his
countenance changed. ‘This is a serious
affair,’ he said; ‘however, no one will publish it
for you.’ In that Mr. Moses was right; no one dared
publish the pamphlet. But that difficulty was soon
overcome. My husband hired a printer by the day, and the
work was rushed through. We then, my daughter, my son, and
myself, were set to work helping address the pamphlets, which
were scattered far and wide.</p>
<p>Father Damien was vindicated by a stranger, a man of another
country and another religion from his own.</p>
<p style="text-align: right">F. V. <span class="smcap">de
</span>G. S.</p>
<h2><!-- page xiii--><a name="pagexiii"></a><span
class="pagenum">p. xiii</span>Contents:</h2>
<p> Preface by Mrs. Robert Louis Stevenson<br />
Lay Morals<br />
Father Damien<br />
The Pentland Rising<br />
I. The Causes of the
Revolt<br />
II. The Beginning<br />
III. The March of the
Rebels<br />
IV. Rullion Green<br />
V. A Record of Blood<br />
The Day After To-morrow<br />
College Papers<br />
I. Edinburgh Students in
1824<br />
II. The Modern Student<br />
III. Debating Societies<br
/>
Criticisms<br />
I. Lord Lytton’s
“Fables in Song”<br />
II. Salvini’s
Macbeth<br />
III. Bagster’s
“Pilgrim’s Progress”<br />
Sketches<br />
I. The Satirist<br />
II. Nuits Blanches<br />
III. The Wreath of
Immortelles<br />
IV. Nurses<br />
V. A Character<br />
<!-- page xiv--><a name="pagexiv"></a><span
class="pagenum">p. xiv</span>The Great North Road<br />
I. Nance at the “Green
Dragon”<br />
II. In which Mr. Archer is
Installed<br />
III. Jonathan Holdaway<br />
IV. Mingling Threads<br />
V. Life in the Castle<br />
IV. The Bad Half-Crown<br />
VII. The Bleaching-Green<br
/>
VIII. The Mail Guard<br />
The Young Chevalier<br />
Prologue: The Wine-Seller’s
Wife<br />
I. The Prince<br />
Heathercat<br />
I. Traqairs of
Montroymont<br />
II. Francie<br />
III. The Hill-End of
Drumlowe</p>
<h2>LAY MORALS</h2>
<p><i>The following chapters of a projected treatise on Ethics
were drafted at Edinburgh in the spring of</i> 1879.
<i>They are unrevised</i>, <i>and must not be taken as
representing</i>, <i>either as to matter or form</i>, <i>their
author’s final thoughts</i>; <i>but they contain much that
is essentially characteristic of his mind</i>.</p>
<div class="gapspace"> </div>
<p style="text-align: center"><i>Copyright in the United States
of America</i>.</p>
<h3>CHAPTER I</h3>
<p>The problem of education is twofold: first to know, and then
to utter. Every one who lives any semblance of an inner
life thinks more nobly and profoundly than he speaks; and the
best of teachers can impart only broken images of the truth which
they perceive. Speech which goes from one to another
between two natures, and, what is worse, between two experiences,
is doubly relative. The speaker buries his meaning; it is
for the hearer to dig it up again; and all speech, written or
spoken, is in a dead language until it finds a willing and
prepared hearer. Such, moreover, is the complexity of life,
that when we condescend upon details in our advice, we may be
sure we condescend on error; and the best of education is to
throw out some magnanimous hints. No man was ever so poor
that he could express all he has in him by words, looks, or
actions; his true knowledge is eternally incommunicable, for it
is a knowledge of himself; and his best wisdom comes to him by no
process of the mind, but in a supreme self-dictation, which keeps
varying from hour to hour in its dictates with the variation of
events and circumstances.</p>
<p>A few men of picked nature, full of faith, courage, and
contempt for others, try earnestly to set forth as much as they
can grasp of this inner law; but the vast majority, when they
come to advise the young, must be content to retail certain
doctrines which have been already retailed to them in their own
youth. Every generation has to educate another which it has
brought upon the stage. People who readily accept the
responsibility of parentship, having very different matters in
their eye, are apt to feel rueful when that responsibility falls
due. What are they to tell the child about life and
conduct, subjects on which they have themselves so few and such
confused opinions? Indeed, I do not know; the least said,
perhaps, the soonest mended; and yet the child keeps asking, and
the parent must find some words to say in his own defence.
Where does he find them? and what are they when found?</p>
<p>As a matter of experience, and in nine hundred and ninety-nine
cases out of a thousand, he will instil into his wide-eyed brat
three bad things: the terror of public opinion, and, flowing from
that as a fountain, the desire of wealth and applause.
Besides these, or what might be deduced as corollaries from
these, he will teach not much else of any effective value: some
dim notions of divinity, perhaps, and book-keeping, and how to
walk through a quadrille.</p>
<p>But, you may tell me, the young people are taught to be
Christians. It may be want of penetration, but I have not
yet been able to perceive it. As an honest man, whatever we
teach, and be it good or evil, it is not the doctrine of
Christ. What he taught (and in this he is like all other
teachers worthy of the name) was not a code of rules, but a
ruling spirit; not truths, but a spirit of truth; not views, but
a view. What he showed us was an attitude of mind.
Towards the many considerations on which conduct is built, each
man stands in a certain relation. He takes life on a
certain principle. He has a compass in his spirit which
points in a certain direction. It is the attitude, the
relation, the point of the compass, that is the whole body and
gist of what he has to teach us; in this, the details are
comprehended; out of this the specific precepts issue, and by
this, and this only, can they be explained and applied. And
thus, to learn aright from any teacher, we must first of all,
like a historical artist, think ourselves into sympathy with his
position and, in the technical phrase, create his
character. A historian confronted with some ambiguous
politician, or an actor charged with a part, have but one
pre-occupation; they must search all round and upon every side,
and grope for some central conception which is to explain and
justify the most extreme details; until that is found, the
politician is an enigma, or perhaps a quack, and the part a
tissue of fustian sentiment and big words; but once that is
found, all enters into a plan, a human nature appears, the
politician or the stage-king is understood from point to point,
from end to end. This is a degree of trouble which will be
gladly taken by a very humble artist; but not even the terror of
eternal fire can teach a business man to bend his imagination to
such athletic efforts. Yet without this, all is vain; until
we understand the whole, we shall understand none of the parts;
and otherwise we have no more than broken images and scattered
words; the meaning remains buried; and the language in which our
prophet speaks to us is a dead language in our ears.</p>
<p>Take a few of Christ’s sayings and compare them with our
current doctrines.</p>
<p>‘Ye cannot,’ he says, ‘<i>serve God and
Mammon</i>.’ Cannot? And our whole system is to
teach us how we can!</p>
<p>‘<i>The children of this world are wiser in their
generation than the children of light</i>.’ Are
they? I had been led to understand the reverse: that the
Christian merchant, for example, prospered exceedingly in his
affairs; that honesty was the best policy; that an author of
repute had written a conclusive treatise ‘How to make the
best of both worlds.’ Of both worlds indeed!
Which am I to believe then—Christ or the author of
repute?</p>
<p>‘<i>Take no thought for the morrow</i>.’ Ask
the Successful Merchant; interrogate your own heart; and you will
have to admit that this is not only a silly but an immoral
position. All we believe, all we hope, all we honour in
ourselves or our contemporaries, stands condemned in this one
sentence, or, if you take the other view, condemns the sentence
as unwise and inhumane. We are not then of the ‘same
mind that was in Christ.’ We disagree with
Christ. Either Christ meant nothing, or else he or we must
be in the wrong. Well says Thoreau, speaking of some texts
from the New Testament, and finding a strange echo of another
style which the reader may recognise: ‘Let but one of these
sentences be rightly read from any pulpit in the land, and there
would not be left one stone of that meeting-house upon
another.’</p>
<p>It may be objected that these are what are called ‘hard
sayings’; and that a man, or an education, may be very
sufficiently Christian although it leave some of these sayings
upon one side. But this is a very gross delusion.
Although truth is difficult to state, it is both easy and
agreeable to receive, and the mind runs out to meet it ere the
phrase be done. The universe, in relation to what any man
can say of it, is plain, patent and staringly
comprehensible. In itself, it is a great and travailing
ocean, unsounded, unvoyageable, an eternal mystery to man; or,
let us say, it is a monstrous and impassable mountain, one side
of which, and a few near slopes and foothills, we can dimly study
with these mortal eyes. But what any man can say of it,
even in his highest utterance, must have relation to this little
and plain corner, which is no less visible to us than to
him. We are looking on the same map; it will go hard if we
cannot follow the demonstration. The longest and most
abstruse flight of a philosopher becomes clear and shallow, in
the flash of a moment, when we suddenly perceive the aspect and
drift of his intention. The longest argument is but a
finger pointed; once we get our own finger rightly parallel, and
we see what the man meant, whether it be a new star or an old
street-lamp. And briefly, if a saying is hard to
understand, it is because we are thinking of something else.</p>
<p>But to be a true disciple is to think of the same things as
our prophet, and to think of different things in the same
order. To be of the same mind with another is to see all
things in the same perspective; it is not to agree in a few
indifferent matters near at hand and not much debated; it is to
follow him in his farthest flights, to see the force of his
hyperboles, to stand so exactly in the centre of his vision that
whatever he may express, your eyes will light at once on the
original, that whatever he may see to declare, your mind will at
once accept. You do not belong to the school of any
philosopher, because you agree with him that theft is, on the
whole, objectionable, or that the sun is overhead at noon.
It is by the hard sayings that discipleship is tested. We
are all agreed about the middling and indifferent parts of
knowledge and morality; even the most soaring spirits too often
take them tamely upon trust. But the man, the philosopher
or the moralist, does not stand upon these chance adhesions; and
the purpose of any system looks towards those extreme points
where it steps valiantly beyond tradition and returns with some
covert hint of things outside. Then only can you be certain
that the words are not words of course, nor mere echoes of the
past; then only are you sure that if he be indicating anything at
all, it is a star and not a street-lamp; then only do you touch
the heart of the mystery, since it was for these that the author
wrote his book.</p>
<p>Now, every now and then, and indeed surprisingly often, Christ
finds a word that transcends all common-place morality; every now
and then he quits the beaten track to pioneer the unexpressed,
and throws out a pregnant and magnanimous hyperbole; for it is
only by some bold poetry of thought that men can be strung up
above the level of everyday conceptions to take a broader look
upon experience or accept some higher principle of conduct.
To a man who is of the same mind that was in Christ, who stands
at some centre not too far from his, and looks at the world and
conduct from some not dissimilar or, at least, not opposing
attitude—or, shortly, to a man who is of Christ’s
philosophy—every such saying should come home with a thrill
of joy and corroboration; he should feel each one below his feet
as another sure foundation in the flux of time and chance; each
should be another proof that in the torrent of the years and
generations, where doctrines and great armaments and empires are
swept away and swallowed, he stands immovable, holding by the
eternal stars. But alas! at this juncture of the ages it is
not so with us; on each and every such occasion our whole
fellowship of Christians falls back in disapproving wonder and
implicitly denies the saying. Christians! the farce is
impudently broad. Let us stand up in the sight of heaven
and confess. The ethics that we hold are those of Benjamin
Franklin. <i>Honesty is the best policy</i>, is perhaps a
hard saying; it is certainly one by which a wise man of these
days will not too curiously direct his steps; but I think it
shows a glimmer of meaning to even our most dimmed intelligences;
I think we perceive a principle behind it; I think, without
hyperbole, we are of the same mind that was in Benjamin
Franklin.</p>
<h3>CHAPTER II</h3>
<p>But, I may be told, we teach the ten commandments, where a
world of morals lies condensed, the very pith and epitome of all
ethics and religion; and a young man with these precepts engraved
upon his mind must follow after profit with some conscience and
Christianity of method. A man cannot go very far astray who
neither dishonours his parents, nor kills, nor commits adultery,
nor steals, nor bears false witness; for these things, rightly
thought out, cover a vast field of duty.</p>
<p>Alas! what is a precept? It is at best an illustration;
it is case law at the best which can be learned by precept.
The letter is not only dead, but killing; the spirit which
underlies, and cannot be uttered, alone is true and
helpful. This is trite to sickness; but familiarity has a
cunning disenchantment; in a day or two she can steal all beauty
from the mountain tops; and the most startling words begin to
fall dead upon the ear after several repetitions. If you
see a thing too often, you no longer see it; if you hear a thing
too often, you no longer hear it. Our attention requires to
be surprised; and to carry a fort by assault, or to gain a
thoughtful hearing from the ruck of mankind, are feats of about
an equal difficulty and must be tried by not dissimilar
means. The whole Bible has thus lost its message for the
common run of hearers; it has become mere words of course; and
the parson may bawl himself scarlet and beat the pulpit like a
thing possessed, but his hearers will continue to nod; they are
strangely at peace, they know all he has to say; ring the old
bell as you choose, it is still the old bell and it cannot
startle their composure. And so with this byword about the
letter and the spirit. It is quite true, no doubt; but it
has no meaning in the world to any man of us. Alas! it has
just this meaning, and neither more nor less: that while the
spirit is true, the letter is eternally false.</p>
<p>The shadow of a great oak lies abroad upon the ground at noon,
perfect, clear, and stable like the earth. But let a man
set himself to mark out the boundary with cords and pegs, and
were he never so nimble and never so exact, what with the
multiplicity of the leaves and the progression of the shadow as
it flees before the travelling sun, long ere he has made the
circuit the whole figure will have changed. Life may be
compared, not to a single tree, but to a great and complicated
forest; circumstance is more swiftly changing than a shadow,
language much more inexact than the tools of a surveyor; from day
to day the trees fall and are renewed; the very essences are
fleeting as we look; and the whole world of leaves is swinging
tempest-tossed among the winds of time. Look now for your
shadows. O man of formulæ, is this a place for
you? Have you fitted the spirit to a single case?
Alas, in the cycle of the ages when shall such another be
proposed for the judgment of man? Now when the sun shines
and the winds blow, the wood is filled with an innumerable
multitude of shadows, tumultuously tossed and changing; and at
every gust the whole carpet leaps and becomes new. Can you
or your heart say more?</p>
<p>Look back now, for a moment, on your own brief experience of
life; and although you lived it feelingly in your own person, and
had every step of conduct burned in by pains and joys upon your
memory, tell me what definite lesson does experience hand on from
youth to manhood, or from both to age? The settled tenor
which first strikes the eye is but the shadow of a
delusion. This is gone; that never truly was; and you
yourself are altered beyond recognition. Times and men and
circumstances change about your changing character, with a speed
of which no earthly hurricane affords an image. What was
the best yesterday, is it still the best in this changed theatre
of a to-morrow? Will your own Past truly guide you in your
own violent and unexpected Future? And if this be
questionable, with what humble, with what hopeless eyes, should
we not watch other men driving beside us on their unknown
careers, seeing with unlike eyes, impelled by different gales,
doing and suffering in another sphere of things?</p>
<p>And as the authentic clue to such a labyrinth and change of
scene, do you offer me these two score words? these five bald
prohibitions? For the moral precepts are no more than five;
the first four deal rather with matters of observance than of
conduct; the tenth, <i>Thou shalt not covet</i>, stands upon
another basis, and shall be spoken of ere long. The Jews,
to whom they were first given, in the course of years began to
find these precepts insufficient; and made an addition of no less
than six hundred and fifty others! They hoped to make a
pocket-book of reference on morals, which should stand to life in
some such relation, say, as Hoyle stands in to the scientific
game of whist. The comparison is just, and condemns the
design; for those who play by rule will never be more than
tolerable players; and you and I would like to play our game in
life to the noblest and the most divine advantage. Yet if
the Jews took a petty and huckstering view of conduct, what view
do we take ourselves, who callously leave youth to go forth into
the enchanted forest, full of spells and dire chimeras, with no
guidance more complete than is afforded by these five
precepts?</p>
<p><i>Honour thy father and thy mother</i>. Yes, but does
that mean to obey? and if so, how long and how far? <i>Thou
shall not kill</i>. Yet the very intention and purport of
the prohibition may be best fulfilled by killing. <i>Thou
shall not commit adultery</i>. But some of the ugliest
adulteries are committed in the bed of marriage and under the
sanction of religion and law. <i>Thou shalt not bear false
witness</i>. How? by speech or by silence also? or even by
a smile? <i>Thou shalt not steal</i>. Ah, that
indeed! But what is <i>to steal</i>?</p>
<p>To steal? It is another word to be construed; and who is
to be our guide? The police will give us one construction,
leaving the word only that least minimum of meaning without which
society would fall in pieces; but surely we must take some higher
sense than this; surely we hope more than a bare subsistence for
mankind; surely we wish mankind to prosper and go on from
strength to strength, and ourselves to live rightly in the eye of
some more exacting potentate than a policeman. The approval
or the disapproval of the police must be eternally indifferent to
a man who is both valorous and good. There is extreme
discomfort, but no shame, in the condemnation of the law.
The law represents that modicum of morality which can be squeezed
out of the ruck of mankind; but what is that to me, who aim
higher and seek to be my own more stringent judge? I
observe with pleasure that no brave man has ever given a rush for
such considerations. The Japanese have a nobler and more
sentimental feeling for this social bond into which we all are
born when we come into the world, and whose comforts and
protection we all indifferently share throughout our
lives:—but even to them, no more than to our Western saints
and heroes, does the law of the state supersede the higher law of
duty. Without hesitation and without remorse, they
transgress the stiffest enactments rather than abstain from doing
right. But the accidental superior duty being thus
fulfilled, they at once return in allegiance to the common duty
of all citizens; and hasten to denounce themselves; and value at
an equal rate their just crime and their equally just submission
to its punishment.</p>
<p>The evading of the police will not long satisfy an active
conscience or a thoughtful head. But to show you how one or
the other may trouble a man, and what a vast extent of frontier
is left unridden by this invaluable eighth commandment, let me
tell you a few pages out of a young man’s life.</p>
<p>He was a friend of mine; a young man like others; generous,
flighty, as variable as youth itself, but always with some high
motions and on the search for higher thoughts of life. I
should tell you at once that he thoroughly agrees with the eighth
commandment. But he got hold of some unsettling works, the
New Testament among others, and this loosened his views of life
and led him into many perplexities. As he was the son of a
man in a certain position, and well off, my friend had enjoyed
from the first the advantages of education, nay, he had been kept
alive through a sickly childhood by constant watchfulness,
comforts, and change of air; for all of which he was indebted to
his father’s wealth.</p>
<p>At college he met other lads more diligent than himself, who
followed the plough in summer-time to pay their college fees in
winter; and this inequality struck him with some force. He
was at that age of a conversible temper, and insatiably curious
in the aspects of life; and he spent much of his time scraping
acquaintance with all classes of man- and woman-kind. In
this way he came upon many depressed ambitions, and many
intelligences stunted for want of opportunity; and this also
struck him. He began to perceive that life was a handicap
upon strange, wrong-sided principles; and not, as he had been
told, a fair and equal race. He began to tremble that he
himself had been unjustly favoured, when he saw all the avenues
of wealth, and power, and comfort closed against so many of his
superiors and equals, and held unwearyingly open before so idle,
so desultory, and so dissolute a being as himself. There
sat a youth beside him on the college benches, who had only one
shirt to his back, and, at intervals sufficiently far apart, must
stay at home to have it washed. It was my friend’s
principle to stay away as often as he dared; for I fear he was no
friend to learning. But there was something that came home
to him sharply, in this fellow who had to give over study till
his shirt was washed, and the scores of others who had never an
opportunity at all. <i>If one of these could take his
place</i>, he thought; and the thought tore away a bandage from
his eyes. He was eaten by the shame of his discoveries, and
despised himself as an unworthy favourite and a creature of the
back-stairs of Fortune. He could no longer see without
confusion one of these brave young fellows battling up-hill
against adversity. Had he not filched that fellow’s
birthright? At best was he not coldly profiting by the
injustice of society, and greedily devouring stolen goods?
The money, indeed, belonged to his father, who had worked, and
thought, and given up his liberty to earn it; but by what justice
could the money belong to my friend, who had, as yet, done
nothing but help to squander it? A more sturdy honesty,
joined to a more even and impartial temperament, would have drawn
from these considerations a new force of industry, that this
equivocal position might be brought as swiftly as possible to an
end, and some good services to mankind justify the appropriation
of expense. It was not so with my friend, who was only
unsettled and discouraged, and filled full of that trumpeting
anger with which young men regard injustices in the first blush
of youth; although in a few years they will tamely acquiesce in
their existence, and knowingly profit by their
complications. Yet all this while he suffered many
indignant pangs. And once, when he put on his boots, like
any other unripe donkey, to run away from home, it was his best
consolation that he was now, at a single plunge, to free himself
from the responsibility of this wealth that was not his, and do
battle equally against his fellows in the warfare of life.</p>
<p>Some time after this, falling into ill-health, he was sent at
great expense to a more favourable climate; and then I think his
perplexities were thickest. When he thought of all the
other young men of singular promise, upright, good, the prop of
families, who must remain at home to die, and with all their
possibilities be lost to life and mankind; and how he, by one
more unmerited favour, was chosen out from all these others to
survive; he felt as if there were no life, no labour, no devotion
of soul and body, that could repay and justify these
partialities. A religious lady, to whom he communicated
these reflections, could see no force in them whatever.
‘It was God’s will,’ said she. But he
knew it was by God’s will that Joan of Arc was burnt at
Rouen, which cleared neither Bedford nor Bishop Cauchon; and
again, by God’s will that Christ was crucified outside
Jerusalem, which excused neither the rancour of the priests nor
the timidity of Pilate. He knew, moreover, that although
the possibility of this favour he was now enjoying issued from
his circumstances, its acceptance was the act of his own will;
and he had accepted it greedily, longing for rest and
sunshine. And hence this allegation of God’s
providence did little to relieve his scruples. I promise
you he had a very troubled mind. And I would not laugh if I
were you, though while he was thus making mountains out of what
you think molehills, he were still (as perhaps he was)
contentedly practising many other things that to you seem black
as hell. Every man is his own judge and mountain-guide
through life. There is an old story of a mote and a beam,
apparently not true, but worthy perhaps of some
consideration. I should, if I were you, give some
consideration to these scruples of his, and if I were he, I
should do the like by yours; for it is not unlikely that there
may be something under both. In the meantime you must hear
how my friend acted. Like many invalids, he supposed that
he would die. Now, should he die, he saw no means of
repaying this huge loan which, by the hands of his father,
mankind had advanced him for his sickness. In that case it
would be lost money. So he determined that the advance
should be as small as possible; and, so long as he continued to
doubt his recovery, lived in an upper room, and grudged himself
all but necessaries. But so soon as he began to perceive a
change for the better, he felt justified in spending more freely,
to speed and brighten his return to health, and trusted in the
future to lend a help to mankind, as mankind, out of its
treasury, had lent a help to him.</p>
<p>I do not say but that my friend was a little too curious and
partial in his view; nor thought too much of himself and too
little of his parents; but I do say that here are some scruples
which tormented my friend in his youth, and still, perhaps, at
odd times give him a prick in the midst of his enjoyments, and
which after all have some foundation in justice, and point, in
their confused way, to some more honourable honesty within the
reach of man. And at least, is not this an unusual gloss
upon the eighth commandment? And what sort of comfort,
guidance, or illumination did that precept afford my friend
throughout these contentions? ‘Thou shalt not
steal.’ With all my heart! But <i>am</i> I
stealing?</p>
<p>The truly quaint materialism of our view of life disables us
from pursuing any transaction to an end. You can make no
one understand that his bargain is anything more than a bargain,
whereas in point of fact it is a link in the policy of mankind,
and either a good or an evil to the world. We have a sort
of blindness which prevents us from seeing anything but
sovereigns. If one man agrees to give another so many
shillings for so many hours’ work, and then wilfully gives
him a certain proportion of the price in bad money and only the
remainder in good, we can see with half an eye that this man is a
thief. But if the other spends a certain proportion of the
hours in smoking a pipe of tobacco, and a certain other
proportion in looking at the sky, or the clock, or trying to
recall an air, or in meditation on his own past adventures, and
only the remainder in downright work such as he is paid to do, is
he, because the theft is one of time and not of money,—is
he any the less a thief? The one gave a bad shilling, the
other an imperfect hour; but both broke the bargain, and each is
a thief. In piecework, which is what most of us do, the
case is none the less plain for being even less material.
If you forge a bad knife, you have wasted some of mankind’s
iron, and then, with unrivalled cynicism, you pocket some of
mankind’s money for your trouble. Is there any man so
blind who cannot see that this is theft? Again, if you
carelessly cultivate a farm, you have been playing fast and loose
with mankind’s resources against hunger; there will be less
bread in consequence, and for lack of that bread somebody will
die next winter: a grim consideration. And you must not
hope to shuffle out of blame because you got less money for your
less quantity of bread; for although a theft be partly punished,
it is none the less a theft for that. You took the farm
against competitors; there were others ready to shoulder the
responsibility and be answerable for the tale of loaves; but it
was you who took it. By the act you came under a tacit
bargain with mankind to cultivate that farm with your best
endeavour; you were under no superintendence, you were on parole;
and you have broke your bargain, and to all who look closely, and
yourself among the rest if you have moral eyesight, you are a
thief. Or take the case of men of letters. Every
piece of work which is not as good as you can make it, which you
have palmed off imperfect, meagrely thought, niggardly in
execution, upon mankind who is your paymaster on parole and in a
sense your pupil, every hasty or slovenly or untrue performance,
should rise up against you in the court of your own heart and
condemn you for a thief. Have you a salary? If you
trifle with your health, and so render yourself less capable for
duty, and still touch, and still greedily pocket the
emolument—what are you but a thief? Have you double
accounts? do you by any time-honoured juggle, deceit, or
ambiguous process, gain more from those who deal with you than it
you were bargaining and dealing face to face in front of
God?—What are you but a thief? Lastly, if you fill an
office, or produce an article, which, in your heart of hearts,
you think a delusion and a fraud upon mankind, and still draw
your salary and go through the sham manœuvres of this
office, or still book your profits and keep on flooding the world
with these injurious goods?—though you were old, and bald,
and the first at church, and a baronet, what are you but a
thief? These may seem hard words and mere curiosities of
the intellect, in an age when the spirit of honesty is so
sparingly cultivated that all business is conducted upon lies and
so-called customs of the trade, that not a man bestows two
thoughts on the utility or honourableness of his pursuit. I
would say less if I thought less. But looking to my own
reason and the right of things, I can only avow that I am a thief
myself, and that I passionately suspect my neighbours of the same
guilt.</p>
<p>Where did you hear that it was easy to be honest? Do you
find that in your Bible? Easy! It is easy to be an
ass and follow the multitude like a blind, besotted bull in a
stampede; and that, I am well aware, is what you and Mrs. Grundy
mean by being honest. But it will not bear the stress of
time nor the scrutiny of conscience. Even before the lowest
of all tribunals,—before a court of law, whose business it
is, not to keep men right, or within a thousand miles of right,
but to withhold them from going so tragically wrong that they
will pull down the whole jointed fabric of society by their
misdeeds—even before a court of law, as we begin to see in
these last days, our easy view of following at each other’s
tails, alike to good and evil, is beginning to be reproved and
punished, and declared no honesty at all, but open theft and
swindling; and simpletons who have gone on through life with a
quiet conscience may learn suddenly, from the lips of a judge,
that the custom of the trade may be a custom of the devil.
You thought it was easy to be honest. Did you think it was
easy to be just and kind and truthful? Did you think the
whole duty of aspiring man was as simple as a horn-pipe? and you
could walk through life like a gentleman and a hero, with no more
concern than it takes to go to church or to address a
circular? And yet all this time you had the eighth
commandment! and, what makes it richer, you would not have broken
it for the world!</p>
<p>The truth is, that these commandments by themselves are of
little use in private judgment. If compression is what you
want, you have their whole spirit compressed into the golden
rule; and yet there expressed with more significance, since the
law is there spiritually and not materially stated. And in
truth, four out of these ten commands, from the sixth to the
ninth, are rather legal than ethical. The police-court is
their proper home. A magistrate cannot tell whether you
love your neighbour as yourself, but he can tell more or less
whether you have murdered, or stolen, or committed adultery, or
held up your hand and testified to that which was not; and these
things, for rough practical tests, are as good as can be
found. And perhaps, therefore, the best condensation of the
Jewish moral law is in the maxims of the priests, ‘neminem
lædere’ and ‘suum cuique tribuere.’
But all this granted, it becomes only the more plain that they
are inadequate in the sphere of personal morality; that while
they tell the magistrate roughly when to punish, they can never
direct an anxious sinner what to do.</p>
<p>Only Polonius, or the like solemn sort of ass, can offer us a
succinct proverb by way of advice, and not burst out blushing in
our faces. We grant them one and all and for all that they
are worth; it is something above and beyond that we desire.
Christ was in general a great enemy to such a way of teaching; we
rarely find him meddling with any of these plump commands but it
was to open them out, and lift his hearers from the letter to the
spirit. For morals are a personal affair; in the war of
righteousness every man fights for his own hand; all the six
hundred precepts of the Mishna cannot shake my private judgment;
my magistracy of myself is an indefeasible charge, and my
decisions absolute for the time and case. The moralist is
not a judge of appeal, but an advocate who pleads at my
tribunal. He has to show not the law, but that the law
applies. Can he convince me? then he gains the cause.
And thus you find Christ giving various counsels to varying
people, and often jealously careful to avoid definite
precept. Is he asked, for example, to divide a
heritage? He refuses: and the best advice that he will
offer is but a paraphrase of that tenth commandment which figures
so strangely among the rest. <i>Take heed, and beware of
covetousness</i>. If you complain that this is vague, I
have failed to carry you along with me in my argument. For
no definite precept can be more than an illustration, though its
truth were resplendent like the sun, and it was announced from
heaven by the voice of God. And life is so intricate and
changing, that perhaps not twenty times, or perhaps not twice in
the ages, shall we find that nice consent of circumstances to
which alone it can apply.</p>
<h3>CHAPTER III</h3>
<p>Although the world and life have in a sense become commonplace
to our experience, it is but in an external torpor; the true
sentiment slumbers within us; and we have but to reflect on
ourselves or our surroundings to rekindle our astonishment.
No length of habit can blunt our first surprise. Of the
world I have but little to say in this connection; a few strokes
shall suffice. We inhabit a dead ember swimming wide in the
blank of space, dizzily spinning as it swims, and lighted up from
several million miles away by a more horrible hell-fire than was
ever conceived by the theological imagination. Yet the dead
ember is a green, commodious dwelling-place; and the
reverberation of this hell-fire ripens flower and fruit and
mildly warms us on summer eves upon the lawn. Far off on
all hands other dead embers, other flaming suns, wheel and race
in the apparent void; the nearest is out of call, the farthest so
far that the heart sickens in the effort to conceive the
distance. Shipwrecked seamen on the deep, though they
bestride but the truncheon of a boom, are safe and near at home
compared with mankind on its bullet. Even to us who have
known no other, it seems a strange, if not an appalling, place of
residence.</p>
<p>But far stranger is the resident, man, a creature compact of
wonders that, after centuries of custom, is still wonderful to
himself. He inhabits a body which he is continually
outliving, discarding and renewing. Food and sleep, by an
unknown alchemy, restore his spirits and the freshness of his
countenance. Hair grows on him like grass; his eyes, his
brain, his sinews, thirst for action; he joys to see and touch
and hear, to partake the sun and wind, to sit down and intently
ponder on his astonishing attributes and situation, to rise up
and run, to perform the strange and revolting round of physical
functions. The sight of a flower, the note of a bird, will
often move him deeply; yet he looks unconcerned on the impassable
distances and portentous bonfires of the universe. He
comprehends, he designs, he tames nature, rides the sea, ploughs,
climbs the air in a balloon, makes vast inquiries, begins
interminable labours, joins himself into federations and populous
cities, spends his days to deliver the ends of the earth or to
benefit unborn posterity; and yet knows himself for a piece of
unsurpassed fragility and the creature of a few days. His
sight, which conducts him, which takes notice of the farthest
stars, which is miraculous in every way and a thing defying
explanation or belief, is yet lodged in a piece of jelly, and can
be extinguished with a touch. His heart, which all through
life so indomitably, so athletically labours, is but a capsule,
and may be stopped with a pin. His whole body, for all its
savage energies, its leaping and its winged desires, may yet be
tamed and conquered by a draught of air or a sprinkling of cold
dew. What he calls death, which is the seeming arrest of
everything, and the ruin and hateful transformation of the
visible body, lies in wait for him outwardly in a thousand
accidents, and grows up in secret diseases from within. He
is still learning to be a man when his faculties are already
beginning to decline; he has not yet understood himself or his
position before he inevitably dies. And yet this mad,
chimerical creature can take no thought of his last end, lives as
though he were eternal, plunges with his vulnerable body into the
shock of war, and daily affronts death with unconcern. He
cannot take a step without pain or pleasure. His life is a
tissue of sensations, which he distinguishes as they seem to come
more directly from himself or his surroundings. He is
conscious of himself as a joyer or a sufferer, as that which
craves, chooses, and is satisfied; conscious of his surroundings
as it were of an inexhaustible purveyor, the source of aspects,
inspirations, wonders, cruel knocks and transporting
caresses. Thus he goes on his way, stumbling among delights
and agonies.</p>
<p>Matter is a far-fetched theory, and materialism is without a
root in man. To him everything is important in the degree
to which it moves him. The telegraph wires and posts, the
electricity speeding from clerk to clerk, the clerks, the glad or
sorrowful import of the message, and the paper on which it is
finally brought to him at home, are all equally facts, all
equally exist for man. A word or a thought can wound him as
acutely as a knife of steel. If he thinks he is loved, he
will rise up and glory to himself, although he be in a distant
land and short of necessary bread. Does he think he is not
loved?—he may have the woman at his beck, and there is not
a joy for him in all the world. Indeed, if we are to make
any account of this figment of reason, the distinction between
material and immaterial, we shall conclude that the life of each
man as an individual is immaterial, although the continuation and
prospects of mankind as a race turn upon material
conditions. The physical business of each man’s body
is transacted for him; like a sybarite, he has attentive valets
in his own viscera; he breathes, he sweats, he digests without an
effort, or so much as a consenting volition; for the most part he
even eats, not with a wakeful consciousness, but as it were
between two thoughts. His life is centred among other and
more important considerations; touch him in his honour or his
love, creatures of the imagination which attach him to mankind or
to an individual man or woman; cross him in his piety which
connects his soul with heaven; and he turns from his food, he
loathes his breath, and with a magnanimous emotion cuts the knots
of his existence and frees himself at a blow from the web of
pains and pleasures.</p>
<p>It follows that man is twofold at least; that he is not a
rounded and autonomous empire; but that in the same body with him
there dwell other powers tributary but independent. If I
now behold one walking in a garden, curiously coloured and
illuminated by the sun, digesting his food with elaborate
chemistry, breathing, circulating blood, directing himself by the
sight of his eyes, accommodating his body by a thousand delicate
balancings to the wind and the uneven surface of the path, and
all the time, perhaps, with his mind engaged about America, or
the dog-star, or the attributes of God—what am I to say, or
how am I to describe the thing I see? Is that truly a man,
in the rigorous meaning of the word? or is it not a man and
something else? What, then, are we to count the centre-bit
and axle of a being so variously compounded? It is a
question much debated. Some read his history in a certain
intricacy of nerve and the success of successive digestions;
others find him an exiled piece of heaven blown upon and
determined by the breath of God; and both schools of theorists
will scream like scalded children at a word of doubt. Yet
either of these views, however plausible, is beside the question;
either may be right; and I care not; I ask a more particular
answer, and to a more immediate point. What is the
man? There is Something that was before hunger and that
remains behind after a meal. It may or may not be engaged
in any given act or passion, but when it is, it changes,
heightens, and sanctifies. Thus it is not engaged in lust,
where satisfaction ends the chapter; and it is engaged in love,
where no satisfaction can blunt the edge of the desire, and where
age, sickness, or alienation may deface what was desirable
without diminishing the sentiment. This something, which is
the man, is a permanence which abides through the vicissitudes of
passion, now overwhelmed and now triumphant, now unconscious of
itself in the immediate distress of appetite or pain, now rising
unclouded above all. So, to the man, his own central self
fades and grows clear again amid the tumult of the senses, like a
revolving Pharos in the night. It is forgotten; it is hid,
it seems, for ever; and yet in the next calm hour he shall behold
himself once more, shining and unmoved among changes and
storm.</p>
<p>Mankind, in the sense of the creeping mass that is born and
eats, that generates and dies, is but the aggregate of the outer
and lower sides of man. This inner consciousness, this
lantern alternately obscured and shining, to and by which the
individual exists and must order his conduct, is something
special to himself and not common to the race. His joys
delight, his sorrows wound him, according as <i>this</i> is
interested or indifferent in the affair; according as they arise
in an imperial war or in a broil conducted by the tributary
chieftains of the mind. He may lose all, and <i>this</i>
not suffer; he may lose what is materially a trifle, and
<i>this</i> leap in his bosom with a cruel pang. I do not
speak of it to hardened theorists: the living man knows keenly
what it is I mean.</p>
<p>‘Perceive at last that thou hast in thee something
better and more divine than the things which cause the various
effects, and, as it were, pull thee by the strings. What is
that now in thy mind? is it fear, or suspicion, or desire, or
anything of that kind?’ Thus far Marcus Aurelius, in
one of the most notable passages in any book. Here is a
question worthy to be answered. What is in thy mind?
What is the utterance of your inmost self when, in a quiet hour,
it can be heard intelligibly? It is something beyond the
compass of your thinking, inasmuch as it is yourself; but is it
not of a higher spirit than you had dreamed betweenwhiles, and
erect above all base considerations? This soul seems hardly
touched with our infirmities; we can find in it certainly no
fear, suspicion, or desire; we are only conscious—and that
as though we read it in the eyes of some one else—of a
great and unqualified readiness. A readiness to what? to
pass over and look beyond the objects of desire and fear, for
something else. And this something else? this something
which is apart from desire and fear, to which all the kingdoms of
the world and the immediate death of the body are alike
indifferent and beside the point, and which yet regards
conduct—by what name are we to call it? It may be the
love of God; or it may be an inherited (and certainly well
concealed) instinct to preserve self and propagate the race; I am
not, for the moment, averse to either theory; but it will save
time to call it righteousness. By so doing I intend no
subterfuge to beg a question; I am indeed ready, and more than
willing, to accept the rigid consequence, and lay aside, as far
as the treachery of the reason will permit, all former meanings
attached to the word righteousness. What is right is that
for which a man’s central self is ever ready to sacrifice
immediate or distant interests; what is wrong is what the central
self discards or rejects as incompatible with the fixed design of
righteousness.</p>
<p>To make this admission is to lay aside all hope of
definition. That which is right upon this theory is
intimately dictated to each man by himself, but can never be
rigorously set forth in language, and never, above all, imposed
upon another. The conscience has, then, a vision like that
of the eyes, which is incommunicable, and for the most part
illuminates none but its possessor. When many people
perceive the same or any cognate facts, they agree upon a word as
symbol; and hence we have such words as <i>tree</i>, <i>star</i>,
<i>love</i>, <i>honour</i>, or <i>death</i>; hence also we have
this word <i>right</i>, which, like the others, we all
understand, most of us understand differently, and none can
express succinctly otherwise. Yet even on the straitest
view, we can make some steps towards comprehension of our own
superior thoughts. For it is an incredible and most
bewildering fact that a man, through life, is on variable terms
with himself; he is aware of tiffs and reconciliations; the
intimacy is at times almost suspended, at times it is renewed
again with joy. As we said before, his inner self or soul
appears to him by successive revelations, and is frequently
obscured. It is from a study of these alternations that we
can alone hope to discover, even dimly, what seems right and what
seems wrong to this veiled prophet of ourself.</p>
<p>All that is in the man in the larger sense, what we call
impression as well as what we call intuition, so far as my
argument looks, we must accept. It is not wrong to desire
food, or exercise, or beautiful surroundings, or the love of sex,
or interest which is the food of the mind. All these are
craved; all these should be craved; to none of these in itself
does the soul demur; where there comes an undeniable want, we
recognise a demand of nature. Yet we know that these
natural demands may be superseded; for the demands which are
common to mankind make but a shadowy consideration in comparison
to the demands of the individual soul. Food is almost the
first prerequisite; and yet a high character will go without food
to the ruin and death of the body rather than gain it in a manner
which the spirit disavows. Pascal laid aside mathematics;
Origen doctored his body with a knife; every day some one is thus
mortifying his dearest interests and desires, and, in
Christ’s words, entering maim into the Kingdom of
Heaven. This is to supersede the lesser and less harmonious
affections by renunciation; and though by this ascetic path we
may get to heaven, we cannot get thither a whole and perfect
man. But there is another way, to supersede them by
reconciliation, in which the soul and all the faculties and
senses pursue a common route and share in one desire. Thus,
man is tormented by a very imperious physical desire; it spoils
his rest, it is not to be denied; the doctors will tell you, not
I, how it is a physical need, like the want of food or
slumber. In the satisfaction of this desire, as it first
appears, the soul sparingly takes part; nay, it oft unsparingly
regrets and disapproves the satisfaction. But let the man
learn to love a woman as far as he is capable of love; and for
this random affection of the body there is substituted a steady
determination, a consent of all his powers and faculties, which
supersedes, adopts, and commands the other. The desire
survives, strengthened, perhaps, but taught obedience and changed
in scope and character. Life is no longer a tale of
betrayals and regrets; for the man now lives as a whole; his
consciousness now moves on uninterrupted like a river; through
all the extremes and ups and downs of passion, he remains
approvingly conscious of himself.</p>
<p>Now to me, this seems a type of that rightness which the soul
demands. It demands that we shall not live alternately with
our opposing tendencies in continual see-saw of passion and
disgust, but seek some path on which the tendencies shall no
longer oppose, but serve each other to a common end. It
demands that we shall not pursue broken ends, but great and
comprehensive purposes, in which soul and body may unite like
notes in a harmonious chord. That were indeed a way of
peace and pleasure, that were indeed a heaven upon earth.
It does not demand, however, or, to speak in measure, it does not
demand of me, that I should starve my appetites for no purpose
under heaven but as a purpose in itself; or, in a weak despair,
pluck out the eye that I have not yet learned to guide and enjoy
with wisdom. The soul demands unity of purpose, not the
dismemberment of man; it seeks to roll up all his strength and
sweetness, all his passion and wisdom, into one, and make of him
a perfect man exulting in perfection. To conclude
ascetically is to give up, and not to solve, the problem.
The ascetic and the creeping hog, although they are at different
poles, have equally failed in life. The one has sacrificed
his crew; the other brings back his seamen in a cock-boat, and
has lost the ship. I believe there are not many
sea-captains who would plume themselves on either result as a
success.</p>
<p>But if it is righteousness thus to fuse together our divisive
impulses and march with one mind through life, there is plainly
one thing more unrighteous than all others, and one declension
which is irretrievable and draws on the rest. And this is
to lose consciousness of oneself. In the best of times, it
is but by flashes, when our whole nature is clear, strong and
conscious, and events conspire to leave us free, that we enjoy
communion with our soul. At the worst, we are so fallen and
passive that we may say shortly we have none. An arctic
torpor seizes upon men. Although built of nerves, and set
adrift in a stimulating world, they develop a tendency to go
bodily to sleep; consciousness becomes engrossed among the reflex
and mechanical parts of life; and soon loses both the will and
power to look higher considerations in the face. This is
ruin; this is the last failure in life; this is temporal
damnation, damnation on the spot and without the form of
judgment. ‘What shall it profit a man if he gain the
whole world and <i>lose himself</i>?’</p>
<p>It is to keep a man awake, to keep him alive to his own soul
and its fixed design of righteousness, that the better part of
moral and religious education is directed; not only that of words
and doctors, but the sharp ferule of calamity under which we are
all God’s scholars till we die. If, as teachers, we
are to say anything to the purpose, we must say what will remind
the pupil of his soul; we must speak that soul’s dialect;
we must talk of life and conduct as his soul would have him think
of them. If, from some conformity between us and the pupil,
or perhaps among all men, we do in truth speak in such a dialect
and express such views, beyond question we shall touch in him a
spring; beyond question he will recognise the dialect as one that
he himself has spoken in his better hours; beyond question he
will cry, ‘I had forgotten, but now I remember; I too have
eyes, and I had forgot to use them! I too have a soul of my
own, arrogantly upright, and to that I will listen and
conform.’ In short, say to him anything that he has
once thought, or been upon the point of thinking, or show him any
view of life that he has once clearly seen, or been upon the
point of clearly seeing; and you have done your part and may
leave him to complete the education for himself.</p>
<p>Now, the view taught at the present time seems to me to want
greatness; and the dialect in which alone it can be intelligibly
uttered is not the dialect of my soul. It is a sort of
postponement of life; nothing quite is, but something different
is to be; we are to keep our eyes upon the indirect from the
cradle to the grave. We are to regulate our conduct not by
desire, but by a politic eye upon the future; and to value acts
as they will bring us money or good opinion; as they will bring
us, in one word, <i>profit</i>. We must be what is called
respectable, and offend no one by our carriage; it will not do to
make oneself conspicuous—who knows? even in virtue? says
the Christian parent! And we must be what is called prudent
and make money; not only because it is pleasant to have money,
but because that also is a part of respectability, and we cannot
hope to be received in society without decent possessions.
Received in society! as if that were the kingdom of heaven!
There is dear Mr. So-and-so;—look at him!—so much
respected—so much looked up to—quite the Christian
merchant! And we must cut our conduct as strictly as
possible after the pattern of Mr. So-and-so; and lay our whole
lives to make money and be strictly decent. Besides these
holy injunctions, which form by far the greater part of a
youth’s training in our Christian homes, there are at least
two other doctrines. We are to live just now as well as we
can, but scrape at last into heaven, where we shall be
good. We are to worry through the week in a lay,
disreputable way, but, to make matters square, live a different
life on Sunday.</p>
<p>The train of thought we have been following gives us a key to
all these positions, without stepping aside to justify them on
their own ground. It is because we have been disgusted
fifty times with physical squalls, and fifty times torn between
conflicting impulses, that we teach people this indirect and
tactical procedure in life, and to judge by remote consequences
instead of the immediate face of things. The very desire to
act as our own souls would have us, coupled with a pathetic
disbelief in ourselves, moves us to follow the example of others;
perhaps, who knows? they may be on the right track; and the more
our patterns are in number, the better seems the chance; until,
if we be acting in concert with a whole civilised nation, there
are surely a majority of chances that we must be acting
right. And again, how true it is that we can never behave
as we wish in this tormented sphere, and can only aspire to
different and more favourable circumstances, in order to stand
out and be ourselves wholly and rightly! And yet once more,
if in the hurry and pressure of affairs and passions you tend to
nod and become drowsy, here are twenty-four hours of Sunday set
apart for you to hold counsel with your soul and look around you
on the possibilities of life.</p>
<p>This is not, of course, all that is to be, or even should be,
said for these doctrines. Only, in the course of this
chapter, the reader and I have agreed upon a few catchwords, and
been looking at morals on a certain system; it was a pity to lose
an opportunity of testing the catchwords, and seeing whether, by
this system as well as by others, current doctrines could show
any probable justification. If the doctrines had come too
badly out of the trial, it would have condemned the system.
Our sight of the world is very narrow; the mind but a pedestrian
instrument; there’s nothing new under the sun, as Solomon
says, except the man himself; and though that changes the aspect
of everything else, yet he must see the same things as other
people, only from a different side.</p>
<p>And now, having admitted so much, let us turn to
criticism.</p>
<p>If you teach a man to keep his eyes upon what others think of
him, unthinkingly to lead the life and hold the principles of the
majority of his contemporaries, you must discredit in his eyes
the one authoritative voice of his own soul. He may be a
docile citizen; he will never be a man. It is ours, on the
other hand, to disregard this babble and chattering of other men
better and worse than we are, and to walk straight before us by
what light we have. They may be right; but so, before
heaven, are we. They may know; but we know also, and by
that knowledge we must stand or fall. There is such a thing
as loyalty to a man’s own better self; and from those who
have not that, God help me, how am I to look for loyalty to
others? The most dull, the most imbecile, at a certain
moment turn round, at a certain point will hear no further
argument, but stand unflinching by their own dumb, irrational
sense of right. It is not only by steel or fire, but
through contempt and blame, that the martyr fulfils the calling
of his dear soul. Be glad if you are not tried by such
extremities. But although all the world ranged themselves
in one line to tell you ‘This is wrong,’ be you your
own faithful vassal and the ambassador of God—throw down
the glove and answer ‘This is right.’ Do you
think you are only declaring yourself? Perhaps in some dim
way, like a child who delivers a message not fully understood,
you are opening wider the straits of prejudice and preparing
mankind for some truer and more spiritual grasp of truth;
perhaps, as you stand forth for your own judgment, you are
covering a thousand weak ones with your body; perhaps, by this
declaration alone, you have avoided the guilt of false witness
against humanity and the little ones unborn. It is good, I
believe, to be respectable, but much nobler to respect oneself
and utter the voice of God. God, if there be any God,
speaks daily in a new language by the tongues of men; the
thoughts and habits of each fresh generation and each new-coined
spirit throw another light upon the universe and contain another
commentary on the printed Bibles; every scruple, every true
dissent, every glimpse of something new, is a letter of
God’s alphabet; and though there is a grave responsibility
for all who speak, is there none for those who unrighteously keep
silence and conform? Is not that also to conceal and cloak
God’s counsel? And how should we regard the man of
science who suppressed all facts that would not tally with the
orthodoxy of the hour?</p>
<p>Wrong? You are as surely wrong as the sun rose this
morning round the revolving shoulder of the world. Not
truth, but truthfulness, is the good of your endeavour. For
when will men receive that first part and prerequisite of truth,
that, by the order of things, by the greatness of the universe,
by the darkness and partiality of man’s experience, by the
inviolate secrecy of God, kept close in His most open
revelations, every man is, and to the end of the ages must be,
wrong? Wrong to the universe; wrong to mankind; wrong to
God. And yet in another sense, and that plainer and nearer,
every man of men, who wishes truly, must be right. He is
right to himself, and in the measure of his sagacity and
candour. That let him do in all sincerity and zeal, not
sparing a thought for contrary opinions; that, for what it is
worth, let him proclaim. Be not afraid; although he be
wrong, so also is the dead, stuffed Dagon he insults. For
the voice of God, whatever it is, is not that stammering, inept
tradition which the people holds. These truths survive in
travesty, swamped in a world of spiritual darkness and confusion;
and what a few comprehend and faithfully hold, the many, in their
dead jargon, repeat, degrade, and misinterpret.</p>
<p>So far of Respectability; what the Covenanters used to call
‘rank conformity’: the deadliest gag and wet blanket
that can be laid on men. And now of Profit. And this
doctrine is perhaps the more redoubtable, because it harms all
sorts of men; not only the heroic and self-reliant, but the
obedient, cowlike squadrons. A man, by this doctrine, looks
to consequences at the second, or third, or fiftieth turn.
He chooses his end, and for that, with wily turns and through a
great sea of tedium, steers this mortal bark. There may be
political wisdom in such a view; but I am persuaded there can
spring no great moral zeal. To look thus obliquely upon
life is the very recipe for moral slumber. Our intention
and endeavour should be directed, not on some vague end of money
or applause, which shall come to us by a ricochet in a month or a
year, or twenty years, but on the act itself; not on the approval
of others, but on the rightness of that act. At every
instant, at every step in life, the point has to be decided, our
soul has to be saved, heaven has to be gained or lost. At
every step our spirits must applaud, at every step we must set
down the foot and sound the trumpet. ‘This have I
done,’ we must say; ‘right or wrong, this have I
done, in unfeigned honour of intention, as to myself and
God.’ The profit of every act should be this, that it
was right for us to do it. Any other profit than that, if
it involved a kingdom or the woman I love, ought, if I were
God’s upright soldier, to leave me untempted.</p>
<p>It is the mark of what we call a righteous decision, that it
is made directly and for its own sake. The whole man, mind
and body, having come to an agreement, tyrannically dictates
conduct. There are two dispositions eternally opposed: that
in which we recognise that one thing is wrong and another right,
and that in which, not seeing any clear distinction, we fall back
on the consideration of consequences. The truth is, by the
scope of our present teaching, nothing is thought very wrong and
nothing very right, except a few actions which have the
disadvantage of being disrespectable when found out; the more
serious part of men inclining to think all things <i>rather
wrong</i>, the more jovial to suppose them <i>right enough for
practical purposes</i>. I will engage my head, they do not
find that view in their own hearts; they have taken it up in a
dark despair; they are but troubled sleepers talking in their
sleep. The soul, or my soul at least, thinks very
distinctly upon many points of right and wrong, and often differs
flatly with what is held out as the thought of corporate humanity
in the code of society or the code of law. Am I to suppose
myself a monster? I have only to read books, the Christian
Gospels for example, to think myself a monster no longer; and
instead I think the mass of people are merely speaking in their
sleep.</p>
<p>It is a commonplace, enshrined, if I mistake not, even in
school copy-books, that honour is to be sought and not
fame. I ask no other admission; we are to seek honour,
upright walking with our own conscience every hour of the day,
and not fame, the consequence, the far-off reverberation of our
footsteps. The walk, not the rumour of the walk, is what
concerns righteousness. Better disrespectable honour than
dishonourable fame. Better useless or seemingly hurtful
honour, than dishonour ruling empires and filling the mouths of
thousands. For the man must walk by what he sees, and leave
the issue with God who made him and taught him by the fortune of
his life. You would not dishonour yourself for money; which
is at least tangible; would you do it, then, for a doubtful
forecast in politics, or another person’s theory in
morals?</p>
<p>So intricate is the scheme of our affairs, that no man can
calculate the bearing of his own behaviour even on those
immediately around him, how much less upon the world at large or
on succeeding generations! To walk by external prudence and
the rule of consequences would require, not a man, but God.
All that we know to guide us in this changing labyrinth is our
soul with its fixed design of righteousness, and a few old
precepts which commend themselves to that. The precepts are
vague when we endeavour to apply them; consequences are more
entangled than a wisp of string, and their confusion is
unrestingly in change; we must hold to what we know and walk by
it. We must walk by faith, indeed, and not by
knowledge.</p>
<p>You do not love another because he is wealthy or wise or
eminently respectable: you love him because you love him; that is
love, and any other only a derision and grimace. It should
be the same with all our actions. If we were to conceive a
perfect man, it should be one who was never torn between
conflicting impulses, but who, on the absolute consent of all his
parts and faculties, submitted in every action of his life to a
self-dictation as absolute and unreasoned as that which bids him
love one woman and be true to her till death. But we should
not conceive him as sagacious, ascetical, playing off his
appetites against each other, turning the wing of public
respectable immorality instead of riding it directly down, or
advancing toward his end through a thousand sinister compromises
and considerations. The one man might be wily, might be
adroit, might be wise, might be respectable, might be gloriously
useful; it is the other man who would be good.</p>
<p>The soul asks honour and not fame; to be upright, not to be
successful; to be good, not prosperous; to be essentially, not
outwardly, respectable. Does your soul ask profit?
Does it ask money? Does it ask the approval of the
indifferent herd? I believe not. For my own part, I
want but little money, I hope; and I do not want to be decent at
all, but to be good.</p>
<h3>CHAPTER IV</h3>
<p>We have spoken of that supreme self-dictation which keeps
varying from hour to hour in its dictates with the variation of
events and circumstances. Now, for us, that is
ultimate. It may be founded on some reasonable process, but
it is not a process which we can follow or comprehend. And
moreover the dictation is not continuous, or not continuous
except in very lively and well-living natures; and between-whiles
we must brush along without it. Practice is a more
intricate and desperate business than the toughest theorising;
life is an affair of cavalry, where rapid judgment and prompt
action are alone possible and right. As a matter of fact,
there is no one so upright but he is influenced by the
world’s chatter; and no one so headlong but he requires to
consider consequences and to keep an eye on profit. For the
soul adopts all affections and appetites without exception, and
cares only to combine them for some common purpose which shall
interest all. Now, respect for the opinion of others, the
study of consequences, and the desire of power and comfort, are
all undeniably factors in the nature of man; and the more
undeniably since we find that, in our current doctrines, they
have swallowed up the others and are thought to conclude in
themselves all the worthy parts of man. These, then, must
also be suffered to affect conduct in the practical domain, much
or little according as they are forcibly or feebly present to the
mind of each.</p>
<p>Now, a man’s view of the universe is mostly a view of
the civilised society in which he lives. Other men and
women are so much more grossly and so much more intimately
palpable to his perceptions, that they stand between him and all
the rest; they are larger to his eye than the sun, he hears them
more plainly than thunder, with them, by them, and for them, he
must live and die. And hence the laws that affect his
intercourse with his fellow-men, although merely customary and
the creatures of a generation, are more clearly and continually
before his mind than those which bind him into the eternal system
of things, support him in his upright progress on this whirling
ball, or keep up the fire of his bodily life. And hence it
is that money stands in the first rank of considerations and so
powerfully affects the choice. For our society is built
with money for mortar; money is present in every joint of
circumstance; it might be named the social atmosphere, since, in
society, it is by that alone that men continue to live, and only
through that or chance that they can reach or affect one
another. Money gives us food, shelter, and privacy; it
permits us to be clean in person, opens for us the doors of the
theatre, gains us books for study or pleasure, enables us to help
the distresses of others, and puts us above necessity so that we
can choose the best in life. If we love, it enables us to
meet and live with the loved one, or even to prolong her health
and life; if we have scruples, it gives us an opportunity to be
honest; if we have any bright designs, here is what will smooth
the way to their accomplishment. Penury is the worst
slavery, and will soon lead to death.</p>
<p>But money is only a means; it presupposes a man to use
it. The rich can go where he pleases, but perhaps please
himself nowhere. He can buy a library or visit the whole
world, but perhaps has neither patience to read nor intelligence
to see. The table may be loaded and the appetite wanting;
the purse may be full, and the heart empty. He may have
gained the world and lost himself; and with all his wealth around
him, in a great house and spacious and beautiful demesne, he may
live as blank a life as any tattered ditcher. Without an
appetite, without an aspiration, void of appreciation, bankrupt
of desire and hope, there, in his great house, let him sit and
look upon his fingers. It is perhaps a more fortunate
destiny to have a taste for collecting shells than to be born a
millionaire. Although neither is to be despised, it is
always better policy to learn an interest than to make a thousand
pounds; for the money will soon be spent, or perhaps you may feel
no joy in spending it; but the interest remains imperishable and
ever new. To become a botanist, a geologist, a social
philosopher, an antiquary, or an artist, is to enlarge
one’s possessions in the universe by an incalculably higher
degree, and by a far surer sort of property, than to purchase a
farm of many acres. You had perhaps two thousand a year
before the transaction; perhaps you have two thousand five
hundred after it. That represents your gain in the one
case. But in the other, you have thrown down a barrier
which concealed significance and beauty. The blind man has
learned to see. The prisoner has opened up a window in his
cell and beholds enchanting prospects; he will never again be a
prisoner as he was; he can watch clouds and changing seasons,
ships on the river, travellers on the road, and the stars at
night; happy prisoner! his eyes have broken jail! And again
he who has learned to love an art or science has wisely laid up
riches against the day of riches; if prosperity come, he will not
enter poor into his inheritance; he will not slumber and forget
himself in the lap of money, or spend his hours in counting idle
treasures, but be up and briskly doing; he will have the true
alchemic touch, which is not that of Midas, but which transmutes
dead money into living delight and satisfaction.
<i>Être et pas avoir</i>—to be, not to
possess—that is the problem of life. To be wealthy, a
rich nature is the first requisite and money but the
second. To be of a quick and healthy blood, to share in all
honourable curiosities, to be rich in admiration and free from
envy, to rejoice greatly in the good of others, to love with such
generosity of heart that your love is still a dear possession in
absence or unkindness—these are the gifts of fortune which
money cannot buy and without which money can buy nothing.
For what can a man possess, or what can he enjoy, except
himself? If he enlarge his nature, it is then that he
enlarges his estates. If his nature be happy and valiant,
he will enjoy the universe as if it were his park and
orchard.</p>
<p>But money is not only to be spent; it has also to be
earned. It is not merely a convenience or a necessary in
social life; but it is the coin in which mankind pays his wages
to the individual man. And from this side, the question of
money has a very different scope and application. For no
man can be honest who does not work. Service for
service. If the farmer buys corn, and the labourer ploughs
and reaps, and the baker sweats in his hot bakery, plainly you
who eat must do something in your turn. It is not enough to
take off your hat, or to thank God upon your knees for the
admirable constitution of society and your own convenient
situation in its upper and more ornamental stories. Neither
is it enough to buy the loaf with a sixpence; for then you are
only changing the point of the inquiry; and you must first have
<i>bought the sixpence</i>. Service for service: how have
you bought your sixpences? A man of spirit desires
certainty in a thing of such a nature; he must see to it that
there is some reciprocity between him and mankind; that he pays
his expenditure in service; that he has not a lion’s share
in profit and a drone’s in labour; and is not a sleeping
partner and mere costly incubus on the great mercantile concern
of mankind.</p>
<p>Services differ so widely with different gifts, and some are
so inappreciable to external tests, that this is not only a
matter for the private conscience, but one which even there must
be leniently and trustfully considered. For remember how
many serve mankind who do no more than meditate; and how many are
precious to their friends for no more than a sweet and joyous
temper. To perform the function of a man of letters it is
not necessary to write; nay, it is perhaps better to be a living
book. So long as we love we serve; so long as we are loved
by others, I would almost say that we are indispensable; and no
man is useless while he has a friend. The true services of
life are inestimable in money, and are never paid. Kind
words and caresses, high and wise thoughts, humane designs,
tender behaviour to the weak and suffering, and all the charities
of man’s existence, are neither bought nor sold.</p>
<p>Yet the dearest and readiest, if not the most just, criterion
of a man’s services, is the wage that mankind pays him or,
briefly, what he earns. There at least there can be no
ambiguity. St. Paul is fully and freely entitled to his
earnings as a tentmaker, and Socrates fully and freely entitled
to his earnings as a sculptor, although the true business of each
was not only something different, but something which remained
unpaid. A man cannot forget that he is not superintended,
and serves mankind on parole. He would like, when
challenged by his own conscience, to reply: ‘I have done so
much work, and no less, with my own hands and brain, and taken so
much profit, and no more, for my own personal
delight.’ And though St. Paul, if he had possessed a
private fortune, would probably have scorned to waste his time in
making tents, yet of all sacrifices to public opinion none can be
more easily pardoned than that by which a man, already
spiritually useful to the world, should restrict the field of his
chief usefulness to perform services more apparent, and possess a
livelihood that neither stupidity nor malice could call in
question. Like all sacrifices to public opinion and mere
external decency, this would certainly be wrong; for the soul
should rest contented with its own approval and indissuadably
pursue its own calling. Yet, so grave and delicate is the
question, that a man may well hesitate before he decides it for
himself; he may well fear that he sets too high a valuation on
his own endeavours after good; he may well condescend upon a
humbler duty, where others than himself shall judge the service
and proportion the wage.</p>
<p>And yet it is to this very responsibility that the rich are
born. They can shuffle off the duty on no other; they are
their own paymasters on parole; and must pay themselves fair
wages and no more. For I suppose that in the course of
ages, and through reform and civil war and invasion, mankind was
pursuing some other and more general design than to set one or
two Englishmen of the nineteenth century beyond the reach of
needs and duties. Society was scarce put together, and
defended with so much eloquence and blood, for the convenience of
two or three millionaires and a few hundred other persons of
wealth and position. It is plain that if mankind thus acted
and suffered during all these generations, they hoped some
benefit, some ease, some wellbeing, for themselves and their
descendants; that if they supported law and order, it was to
secure fair-play for all; that if they denied themselves in the
present, they must have had some designs upon the future.
Now, a great hereditary fortune is a miracle of man’s
wisdom and mankind’s forbearance; it has not only been
amassed and handed down, it has been suffered to be amassed and
handed down; and surely in such a consideration as this, its
possessor should find only a new spur to activity and honour,
that with all this power of service he should not prove
unserviceable, and that this mass of treasure should return in
benefits upon the race. If he had twenty, or thirty, or a
hundred thousand at his banker’s, or if all Yorkshire or
all California were his to manage or to sell, he would still be
morally penniless, and have the world to begin like Whittington,
until he had found some way of serving mankind. His wage is
physically in his own hand; but, in honour, that wage must still
be earned. He is only steward on parole of what is called
his fortune. He must honourably perform his
stewardship. He must estimate his own services and allow
himself a salary in proportion, for that will be one among his
functions. And while he will then be free to spend that
salary, great or little, on his own private pleasures, the rest
of his fortune he but holds and disposes under trust for mankind;
it is not his, because he has not earned it; it cannot be his,
because his services have already been paid; but year by year it
is his to distribute, whether to help individuals whose
birthright and outfit have been swallowed up in his, or to
further public works and institutions.</p>
<p>At this rate, short of inspiration, it seems hardly possible
to be both rich and honest; and the millionaire is under a far
more continuous temptation to thieve than the labourer who gets
his shilling daily for despicable toils. Are you
surprised? It is even so. And you repeat it every
Sunday in your churches. ‘It is easier for a camel to
pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the
kingdom of God.’ I have heard this and similar texts
ingeniously explained away and brushed from the path of the
aspiring Christian by the tender Great-heart of the parish.
One excellent clergyman told us that the ‘eye of a
needle’ meant a low, Oriental postern through which camels
could not pass till they were unloaded—which is very likely
just; and then went on, bravely confounding the ‘kingdom of
God’ with heaven, the future paradise, to show that of
course no rich person could expect to carry his riches beyond the
grave—which, of course, he could not and never did.
Various greedy sinners of the congregation drank in the
comfortable doctrine with relief. It was worth the while
having come to church that Sunday morning! All was
plain. The Bible, as usual, meant nothing in particular; it
was merely an obscure and figurative school-copybook; and if a
man were only respectable, he was a man after God’s own
heart.</p>
<p>Alas! I fear not. And though this matter of a
man’s services is one for his own conscience, there are
some cases in which it is difficult to restrain the mind from
judging. Thus I shall be very easily persuaded that a man
has earned his daily bread; and if he has but a friend or two to
whom his company is delightful at heart, I am more than persuaded
at once. But it will be very hard to persuade me that any
one has earned an income of a hundred thousand. What he is
to his friends, he still would be if he were made penniless
to-morrow; for as to the courtiers of luxury and power, I will
neither consider them friends, nor indeed consider them at
all. What he does for mankind there are most likely
hundreds who would do the same, as effectually for the race and
as pleasurably to themselves, for the merest fraction of this
monstrous wage. Why it is paid, I am, therefore, unable to
conceive, and as the man pays it himself, out of funds in his
detention, I have a certain backwardness to think him honest.</p>
<p>At least, we have gained a very obvious point: that <i>what a
man spends upon himself</i>, <i>he shall have earned by services
to the race</i>. Thence flows a principle for the outset of
life, which is a little different from that taught in the present
day. I am addressing the middle and the upper classes;
those who have already been fostered and prepared for life at
some expense; those who have some choice before them, and can
pick professions; and above all, those who are what is called
independent, and need do nothing unless pushed by honour or
ambition. In this particular the poor are happy; among
them, when a lad comes to his strength, he must take the work
that offers, and can take it with an easy conscience. But
in the richer classes the question is complicated by the number
of opportunities and a variety of considerations. Here,
then, this principle of ours comes in helpfully. The young
man has to seek, not a road to wealth, but an opportunity of
service; not money, but honest work. If he has some strong
propensity, some calling of nature, some over-weening interest in
any special field of industry, inquiry, or art, he will do right
to obey the impulse; and that for two reasons: the first
external, because there he will render the best services; the
second personal, because a demand of his own nature is to him
without appeal whenever it can be satisfied with the consent of
his other faculties and appetites. If he has no such
elective taste, by the very principle on which he chooses any
pursuit at all he must choose the most honest and serviceable,
and not the most highly remunerated. We have here an
external problem, not from or to ourself, but flowing from the
constitution of society; and we have our own soul with its fixed
design of righteousness. All that can be done is to present
the problem in proper terms, and leave it to the soul of the
individual. Now, the problem to the poor is one of
necessity: to earn wherewithal to live, they must find
remunerative labour. But the problem to the rich is one of
honour: having the wherewithal, they must find serviceable
labour. Each has to earn his daily bread: the one, because
he has not yet got it to eat; the other, who has already eaten
it, because he has not yet earned it.</p>
<p>Of course, what is true of bread is true of luxuries and
comforts, whether for the body or the mind. But the
consideration of luxuries leads us to a new aspect of the whole
question, and to a second proposition no less true, and maybe no
less startling, than the last.</p>
<p>At the present day, we, of the easier classes, are in a state
of surfeit and disgrace after meat. Plethora has filled us
with indifference; and we are covered from head to foot with the
callosities of habitual opulence. Born into what is called
a certain rank, we live, as the saying is, up to our
station. We squander without enjoyment, because our fathers
squandered. We eat of the best, not from delicacy, but from
brazen habit. We do not keenly enjoy or eagerly desire the
presence of a luxury; we are unaccustomed to its absence.
And not only do we squander money from habit, but still more
pitifully waste it in ostentation. I can think of no more
melancholy disgrace for a creature who professes either reason or
pleasure for his guide, than to spend the smallest fraction of
his income upon that which he does not desire; and to keep a
carriage in which you do not wish to drive, or a butler of whom
you are afraid, is a pathetic kind of folly. Money, being a
means of happiness, should make both parties happy when it
changes hands; rightly disposed, it should be twice blessed in
its employment; and buyer and seller should alike have their
twenty shillings worth of profit out of every pound.
Benjamin Franklin went through life an altered man, because he
once paid too dearly for a penny whistle. My concern
springs usually from a deeper source, to wit, from having bought
a whistle when I did not want one. I find I regret this, or
would regret it if I gave myself the time, not only on personal
but on moral and philanthropical considerations. For,
first, in a world where money is wanting to buy books for eager
students and food and medicine for pining children, and where a
large majority are starved in their most immediate desires, it is
surely base, stupid, and cruel to squander money when I am pushed
by no appetite and enjoy no return of genuine satisfaction.
My philanthropy is wide enough in scope to include myself; and
when I have made myself happy, I have at least one good argument
that I have acted rightly; but where that is not so, and I have
bought and not enjoyed, my mouth is closed, and I conceive that I
have robbed the poor. And, second, anything I buy or use
which I do not sincerely want or cannot vividly enjoy, disturbs
the balance of supply and demand, and contributes to remove
industrious hands from the production of what is useful or
pleasurable and to keep them busy upon ropes of sand and things
that are a weariness to the flesh. That extravagance is
truly sinful, and a very silly sin to boot, in which we
impoverish mankind and ourselves. It is another question
for each man’s heart. He knows if he can enjoy what
he buys and uses; if he cannot, he is a dog in the manger; nay,
it he cannot, I contend he is a thief, for nothing really belongs
to a man which he cannot use. Proprietor is connected with
propriety; and that only is the man’s which is proper to
his wants and faculties.</p>
<p>A youth, in choosing a career, must not be alarmed by
poverty. Want is a sore thing, but poverty does not imply
want. It remains to be seen whether with half his present
income, or a third, he cannot, in the most generous sense, live
as fully as at present. He is a fool who objects to
luxuries; but he is also a fool who does not protest against the
waste of luxuries on those who do not desire and cannot enjoy
them. It remains to be seen, by each man who would live a
true life to himself and not a merely specious life to society,
how many luxuries he truly wants and to how many he merely
submits as to a social propriety; and all these last he will
immediately forswear. Let him do this, and he will be
surprised to find how little money it requires to keep him in
complete contentment and activity of mind and senses. Life
at any level among the easy classes is conceived upon a principle
of rivalry, where each man and each household must ape the tastes
and emulate the display of others. One is delicate in
eating, another in wine, a third in furniture or works of art or
dress; and I, who care nothing for any of these refinements, who
am perhaps a plain athletic creature and love exercise, beef,
beer, flannel shirts and a camp bed, am yet called upon to
assimilate all these other tastes and make these foreign
occasions of expenditure my own. It may be cynical: I am
sure I shall be told it is selfish; but I will spend my money as
I please and for my own intimate personal gratification, and
should count myself a nincompoop indeed to lay out the colour of
a halfpenny on any fancied social decency or duty. I shall
not wear gloves unless my hands are cold, or unless I am born
with a delight in them. Dress is my own affair, and that of
one other in the world; that, in fact and for an obvious reason,
of any woman who shall chance to be in love with me. I
shall lodge where I have a mind. If I do not ask society to
live with me, they must be silent; and even if I do, they have no
further right but to refuse the invitation! There is a kind
of idea abroad that a man must live up to his station, that his
house, his table, and his toilette, shall be in a ratio of
equivalence, and equally imposing to the world. If this is
in the Bible, the passage has eluded my inquiries. If it is
not in the Bible, it is nowhere but in the heart of the
fool. Throw aside this fancy. See what you want, and
spend upon that; distinguish what you do not care about, and
spend nothing upon that. There are not many people who can
differentiate wines above a certain and that not at all a high
price. Are you sure you are one of these? Are you
sure you prefer cigars at sixpence each to pipes at some fraction
of a farthing? Are you sure you wish to keep a gig?
Do you care about where you sleep, or are you not as much at your
ease in a cheap lodging as in an Elizabethan manor-house?
Do you enjoy fine clothes? It is not possible to answer
these questions without a trial; and there is nothing more
obvious to my mind, than that a man who has not experienced some
ups and downs, and been forced to live more cheaply than in his
father’s house, has still his education to begin. Let
the experiment be made, and he will find to his surprise that he
has been eating beyond his appetite up to that hour; that the
cheap lodging, the cheap tobacco, the rough country clothes, the
plain table, have not only no power to damp his spirits, but
perhaps give him as keen pleasure in the using as the dainties
that he took, betwixt sleep and waking, in his former callous and
somnambulous submission to wealth.</p>
<p>The true Bohemian, a creature lost to view under the imaginary
Bohemians of literature, is exactly described by such a principle
of life. The Bohemian of the novel, who drinks more than is
good for him and prefers anything to work, and wears strange
clothes, is for the most part a respectable Bohemian, respectable
in disrespectability, living for the outside, and an
adventurer. But the man I mean lives wholly to himself,
does what he wishes, and not what is thought proper, buys what he
wants for himself, and not what is thought proper, works at what
he believes he can do well and not what will bring him in money
or favour. You may be the most respectable of men, and yet
a true Bohemian. And the test is this: a Bohemian, for as
poor as he may be, is always open-handed to his friends; he knows
what he can do with money and how he can do without it, a far
rarer and more useful knowledge; he has had less, and continued
to live in some contentment; and hence he cares not to keep more,
and shares his sovereign or his shilling with a friend. The
poor, if they are generous, are Bohemian in virtue of their
birth. Do you know where beggars go? Not to the great
houses where people sit dazed among their thousands, but to the
doors of poor men who have seen the world; and it was the widow
who had only two mites, who cast half her fortune into the
treasury.</p>
<p>But a young man who elects to save on dress or on lodging, or
who in any way falls out of the level of expenditure which is
common to his level in society, falls out of society
altogether. I suppose the young man to have chosen his
career on honourable principles; he finds his talents and
instincts can be best contented in a certain pursuit; in a
certain industry, he is sure that he is serving mankind with a
healthy and becoming service; and he is not sure that he would be
doing so, or doing so equally well, in any other industry within
his reach. Then that is his true sphere in life; not the
one in which he was born to his father, but the one which is
proper to his talents and instincts. And suppose he does
fall out of society, is that a cause of sorrow? Is your
heart so dead that you prefer the recognition of many to the love
of a few? Do you think society loves you? Put it to
the proof. Decline in material expenditure, and you will
find they care no more for you than for the Khan of
Tartary. You will lose no friends. If you had any,
you will keep them. Only those who were friends to your
coat and equipage will disappear; the smiling faces will
disappear as by enchantment; but the kind hearts will remain
steadfastly kind. Are you so lost, are you so dead, are you
so little sure of your own soul and your own footing upon solid
fact, that you prefer before goodness and happiness the
countenance of sundry diners-out, who will flee from you at a
report of ruin, who will drop you with insult at a shadow of
disgrace, who do not know you and do not care to know you but by
sight, and whom you in your turn neither know nor care to know in
a more human manner? Is it not the principle of society,
openly avowed, that friendship must not interfere with business;
which being paraphrased, means simply that a consideration of
money goes before any consideration of affection known to this
cold-blooded gang, that they have not even the honour of thieves,
and will rook their nearest and dearest as readily as a
stranger? I hope I would go as far as most to serve a
friend; but I declare openly I would not put on my hat to do a
pleasure to society. I may starve my appetites and control
my temper for the sake of those I love; but society shall take me
as I choose to be, or go without me. Neither they nor I
will lose; for where there is no love, it is both laborious and
unprofitable to associate.</p>
<p>But it is obvious that if it is only right for a man to spend
money on that which he can truly and thoroughly enjoy, the
doctrine applies with equal force to the rich and to the poor, to
the man who has amassed many thousands as well as to the youth
precariously beginning life. And it may be asked, Is not
this merely preparing misers, who are not the best of
company? But the principle was this: that which a man has
not fairly earned, and, further, that which he cannot fully
enjoy, does not belong to him, but is a part of mankind’s
treasure which he holds as steward on parole. To mankind,
then, it must be made profitable; and how this should be done is,
once more, a problem which each man must solve for himself, and
about which none has a right to judge him. Yet there are a
few considerations which are very obvious and may here be
stated. Mankind is not only the whole in general, but every
one in particular. Every man or woman is one of
mankind’s dear possessions; to his or her just brain, and
kind heart, and active hands, mankind intrusts some of its hopes
for the future; he or she is a possible well-spring of good acts
and source of blessings to the race. This money which you
do not need, which, in a rigid sense, you do not want, may
therefore be returned not only in public benefactions to the
race, but in private kindnesses. Your wife, your children,
your friends stand nearest to you, and should be helped the
first. There at least there can be little imposture, for
you know their necessities of your own knowledge. And
consider, if all the world did as you did, and according to their
means extended help in the circle of their affections, there
would be no more crying want in times of plenty and no more cold,
mechanical charity given with a doubt and received with
confusion. Would not this simple rule make a new world out
of the old and cruel one which we inhabit?</p>
<div class="gapspace"> </div>
<p style="text-align: center">[<i>After two more sentences the
fragment breaks off</i>.]</p>
<h2>FATHER DAMIEN<br />
AN OPEN LETTER TO THE REVEREND DR. HYDE OF HONOLULU</h2>
<p style="text-align: right"><span
class="smcap">Sydney</span>,<br />
<i>February</i> 25, 1890.</p>
<p>Sir,—It may probably occur to you that we have met, and
visited, and conversed; on my side, with interest. You may
remember that you have done me several courtesies, for which I
was prepared to be grateful. But there are duties which
come before gratitude, and offences which justly divide friends,
far more acquaintances. Your letter to the Reverend H. B.
Gage is a document which, in my sight, if you had filled me with
bread when I was starving, if you had sat up to nurse my father
when he lay a-dying, would yet absolve me from the bonds of
gratitude. You know enough, doubtless, of the process of
canonisation to be aware that, a hundred years after the death of
Damien, there will appear a man charged with the painful office
of the <i>devil’s advocate</i>. After that noble
brother of mine, and of all frail clay, shall have lain a century
at rest, one shall accuse, one defend him. The circumstance
is unusual that the devil’s advocate should be a volunteer,
should be a member of a sect immediately rival, and should make
haste to take upon himself his ugly office ere the bones are
cold; unusual, and of a taste which I shall leave my readers free
to qualify; unusual, and to me inspiring. If I have at all
learned the trade of using words to convey truth and to arouse
emotion, you have at last furnished me with a subject. For
it is in the interest of all mankind, and the cause of public
decency in every quarter of the world, not only that Damien
should be righted, but that you and your letter should be
displayed at length, in their true colours, to the public
eye.</p>
<p>To do this properly, I must begin by quoting you at large: I
shall then proceed to criticise your utterance from several
points of view, divine and human, in the course of which I shall
attempt to draw again, and with more specification, the character
of the dead saint whom it has pleased you to vilify: so much
being done, I shall say farewell to you for ever.</p>
<blockquote><p style="text-align: right">‘<span
class="smcap">Honolulu</span>,<br />
‘<i>August</i> 2, 1889.</p>
<p>‘Rev. <span class="smcap">H. B. Gage</span>.</p>
<p>‘Dear Brother,—In answer to your inquiries about
Father Damien, I can only reply that we who knew the man are
surprised at the extravagant newspaper laudations, as if he was a
most saintly philanthropist. The simple truth is, he was a
coarse, dirty man, head-strong and bigoted. He was not sent
to Molokai, but went there without orders; did not stay at the
leper settlement (before he became one himself), but circulated
freely over the whole island (less than half the island is
devoted to the lepers), and he came often to Honolulu. He
had no hand in the reforms and improvements inaugurated, which
were the work of our Board of Health, as occasion required and
means were provided. He was not a pure man in his relations
with women, and the leprosy of which he died should be attributed
to his vices and carelessness. Others have done much for
the lepers, our own ministers, the government physicians, and so
forth, but never with the Catholic idea of meriting eternal
life.—Yours, etc.,</p>
<p style="text-align: right">‘<span class="smcap">C. M.
Hyde</span>.’ <a name="citation65"></a><a
href="#footnote65" class="citation">[65]</a></p>
</blockquote>
<p>To deal fitly with a letter so extraordinary, I must draw at
the outset on my private knowledge of the signatory and his
sect. It may offend others; scarcely you, who have been so
busy to collect, so bold to publish, gossip on your rivals.
And this is perhaps the moment when I may best explain to you the
character of what you are to read: I conceive you as a man quite
beyond and below the reticences of civility: with what measure
you mete, with that shall it be measured you again; with you, at
last, I rejoice to feel the button off the foil and to plunge
home. And if in aught that I shall say I should offend
others, your colleagues, whom I respect and remember with
affection, I can but offer them my regret; I am not free, I am
inspired by the consideration of interests far more large; and
such pain as can be inflicted by anything from me must be indeed
trifling when compared with the pain with which they read your
letter. It is not the hangman, but the criminal, that
brings dishonour on the house.</p>
<p>You belong, sir, to a sect—I believe my sect, and that
in which my ancestors laboured—which has enjoyed, and
partly failed to utilise, an exceptional advantage in the islands
of Hawaii. The first missionaries came; they found the land
already self-purged of its old and bloody faith; they were
embraced, almost on their arrival, with enthusiasm; what troubles
they supported came far more from whites than from Hawaiians; and
to these last they stood (in a rough figure) in the shoes of
God. This is not the place to enter into the degree or
causes of their failure, such as it is. One element alone
is pertinent, and must here be plainly dealt with. In the
course of their evangelical calling, they—or too many of
them—grew rich. It may be news to you that the houses
of missionaries are a cause of mocking on the streets of
Honolulu. It will at least be news to you, that when I
returned your civil visit, the driver of my cab commented on the
size, the taste, and the comfort of your home. It would
have been news certainly to myself, had any one told me that
afternoon that I should live to drag such matter into
print. But you see, sir, how you degrade better men to your
own level; and it is needful that those who are to judge betwixt
you and me, betwixt Damien and the devil’s advocate, should
understand your letter to have been penned in a house which could
raise, and that very justly, the envy and the comments of the
passers-by. I think (to employ a phrase of yours which I
admire) it ‘should be attributed’ to you that you
have never visited the scene of Damien’s life and
death. If you had, and had recalled it, and looked about
your pleasant rooms, even your pen perhaps would have been
stayed.</p>
<p>Your sect (and remember, as far as any sect avows me, it is
mine) has not done ill in a worldly sense in the Hawaiian
Kingdom. When calamity befell their innocent parishioners,
when leprosy descended and took root in the Eight Islands, a
<i>quid pro quo</i> was to be looked for. To that
prosperous mission, and to you, as one of its adornments, God had
sent at last an opportunity. I know I am touching here upon
a nerve acutely sensitive. I know that others of your
colleagues look back on the inertia of your Church, and the
intrusive and decisive heroism of Damien, with something almost
to be called remorse. I am sure it is so with yourself; I
am persuaded your letter was inspired by a certain envy, not
essentially ignoble, and the one human trait to be espied in that
performance. You were thinking of the lost chance, the past
day; of that which should have been conceived and was not; of the
service due and not rendered. Time was, said the voice in
your ear, in your pleasant room, as you sat raging and writing;
and if the words written were base beyond parallel, the rage, I
am happy to repeat—it is the only compliment I shall pay
you—the rage was almost virtuous. But, sir, when we
have failed, and another has succeeded; when we have stood by,
and another has stepped in; when we sit and grow bulky in our
charming mansions, and a plain, uncouth peasant steps into the
battle, under the eyes of God, and succours the afflicted, and
consoles the dying, and is himself afflicted in his turn, and
dies upon the field of honour—the battle cannot be
retrieved as your unhappy irritation has suggested. It is a
lost battle, and lost for ever. One thing remained to you
in your defeat—some rags of common honour; and these you
have made haste to cast away.</p>
<p>Common honour; not the honour of having done anything right,
but the honour of not having done aught conspicuously foul; the
honour of the inert: that was what remained to you. We are
not all expected to be Damiens; a man may conceive his duty more
narrowly, he may love his comforts better; and none will cast a
stone at him for that. But will a gentleman of your
reverend profession allow me an example from the fields of
gallantry? When two gentlemen compete for the favour of a
lady, and the one succeeds and the other is rejected, and (as
will sometimes happen) matter damaging to the successful
rival’s credit reaches the ear of the defeated, it is held
by plain men of no pretensions that his mouth is, in the
circumstance, almost necessarily closed. Your Church and
Damien’s were in Hawaii upon a rivalry to do well: to help,
to edify, to set divine examples. You having (in one huge
instance) failed, and Damien succeeded, I marvel it should not
have occurred to you that you were doomed to silence; that when
you had been outstripped in that high rivalry, and sat inglorious
in the midst of your wellbeing, in your pleasant room—and
Damien, crowned with glories and horrors, toiled and rotted in
that pigsty of his under the cliffs of Kalawao—you, the
elect who would not, were the last man on earth to collect and
propagate gossip on the volunteer who would and did.</p>
<p>I think I see you—for I try to see you in the flesh as I
write these sentences—I think I see you leap at the word
pigsty, a hyperbolical expression at the best. ‘He
had no hand in the reforms,’ he was ‘a coarse, dirty
man’; these were your own words; and you may think it
possible that I am come to support you with fresh evidence.
In a sense, it is even so. Damien has been too much
depicted with a conventional halo and conventional features; so
drawn by men who perhaps had not the eye to remark or the pen to
express the individual; or who perhaps were only blinded and
silenced by generous admiration, such as I partly envy for
myself—such as you, if your soul were enlightened, would
envy on your bended knees. It is the least defect of such a
method of portraiture that it makes the path easy for the
devil’s advocate, and leaves for the misuse of the
slanderer a considerable field of truth. For the truth that
is suppressed by friends is the readiest weapon of the
enemy. The world, in your despite, may perhaps owe you
something, if your letter be the means of substituting once for
all a credible likeness for a wax abstraction. For, if that
world at all remember you, on the day when Damien of Molokai
shall be named Saint, it will be in virtue of one work: your
letter to the Reverend H. B. Gage.</p>
<p>You may ask on what authority I speak. It was my
inclement destiny to become acquainted, not with Damien, but with
Dr. Hyde. When I visited the lazaretto, Damien was already
in his resting grave. But such information as I have, I
gathered on the spot in conversation with those who knew him well
and long: some indeed who revered his memory; but others who had
sparred and wrangled with him, who beheld him with no halo, who
perhaps regarded him with small respect, and through whose
unprepared and scarcely partial communications the plain, human
features of the man shone on me convincingly. These gave me
what knowledge I possess; and I learnt it in that scene where it
could be most completely and sensitively
understood—Kalawao, which you have never visited, about
which you have never so much as endeavoured to inform yourself;
for, brief as your letter is, you have found the means to stumble
into that confession. ‘<i>Less than one-half</i> of
the island,’ you say, ‘is devoted to the
lepers.’ Molokai—‘<i>Molokai
ahina</i>,’ the ‘grey,’ lofty, and most
desolate island—along all its northern side plunges a front
of precipice into a sea of unusual profundity. This range
of cliff is, from east to west, the true end and frontier of the
island. Only in one spot there projects into the ocean a
certain triangular and rugged down, grassy, stony, windy, and
rising in the midst into a hill with a dead crater: the whole
bearing to the cliff that overhangs it somewhat the same relation
as a bracket to a wall. With this hint you will now be able
to pick out the leper station on a map; you will be able to judge
how much of Molokai is thus cut off between the surf and
precipice, whether less than a half, or less than a quarter, or a
fifth, or a tenth—or, say, a twentieth; and the next time
you burst into print you will be in a position to share with us
the issue of your calculations.</p>
<p>I imagine you to be one of those persons who talk with
cheerfulness of that place which oxen and wain-ropes could not
drag you to behold. You, who do not even know its situation
on the map, probably denounce sensational descriptions,
stretching your limbs the while in your pleasant parlour on
Beretania Street. When I was pulled ashore there one early
morning, there sat with me in the boat two sisters, bidding
farewell (in humble imitation of Damien) to the lights and joys
of human life. One of these wept silently; I could not
withhold myself from joining her. Had you been there, it is
my belief that nature would have triumphed even in you; and as
the boat drew but a little nearer, and you beheld the stairs
crowded with abominable deformations of our common manhood, and
saw yourself landing in the midst of such a population as only
now and then surrounds us in the horror of a nightmare—what
a haggard eye you would have rolled over your reluctant shoulder
towards the house on Beretania Street! Had you gone on; had
you found every fourth face a blot upon the landscape; had you
visited the hospital and seen the butt-ends of human beings lying
there almost unrecognisable, but still breathing, still thinking,
still remembering; you would have understood that life in the
lazaretto is an ordeal from which the nerves of a man’s
spirit shrink, even as his eye quails under the brightness of the
sun; you would have felt it was (even to-day) a pitiful place to
visit and a hell to dwell in. It is not the fear of
possible infection. That seems a little thing when compared
with the pain, the pity, and the disgust of the visitor’s
surroundings, and the atmosphere of affliction, disease, and
physical disgrace in which he breathes. I do not think I am
a man more than usually timid; but I never recall the days and
nights I spent upon that island promontory (eight days and seven
nights), without heartfelt thankfulness that I am somewhere
else. I find in my diary that I speak of my stay as a
‘grinding experience’: I have once jotted in the
margin, ‘<i>Harrowing</i> is the word’; and when the
<i>Mokolii</i> bore me at last towards the outer world, I kept
repeating to myself, with a new conception of their pregnancy,
those simple words of the song—</p>
<blockquote><p>‘’Tis the most distressful country
that ever yet was seen.’</p>
</blockquote>
<p>And observe: that which I saw and suffered from was a
settlement purged, bettered, beautified; the new village built,
the hospital and the Bishop-Home excellently arranged; the
sisters, the doctor, and the missionaries, all indefatigable in
their noble tasks. It was a different place when Damien
came there and made his great renunciation, and slept that first
night under a tree amidst his rotting brethren: alone with
pestilence; and looking forward (with what courage, with what
pitiful sinkings of dread, God only knows) to a lifetime of
dressing sores and stumps.</p>
<p>You will say, perhaps, I am too sensitive, that sights as
painful abound in cancer hospitals and are confronted daily by
doctors and nurses. I have long learned to admire and envy
the doctors and the nurses. But there is no cancer hospital
so large and populous as Kalawao and Kalaupapa; and in such a
matter every fresh case, like every inch of length in the pipe of
an organ, deepens the note of the impression; for what daunts the
onlooker is that monstrous sum of human suffering by which he
stands surrounded. Lastly, no doctor or nurse is called
upon to enter once for all the doors of that gehenna; they do not
say farewell, they need not abandon hope, on its sad threshold;
they but go for a time to their high calling, and can look
forward as they go to relief, to recreation, and to rest.
But Damien shut-to with his own hand the doors of his own
sepulchre.</p>
<p>I shall now extract three passages from my diary at
Kalawao.</p>
<p><i>A</i>. ‘Damien is dead and already somewhat
ungratefully remembered in the field of his labours and
sufferings. “He was a good man, but very
officious,” says one. Another tells me he had fallen
(as other priests so easily do) into something of the ways and
habits of thought of a Kanaka; but he had the wit to recognise
the fact, and the good sense to laugh at’ [over]
‘it. A plain man it seems he was; I cannot find he
was a popular.’</p>
<p><i>B</i>. ‘After Ragsdale’s death’
[Ragsdale was a famous Luna, or overseer, of the unruly
settlement] ‘there followed a brief term of office by
Father Damien which served only to publish the weakness of that
noble man. He was rough in his ways, and he had no
control. Authority was relaxed; Damien’s life was
threatened, and he was soon eager to resign.’</p>
<p><i>C</i>. ‘Of Damien I begin to have an
idea. He seems to have been a man of the peasant class,
certainly of the peasant type: shrewd, ignorant and bigoted, yet
with an open mind, and capable of receiving and digesting a
reproof if it were bluntly administered; superbly generous in the
least thing as well as in the greatest, and as ready to give his
last shirt (although not without human grumbling) as he had been
to sacrifice his life; essentially indiscreet and officious,
which made him a troublesome colleague; domineering in all his
ways, which made him incurably unpopular with the Kanakas, but
yet destitute of real authority, so that his boys laughed at him
and he must carry out his wishes by the means of bribes. He
learned to have a mania for doctoring; and set up the Kanakas
against the remedies of his regular rivals: perhaps (if anything
matter at all in the treatment of such a disease) the worst thing
that he did, and certainly the easiest. The best and worst
of the man appear very plainly in his dealings with Mr.
Chapman’s money; he had originally laid it out’
[intended to lay it out] ‘entirely for the benefit of
Catholics, and even so not wisely; but after a long, plain talk,
he admitted his error fully and revised the list. The sad
state of the boys’ home is in part the result of his lack
of control; in part, of his own slovenly ways and false ideas of
hygiene. Brother officials used to call it
“Damien’s Chinatown.” “Well,”
they would say, “your China-town keeps
growing.” And he would laugh with perfect
good-nature, and adhere to his errors with perfect
obstinacy. So much I have gathered of truth about this
plain, noble human brother and father of ours; his imperfections
are the traits of his face, by which we know him for our fellow;
his martyrdom and his example nothing can lessen or annul; and
only a person here on the spot can properly appreciate their
greatness.’</p>
<p>I have set down these private passages, as you perceive,
without correction; thanks to you, the public has them in their
bluntness. They are almost a list of the man’s
faults, for it is rather these that I was seeking: with his
virtues, with the heroic profile of his life, I and the world
were already sufficiently acquainted. I was besides a
little suspicious of Catholic testimony; in no ill sense, but
merely because Damien’s admirers and disciples were the
least likely to be critical. I know you will be more
suspicious still; and the facts set down above were one and all
collected from the lips of Protestants who had opposed the father
in his life. Yet I am strangely deceived, or they build up
the image of a man, with all his weaknesses, essentially heroic,
and alive with rugged honesty, generosity, and mirth.</p>
<p>Take it for what it is, rough private jottings of the worst
sides of Damien’s character, collected from the lips of
those who had laboured with and (in your own phrase) ‘knew
the man’;—though I question whether Damien would have
said that he knew you. Take it, and observe with wonder how
well you were served by your gossips, how ill by your
intelligence and sympathy; in how many points of fact we are at
one, and how widely our appreciations vary. There is
something wrong here; either with you or me. It is
possible, for instance, that you, who seem to have so many ears
in Kalawao, had heard of the affair of Mr. Chapman’s money,
and were singly struck by Damien’s intended
wrong-doing. I was struck with that also, and set it fairly
down; but I was struck much more by the fact that he had the
honesty of mind to be convinced. I may here tell you that
it was a long business; that one of his colleagues sat with him
late into the night, multiplying arguments and accusations; that
the father listened as usual with ‘perfect good-nature and
perfect obstinacy’; but at the last, when he was
persuaded—‘Yes,’ said he, ‘I am very much
obliged to you; you have done me a service; it would have been a
theft.’ There are many (not Catholics merely) who
require their heroes and saints to be infallible; to these the
story will be painful; not to the true lovers, patrons, and
servants of mankind.</p>
<p>And I take it, this is a type of our division; that you are
one of those who have an eye for faults and failures; that you
take a pleasure to find and publish them; and that, having found
them, you make haste to forget the overvailing virtues and the
real success which had alone introduced them to your
knowledge. It is a dangerous frame of mind. That you
may understand how dangerous, and into what a situation it has
already brought you, we will (if you please) go hand-in-hand
through the different phrases of your letter, and candidly
examine each from the point of view of its truth, its
appositeness, and its charity.</p>
<p>Damien was <i>coarse</i>.</p>
<p>It is very possible. You make us sorry for the lepers,
who had only a coarse old peasant for their friend and
father. But you, who were so refined, why were you not
there, to cheer them with the lights of culture? Or may I
remind you that we have some reason to doubt if John the Baptist
were genteel; and in the case of Peter, on whose career you
doubtless dwell approvingly in the pulpit, no doubt at all he was
a ‘coarse, headstrong’ fisherman! Yet even in
our Protestant Bibles Peter is called Saint.</p>
<p>Damien was <i>dirty</i>.</p>
<p>He was. Think of the poor lepers annoyed with this dirty
comrade! But the clean Dr. Hyde was at his food in a fine
house.</p>
<p>Damien was <i>headstrong</i>.</p>
<p>I believe you are right again; and I thank God for his strong
head and heart.</p>
<p>Damien was <i>bigoted</i>.</p>
<p>I am not fond of bigots myself, because they are not fond of
me. But what is meant by bigotry, that we should regard it
as a blemish in a priest? Damien believed his own religion
with the simplicity of a peasant or a child; as I would I could
suppose that you do. For this, I wonder at him some way
off; and had that been his only character, should have avoided
him in life. But the point of interest in Damien, which has
caused him to be so much talked about and made him at last the
subject of your pen and mine, was that, in him, his bigotry, his
intense and narrow faith, wrought potently for good, and
strengthened him to be one of the world’s heroes and
exemplars.</p>
<p>Damien <i>was not sent to Molokai</i>, <i>but went there
without orders</i>.</p>
<p>Is this a misreading? or do you really mean the words for
blame? I have heard Christ, in the pulpits of our Church,
held up for imitation on the ground that His sacrifice was
voluntary. Does Dr. Hyde think otherwise?</p>
<p>Damien <i>did not stay at the settlement</i>, <i>etc.</i></p>
<p>It is true he was allowed many indulgences. Am I to
understand that you blame the father for profiting by these, or
the officers for granting them? In either case, it is a
mighty Spartan standard to issue from the house on Beretania
Street; and I am convinced you will find yourself with few
supporters.</p>
<p>Damien <i>had no hand in the reforms</i>, <i>etc.</i></p>
<p>I think even you will admit that I have already been frank in
my description of the man I am defending; but before I take you
up upon this head, I will be franker still, and tell you that
perhaps nowhere in the world can a man taste a more pleasurable
sense of contrast than when he passes from Damien’s
‘Chinatown’ at Kalawao to the beautiful Bishop-Home
at Kalaupapa. At this point, in my desire to make all fair
for you, I will break my rule and adduce Catholic
testimony. Here is a passage from my diary about my visit
to the Chinatown, from which you will see how it is (even now)
regarded by its own officials: ‘We went round all the
dormitories, refectories, etc.—dark and dingy enough, with
a superficial cleanliness, which he’ [Mr. Dutton, the
lay-brother] ‘did not seek to defend. “It is
almost decent,” said he; “the sisters will make that
all right when we get them here.”’ And yet I
gathered it was already better since Damien was dead, and far
better than when he was there alone and had his own (not always
excellent) way. I have now come far enough to meet you on a
common ground of fact; and I tell you that, to a mind not
prejudiced by jealousy, all the reforms of the lazaretto, and
even those which he most vigorously opposed, are properly the
work of Damien. They are the evidence of his success; they
are what his heroism provoked from the reluctant and the
careless. Many were before him in the field; Mr. Meyer, for
instance, of whose faithful work we hear too little: there have
been many since; and some had more worldly wisdom, though none
had more devotion, than our saint. Before his day, even you
will confess, they had effected little. It was his part, by
one striking act of martyrdom, to direct all men’s eyes on
that distressful country. At a blow, and with the price of
his life, he made the place illustrious and public. And
that, if you will consider largely, was the one reform needful;
pregnant of all that should succeed. It brought money; it
brought (best individual addition of them all) the sisters; it
brought supervision, for public opinion and public interest
landed with the man at Kalawao. If ever any man brought
reforms, and died to bring them, it was he. There is not a
clean cup or towel in the Bishop-Home, but dirty Damien washed
it.</p>
<p>Damien <i>was not a pure man in his relations with women</i>,
<i>etc.</i></p>
<p>How do you know that? Is this the nature of the
conversation in that house on Beretania Street which the cabman
envied, driving past?—racy details of the misconduct of the
poor peasant priest, toiling under the cliffs of Molokai?</p>
<p>Many have visited the station before me; they seem not to have
heard the rumour. When I was there I heard many shocking
tales, for my informants were men speaking with the plainness of
the laity; and I heard plenty of complaints of Damien. Why
was this never mentioned? and how came it to you in the
retirement of your clerical parlour?</p>
<p>But I must not even seem to deceive you. This scandal,
when I read it in your letter, was not new to me. I had
heard it once before; and I must tell you how. There came
to Samoa a man from Honolulu; he, in a public-house on the beach,
volunteered the statement that Damien had ‘contracted the
disease from having connection with the female lepers’; and
I find a joy in telling you how the report was welcomed in a
public-house. A man sprang to his feet; I am not at liberty
to give his name, but from what I heard I doubt if you would care
to have him to dinner in Beretania Street. ‘You
miserable little—’ (here is a word I dare not print,
it would so shock your ears). ‘You miserable
little—,’ he cried, ‘if the story were a
thousand times true, can’t you see you are a million times
a lower—for daring to repeat it?’ I wish it
could be told of you that when the report reached you in your
house, perhaps after family worship, you had found in your soul
enough holy anger to receive it with the same expressions; ay,
even with that one which I dare not print; it would not need to
have been blotted away, like Uncle Toby’s oath, by the
tears of the recording angel; it would have been counted to you
for your brightest righteousness. But you have deliberately
chosen the part of the man from Honolulu, and you have played it
with improvements of your own. The man from
Honolulu—miserable, leering creature—communicated the
tale to a rude knot of beach-combing drinkers in a public-house,
where (I will so far agree with your temperance opinions) man is
not always at his noblest; and the man from Honolulu had himself
been drinking—drinking, we may charitably fancy, to
excess. It was to your ‘Dear Brother, the Reverend H.
B. Gage,’ that you chose to communicate the sickening
story; and the blue ribbon which adorns your portly bosom forbids
me to allow you the extenuating plea that you were drunk when it
was done. Your ‘dear brother’—a brother
indeed—made haste to deliver up your letter (as a means of
grace, perhaps) to the religious papers; where, after many
months, I found and read and wondered at it; and whence I have
now reproduced it for the wonder of others. And you and
your dear brother have, by this cycle of operations, built up a
contrast very edifying to examine in detail. The man whom
you would not care to have to dinner, on the one side; on the
other, the Reverend Dr. Hyde and the Reverend H. B. Gage: the
Apia bar-room, the Honolulu manse.</p>
<p>But I fear you scarce appreciate how you appear to your
fellow-men; and to bring it home to you, I will suppose your
story to be true. I will suppose—and God forgive me
for supposing it—that Damien faltered and stumbled in his
narrow path of duty; I will suppose that, in the horror of his
isolation, perhaps in the fever of incipient disease, he, who was
doing so much more than he had sworn, failed in the letter of his
priestly oath—he, who was so much a better man than either
you or me, who did what we have never dreamed of daring—he
too tasted of our common frailty. ‘O, Iago, the pity
of it!’ The least tender should be moved to tears;
the most incredulous to prayer. And all that you could do
was to pen your letter to the Reverend H. B. Gage!</p>
<p>Is it growing at all clear to you what a picture you have
drawn of your own heart? I will try yet once again to make
it clearer. You had a father: suppose this tale were about
him, and some informant brought it to you, proof in hand: I am
not making too high an estimate of your emotional nature when I
suppose you would regret the circumstance? that you would feel
the tale of frailty the more keenly since it shamed the author of
your days? and that the last thing you would do would be to
publish it in the religious press? Well, the man who tried
to do what Damien did, is my father, and the father of the man in
the Apia bar, and the father of all who love goodness; and he was
your father too, if God had given you grace to see it.</p>
<h2>THE PENTLAND RISING<br />
<span class="smcap">a page of history</span><br />
1666</h2>
<blockquote><p>‘A cloud of witnesses lyes here,<br />
Who for Christ’s interest did appear.’</p>
</blockquote>
<p style="text-align: right"><i>Inscription on Battlefield at
Rullion Green</i>.</p>
<h3>CHAPTER I—THE CAUSES OF THE REVOLT</h3>
<blockquote><p>‘Halt, passenger; take heed what thou dost
see,<br />
This tomb doth show for what some men did die.’</p>
</blockquote>
<p style="text-align: right"><i>Monument</i>,
<i>Greyfriars’ Churchyard</i>,<i> Edinburgh</i>,<br />
1661–1668. <a name="citation85"></a><a href="#footnote85"
class="citation">[85]</a></p>
<p>Two hundred years ago a tragedy was enacted in Scotland, the
memory whereof has been in great measure lost or obscured by the
deep tragedies which followed it. It is, as it were, the
evening of the night of persecution—a sort of twilight,
dark indeed to us, but light as the noonday when compared with
the midnight gloom which followed. This fact, of its being
the very threshold of persecution, lends it, however, an
additional interest.</p>
<p>The prejudices of the people against Episcopacy were
‘out of measure increased,’ says Bishop Burnet,
‘by the new incumbents who were put in the places of the
ejected preachers, and were generally very mean and despicable in
all respects. They were the worst preachers I ever heard;
they were ignorant to a reproach; and many of them were openly
vicious. They . . . were indeed the dreg and refuse of the
northern parts. Those of them who arose above contempt or
scandal were men of such violent tempers that they were as much
hated as the others were despised.’ <a
name="citation86"></a><a href="#footnote86"
class="citation">[86]</a> It was little to be wondered at,
from this account that the country-folk refused to go to the
parish church, and chose rather to listen to outed ministers in
the fields. But this was not to be allowed, and their
persecutors at last fell on the method of calling a roll of the
parishioners’ names every Sabbath, and marking a fine of
twenty shillings Scots to the name of each absenter. In
this way very large debts were incurred by persons altogether
unable to pay. Besides this, landlords were fined for their
tenants’ absences, tenants for their landlords’,
masters for their servants’, servants for their
masters’, even though they themselves were perfectly
regular in their attendance. And as the curates were
allowed to fine with the sanction of any common soldier, it may
be imagined that often the pretexts were neither very sufficient
nor well proven.</p>
<p>When the fines could not be paid at once, Bibles, clothes, and
household utensils were seized upon, or a number of soldiers,
proportionate to his wealth, were quartered on the
offender. The coarse and drunken privates filled the houses
with woe; snatched the bread from the children to feed their
dogs; shocked the principles, scorned the scruples, and
blasphemed the religion of their humble hosts; and when they had
reduced them to destitution, sold the furniture, and burned down
the roof-tree which was consecrated to the peasants by the name
of Home. For all this attention each of these soldiers
received from his unwilling landlord a certain sum of money per
day—three shillings sterling, according to
<i>Naphtali</i>. And frequently they were forced to pay
quartering money for more men than were in reality ‘cessed
on them.’ At that time it was no strange thing to
behold a strong man begging for money to pay his fines, and many
others who were deep in arrears, or who had attracted attention
in some other way, were forced to flee from their homes, and take
refuge from arrest and imprisonment among the wild mosses of the
uplands. <a name="citation87a"></a><a href="#footnote87a"
class="citation">[87a]</a></p>
<p>One example in particular we may cite:</p>
<p>John Neilson, the Laird of Corsack, a worthy man, was,
unfortunately for himself, a Nonconformist. First he was
fined in four hundred pounds Scots, and then through cessing he
lost nineteen hundred and ninety-three pounds Scots. He was
next obliged to leave his house and flee from place to place,
during which wanderings he lost his horse. His wife and
children were turned out of doors, and then his tenants were
fined till they too were almost ruined. As a final stroke,
they drove away all his cattle to Glasgow and sold them. <a
name="citation87b"></a><a href="#footnote87b"
class="citation">[87b]</a> Surely it was time that
something were done to alleviate so much sorrow, to overthrow
such tyranny.</p>
<p>About this time too there arrived in Galloway a person calling
himself Captain Andrew Gray, and advising the people to
revolt. He displayed some documents purporting to be from
the northern Covenanters, and stating that they were prepared to
join in any enterprise commenced by their southern
brethren. The leader of the persecutors was Sir James
Turner, an officer afterwards degraded for his share in the
matter. ‘He was naturally fierce, but was mad when he
was drunk, and that was very often,’ said Bishop
Burnet. ‘He was a learned man, but had always been in
armies, and knew no other rule but to obey orders. He told
me he had no regard to any law, but acted, as he was commanded,
in a military way.’ <a name="citation88"></a><a
href="#footnote88" class="citation">[88]</a></p>
<p>This was the state of matters, when an outrage was committed
which gave spirit and determination to the oppressed countrymen,
lit the flame of insubordination, and for the time at least
recoiled on those who perpetrated it with redoubled force.</p>
<h3>CHAPTER II—THE BEGINNING</h3>
<blockquote><p>I love no warres,<br />
I love no jarres,<br />
Nor strife’s fire.<br />
May discord cease,<br />
Let’s live in peace:<br />
This I desire.</p>
<p>If it must be<br />
Warre we must see<br />
(So fates conspire),<br />
May we not feel<br />
The force of steel:<br />
This I desire.</p>
</blockquote>
<p style="text-align: right"><span class="smcap">T.
Jackson</span>, 1651 <a name="citation89"></a><a
href="#footnote89" class="citation">[89]</a></p>
<p>Upon Tuesday, November 13th, 1666, Corporal George Deanes and
three other soldiers set upon an old man in the clachan of Dalry
and demanded the payment of his fines. On the old
man’s refusing to pay, they forced a large party of his
neighbours to go with them and thresh his corn. The field
was a certain distance out of the clachan, and four persons,
disguised as countrymen, who had been out on the moors all night,
met this mournful drove of slaves, compelled by the four soldiers
to work for the ruin of their friend. However, chided to
the bone by their night on the hills, and worn out by want of
food, they proceeded to the village inn to refresh
themselves. Suddenly some people rushed into the room where
they were sitting, and told them that the soldiers were about to
roast the old man, naked, on his own girdle. This was too
much for them to stand, and they repaired immediately to the
scene of this gross outrage, and at first merely requested that
the captive should be released. On the refusal of the two
soldiers who were in the front room, high words were given and
taken on both sides, and the other two rushed forth from an
adjoining chamber and made at the countrymen with drawn
swords. One of the latter, John M‘Lellan of Barscob,
drew a pistol and shot the corporal in the body. The pieces
of tobacco-pipe with which it was loaded, to the number of ten at
least, entered him, and he was so much disturbed that he never
appears to have recovered, for we find long afterwards a petition
to the Privy Council requesting a pension for him. The
other soldiers then laid down their arms, the old man was
rescued, and the rebellion was commenced. <a
name="citation90"></a><a href="#footnote90"
class="citation">[90]</a></p>
<p>And now we must turn to Sir James Turner’s memoirs of
himself; for, strange to say, this extraordinary man was
remarkably fond of literary composition, and wrote, besides the
amusing account of his own adventures just mentioned, a large
number of essays and short biographies, and a work on war,
entitled <i>Pallas Armata</i>. The following are some of
the shorter pieces ‘Magick,’
‘Friendship,’ ‘Imprisonment,’
‘Anger,’ ‘Revenge,’ ‘Duells,’
‘Cruelty,’ ‘A Defence of some of the Ceremonies
of the English Liturgie—to wit—Bowing at the Name of
Jesus, The frequent repetition of the Lord’s Prayer and
Good Lord deliver us, Of the Doxologie, Of Surplesses, Rotchets,
Canonnicall Coats,’ etc. From what we know of his
character we should expect ‘Anger’ and
‘Cruelty’ to be very full and instructive. But
what earthly right he had to meddle with ecclesiastical subjects
it is hard to see.</p>
<p>Upon the 12th of the month he had received some information
concerning Gray’s proceedings, but as it was excessively
indefinite in its character, he paid no attention to it. On
the evening of the 14th, Corporal Deanes was brought into
Dumfries, who affirmed stoutly that he had been shot while
refusing to sign the Covenant—a story rendered singularly
unlikely by the after conduct of the rebels. Sir James
instantly dispatched orders to the cessed soldiers either to come
to Dumfries or meet him on the way to Dalry, and commanded the
thirteen or fourteen men in the town with him to come at nine
next morning to his lodging for supplies.</p>
<p>On the morning of Thursday the rebels arrived at Dumfries with
50 horse and 150 foot. Neilson of Corsack, and Gray, who
commanded, with a considerable troop, entered the town, and
surrounded Sir James Turner’s lodging. Though it was
between eight and nine o’clock, that worthy, being unwell,
was still in bed, but rose at once and went to the window.</p>
<p>Neilson and some others cried, ‘You may have fair
quarter.’</p>
<p>‘I need no quarter,’ replied Sir James; ‘nor
can I be a prisoner, seeing there is no war
declared.’ On being told, however, that he must
either be a prisoner or die, he came down, and went into the
street in his night-shirt. Here Gray showed himself very
desirous of killing him, but he was overruled by Corsack.
However, he was taken away a prisoner, Captain Gray mounting him
on his own horse, though, as Turner naively remarks, ‘there
was good reason for it, for he mounted himself on a farre better
one of mine.’ A large coffer containing his clothes
and money, together with all his papers, were taken away by the
rebels. They robbed Master Chalmers, the Episcopalian
minister of Dumfries, of his horse, drank the King’s health
at the market cross, and then left Dumfries. <a
name="citation92"></a><a href="#footnote92"
class="citation">[92]</a></p>
<h3>CHAPTER III—THE MARCH OF THE REBELS</h3>
<blockquote><p>‘Stay, passenger, take notice what thou
reads,<br />
At Edinburgh lie our bodies, here our heads;<br />
Our right hands stood at Lanark, these we want,<br />
Because with them we signed the Covenant.’</p>
</blockquote>
<p style="text-align: right"><i>Epitaph on a Tombstone at
Hamilton</i>. <a name="citation93"></a><a href="#footnote93"
class="citation">[93]</a></p>
<p>On Friday the 16th, Bailie Irvine of Dumfries came to the
Council at Edinburgh, and gave information concerning this
‘horrid rebellion.’ In the absence of Rothes,
Sharpe presided—much to the wrath of some members; and as
he imagined his own safety endangered, his measures were most
energetic. Dalzell was ordered away to the West, the guards
round the city were doubled, officers and soldiers were forced to
take the oath of allegiance, and all lodgers were commanded to
give in their names. Sharpe, surrounded with all these
guards and precautions, trembled—trembled as he trembled
when the avengers of blood drew him from his chariot on Magus
Muir,—for he knew how he had sold his trust, how he had
betrayed his charge, and he felt that against him must their
chiefest hatred be directed, against him their direst
thunder-bolts be forged. But even in his fear the apostate
Presbyterian was unrelenting, unpityingly harsh; he published in
his manifesto no promise of pardon, no inducement to
submission. He said, ‘If you submit not you must
die,’ but never added, ‘If you submit you may
live!’ <a name="citation94a"></a><a href="#footnote94a"
class="citation">[94a]</a></p>
<p>Meantime the insurgents proceeded on their way. At
Carsphairn they were deserted by Captain Gray, who, doubtless in
a fit of oblivion, neglected to leave behind him the coffer
containing Sir James’s money. Who he was is a
mystery, unsolved by any historian; his papers were evidently
forgeries—that, and his final flight, appear to indicate
that he was an agent of the Royalists, for either the King or the
Duke of York was heard to say, ‘That, if he might have his
wish, he would have them all turn rebels and go to arms.’
<a name="citation94b"></a><a href="#footnote94b"
class="citation">[94b]</a></p>
<p>Upon the 18th day of the month they left Carsphairn and
marched onwards.</p>
<p>Turner was always lodged by his captors at a good inn,
frequently at the best of which their halting-place could
boast. Here many visits were paid to him by the ministers
and officers of the insurgent force. In his description of
these interviews he displays a vein of satiric severity,
admitting any kindness that was done to him with some qualifying
souvenir of former harshness, and gloating over any injury,
mistake, or folly, which it was his chance to suffer or to
hear. He appears, notwithstanding all this, to have been on
pretty good terms with his cruel ‘phanaticks,’ as the
following extract sufficiently proves:</p>
<p>‘Most of the foot were lodged about the church or
churchyard, and order given to ring bells next morning for a
sermon to be preached by Mr. Welch. Maxwell of Morith, and
Major M‘Cullough invited me to heare “that phanatick
sermon” (for soe they merrilie called it). They said
that preaching might prove an effectual meane to turne me, which
they heartilie wished. I answered to them that I was under
guards, and that if they intended to heare that sermon, it was
probable I might likewise, for it was not like my guards wold goe
to church and leave me alone at my lodgeings. Bot to what
they said of my conversion, I said it wold be hard to turne a
Turner. Bot because I founde them in a merrie humour, I
said, if I did not come to heare Mr. Welch preach, then they
might fine me in fortie shillings Scots, which was double the
suome of what I had exacted from the phanatics.’ <a
name="citation95"></a><a href="#footnote95"
class="citation">[95]</a></p>
<p>This took place at Ochiltree, on the 22nd day of the
month. The following is recounted by this personage with
malicious glee, and certainly, if authentic, it is a sad proof of
how chaff is mixed with wheat, and how ignorant, almost impious,
persons were engaged in this movement; nevertheless we give it,
for we wish to present with impartiality all the alleged facts to
the reader:</p>
<p>‘Towards the evening Mr. Robinsone and Mr. Crukshank
gaue me a visite; I called for some ale purposelie to heare one
of them blesse it. It fell Mr. Robinsone to seeke the
blessing, who said one of the most bombastick graces that ever I
heard in my life. He summoned God Allmightie very
imperiouslie to be their secondarie (for that was his
language). “And if,” said he, “thou wilt
not be our Secondarie, we will not fight for thee at all, for it
is not our cause bot thy cause; and if thou wilt not fight for
our cause and thy oune cause, then we are not obliged to fight
for it. They say,” said he, “that Dukes,
Earles, and Lords are coming with the King’s General
against us, bot they shall be nothing bot a threshing to
us.” This grace did more fullie satisfie me of the
folly and injustice of their cause, then the ale did quench my
thirst.’ <a name="citation96a"></a><a href="#footnote96a"
class="citation">[96a]</a></p>
<p>Frequently the rebels made a halt near some roadside alehouse,
or in some convenient park, where Colonel Wallace, who had now
taken the command, would review the horse and foot, during which
time Turner was sent either into the alehouse or round the
shoulder of the hill, to prevent him from seeing the disorders
which were likely to arise. He was, at last, on the 25th
day of the month, between Douglas and Lanark, permitted to behold
their evolutions. ‘I found their horse did consist of
four hundreth and fortie, and the foot of five hundreth and
upwards. . . . The horsemen were armed for most part with suord
and pistoll, some onlie with suord. The foot with musket,
pike, sith (scythe), forke, and suord; and some with suords great
and long.’ He admired much the proficiency of their
cavalry, and marvelled how they had attained to it in so short a
time. <a name="citation96b"></a><a href="#footnote96b"
class="citation">[96b]</a></p>
<p>At Douglas, which they had just left on the morning of this
great wapinshaw, they were charged—awful picture of
depravity!—with the theft of a silver spoon and a
nightgown. Could it be expected that while the whole
country swarmed with robbers of every description, such a rare
opportunity for plunder should be lost by rogues—that among
a thousand men, even though fighting for religion, there should
not be one Achan in the camp? At Lanark a declaration was
drawn up and signed by the chief rebels. In it occurs the
following:</p>
<p>‘The just sense whereof ’—the sufferings of
the country—‘made us choose, rather to betake
ourselves to the fields for self-defence, than to stay at home,
burdened daily with the calamities of others, and tortured with
the fears of our own approaching misery.’ <a
name="citation97"></a><a href="#footnote97"
class="citation">[97]</a></p>
<p>The whole body, too, swore the Covenant, to which ceremony the
epitaph at the head of this chapter seems to refer.</p>
<p>A report that Dalzell was approaching drove them from Lanark
to Bathgate, where, on the evening of Monday the 26th, the
wearied army stopped. But at twelve o’clock the cry,
which served them for a trumpet, of ‘Horse! horse!’
and ‘Mount the prisoner!’ resounded through the
night-shrouded town, and called the peasants from their
well-earned rest to toil onwards in their march. The wind
howled fiercely over the moorland; a close, thick, wetting rain
descended. Chilled to the bone, worn out with long fatigue,
sinking to the knees in mire, onward they marched to
destruction. One by one the weary peasants fell off from
their ranks to sleep, and die in the rain-soaked moor, or to seek
some house by the wayside wherein to hide till daybreak.
One by one at first, then in gradually increasing numbers, at
every shelter that was seen, whole troops left the waning
squadrons, and rushed to hide themselves from the ferocity of the
tempest. To right and left nought could be descried but the
broad expanse of the moor, and the figures of their
fellow-rebels, seen dimly through the murky night, plodding
onwards through the sinking moss. Those who kept
together—a miserable few—often halted to rest
themselves, and to allow their lagging comrades to overtake
them. Then onward they went again, still hoping for
assistance, reinforcement, and supplies; onward again, through
the wind, and the rain, and the darkness—onward to their
defeat at Pentland, and their scaffold at Edinburgh. It was
calculated that they lost one half of their army on that
disastrous night-march.</p>
<p>Next night they reached the village of Colinton, four miles
from Edinburgh, where they halted for the last time. <a
name="citation98"></a><a href="#footnote98"
class="citation">[98]</a></p>
<h3>CHAPTER IV—RULLION GREEN</h3>
<blockquote><p>‘From Covenanters with uplifted hands,<br />
From Remonstrators with associate bands,<br />
Good Lord,
deliver us!’</p>
</blockquote>
<p style="text-align: right"><i>Royalist Rhyme</i>, <span
class="smcap">Kirkton</span>, p. 127.</p>
<p>Late on the fourth night of November, exactly twenty-four days
before Rullion Green, Richard and George Chaplain, merchants in
Haddington, beheld four men, clad like West-country Whigamores,
standing round some object on the ground. It was at the
two-mile cross, and within that distance from their homes.
At last, to their horror, they discovered that the recumbent
figure was a livid corpse, swathed in a blood-stained
winding-sheet. <a name="citation99"></a><a href="#footnote99"
class="citation">[99]</a> Many thought that this apparition
was a portent of the deaths connected with the Pentland
Rising.</p>
<p>On the morning of Wednesday, the 28th of November 1666, they
left Colinton and marched to Rullion Green. There they
arrived about sunset. The position was a strong one.
On the summit of a bare, heathery spur of the Pentlands are two
hillocks, and between them lies a narrow band of flat marshy
ground. On the highest of the two mounds—that nearest
the Pentlands, and on the left hand of the main body—was
the greater part of the cavalry, under Major Learmont; on the
other Barscob and the Galloway gentlemen; and in the centre
Colonel Wallace and the weak, half-armed infantry. Their
position was further strengthened by the depth of the valley
below, and the deep chasm-like course of the Rullion Burn.</p>
<p>The sun, going down behind the Pentlands, cast golden lights
and blue shadows on their snow-clad summits, slanted obliquely
into the rich plain before them, bathing with rosy splendour the
leafless, snow-sprinkled trees, and fading gradually into shadow
in the distance. To the south, too, they beheld a
deep-shaded amphitheatre of heather and bracken; the course of
the Esk, near Penicuik, winding about at the foot of its gorge;
the broad, brown expanse of Maw Moss; and, fading into blue
indistinctness in the south, the wild heath-clad Peeblesshire
hills. In sooth, that scene was fair, and many a yearning
glance was cast over that peaceful evening scene from the spot
where the rebels awaited their defeat; and when the fight was
over, many a noble fellow lifted his head from the blood-stained
heather to strive with darkening eyeballs to behold that
landscape, over which, as over his life and his cause, the
shadows of night and of gloom were falling and thickening.</p>
<p>It was while waiting on this spot that the fear-inspiring cry
was raised: ‘The enemy! Here come the
enemy!’</p>
<p>Unwilling to believe their own doom—for our insurgents
still hoped for success in some negotiations for peace which had
been carried on at Colinton—they called out, ‘They
are some of our own.’</p>
<p>‘They are too blacke’ (<i>i.e.</i> numerous),
‘fie! fie! for ground to draw up on,’ cried Wallace,
fully realising the want of space for his men, and proving that
it was not till after this time that his forces were finally
arranged. <a name="citation101a"></a><a href="#footnote101a"
class="citation">[101a]</a></p>
<p>First of all the battle was commenced by fifty Royalist horse
sent obliquely across the hill to attack the left wing of the
rebels. An equal number of Learmont’s men met them,
and, after a struggle, drove them back. The course of the
Rullion Burn prevented almost all pursuit, and Wallace, on
perceiving it, dispatched a body of foot to occupy both the burn
and some ruined sheep-walls on the farther side.</p>
<p>Dalzell changed his position, and drew up his army at the foot
of the hill, on the top of which were his foes. He then
dispatched a mingled body of infantry and cavalry to attack
Wallace’s outpost, but they also were driven back. A
third charge produced a still more disastrous effect, for Dalzell
had to check the pursuit of his men by a reinforcement.</p>
<p>These repeated checks bred a panic in the
Lieutenant-General’s ranks, for several of his men flung
down their arms. Urged by such fatal symptoms, and by the
approaching night, he deployed his men, and closed in
overwhelming numbers on the centre and right flank of the
insurgent army. In the increasing twilight the burning
matches of the firelocks, shimmering on barrel, halbert, and
cuirass, lent to the approaching army a picturesque effect, like
a huge, many-armed giant breathing flame into the darkness.</p>
<p>Placed on an overhanging hill, Welch and Semple cried aloud,
‘The God of Jacob! The God of Jacob!’ and prayed with
uplifted hands for victory. <a name="citation101b"></a><a
href="#footnote101b" class="citation">[101b]</a></p>
<p>But still the Royalist troops closed in.</p>
<p>Captain John Paton was observed by Dalzell, who determined to
capture him with his own hands. Accordingly he charged
forward, presenting his pistols. Paton fired, but the balls
hopped off Dalzell’s buff coat and fell into his
boot. With the superstition peculiar to his age, the
Nonconformist concluded that his adversary was rendered
bullet-proof by enchantment, and, pulling some small silver coins
from his pocket, charged his pistol therewith. Dalzell,
seeing this, and supposing, it is likely, that Paton was putting
in larger balls, hid behind his servant, who was killed. <a
name="citation102"></a><a href="#footnote102"
class="citation">[102]</a></p>
<p>Meantime the outposts were forced, and the army of Wallace was
enveloped in the embrace of a hideous
boa-constrictor—tightening, closing, crushing every
semblance of life from the victim enclosed in his toils.
The flanking parties of horse were forced in upon the centre, and
though, as even Turner grants, they fought with desperation, a
general flight was the result.</p>
<p>But when they fell there was none to sing their coronach or
wail the death-wail over them. Those who sacrificed
themselves for the peace, the liberty, and the religion of their
fellow-countrymen, lay bleaching in the field of death for long,
and when at last they were buried by charity, the peasants dug up
their bodies, desecrated their graves, and cast them once more
upon the open heath for the sorry value of their
winding-sheets!</p>
<p><i>Inscription on stone at Rullion Green</i>:</p>
<blockquote><p style="text-align: center"><span
class="smcap">here</span><br />
<span class="smcap">and near to</span><br />
<span class="smcap">this place lyes the</span><br />
<span class="smcap">reverend mr john crookshank</span><br />
<span class="smcap">and mr andrew mccormick</span><br />
<span class="smcap">ministers of the gospel and</span><br />
<span class="smcap">about fifty other true covenanted</span><br
/>
<span class="smcap">presbyterians who were</span><br />
<span class="smcap">killed in this place in their own</span><br
/>
<span class="smcap">inocent self defence and deffence</span><br
/>
<span class="smcap">of the covenanted</span><br />
<span class="smcap">work of reformation by</span><br />
<span class="smcap">thomas dalzeel of bins</span><br />
<span class="smcap">upon the 28 of november</span><br />
1666. <span class="smcap">rev.</span> 12. 11. <span
class="smcap">erected</span><br />
<span class="smcap">sept.</span> 28 1738.</p>
</blockquote>
<p style="text-align: center"><i>Back of stone</i>:</p>
<blockquote><p>A Cloud of Witnesses lyes here,<br />
Who for Christ’s Interest did appear,<br />
For to restore true Liberty,<br />
O’erturnèd then by tyranny.<br />
And by proud Prelats who did Rage<br />
Against the Lord’s Own heritage.<br />
They sacrificed were for the laws<br />
Of Christ their king, his noble cause.<br />
These heroes fought with great renown;<br />
By falling got the Martyr’s crown. <a
name="citation103"></a><a href="#footnote103"
class="citation">[103]</a></p>
</blockquote>
<h3>CHAPTER V—A RECORD OF BLOOD</h3>
<blockquote><p>‘They cut his hands ere he was dead,<br />
And after that struck of his head.<br />
His blood under the altar cries<br />
For vengeance on Christ’s enemies.’</p>
</blockquote>
<p style="text-align: right"><i>Epitaph on Tomb at Longcross of
Clermont</i>. <a name="citation104"></a><a href="#footnote104"
class="citation">[104]</a></p>
<p>Master Andrew Murray, an outed minister, residing in the
Potterrow, on the morning after the defeat, heard the sounds of
cheering and the march of many feet beneath his window. He
gazed out. With colours flying, and with music sounding,
Dalzell, victorious, entered Edinburgh. But his banners
were dyed in blood, and a band of prisoners were marched within
his ranks. The old man knew it all. That martial and
triumphant strain was the death-knell of his friends and of their
cause, the rust-hued spots upon the flags were the tokens of
their courage and their death, and the prisoners were the
miserable remnant spared from death in battle to die upon the
scaffold. Poor old man! he had outlived all joy. Had
he lived longer he would have seen increasing torment and
increasing woe; he would have seen the clouds, then but gathering
in mist, cast a more than midnight darkness over his native
hills, and have fallen a victim to those bloody persecutions
which, later, sent their red memorials to the sea by many a
burn. By a merciful Providence all this was spared to
him—he fell beneath the first blow; and ere four days had
passed since Rullion Green, the aged minister of God was gathered
to is fathers. <a name="citation105a"></a><a href="#footnote105a"
class="citation">[105a]</a></p>
<p>When Sharpe first heard of the rebellion, he applied to Sir
Alexander Ramsay, the Provost, for soldiers to guard his
house. Disliking their occupation, the soldiers gave him an
ugly time of it. All the night through they kept up a
continuous series of ‘alarms and incursions,’
‘cries of “Stand!” “Give
fire!”’ etc., which forced the prelate to flee to the
Castle in the morning, hoping there to find the rest which was
denied him at home. <a name="citation105b"></a><a
href="#footnote105b" class="citation">[105b]</a> Now,
however, when all danger to himself was past, Sharpe came out in
his true colours, and scant was the justice likely to be shown to
the foes of Scottish Episcopacy when the Primate was by.
The prisoners were lodged in Haddo’s Hole, a part of St.
Giles’ Cathedral, where, by the kindness of Bishop Wishart,
to his credit be it spoken, they were amply supplied with food.
<a name="citation105c"></a><a href="#footnote105c"
class="citation">[105c]</a></p>
<p>Some people urged, in the Council, that the promise of quarter
which had been given on the field of battle should protect the
lives of the miserable men. Sir John Gilmoure, the greatest
lawyer, gave no opinion—certainly a suggestive
circumstance—but Lord Lee declared that this would not
interfere with their legal trial, ‘so to bloody executions
they went.’ <a name="citation105d"></a><a
href="#footnote105d" class="citation">[105d]</a> To the
number of thirty they were condemned and executed; while two of
them, Hugh M‘Kail, a young minister, and Neilson of
Corsack, were tortured with the boots.</p>
<p>The goods of those who perished were confiscated, and their
bodies were dismembered and distributed to different parts of the
country; ‘the heads of Major M‘Culloch and the two
Gordons,’ it was resolved, says Kirkton, ‘should be
pitched on the gate of Kirkcudbright; the two Hamiltons and
Strong’s head should be affixed at Hamilton, and Captain
Arnot’s sett on the Watter Gate at Edinburgh. The
armes of all the ten, because they hade with uplifted hands
renewed the Covenant at Lanark, were sent to the people of that
town to expiate that crime, by placing these arms on the top of
the prison.’ <a name="citation106"></a><a
href="#footnote106" class="citation">[106]</a> Among these
was John Neilson, the Laird of Corsack, who saved Turner’s
life at Dumfries; in return for which service Sir James
attempted, though without success, to get the poor man
reprieved. One of the condemned died of his wounds between
the day of condemnation and the day of execution.
‘None of them,’ says Kirkton, ‘would save their
life by taking the declaration and renouncing the Covenant,
though it was offered to them. . . . But never men died in
Scotland so much lamented by the people, not only spectators, but
those in the country. When Knockbreck and his brother were
turned over, they clasped each other in their armes, and so
endured the pangs of death. When Humphrey Colquhoun died,
he spoke not like an ordinary citizen, but like a heavenly
minister, relating his comfortable Christian experiences, and
called for his Bible, and laid it on his wounded arm, and read
John iii. 8, and spoke upon it to the admiration of all.
But most of all, when Mr. M‘Kail died, there was such a
lamentation as was never known in Scotland before; not one dry
cheek upon all the street, or in all the numberless windows in
the mercate place.’ <a name="citation107a"></a><a
href="#footnote107a" class="citation">[107a]</a></p>
<p>The following passage from this speech speaks for itself and
its author:</p>
<p>‘Hereafter I will not talk with flesh and blood, nor
think on the world’s consolations. Farewell to all my
friends, whose company hath been refreshful to me in my
pilgrimage. I have done with the light of the sun and the
moon; welcome eternal light, eternal life, everlasting love,
everlasting praise, everlasting glory. Praise to Him that
sits upon the throne, and to the Lamb for ever! Bless the
Lord, O my soul, that hath pardoned all my iniquities in the
blood of His Son, and healed all my diseases. Bless Him, O
all ye His angels that excel in strength, ye ministers of His
that do His pleasure. Bless the Lord, O my soul!’ <a
name="citation107b"></a><a href="#footnote107b"
class="citation">[107b]</a></p>
<p>After having ascended the gallows ladder he again broke forth
in the following words of touching eloquence: ‘And now I
leave off to speak any more to creatures, and begin my
intercourse with God, which shall never be broken off.
Farewell father and mother, friends and relations! Farewell
the world and all delights! Farewell meat and drink!
Farewell sun, moon, and stars!—Welcome God and
Father! Welcome sweet Jesus Christ, the Mediator of the new
covenant! Welcome blessed Spirit of grace and God of all
consolation! Welcome glory! Welcome eternal
life! Welcome Death!’ <a name="citation107c"></a><a
href="#footnote107c" class="citation">[107c]</a></p>
<p>At Glasgow, too, where some were executed, they caused the
soldiers to beat the drums and blow the trumpets on their closing
ears. Hideous refinement of revenge! Even the last
words which drop from the lips of a dying man—words surely
the most sincere and the most unbiassed which mortal mouth can
utter—even these were looked upon as poisoned and as
poisonous. ‘Drown their last accents,’ was the
cry, ‘lest they should lead the crowd to take their part,
or at the least to mourn their doom!’ <a
name="citation108a"></a><a href="#footnote108a"
class="citation">[108a]</a> But, after all, perhaps it was
more merciful than one would think—unintentionally so, of
course; perhaps the storm of harsh and fiercely jubilant noises,
the clanging of trumpets, the rattling of drums, and the hootings
and jeerings of an unfeeling mob, which were the last they heard
on earth, might, when the mortal fight was over, when the river
of death was passed, add tenfold sweetness to the hymning of the
angels, tenfold peacefulness to the shores which they had
reached.</p>
<p>Not content with the cruelty of these executions, some even of
the peasantry, though these were confined to the shire of
Mid-Lothian, pursued, captured, plundered, and murdered the
miserable fugitives who fell in their way. One strange
story have we of these times of blood and persecution: Kirkton
the historian and popular tradition tell us alike of a flame
which often would arise from the grave, in a moss near Carnwath,
of some of those poor rebels: of how it crept along the ground;
of how it covered the house of their murderer; and of how it
scared him with its lurid glare.</p>
<p>Hear Daniel Defoe: <a name="citation108b"></a><a
href="#footnote108b" class="citation">[108b]</a></p>
<blockquote><p>‘If the poor people were by these
insupportable violences made desperate, and driven to all the
extremities of a wild despair, who can justly reflect on them
when they read in the Word of God “That oppression makes a
wise man mad”? And therefore were there no other
original of the insurrection known by the name of the Rising of
Pentland, it was nothing but what the intolerable oppressions of
those times might have justified to all the world, nature having
dictated to all people a right of defence when illegally and
arbitrarily attacked in a manner not justifiable either by laws
of nature, the laws of God, or the laws of the
country.’</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Bear this remonstrance of Defoe’s in mind, and though it
is the fashion of the day to jeer and to mock, to execrate and to
contemn, the noble band of Covenanters—though the bitter
laugh at their old-world religious views, the curl of the lip at
their merits, and the chilling silence on their bravery and their
determination, are but too rife through all society—be
charitable to what was evil and honest to what was good about the
Pentland insurgents, who fought for life and liberty, for country
and religion, on the 28th of November 1666, now just two hundred
years ago.</p>
<div class="gapspace"> </div>
<p><span class="smcap">Edinburgh</span>, 28<i>th November</i>
1866.</p>
<h2>THE DAY AFTER TO-MORROW</h2>
<p>History is much decried; it is a tissue of errors, we are
told, no doubt correctly; and rival historians expose each
other’s blunders with gratification. Yet the worst
historian has a clearer view of the period he studies than the
best of us can hope to form of that in which we live. The
obscurest epoch is to-day; and that for a thousand reasons of
inchoate tendency, conflicting report, and sheer mass and
multiplicity of experience; but chiefly, perhaps, by reason of an
insidious shifting of landmarks. Parties and ideas
continually move, but not by measurable marches on a stable
course; the political soil itself steals forth by imperceptible
degrees, like a travelling glacier, carrying on its bosom not
only political parties but their flag-posts and cantonments; so
that what appears to be an eternal city founded on hills is but a
flying island of Laputa. It is for this reason in
particular that we are all becoming Socialists without knowing
it; by which I would not in the least refer to the acute case of
Mr. Hyndman and his horn-blowing supporters, sounding their
trumps of a Sunday within the walls of our individualist
Jericho—but to the stealthy change that has come over the
spirit of Englishmen and English legislation. A little
while ago, and we were still for liberty; ‘crowd a few more
thousands on the bench of Government,’ we seemed to cry;
‘keep her head direct on liberty, and we cannot help but
come to port.’ This is over; <i>laisser faire</i>
declines in favour; our legislation grows authoritative, grows
philanthropical, bristles with new duties and new penalties, and
casts a spawn of inspectors, who now begin, note-book in hand, to
darken the face of England. It may be right or wrong, we
are not trying that; but one thing it is beyond doubt: it is
Socialism in action, and the strange thing is that we scarcely
know it.</p>
<p>Liberty has served us a long while, and it may be time to seek
new altars. Like all other principles, she has been proved
to be self-exclusive in the long run. She has taken wages
besides (like all other virtues) and dutifully served Mammon; so
that many things we were accustomed to admire as the benefits of
freedom and common to all were truly benefits of wealth, and took
their value from our neighbours’ poverty. A few
shocks of logic, a few disclosures (in the journalistic phrase)
of what the freedom of manufacturers, landlords, or shipowners
may imply for operatives, tenants, or seamen, and we not
unnaturally begin to turn to that other pole of hope, beneficent
tyranny. Freedom, to be desirable, involves kindness,
wisdom, and all the virtues of the free; but the free man as we
have seen him in action has been, as of yore, only the master of
many helots; and the slaves are still ill-fed, ill-clad,
ill-taught, ill-housed, insolently treated, and driven to their
mines and workshops by the lash of famine. So much, in
other men’s affairs, we have begun to see clearly; we have
begun to despair of virtue in these other men, and from our seat
in Parliament begin to discharge upon them, thick as arrows, the
host of our inspectors. The landlord has long shaken his
head over the manufacturer; those who do business on land have
lost all trust in the virtues of the shipowner; the professions
look askance upon the retail traders and have even started their
co-operative stores to ruin them; and from out the smoke-wreaths
of Birmingham a finger has begun to write upon the wall the
condemnation of the landlord. Thus, piece by piece, do we
condemn each other, and yet not perceive the conclusion, that our
whole estate is somewhat damnable. Thus, piece by piece,
each acting against his neighbour, each sawing away the branch on
which some other interest is seated, do we apply in detail our
Socialistic remedies, and yet not perceive that we are all
labouring together to bring in Socialism at large. A
tendency so stupid and so selfish is like to prove invincible;
and if Socialism be at all a practicable rule of life, there is
every chance that our grand-children will see the day and taste
the pleasures of existence in something far liker an ant-heap
than any previous human polity. And this not in the least
because of the voice of Mr. Hyndman or the horns of his
followers; but by the mere glacier movement of the political
soil, bearing forward on its bosom, apparently undisturbed, the
proud camps of Whig and Tory. If Mr. Hyndman were a man of
keen humour, which is far from my conception of his character, he
might rest from his troubling and look on: the walls of Jericho
begin already to crumble and dissolve. That great servile
war, the Armageddon of money and numbers, to which we looked
forward when young, becomes more and more unlikely; and we may
rather look to see a peaceable and blindfold evolution, the work
of dull men immersed in political tactics and dead to political
results.</p>
<p>The principal scene of this comedy lies, of course, in the
House of Commons; it is there, besides, that the details of this
new evolution (if it proceed) will fall to be decided; so that
the state of Parliament is not only diagnostic of the present but
fatefully prophetic of the future. Well, we all know what
Parliament is, and we are all ashamed of it. We may pardon
it some faults, indeed, on the ground of Irish
obstruction—a bitter trial, which it supports with notable
good humour. But the excuse is merely local; it cannot
apply to similar bodies in America and France; and what are we to
say of these? President Cleveland’s letter may serve
as a picture of the one; a glance at almost any paper will
convince us of the weakness of the other. Decay appears to
have seized on the organ of popular government in every land; and
this just at the moment when we begin to bring to it, as to an
oracle of justice, the whole skein of our private affairs to be
unravelled, and ask it, like a new Messiah, to take upon itself
our frailties and play for us the part that should be played by
our own virtues. For that, in few words, is the case.
We cannot trust ourselves to behave with decency; we cannot trust
our consciences; and the remedy proposed is to elect a round
number of our neighbours, pretty much at random, and say to
these: ‘Be ye our conscience; make laws so wise, and
continue from year to year to administer them so wisely, that
they shall save us from ourselves and make us righteous and
happy, world without end. Amen.’ And who can
look twice at the British Parliament and then seriously bring it
such a task? I am not advancing this as an argument against
Socialism: once again, nothing is further from my mind.
There are great truths in Socialism, or no one, not even Mr.
Hyndman, would be found to hold it; and if it came, and did
one-tenth part of what it offers, I for one should make it
welcome. But if it is to come, we may as well have some
notion of what it will be like; and the first thing to grasp is
that our new polity will be designed and administered (to put it
courteously) with something short of inspiration. It will
be made, or will grow, in a human parliament; and the one thing
that will not very hugely change is human nature. The
Anarchists think otherwise, from which it is only plain that they
have not carried to the study of history the lamp of human
sympathy.</p>
<p>Given, then, our new polity, with its new waggon-load of laws,
what headmarks must we look for in the life? We chafe a
good deal at that excellent thing, the income-tax, because it
brings into our affairs the prying fingers, and exposes us to the
tart words, of the official. The official, in all degrees,
is already something of a terror to many of us. I would not
willingly have to do with even a police-constable in any other
spirit than that of kindness. I still remember in my dreams
the eye-glass of a certain <i>attaché</i> at a certain
embassy—an eyeglass that was a standing indignity to all on
whom it looked; and my next most disagreeable remembrance is of a
bracing, Republican postman in the city of San Francisco. I
lived in that city among working folk, and what my neighbours
accepted at the postman’s hands—nay, what I took from
him myself—it is still distasteful to recall. The
bourgeois, residing in the upper parts of society, has but few
opportunities of tasting this peculiar bowl; but about the
income-tax, as I have said, or perhaps about a patent, or in the
halls of an embassy at the hands of my friend of the eye-glass,
he occasionally sets his lips to it; and he may thus imagine (if
he has that faculty of imagination, without which most faculties
are void) how it tastes to his poorer neighbours, who must drain
it to the dregs. In every contact with authority, with
their employer, with the police, with the School Board officer,
in the hospital, or in the workhouse, they have equally the
occasion to appreciate the light-hearted civility of the man in
office; and as an experimentalist in several out-of-the-way
provinces of life, I may say it has but to be felt to be
appreciated. Well, this golden age of which we are speaking
will be the golden age of officials. In all our concerns it
will be their beloved duty to meddle, with what tact, with what
obliging words, analogy will aid us to imagine. It is
likely these gentlemen will be periodically elected; they will
therefore have their turn of being underneath, which does not
always sweeten men’s conditions. The laws they will
have to administer will be no clearer than those we know to-day,
and the body which is to regulate their administration no wiser
than the British Parliament. So that upon all hands we may
look for a form of servitude most galling to the
blood—servitude to many and changing masters, and for all
the slights that accompany the rule of jack-in-office. And
if the Socialistic programme be carried out with the least
fulness, we shall have lost a thing, in most respects not much to
be regretted, but as a moderator of oppression, a thing nearly
invaluable—the newspaper. For the independent journal
is a creature of capital and competition; it stands and falls
with millionaires and railway bonds and all the abuses and
glories of to-day; and as soon as the State has fairly taken its
bent to authority and philanthropy, and laid the least touch on
private property, the days of the independent journal are
numbered. State railways may be good things and so may
State bakeries; but a State newspaper will never be a very
trenchant critic of the State officials.</p>
<p>But again, these officials would have no sinecure. Crime
would perhaps be less, for some of the motives of crime we may
suppose would pass away. But if Socialism were carried out
with any fulness, there would be more contraventions. We
see already new sins ringing up like mustard—School Board
sins, factory sins, Merchant Shipping Act sins—none of
which I would be thought to except against in particular, but all
of which, taken together, show us that Socialism can be a hard
master even in the beginning. If it go on to such heights
as we hear proposed and lauded, if it come actually to its ideal
of the ant-heap, ruled with iron justice, the number of new
contraventions will be out of all proportion multiplied.
Take the case of work alone. Man is an idle animal.
He is at least as intelligent as the ant; but generations of
advisers have in vain recommended him the ant’s
example. Of those who are found truly indefatigable in
business, some are misers; some are the practisers of delightful
industries, like gardening; some are students, artists,
inventors, or discoverers, men lured forward by successive hopes;
and the rest are those who live by games of skill or
hazard—financiers, billiard-players, gamblers, and the
like. But in unloved toils, even under the prick of
necessity, no man is continually sedulous. Once eliminate
the fear of starvation, once eliminate or bound the hope of
riches, and we shall see plenty of skulking and
malingering. Society will then be something not wholly
unlike a cotton plantation in the old days; with cheerful,
careless, demoralised slaves, with elected overseers, and,
instead of the planter, a chaotic popular assembly. If the
blood be purposeful and the soil strong, such a plantation may
succeed, and be, indeed, a busy ant-heap, with full granaries and
long hours of leisure. But even then I think the whip will
be in the overseer’s hands, and not in vain. For,
when it comes to be a question of each man doing his own share or
the rest doing more, prettiness of sentiment will be
forgotten. To dock the skulker’s food is not enough;
many will rather eat haws and starve on petty pilferings than put
their shoulder to the wheel for one hour daily. For such as
these, then, the whip will be in the overseer’s hand; and
his own sense of justice and the superintendence of a chaotic
popular assembly will be the only checks on its employment.
Now, you may be an industrious man and a good citizen, and yet
not love, nor yet be loved by, Dr. Fell the inspector. It
is admitted by private soldiers that the disfavour of a sergeant
is an evil not to be combated; offend the sergeant, they say, and
in a brief while you will either be disgraced or have
deserted. And the sergeant can no longer appeal to the
lash. But if these things go on, we shall see, or our sons
shall see, what it is to have offended an inspector.</p>
<p>This for the unfortunate. But with the fortunate also,
even those whom the inspector loves, it may not be altogether
well. It is concluded that in such a state of society,
supposing it to be financially sound, the level of comfort will
be high. It does not follow: there are strange depths of
idleness in man, a too-easily-got sufficiency, as in the case of
the sago-eaters, often quenching the desire for all besides; and
it is possible that the men of the richest ant-heaps may sink
even into squalor. But suppose they do not; suppose our
tricksy instrument of human nature, when we play upon it this new
tune, should respond kindly; suppose no one to be damped and none
exasperated by the new conditions, the whole enterprise to be
financially sound—a vaulting supposition—and all the
inhabitants to dwell together in a golden mean of comfort: we
have yet to ask ourselves if this be what man desire, or if it be
what man will even deign to accept for a continuance. It is
certain that man loves to eat, it is not certain that he loves
that only or that best. He is supposed to love comfort; it
is not a love, at least, that he is faithful to. He is
supposed to love happiness; it is my contention that he rather
loves excitement. Danger, enterprise, hope, the novel, the
aleatory, are dearer to man than regular meals. He does not
think so when he is hungry, but he thinks so again as soon as he
is fed; and on the hypothesis of a successful ant-heap, he would
never go hungry. It would be always after dinner in that
society, as, in the land of the Lotos-eaters, it was always
afternoon; and food, which, when we have it not, seems
all-important, drops in our esteem, as soon as we have it, to a
mere prerequisite of living.</p>
<p>That for which man lives is not the same thing for all
individuals nor in all ages; yet it has a common base; what he
seeks and what he must have is that which will seize and hold his
attention. Regular meals and weatherproof lodgings will not
do this long. Play in its wide sense, as the artificial
induction of sensation, including all games and all arts, will,
indeed, go far to keep him conscious of himself; but in the end
he wearies for realities. Study or experiment, to some rare
natures, is the unbroken pastime of a life. These are
enviable natures; people shut in the house by sickness often
bitterly envy them; but the commoner man cannot continue to exist
upon such altitudes: his feet itch for physical adventure; his
blood boils for physical dangers, pleasures, and triumphs; his
fancy, the looker after new things, cannot continue to look for
them in books and crucibles, but must seek them on the breathing
stage of life. Pinches, buffets, the glow of hope, the
shock of disappointment, furious contention with obstacles: these
are the true elixir for all vital spirits, these are what they
seek alike in their romantic enterprises and their unromantic
dissipations. When they are taken in some pinch closer than
the common, they cry, ‘Catch me here again!’ and sure
enough you catch them there again—perhaps before the week
is out. It is as old as <i>Robinson Crusoe</i>; as old as
man. Our race has not been strained for all these ages
through that sieve of dangers that we call Natural Selection, to
sit down with patience in the tedium of safety; the voices of its
fathers call it forth. Already in our society as it exists,
the bourgeois is too much cottoned about for any zest in living;
he sits in his parlour out of reach of any danger, often out of
reach of any vicissitude but one of health; and there he
yawns. If the people in the next villa took pot-shots at
him, he might be killed indeed, but so long as he escaped he
would find his blood oxygenated and his views of the world
brighter. If Mr. Mallock, on his way to the publishers,
should have his skirts pinned to a wall by a javelin, it would
not occur to him—at least for several hours—to ask if
life were worth living; and if such peril were a daily matter, he
would ask it never more; he would have other things to think
about, he would be living indeed—not lying in a box with
cotton, safe, but immeasurably dull. The aleatory, whether
it touch life, or fortune, or renown—whether we explore
Africa or only toss for halfpence—that is what I conceive
men to love best, and that is what we are seeking to exclude from
men’s existences. Of all forms of the aleatory, that
which most commonly attends our working men—the danger of
misery from want of work—is the least inspiriting: it does
not whip the blood, it does not evoke the glory of contest; it is
tragic, but it is passive; and yet, in so far as it is aleatory,
and a peril sensibly touching them, it does truly season the
men’s lives. Of those who fail, I do not
speak—despair should be sacred; but to those who even
modestly succeed, the changes of their life bring interest: a job
found, a shilling saved, a dainty earned, all these are wells of
pleasure springing afresh for the successful poor; and it is not
from these but from the villa-dweller that we hear complaints of
the unworthiness of life. Much, then, as the average of the
proletariat would gain in this new state of life, they would also
lose a certain something, which would not be missed in the
beginning, but would be missed progressively and progressively
lamented. Soon there would be a looking back: there would
be tales of the old world humming in young men’s ears,
tales of the tramp and the pedlar, and the hopeful
emigrant. And in the stall-fed life of the successful
ant-heap—with its regular meals, regular duties, regular
pleasures, an even course of life, and fear excluded—the
vicissitudes, delights, and havens of to-day will seem of epic
breadth. This may seem a shallow observation; but the
springs by which men are moved lie much on the surface.
Bread, I believe, has always been considered first, but the
circus comes close upon its heels. Bread we suppose to be
given amply; the cry for circuses will be the louder, and if the
life of our descendants be such as we have conceived, there are
two beloved pleasures on which they will be likely to fall back:
the pleasures of intrigue and of sedition.</p>
<p>In all this I have supposed the ant-heap to be financially
sound. I am no economist, only a writer of fiction; but
even as such, I know one thing that bears on the economic
question—I know the imperfection of man’s faculty for
business. The Anarchists, who count some rugged elements of
common sense among what seem to me their tragic errors, have said
upon this matter all that I could wish to say, and condemned
beforehand great economical polities. So far it is obvious
that they are right; they may be right also in predicting a
period of communal independence, and they may even be right in
thinking that desirable. But the rise of communes is none
the less the end of economic equality, just when we were told it
was beginning. Communes will not be all equal in extent,
nor in quality of soil, nor in growth of population; nor will the
surplus produce of all be equally marketable. It will be
the old story of competing interests, only with a new unit; and,
as it appears to me, a new, inevitable danger. For the
merchant and the manufacturer, in this new world, will be a
sovereign commune; it is a sovereign power that will see its
crops undersold, and its manufactures worsted in the
market. And all the more dangerous that the sovereign power
should be small. Great powers are slow to stir; national
affronts, even with the aid of newspapers, filter slowly into
popular consciousness; national losses are so unequally shared,
that one part of the population will be counting its gains while
another sits by a cold hearth. But in the sovereign commune
all will be centralised and sensitive. When jealousy
springs up, when (let us say) the commune of Poole has
overreached the commune of Dorchester, irritation will run like
quicksilver throughout the body politic; each man in Dorchester
will have to suffer directly in his diet and his dress; even the
secretary, who drafts the official correspondence, will sit down
to his task embittered, as a man who has dined ill and may expect
to dine worse; and thus a business difference between communes
will take on much the same colour as a dispute between diggers in
the lawless West, and will lead as directly to the arbitrament of
blows. So that the establishment of the communal system
will not only reintroduce all the injustices and heart-burnings
of economic inequality, but will, in all human likelihood,
inaugurate a world of hedgerow warfare. Dorchester will
march on Poole, Sherborne on Dorchester, Wimborne on both; the
waggons will be fired on as they follow the highway, the trains
wrecked on the lines, the ploughman will go armed into the field
of tillage; and if we have not a return of ballad literature, the
local press at least will celebrate in a high vein the victory of
Cerne Abbas or the reverse of Toller Porcorum. At least
this will not be dull; when I was younger, I could have welcomed
such a world with relief; but it is the New-Old with a vengeance,
and irresistibly suggests the growth of military powers and the
foundation of new empires.</p>
<h2>COLLEGE PAPERS</h2>
<h3>CHAPTER I—EDINBURGH STUDENTS IN 1824</h3>
<p>On the 2nd of January 1824 was issued the prospectus of the
<i>Lapsus Linguæ</i>; <i>or</i>, <i>the College Tatler</i>;
and on the 7th the first number appeared. On Friday the 2nd
of April ‘<i>Mr. Tatler</i> became speechless.’
Its history was not all one success; for the editor (who applies
to himself the words of Iago, ‘I am nothing if I am not
critical’) overstepped the bounds of caution, and found
himself seriously embroiled with the powers that were.
There appeared in No. <span class="smcap">xvi.</span> a most
bitter satire upon Sir John Leslie, in which he was compared to
Falstaff, charged with puffing himself, and very prettily
censured for publishing only the first volume of a class-book,
and making all purchasers pay for both. Sir John Leslie
took up the matter angrily, visited Carfrae the publisher, and
threatened him with an action, till he was forced to turn the
hapless <i>Lapsus</i> out of doors. The maltreated
periodical found shelter in the shop of Huie, Infirmary Street;
and No. <span class="smcap">xvii.</span> was duly issued from the
new office. No. <span class="smcap">xvii.</span> beheld
<i>Mr. Tatler’s</i> humiliation, in which, with fulsome
apology and not very credible assurances of respect and
admiration, he disclaims the article in question, and advertises
a new issue of No. <span class="smcap">xvi.</span> with all
objectionable matter omitted. This, with pleasing
euphemism, he terms in a later advertisement, ‘a new and
improved edition.’ This was the only remarkable
adventure of <i>Mr. Tatler’s</i> brief existence; unless we
consider as such a silly Chaldee manuscript in imitation of
<i>Blackwood</i>, and a letter of reproof from a divinity student
on the impiety of the same dull effusion. He laments the
near approach of his end in pathetic terms. ‘How
shall we summon up sufficient courage,’ says he, ‘to
look for the last time on our beloved little devil and his
inestimable proof-sheet? How shall we be able to pass No.
14 Infirmary Street and feel that all its attractions are
over? How shall we bid farewell for ever to that excellent
man, with the long greatcoat, wooden leg and wooden board, who
acts as our representative at the gate of <i>Alma
Mater</i>?’ But alas! he had no choice: <i>Mr.
Tatler</i>, whose career, he says himself, had been successful,
passed peacefully away, and has ever since dumbly implored
‘the bringing home of bell and burial.’</p>
<p><i>Alter et idem</i>. A very different affair was the
<i>Lapsus Linguæ</i> from the <i>Edinburgh University
Magazine</i>. The two prospectuses alone, laid side by
side, would indicate the march of luxury and the repeal of the
paper duty. The penny bi-weekly broadside of session
1828–4 was almost wholly dedicated to Momus.
Epigrams, pointless letters, amorous verses, and University
grievances are the continual burthen of the song. But
<i>Mr. Tatler</i> was not without a vein of hearty humour; and
his pages afford what is much better: to wit, a good picture of
student life as it then was. The students of those polite
days insisted on retaining their hats in the class-room.
There was a cab-stance in front of the College; and
‘Carriage Entrance’ was posted above the main arch,
on what the writer pleases to call ‘coarse, unclassic
boards.’ The benches of the ‘Speculative’
then, as now, were red; but all other Societies (the
‘Dialectic’ is the only survivor) met downstairs, in
some rooms of which it is pointedly said that ‘nothing else
could conveniently be made of them.’ However horrible
these dungeons may have been, it is certain that they were paid
for, and that far too heavily for the taste of session
1823–4, which found enough calls upon its purse for porter
and toasted cheese at Ambrose’s, or cranberry tarts and
ginger-wine at Doull’s. Duelling was still a
possibility; so much so that when two medicals fell to fisticuffs
in Adam Square, it was seriously hinted that single combat would
be the result. Last and most wonderful of all, Gall and
Spurzheim were in every one’s mouth; and the Law student,
after having exhausted Byron’s poetry and Scott’s
novels, informed the ladies of his belief in phrenology. In
the present day he would dilate on ‘Red as a rose is
she,’ and then mention that he attends Old
Greyfriars’, as a tacit claim to intellectual
superiority. I do not know that the advance is much.</p>
<p>But <i>Mr. Tatler’s</i> best performances were three
short papers in which he hit off pretty smartly the
idiosyncrasies of the ‘<i>Divinity</i>,’ the
‘<i>Medical</i>,’ and the ‘<i>Law</i>’ of
session 1823–4. The fact that there was no notice of
the ‘<i>Arts</i>’ seems to suggest that they stood in
the same intermediate position as they do now—the epitome
of student-kind. <i>Mr. Tatler’s</i> satire is, on
the whole, good-humoured, and has not grown superannuated in
<i>all</i> its limbs. His descriptions may limp at some
points, but there are certain broad traits that apply equally
well to session 1870–1. He shows us the
<i>Divinity</i> of the period—tall, pale, and
slender—his collar greasy, and his coat bare about the
seams—‘his white neckcloth serving four days, and
regularly turned the third’—‘the rim of his hat
deficient in wool’—and ‘a weighty volume of
theology under his arm.’ He was the man to buy cheap
‘a snuff-box, or a dozen of pencils, or a six-bladed knife,
or a quarter of a hundred quills,’ at any of the public
sale-rooms. He was noted for cheap purchases, and for
exceeding the legal tender in halfpence. He haunted
‘the darkest and remotest corner of the Theatre
Gallery.’ He was to be seen issuing from
‘aerial lodging-houses.’ Withal, says mine
author, ‘there were many good points about him: he paid his
landlady’s bill, read his Bible, went twice to church on
Sunday, seldom swore, was not often tipsy, and bought the
<i>Lapsus Linguæ</i>.’</p>
<p>The <i>Medical</i>, again, ‘wore a white greatcoat, and
consequently talked loud’—(there is something very
delicious in that <i>consequently</i>). He wore his hat on
one side. He was active, volatile, and went to the top of
Arthur’s Seat on the Sunday forenoon. He was as quiet
in a debating society as he was loud in the streets. He was
reckless and imprudent: yesterday he insisted on your sharing a
bottle of claret with him (and claret was claret then, before the
cheap-and-nasty treaty), and to-morrow he asks you for the loan
of a penny to buy the last number of the <i>Lapsus</i>.</p>
<p>The student of <i>Law</i>, again, was a learned man.
‘He had turned over the leaves of Justinian’s
<i>Institutes</i>, and knew that they were written in
Latin. He was well acquainted with the title-page of
Blackstone’s <i>Commentaries</i>, and <i>argal</i> (as the
gravedigger in <i>Hamlet</i> says) he was not a person to be
laughed at.’ He attended the Parliament House in the
character of a critic, and could give you stale sneers at all the
celebrated speakers. He was the terror of essayists at the
Speculative or the Forensic. In social qualities he seems
to have stood unrivalled. Even in the police-office we find
him shining with undiminished lustre. ‘If a
<i>Charlie</i> should find him rather noisy at an untimely hour,
and venture to take him into custody, he appears next morning
like a Daniel come to judgment. He opens his mouth to
speak, and the divine precepts of unchanging justice and Scots
law flow from his tongue. The magistrate listens in
amazement, and fines him only a couple of guineas.’</p>
<p>Such then were our predecessors and their College
Magazine. Barclay, Ambrose, Young Amos, and Fergusson were
to them what the Café, the Rainbow, and Rutherford’s
are to us. An hour’s reading in these old pages
absolutely confuses us, there is so much that is similar and so
much that is different; the follies and amusements are so like
our own, and the manner of frolicking and enjoying are so
changed, that one pauses and looks about him in philosophic
judgment. The muddy quadrangle is thick with living
students; but in our eyes it swarms also with the phantasmal
white greatcoats and tilted hats of 1824. Two races meet:
races alike and diverse. Two performances are played before
our eyes; but the change seems merely of impersonators, of
scenery, of costume. Plot and passion are the same.
It is the fall of the spun shilling whether seventy-one or
twenty-four has the best of it.</p>
<p>In a future number we hope to give a glance at the
individualities of the present, and see whether the cast shall be
head or tail—whether we or the readers of the <i>Lapsus</i>
stand higher in the balance.</p>
<h3>CHAPTER II—THE MODERN STUDENT CONSIDERED GENERALLY</h3>
<p>We have now reached the difficult portion of our task.
<i>Mr. Tatler</i>, for all that we care, may have been as
virulent as he liked about the students of a former; but for the
iron to touch our sacred selves, for a brother of the Guild to
betray its most privy infirmities, let such a Judas look to
himself as he passes on his way to the Scots Law or the
Diagnostic, below the solitary lamp at the corner of the dark
quadrangle. We confess that this idea alarms us. We
enter a protest. We bind ourselves over verbally to keep
the peace. We hope, moreover, that having thus made you
secret to our misgivings, you will excuse us if we be dull, and
set that down to caution which you might before have charged to
the account of stupidity.</p>
<p>The natural tendency of civilisation is to obliterate those
distinctions which are the best salt of life. All the fine
old professional flavour in language has evaporated. Your
very gravedigger has forgotten his avocation in his electorship,
and would quibble on the Franchise over Ophelia’s grave,
instead of more appropriately discussing the duration of bodies
under ground. From this tendency, from this gradual
attrition of life, in which everything pointed and characteristic
is being rubbed down, till the whole world begins to slip between
our fingers in smooth undistinguishable sands, from this, we say,
it follows that we must not attempt to join <i>Mr. Taller</i> in
his simple division of students into <i>Law</i>, <i>Divinity</i>,
and <i>Medical</i>. Nowadays the Faculties may shake hands
over their follies; and, like Mrs. Frail and Mrs. Foresight (in
<i>Love for Love</i>) they may stand in the doors of opposite
class-rooms, crying: ‘Sister, Sister—Sister
everyway!’ A few restrictions, indeed, remain to
influence the followers of individual branches of study.
The Divinity, for example, must be an avowed believer; and as
this, in the present day, is unhappily considered by many as a
confession of weakness, he is fain to choose one of two ways of
gilding the distasteful orthodox bolus. Some swallow it in
a thin jelly of metaphysics; for it is even a credit to believe
in God on the evidence of some crack-jaw philosopher, although it
is a decided slur to believe in Him on His own authority.
Others again (and this we think the worst method), finding German
grammar a somewhat dry morsel, run their own little heresy as a
proof of independence; and deny one of the cardinal doctrines
that they may hold the others without being laughed at.</p>
<p>Besides, however, such influences as these, there is little
more distinction between the faculties than the traditionary
ideal, handed down through a long sequence of students, and
getting rounder and more featureless at each successive
session. The plague of uniformity has descended on the
College. Students (and indeed all sorts and conditions of
men) now require their faculty and character hung round their
neck on a placard, like the scenes in Shakespeare’s
theatre. And in the midst of all this weary sameness, not
the least common feature is the gravity of every face. No
more does the merry medical run eagerly in the clear winter
morning up the rugged sides of Arthur’s Seat, and hear the
church bells begin and thicken and die away below him among the
gathered smoke of the city. He will not break Sunday to so
little purpose. He no longer finds pleasure in the mere
output of his surplus energy. He husbands his strength, and
lays out walks, and reading, and amusement with deep
consideration, so that he may get as much work and pleasure out
of his body as he can, and waste none of his energy on mere
impulse, or such flat enjoyment as an excursion in the
country.</p>
<p>See the quadrangle in the interregnum of classes, in those two
or three minutes when it is full of passing students, and we
think you will admit that, if we have not made it ‘an
habitation of dragons,’ we have at least transformed it
into ‘a court for owls.’ Solemnity broods
heavily over the enclosure; and wherever you seek it, you will
find a dearth of merriment, an absence of real youthful
enjoyment. You might as well try</p>
<blockquote><p>‘To move wild laughter in the throat of
death’</p>
</blockquote>
<p>as to excite any healthy stir among the bulk of this staid
company.</p>
<p>The studious congregate about the doors of the different
classes, debating the matter of the lecture, or comparing
note-books. A reserved rivalry sunders them. Here are
some deep in Greek particles: there, others are already
inhabitants of that land</p>
<blockquote><p>‘Where entity and quiddity,<br />
‘Like ghosts of defunct bodies fly—<br />
Where Truth in person does appear<br />
Like words congealed in northern air.’</p>
</blockquote>
<p>But none of them seem to find any relish for their
studies—no pedantic love of this subject or that lights up
their eyes—science and learning are only means for a
livelihood, which they have considerately embraced and which they
solemnly pursue. ‘Labour’s pale priests,’
their lips seem incapable of laughter, except in the way of
polite recognition of professorial wit. The stains of ink
are chronic on their meagre fingers. They walk like Saul
among the asses.</p>
<p>The dandies are not less subdued. In 1824 there was a
noisy dapper dandyism abroad. Vulgar, as we should now
think, but yet genial—a matter of white greatcoats and loud
voices—strangely different from the stately frippery that
is rife at present. These men are out of their element in
the quadrangle. Even the small remains of boisterous
humour, which still clings to any collection of young men, jars
painfully on their morbid sensibilities; and they beat a hasty
retreat to resume their perfunctory march along Princes
Street. Flirtation is to them a great social duty, a
painful obligation, which they perform on every occasion in the
same chill official manner, and with the same commonplace
advances, the same dogged observance of traditional
behaviour. The shape of their raiment is a burden almost
greater than they can bear, and they halt in their walk to
preserve the due adjustment of their trouser-knees, till one
would fancy he had mixed in a procession of Jacobs. We
speak, of course, for ourselves; but we would as soon associate
with a herd of sprightly apes as with these gloomy modern
beaux. Alas, that our Mirabels, our Valentines, even our
Brummels, should have left their mantles upon nothing more
amusing!</p>
<p>Nor are the fast men less constrained. Solemnity, even
in dissipation, is the order of the day; and they go to the devil
with a perverse seriousness, a systematic rationalism of
wickedness that would have surprised the simpler sinners of
old. Some of these men whom we see gravely conversing on
the steps have but a slender acquaintance with each other.
Their intercourse consists principally of mutual bulletins of
depravity; and, week after week, as they meet they reckon up
their items of transgression, and give an abstract of their
downward progress for approval and encouragement. These
folk form a freemasonry of their own. An oath is the
shibboleth of their sinister fellowship. Once they hear a
man swear, it is wonderful how their tongues loosen and their
bashful spirits take enlargement, under the consciousness of
brotherhood. There is no folly, no pardoning warmth of
temper about them; they are as steady-going and systematic in
their own way as the studious in theirs.</p>
<p>Not that we are without merry men. No. We shall
not be ungrateful to those, whose grimaces, whose ironical
laughter, whose active feet in the ‘College Anthem’
have beguiled so many weary hours and added a pleasant variety to
the strain of close attention. But even these are too
evidently professional in their antics. They go about
cogitating puns and inventing tricks. It is their vocation,
Hal. They are the gratuitous jesters of the class-room;
and, like the clown when he leaves the stage, their merriment too
often sinks as the bell rings the hour of liberty, and they pass
forth by the Post-Office, grave and sedate, and meditating fresh
gambols for the morrow.</p>
<p>This is the impression left on the mind of any observing
student by too many of his fellows. They seem all frigid
old men; and one pauses to think how such an unnatural state of
matters is produced. We feel inclined to blame for it the
unfortunate absence of <i>University feeling</i> which is so
marked a characteristic of our Edinburgh students.
Academical interests are so few and far between—students,
as students, have so little in common, except a peevish
rivalry—there is such an entire want of broad college
sympathies and ordinary college friendships, that we fancy that
no University in the kingdom is in so poor a plight. Our
system is full of anomalies. A, who cut B whilst he was a
shabby student, curries sedulously up to him and cudgels his
memory for anecdotes about him when he becomes the great
so-and-so. Let there be an end of this shy, proud reserve
on the one hand, and this shuddering fine ladyism on the other;
and we think we shall find both ourselves and the College
bettered. Let it be a sufficient reason for intercourse
that two men sit together on the same benches. Let the
great A be held excused for nodding to the shabby B in Princes
Street, if he can say, ‘That fellow is a
student.’ Once this could be brought about, we think
you would find the whole heart of the University beat
faster. We think you would find a fusion among the
students, a growth of common feelings, an increasing sympathy
between class and class, whose influence (in such a heterogeneous
company as ours) might be of incalculable value in all branches
of politics and social progress. It would do more than
this. If we could find some method of making the University
a real mother to her sons—something beyond a building of
class-rooms, a Senatus and a lottery of somewhat shabby
prizes—we should strike a death-blow at the constrained and
unnatural attitude of our Society. At present we are not a
united body, but a loose gathering of individuals, whose inherent
attraction is allowed to condense them into little knots and
coteries. Our last snowball riot read us a plain lesson on
our condition. There was no party spirit—no unity of
interests. A few, who were mischievously inclined, marched
off to the College of Surgeons in a pretentious file; but even
before they reached their destination the feeble inspiration had
died out in many, and their numbers were sadly thinned.
Some followed strange gods in the direction of Drummond Street,
and others slunk back to meek good-boyism at the feet of the
Professors. The same is visible in better things. As
you send a man to an English University that he may have his
prejudices rubbed off, you might send him to Edinburgh that he
may have them ingrained—rendered indelible—fostered
by sympathy into living principles of his spirit. And the
reason of it is quite plain. From this absence of
University feeling it comes that a man’s friendships are
always the direct and immediate results of these very
prejudices. A common weakness is the best master of
ceremonies in our quadrangle: a mutual vice is the readiest
introduction. The studious associate with the studious
alone—the dandies with the dandies. There is nothing
to force them to rub shoulders with the others; and so they grow
day by day more wedded to their own original opinions and
affections. They see through the same spectacles
continually. All broad sentiments, all real catholic
humanity expires; and the mind gets gradually stiffened into one
position—becomes so habituated to a contracted atmosphere,
that it shudders and withers under the least draught of the free
air that circulates in the general field of mankind.</p>
<p>Specialism in Society then is, we think, one cause of our
present state. Specialism in study is another. We
doubt whether this has ever been a good thing since the world
began; but we are sure it is much worse now than it was.
Formerly, when a man became a specialist, it was out of affection
for his subject. With a somewhat grand devotion he left all
the world of Science to follow his true love; and he contrived to
find that strange pedantic interest which inspired the man
who</p>
<blockquote><p>‘Settled <i>Hoti’s</i>
business—let it be—<br />
Properly based <i>Oun—</i><br />
Gave us the doctrine of the enclitic <i>De</i>,<br />
Dead from the waist down.’</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Nowadays it is quite different. Our pedantry wants even
the saving clause of Enthusiasm. The election is now matter
of necessity and not of choice. Knowledge is now too broad
a field for your Jack-of-all-Trades; and, from beautifully
utilitarian reasons, he makes his choice, draws his pen through a
dozen branches of study, and behold—John the
Specialist. That this is the way to be wealthy we shall not
deny; but we hold that it is <i>not</i> the way to be healthy or
wise. The whole mind becomes narrowed and circumscribed to
one ‘punctual spot’ of knowledge. A rank
unhealthy soil breeds a harvest of prejudices. Feeling
himself above others in his one little branch—in the
classification of toadstools, or Carthaginian history—he
waxes great in his own eyes and looks down on others.
Having all his sympathies educated in one way, they die out in
every other; and he is apt to remain a peevish, narrow, and
intolerant bigot. Dilettante is now a term of reproach; but
there is a certain form of dilettantism to which no one can
object. It is this that we want among our students.
We wish them to abandon no subject until they have seen and felt
its merit—to act under a general interest in all branches
of knowledge, not a commercial eagerness to excel in one.</p>
<p>In both these directions our sympathies are constipated.
We are apostles of our own caste and our own subject of study,
instead of being, as we should, true men and <i>loving</i>
students. Of course both of these could be corrected by the
students themselves; but this is nothing to the purpose: it is
more important to ask whether the Senatus or the body of alumni
could do nothing towards the growth of better feeling and wider
sentiments. Perhaps in another paper we may say something
upon this head.</p>
<p>One other word, however, before we have done. What shall
we be when we grow really old? Of yore, a man was thought
to lay on restrictions and acquire new deadweight of mournful
experience with every year, till he looked back on his youth as
the very summer of impulse and freedom. We please ourselves
with thinking that it cannot be so with us. We would fain
hope that, as we have begun in one way, we may end in another;
and that when we are in fact the octogenarians that we
<i>seem</i> at present, there shall be no merrier men on
earth. It is pleasant to picture us, sunning ourselves in
Princes Street of a morning, or chirping over our evening cups,
with all the merriment that we wanted in youth.</p>
<h3>CHAPTER III—DEBATING SOCIETIES</h3>
<p>A debating society is at first somewhat of a
disappointment. You do not often find the youthful
Demosthenes chewing his pebbles in the same room with you; or,
even if you do, you will probably think the performance little to
be admired. As a general rule, the members speak shamefully
ill. The subjects of debate are heavy; and so are the
fines. The Ballot Question—oldest of dialectic
nightmares—is often found astride of a somnolent
sederunt. The Greeks and Romans, too, are reserved as sort
of <i>general-utility</i> men, to do all the dirty work of
illustration; and they fill as many functions as the famous
waterfall scene at the ‘Princess’s,’ which I
found doing duty on one evening as a gorge in Peru, a haunt of
German robbers, and a peaceful vale in the Scottish
borders. There is a sad absence of striking argument or
real lively discussion. Indeed, you feel a growing contempt
for your fellow-members; and it is not until you rise yourself to
hawk and hesitate and sit shamefully down again, amid
eleemosynary applause, that you begin to find your level and
value others rightly. Even then, even when failure has
damped your critical ardour, you will see many things to be
laughed at in the deportment of your rivals.</p>
<p>Most laughable, perhaps, are your indefatigable strivers after
eloquence. They are of those who ‘pursue with
eagerness the phantoms of hope,’ and who, since they expect
that ‘the deficiencies of last sentence will be supplied by
the next,’ have been recommended by Dr. Samuel Johnson to
‘attend to the History of Rasselas, Prince of
Abyssinia.’ They are characterised by a hectic
hopefulness. Nothing damps them. They rise from the
ruins of one abortive sentence, to launch forth into another with
unabated vigour. They have all the manner of an
orator. From the tone of their voice, you would expect a
splendid period—and lo! a string of broken-backed,
disjointed clauses, eked out with stammerings and
throat-clearings. They possess the art (learned from the
pulpit) of rounding an uneuphonious sentence by dwelling on a
single syllable—of striking a balance in a top-heavy period
by lengthening out a word into a melancholy quaver. Withal,
they never cease to hope. Even at last, even when they have
exhausted all their ideas, even after the would-be peroration has
finally refused to perorate, they remain upon their feet with
their mouths open, waiting for some further inspiration, like
Chaucer’s widow’s son in the dung-hole, after</p>
<blockquote><p>‘His throat was kit unto the nekké
bone,’</p>
</blockquote>
<p>in vain expectation of that seed that was to be laid upon his
tongue, and give him renewed and clearer utterance.</p>
<p>These men may have something to say, if they could only say
it—indeed they generally have; but the next class are
people who, having nothing to say, are cursed with a facility and
an unhappy command of words, that makes them the prime nuisances
of the society they affect. They try to cover their absence
of matter by an unwholesome vitality of delivery. They look
triumphantly round the room, as if courting applause, after a
torrent of diluted truism. They talk in a circle, harping
on the same dull round of argument, and returning again and again
to the same remark with the same sprightliness, the same
irritating appearance of novelty.</p>
<p>After this set, any one is tolerable; so we shall merely hint
at a few other varieties. There is your man who is
pre-eminently conscientious, whose face beams with sincerity as
he opens on the negative, and who votes on the affirmative at the
end, looking round the room with an air of chastened pride.
There is also the irrelevant speaker, who rises, emits a joke or
two, and then sits down again, without ever attempting to tackle
the subject of debate. Again, we have men who ride
pick-a-back on their family reputation, or, if their family have
none, identify themselves with some well-known statesman, use his
opinions, and lend him their patronage on all occasions.
This is a dangerous plan, and serves oftener, I am afraid, to
point a difference than to adorn a speech.</p>
<p>But alas! a striking failure may be reached without tempting
Providence by any of these ambitious tricks. Our own
stature will be found high enough for shame. The success of
three simple sentences lures us into a fatal parenthesis in the
fourth, from whose shut brackets we may never disentangle the
thread of our discourse. A momentary flush tempts us into a
quotation; and we may be left helpless in the middle of one of
Pope’s couplets, a white film gathering before our eyes,
and our kind friends charitably trying to cover our disgrace by a
feeble round of applause. <i>Amis lecteurs</i>, this is a
painful topic. It is possible that we too, we, the
‘potent, grave, and reverend’ editor, may have
suffered these things, and drunk as deep as any of the cup of
shameful failure. Let us dwell no longer on so delicate a
subject.</p>
<p>In spite, however, of these disagreeables, I should recommend
any student to suffer them with Spartan courage, as the benefits
he receives should repay him an hundredfold for them all.
The life of the debating society is a handy antidote to the life
of the classroom and quadrangle. Nothing could be conceived
more excellent as a weapon against many of those <i>peccant
humours</i> that we have been railing against in the jeremiad of
our last ‘College Paper’—particularly in the
field of intellect. It is a sad sight to see our
heather-scented students, our boys of seventeen, coming up to
College with determined views—<i>roués</i> in
speculation—having gauged the vanity of philosophy or
learned to shun it as the middle-man of heresy—a company of
determined, deliberate opinionists, not to be moved by all the
sleights of logic. What have such men to do with
study? If their minds are made up irrevocably, why burn the
‘studious lamp’ in search of further
confirmation? Every set opinion I hear a student deliver I
feel a certain lowering of my regard. He who studies, he
who is yet employed in groping for his premises, should keep his
mind fluent and sensitive, keen to mark flaws, and willing to
surrender untenable positions. He should keep himself
teachable, or cease the expensive farce of being taught. It
is to further this docile spirit that we desire to press the
claims of debating societies. It is as a means of melting
down this museum of premature petrifactions into living and
impressionable soul that we insist on their utility. If we
could once prevail on our students to feel no shame in avowing an
uncertain attitude towards any subject, if we could teach them
that it was unnecessary for every lad to have his
<i>opinionette</i> on every topic, we should have gone a far way
towards bracing the intellectual tone of the coming race of
thinkers; and this it is which debating societies are so well
fitted to perform.</p>
<p>We there meet people of every shade of opinion, and make
friends with them. We are taught to rail against a man the
whole session through, and then hob-a-nob with him at the
concluding entertainment. We find men of talent far
exceeding our own, whose conclusions are widely different from
ours; and we are thus taught to distrust ourselves. But the
best means of all towards catholicity is that wholesome rule
which some folk are most inclined to condemn—I mean the law
of <i>obliged speeches</i>. Your senior member commands;
and you must take the affirmative or the negative, just as suits
his best convenience. This tends to the most perfect
liberality. It is no good hearing the arguments of an
opponent, for in good verity you rarely follow them; and even if
you do take the trouble to listen, it is merely in a captious
search for weaknesses. This is proved, I fear, in every
debate; when you hear each speaker arguing out his own prepared
<i>spécialité</i> (he never intended speaking, of
course, until some remarks of, etc.), arguing out, I say, his own
<i>coached-up</i> subject without the least attention to what has
gone before, as utterly at sea about the drift of his
adversary’s speech as Panurge when he argued with
Thaumaste, and merely linking his own prelection to the last by a
few flippant criticisms. Now, as the rule stands, you are
saddled with the side you disapprove, and so you are forced, by
regard for your own fame, to argue out, to feel with, to
elaborate completely, the case as it stands against yourself; and
what a fund of wisdom do you not turn up in this idle digging of
the vineyard! How many new difficulties take form before
your eyes? how many superannuated arguments cripple finally into
limbo, under the glance of your enforced eclecticism!</p>
<p>Nor is this the only merit of Debating Societies. They
tend also to foster taste, and to promote friendship between
University men. This last, as we have had occasion before
to say, is the great requirement of our student life; and it will
therefore be no waste of time if we devote a paragraph to this
subject in its connection with Debating Societies. At
present they partake too much of the nature of a
<i>clique</i>. Friends propose friends, and mutual friends
second them, until the society degenerates into a sort of family
party. You may confirm old acquaintances, but you can
rarely make new ones. You find yourself in the atmosphere
of your own daily intercourse. Now, this is an unfortunate
circumstance, which it seems to me might readily be
rectified. Our Principal has shown himself so friendly
towards all College improvements that I cherish the hope of
seeing shortly realised a certain suggestion, which is not a new
one with me, and which must often have been proposed and
canvassed heretofore—I mean, a real <i>University Debating
Society</i>, patronised by the Senatus, presided over by the
Professors, to which every one might gain ready admittance on
sight of his matriculation ticket, where it would be a favour and
not a necessity to speak, and where the obscure student might
have another object for attendance besides the mere desire to
save his fines: to wit, the chance of drawing on himself the
favourable consideration of his teachers. This would be
merely following in the good tendency, which has been so
noticeable during all this session, to increase and multiply
student societies and clubs of every sort. Nor would it be
a matter of much difficulty. The united societies would
form a nucleus: one of the class-rooms at first, and perhaps
afterwards the great hall above the library, might be the place
of meeting. There would be no want of attendance or
enthusiasm, I am sure; for it is a very different thing to speak
under the bushel of a private club on the one hand, and, on the
other, in a public place, where a happy period or a subtle
argument may do the speaker permanent service in after
life. Such a club might end, perhaps, by rivalling the
‘Union’ at Cambridge or the ‘Union’ at
Oxford.</p>
<h3>CHAPTER IV—THE PHILOSOPHY OF UMBRELLAS <a
name="citation151"></a><a href="#footnote151"
class="citation">[151]</a></h3>
<p>It is wonderful to think what a turn has been given to our
whole Society by the fact that we live under the sign of
Aquarius—that our climate is essentially wet. A mere
arbitrary distinction, like the walking-swords of yore, might
have remained the symbol of foresight and respectability, had not
the raw mists and dropping showers of our island pointed the
inclination of Society to another exponent of those
virtues. A ribbon of the Legion of Honour or a string of
medals may prove a person’s courage; a title may prove his
birth; a professorial chair his study and acquirement; but it is
the habitual carriage of the umbrella that is the stamp of
Respectability. The umbrella has become the acknowledged
index of social position.</p>
<p>Robinson Crusoe presents us with a touching instance of the
hankering after them inherent in the civilised and educated
mind. To the superficial, the hot suns of Juan Fernandez
may sufficiently account for his quaint choice of a luxury; but
surely one who had borne the hard labour of a seaman under the
tropics for all these years could have supported an excursion
after goats or a peaceful <i>constitutional</i> arm in arm with
the nude Friday. No, it was not this: the memory of a
vanished respectability called for some outward manifestation,
and the result was—an umbrella. A pious castaway
might have rigged up a belfry and solaced his Sunday mornings
with the mimicry of church-bells; but Crusoe was rather a
moralist than a pietist, and his leaf-umbrella is as fine an
example of the civilised mind striving to express itself under
adverse circumstances as we have ever met with.</p>
<p>It is not for nothing, either, that the umbrella has become
the very foremost badge of modern civilisation—the Urim and
Thummim of respectability. Its pregnant symbolism has taken
its rise in the most natural manner. Consider, for a
moment, when umbrellas were first introduced into this country,
what manner of men would use them, and what class would adhere to
the useless but ornamental cane. The first, without doubt,
would be the hypochondriacal, out of solicitude for their health,
or the frugal, out of care for their raiment; the second, it is
equally plain, would include the fop, the fool, and the
Bobadil. Any one acquainted with the growth of Society, and
knowing out of what small seeds of cause are produced great
revolutions, and wholly new conditions of intercourse, sees from
this simple thought how the carriage of an umbrella came to
indicate frugality, judicious regard for bodily welfare, and
scorn for mere outward adornment, and, in one word, all those
homely and solid virtues implied in the term <span
class="smcap">respectability</span>. Not that the
umbrella’s costliness has nothing to do with its great
influence. Its possession, besides symbolising (as we have
already indicated) the change from wild Esau to plain Jacob
dwelling in tents, implies a certain comfortable provision of
fortune. It is not every one that can expose twenty-six
shillings’ worth of property to so many chances of loss and
theft. So strongly do we feel on this point, indeed, that
we are almost inclined to consider all who possess really
well-conditioned umbrellas as worthy of the Franchise. They
have a qualification standing in their lobbies; they carry a
sufficient stake in the common-weal below their arm. One
who bears with him an umbrella—such a complicated structure
of whalebone, of silk, and of cane, that it becomes a very
microcosm of modern industry—is necessarily a man of
peace. A half-crown cane may be applied to an
offender’s head on a very moderate provocation; but a
six-and-twenty shilling silk is a possession too precious to be
adventured in the shock of war.</p>
<p>These are but a few glances at how umbrellas (in the general)
came to their present high estate. But the true
Umbrella-Philosopher meets with far stranger applications as he
goes about the streets.</p>
<p>Umbrellas, like faces, acquire a certain sympathy with the
individual who carries them: indeed, they are far more capable of
betraying his trust; for whereas a face is given to us so far
ready made, and all our power over it is in frowning, and
laughing, and grimacing, during the first three or four decades
of life, each umbrella is selected from a whole shopful, as being
most consonant to the purchaser’s disposition. An
undoubted power of diagnosis rests with the practised
Umbrella-Philosopher. O you who lisp, and amble, and change
the fashion of your countenances—you who conceal all these,
how little do you think that you left a proof of your weakness in
our umbrella-stand—that even now, as you shake out the
folds to meet the thickening snow, we read in its ivory handle
the outward and visible sign of your snobbery, or from the
exposed gingham of its cover detect, through coat and waistcoat,
the hidden hypocrisy of the ‘<i>dickey</i>’!
But alas! even the umbrella is no certain criterion. The
falsity and the folly of the human race have degraded that
graceful symbol to the ends of dishonesty; and while some
umbrellas, from carelessness in selection, are not strikingly
characteristic (for it is only in what a man loves that he
displays his real nature), others, from certain prudential
motives, are chosen directly opposite to the person’s
disposition. A mendacious umbrella is a sign of great moral
degradation. Hypocrisy naturally shelters itself below a
silk; while the fast youth goes to visit his religious friends
armed with the decent and reputable gingham. May it not be
said of the bearers of these inappropriate umbrellas that they go
about the streets ‘with a lie in their right
hand’?</p>
<p>The kings of Siam, as we read, besides having a graduated
social scale of umbrellas (which was a good thing), prevented the
great bulk of their subjects from having any at all, which was
certainly a bad thing. We should be sorry to believe that
this Eastern legislator was a fool—the idea of an
aristocracy of umbrellas is too philosophic to have originated in
a nobody—and we have accordingly taken exceeding pains to
find out the reason of this harsh restriction. We think we
have succeeded; but, while admiring the principle at which he
aimed, and while cordially recognising in the Siamese potentate
the only man before ourselves who had taken a real grasp of the
umbrella, we must be allowed to point out how unphilosophically
the great man acted in this particular. His object,
plainly, was to prevent any unworthy persons from bearing the
sacred symbol of domestic virtues. We cannot excuse his
limiting these virtues to the circle of his court. We must
only remember that such was the feeling of the age in which he
lived. Liberalism had not yet raised the war-cry of the
working classes. But here was his mistake: it was a
needless regulation. Except in a very few cases of
hypocrisy joined to a powerful intellect, men, not by nature
<i>umbrellarians</i>, have tried again and again to become so by
art, and yet have failed—have expended their patrimony in
the purchase of umbrella after umbrella, and yet have
systematically lost them, and have finally, with contrite spirits
and shrunken purses, given up their vain struggle, and relied on
theft and borrowing for the remainder of their lives. This
is the most remarkable fact that we have had occasion to notice;
and yet we challenge the candid reader to call it in
question. Now, as there cannot be any <i>moral
selection</i> in a mere dead piece of furniture—as the
umbrella cannot be supposed to have an affinity for individual
men equal and reciprocal to that which men certainly feel toward
individual umbrellas—we took the trouble of consulting a
scientific friend as to whether there was any possible physical
explanation of the phenomenon. He was unable to supply a
plausible theory, or even hypothesis; but we extract from his
letter the following interesting passage relative to the physical
peculiarities of umbrellas: ‘Not the least important, and
by far the most curious property of the umbrella, is the energy
which it displays in affecting the atmospheric strata.
There is no fact in meteorology better established—indeed,
it is almost the only one on which meteorologists are
agreed—than that the carriage of an umbrella produces
desiccation of the air; while if it be left at home, aqueous
vapour is largely produced, and is soon deposited in the form of
rain. No theory,’ my friend continues,
‘competent to explain this hygrometric law has been given
(as far as I am aware) by Herschel, Dove, Glaisher, Tait, Buchan,
or any other writer; nor do I pretend to supply the defect.
I venture, however, to throw out the conjecture that it will be
ultimately found to belong to the same class of natural laws as
that agreeable to which a slice of toast always descends with the
buttered surface downwards.’</p>
<p>But it is time to draw to a close. We could expatiate
much longer upon this topic, but want of space constrains us to
leave unfinished these few desultory remarks—slender
contributions towards a subject which has fallen sadly backward,
and which, we grieve to say, was better understood by the king of
Siam in 1686 than by all the philosophers of to-day. If,
however, we have awakened in any rational mind an interest in the
symbolism of umbrellas—in any generous heart a more
complete sympathy with the dumb companion of his daily
walk—or in any grasping spirit a pure notion of
respectability strong enough to make him expend his
six-and-twenty shillings—we shall have deserved well of the
world, to say nothing of the many industrious persons employed in
the manufacture of the article.</p>
<h3>CHAPTER V—THE PHILOSOPHY OF NOMENCLATURE</h3>
<blockquote><p>‘How many Cæsars and Pompeys, by mere
inspirations of the names, have been rendered worthy of
them? And how many are there, who might have done exceeding
well in the world, had not their characters and spirits been
totally depressed and Nicodemus’d into
nothing?’—<i>Tristram Shandy</i>, vol. <span
class="smcap">i.</span> chap xix.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Such were the views of the late Walter Shandy, Esq., Turkey
merchant. To the best of my belief, Mr. Shandy is the first
who fairly pointed out the incalculable influence of nomenclature
upon the whole life—who seems first to have recognised the
one child, happy in an heroic appellation, soaring upwards on the
wings of fortune, and the other, like the dead sailor in his
shotted hammock, haled down by sheer weight of name into the
abysses of social failure. Solomon possibly had his eye on
some such theory when he said that ‘a good name is better
than precious ointment’; and perhaps we may trace a similar
spirit in the compilers of the English Catechism, and the
affectionate interest with which they linger round the
catechumen’s name at the very threshold of their
work. But, be these as they may, I think no one can censure
me for appending, in pursuance of the expressed wish of his son,
the Turkey merchant’s name to his system, and pronouncing,
without further preface, a short epitome of the ‘Shandean
Philosophy of Nomenclature.’</p>
<p>To begin, then: the influence of our name makes itself felt
from the very cradle. As a schoolboy I remember the pride
with which I hailed Robin Hood, Robert Bruce, and Robert le
Diable as my name-fellows; and the feeling of sore disappointment
that fell on my heart when I found a freebooter or a general who
did not share with me a single one of my numerous
<i>prænomina</i>. Look at the delight with which two
children find they have the same name. They are friends
from that moment forth; they have a bond of union stronger than
exchange of nuts and sweetmeats. This feeling, I own, wears
off in later life. Our names lose their freshness and
interest, become trite and indifferent. But this, dear
reader, is merely one of the sad effects of those ‘shades
of the prison-house’ which come gradually betwixt us and
nature with advancing years; it affords no weapon against the
philosophy of names.</p>
<p>In after life, although we fail to trace its working, that
name which careless godfathers lightly applied to your
unconscious infancy will have been moulding your character, and
influencing with irresistible power the whole course of your
earthly fortunes. But the last name, overlooked by Mr.
Shandy, is no whit less important as a condition of
success. Family names, we must recollect, are but inherited
nicknames; and if the <i>sobriquet</i> were applicable to the
ancestor, it is most likely applicable to the descendant
also. You would not expect to find Mr. M‘Phun acting
as a mute, or Mr. M‘Lumpha excelling as a professor of
dancing. Therefore, in what follows, we shall consider
names, independent of whether they are first or last. And
to begin with, look what a pull <i>Cromwell</i> had over
<i>Pym</i>—the one name full of a resonant imperialism, the
other, mean, pettifogging, and unheroic to a degree. Who
would expect eloquence from <i>Pym</i>—who would read poems
by <i>Pym</i>—who would bow to the opinion of
<i>Pym</i>? He might have been a dentist, but he should
never have aspired to be a statesman. I can only wonder
that he succeeded as he did. Pym and Habakkuk stand first
upon the roll of men who have triumphed, by sheer force of
genius, over the most unfavourable appellations. But even
these have suffered; and, had they been more fitly named, the one
might have been Lord Protector, and the other have shared the
laurels with Isaiah. In this matter we must not forget that
all our great poets have borne great names. Chaucer,
Spenser, Shakespeare, Milton, Pope, Wordsworth,
Shelley—what a constellation of lordly words! Not a
single common-place name among them—not a Brown, not a
Jones, not a Robinson; they are all names that one would stop and
look at on a door-plate. Now, imagine if <i>Pepys</i> had
tried to clamber somehow into the enclosure of poetry, what a
blot would that word have made upon the list! The thing was
impossible. In the first place a certain natural
consciousness that men would have held him down to the level of
his name, would have prevented him from rising above the Pepsine
standard, and so haply withheld him altogether from attempting
verse. Next, the booksellers would refuse to publish, and
the world to read them, on the mere evidence of the fatal
appellation. And now, before I close this section, I must
say one word as to <i>punnable</i> names, names that stand alone,
that have a significance and life apart from him that bears
them. These are the bitterest of all. One friend of
mine goes bowed and humbled through life under the weight of this
misfortune; for it is an awful thing when a man’s name is a
joke, when he cannot be mentioned without exciting merriment, and
when even the intimation of his death bids fair to carry laughter
into many a home.</p>
<p>So much for people who are badly named. Now for people
who are <i>too</i> well named, who go top-heavy from the font,
who are baptized into a false position, and find themselves
beginning life eclipsed under the fame of some of the great ones
of the past. A man, for instance, called William
Shakespeare could never dare to write plays. He is thrown
into too humbling an apposition with the author of
<i>Hamlet</i>. Its own name coming after is such an
anti-climax. ‘The plays of William
Shakespeare’? says the reader—‘O no! The
plays of William Shakespeare Cockerill,’ and he throws the
book aside. In wise pursuance of such views, Mr. John
Milton Hengler, who not long since delighted us in this favoured
town, has never attempted to write an epic, but has chosen a new
path, and has excelled upon the tight-rope. A marked
example of triumph over this is the case of Mr. Dante Gabriel
Rossetti. On the face of the matter, I should have advised
him to imitate the pleasing modesty of the last-named gentleman,
and confine his ambition to the sawdust. But Mr. Rossetti
has triumphed. He has even dared to translate from his
mighty name-father; and the voice of fame supports him in his
boldness.</p>
<p>Dear readers, one might write a year upon this matter. A
lifetime of comparison and research could scarce suffice for its
elucidation. So here, if it please you, we shall let it
rest. Slight as these notes have been, I would that the
great founder of the system had been alive to see them. How
he had warmed and brightened, how his persuasive eloquence would
have fallen on the ears of Toby; and what a letter of praise and
sympathy would not the editor have received before the month was
out! Alas, the thing was not to be. Walter Shandy
died and was duly buried, while yet his theory lay forgotten and
neglected by his fellow-countrymen. But, reader, the day
will come, I hope, when a paternal government will stamp out, as
seeds of national weakness, all depressing patronymics, and when
godfathers and godmothers will soberly and earnestly debate the
interest of the nameless one, and not rush blindfold to the
christening. In these days there shall be written a
‘Godfather’s Assistant,’ in shape of a
dictionary of names, with their concomitant virtues and vices;
and this book shall be scattered broadcast through the land, and
shall be on the table of every one eligible for godfathership,
until such a thing as a vicious or untoward appellation shall
have ceased from off the face of the earth.</p>
<h2>CRITICISMS</h2>
<h3>CHAPTER I—LORD LYTTON’S ‘FABLES IN
SONG’</h3>
<p>It seems as if Lord Lytton, in this new book of his, had found
the form most natural to his talent. In some ways, indeed,
it may be held inferior to <i>Chronicles and Characters</i>; we
look in vain for anything like the terrible intensity of the
night-scene in <i>Irene</i>, or for any such passages of massive
and memorable writing as appeared, here and there, in the earlier
work, and made it not altogether unworthy of its model,
Hugo’s <i>Legend of the Ages</i>. But it becomes
evident, on the most hasty retrospect, that this earlier work was
a step on the way towards the later. It seems as if the
author had been feeling about for his definite medium, and was
already, in the language of the child’s game, growing
hot. There are many pieces in <i>Chronicles and
Characters</i> that might be detached from their original
setting, and embodied, as they stand, among the <i>Fables in
Song</i>.</p>
<p>For the term Fable is not very easy to define
rigorously. In the most typical form some moral precept is
set forth by means of a conception purely fantastic, and usually
somewhat trivial into the bargain; there is something playful
about it, that will not support a very exacting criticism, and
the lesson must be apprehended by the fancy at half a hint.
Such is the great mass of the old stories of wise animals or
foolish men that have amused our childhood. But we should
expect the fable, in company with other and more important
literary forms, to be more and more loosely, or at least largely,
comprehended as time went on, and so to degenerate in conception
from this original type. That depended for much of its
piquancy on the very fact that it was fantastic: the point of the
thing lay in a sort of humorous inappropriateness; and it is
natural enough that pleasantry of this description should become
less common, as men learn to suspect some serious analogy
underneath. Thus a comical story of an ape touches us quite
differently after the proposition of Mr. Darwin’s
theory. Moreover, there lay, perhaps, at the bottom of this
primitive sort of fable, a humanity, a tenderness of rough
truths; so that at the end of some story, in which vice or folly
had met with its destined punishment, the fabulist might be able
to assure his auditors, as we have often to assure tearful
children on the like occasions, that they may dry their eyes, for
none of it was true.</p>
<p>But this benefit of fiction becomes lost with more
sophisticated hearers and authors: a man is no longer the dupe of
his own artifice, and cannot deal playfully with truths that are
a matter of bitter concern to him in his life. And hence,
in the progressive centralisation of modern thought, we should
expect the old form of fable to fall gradually into desuetude,
and be gradually succeeded by another, which is a fable in all
points except that it is not altogether fabulous. And this
new form, such as we should expect, and such as we do indeed
find, still presents the essential character of brevity; as in
any other fable also, there is, underlying and animating the
brief action, a moral idea; and as in any other fable, the object
is to bring this home to the reader through the intellect rather
than through the feelings; so that, without being very deeply
moved or interested by the characters of the piece, we should
recognise vividly the hinges on which the little plot
revolves. But the fabulist now seeks analogies where before
he merely sought humorous situations. There will be now a
logical nexus between the moral expressed and the machinery
employed to express it. The machinery, in fact, as this
change is developed, becomes less and less fabulous. We
find ourselves in presence of quite a serious, if quite a
miniature division of creative literature; and sometimes we have
the lesson embodied in a sober, everyday narration, as in the
parables of the New Testament, and sometimes merely the statement
or, at most, the collocation of significant facts in life, the
reader being left to resolve for himself the vague, troublesome,
and not yet definitely moral sentiment which has been thus
created. And step by step with the development of this
change, yet another is developed: the moral tends to become more
indeterminate and large. It ceases to be possible to append
it, in a tag, to the bottom of the piece, as one might write the
name below a caricature; and the fable begins to take rank with
all other forms of creative literature, as something too
ambitious, in spite of its miniature dimensions, to be resumed in
any succinct formula without the loss of all that is deepest and
most suggestive in it.</p>
<p>Now it is in this widest sense that Lord Lytton understands
the term; there are examples in his two pleasant volumes of all
the forms already mentioned, and even of another which can only
be admitted among fables by the utmost possible leniency of
construction. ‘Composure,’ ‘Et
Cætera,’ and several more, are merely similes
poetically elaborated. So, too, is the pathetic story of
the grandfather and grandchild: the child, having treasured away
an icicle and forgotten it for ten minutes, comes back to find it
already nearly melted, and no longer beautiful: at the same time,
the grandfather has just remembered and taken out a bundle of
love-letters, which he too had stored away in years gone by, and
then long neglected; and, behold! the letters are as faded and
sorrowfully disappointing as the icicle. This is merely a
simile poetically worked out; and yet it is in such as these, and
some others, to be mentioned further on, that the author seems at
his best. Wherever he has really written after the old
model, there is something to be deprecated: in spite of all the
spirit and freshness, in spite of his happy assumption of that
cheerful acceptation of things as they are, which, rightly or
wrongly, we come to attribute to the ideal fabulist, there is
ever a sense as of something a little out of place. A form
of literature so very innocent and primitive looks a little
over-written in Lord Lytton’s conscious and highly-coloured
style. It may be bad taste, but sometimes we should prefer
a few sentences of plain prose narration, and a little Bewick by
way of tail-piece. So that it is not among those fables
that conform most nearly to the old model, but one had nearly
said among those that most widely differ from it, that we find
the most satisfactory examples of the author’s manner.</p>
<p>In the mere matter of ingenuity, the metaphysical fables are
the most remarkable; such as that of the windmill who imagined
that it was he who raised the wind; or that of the grocer’s
balance (‘Cogito ergo sum’) who considered himself
endowed with free-will, reason, and an infallible practical
judgment; until, one fine day, the police made a descent upon the
shop, and find the weights false and the scales unequal; and the
whole thing is broken up for old iron. Capital fables,
also, in the same ironical spirit, are ‘Prometheus
Unbound,’ the tale of the vainglorying of a champagne-cork,
and ‘Teleology,’ where a nettle justifies the ways of
God to nettles while all goes well with it, and, upon a change of
luck, promptly changes its divinity.</p>
<p>In all these there is still plenty of the fabulous if you
will, although, even here, there may be two opinions possible;
but there is another group, of an order of merit perhaps still
higher, where we look in vain for any such playful liberties with
Nature. Thus we have ‘Conservation of Force’;
where a musician, thinking of a certain picture, improvises in
the twilight; a poet, hearing the music, goes home inspired, and
writes a poem; and then a painter, under the influence of this
poem, paints another picture, thus lineally descended from the
first. This is fiction, but not what we have been used to
call fable. We miss the incredible element, the point of
audacity with which the fabulist was wont to mock at his
readers. And still more so is this the case with
others. ‘The Horse and the Fly’ states one of
the unanswerable problems of life in quite a realistic and
straightforward way. A fly startles a cab-horse, the coach
is overset; a newly-married pair within and the driver, a man
with a wife and family, are all killed. The horse continues
to gallop off in the loose traces, and ends the tragedy by
running over an only child; and there is some little pathetic
detail here introduced in the telling, that makes the
reader’s indignation very white-hot against some one.
It remains to be seen who that some one is to be: the fly?
Nay, but on closer inspection, it appears that the fly, actuated
by maternal instinct, was only seeking a place for her eggs: is
maternal instinct, then, ‘sole author of these mischiefs
all’? ‘Who’s in the Right?’ one of
the best fables in the book, is somewhat in the same vein.
After a battle has been won, a group of officers assemble inside
a battery, and debate together who should have the honour of the
success; the Prince, the general staff, the cavalry, the engineer
who posted the battery in which they then stand talking, are
successively named: the sergeant, who pointed the guns, sneers to
himself at the mention of the engineer; and, close by, the
gunner, who had applied the match, passes away with a smile of
triumph, since it was through his hand that the victorious blow
had been dealt. Meanwhile, the cannon claims the honour
over the gunner; the cannon-ball, who actually goes forth on the
dread mission, claims it over the cannon, who remains idly
behind; the powder reminds the cannon-ball that, but for him, it
would still be lying on the arsenal floor; and the match caps the
discussion; powder, cannon-ball, and cannon would be all equally
vain and ineffectual without fire. Just then there comes on
a shower of rain, which wets the powder and puts out the match,
and completes this lesson of dependence, by indicating the
negative conditions which are as necessary for any effect, in
their absence, as is the presence of this great fraternity of
positive conditions, not any one of which can claim priority over
any other. But the fable does not end here, as perhaps, in
all logical strictness, it should. It wanders off into a
discussion as to which is the truer greatness, that of the
vanquished fire or that of the victorious rain. And the
speech of the rain is charming:</p>
<blockquote><p>‘Lo, with my little drops I bless again<br
/>
And beautify the fields which thou didst blast!<br />
Rend, wither, waste, and ruin, what thou wilt,<br />
But call not Greatness what the Gods call Guilt.<br />
Blossoms and grass from blood in battle spilt,<br />
And poppied corn, I bring.<br />
‘Mid mouldering Babels, to oblivion built,<br />
My violets spring.<br />
Little by little my small drops have strength<br />
To deck with green delights the grateful earth.’</p>
</blockquote>
<p>And so forth, not quite germane (it seems to me) to the matter
in hand, but welcome for its own sake.</p>
<p>Best of all are the fables that deal more immediately with the
emotions. There is, for instance, that of ‘The Two
Travellers,’ which is profoundly moving in conception,
although by no means as well written as some others. In
this, one of the two, fearfully frost-bitten, saves his life out
of the snow at the cost of all that was comely in his body; just
as, long before, the other, who has now quietly resigned himself
to death, had violently freed himself from Love at the cost of
all that was finest and fairest in his character. Very
graceful and sweet is the fable (if so it should be called) in
which the author sings the praises of that ‘kindly
perspective,’ which lets a wheat-stalk near the eye cover
twenty leagues of distant country, and makes the humble circle
about a man’s hearth more to him than all the possibilities
of the external world. The companion fable to this is also
excellent. It tells us of a man who had, all his life
through, entertained a passion for certain blue hills on the far
horizon, and had promised himself to travel thither ere he died,
and become familiar with these distant friends. At last, in
some political trouble, he is banished to the very place of his
dreams. He arrives there overnight, and, when he rises and
goes forth in the morning, there sure enough are the blue hills,
only now they have changed places with him, and smile across to
him, distant as ever, from the old home whence he has come.
Such a story might have been very cynically treated; but it is
not so done, the whole tone is kindly and consolatory, and the
disenchanted man submissively takes the lesson, and understands
that things far away are to be loved for their own sake, and that
the unattainable is not truly unattainable, when we can make the
beauty of it our own. Indeed, throughout all these two
volumes, though there is much practical scepticism, and much
irony on abstract questions, this kindly and consolatory spirit
is never absent. There is much that is cheerful and, after
a sedate, fireside fashion, hopeful. No one will be
discouraged by reading the book; but the ground of all this
hopefulness and cheerfulness remains to the end somewhat
vague. It does not seem to arise from any practical belief
in the future either of the individual or the race, but rather
from the profound personal contentment of the writer. This
is, I suppose, all we must look for in the case. It is as
much as we can expect, if the fabulist shall prove a shrewd and
cheerful fellow-wayfarer, one with whom the world does not seem
to have gone much amiss, but who has yet laughingly learned
something of its evil. It will depend much, of course, upon
our own character and circumstances, whether the encounter will
be agreeable and bracing to the spirits, or offend us as an
ill-timed mockery. But where, as here, there is a little
tincture of bitterness along with the good-nature, where it is
plainly not the humour of a man cheerfully ignorant, but of one
who looks on, tolerant and superior and smilingly attentive, upon
the good and bad of our existence, it will go hardly if we do not
catch some reflection of the same spirit to help us on our
way. There is here no impertinent and lying proclamation of
peace—none of the cheap optimism of the well-to-do; what we
find here is a view of life that would be even grievous, were it
not enlivened with this abiding cheerfulness, and ever and anon
redeemed by a stroke of pathos.</p>
<p>It is natural enough, I suppose, that we should find wanting
in this book some of the intenser qualities of the author’s
work; and their absence is made up for by much happy description
after a quieter fashion. The burst of jubilation over the
departure of the snow, which forms the prelude to ‘The
Thistle,’ is full of spirit and of pleasant images.
The speech of the forest in ‘Sans Souci’ is inspired
by a beautiful sentiment for nature of the modern sort, and
pleases us more, I think, as poetry should please us, than
anything in <i>Chronicles and Characters</i>. There are
some admirable felicities of expression here and there; as that
of the hill, whose summit</p>
<blockquote><p> ‘Did
print<br />
The azure air with pines.’</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Moreover, I do not recollect in the author’s former work
any symptom of that sympathetic treatment of still life, which is
noticeable now and again in the fables; and perhaps most
noticeably, when he sketches the burned letters as they hover
along the gusty flue, ‘Thin, sable veils, wherein a
restless spark Yet trembled.’ But the description is
at its best when the subjects are unpleasant, or even
grisly. There are a few capital lines in this key on the
last spasm of the battle before alluded to. Surely nothing
could be better, in its own way, than the fish in ‘The Last
Cruise of the Arrogant,’ ‘the shadowy, side-faced,
silent things,’ that come butting and staring with lidless
eyes at the sunken steam-engine. And although, in yet
another, we are told, pleasantly enough, how the water went down
into the valleys, where it set itself gaily to saw wood, and on
into the plains, where it would soberly carry grain to town; yet
the real strength of the fable is when it dealt with the shut
pool in which certain unfortunate raindrops are imprisoned among
slugs and snails, and in the company of an old toad. The
sodden contentment of the fallen acorn is strangely significant;
and it is astonishing how unpleasantly we are startled by the
appearance of her horrible lover, the maggot.</p>
<p>And now for a last word, about the style. This is not
easy to criticise. It is impossible to deny to it rapidity,
spirit, and a full sound; the lines are never lame, and the sense
is carried forward with an uninterrupted, impetuous rush.
But it is not equal. After passages of really admirable
versification, the author falls back upon a sort of loose,
cavalry manner, not unlike the style of some of Mr.
Browning’s minor pieces, and almost inseparable from
wordiness, and an easy acceptation of somewhat cheap
finish. There is nothing here of that compression which is
the note of a really sovereign style. It is unfair,
perhaps, to set a not remarkable passage from Lord Lytton side by
side with one of the signal masterpieces of another, and a very
perfect poet; and yet it is interesting, when we see how the
portraiture of a dog, detailed through thirty odd lines, is
frittered down and finally almost lost in the mere laxity of the
style, to compare it with the clear, simple, vigorous delineation
that Burns, in four couplets, has given us of the
ploughman’s collie. It is interesting, at first, and
then it becomes a little irritating; for when we think of other
passages so much more finished and adroit, we cannot help
feeling, that with a little more ardour after perfection of form,
criticism would have found nothing left for her to censure.
A similar mark of precipitate work is the number of adjectives
tumultuously heaped together, sometimes to help out the sense,
and sometimes (as one cannot but suspect) to help out the sound
of the verses. I do not believe, for instance, that Lord
Lytton himself would defend the lines in which we are told how
Laocoön ‘Revealed to Roman crowds, now
<i>Christian</i> grown, That <i>Pagan</i> anguish which, in
<i>Parian</i> stone, The <i>Rhodian</i> artist,’ and so
on. It is not only that this is bad in itself; but that it
is unworthy of the company in which it is found; that such verses
should not have appeared with the name of a good versifier like
Lord Lytton. We must take exception, also, in conclusion,
to the excess of alliteration. Alliteration is so liable to
be abused that we can scarcely be too sparing of it; and yet it
is a trick that seems to grow upon the author with years.
It is a pity to see fine verses, such as some in
‘Demos,’ absolutely spoiled by the recurrence of one
wearisome consonant.</p>
<h3>CHAPTER II—SALVINI’S MACBETH</h3>
<p>Salvini closed his short visit to Edinburgh by a performance
of <i>Macbeth</i>. It was, perhaps, from a sentiment of
local colour that he chose to play the Scottish usurper for the
first time before Scotsmen; and the audience were not insensible
of the privilege. Few things, indeed, can move a stronger
interest than to see a great creation taking shape for the first
time. If it is not purely artistic, the sentiment is surely
human. And the thought that you are before all the world,
and have the start of so many others as eager as yourself, at
least keeps you in a more unbearable suspense before the curtain
rises, if it does not enhance the delight with which you follow
the performance and see the actor ‘bend up each corporal
agent’ to realise a masterpiece of a few hours’
duration. With a player so variable as Salvini, who trusts
to the feelings of the moment for so much detail, and who, night
after night, does the same thing differently but always well, it
can never be safe to pass judgment after a single hearing.
And this is more particularly true of last week’s
<i>Macbeth</i>; for the whole third act was marred by a
grievously humorous misadventure. Several minutes too soon
the ghost of Banquo joined the party, and after having sat
helpless a while at a table, was ignominiously withdrawn.
Twice was this ghostly Jack-in-the-box obtruded on the stage
before his time; twice removed again; and yet he showed so little
hurry when he was really wanted, that, after an awkward pause,
Macbeth had to begin his apostrophe to empty air. The
arrival of the belated spectre in the middle, with a jerk that
made him nod all over, was the last accident in the chapter, and
worthily topped the whole. It may be imagined how lamely
matters went throughout these cross purposes.</p>
<p>In spite of this, and some other hitches, Salvini’s
Macbeth had an emphatic success. The creation is worthy of
a place beside the same artist’s Othello and Hamlet.
It is the simplest and most unsympathetic of the three; but the
absence of the finer lineaments of Hamlet is redeemed by gusto,
breadth, and a headlong unity. Salvini sees nothing great
in Macbeth beyond the royalty of muscle, and that courage which
comes of strong and copious circulation. The moral
smallness of the man is insisted on from the first, in the
shudder of uncontrollable jealousy with which he sees Duncan
embracing Banquo. He may have some northern poetry of
speech, but he has not much logical understanding. In his
dealings with the supernatural powers he is like a savage with
his fetich, trusting them beyond bounds while all goes well, and
whenever he is crossed, casting his belief aside and calling
‘fate into the list.’ For his wife, he is
little more than an agent, a frame of bone and sinew for her
fiery spirit to command. The nature of his feeling towards
her is rendered with a most precise and delicate touch. He
always yields to the woman’s fascination; and yet his
caresses (and we know how much meaning Salvini can give to a
caress) are singularly hard and unloving. Sometimes he lays
his hand on her as he might take hold of any one who happened to
be nearest to him at a moment of excitement. Love has
fallen out of this marriage by the way, and left a curious
friendship. Only once—at the very moment when she is
showing herself so little a woman and so much a high-spirited
man—only once is he very deeply stirred towards her; and
that finds expression in the strange and horrible transport of
admiration, doubly strange and horrible on Salvini’s
lips—‘Bring forth men-children only!’</p>
<p>The murder scene, as was to be expected, pleased the audience
best. Macbeth’s voice, in the talk with his wife, was
a thing not to be forgotten; and when he spoke of his
hangman’s hands he seemed to have blood in his
utterance. Never for a moment, even in the very article of
the murder, does he possess his own soul. He is a man on
wires. From first to last it is an exhibition of hideous
cowardice. For, after all, it is not here, but in broad
daylight, with the exhilaration of conflict, where he can assure
himself at every blow he has the longest sword and the heaviest
hand, that this man’s physical bravery can keep him up; he
is an unwieldy ship, and needs plenty of way on before he will
steer.</p>
<p>In the banquet scene, while the first murderer gives account
of what he has done, there comes a flash of truculent joy at the
‘twenty trenchèd gashes’ on Banquo’s
head. Thus Macbeth makes welcome to his imagination those
very details of physical horror which are so soon to turn sour in
him. As he runs out to embrace these cruel circumstances,
as he seeks to realise to his mind’s eye the reassuring
spectacle of his dead enemy, he is dressing out the phantom to
terrify himself; and his imagination, playing the part of
justice, is to ‘commend to his own lips the ingredients of
his poisoned chalice.’ With the recollection of
Hamlet and his father’s spirit still fresh upon him, and
the holy awe with which that good man encountered things not
dreamt of in his philosophy, it was not possible to avoid looking
for resemblances between the two apparitions and the two men
haunted. But there are none to be found. Macbeth has
a purely physical dislike for Banquo’s spirit and the
‘twenty trenchèd gashes.’ He is afraid
of he knows not what. He is abject, and again
blustering. In the end he so far forgets himself, his
terror, and the nature of what is before him, that he rushes upon
it as he would upon a man. When his wife tells him he needs
repose, there is something really childish in the way he looks
about the room, and, seeing nothing, with an expression of almost
sensual relief, plucks up heart enough to go to bed. And
what is the upshot of the visitation? It is written in
Shakespeare, but should be read with the commentary of
Salvini’s voice and expression:—‘O! <i>siam
nell’ opra ancor fanciulli</i>’—‘We are
yet but young in deed.’ Circle below circle. He
is looking with horrible satisfaction into the mouth of
hell. There may still be a prick to-day; but to-morrow
conscience will be dead, and he may move untroubled in this
element of blood.</p>
<p>In the fifth act we see this lowest circle reached; and it is
Salvini’s finest moment throughout the play. From the
first he was admirably made up, and looked Macbeth to the full as
perfectly as ever he looked Othello. From the first moment
he steps upon the stage you can see this character is a creation
to the fullest meaning of the phrase; for the man before you is a
type you know well already. He arrives with Banquo on the
heath, fair and red-bearded, sparing of gesture, full of pride
and the sense of animal wellbeing, and satisfied after the battle
like a beast who has eaten his fill. But in the fifth act
there is a change. This is still the big, burly, fleshly,
handsome-looking Thane; here is still the same face which in the
earlier acts could be superficially good-humoured and sometimes
royally courteous. But now the atmosphere of blood, which
pervades the whole tragedy, has entered into the man and subdued
him to its own nature; and an indescribable degradation, a
slackness and puffiness, has overtaken his features. He has
breathed the air of carnage, and supped full of horrors.
Lady Macbeth complains of the smell of blood on her hand: Macbeth
makes no complaint—he has ceased to notice it now; but the
same smell is in his nostrils. A contained fury and disgust
possesses him. He taunts the messenger and the doctor as
people would taunt their mortal enemies. And, indeed, as he
knows right well, every one is his enemy now, except his
wife. About her he questions the doctor with something like
a last human anxiety; and, in tones of grisly mystery, asks him
if he can ‘minister to a mind diseased.’ When
the news of her death is brought him, he is staggered and falls
into a seat; but somehow it is not anything we can call grief
that he displays. There had been two of them against God
and man; and now, when there is only one, it makes perhaps less
difference than he had expected. And so her death is not
only an affliction, but one more disillusion; and he redoubles in
bitterness. The speech that follows, given with tragic
cynicism in every word, is a dirge, not so much for her as for
himself. From that time forth there is nothing human left
in him, only ‘the fiend of Scotland,’ Macduff’s
‘hell-hound,’ whom, with a stern glee, we see baited
like a bear and hunted down like a wolf. He is inspired and
set above fate by a demoniacal energy, a lust of wounds and
slaughter. Even after he meets Macduff his courage does not
fail; but when he hears the Thane was not born of woman, all
virtue goes out of him; and though he speaks sounding words of
defiance, the last combat is little better than a suicide.</p>
<p>The whole performance is, as I said, so full of gusto and a
headlong unity; the personality of Macbeth is so sharp and
powerful; and within these somewhat narrow limits there is so
much play and saliency that, so far as concerns Salvini himself,
a third great success seems indubitable. Unfortunately,
however, a great actor cannot fill more than a very small
fraction of the boards; and though Banquo’s ghost will
probably be more seasonable in his future apparitions, there are
some more inherent difficulties in the piece. The company
at large did not distinguish themselves. Macduff, to the
huge delight of the gallery, out-Macduff’d the average
ranter. The lady who filled the principal female part has
done better on other occasions, but I fear she has not metal for
what she tried last week. Not to succeed in the
sleep-walking scene is to make a memorable failure. As it
was given, it succeeded in being wrong in art without being true
to nature.</p>
<p>And there is yet another difficulty, happily easy to reform,
which somewhat interfered with the success of the
performance. At the end of the incantation scene the
Italian translator has made Macbeth fall insensible upon the
stage. This is a change of questionable propriety from a
psychological point of view; while in point of view of effect it
leaves the stage for some moments empty of all business. To
remedy this, a bevy of green ballet-girls came forth and pointed
their toes about the prostrate king. A dance of High Church
curates, or a hornpipe by Mr. T. P. Cooke, would not be more out
of the key; though the gravity of a Scots audience was not to be
overcome, and they merely expressed their disapprobation by a
round of moderate hisses, a similar irruption of Christmas
fairies would most likely convulse a London theatre from pit to
gallery with inextinguishable laughter. It is, I am told,
the Italian tradition; but it is one more honoured in the breach
than the observance. With the total disappearance of these
damsels, with a stronger Lady Macbeth, and, if possible, with
some compression of those scenes in which Salvini does not
appear, and the spectator is left at the mercy of Macduffs and
Duncans, the play would go twice as well, and we should be better
able to follow and enjoy an admirable work of dramatic art.</p>
<h3>CHAPTER III—BAGSTER’S ‘PILGRIM’S
PROGRESS’</h3>
<p>I have here before me an edition of the <i>Pilgrim’s
Progress</i>, bound in green, without a date, and described as
‘illustrated by nearly three hundred engravings, and memoir
of Bunyan.’ On the outside it is lettered
‘Bagster’s Illustrated Edition,’ and after the
author’s apology, facing the first page of the tale, a
folding pictorial ‘Plan of the Road’ is marked as
‘drawn by the late Mr. T. Conder,’ and engraved by J.
Basire. No further information is anywhere vouchsafed;
perhaps the publishers had judged the work too unimportant; and
we are still left ignorant whether or not we owe the woodcuts in
the body of the volume to the same hand that drew the plan.
It seems, however, more than probable. The literal
particularity of mind which, in the map, laid down the
flower-plots in the devil’s garden, and carefully
introduced the court-house in the town of Vanity, is closely
paralleled in many of the cuts; and in both, the architecture of
the buildings and the disposition of the gardens have a kindred
and entirely English air. Whoever he was, the author of
these wonderful little pictures may lay claim to be the best
illustrator of Bunyan. <a name="citation183"></a><a
href="#footnote183" class="citation">[183]</a> They are not
only good illustrations, like so many others; but they are like
so few, good illustrations of Bunyan. Their spirit, in
defect and quality, is still the same as his own. The
designer also has lain down and dreamed a dream, as literal, as
quaint, and almost as apposite as Bunyan’s; and text and
pictures make but the two sides of the same homespun yet
impassioned story. To do justice to the designs, it will be
necessary to say, for the hundredth time, a word or two about the
masterpiece which they adorn.</p>
<p>All allegories have a tendency to escape from the purpose of
their creators; and as the characters and incidents become more
and more interesting in themselves, the moral, which these were
to show forth, falls more and more into neglect. An
architect may command a wreath of vine-leaves round the cornice
of a monument; but if, as each leaf came from the chisel, it took
proper life and fluttered freely on the wall, and if the vine
grew, and the building were hidden over with foliage and fruit,
the architect would stand in much the same situation as the
writer of allegories. The <i>Faëry Queen</i> was an
allegory, I am willing to believe; but it survives as an
imaginative tale in incomparable verse. The case of Bunyan
is widely different; and yet in this also Allegory, poor nymph,
although never quite forgotten, is sometimes rudely thrust
against the wall. Bunyan was fervently in earnest; with
‘his fingers in his ears, he ran on,’ straight for
his mark. He tells us himself, in the conclusion to the
first part, that he did not fear to raise a laugh; indeed, he
feared nothing, and said anything; and he was greatly served in
this by a certain rustic privilege of his style, which, like the
talk of strong uneducated men, when it does not impress by its
force, still charms by its simplicity. The mere story and
the allegorical design enjoyed perhaps his equal favour. He
believed in both with an energy of faith that was capable of
moving mountains. And we have to remark in him, not the
parts where inspiration fails and is supplied by cold and merely
decorative invention, but the parts where faith has grown to be
credulity, and his characters become so real to him that he
forgets the end of their creation. We can follow him step
by step into the trap which he lays for himself by his own entire
good faith and triumphant literality of vision, till the trap
closes and shuts him in an inconsistency. The allegories of
the Interpreter and of the Shepherds of the Delectable Mountains
are all actually performed, like stage-plays, before the
pilgrims. The son of Mr. Great-grace visibly ‘tumbles
hills about with his words.’ Adam the First has his
condemnation written visibly on his forehead, so that Faithful
reads it. At the very instant the net closes round the
pilgrims, ‘the white robe falls from the black man’s
body.’ Despair ‘getteth him a grievous
crab-tree cudgel’; it was in ‘sunshiny weather’
that he had his fits; and the birds in the grove about the House
Beautiful, ‘our country birds,’ only sing their
little pious verses ‘at the spring, when the flowers appear
and the sun shines warm.’ ‘I often,’ says
Piety, ‘go out to hear them; we also ofttimes keep them
tame on our house.’ The post between Beulah and the
Celestial City sounds his horn, as you may yet hear in country
places. Madam Bubble, that ‘tall, comely dame,
something of a swarthy complexion, in very pleasant attire, but
old,’ ‘gives you a smile at the end of each
sentence’—a real woman she; we all know her.
Christiana dying ‘gave Mr. Stand-fast a ring,’ for no
possible reason in the allegory, merely because the touch was
human and affecting. Look at Great-heart, with his
soldierly ways, garrison ways, as I had almost called them; with
his taste in weapons; his delight in any that ‘he found to
be a man of his hands’; his chivalrous point of honour,
letting Giant Maul get up again when he was down, a thing fairly
flying in the teeth of the moral; above all, with his language in
the inimitable tale of Mr. Fearing: ‘I thought I should
have lost my
man’—‘chicken-hearted’—‘at
last he came in, and I will say that for my lord, he carried it
wonderful lovingly to him.’ This is no Independent
minister; this is a stout, honest, big-busted ancient, adjusting
his shoulder-belts, twirling his long moustaches as he
speaks. Last and most remarkable, ‘My sword,’
says the dying Valiant-for-Truth, he in whom Great-heart
delighted, ‘my sword I give to him that shall succeed me in
my pilgrimage, <i>and my courage and skill to him that can get
it</i>.’ And after this boast, more arrogantly
unorthodox than was ever dreamed of by the rejected Ignorance, we
are told that ‘all the trumpets sounded for him on the
other side.’</p>
<p>In every page the book is stamped with the same energy of
vision and the same energy of belief. The quality is
equally and indifferently displayed in the spirit of the
fighting, the tenderness of the pathos, the startling vigour and
strangeness of the incidents, the natural strain of the
conversations, and the humanity and charm of the
characters. Trivial talk over a meal, the dying words of
heroes, the delights of Beulah or the Celestial City, Apollyon
and my Lord Hate-good, Great-heart, and Mr. Worldly-Wiseman, all
have been imagined with the same clearness, all written of with
equal gusto and precision, all created in the same mixed element,
of simplicity that is almost comical, and art that, for its
purpose, is faultless.</p>
<p>It was in much the same spirit that our artist sat down to his
drawings. He is by nature a Bunyan of the pencil. He,
too, will draw anything, from a butcher at work on a dead sheep,
up to the courts of Heaven. ‘A Lamb for Supper’
is the name of one of his designs, ‘Their Glorious
Entry’ of another. He has the same disregard for the
ridiculous, and enjoys somewhat of the same privilege of style,
so that we are pleased even when we laugh the most. He is
literal to the verge of folly. If dust is to be raised from
the unswept parlour, you may be sure it will ‘fly
abundantly’ in the picture. If Faithful is to lie
‘as dead’ before Moses, dead he shall lie with a
warrant—dead and stiff like granite; nay (and here the
artist must enhance upon the symbolism of the author), it is with
the identical stone tables of the law that Moses fells the
sinner. Good and bad people, whom we at once distinguish in
the text by their names, Hopeful, Honest, and Valiant-for-Truth,
on the one hand, as against By-ends, Sir Having Greedy, and the
Lord Old-man on the other, are in these drawings as simply
distinguished by their costume. Good people, when not armed
<i>cap-à-pie</i>, wear a speckled tunic girt about the
waist, and low hats, apparently of straw. Bad people
swagger in tail-coats and chimney-pots, a few with knee-breeches,
but the large majority in trousers, and for all the world like
guests at a garden-party. Worldly-Wiseman alone, by some
inexplicable quirk, stands before Christian in laced hat,
embroidered waistcoat, and trunk-hose. But above all
examples of this artist’s intrepidity, commend me to the
print entitled ‘Christian Finds it Deep.’
‘A great darkness and horror,’ says the text, have
fallen on the pilgrim; it is the comfortless deathbed with which
Bunyan so strikingly concludes the sorrows and conflicts of his
hero. How to represent this worthily the artist knew not;
and yet he was determined to represent it somehow. This was
how he did: Hopeful is still shown to his neck above the water of
death; but Christian has bodily disappeared, and a blot of solid
blackness indicates his place.</p>
<p>As you continue to look at these pictures, about an inch
square for the most part, sometimes printed three or more to the
page, and each having a printed legend of its own, however
trivial the event recorded, you will soon become aware of two
things: first, that the man can draw, and, second, that he
possesses the gift of an imagination. ‘Obstinate
reviles,’ says the legend; and you should see Obstinate
reviling. ‘He warily retraces his steps’; and
there is Christian, posting through the plain, terror and speed
in every muscle. ‘Mercy yearns to go’ shows you
a plain interior with packing going forward, and, right in the
middle, Mercy yearning to go—every line of the girl’s
figure yearning. In ‘The Chamber called Peace’
we see a simple English room, bed with white curtains, window
valance and door, as may be found in many thousand unpretentious
houses; but far off, through the open window, we behold the sun
uprising out of a great plain, and Christian hails it with his
hand:</p>
<blockquote><p>‘Where am I now! is this the love and
care<br />
Of Jesus, for the men that pilgrims are!<br />
Thus to provide! That I should be forgiven!<br />
And dwell already the next door to heaven!’</p>
</blockquote>
<p>A page or two further, from the top of the House Beautiful,
the damsels point his gaze toward the Delectable Mountains:
‘The Prospect,’ so the cut is ticketed—and I
shall be surprised, if on less than a square inch of paper you
can show me one so wide and fair. Down a cross road on an
English plain, a cathedral city outlined on the horizon, a hazel
shaw upon the left, comes Madam Wanton dancing with her fair
enchanted cup, and Faithful, book in hand, half pauses. The
cut is perfect as a symbol; the giddy movement of the sorceress,
the uncertain poise of the man struck to the heart by a
temptation, the contrast of that even plain of life whereon he
journeys with the bold, ideal bearing of the wanton—the
artist who invented and portrayed this had not merely read
Bunyan, he had also thoughtfully lived. The Delectable
Mountains—I continue skimming the first part—are not
on the whole happily rendered. Once, and once only, the
note is struck, when Christian and Hopeful are seen coming,
shoulder-high, through a thicket of green shrubs—box,
perhaps, or perfumed nutmeg; while behind them, domed or pointed,
the hills stand ranged against the sky. A little further,
and we come to that masterpiece of Bunyan’s insight into
life, the Enchanted Ground; where, in a few traits, he has set
down the latter end of such a number of the would-be good; where
his allegory goes so deep that, to people looking seriously on
life, it cuts like satire. The true significance of this
invention lies, of course, far out of the way of drawing; only
one feature, the great tedium of the land, the growing weariness
in well-doing, may be somewhat represented in a symbol. The
pilgrims are near the end: ‘Two Miles Yet,’ says the
legend. The road goes ploughing up and down over a rolling
heath; the wayfarers, with outstretched arms, are already sunk to
the knees over the brow of the nearest hill; they have just
passed a milestone with the cipher two; from overhead a great,
piled, summer cumulus, as of a slumberous summer afternoon,
beshadows them: two miles! it might be hundreds. In dealing
with the Land of Beulah the artist lags, in both parts, miserably
behind the text, but in the distant prospect of the Celestial
City more than regains his own. You will remember when
Christian and Hopeful ‘with desire fell sick.’
‘Effect of the Sunbeams’ is the artist’s
title. Against the sky, upon a cliffy mountain, the radiant
temple beams upon them over deep, subjacent woods; they, behind a
mound, as if seeking shelter from the splendour—one
prostrate on his face, one kneeling, and with hands ecstatically
lifted—yearn with passion after that immortal city.
Turn the page, and we behold them walking by the very shores of
death; Heaven, from this nigher view, has risen half-way to the
zenith, and sheds a wider glory; and the two pilgrims, dark
against that brightness, walk and sing out of the fulness of
their hearts. No cut more thoroughly illustrates at once
the merit and the weakness of the artist. Each pilgrim
sings with a book in his grasp—a family Bible at the least
for bigness; tomes so recklessly enormous that our second,
impulse is to laughter. And yet that is not the first
thought, nor perhaps the last. Something in the attitude of
the manikins—faces they have none, they are too small for
that—something in the way they swing these monstrous
volumes to their singing, something perhaps borrowed from the
text, some subtle differentiation from the cut that went before
and the cut that follows after—something, at least, speaks
clearly of a fearful joy, of Heaven seen from the deathbed, of
the horror of the last passage no less than of the glorious
coming home. There is that in the action of one of them
which always reminds me, with a difference, of that haunting last
glimpse of Thomas Idle, travelling to Tyburn in the cart.
Next come the Shining Ones, wooden and trivial enough; the
pilgrims pass into the river; the blot already mentioned settles
over and obliterates Christian. In two more cuts we behold
them drawing nearer to the other shore; and then, between two
radiant angels, one of whom points upward, we see them mounting
in new weeds, their former lendings left behind them on the inky
river. More angels meet them; Heaven is displayed, and if
no better, certainly no worse, than it has been shown by
others—a place, at least, infinitely populous and glorious
with light—a place that haunts solemnly the hearts of
children. And then this symbolic draughtsman once more
strikes into his proper vein. Three cuts conclude the first
part. In the first the gates close, black against the glory
struggling from within. The second shows us
Ignorance—alas! poor Arminian!—hailing, in a sad
twilight, the ferryman Vain-Hope; and in the third we behold him,
bound hand and foot, and black already with the hue of his
eternal fate, carried high over the mountain-tops of the world by
two angels of the anger of the Lord. ‘Carried to
Another Place,’ the artist enigmatically names his
plate—a terrible design.</p>
<p>Wherever he touches on the black side of the supernatural his
pencil grows more daring and incisive. He has many true
inventions in the perilous and diabolic; he has many startling
nightmares realised. It is not easy to select the best;
some may like one and some another; the nude, depilated devil
bounding and casting darts against the Wicket Gate; the scroll of
flying horrors that hang over Christian by the Mouth of Hell; the
horned shade that comes behind him whispering blasphemies; the
daylight breaking through that rent cave-mouth of the mountains
and falling chill adown the haunted tunnel; Christian’s
further progress along the causeway, between the two black pools,
where, at every yard or two, a gin, a pitfall, or a snare awaits
the passer-by—loathsome white devilkins harbouring close
under the bank to work the springes, Christian himself pausing
and pricking with his sword’s point at the nearest noose,
and pale discomfortable mountains rising on the farther side; or
yet again, the two ill-favoured ones that beset the first of
Christian’s journey, with the frog-like structure of the
skull, the frog-like limberness of limbs—crafty, slippery,
lustful-looking devils, drawn always in outline as though
possessed of a dim, infernal luminosity. Horrid fellows are
they, one and all; horrid fellows and horrific scenes. In
another spirit that Good-Conscience ‘to whom Mr. Honest had
spoken in his lifetime,’ a cowled, grey, awful figure, one
hand pointing to the heavenly shore, realises, I will not say
all, but some at least of the strange impressiveness of
Bunyan’s words. It is no easy nor pleasant thing to
speak in one’s lifetime with Good-Conscience; he is an
austere, unearthly friend, whom maybe Torquemada knew; and the
folds of his raiment are not merely claustral, but have something
of the horror of the pall. Be not afraid, however; with the
hand of that appearance Mr. Honest will get safe across.</p>
<p>Yet perhaps it is in sequences that this artist best displays
himself. He loves to look at either side of a thing: as,
for instance, when he shows us both sides of the
wall—‘Grace Inextinguishable’ on the one side,
with the devil vainly pouring buckets on the flame, and
‘The Oil of Grace’ on the other, where the Holy
Spirit, vessel in hand, still secretly supplies the fire.
He loves, also, to show us the same event twice over, and to
repeat his instantaneous photographs at the interval of but a
moment. So we have, first, the whole troop of pilgrims
coming up to Valiant, and Great-heart to the front, spear in hand
and parleying; and next, the same cross-roads, from a more
distant view, the convoy now scattered and looking safely and
curiously on, and Valiant handing over for inspection his
‘right Jerusalem blade.’ It is true that this
designer has no great care after consistency: Apollyon’s
spear is laid by, his quiver of darts will disappear, whenever
they might hinder the designer’s freedom; and the
fiend’s tail is blobbed or forked at his good
pleasure. But this is not unsuitable to the illustration of
the fervent Bunyan, breathing hurry and momentary
inspiration. He, with his hot purpose, hunting sinners with
a lasso, shall himself forget the things that he has written
yesterday. He shall first slay Heedless in the Valley of
the Shadow, and then take leave of him talking in his sleep, as
if nothing had happened, in an arbour on the Enchanted
Ground. And again, in his rhymed prologue, he shall assign
some of the glory of the siege of Doubting Castle to his
favourite Valiant-for-the-Truth, who did not meet with the
besiegers till long after, at that dangerous corner by
Deadman’s Lane. And, with all inconsistencies and
freedoms, there is a power shown in these sequences of cuts: a
power of joining on one action or one humour to another; a power
of following out the moods, even of the dismal subterhuman fiends
engendered by the artist’s fancy; a power of sustained
continuous realisation, step by step, in nature’s order,
that can tell a story, in all its ins and outs, its pauses and
surprises, fully and figuratively, like the art of words.</p>
<p>One such sequence is the fight of Christian and
Apollyon—six cuts, weird and fiery, like the text.
The pilgrim is throughout a pale and stockish figure; but the
devil covers a multitude of defects. There is no better
devil of the conventional order than our artist’s Apollyon,
with his mane, his wings, his bestial legs, his changing and
terrifying expression, his infernal energy to slay. In cut
the first you see him afar off, still obscure in form, but
already formidable in suggestion. Cut the second,
‘The Fiend in Discourse,’ represents him, not
reasoning, railing rather, shaking his spear at the pilgrim, his
shoulder advanced, his tail writhing in the air, his foot ready
for a spring, while Christian stands back a little, timidly
defensive. The third illustrates these magnificent words:
‘Then Apollyon straddled quite over the whole breadth of
the way, and said, I am void of fear in this matter: prepare
thyself to die; for I swear by my infernal den that thou shalt go
no farther: here will I spill thy soul! And with that he
threw a flaming dart at his breast.’ In the cut he
throws a dart with either hand, belching pointed flames out of
his mouth, spreading his broad vans, and straddling the while
across the path, as only a fiend can straddle who has just sworn
by his infernal den. The defence will not be long against
such vice, such flames, such red-hot nether energy. And in
the fourth cut, to be sure, he has leaped bodily upon his victim,
sped by foot and pinion, and roaring as he leaps. The fifth
shows the climacteric of the battle; Christian has reached nimbly
out and got his sword, and dealt that deadly home-thrust, the
fiend still stretched upon him, but ‘giving back, as one
that had received his mortal wound.’ The raised head,
the bellowing mouth, the paw clapped upon the sword, the one wing
relaxed in agony, all realise vividly these words of the
text. In the sixth and last, the trivial armed figure of
the pilgrim is seen kneeling with clasped hands on the betrodden
scene of contest and among the shivers of the darts; while just
at the margin the hinder quarters and the tail of Apollyon are
whisking off, indignant and discounted.</p>
<p>In one point only do these pictures seem to be unworthy of the
text, and that point is one rather of the difference of arts than
the difference of artists. Throughout his best and worst,
in his highest and most divine imaginations as in the narrowest
sallies of his sectarianism, the human-hearted piety of Bunyan
touches and ennobles, convinces, accuses the reader.
Through no art beside the art of words can the kindness of a
man’s affections be expressed. In the cuts you shall
find faithfully parodied the quaintness and the power, the
triviality and the surprising freshness of the author’s
fancy; there you shall find him out-stripped in ready symbolism
and the art of bringing things essentially invisible before the
eyes: but to feel the contact of essential goodness, to be made
in love with piety, the book must be read and not the prints
examined.</p>
<p>Farewell should not be taken with a grudge; nor can I dismiss
in any other words than those of gratitude a series of pictures
which have, to one at least, been the visible embodiment of
Bunyan from childhood up, and shown him, through all his years,
Great-heart lungeing at Giant Maul, and Apollyon breathing fire
at Christian, and every turn and town along the road to the
Celestial City, and that bright place itself, seen as to a stave
of music, shining afar off upon the hill-top, the candle of the
world.</p>
<h2>SKETCHES</h2>
<h3>I. THE SATIRIST</h3>
<p>My companion enjoyed a cheap reputation for wit and
insight. He was by habit and repute a satirist. If he
did occasionally condemn anything or anybody who richly deserved
it, and whose demerits had hitherto escaped, it was simply
because he condemned everything and everybody. While I was
with him he disposed of St. Paul with an epigram, shook my
reverence for Shakespeare in a neat antithesis, and fell foul of
the Almighty Himself, on the score of one or two out of the ten
commandments. Nothing escaped his blighting censure.
At every sentence he overthrew an idol, or lowered my estimation
of a friend. I saw everything with new eyes, and could only
marvel at my former blindness. How was it possible that I
had not before observed A’s false hair, B’s
selfishness, or C’s boorish manners? I and my
companion, methought, walked the streets like a couple of gods
among a swarm of vermin; for every one we saw seemed to bear
openly upon his brow the mark of the apocalyptic beast. I
half expected that these miserable beings, like the people of
Lystra, would recognise their betters and force us to the altar;
in which case, warned by the late of Paul and Barnabas, I do not
know that my modesty would have prevailed upon me to
decline. But there was no need for such churlish
virtue. More blinded than the Lycaonians, the people saw no
divinity in our gait; and as our temporary godhead lay more in
the way of observing than healing their infirmities, we were
content to pass them by in scorn.</p>
<p>I could not leave my companion, not from regard or even from
interest, but from a very natural feeling, inseparable from the
case. To understand it, let us take a simile. Suppose
yourself walking down the street with a man who continues to
sprinkle the crowd out of a flask of vitriol. You would be
much diverted with the grimaces and contortions of his victims;
and at the same time you would fear to leave his arm until his
bottle was empty, knowing that, when once among the crowd, you
would run a good chance yourself of baptism with his biting
liquor. Now my companion’s vitriol was
inexhaustible.</p>
<p>It was perhaps the consciousness of this, the knowledge that I
was being anointed already out of the vials of his wrath, that
made me fall to criticising the critic, whenever we had
parted.</p>
<p>After all, I thought, our satirist has just gone far enough
into his neighbours to find that the outside is false, without
caring to go farther and discover what is really true. He
is content to find that things are not what they seem, and
broadly generalises from it that they do not exist at all.
He sees our virtues are not what they pretend they are; and, on
the strength of that, he denies us the possession of virtue
altogether. He has learnt the first lesson, that no man is
wholly good; but he has not even suspected that there is another
equally true, to wit, that no man is wholly bad. Like the
inmate of a coloured star, he has eyes for one colour
alone. He has a keen scent after evil, but his nostrils are
plugged against all good, as people plugged their nostrils before
going about the streets of the plague-struck city.</p>
<p>Why does he do this? It is most unreasonable to flee the
knowledge of good like the infection of a horrible disease, and
batten and grow fat in the real atmosphere of a
lazar-house. This was my first thought; but my second was
not like unto it, and I saw that our satirist was wise, wise in
his generation, like the unjust steward. He does not want
light, because the darkness is more pleasant. He does not
wish to see the good, because he is happier without it. I
recollect that when I walked with him, I was in a state of divine
exaltation, such as Adam and Eve must have enjoyed when the
savour of the fruit was still unfaded between their lips; and I
recognise that this must be the man’s habitual state.
He has the forbidden fruit in his waist-coat pocket, and can make
himself a god as often and as long as he likes. He has
raised himself upon a glorious pedestal above his fellows; he has
touched the summit of ambition; and he envies neither King nor
Kaiser, Prophet nor Priest, content in an elevation as high as
theirs, and much more easily attained. Yes, certes, much
more easily attained. He has not risen by climbing himself,
but by pushing others down. He has grown great in his own
estimation, not by blowing himself out, and risking the fate of
Æsop’s frog, but simply by the habitual use of a
diminishing glass on everybody else. And I think altogether
that his is a better, a safer, and a surer recipe than most
others.</p>
<p>After all, however, looking back on what I have written, I
detect a spirit suspiciously like his own. All through, I
have been comparing myself with our satirist, and all through, I
have had the best of the comparison. Well, well, contagion
is as often mental as physical; and I do not think my readers,
who have all been under his lash, will blame me very much for
giving the headsman a mouthful of his own sawdust.</p>
<h3>II. NUITS BLANCHES</h3>
<p>If any one should know the pleasure and pain of a sleepless
night, it should be I. I remember, so long ago, the sickly
child that woke from his few hours’ slumber with the sweat
of a nightmare on his brow, to lie awake and listen and long for
the first signs of life among the silent streets. These
nights of pain and weariness are graven on my mind; and so when
the same thing happened to me again, everything that I heard or
saw was rather a recollection than a discovery.</p>
<p>Weighed upon by the opaque and almost sensible darkness, I
listened eagerly for anything to break the sepulchral
quiet. But nothing came, save, perhaps, an emphatic crack
from the old cabinet that was made by Deacon Brodie, or the dry
rustle of the coals on the extinguished fire. It was a
calm; or I know that I should have heard in the roar and clatter
of the storm, as I have not heard it for so many years, the wild
career of a horseman, always scouring up from the distance and
passing swiftly below the window; yet always returning again from
the place whence first he came, as though, baffled by some higher
power, he had retraced his steps to gain impetus for another and
another attempt.</p>
<p>As I lay there, there arose out of the utter stillness the
rumbling of a carriage a very great way off, that drew near, and
passed within a few streets of the house, and died away as
gradually as it had arisen. This, too, was as a
reminiscence.</p>
<p>I rose and lifted a corner of the blind. Over the black
belt of the garden I saw the long line of Queen Street, with here
and there a lighted window. How often before had my nurse
lifted me out of bed and pointed them out to me, while we
wondered together if, there also, there were children that could
not sleep, and if these lighted oblongs were signs of those that
waited like us for the morning.</p>
<p>I went out into the lobby, and looked down into the great deep
well of the staircase. For what cause I know not, just as
it used to be in the old days that the feverish child might be
the better served, a peep of gas illuminated a narrow circle far
below me. But where I was, all was darkness and silence,
save the dry monotonous ticking of the clock that came
ceaselessly up to my ear.</p>
<p>The final crown of it all, however, the last touch of
reproduction on the pictures of my memory, was the arrival of
that time for which, all night through, I waited and longed of
old. It was my custom, as the hours dragged on, to repeat
the question, ‘When will the carts come in?’ and
repeat it again and again until at last those sounds arose in the
street that I have heard once more this morning. The road
before our house is a great thoroughfare for early carts. I
know not, and I never have known, what they carry, whence they
come, or whither they go. But I know that, long ere dawn,
and for hours together, they stream continuously past, with the
same rolling and jerking of wheels and the same clink of
horses’ feet. It was not for nothing that they made
the burthen of my wishes all night through. They are really
the first throbbings of life, the harbingers of day; and it
pleases you as much to hear them as it must please a shipwrecked
seaman once again to grasp a hand of flesh and blood after years
of miserable solitude. They have the freshness of the
daylight life about them. You can hear the carters cracking
their whips and crying hoarsely to their horses or to one
another; and sometimes even a peal of healthy, harsh
horse-laughter comes up to you through the darkness. There
is now an end of mystery and fear. Like the knocking at the
door in <i>Macbeth</i>, <a name="citation205"></a><a
href="#footnote205" class="citation">[205]</a> or the cry of the
watchman in the <i>Tour de Nesle</i>, they show that the horrible
cæsura is over and the nightmares have fled away, because
the day is breaking and the ordinary life of men is beginning to
bestir itself among the streets.</p>
<p>In the middle of it all I fell asleep, to be wakened by the
officious knocking at my door, and I find myself twelve years
older than I had dreamed myself all night.</p>
<h3>III. THE WREATH OF IMMORTELLES</h3>
<p>It is all very well to talk of death as ‘a pleasant
potion of immortality’, but the most of us, I suspect, are
of ‘queasy stomachs,’ and find it none of the
sweetest. <a name="citation206a"></a><a href="#footnote206a"
class="citation">[206a]</a> The graveyard may be cloak-room
to Heaven; but we must admit that it is a very ugly and offensive
vestibule in itself, however fair may be the life to which it
leads. And though Enoch and Elias went into the temple
through a gate which certainly may be called Beautiful, the rest
of us have to find our way to it through Ezekiel’s
low-bowed door and the vault full of creeping things and all
manner of abominable beasts. Nevertheless, there is a
certain frame of mind to which a cemetery is, if not an antidote,
at least an alleviation. If you are in a fit of the blues,
go nowhere else. It was in obedience to this wise
regulation that the other morning found me lighting my pipe at
the entrance to Old Greyfriars’, thoroughly sick of the
town, the country, and myself.</p>
<p>Two of the men were talking at the gate, one of them carrying
a spade in hands still crusted with the soil of graves.
Their very aspect was delightful to me; and I crept nearer to
them, thinking to pick up some snatch of sexton gossip, some
‘talk fit for a charnel,’ <a
name="citation206b"></a><a href="#footnote206b"
class="citation">[206b]</a> something, in fine, worthy of that
fastidious logician, that adept in coroner’s law, who has
come down to us as the patron of Yaughan’s liquor, and the
very prince of gravediggers. Scots people in general are so
much wrapped up in their profession that I had a good chance of
overhearing such conversation: the talk of fish-mongers running
usually on stockfish and haddocks; while of the Scots sexton I
could repeat stories and speeches that positively smell of the
graveyard. But on this occasion I was doomed to
disappointment. My two friends were far into the region of
generalities. Their profession was forgotten in their
electorship. Politics had engulfed the narrower economy of
grave-digging. ‘Na, na,’ said the one,
‘ye’re a’ wrang.’ ‘The
English and Irish Churches,’ answered the other, in a tone
as if he had made the remark before, and it had been called in
question—‘The English and Irish Churches have
<i>impoverished</i> the country.’</p>
<p>‘Such are the results of education,’ thought I as
I passed beside them and came fairly among the tombs. Here,
at least, there were no commonplace politics, no diluted
this-morning’s leader, to distract or offend me. The
old shabby church showed, as usual, its quaint extent of roofage
and the relievo skeleton on one gable, still blackened with the
fire of thirty years ago. A chill dank mist lay over
all. The Old Greyfriars’ churchyard was in perfection
that morning, and one could go round and reckon up the
associations with no fear of vulgar interruption. On this
stone the Covenant was signed. In that vault, as the story
goes, John Knox took hiding in some Reformation broil. From
that window Burke the murderer looked out many a time across the
tombs, and perhaps o’ nights let himself down over the sill
to rob some new-made grave. Certainly he would have a
selection here. The very walks have been carried over
forgotten resting-places; and the whole ground is uneven, because
(as I was once quaintly told) ‘when the wood rots it stands
to reason the soil should fall in,’ which, from the law of
gravitation, is certainly beyond denial. But it is round
the boundary that there are the finest tombs. The whole
irregular space is, as it were, fringed with quaint old
monuments, rich in death’s-heads and scythes and
hour-glasses, and doubly rich in pious epitaphs and Latin
mottoes—rich in them to such an extent that their proper
space has run over, and they have crawled end-long up the shafts
of columns and ensconced themselves in all sorts of odd corners
among the sculpture. These tombs raise their backs against
the rabble of squalid dwelling-houses, and every here and there a
clothes-pole projects between two monuments its fluttering trophy
of white and yellow and red. With a grim irony they recall
the banners in the Invalides, banners as appropriate perhaps over
the sepulchres of tailors and weavers as these others above the
dust of armies. Why they put things out to dry on that
particular morning it was hard to imagine. The grass was
grey with drops of rain, the headstones black with
moisture. Yet, in despite of weather and common sense,
there they hung between the tombs; and beyond them I could see
through open windows into miserable rooms where whole families
were born and fed, and slept and died. At one a girl sat
singing merrily with her back to the graveyard; and from another
came the shrill tones of a scolding woman. Every here and
there was a town garden full of sickly flowers, or a pile of
crockery inside upon the window-seat. But you do not grasp
the full connection between these houses of the dead and the
living, the unnatural marriage of stately sepulchres and squalid
houses, till, lower down, where the road has sunk far below the
surface of the cemetery, and the very roofs are scarcely on a
level with its wall, you observe that a proprietor has taken
advantage of a tall monument and trained a chimney-stack against
its back. It startles you to see the red, modern pots
peering over the shoulder of the tomb.</p>
<p>A man was at work on a grave, his spade clinking away the
drift of bones that permeates the thin brown soil; but my first
disappointment had taught me to expect little from
Greyfriars’ sextons, and I passed him by in silence.
A slater on the slope of a neighbouring roof eyed me
curiously. A lean black cat, looking as if it had battened
on strange meats, slipped past me. A little boy at a window
put his finger to his nose in so offensive a manner that I was
put upon my dignity, and turned grandly off to read old epitaphs
and peer through the gratings into the shadow of vaults.</p>
<p>Just then I saw two women coming down a path, one of them old,
and the other younger, with a child in her arms. Both had
faces eaten with famine and hardened with sin, and both had
reached that stage of degradation, much lower in a woman than a
man, when all care for dress is lost. As they came down
they neared a grave, where some pious friend or relative had laid
a wreath of immortelles, and put a bell glass over it, as is the
custom. The effect of that ring of dull yellow among so
many blackened and dusty sculptures was more pleasant than it is
in modern cemeteries, where every second mound can boast a
similar coronal; and here, where it was the exception and not the
rule, I could even fancy the drops of moisture that dimmed the
covering were the tears of those who laid it where it was.
As the two women came up to it, one of them kneeled down on the
wet grass and looked long and silently through the clouded shade,
while the second stood above her, gently oscillating to and fro
to lull the muling baby. I was struck a great way off with
something religious in the attitude of these two unkempt and
haggard women; and I drew near faster, but still cautiously, to
hear what they were saying. Surely on them the spirit of
death and decay had descended; I had no education to dread here:
should I not have a chance of seeing nature? Alas! a
pawnbroker could not have been more practical and commonplace,
for this was what the kneeling woman said to the woman
upright—this and nothing more: ‘Eh, what
extravagance!’</p>
<p>O nineteenth century, wonderful art thou
indeed—wonderful, but wearisome in thy stale and deadly
uniformity. Thy men are more like numerals than men.
They must bear their idiosyncrasies or their professions written
on a placard about their neck, like the scenery in
Shakespeare’s theatre. Thy precepts of economy have
pierced into the lowest ranks of life; and there is now a decorum
in vice, a respectability among the disreputable, a pure spirit
of Philistinism among the waifs and strays of thy Bohemia.
For lo! thy very gravediggers talk politics; and thy castaways
kneel upon new graves, to discuss the cost of the monument and
grumble at the improvidence of love.</p>
<p>Such was the elegant apostrophe that I made as I went out of
the gates again, happily satisfied in myself, and feeling that I
alone of all whom I had seen was able to profit by the silent
poem of these green mounds and blackened headstones.</p>
<h3>IV. NURSES</h3>
<p>I knew one once, and the room where, lonely and old, she
waited for death. It was pleasant enough, high up above the
lane, and looking forth upon a hill-side, covered all day with
sheets and yellow blankets, and with long lines of underclothing
fluttering between the battered posts. There were any
number of cheap prints, and a drawing by one of ‘her
children,’ and there were flowers in the window, and a
sickly canary withered into consumption in an ornamental
cage. The bed, with its checked coverlid, was in a
closet. A great Bible lay on the table; and her drawers
were full of ‘scones,’ which it was her pleasure to
give to young visitors such as I was then.</p>
<p>You may not think this a melancholy picture; but the canary,
and the cat, and the white mouse that she had for a while, and
that died, were all indications of the want that ate into her
heart. I think I know a little of what that old woman felt;
and I am as sure as if I had seen her, that she sat many an hour
in silent tears, with the big Bible open before her clouded
eyes.</p>
<p>If you could look back upon her life, and feel the great chain
that had linked her to one child after another, sometimes to be
wrenched suddenly through, and sometimes, which is infinitely
worse, to be torn gradually off through years of growing neglect,
or perhaps growing dislike! She had, like the mother,
overcome that natural repugnance—repugnance which no man
can conquer—towards the infirm and helpless mass of putty
of the earlier stage. She had spent her best and happiest
years in tending, watching, and learning to love like a mother
this child, with which she has no connection and to which she has
no tie. Perhaps she refused some sweetheart (such things
have been), or put him off and off, until he lost heart and
turned to some one else, all for fear of leaving this creature
that had wound itself about her heart. And the end of it
all—her month’s warning, and a present perhaps, and
the rest of the life to vain regret. Or, worse still, to
see the child gradually forgetting and forsaking her, fostered in
disrespect and neglect on the plea of growing manliness, and at
last beginning to treat her as a servant whom he had treated a
few years before as a mother. She sees the Bible or the
Psalm-book, which with gladness and love unutterable in her heart
she had bought for him years ago out of her slender savings,
neglected for some newer gift of his father, lying in dust in the
lumber-room or given away to a poor child, and the act applauded
for its unfeeling charity. Little wonder if she becomes
hurt and angry, and attempts to tyrannise and to grasp her old
power back again. We are not all patient Grizzels, by good
fortune, but the most of us human beings with feelings and
tempers of our own.</p>
<p>And so, in the end, behold her in the room that I
described. Very likely and very naturally, in some fling of
feverish misery or recoil of thwarted love, she has quarrelled
with her old employers and the children are forbidden to see her
or to speak to her; or at best she gets her rent paid and a
little to herself, and now and then her late charges are sent up
(with another nurse, perhaps) to pay her a short visit. How
bright these visits seem as she looks forward to them on her
lonely bed! How unsatisfactory their realisation, when the
forgetful child, half wondering, checks with every word and
action the outpouring of her maternal love! How bitter and
restless the memories that they leave behind! And for the
rest, what else has she?—to watch them with eager eyes as
they go to school, to sit in church where she can see them every
Sunday, to be passed some day unnoticed in the street, or
deliberately cut because the great man or the great woman are
with friends before whom they are ashamed to recognise the old
woman that loved them.</p>
<p>When she goes home that night, how lonely will the room appear
to her! Perhaps the neighbours may hear her sobbing to
herself in the dark, with the fire burnt out for want of fuel,
and the candle still unlit upon the table.</p>
<p>And it is for this that they live, these
quasi-mothers—mothers in everything but the travail and the
thanks. It is for this that they have remained virtuous in
youth, living the dull life of a household servant. It is
for this that they refused the old sweetheart, and have no
fireside or offspring of their own.</p>
<p>I believe in a better state of things, that there will be no
more nurses, and that every mother will nurse her own offspring;
for what can be more hardening and demoralising than to call
forth the tenderest feelings of a woman’s heart and cherish
them yourself as long as you need them, as long as your children
require a nurse to love them, and then to blight and thwart and
destroy them, whenever your own use for them is at an end.
This may be Utopian; but it is always a little thing if one
mother or two mothers can be brought to feel more tenderly to
those who share their toil and have no part in their reward.</p>
<h3>V. A CHARACTER</h3>
<p>The man has a red, bloated face, and his figure is short and
squat. So far there is nothing in him to notice, but when
you see his eyes, you can read in these hard and shallow orbs a
depravity beyond measure depraved, a thirst after wickedness, the
pure, disinterested love of Hell for its own sake. The
other night, in the street, I was watching an omnibus passing
with lit-up windows, when I heard some one coughing at my side as
though he would cough his soul out; and turning round, I saw him
stopping under a lamp, with a brown greatcoat buttoned round him
and his whole face convulsed. It seemed as if he could not
live long; and so the sight set my mind upon a train of thought,
as I finished my cigar up and down the lighted streets.</p>
<p>He is old, but all these years have not yet quenched his
thirst for evil, and his eyes still delight themselves in
wickedness. He is dumb; but he will not let that hinder his
foul trade, or perhaps I should say, his yet fouler amusement,
and he has pressed a slate into the service of corruption.
Look at him, and he will sign to you with his bloated head, and
when you go to him in answer to the sign, thinking perhaps that
the poor dumb man has lost his way, you will see what he writes
upon his slate. He haunts the doors of schools, and shows
such inscriptions as these to the innocent children that come
out. He hangs about picture-galleries, and makes the
noblest pictures the text for some silent homily of vice.
His industry is a lesson to ourselves. Is it not wonderful
how he can triumph over his infirmities and do such an amount of
harm without a tongue? Wonderful industry—strange,
fruitless, pleasureless toil? Must not the very devil feel
a soft emotion to see his disinterested and laborious
service? Ah, but the devil knows better than this: he knows
that this man is penetrated with the love of evil and that all
his pleasure is shut up in wickedness: he recognises him,
perhaps, as a fit type for mankind of his satanic self, and
watches over his effigy as we might watch over a favourite
likeness. As the business man comes to love the toil, which
he only looked upon at first as a ladder towards other desires
and less unnatural gratifications, so the dumb man has felt the
charm of his trade and fallen captivated before the eyes of
sin. It is a mistake when preachers tell us that vice is
hideous and loathsome; for even vice has her Hörsel and her
devotees, who love her for her own sake.</p>
<h2>THE GREAT NORTH ROAD</h2>
<h3>CHAPTER I—NANCE AT THE ‘GREEN DRAGON’</h3>
<p>Nance Holdaway was on her knees before the fire blowing the
green wood that voluminously smoked upon the dogs, and only now
and then shot forth a smothered flame; her knees already ached
and her eyes smarted, for she had been some while at this
ungrateful task, but her mind was gone far away to meet the
coming stranger. Now she met him in the wood, now at the
castle gate, now in the kitchen by candle-light; each fresh
presentment eclipsed the one before; a form so elegant, manners
so sedate, a countenance so brave and comely, a voice so winning
and resolute—sure such a man was never seen! The
thick-coming fancies poured and brightened in her head like the
smoke and flames upon the hearth.</p>
<p>Presently the heavy foot of her uncle Jonathan was heard upon
the stair, and as he entered the room she bent the closer to her
work. He glanced at the green fagots with a sneer, and
looked askance at the bed and the white sheets, at the strip of
carpet laid, like an island, on the great expanse of the stone
floor, and at the broken glazing of the casement clumsily
repaired with paper.</p>
<p>‘Leave that fire a-be,’ he cried.
‘What, have I toiled all my life to turn innkeeper at the
hind end? Leave it a-be, I say.’</p>
<p>‘La, uncle, it doesn’t burn a bit; it only
smokes,’ said Nance, looking up from her position.</p>
<p>‘You are come of decent people on both sides,’
returned the old man. ‘Who are you to blow the coals
for any Robin-run-agate? Get up, get on your hood, make
yourself useful, and be off to the “Green
Dragon.”’</p>
<p>‘I thought you was to go yourself,’ Nance
faltered.</p>
<p>‘So did I,’ quoth Jonathan; ‘but it appears
I was mistook.’</p>
<p>The very excess of her eagerness alarmed her, and she began to
hang back. ‘I think I would rather not, dear
uncle,’ she said. ‘Night is at hand, and I
think, dear, I would rather not.’</p>
<p>‘Now you look here,’ replied Jonathan, ‘I
have my lord’s orders, have I not? Little he gives
me, but it’s all my livelihood. And do you fancy, if
I disobey my lord, I’m likely to turn round for a lass like
you? No, I’ve that hell-fire of pain in my old knee,
I wouldn’t walk a mile, not for King George upon his bended
knees.’ And he walked to the window and looked down
the steep scarp to where the river foamed in the bottom of the
dell.</p>
<p>Nance stayed for no more bidding. In her own room, by
the glimmer of the twilight, she washed her hands and pulled on
her Sunday mittens; adjusted her black hood, and tied a dozen
times its cherry ribbons; and in less than ten minutes, with a
fluttering heart and excellently bright eyes, she passed forth
under the arch and over the bridge, into the thickening shadows
of the groves. A well-marked wheel-track conducted
her. The wood, which upon both sides of the river dell was
a mere scrambling thicket of hazel, hawthorn, and holly, boasted
on the level of more considerable timber. Beeches came to a
good growth, with here and there an oak; and the track now passed
under a high arcade of branches, and now ran under the open sky
in glades. As the girl proceeded these glades became more
frequent, the trees began again to decline in size, and the wood
to degenerate into furzy coverts. Last of all there was a
fringe of elders; and beyond that the track came forth upon an
open, rolling moorland, dotted with wind-bowed and scanty bushes,
and all golden brown with the winter, like a grouse. Right
over against the girl the last red embers of the sunset burned
under horizontal clouds; the night fell clear and still and
frosty, and the track in low and marshy passages began to crackle
under foot with ice.</p>
<p>Some half a mile beyond the borders of the wood the lights of
the ‘Green Dragon’ hove in sight, and running close
beside them, very faint in the dying dusk, the pale ribbon of the
Great North Road. It was the back of the post-house that
was presented to Nance Holdaway; and as she continued to draw
near and the night to fall more completely, she became aware of
an unusual brightness and bustle. A post-chaise stood in
the yard, its lamps already lighted: light shone hospitably in
the windows and from the open door; moving lights and shadows
testified to the activity of servants bearing lanterns. The
clank of pails, the stamping of hoofs on the firm causeway, the
jingle of harness, and, last of all, the energetic hissing of a
groom, began to fall upon her ear. By the stir you would
have thought the mail was at the door, but it was still too early
in the night. The down mail was not due at the ‘Green
Dragon’ for hard upon an hour; the up mail from Scotland
not before two in the black morning.</p>
<p>Nance entered the yard somewhat dazzled. Sam, the tall
ostler, was polishing a curb-chain wit sand; the lantern at his
feet letting up spouts of candle-light through the holes with
which its conical roof was peppered.</p>
<p>‘Hey, miss,’ said he jocularly, ‘you
won’t look at me any more, now you have gentry at the
castle.’</p>
<p>Her cheeks burned with anger.</p>
<p>‘That’s my lord’s chay,’ the man
continued, nodding at the chaise, ‘Lord
Windermoor’s. Came all in a fluster—dinner,
bowl of punch, and put the horses to. For all the world like a
runaway match, my dear—bar the bride. He brought Mr.
Archer in the chay with him.’</p>
<p>‘Is that Holdaway?’ cried the landlord from the
lighted entry, where he stood shading his eyes.</p>
<p>‘Only me, sir,’ answered Nance.</p>
<p>‘O, you, Miss Nance,’ he said. ‘Well,
come in quick, my pretty. My lord is waiting for your
uncle.’</p>
<p>And he ushered Nance into a room cased with yellow wainscot
and lighted by tall candles, where two gentlemen sat at a table
finishing a bowl of punch. One of these was stout, elderly,
and irascible, with a face like a full moon, well dyed with
liquor, thick tremulous lips, a short, purple hand, in which he
brandished a long pipe, and an abrupt and gobbling
utterance. This was my Lord Windermoor. In his
companion Nance beheld a younger man, tall, quiet, grave,
demurely dressed, and wearing his own hair. Her glance but
lighted on him, and she flushed, for in that second she made sure
that she had twice betrayed herself—betrayed by the
involuntary flash of her black eyes her secret impatience to
behold this new companion, and, what was far worse, betrayed her
disappointment in the realisation of her dreams. He,
meanwhile, as if unconscious, continued to regard her with
unmoved decorum.</p>
<p>‘O, a man of wood,’ thought Nance.</p>
<p>‘What—what?’ said his lordship.
‘Who is this?’</p>
<p>‘If you please, my lord, I am Holdaway’s
niece,’ replied Nance, with a curtsey.</p>
<p>‘Should have been here himself,’ observed his
lordship. ‘Well, you tell Holdaway that I’m
aground, not a stiver—not a stiver. I’m running
from the beagles—going abroad, tell Holdaway. And he
need look for no more wages: glad of ’em myself, if I could
get ’em. He can live in the castle if he likes, or go
to the devil. O, and here is Mr. Archer; and I recommend
him to take him in—a friend of mine—and Mr. Archer
will pay, as I wrote. And I regard that in the light of a
precious good thing for Holdaway, let me tell you, and a set-off
against the wages.’</p>
<p>‘But O, my lord!’ cried Nance, ‘we live upon
the wages, and what are we to do without?’</p>
<p>‘What am I to do?—what am I to do?’ replied
Lord Windermoor with some exasperation. ‘I have no
wages. And there is Mr. Archer. And if Holdaway
doesn’t like it, he can go to the devil, and you with
him!—and you with him!’</p>
<p>‘And yet, my lord,’ said Mr. Archer, ‘these
good people will have as keen a sense of loss as you or I;
keener, perhaps, since they have done nothing to deserve
it.’</p>
<p>‘Deserve it?’ cried the peer.
‘What? What? If a rascally highwayman comes up
to me with a confounded pistol, do you say that I’ve
deserved it? How often am I to tell you, sir, that I was
cheated—that I was cheated?’</p>
<p>‘You are happy in the belief,’ returned Mr. Archer
gravely.</p>
<p>‘Archer, you would be the death of me!’ exclaimed
his lordship. ‘You know you’re drunk; you know
it, sir; and yet you can’t get up a spark of
animation.’</p>
<p>‘I have drunk fair, my lord,’ replied the younger
man; ‘but I own I am conscious of no
exhilaration.’</p>
<p>‘If you had as black a look-out as me, sir,’ cried
the peer, ‘you would be very glad of a little innocent
exhilaration, let me tell you. I am glad of it—glad
of it, and I only wish I was drunker. For let me tell you
it’s a cruel hard thing upon a man of my time of life and
my position, to be brought down to beggary because the world is
full of thieves and rascals—thieves and rascals.
What? For all I know, you may be a thief and a rascal
yourself; and I would fight you for a pinch of snuff—a
pinch of snuff,’ exclaimed his lordship.</p>
<p>Here Mr. Archer turned to Nance Holdaway with a pleasant
smile, so full of sweetness, kindness, and composure that, at one
bound, her dreams returned to her. ‘My good Miss
Holdaway,’ said he, ‘if you are willing to show me
the road, I am even eager to be gone. As for his lordship
and myself, compose yourself; there is no fear; this is his
lordship’s way.’</p>
<p>‘What? what?’ cried his lordship. ‘My
way? Ish no such a thing, my way.’</p>
<p>‘Come, my lord,’ cried Archer; ‘you and I
very thoroughly understand each other; and let me suggest, it is
time that both of us were gone. The mail will soon be
due. Here, then, my lord, I take my leave of you, with the
most earnest assurance of my gratitude for the past, and a
sincere offer of any services I may be able to render in the
future.’</p>
<p>‘Archer,’ exclaimed Lord Windermoor, ‘I love
you like a son. Le’ ’s have another
bowl.’</p>
<p>‘My lord, for both our sakes, you will excuse me,’
replied Mr. Archer. ‘We both require caution; we must
both, for some while at least, avoid the chance of a
pursuit.’</p>
<p>‘Archer,’ quoth his lordship, ‘this is a
rank ingratishood. What? I’m to go firing away
in the dark in the cold po’chaise, and not so much as a
game of écarté possible, unless I stop and play
with the postillion, the postillion; and the whole country
swarming with thieves and rascals and highwaymen.’</p>
<p>‘I beg your lordship’s pardon,’ put in the
landlord, who now appeared in the doorway to announce the chaise,
‘but this part of the North Road is known for safety.
There has not been a robbery, to call a robbery, this five
years’ time. Further south, of course, it’s
nearer London, and another story,’ he added.</p>
<p>‘Well, then, if that’s so,’ concluded my
lord, ‘le’ ’s have t’other bowl and a
pack of cards.’</p>
<p>‘My lord, you forget,’ said Archer, ‘I might
still gain; but it is hardly possible for me to lose.’</p>
<p>‘Think I’m a sharper?’ inquired the
peer. ‘Gen’leman’s parole’s all I
ask.’</p>
<p>But Mr. Archer was proof against these blandishments, and said
farewell gravely enough to Lord Windermoor, shaking his hand and
at the same time bowing very low. ‘You will never
know,’ says he, ‘the service you have done
me.’ And with that, and before my lord had finally
taken up his meaning, he had slipped about the table, touched
Nance lightly but imperiously on the arm, and left the
room. In face of the outbreak of his lordship’s
lamentations she made haste to follow the truant.</p>
<h3>CHAPTER II—IN WHICH MR. ARCHER IS INSTALLED</h3>
<p>The chaise had been driven round to the front door; the
courtyard lay all deserted, and only lit by a lantern set upon a
window-sill. Through this Nance rapidly led the way, and
began to ascend the swellings of the moor with a heart that
somewhat fluttered in her bosom. She was not afraid, but in
the course of these last passages with Lord Windermoor Mr. Archer
had ascended to that pedestal on which her fancy waited to instal
him. The reality, she felt, excelled her dreams, and this
cold night walk was the first romantic incident in her
experience.</p>
<p>It was the rule in these days to see gentlemen unsteady after
dinner, yet Nance was both surprised and amused when her
companion, who had spoken so soberly, began to stumble and waver
by her side with the most airy divagations. Sometimes he
would get so close to her that she must edge away; and at others
lurch clear out of the track and plough among deep heather.
His courtesy and gravity meanwhile remained unaltered. He
asked her how far they had to go; whether the way lay all upon
the moorland, and when he learned they had to pass a wood
expressed his pleasure. ‘For,’ said he,
‘I am passionately fond of trees. Trees and fair
lawns, if you consider of it rightly, are the ornaments of
nature, as palaces and fine approaches—’ And
here he stumbled into a patch of slough and nearly fell.
The girl had hard work not to laugh, but at heart she was lost in
admiration for one who talked so elegantly.</p>
<p>They had got to about a quarter of a mile from the
‘Green Dragon,’ and were near the summit of the rise,
when a sudden rush of wheels arrested them. Turning and
looking back, they saw the post-house, now much declined in
brightness; and speeding away northward the two tremulous bright
dots of my Lord Windermoor’s chaise-lamps. Mr. Archer
followed these yellow and unsteady stars until they dwindled into
points and disappeared.</p>
<p>‘There goes my only friend,’ he said.
‘Death has cut off those that loved me, and change of
fortune estranged my flatterers; and but for you, poor bankrupt,
my life is as lonely as this moor.’</p>
<p>The tone of his voice affected both of them. They stood
there on the side of the moor, and became thrillingly conscious
of the void waste of the night, without a feature for the eye,
and except for the fainting whisper of the carriage-wheels
without a murmur for the ear. And instantly, like a
mockery, there broke out, very far away, but clear and jolly, the
note of the mail-guard’s horn. ‘Over the
hills’ was his air. It rose to the two watchers on
the moor with the most cheerful sentiment of human company and
travel, and at the same time in and around the ‘Green
Dragon’ it woke up a great bustle of lights running to and
fro and clattering hoofs. Presently after, out of the
darkness to southward, the mail grew near with a growing
rumble. Its lamps were very large and bright, and threw
their radiance forward in overlapping cones; the four cantering
horses swarmed and steamed; the body of the coach followed like a
great shadow; and this lit picture slid with a sort of
ineffectual swiftness over the black field of night, and was
eclipsed by the buildings of the ‘Green Dragon.’</p>
<p>Mr. Archer turned abruptly and resumed his former walk; only
that he was now more steady, kept better alongside his young
conductor, and had fallen into a silence broken by sighs.
Nance waxed very pitiful over his fate, contrasting an imaginary
past of courts and great society, and perhaps the King himself,
with the tumbledown ruin in a wood to which she was now
conducting him.</p>
<p>‘You must try, sir, to keep your spirits up,’ said
she. ‘To be sure this is a great change for one like
you; but who knows the future?’</p>
<p>Mr. Archer turned towards her in the darkness, and she could
clearly perceive that he smiled upon her very kindly.
‘There spoke a sweet nature,’ said he, ‘and I
must thank you for these words. But I would not have you
fancy that I regret the past for any happiness found in it, or
that I fear the simplicity and hardship of the country. I
am a man that has been much tossed about in life; now up, now
down; and do you think that I shall not be able to support what
you support—you who are kind, and therefore know how to
feel pain; who are beautiful, and therefore hope; who are young,
and therefore (or am I the more mistaken?)
discontented?’</p>
<p>‘Nay, sir, not that, at least,’ said Nance;
‘not discontented. If I were to be discontented, how
should I look those that have real sorrows in the face? I
have faults enough, but not that fault; and I have my merits too,
for I have a good opinion of myself. But for beauty, I am
not so simple but that I can tell a banter from a
compliment.’</p>
<p>‘Nay, nay,’ said Mr. Archer, ‘I had half
forgotten; grief is selfish, and I was thinking of myself and not
of you, or I had never blurted out so bold a piece of
praise. ’Tis the best proof of my sincerity.
But come, now, I would lay a wager you are no coward?’</p>
<p>‘Indeed, sir, I am not more afraid than another,’
said Nance. ‘None of my blood are given to
fear.’</p>
<p>‘And you are honest?’ he returned.</p>
<p>‘I will answer for that,’ said she.</p>
<p>‘Well, then, to be brave, to be honest, to be kind, and
to be contented, since you say you are so—is not that to
fill up a great part of virtue?’</p>
<p>‘I fear you are but a flatterer,’ said Nance, but
she did not say it clearly, for what with bewilderment and
satisfaction, her heart was quite oppressed.</p>
<p>There could be no harm, certainly, in these grave compliments;
but yet they charmed and frightened her, and to find favour, for
reasons however obscure, in the eyes of this elegant, serious,
and most unfortunate young gentleman, was a giddy elevation, was
almost an apotheosis, for a country maid.</p>
<p>But she was to be no more exercised; for Mr. Archer,
disclaiming any thought of flattery, turned off to other
subjects, and held her all through the wood in conversation,
addressing her with an air of perfect sincerity, and listening to
her answers with every mark of interest. Had open flattery
continued, Nance would have soon found refuge in good sense; but
the more subtle lure she could not suspect, much less
avoid. It was the first time she had ever taken part in a
conversation illuminated by any ideas. All was then true
that she had heard and dreamed of gentlemen; they were a race
apart, like deities knowing good and evil. And then there
burst upon her soul a divine thought, hope’s glorious
sunrise: since she could understand, since it seemed that she
too, even she, could interest this sorrowful Apollo, might she
not learn? or was she not learning? Would not her soul
awake and put forth wings? Was she not, in fact, an
enchanted princess, waiting but a touch to become royal?
She saw herself transformed, radiantly attired, but in the most
exquisite taste: her face grown longer and more refined; her tint
etherealised; and she heard herself with delighted wonder talking
like a book.</p>
<p>Meanwhile they had arrived at where the track comes out above
the river dell, and saw in front of them the castle, faintly
shadowed on the night, covering with its broken battlements a
bold projection of the bank, and showing at the extreme end,
where were the habitable tower and wing, some crevices of
candle-light. Hence she called loudly upon her uncle, and
he was seen to issue, lantern in hand, from the tower door, and,
where the ruins did not intervene, to pick his way over the
swarded courtyard, avoiding treacherous cellars and winding among
blocks of fallen masonry. The arch of the great gate was
still entire, flanked by two tottering bastions, and it was here
that Jonathan met them, standing at the edge of the bridge, bent
somewhat forward, and blinking at them through the glow of his
own lantern. Mr. Archer greeted him with civility; but the
old man was in no humour of compliance. He guided the
newcomer across the court-yard, looking sharply and quickly in
his face, and grumbling all the time about the cold, and the
discomfort and dilapidation of the castle. He was sure he
hoped that Mr. Archer would like it; but in truth he could not
think what brought him there. Doubtless he had a good
reason—this with a look of cunning scrutiny—but,
indeed, the place was quite unfit for any person of repute; he
himself was eaten up with the rheumatics. It was the most
rheumaticky place in England, and some fine day the whole
habitable part (to call it habitable) would fetch away bodily and
go down the slope into the river. He had seen the cracks
widening; there was a plaguy issue in the bank below; he thought
a spring was mining it; it might be to-morrow, it might be next
day; but they were all sure of a come-down sooner or later.
‘And that is a poor death,’ said he, ‘for any
one, let alone a gentleman, to have a whole old ruin dumped upon
his belly. Have a care to your left there; these cellar
vaults have all broke down, and the grass and hemlock hide
’em. Well, sir, here is welcome to you, such as it
is, and wishing you well away.’</p>
<p>And with that Jonathan ushered his guest through the tower
door, and down three steps on the left hand into the kitchen or
common room of the castle. It was a huge, low room, as
large as a meadow, occupying the whole width of the habitable
wing, with six barred windows looking on the court, and two into
the river valley. A dresser, a table, and a few chairs
stood dotted here and there upon the uneven flags. Under
the great chimney a good fire burned in an iron fire-basket; a
high old settee, rudely carved with figures and Gothic lettering,
flanked it on either side; there was a hinge table and a stone
bench in the chimney corner, and above the arch hung guns, axes,
lanterns, and great sheaves of rusty keys.</p>
<p>Jonathan looked about him, holding up the lantern, and
shrugged his shoulders, with a pitying grimace. ‘Here
it is,’ he said. ‘See the damp on the floor,
look at the moss; where there’s moss you may be sure that
it’s rheumaticky. Try and get near that fire for to
warm yourself; it’ll blow the coat off your back. And
with a young gentleman with a face like yours, as pale as a
tallow-candle, I’d be afeard of a churchyard cough and a
galloping decline,’ says Jonathan, naming the maladies with
gloomy gusto, ‘or the cold might strike and turn your
blood,’ he added.</p>
<p>Mr. Archer fairly laughed. ‘My good Mr.
Holdaway,’ said he, ‘I was born with that same
tallow-candle face, and the only fear that you inspire me with is
the fear that I intrude unwelcomely upon your private
hours. But I think I can promise you that I am very little
troublesome, and I am inclined to hope that the terms which I can
offer may still pay you the derangement.’</p>
<p>‘Yes, the terms,’ said Jonathan, ‘I was
thinking of that. As you say, they are very small,’
and he shook his head.</p>
<p>‘Unhappily, I can afford no more,’ said Mr.
Archer. ‘But this we have arranged already,’ he
added with a certain stiffness; ‘and as I am aware that
Miss Holdaway has matter to communicate, I will, if you permit,
retire at once. To-night I must bivouac; to-morrow my trunk
is to follow from the “Dragon.” So if you will
show me to my room I shall wish you a good slumber and a better
awakening.’</p>
<p>Jonathan silently gave the lantern to Nance, and she, turning
and curtseying in the doorway, proceeded to conduct their guest
up the broad winding staircase of the tower. He followed
with a very brooding face.</p>
<p>‘Alas!’ cried Nance, as she entered the room,
‘your fire black out,’ and, setting down the lantern,
she clapped upon her knees before the chimney and began to
rearrange the charred and still smouldering remains. Mr.
Archer looked about the gaunt apartment with a sort of
shudder. The great height, the bare stone, the shattered
windows, the aspect of the uncurtained bed, with one of its four
fluted columns broken short, all struck a chill upon his
fancy. From this dismal survey his eyes returned to Nance
crouching before the fire, the candle in one hand and artfully
puffing at the embers; the flames as they broke forth played upon
the soft outline of her cheek—she was alive and young,
coloured with the bright hues of life, and a woman. He
looked upon her, softening; and then sat down and continued to
admire the picture.</p>
<p>‘There, sir,’ said she, getting upon her feet,
‘your fire is doing bravely now.
Good-night.’</p>
<p>He rose and held out his hand. ‘Come,’ said
he, ‘you are my only friend in these parts, and you must
shake hands.’</p>
<p>She brushed her hand upon her skirt and offered it,
blushing.</p>
<p>‘God bless you, my dear,’ said he.</p>
<p>And then, when he was alone, he opened one of the windows, and
stared down into the dark valley. A gentle wimpling of the
river among stones ascended to his ear; the trees upon the other
bank stood very black against the sky; farther away an owl was
hooting. It was dreary and cold, and as he turned back to
the hearth and the fine glow of fire, ‘Heavens!’ said
he to himself, ‘what an unfortunate destiny is
mine!’</p>
<p>He went to bed, but sleep only visited his pillow in uneasy
snatches. Outbreaks of loud speech came up the staircase;
he heard the old stones of the castle crack in the frosty night
with sharp reverberations, and the bed complained under his
tossings. Lastly, far on into the morning, he awakened from
a doze to hear, very far off, in the extreme and breathless
quiet, a wailing flourish on the horn. The down mail was
drawing near to the ‘Green Dragon.’ He sat up
in bed; the sound was tragical by distance, and the modulation
appealed to his ear like human speech. It seemed to call
upon him with a dreary insistence—to call him far away, to
address him personally, and to have a meaning that he failed to
seize. It was thus, at least, in this nodding castle, in a
cold, miry woodland, and so far from men and society, that the
traffic on the Great North Road spoke to him in the intervals of
slumber.</p>
<h3>CHAPTER III—JONATHAN HOLDAWAY</h3>
<p>Nance descended the tower stair, pausing at every step.
She was in no hurry to confront her uncle with bad news, and she
must dwell a little longer on the rich note of Mr. Archer’s
voice, the charm of his kind words, and the beauty of his manner
and person. But, once at the stair-foot, she threw aside
the spell and recovered her sensible and workaday self.</p>
<p>Jonathan was seated in the middle of the settle, a mug of ale
beside him, in the attitude of one prepared for trouble; but he
did not speak, and suffered her to fetch her supper and eat of
it, with a very excellent appetite, in silence. When she
had done, she, too, drew a tankard of home-brewed, and came and
planted herself in front of him upon the settle.</p>
<p>‘Well?’ said Jonathan.</p>
<p>‘My lord has run away,’ said Nance.</p>
<p>‘What?’ cried the old man.</p>
<p>‘Abroad,’ she continued; ‘run away from
creditors. He said he had not a stiver, but he was drunk
enough. He said you might live on in the castle, and Mr.
Archer would pay you; but you was to look for no more wages,
since he would be glad of them himself.’</p>
<p>Jonathan’s face contracted; the flush of a black,
bilious anger mounted to the roots of his hair; he gave an
inarticulate cry, leapt upon his feet, and began rapidly pacing
the stone floor. At first he kept his hands behind his back
in a tight knot; then he began to gesticulate as he turned.</p>
<p>‘This man—this lord,’ he shouted, ‘who
is he? He was born with a gold spoon in his mouth, and I
with a dirty straw. He rolled in his coach when he was a
baby. I have dug and toiled and laboured since I was that
high—that high.’ And he shouted again.
‘I’m bent and broke, and full of pains.
D’ ye think I don’t know the taste of sweat?
Many’s the gallon I’ve drunk of it—ay, in the
midwinter, toiling like a slave. All through, what has my
life been? Bend, bend, bend my old creaking back till it
would ache like breaking; wade about in the foul mire, never a
dry stitch; empty belly, sore hands, hat off to my Lord Redface;
kicks and ha’pence; and now, here, at the hind end, when
I’m worn to my poor bones, a kick and done with
it.’ He walked a little while in silence, and then,
extending his hand, ‘Now you, Nance Holdaway,’ says
he, ‘you come of my blood, and you’re a good
girl. When that man was a boy, I used to carry his gun for
him. I carried the gun all day on my two feet, and many a
stitch I had, and chewed a bullet for. He rode upon a
horse, with feathers in his hat; but it was him that had the
shots and took the game home. Did I complain? Not
I. I knew my station. What did I ask, but just the
chance to live and die honest? Nance Holdaway, don’t
let them deny it to me—don’t let them do it.
I’ve been as poor as Job, and as honest as the day, but
now, my girl, you mark these words of mine, I’m getting
tired of it.’</p>
<p>‘I wouldn’t say such words, at least,’ said
Nance.</p>
<p>‘You wouldn’t?’ said the old man
grimly. ‘Well, and did I when I was your age?
Wait till your back’s broke and your hands tremble, and
your eyes fail, and you’re weary of the battle and ask no
more but to lie down in your bed and give the ghost up like an
honest man; and then let there up and come some insolent, ungodly
fellow—ah! if I had him in these hands!
“Where’s my money that you gambled?” I should
say. “Where’s my money that you drank and
diced?” “Thief!” is what I would say;
“Thief!”’ he roared,
‘“Thief”’</p>
<p>‘Mr. Archer will hear you if you don’t take
care,’ said Nance, ‘and I would be ashamed, for one,
that he should hear a brave, old, honest, hard-working man like
Jonathan Holdaway talk nonsense like a boy.’</p>
<p>‘D’ ye think I mind for Mr. Archer?’ he
cried shrilly, with a clack of laughter; and then he came close
up to her, stooped down with his two palms upon his knees, and
looked her in the eyes, with a strange hard expression, something
like a smile. ‘Do I mind for God, my girl?’ he
said; ‘that’s what it’s come to be now, do I
mind for God?’</p>
<p>‘Uncle Jonathan,’ she said, getting up and taking
him by the arm; ‘you sit down again, where you were
sitting. There, sit still; I’ll have no more of this;
you’ll do yourself a mischief. Come, take a drink of
this good ale, and I’ll warm a tankard for you. La,
we’ll pull through, you’ll see. I’m
young, as you say, and it’s my turn to carry the bundle;
and don’t you worry your bile, or we’ll have
sickness, too, as well as sorrow.’</p>
<p>‘D’ ye think that I’d forgotten you?’
said Jonathan, with something like a groan; and thereupon his
teeth clicked to, and he sat silent with the tankard in his hand
and staring straight before him.</p>
<p>‘Why,’ says Nance, setting on the ale to mull,
‘men are always children, they say, however old; and if
ever I heard a thing like this, to set to and make yourself sick,
just when the money’s failing. Keep a good heart up;
you haven’t kept a good heart these seventy years, nigh
hand, to break down about a pound or two. Here’s this
Mr. Archer come to lodge, that you disliked so much. Well,
now you see it was a clear Providence. Come, let’s
think upon our mercies. And here is the ale mulling lovely;
smell of it; I’ll take a drop myself, it smells so
sweet. And, Uncle Jonathan, you let me say one word.
You’ve lost more than money before now; you lost my aunt,
and bore it like a man. Bear this.’</p>
<p>His face once more contracted; his fist doubled, and shot
forth into the air, and trembled. ‘Let them look
out!’ he shouted. ‘Here, I warn all men;
I’ve done with this foul kennel of knaves. Let them
look out!’</p>
<p>‘Hush, hush! for pity’s sake,’ cried
Nance.</p>
<p>And then all of a sudden he dropped his face into his hands,
and broke out with a great hiccoughing dry sob that was horrible
to hear. ‘O,’ he cried, ‘my God, if my
son hadn’t left me, if my Dick was here!’ and the
sobs shook him; Nance sitting still and watching him, with
distress. ‘O, if he were here to help his
father!’ he went on again. ‘If I had a son like
other fathers, he would save me now, when all is breaking down;
O, he would save me! Ay, but where is he? Raking
taverns, a thief perhaps. My curse be on him!’ he
added, rising again into wrath.</p>
<p>‘Hush!’ cried Nance, springing to her feet:
‘your boy, your dead wife’s boy—Aunt
Susan’s baby that she loved—would you curse
him? O, God forbid!’</p>
<p>The energy of her address surprised him from his mood.
He looked upon her, tearless and confused. ‘Let me go
to my bed,’ he said at last, and he rose, and, shaking as
with ague, but quite silent, lighted his candle, and left the
kitchen.</p>
<p>Poor Nance! the pleasant current of her dreams was all
diverted. She beheld a golden city, where she aspired to
dwell; she had spoken with a deity, and had told herself that she
might rise to be his equal; and now the earthly ligaments that
bound her down had been tightened. She was like a tree
looking skyward, her roots were in the ground. It seemed to
her a thing so coarse, so rustic, to be thus concerned about a
loss in money; when Mr. Archer, fallen from the sky-level of
counts and nobles, faced his changed destiny with so immovable a
courage. To weary of honesty; that, at least, no one could
do, but even to name it was already a disgrace; and she beheld in
fancy her uncle, and the young lad, all laced and feathered, hand
upon hip, bestriding his small horse. The opposition seemed
to perpetuate itself from generation to generation; one side
still doomed to the clumsy and the servile, the other born to
beauty.</p>
<p>She thought of the golden zones in which gentlemen were bred,
and figured with so excellent a grace; zones in which wisdom and
smooth words, white linen and slim hands, were the mark of the
desired inhabitants; where low temptations were unknown, and
honesty no virtue, but a thing as natural as breathing.</p>
<h3>CHAPTER IV—MINGLING THREADS</h3>
<p>It was nearly seven before Mr. Archer left his
apartment. On the landing he found another door beside his
own opening on a roofless corridor, and presently he was walking
on the top of the ruins. On one hand he could look down a
good depth into the green court-yard; on the other his eye roved
along the downward course of the river, the wet woods all
smoking, the shadows long and blue, the mists golden and rosy in
the sun, here and there the water flashing across an
obstacle. His heart expanded and softened to a grateful
melancholy, and with his eye fixed upon the distance, and no
thought of present danger, he continued to stroll along the
elevated and treacherous promenade.</p>
<p>A terror-stricken cry rose to him from the courtyard. He
looked down, and saw in a glimpse Nance standing below with hands
clasped in horror and his own foot trembling on the margin of a
gulf. He recoiled and leant against a pillar, quaking from
head to foot, and covering his face with his hands; and Nance had
time to run round by the stair and rejoin him where he stood
before he had changed a line of his position.</p>
<p>‘Ah!’ he cried, and clutched her wrist;
‘don’t leave me. The place rocks; I have no
head for altitudes.’</p>
<p>‘Sit down against that pillar,’ said Nance.
‘Don’t you be afraid; I won’t leave you, and
don’t look up or down: look straight at me. How white
you are!’</p>
<p>‘The gulf,’ he said, and closed his eyes again and
shuddered.</p>
<p>‘Why,’ said Nance, ‘what a poor climber you
must be! That was where my cousin Dick used to get out of
the castle after Uncle Jonathan had shut the gate.
I’ve been down there myself with him helping me. I
wouldn’t try with you,’ she said, and laughed
merrily.</p>
<p>The sound of her laughter was sincere and musical, and perhaps
its beauty barbed the offence to Mr. Archer. The blood came
into his face with a quick jet, and then left it paler than
before. ‘It is a physical weakness,’ he said
harshly, ‘and very droll, no doubt, but one that I can
conquer on necessity. See, I am still shaking. Well,
I advance to the battlements and look down. Show me your
cousin’s path.’</p>
<p>‘He would go sure-foot along that little ledge,’
said Nance, pointing as she spoke; ‘then out through the
breach and down by yonder buttress. It is easier coming
back, of course, because you see where you are going. From
the buttress foot a sheep-walk goes along the scarp—see,
you can follow it from here in the dry grass. And now,
sir,’ she added, with a touch of womanly pity, ‘I
would come away from here if I were you, for indeed you are not
fit.’</p>
<p>Sure enough Mr. Archer’s pallor and agitation had
continued to increase; his cheeks were deathly, his clenched
fingers trembled pitifully. ‘The weakness is
physical,’ he sighed, and had nearly fallen. Nance
led him from the spot, and he was no sooner back in the
tower-stair, than he fell heavily against the wall and put his
arm across his eyes. A cup of brandy had to be brought him
before he could descend to breakfast; and the perfection of
Nance’s dream was for the first time troubled.</p>
<p>Jonathan was waiting for them at table, with yellow,
blood-shot eyes and a peculiar dusky complexion. He hardly
waited till they found their seats, before, raising one hand, and
stooping with his mouth above his plate, he put up a prayer for a
blessing on the food and a spirit of gratitude in the eaters, and
thereupon, and without more civility, fell to. But it was
notable that he was no less speedily satisfied than he had been
greedy to begin. He pushed his plate away and drummed upon
the table.</p>
<p>‘These are silly prayers,’ said he, ‘that
they teach us. Eat and be thankful, that’s no such
wonder. Speak to me of starving—there’s the
touch. You’re a man, they tell me, Mr. Archer, that
has met with some reverses?’</p>
<p>‘I have met with many,’ replied Mr. Archer.</p>
<p>‘Ha!’ said Jonathan. ‘None reckons but
the last. Now, see; I tried to make this girl here
understand me.’</p>
<p>‘Uncle,’ said Nance, ‘what should Mr. Archer
care for your concerns? He hath troubles of his own, and
came to be at peace, I think.’</p>
<p>‘I tried to make her understand me,’ repeated
Jonathan doggedly; ‘and now I’ll try you. Do
you think this world is fair?’</p>
<p>‘Fair and false!’ quoth Mr. Archer.</p>
<p>The old man laughed immoderately. ‘Good,’
said he, ‘very good, but what I mean is this: do you know
what it is to get up early and go to bed late, and never take so
much as a holiday but four: and one of these your own marriage
day, and the other three the funerals of folk you loved, and all
that, to have a quiet old age in shelter, and bread for your old
belly, and a bed to lay your crazy bones upon, with a clear
conscience?’</p>
<p>‘Sir,’ said Mr. Archer, with an inclination of his
head, ‘you portray a very brave existence.’</p>
<p>‘Well,’ continued Jonathan, ‘and in the end
thieves deceive you, thieves rob and rook you, thieves turn you
out in your old age and send you begging. What have you got
for all your honesty? A fine return! You that might
have stole scores of pounds, there you are out in the rain with
your rheumatics!’</p>
<p>Mr. Archer had forgotten to eat; with his hand upon his chin
he was studying the old man’s countenance. ‘And
you conclude?’ he asked.</p>
<p>‘Conclude!’ cried Jonathan. ‘I
conclude I’ll be upsides with them.’</p>
<p>‘Ay,’ said the other, ‘we are all tempted to
revenge.’</p>
<p>‘You have lost money?’ asked Jonathan.</p>
<p>‘A great estate,’ said Archer quietly.</p>
<p>‘See now!’ says Jonathan, ‘and where is
it?’</p>
<p>‘Nay, I sometimes think that every one has had his share
of it but me,’ was the reply. ‘All England hath
paid his taxes with my patrimony: I was a sheep that left my wool
on every briar.’</p>
<p>‘And you sit down under that?’ cried the old
man. ‘Come now, Mr. Archer, you and me belong to
different stations; and I know mine—no man better—but
since we have both been rooked, and are both sore with it, why,
here’s my hand with a very good heart, and I ask for yours,
and no offence, I hope.’</p>
<p>‘There is surely no offence, my friend,’ returned
Mr. Archer, as they shook hands across the table; ‘for,
believe me, my sympathies are quite acquired to you. This
life is an arena where we fight with beasts; and, indeed,’
he added, sighing, ‘I sometimes marvel why we go down to it
unarmed.’</p>
<p>In the meanwhile a creaking of ungreased axles had been heard
descending through the wood; and presently after, the door
opened, and the tall ostler entered the kitchen carrying one end
of Mr. Archer’s trunk. The other was carried by an
aged beggar man of that district, known and welcome for some
twenty miles about under the name of ‘Old
Cumberland.’ Each was soon perched upon a settle,
with a cup of ale; and the ostler, who valued himself upon his
affability, began to entertain the company, still with half an
eye on Nance, to whom in gallant terms he expressly dedicated
every sip of ale. First he told of the trouble they had to
get his Lordship started in the chaise; and how he had dropped a
rouleau of gold on the threshold, and the passage and doorstep
had been strewn with guinea-pieces. At this old Jonathan
looked at Mr. Archer. Next the visitor turned to news of a
more thrilling character: how the down mail had been stopped
again near Grantham by three men on horseback—a white and
two bays; how they had handkerchiefs on their faces; how Tom the
guard’s blunderbuss missed fire, but he swore he had winged
one of them with a pistol; and how they had got clean away with
seventy pounds in money, some valuable papers, and a watch or
two.</p>
<p>‘Brave! brave!’ cried Jonathan in ecstasy.
‘Seventy pounds! O, it’s brave!’</p>
<p>‘Well, I don’t see the great bravery,’
observed the ostler, misapprehending him. ‘Three men,
and you may call that three to one. I’ll call it
brave when some one stops the mail single-handed; that’s a
risk.’</p>
<p>‘And why should they hesitate?’ inquired Mr.
Archer. ‘The poor souls who are fallen to such a way
of life, pray what have they to lose? If they get the
money, well; but if a ball should put them from their troubles,
why, so better.’</p>
<p>‘Well, sir,’ said the ostler, ‘I believe
you’ll find they won’t agree with you. They
count on a good fling, you see; or who would risk it?—And
here’s my best respects to you, Miss Nance.’</p>
<p>‘And I forgot the part of cowardice,’ resumed Mr.
Archer. ‘All men fear.’</p>
<p>‘O, surely not!’ cried Nance.</p>
<p>‘All men,’ reiterated Mr. Archer.</p>
<p>‘Ay, that’s a true word,’ observed Old
Cumberland, ‘and a thief, anyway, for it’s a
coward’s trade.’</p>
<p>‘But these fellows, now,’ said Jonathan, with a
curious, appealing manner—‘these fellows with their
seventy pounds! Perhaps, Mr. Archer, they were no true
thieves after all, but just people who had been robbed and tried
to get their own again. What was that you said, about all
England and the taxes? One takes, another gives; why,
that’s almost fair. If I’ve been rooked and
robbed, and the coat taken off my back, I call it almost fair to
take another’s.’</p>
<p>‘Ask Old Cumberland,’ observed the ostler;
‘you ask Old Cumberland, Miss Nance!’ and he bestowed
a wink upon his favoured fair one.</p>
<p>‘Why that?’ asked Jonathan.</p>
<p>‘He had his coat taken—ay, and his shirt
too,’ returned the ostler.</p>
<p>‘Is that so?’ cried Jonathan eagerly.
‘Was you robbed too?’</p>
<p>‘That was I,’ replied Cumberland, ‘with a
warrant! I was a well-to-do man when I was
young.’</p>
<p>‘Ay! See that!’ says Jonathan.
‘And you don’t long for a revenge?’</p>
<p>‘Eh! Not me!’ answered the beggar.
‘It’s too long ago. But if you’ll give me
another mug of your good ale, my pretty lady, I won’t say
no to that.’</p>
<p>‘And shalt have! And shalt have!’ cried
Jonathan. ‘Or brandy even, if you like it
better.’</p>
<p>And as Cumberland did like it better, and the ostler chimed
in, the party pledged each other in a dram of brandy before
separating.</p>
<p>As for Nance, she slipped forth into the ruins, partly to
avoid the ostler’s gallantries, partly to lament over the
defects of Mr. Archer. Plainly, he was no hero. She
pitied him; she began to feel a protecting interest mingle with
and almost supersede her admiration, and was at the same time
disappointed and yet drawn to him. She was, indeed,
conscious of such unshaken fortitude in her own heart, that she
was almost tempted by an occasion to be bold for two. She
saw herself, in a brave attitude, shielding her imperfect hero
from the world; and she saw, like a piece of heaven, his
gratitude for her protection.</p>
<h3>CHAPTER V—LIFE IN THE CASTLE</h3>
<p>From that day forth the life of these three persons in the
ruin ran very smoothly. Mr. Archer now sat by the fire with
a book, and now passed whole days abroad, returning late, dead
weary. His manner was a mask; but it was half transparent;
through the even tenor of his gravity and courtesy profound
revolutions of feeling were betrayed, seasons of numb despair, of
restlessness, of aching temper. For days he would say
nothing beyond his usual courtesies and solemn compliments; and
then, all of a sudden, some fine evening beside the kitchen fire,
he would fall into a vein of elegant gossip, tell of strange and
interesting events, the secrets of families, brave deeds of war,
the miraculous discovery of crime, the visitations of the
dead. Nance and her uncle would sit till the small hours
with eyes wide open: Jonathan applauding the unexpected incidents
with many a slap of his big hand; Nance, perhaps, more pleased
with the narrator’s eloquence and wise reflections; and
then, again, days would follow of abstraction, of listless
humming, of frequent apologies and long hours of silence.
Once only, and then after a week of unrelieved melancholy, he
went over to the ‘Green Dragon,’ spent the afternoon
with the landlord and a bowl of punch, and returned as on the
first night, devious in step but courteous and unperturbed of
speech.</p>
<p>If he seemed more natural and more at his ease it was when he
found Nance alone; and, laying by some of his reserve, talked
before her rather than to her of his destiny, character and
hopes. To Nance these interviews were but a doubtful
privilege. At times he would seem to take a pleasure in her
presence, to consult her gravely, to hear and to discuss her
counsels; at times even, but these were rare and brief, he would
talk of herself, praise the qualities that she possessed, touch
indulgently on her defects, and lend her books to read and even
examine her upon her reading; but far more often he would fall
into a half unconsciousness, put her a question and then answer
it himself, drop into the veiled tone of voice of one
soliloquising, and leave her at last as though he had forgotten
her existence. It was odd, too, that in all this random
converse, not a fact of his past life, and scarce a name, should
ever cross his lips. A profound reserve kept watch upon his
most unguarded moments. He spoke continually of himself,
indeed, but still in enigmas; a veiled prophet of egoism.</p>
<p>The base of Nance’s feelings for Mr. Archer was
admiration as for a superior being; and with this, his treatment,
consciously or not, accorded happily. When he forgot her,
she took the blame upon herself. His formal politeness was
so exquisite that this essential brutality stood excused.
His compliments, besides, were always grave and rational; he
would offer reason for his praise, convict her of merit, and thus
disarm suspicion. Nay, and the very hours when he forgot
and remembered her alternately could by the ardent fallacies of
youth be read in the light of an attention. She might be
far from his confidence; but still she was nearer it than any
one. He might ignore her presence, but yet he sought
it.</p>
<p>Moreover, she, upon her side, was conscious of one point of
superiority. Beside this rather dismal, rather effeminate
man, who recoiled from a worm, who grew giddy on the castle wall,
who bore so helplessly the weight of his misfortunes, she felt
herself a head and shoulders taller in cheerful and sterling
courage. She could walk head in air along the most
precarious rafter; her hand feared neither the grossness nor the
harshness of life’s web, but was thrust cheerfully, if need
were, into the briar bush, and could take hold of any crawling
horror. Ruin was mining the walls of her cottage, as
already it had mined and subverted Mr. Archer’s
palace. Well, she faced it with a bright countenance and a
busy hand. She had got some washing, some rough seamstress
work from the ‘Green Dragon,’ and from another
neighbour ten miles away across the moor. At this she
cheerfully laboured, and from that height she could afford to
pity the useless talents and poor attitude of Mr. Archer.
It did not change her admiration, but it made it bearable.
He was above her in all ways; but she was above him in one.
She kept it to herself, and hugged it. When, like all young
creatures, she made long stories to justify, to nourish, and to
forecast the course of her affection, it was this private
superiority that made all rosy, that cut the knot, and that, at
last, in some great situation, fetched to her knees the dazzling
but imperfect hero. With this pretty exercise she beguiled
the hours of labour, and consoled herself for Mr. Archer’s
bearing.</p>
<p>Pity was her weapon and her weakness. To accept the
loved one’s faults, although it has an air of freedom, is
to kiss the chain, and this pity it was which, lying nearer to
her heart, lent the one element of true emotion to a fanciful and
merely brain-sick love.</p>
<p>Thus it fell out one day that she had gone to the ‘Green
Dragon’ and brought back thence a letter to Mr.
Archer. He, upon seeing it, winced like a man under the
knife: pain, shame, sorrow, and the most trenchant edge of
mortification cut into his heart and wrung the steady composure
of his face.</p>
<p>‘Dear heart! have you bad news?’ she cried.</p>
<p>But he only replied by a gesture and fled to his room, and
when, later on, she ventured to refer to it, he stopped her on
the threshold, as if with words prepared beforehand.
‘There are some pains,’ said he, ‘too acute for
consolation, or I would bring them to my kind consoler. Let
the memory of that letter, if you please, be buried.’
And then as she continued to gaze at him, being, in spite of
herself, pained by his elaborate phrase, doubtfully sincere in
word and manner: ‘Let it be enough,’ he added
haughtily, ‘that if this matter wring my heart, it doth not
touch my conscience. I am a man, I would have you to know,
who suffers undeservedly.’</p>
<p>He had never spoken so directly: never with so convincing an
emotion; and her heart thrilled for him. She could have
taken his pains and died of them with joy.</p>
<p>Meanwhile she was left without support. Jonathan now
swore by his lodger, and lived for him. He was a fine
talker. He knew the finest sight of stories; he was a man
and a gentleman, take him for all in all, and a perfect credit to
Old England. Such were the old man’s declared
sentiments, and sure enough he clung to Mr. Archer’s side,
hung upon his utterance when he spoke, and watched him with
unwearing interest when he was silent. And yet his feeling
was not clear; in the partial wreck of his mind, which was
leaning to decay, some after-thought was strongly present.
As he gazed in Mr. Archer’s face a sudden brightness would
kindle in his rheumy eyes, his eye-brows would lift as with a
sudden thought, his mouth would open as though to speak, and
close again on silence. Once or twice he even called Mr.
Archer mysteriously forth into the dark courtyard, took him by
the button, and laid a demonstrative finger on his chest; but
there his ideas or his courage failed him; he would shufflingly
excuse himself and return to his position by the fire without a
word of explanation. ‘The good man was growing
old,’ said Mr. Archer with a suspicion of a shrug.
But the good man had his idea, and even when he was alone the
name of Mr. Archer fell from his lips continually in the course
of mumbled and gesticulative conversation.</p>
<h3>CHAPTER VI—THE BAD HALF-CROWN</h3>
<p>However early Nance arose, and she was no sluggard, the old
man, who had begun to outlive the earthly habit of slumber, would
usually have been up long before, the fire would be burning
brightly, and she would see him wandering among the ruins,
lantern in hand, and talking assiduously to himself. One
day, however, after he had returned late from the market town,
she found that she had stolen a march upon that indefatigable
early riser. The kitchen was all blackness. She
crossed the castle-yard to the wood-cellar, her steps printing
the thick hoarfrost. A scathing breeze blew out of the
north-east and slowly carried a regiment of black and tattered
clouds over the face of heaven, which was already kindled with
the wild light of morning, but where she walked, in shelter of
the ruins, the flame of her candle burned steady. The
extreme cold smote upon her conscience. She could not bear
to think this bitter business fell usually to the lot of one so
old as Jonathan, and made desperate resolutions to be earlier in
the future.</p>
<p>The fire was a good blaze before he entered, limping dismally
into the kitchen. ‘Nance,’ said he, ‘I be
all knotted up with the rheumatics; will you rub me a
bit?’ She came and rubbed him where and how he bade
her. ‘This is a cruel thing that old age should be
rheumaticky,’ said he. ‘When I was young I
stood my turn of the teethache like a man! for why? because it
couldn’t last for ever; but these rheumatics come to live
and die with you. Your aunt was took before the time came;
never had an ache to mention. Now I lie all night in my
single bed and the blood never warms in me; this knee of mine it
seems like lighted up with rheumatics; it seems as though you
could see to sew by it; and all the strings of my old body ache,
as if devils was pulling ’em. Thank you kindly;
that’s someways easier now, but an old man, my dear, has
little to look for; it’s pain, pain, pain to the end of the
business, and I’ll never be rightly warm again till I get
under the sod,’ he said, and looked down at her with a face
so aged and weary that she had nearly wept.</p>
<p>‘I lay awake all night,’ he continued; ‘I do
so mostly, and a long walk kills me. Eh, deary me, to think
that life should run to such a puddle! And I remember long
syne when I was strong, and the blood all hot and good about me,
and I loved to run, too—deary me, to run! Well,
that’s all by. You’d better pray to be took
early, Nance, and not live on till you get to be like me, and are
robbed in your grey old age, your cold, shivering, dark old age,
that’s like a winter’s morning’; and he
bitterly shuddered, spreading his hands before the fire.</p>
<p>‘Come now,’ said Nance, ‘the more you say
the less you’ll like it, Uncle Jonathan; but if I were you
I would be proud for to have lived all your days honest and
beloved, and come near the end with your good name: isn’t
that a fine thing to be proud of? Mr. Archer was telling me
in some strange land they used to run races each with a lighted
candle, and the art was to keep the candle burning. Well,
now, I thought that was like life: a man’s good conscience
is the flame he gets to carry, and if he comes to the
winning-post with that still burning, why, take it how you will,
the man’s a hero—even if he was low-born like you and
me.’</p>
<p>‘Did Mr. Archer tell you that?’ asked
Jonathan.</p>
<p>‘No, dear,’ said she, ‘that’s my own
thought about it. He told me of the race. But see,
now,’ she continued, putting on the porridge, ‘you
say old age is a hard season, but so is youth. You’re
half out of the battle, I would say; you loved my aunt and got
her, and buried her, and some of these days soon you’ll go
to meet her; and take her my love and tell her I tried to take
good care of you; for so I do, Uncle Jonathan.’</p>
<p>Jonathan struck with his fist upon the settle.
‘D’ ye think I want to die, ye vixen?’ he
shouted. ‘I want to live ten hundred
years.’</p>
<p>This was a mystery beyond Nance’s penetration, and she
stared in wonder as she made the porridge.</p>
<p>‘I want to live,’ he continued, ‘I want to
live and to grow rich. I want to drive my carriage and to
dice in hells and see the ring, I do. Is this a life that I
lived? I want to be a rake, d’ ye understand? I
want to know what things are like. I don’t want to
die like a blind kitten, and me seventy-six.’</p>
<p>‘O fie!’ said Nance.</p>
<p>The old man thrust out his jaw at her, with the grimace of an
irreverent schoolboy. Upon that aged face it seemed a
blasphemy. Then he took out of his bosom a long leather
purse, and emptying its contents on the settle, began to count
and recount the pieces, ringing and examining each, and suddenly
he leapt like a young man. ‘What!’ he
screamed. ‘Bad? O Lord! I’m robbed
again!’ And falling on his knees before the settle he
began to pour forth the most dreadful curses on the head of his
deceiver. His eyes were shut, for to him this vile
solemnity was prayer. He held up the bad half-crown in his
right hand, as though he were displaying it to Heaven, and what
increased the horror of the scene, the curses he invoked were
those whose efficacy he had tasted—old age and poverty,
rheumatism and an ungrateful son. Nance listened appalled;
then she sprang forward and dragged down his arm and laid her
hand upon his mouth.</p>
<p>‘Whist!’ she cried. ‘Whist ye, for
God’s sake! O my man, whist ye! If Heaven were
to hear; if poor Aunt Susan were to hear! Think, she may be
listening.’ And with the histrionism of strong
emotion she pointed to a corner of the kitchen.</p>
<p>His eyes followed her finger. He looked there for a
little, thinking, blinking; then he got stiffly to his feet and
resumed his place upon the settle, the bad piece still in his
hand. So he sat for some time, looking upon the half-crown,
and now wondering to himself on the injustice and partiality of
the law, now computing again and again the nature of his
loss. So he was still sitting when Mr. Archer entered the
kitchen. At this a light came into his face, and after some
seconds of rumination he dispatched Nance upon an errand.</p>
<p>‘Mr. Archer,’ said he, as soon as they were alone
together, ‘would you give me a guinea-piece for
silver?’</p>
<p>‘Why, sir, I believe I can,’ said Mr. Archer.</p>
<p>And the exchange was just effected when Nance re-entered the
apartment. The blood shot into her face.</p>
<p>‘What’s to do here?’ she asked rudely.</p>
<p>‘Nothing, my dearie,’ said old Jonathan, with a
touch of whine.</p>
<p>‘What’s to do?’ she said again.</p>
<p>‘Your uncle was but changing me a piece of gold,’
returned Mr. Archer.</p>
<p>‘Let me see what he hath given you, Mr. Archer,’
replied the girl. ‘I had a bad piece, and I fear it
is mixed up among the good.’</p>
<p>‘Well, well,’ replied Mr. Archer, smiling,
‘I must take the merchant’s risk of it. The
money is now mixed.’</p>
<p>‘I know my piece,’ quoth Nance. ‘Come,
let me see your silver, Mr. Archer. If I have to get it by
a theft I’ll see that money,’ she cried.</p>
<p>‘Nay, child, if you put as much passion to be honest as
the world to steal, I must give way, though I betray
myself,’ said Mr. Archer. ‘There it is as I
received it.’</p>
<p>Nance quickly found the bad half-crown.</p>
<p>‘Give him another,’ she said, looking Jonathan in
the face; and when that had been done, she walked over to the
chimney and flung the guilty piece into the reddest of the
fire. Its base constituents began immediately to run; even
as she watched it the disc crumbled, and the lineaments of the
King became confused. Jonathan, who had followed close
behind, beheld these changes from over her shoulder, and his face
darkened sorely.</p>
<p>‘Now,’ said she, ‘come back to table, and
to-day it is I that shall say grace, as I used to do in the old
times, day about with Dick’; and covering her eyes with one
hand, ‘O Lord,’ said she with deep emotion,
‘make us thankful; and, O Lord, deliver us from evil!
For the love of the poor souls that watch for us in heaven, O
deliver us from evil.’</p>
<h3>CHAPTER VII—THE BLEACHING-GREEN</h3>
<p>The year moved on to March; and March, though it blew bitter
keen from the North Sea, yet blinked kindly between whiles on the
river dell. The mire dried up in the closest covert; life
ran in the bare branches, and the air of the afternoon would be
suddenly sweet with the fragrance of new grass.</p>
<p>Above and below the castle the river crooked like the letter
‘S.’ The lower loop was to the left, and
embraced the high and steep projection which was crowned by the
ruins; the upper loop enclosed a lawny promontory, fringed by
thorn and willow. It was easy to reach it from the castle
side, for the river ran in this part very quietly among
innumerable boulders and over dam-like walls of rock. The
place was all enclosed, the wind a stranger, the turf smooth and
solid; so it was chosen by Nance to be her bleaching-green.</p>
<p>One day she brought a bucketful of linen, and had but begun to
wring and lay them out when Mr. Archer stepped from the thicket
on the far side, drew very deliberately near, and sat down in
silence on the grass. Nance looked up to greet him with a
smile, but finding her smile was not returned, she fell into
embarrassment and stuck the more busily to her employment.
Man or woman, the whole world looks well at any work to which
they are accustomed; but the girl was ashamed of what she
did. She was ashamed, besides, of the sun-bonnet that so
well became her, and ashamed of her bare arms, which were her
greatest beauty.</p>
<p>‘Nausicaa,’ said Mr. Archer at last, ‘I find
you like Nausicaa.’</p>
<p>‘And who was she?’ asked Nance, and laughed in
spite of herself, an empty and embarrassed laugh, that sounded in
Mr. Archer’s ears, indeed, like music, but to her own like
the last grossness of rusticity.</p>
<p>‘She was a princess of the Grecian islands,’ he
replied. ‘A king, being shipwrecked, found her
washing by the shore. Certainly I, too, was
shipwrecked,’ he continued, plucking at the grass.
‘There was never a more desperate castaway—to fall
from polite life, fortune, a shrine of honour, a grateful
conscience, duties willingly taken up and faithfully discharged;
and to fall to this—idleness, poverty, inutility,
remorse.’ He seemed to have forgotten her presence,
but here he remembered her again. ‘Nance,’ said
he, ‘would you have a man sit down and suffer or rise up
and strive?’</p>
<p>‘Nay,’ she said. ‘I would always
rather see him doing.’</p>
<p>‘Ha!’ said Mr. Archer, ‘but yet you speak
from an imperfect knowledge. Conceive a man damned to a
choice of only evil—misconduct upon either side, not a
fault behind him, and yet naught before him but this choice of
sins. How would you say then?’</p>
<p>‘I would say that he was much deceived, Mr.
Archer,’ returned Nance. ‘I would say there was
a third choice, and that the right one.’</p>
<p>‘I tell you,’ said Mr. Archer, ‘the man I
have in view hath two ways open, and no more. One to wait,
like a poor mewling baby, till Fate save or ruin him; the other
to take his troubles in his hand, and to perish or be saved at
once. It is no point of morals; both are wrong.
Either way this step-child of Providence must fall; which shall
he choose, by doing or not doing?’</p>
<p>‘Fall, then, is what I would say,’ replied
Nance. ‘Fall where you will, but do it! For O,
Mr. Archer,’ she continued, stooping to her work,
‘you that are good and kind, and so wise, it doth sometimes
go against my heart to see you live on here like a sheep in a
turnip-field! If you were braver—’ and here she
paused, conscience-smitten.</p>
<p>‘Do I, indeed, lack courage?’ inquired Mr. Archer
of himself. ‘Courage, the footstool of the virtues,
upon which they stand? Courage, that a poor private
carrying a musket has to spare of; that does not fail a weasel or
a rat; that is a brutish faculty? I to fail there, I
wonder? But what is courage, then? The constancy to
endure oneself or to see others suffer? The itch of
ill-advised activity: mere shuttle-wittedness, or to be still and
patient? To inquire of the significance of words is to rob
ourselves of what we seem to know, and yet, of all things,
certainly to stand still is the least heroic. Nance,’
he said, ‘did you ever hear of <i>Hamlet</i>?’</p>
<p>‘Never,’ said Nance.</p>
<p>‘’Tis an old play,’ returned Mr. Archer,
‘and frequently enacted. This while I have been
talking Hamlet. You must know this Hamlet was a Prince
among the Danes,’ and he told her the play in a very good
style, here and there quoting a verse or two with solemn
emphasis.</p>
<p>‘It is strange,’ said Nance; ‘he was then a
very poor creature?’</p>
<p>‘That was what he could not tell,’ said Mr.
Archer. ‘Look at me, am I as poor a
creature?’</p>
<p>She looked, and what she saw was the familiar thought of all
her hours; the tall figure very plainly habited in black, the
spotless ruffles, the slim hands; the long, well-shapen, serious,
shaven face, the wide and somewhat thin-lipped mouth, the dark
eyes that were so full of depth and change and colour. He
was gazing at her with his brows a little knit, his chin upon one
hand and that elbow resting on his knee.</p>
<p>‘Ye look a man!’ she cried, ‘ay, and should
be a great one! The more shame to you to lie here idle like
a dog before the fire.’</p>
<p>‘My fair Holdaway,’ quoth Mr. Archer, ‘you
are much set on action. I cannot dig, to beg I am
ashamed.’ He continued, looking at her with a
half-absent fixity, ‘’Tis a strange thing, certainly,
that in my years of fortune I should never taste happiness, and
now when I am broke, enjoy so much of it, for was I ever happier
than to-day? Was the grass softer, the stream pleasanter in
sound, the air milder, the heart more at peace? Why should
I not sink? To dig—why, after all, it should be
easy. To take a mate, too? Love is of all grades
since Jupiter; love fails to none; and children’—but
here he passed his hand suddenly over his eyes. ‘O
fool and coward, fool and coward!’ he said bitterly;
‘can you forget your fetters? You did not know that I
was fettered, Nance?’ he asked, again addressing her.</p>
<p>But Nance was somewhat sore. ‘I know you keep
talking,’ she said, and, turning half away from him, began
to wring out a sheet across her shoulder. ‘I wonder
you are not wearied of your voice. When the hands lie abed
the tongue takes a walk.’</p>
<p>Mr. Archer laughed unpleasantly, rose and moved to the
water’s edge. In this part the body of the river
poured across a little narrow fell, ran some ten feet very
smoothly over a bed of pebbles, then getting wind, as it were, of
another shelf of rock which barred the channel, began, by
imperceptible degrees, to separate towards either shore in
dancing currents, and to leave the middle clear and
stagnant. The set towards either side was nearly equal;
about one half of the whole water plunged on the side of the
castle, through a narrow gullet; about one half ran ripping past
the margin of the green and slipped across a babbling rapid.</p>
<p>‘Here,’ said Mr. Archer, after he had looked for
some time at the fine and shifting demarcation of these currents,
‘come here and see me try my fortune.’</p>
<p>‘I am not like a man,’ said Nance; ‘I have
no time to waste.’</p>
<p>‘Come here,’ he said again. ‘I ask you
seriously, Nance. We are not always childish when we seem
so.’</p>
<p>She drew a little nearer.</p>
<p>‘Now,’ said he, ‘you see these two
channels—choose one.’</p>
<p>‘I’ll choose the nearest, to save time,’
said Nance.</p>
<p>‘Well, that shall be for action,’ returned Mr.
Archer. ‘And since I wish to have the odds against
me, not only the other channel but yon stagnant water in the
midst shall be for lying still. You see this?’ he
continued, pulling up a withered rush. ‘I break it in
three. I shall put each separately at the top of the upper
fall, and according as they go by your way or by the other I
shall guide my life.’</p>
<p>‘This is very silly,’ said Nance, with a movement
of her shoulders.</p>
<p>‘I do not think it so,’ said Mr. Archer.</p>
<p>‘And then,’ she resumed, ‘if you are to try
your fortune, why not evenly?’</p>
<p>‘Nay,’ returned Mr. Archer with a smile, ‘no
man can put complete reliance in blind fate; he must still cog
the dice.’</p>
<p>By this time he had got upon the rock beside the upper fall,
and, bidding her look out, dropped a piece of rush into the
middle of the intake. The rusty fragment was sucked at once
over the fall, came up again far on the right hand, leaned ever
more and more in the same direction, and disappeared under the
hanging grasses on the castle side.</p>
<p>‘One,’ said Mr. Archer, ‘one for standing
still.’</p>
<p>But the next launch had a different fate, and after hanging
for a while about the edge of the stagnant water, steadily
approached the bleaching-green and danced down the rapid under
Nance’s eyes.</p>
<p>‘One for me,’ she cried with some exultation; and
then she observed that Mr. Archer had grown pale, and was
kneeling on the rock, with his hand raised like a person
petrified. ‘Why,’ said she, ‘you do not
mind it, do you?’</p>
<p>‘Does a man not mind a throw of dice by which a fortune
hangs?’ said Mr. Archer, rather hoarsely. ‘And
this is more than fortune. Nance, if you have any kindness
for my fate, put up a prayer before I launch the next
one.’</p>
<p>‘A prayer,’ she cried, ‘about a game like
this? I would not be so heathen.’</p>
<p>‘Well,’ said he, ‘then without,’ and
he closed his eyes and dropped the piece of rush. This time
there was no doubt. It went for the rapid as straight as
any arrow.</p>
<p>‘Action then!’ said Mr. Archer, getting to his
feet; ‘and then God forgive us,’ he added, almost to
himself.</p>
<p>‘God forgive us, indeed,’ cried Nance, ‘for
wasting the good daylight! But come, Mr. Archer, if I see
you look so serious I shall begin to think you was in
earnest.’</p>
<p>‘Nay,’ he said, turning upon her suddenly, with a
full smile; ‘but is not this good advice? I have
consulted God and demigod; the nymph of the river, and what I far
more admire and trust, my blue-eyed Minerva. Both have said
the same. My own heart was telling it already.
Action, then, be mine; and into the deep sea with all this
paralysing casuistry. I am happy to-day for the first
time.’</p>
<h3>CHAPTER VIII—THE MAIL GUARD</h3>
<p>Somewhere about two in the morning a squall had burst upon the
castle, a clap of screaming wind that made the towers rock, and a
copious drift of rain that streamed from the windows. The
wind soon blew itself out, but the day broke cloudy and dripping,
and when the little party assembled at breakfast their humours
appeared to have changed with the change of weather. Nance
had been brooding on the scene at the river-side, applying it in
various ways to her particular aspirations, and the result, which
was hardly to her mind, had taken the colour out of her
cheeks. Mr. Archer, too, was somewhat absent, his thoughts
were of a mingled strain; and even upon his usually impassive
countenance there were betrayed successive depths of depression
and starts of exultation, which the girl translated in terms of
her own hopes and fears. But Jonathan was the most altered:
he was strangely silent, hardly passing a word, and watched Mr.
Archer with an eager and furtive eye. It seemed as if the
idea that had so long hovered before him had now taken a more
solid shape, and, while it still attracted, somewhat alarmed his
imagination.</p>
<p>At this rate, conversation languished into a silence which was
only broken by the gentle and ghostly noises of the rain on the
stone roof and about all that field of ruins; and they were all
relieved when the note of a man whistling and the sound of
approaching footsteps in the grassy court announced a
visitor. It was the ostler from the ‘Green
Dragon’ bringing a letter for Mr. Archer. Nance saw
her hero’s face contract and then relax again at sight of
it; and she thought that she knew why, for the sprawling, gross
black characters of the address were easily distinguishable from
the fine writing on the former letter that had so much disturbed
him. He opened it and began to read; while the ostler sat
down to table with a pot of ale, and proceeded to make himself
agreeable after his fashion.</p>
<p>‘Fine doings down our way, Miss Nance,’ said
he. ‘I haven’t been abed this blessed
night.’</p>
<p>Nance expressed a polite interest, but her eye was on Mr.
Archer, who was reading his letter with a face of such extreme
indifference that she was tempted to suspect him of
assumption.</p>
<p>‘Yes,’ continued the ostler, ‘not been the
like of it this fifteen years: the North Mail stopped at the
three stones.’</p>
<p>Jonathan’s cup was at his lip, but at this moment he
choked with a great splutter; and Mr. Archer, as if startled by
the noise, made so sudden a movement that one corner of the sheet
tore off and stayed between his finger and thumb. It was
some little time before the old man was sufficiently recovered to
beg the ostler to go on, and he still kept coughing and crying
and rubbing his eyes. Mr. Archer, on his side, laid the
letter down, and, putting his hands in his pocket, listened
gravely to the tale.</p>
<p>‘Yes,’ resumed Sam, ‘the North Mail was
stopped by a single horseman; dash my wig, but I admire
him! There were four insides and two out, and poor Tom
Oglethorpe, the guard. Tom showed himself a man; let fly
his blunderbuss at him; had him covered, too, and could swear to
that; but the Captain never let on, up with a pistol and fetched
poor Tom a bullet through the body. Tom, he squelched upon
the seat, all over blood. Up comes the Captain to the
window. “Oblige me,” says he, “with what
you have.” Would you believe it? Not a man says
cheep!—not them. “Thy hands over thy
head.” Four watches, rings, snuff-boxes,
seven-and-forty pounds overhead in gold. One Dicksee, a
grazier, tries it on: gives him a guinea. “Beg your
pardon,” says the Captain, “I think too highly of you
to take it at your hand. I will not take less than ten from
such a gentleman.” This Dicksee had his money in his
stocking, but there was the pistol at his eye. Down he
goes, offs with his stocking, and there was thirty golden
guineas. “Now,” says the Captain,
“you’ve tried it on with me, but I scorns the
advantage. Ten I said,” he says, “and ten I
take.” So, dash my buttons, I call that man a
man!’ cried Sam in cordial admiration.</p>
<p>‘Well, and then?’ says Mr. Archer.</p>
<p>‘Then,’ resumed Sam, ‘that old fat fagot
Engleton, him as held the ribbons and drew up like a lamb when he
was told to, picks up his cattle, and drives off again.
Down they came to the “Dragon,” all singing like as
if they was scalded, and poor Tom saying nothing. You would
‘a’ thought they had all lost the King’s crown
to hear them. Down gets this Dicksee.
“Postmaster,” he says, taking him by the arm,
“this is a most abominable thing,” he says.
Down gets a Major Clayton, and gets the old man by the other
arm. “We’ve been robbed,” he cries,
“robbed!” Down gets the others, and all around
the old man telling their story, and what they had lost, and how
they was all as good as ruined; till at last Old Engleton says,
says he, “How about Oglethorpe?” says he.
“Ay,” says the others, “how about the
guard?” Well, with that we bousted him down, as white
as a rag and all blooded like a sop. I thought he was
dead. Well, he ain’t dead; but he’s dying, I
fancy.’</p>
<p>‘Did you say four watches?’ said Jonathan.</p>
<p>‘Four, I think. I wish it had been forty,’
cried Sam. ‘Such a party of soused herrings I never
did see—not a man among them bar poor Tom. But us
that are the servants on the road have all the risk and none of
the profit.’</p>
<p>‘And this brave fellow,’ asked Mr. Archer, very
quietly, ‘this Oglethorpe—how is he now?’</p>
<p>‘Well, sir, with my respects, I take it he has a hole
bang through him,’ said Sam. ‘The doctor
hasn’t been yet. He’d ‘a’ been
bright and early if it had been a passenger. But, doctor or
no, I’ll make a good guess that Tom won’t see
to-morrow. He’ll die on a Sunday, will poor Tom; and
they do say that’s fortunate.’</p>
<p>‘Did Tom see him that did it?’ asked Jonathan.</p>
<p>‘Well, he saw him,’ replied Sam, ‘but not to
swear by. Said he was a very tall man, and very big, and
had a ’ankerchief about his face, and a very quick shot,
and sat his horse like a thorough gentleman, as he is.’</p>
<p>‘A gentleman!’ cried Nance. ‘The dirty
knave!’</p>
<p>‘Well, I calls a man like that a gentleman,’
returned the ostler; ‘that’s what I mean by a
gentleman.’</p>
<p>‘You don’t know much of them, then,’ said
Nance.</p>
<p>‘A gentleman would scorn to stoop to such a thing.
I call my uncle a better gentleman than any thief.’</p>
<p>‘And you would be right,’ said Mr. Archer.</p>
<p>‘How many snuff-boxes did he get?’ asked
Jonathan.</p>
<p>‘O, dang me if I know,’ said Sam; ‘I
didn’t take an inventory.’</p>
<p>‘I will go back with you, if you please,’ said Mr.
Archer. ‘I should like to see poor Oglethorpe.
He has behaved well.’</p>
<p>‘At your service, sir,’ said Sam, jumping to his
feet. ‘I dare to say a gentleman like you would not
forget a poor fellow like Tom—no, nor a plain man like me,
sir, that went without his sleep to nurse him. And excuse
me, sir,’ added Sam, ‘you won’t forget about
the letter neither?’</p>
<p>‘Surely not,’ said Mr. Archer.</p>
<p>Oglethorpe lay in a low bed, one of several in a long garret
of the inn. The rain soaked in places through the roof and
fell in minute drops; there was but one small window; the beds
were occupied by servants, the air of the garret was both close
and chilly. Mr. Archer’s heart sank at the threshold
to see a man lying perhaps mortally hurt in so poor a sick-room,
and as he drew near the low bed he took his hat off. The
guard was a big, blowsy, innocent-looking soul with a thick lip
and a broad nose, comically turned up; his cheeks were crimson,
and when Mr. Archer laid a finger on his brow he found him
burning with fever.</p>
<p>‘I fear you suffer much,’ he said, with a catch in
his voice, as he sat down on the bedside.</p>
<p>‘I suppose I do, sir,’ returned Oglethorpe;
‘it is main sore.’</p>
<p>‘I am used to wounds and wounded men,’ returned
the visitor. ‘I have been in the wars and nursed
brave fellows before now; and, if you will suffer me, I propose
to stay beside you till the doctor comes.’</p>
<p>‘It is very good of you, sir, I am sure,’ said
Oglethorpe. ‘The trouble is they won’t none of
them let me drink.’</p>
<p>‘If you will not tell the doctor,’ said Mr.
Archer, ‘I will give you some water. They say it is
bad for a green wound, but in the Low Countries we all drank
water when we found the chance, and I could never perceive we
were the worse for it.’</p>
<p>‘Been wounded yourself, sir, perhaps?’ called
Oglethorpe.</p>
<p>‘Twice,’ said Mr. Archer, ‘and was as proud
of these hurts as any lady of her bracelets. ’Tis a
fine thing to smart for one’s duty; even in the pangs of it
there is contentment.’</p>
<p>‘Ah, well!’ replied the guard, ‘if
you’ve been shot yourself, that explains. But as for
contentment, why, sir, you see, it smarts, as you say. And
then, I have a good wife, you see, and a bit of a brat—a
little thing, so high.’</p>
<p>‘Don’t move,’ said Mr. Archer.</p>
<p>‘No, sir, I will not, and thank you kindly,’ said
Oglethorpe. ‘At York they are. A very good lass
is my wife—far too good for me. And the little
rascal—well, I don’t know how to say it, but he sort
of comes round you. If I were to go, sir, it would be hard
on my poor girl—main hard on her!’</p>
<p>‘Ay, you must feel bitter hardly to the rogue that laid
you here,’ said Archer.</p>
<p>‘Why, no, sir, more against Engleton and the
passengers,’ replied the guard. ‘He played his
hand, if you come to look at it; and I wish he had shot worse, or
me better. And yet I’ll go to my grave but what I
covered him,’ he cried. ‘It looks like
witchcraft. I’ll go to my grave but what he was drove
full of slugs like a pepper-box.’</p>
<p>‘Quietly,’ said Mr. Archer, ‘you must not
excite yourself. These deceptions are very usual in war;
the eye, in the moment of alert, is hardly to be trusted, and
when the smoke blows away you see the man you fired at, taking
aim, it may be, at yourself. You should observe, too, that
you were in the dark night, and somewhat dazzled by the lamps,
and that the sudden stopping of the mail had jolted you. In
such circumstances a man may miss, ay, even with a blunder-buss,
and no blame attach to his marksmanship.’ . . .</p>
<h2>THE YOUNG CHEVALIER</h2>
<h3>PROLOGUE—THE WINE-SELLER’S WIFE</h3>
<p>There was a wine-seller’s shop, as you went down to the
river in the city of the Anti-popes. There a man was served
with good wine of the country and plain country fare; and the
place being clean and quiet, with a prospect on the river,
certain gentlemen who dwelt in that city in attendance on a great
personage made it a practice (when they had any silver in their
purses) to come and eat there and be private.</p>
<p>They called the wine-seller Paradou. He was built more
like a bullock than a man, huge in bone and brawn, high in
colour, and with a hand like a baby for size.
Marie-Madeleine was the name of his wife; she was of Marseilles,
a city of entrancing women, nor was any fairer than
herself. She was tall, being almost of a height with
Paradou; full-girdled, point-device in every form, with an
exquisite delicacy in the face; her nose and nostrils a delight
to look at from the fineness of the sculpture, her eyes inclined
a hair’s-breadth inward, her colour between dark and fair,
and laid on even like a flower’s. A faint rose dwelt
in it, as though she had been found unawares bathing, and had
blushed from head to foot. She was of a grave countenance,
rarely smiling; yet it seemed to be written upon every part of
her that she rejoiced in life. Her husband loved the heels
of her feet and the knuckles of her fingers; he loved her like a
glutton and a brute; his love hung about her like an atmosphere;
one that came by chance into the wine-shop was aware of that
passion; and it might be said that by the strength of it the
woman had been drugged or spell-bound. She knew not if she
loved or loathed him; he was always in her eyes like something
monstrous—monstrous in his love, monstrous in his person,
horrific but imposing in his violence; and her sentiment swung
back and forward from desire to sickness. But the mean,
where it dwelt chiefly, was an apathetic fascination, partly of
horror; as of Europa in mid ocean with her bull.</p>
<p>On the 10th November 1749 there sat two of the foreign
gentlemen in the wine-seller’s shop. They were both
handsome men of a good presence, richly dressed. The first
was swarthy and long and lean, with an alert, black look, and a
mole upon his cheek. The other was more fair. He
seemed very easy and sedate, and a little melancholy for so young
a man, but his smile was charming. In his grey eyes there
was much abstraction, as of one recalling fondly that which was
past and lost. Yet there was strength and swiftness in his
limbs; and his mouth set straight across his face, the under lip
a thought upon side, like that of a man accustomed to
resolve. These two talked together in a rude outlandish
speech that no frequenter of that wine-shop understood. The
swarthy man answered to the name of <i>Ballantrae</i>; he of the
dreamy eyes was sometimes called <i>Balmile</i>, and sometimes
<i>my Lord</i>, or <i>my Lord Gladsmuir</i>; but when the title
was given him, he seemed to put it by as if in jesting, not
without bitterness.</p>
<p>The mistral blew in the city. The first day of that
wind, they say in the countries where its voice is heard, it
blows away all the dust, the second all the stones, and the third
it blows back others from the mountains. It was now come to
the third day; outside the pebbles flew like hail, and the face
of the river was puckered, and the very building-stones in the
walls of houses seemed to be curdled with the savage cold and
fury of that continuous blast. It could be heard to hoot in
all the chimneys of the city; it swept about the wine-shop,
filling the room with eddies; the chill and gritty touch of it
passed between the nearest clothes and the bare flesh; and the
two gentlemen at the far table kept their mantles loose about
their shoulders. The roughness of these outer hulls, for
they were plain travellers’ cloaks that had seen service,
set the greater mark of richness on what showed below of their
laced clothes; for the one was in scarlet and the other in violet
and white, like men come from a scene of ceremony; as indeed they
were.</p>
<p>It chanced that these fine clothes were not without their
influence on the scene which followed, and which makes the
prologue of our tale. For a long time Balmile was in the
habit to come to the wine-shop and eat a meal or drink a measure
of wine; sometimes with a comrade; more often alone, when he
would sit and dream and drum upon the table, and the thoughts
would show in the man’s face in little glooms and
lightenings, like the sun and the clouds upon a water. For
a long time Marie-Madeleine had observed him apart. His
sadness, the beauty of his smile when by any chance he remembered
her existence and addressed her, the changes of his mind
signalled forth by an abstruse play of feature, the mere fact
that he was foreign and a thing detached from the local and the
accustomed, insensibly attracted and affected her. Kindness
was ready in her mind; it but lacked the touch of an occasion to
effervesce and crystallise. Now Balmile had come hitherto
in a very poor plain habit; and this day of the mistral, when his
mantle was just open, and she saw beneath it the glancing of the
violet and the velvet and the silver, and the clustering fineness
of the lace, it seemed to set the man in a new light, with which
he shone resplendent to her fancy.</p>
<p>The high inhuman note of the wind, the violence and continuity
of its outpouring, and the fierce touch of it upon man’s
whole periphery, accelerated the functions of the mind. It
set thoughts whirling, as it whirled the trees of the forest; it
stirred them up in flights, as it stirred up the dust in
chambers. As brief as sparks, the fancies glittered and
succeeded each other in the mind of Marie-Madeleine; and the
grave man with the smile, and the bright clothes under the plain
mantle, haunted her with incongruous explanations. She
considered him, the unknown, the speaker of an unknown tongue,
the hero (as she placed him) of an unknown romance, the dweller
upon unknown memories. She recalled him sitting there
alone, so immersed, so stupefied; yet she was sure he was not
stupid. She recalled one day when he had remained a long
time motionless, with parted lips, like one in the act of
starting up, his eyes fixed on vacancy. Any one else must
have looked foolish; but not he. She tried to conceive what
manner of memory had thus entranced him; she forged for him a
past; she showed him to herself in every light of heroism and
greatness and misfortune; she brooded with petulant intensity on
all she knew and guessed of him. Yet, though she was
already gone so deep, she was still unashamed, still unalarmed;
her thoughts were still disinterested; she had still to reach the
stage at which—beside the image of that other whom we love
to contemplate and to adorn—we place the image of ourself
and behold them together with delight.</p>
<p>She stood within the counter, her hands clasped behind her
back, her shoulders pressed against the wall, her feet braced
out. Her face was bright with the wind and her own
thoughts; as a fire in a similar day of tempest glows and
brightens on a hearth, so she seemed to glow, standing there, and
to breathe out energy. It was the first time Ballantrae had
visited that wine-seller’s, the first time he had seen the
wife; and his eyes were true to her.</p>
<p>‘I perceive your reason for carrying me to this very
draughty tavern,’ he said at last.</p>
<p>‘I believe it is propinquity,’ returned
Balmile.</p>
<p>‘You play dark,’ said Ballantrae, ‘but have
a care! Be more frank with me, or I will cut you out.
I go through no form of qualifying my threat, which would be
commonplace and not conscientious. There is only one point
in these campaigns: that is the degree of admiration offered by
the man; and to our hostess I am in a posture to make victorious
love.’</p>
<p>‘If you think you have the time, or the game worth the
candle,’ replied the other with a shrug.</p>
<p>‘One would suppose you were never at the pains to
observe her,’ said Ballantrae.</p>
<p>‘I am not very observant,’ said Balmile.
‘She seems comely.’</p>
<p>‘You very dear and dull dog!’ cried Ballantrae;
‘chastity is the most besotting of the virtues. Why,
she has a look in her face beyond singing! I believe, if
you was to push me hard, I might trace it home to a trifle of a
squint. What matters? The height of beauty is in the
touch that’s wrong, that’s the modulation in a
tune. ’Tis the devil we all love; I owe many a
conquest to my mole’—he touched it as he spoke with a
smile, and his eyes glittered;—‘we are all
hunchbacks, and beauty is only that kind of deformity that I
happen to admire. But come! Because you are chaste,
for which I am sure I pay you my respects, that is no reason why
you should be blind. Look at her, look at the delicious
nose of her, look at her cheek, look at her ear, look at her hand
and wrist—look at the whole baggage from heels to crown,
and tell me if she wouldn’t melt on a man’s
tongue.’</p>
<p>As Ballantrae spoke, half jesting, half enthusiastic, Balmile
was constrained to do as he was bidden. He looked at the
woman, admired her excellences, and was at the same time ashamed
for himself and his companion. So it befell that when
Marie-Madeleine raised her eyes, she met those of the subject of
her contemplations fixed directly on herself with a look that is
unmistakable, the look of a person measuring and valuing
another—and, to clench the false impression, that his
glance was instantly and guiltily withdrawn. The blood beat
back upon her heart and leaped again; her obscure thoughts
flashed clear before her; she flew in fancy straight to his arms
like a wanton, and fled again on the instant like a nymph.
And at that moment there chanced an interruption, which not only
spared her embarrassment, but set the last consecration on her
now articulate love.</p>
<p>Into the wine-shop there came a French gentleman, arrayed in
the last refinement of the fashion, though a little tumbled by
his passage in the wind. It was to be judged he had come
from the same formal gathering at which the others had preceded
him; and perhaps that he had gone there in the hope to meet with
them, for he came up to Ballantrae with unceremonious
eagerness.</p>
<p>‘At last, here you are!’ he cried in French.
‘I thought I was to miss you altogether.’</p>
<p>The Scotsmen rose, and Ballantrae, after the first greetings,
laid his hand on his companion’s shoulder.</p>
<p>‘My lord,’ said he, ‘allow me to present to
you one of my best friends and one of our best soldiers, the Lord
Viscount Gladsmuir.’</p>
<p>The two bowed with the elaborate elegance of the period.</p>
<p>‘<i>Monseigneur</i>,’ said Balmile, ‘<i>je
n’ai pas la prétention de m’affubler
d’un titre que la mauvaise fortune de mon roi ne me permet
pas de porter comma il sied</i>. <i>Je m’appelle</i>,
<i>pour vous servir</i>, <i>Blair de Balmile tout
court</i>.’ [My lord, I have not the effrontery to
cumber myself with a title which the ill fortunes of my king will
not suffer me to bear the way it should be. I call myself,
at your service, plain Blair of Balmile.]</p>
<p>‘<i>Monsieur le Vicomte ou monsieur Blèr’
de Balmaïl</i>,’ replied the newcomer, ‘<i>le
nom n’y fait rien</i>, <i>et l’on connaît vos
beaux faits</i>.’ [The name matters nothing, your
gallant actions are known.]</p>
<p>A few more ceremonies, and these three, sitting down together
to the table, called for wine. It was the happiness of
Marie-Madeleine to wait unobserved upon the prince of her
desires. She poured the wine, he drank of it; and that link
between them seemed to her, for the moment, close as a
caress. Though they lowered their tones, she surprised
great names passing in their conversation, names of kings, the
names of de Gesvre and Belle-Isle; and the man who dealt in these
high matters, and she who was now coupled with him in her own
thoughts, seemed to swim in mid air in a transfiguration.
Love is a crude core, but it has singular and far-reaching
fringes; in that passionate attraction for the stranger that now
swayed and mastered her, his harsh incomprehensible language, and
these names of grandees in his talk, were each an element.</p>
<p>The Frenchman stayed not long, but it was plain he left behind
him matter of much interest to his companions; they spoke
together earnestly, their heads down, the woman of the wine-shop
totally forgotten; and they were still so occupied when Paradou
returned.</p>
<p>This man’s love was unsleeping. The even bluster
of the mistral, with which he had been combating some hours, had
not suspended, though it had embittered, that predominant
passion. His first look was for his wife, a look of hope
and suspicion, menace and humility and love, that made the
over-blooming brute appear for the moment almost beautiful.
She returned his glance, at first as though she knew him not,
then with a swiftly waxing coldness of intent; and at last,
without changing their direction, she had closed her eyes.</p>
<p>There passed across her mind during that period much that
Paradou could not have understood had it been told to him in
words: chiefly the sense of an enlightening contrast betwixt the
man who talked of kings and the man who kept a wine-shop, betwixt
the love she yearned for and that to which she had been long
exposed like a victim bound upon the altar. There swelled
upon her, swifter than the Rhone, a tide of abhorrence and
disgust. She had succumbed to the monster, humbling herself
below animals; and now she loved a hero, aspiring to the
semi-divine. It was in the pang of that humiliating thought
that she had closed her eyes.</p>
<p>Paradou—quick as beasts are quick, to translate
silence—felt the insult through his blood; his inarticulate
soul bellowed within him for revenge. He glanced about the
shop. He saw the two indifferent gentlemen deep in talk,
and passed them over: his fancy flying not so high. There
was but one other present, a country lout who stood swallowing
his wine, equally unobserved by all and unobserving—to him
he dealt a glance of murderous suspicion, and turned direct upon
his wife. The wine-shop had lain hitherto, a space of
shelter, the scene of a few ceremonial passages and some
whispered conversation, in the howling river of the wind; the
clock had not yet ticked a score of times since Paradou’s
appearance; and now, as he suddenly gave tongue, it seemed as
though the mistral had entered at his heels.</p>
<p>‘What ails you, woman?’ he cried, smiting on the
counter.</p>
<p>‘Nothing ails me,’ she replied. It was
strange; but she spoke and stood at that moment like a lady of
degree, drawn upward by her aspirations.</p>
<p>‘You speak to me, by God, as though you scorned
me!’ cried the husband.</p>
<p>The man’s passion was always formidable; she had often
looked on upon its violence with a thrill, it had been one
ingredient in her fascination; and she was now surprised to
behold him, as from afar off, gesticulating but impotent.
His fury might be dangerous like a torrent or a gust of wind, but
it was inhuman; it might be feared or braved, it should never be
respected. And with that there came in her a sudden glow of
courage and that readiness to die which attends so closely upon
all strong passions.</p>
<p>‘I do scorn you,’ she said.</p>
<p>‘What is that?’ he cried.</p>
<p>‘I scorn you,’ she repeated, smiling.</p>
<p>‘You love another man!’ said he.</p>
<p>‘With all my soul,’ was her reply.</p>
<p>The wine-seller roared aloud so that the house rang and shook
with it.</p>
<p>‘Is this the—?’ he cried, using a foul word,
common in the South; and he seized the young countryman and
dashed him to the ground. There he lay for the least
interval of time insensible; thence fled from the house, the most
terrified person in the county. The heavy measure had
escaped from his hands, splashing the wine high upon the
wall. Paradou caught it. ‘And you?’ he
roared to his wife, giving her the same name in the feminine, and
he aimed at her the deadly missile. She expected it,
motionless, with radiant eyes.</p>
<p>But before it sped, Paradou was met by another adversary, and
the unconscious rivals stood confronted. It was hard to say
at that moment which appeared the more formidable. In
Paradou, the whole muddy and truculent depths of the half-man
were stirred to frenzy; the lust of destruction raged in him;
there was not a feature in his face but it talked murder.
Balmile had dropped his cloak: he shone out at once in his
finery, and stood to his full stature; girt in mind and body all
his resources, all his temper, perfectly in command in his face
the light of battle. Neither spoke; there was no blow nor
threat of one; it was war reduced to its last element, the
spiritual; and the huge wine-seller slowly lowered his
weapon. Balmile was a noble, he a commoner; Balmile exulted
in an honourable cause. Paradou already perhaps began to be
ashamed of his violence. Of a sudden, at least, the
tortured brute turned and fled from the shop in the footsteps of
his former victim, to whose continued flight his reappearance
added wings.</p>
<p>So soon as Balmile appeared between her husband and herself,
Marie-Madeleine transferred to him her eyes. It might be
her last moment, and she fed upon that face; reading there
inimitable courage and illimitable valour to protect. And
when the momentary peril was gone by, and the champion turned a
little awkwardly towards her whom he had rescued, it was to meet,
and quail before, a gaze of admiration more distinct than
words. He bowed, he stammered, his words failed him; he who
had crossed the floor a moment ago, like a young god, to smite,
returned like one discomfited; got somehow to his place by the
table, muffled himself again in his discarded cloak, and for a
last touch of the ridiculous, seeking for anything to restore his
countenance, drank of the wine before him, deep as a porter after
a heavy lift. It was little wonder if Ballantrae, reading
the scene with malevolent eyes, laughed out loud and brief, and
drank with raised glass, ‘To the champion of the
Fair.’</p>
<p>Marie-Madeleine stood in her old place within the counter; she
disdained the mocking laughter; it fell on her ears, but it did
not reach her spirit. For her, the world of living persons
was all resumed again into one pair, as in the days of Eden;
there was but the one end in life, the one hope before her, the
one thing needful, the one thing possible—to be his.</p>
<h3>CHAPTER I—THE PRINCE</h3>
<p>That same night there was in the city of Avignon a young man
in distress of mind. Now he sat, now walked in a high
apartment, full of draughts and shadows. A single candle
made the darkness visible; and the light scarce sufficed to show
upon the wall, where they had been recently and rudely nailed, a
few miniatures and a copper medal of the young man’s
head. The same was being sold that year in London, to
admiring thousands. The original was fair; he had beautiful
brown eyes, a beautiful bright open face; a little feminine, a
little hard, a little weak; still full of the light of youth, but
already beginning to be vulgarised; a sordid bloom come upon it,
the lines coarsened with a touch of puffiness. He was
dressed, as for a gala, in peach-colour and silver; his breast
sparkled with stars and was bright with ribbons; for he had held
a levee in the afternoon and received a distinguished personage
incognito. Now he sat with a bowed head, now walked
precipitately to and fro, now went and gazed from the uncurtained
window, where the wind was still blowing, and the lights winked
in the darkness.</p>
<p>The bells of Avignon rose into song as he was gazing; and the
high notes and the deep tossed and drowned, boomed suddenly near
or were suddenly swallowed up, in the current of the
mistral. Tears sprang in the pale blue eyes; the expression
of his face was changed to that of a more active misery, it
seemed as if the voices of the bells reached, and touched and
pained him, in a waste of vacancy where even pain was
welcome. Outside in the night they continued to sound on,
swelling and fainting; and the listener heard in his memory, as
it were their harmonies, joy-bells clashing in a northern city,
and the acclamations of a multitude, the cries of battle, the
gross voices of cannon, the stridor of an animated life.
And then all died away, and he stood face to face with himself in
the waste of vacancy, and a horror came upon his mind, and a
faintness on his brain, such as seizes men upon the brink of
cliffs.</p>
<p>On the table, by the side of the candle, stood a tray of
glasses, a bottle, and a silver bell. He went thither
swiftly, then his hand lowered first above the bell, then settled
on the bottle. Slowly he filled a glass, slowly drank it
out; and, as a tide of animal warmth recomforted the recesses of
his nature, stood there smiling at himself. He remembered
he was young; the funeral curtains rose, and he saw his life
shine and broaden and flow out majestically, like a river
sunward. The smile still on his lips, he lit a second
candle and a third; a fire stood ready built in a chimney, he lit
that also; and the fir-cones and the gnarled olive billets were
swift to break in flame and to crackle on the hearth, and the
room brightened and enlarged about him like his hopes. To
and fro, to and fro, he went, his hands lightly clasped, his
breath deeply and pleasurably taken. Victory walked with
him; he marched to crowns and empires among shouting followers;
glory was his dress. And presently again the shadows closed
upon the solitary. Under the gilt of flame and
candle-light, the stone walls of the apartment showed down bare
and cold; behind the depicted triumph loomed up the actual
failure: defeat, the long distress of the flight, exile, despair,
broken followers, mourning faces, empty pockets, friends
estranged. The memory of his father rose in his mind: he,
too, estranged and defied; despair sharpened into wrath.
There was one who had led armies in the field, who had staked his
life upon the family enterprise, a man of action and experience,
of the open air, the camp, the court, the council-room; and he
was to accept direction from an old, pompous gentleman in a home
in Italy, and buzzed about by priests? A pretty king, if he
had not a martial son to lean upon! A king at all?</p>
<p>‘There was a weaver (of all people) joined me at St.
Ninians; he was more of a man than my papa!’ he
thought. ‘I saw him lie doubled in his blood and a
grenadier below him—and he died for my papa! All died
for him, or risked the dying, and I lay for him all those months
in the rain and skulked in heather like a fox; and now he writes
me his advice! calls me Carluccio—me, the man of the house,
the only king in that king’s race.’ He ground
his teeth. ‘The only king in Europe!’ Who
else? Who has done and suffered except me? who has lain and
run and hidden with his faithful subjects, like a second
Bruce? Not my accursed cousin, Louis of France, at least,
the lewd effeminate traitor!’ And filling the glass
to the brim, he drank a king’s damnation. Ah, if he
had the power of Louis, what a king were here!</p>
<p>The minutes followed each other into the past, and still he
persevered in this debilitating cycle of emotions, still fed the
fire of his excitement with driblets of Rhine wine: a boy at odds
with life, a boy with a spark of the heroic, which he was now
burning out and drowning down in futile reverie and solitary
excess.</p>
<p>From two rooms beyond, the sudden sound of a raised voice
attracted him.</p>
<p>‘By . . .</p>
<h2>HEATHERCAT</h2>
<h3>CHAPTER I—TRAQUAIRS OF MONTROYMONT</h3>
<p>The period of this tale is in the heat of the
<i>killing-time</i>; the scene laid for the most part in solitary
hills and morasses, haunted only by the so-called Mountain
Wanderers, the dragoons that came in chase of them, the women
that wept on their dead bodies, and the wild birds of the
moorland that have cried there since the beginning. It is a
land of many rain-clouds; a land of much mute history, written
there in prehistoric symbols. Strange green raths are to be
seen commonly in the country, above all by the kirkyards; barrows
of the dead, standing stones; beside these, the faint, durable
footprints and handmarks of the Roman; and an antiquity older
perhaps than any, and still living and active—a complete
Celtic nomenclature and a scarce-mingled Celtic population.
These rugged and grey hills were once included in the boundaries
of the Caledonian Forest. Merlin sat here below his
apple-tree and lamented Gwendolen; here spoke with Kentigern;
here fell into his enchanted trance. And the legend of his
slumber seems to body forth the story of that Celtic race,
deprived for so many centuries of their authentic speech,
surviving with their ancestral inheritance of melancholy
perversity and patient, unfortunate courage.</p>
<p>The Traquairs of Montroymont (<i>Mons Romanus</i>, as the
erudite expound it) had long held their seat about the
head-waters of the Dule and in the back parts of the moorland
parish of Balweary. For two hundred years they had enjoyed
in these upland quarters a certain decency (almost to be named
distinction) of repute; and the annals of their house, or what is
remembered of them, were obscure and bloody. Ninian
Traquair was ‘cruallie slochtered’ by the Crozers at
the kirk-door of Balweary, anno 1482. Francis killed Simon
Ruthven of Drumshoreland, anno 1540; bought letters of slayers at
the widow and heir, and, by a barbarous form of compounding,
married (without tocher) Simon’s daughter Grizzel, which is
the way the Traquairs and Ruthvens came first to an
intermarriage. About the last Traquair and Ruthven
marriage, it is the business of this book, among many other
things, to tell.</p>
<p>The Traquairs were always strong for the Covenant; for the
King also, but the Covenant first; and it began to be ill days
for Montroymont when the Bishops came in and the dragoons at the
heels of them. Ninian (then laird) was an anxious husband
of himself and the property, as the times required, and it may be
said of him, that he lost both. He was heavily suspected of
the Pentland Hills rebellion. When it came the length of
Bothwell Brig, he stood his trial before the Secret Council, and
was convicted of talking with some insurgents by the wayside, the
subject of the conversation not very clearly appearing, and of
the reset and maintenance of one Gale, a gardener man, who was
seen before Bothwell with a musket, and afterwards, for a
continuance of months, delved the garden at Montroymont.
Matters went very ill with Ninian at the Council; some of the
lords were clear for treason; and even the boot was talked
of. But he was spared that torture; and at last, having
pretty good friendship among great men, he came off with a fine
of seven thousand marks, that caused the estate to groan.
In this case, as in so many others, it was the wife that made the
trouble. She was a great keeper of conventicles; would ride
ten miles to one, and when she was fined, rejoiced greatly to
suffer for the Kirk; but it was rather her husband that
suffered. She had their only son, Francis, baptized
privately by the hands of Mr. Kidd; there was that much the more
to pay for! She could neither be driven nor wiled into the
parish kirk; as for taking the sacrament at the hands of any
Episcopalian curate, and tenfold more at those of Curate Haddo,
there was nothing further from her purposes; and Montroymont had
to put his hand in his pocket month by month and year by
year. Once, indeed, the little lady was cast in prison, and
the laird, worthy, heavy, uninterested man, had to ride up and
take her place; from which he was not discharged under nine
months and a sharp fine. It scarce seemed she had any
gratitude to him; she came out of gaol herself, and plunged
immediately deeper in conventicles, resetting recusants, and all
her old, expensive folly, only with greater vigour and openness,
because Montroymont was safe in the Tolbooth and she had no
witness to consider. When he was liberated and came back,
with his fingers singed, in December 1680, and late in the black
night, my lady was from home. He came into the house at his
alighting, with a riding-rod yet in his hand; and, on the
servant-maid telling him, caught her by the scruff of the neck,
beat her violently, flung her down in the passageway, and went
upstairs to his bed fasting and without a light. It was
three in the morning when my lady returned from that conventicle,
and, hearing of the assault (because the maid had sat up for her,
weeping), went to their common chamber with a lantern in hand and
stamping with her shoes so as to wake the dead; it was supposed,
by those that heard her, from a design to have it out with the
good man at once. The house-servants gathered on the stair,
because it was a main interest with them to know which of these
two was the better horse; and for the space of two hours they
were heard to go at the matter, hammer and tongs.
Montroymont alleged he was at the end of possibilities; it was no
longer within his power to pay the annual rents; she had served
him basely by keeping conventicles while he lay in prison for her
sake; his friends were weary, and there was nothing else before
him but the entire loss of the family lands, and to begin life
again by the wayside as a common beggar. She took him up
very sharp and high: called upon him, if he were a Christian? and
which he most considered, the loss of a few dirty, miry glebes,
or of his soul? Presently he was heard to weep, and my
lady’s voice to go on continually like a running burn, only
the words indistinguishable; whereupon it was supposed a victory
for her ladyship, and the domestics took themselves to bed.
The next day Traquair appeared like a man who had gone under the
harrows; and his lady wife thenceforward continued in her old
course without the least deflection.</p>
<p>Thenceforward Ninian went on his way without complaint, and
suffered his wife to go on hers without remonstrance. He
still minded his estate, of which it might be said he took daily
a fresh farewell, and counted it already lost; looking ruefully
on the acres and the graves of his fathers, on the moorlands
where the wild-fowl consorted, the low, gurgling pool of the
trout, and the high, windy place of the calling
curlews—things that were yet his for the day and would be
another’s to-morrow; coming back again, and sitting
ciphering till the dusk at his approaching ruin, which no device
of arithmetic could postpone beyond a year or two. He was
essentially the simple ancient man, the farmer and landholder; he
would have been content to watch the seasons come and go, and his
cattle increase, until the limit of age; he would have been
content at any time to die, if he could have left the estates
undiminished to an heir-male of his ancestors, that duty standing
first in his instinctive calendar. And now he saw
everywhere the image of the new proprietor come to meet him, and
go sowing and reaping, or fowling for his pleasure on the red
moors, or eating the very gooseberries in the Place garden; and
saw always, on the other hand, the figure of Francis go forth, a
beggar, into the broad world.</p>
<p>It was in vain the poor gentleman sought to moderate; took
every test and took advantage of every indulgence; went and drank
with the dragoons in Balweary; attended the communion and came
regularly to the church to Curate Haddo, with his son beside
him. The mad, raging, Presbyterian zealot of a wife at home
made all of no avail; and indeed the house must have fallen years
before if it had not been for the secret indulgence of the
curate, who had a great sympathy with the laird, and winked hard
at the doings in Montroymont. This curate was a man very
ill reputed in the countryside, and indeed in all Scotland.
‘Infamous Haddo’ is Shield’s expression.
But Patrick Walker is more copious. ‘Curate Hall
Haddo,’ says he, <i>sub voce</i> Peden, ‘or
<i>Hell</i> Haddo, as he was more justly to be called, a pokeful
of old condemned errors and the filthy vile lusts of the flesh, a
published whore-monger, a common gross drunkard, continually and
godlessly scraping and skirling on a fiddle, continually
breathing flames against the remnant of Israel. But the
Lord put an end to his piping, and all these offences were
composed into one bloody grave.’ No doubt this was
written to excuse his slaughter; and I have never heard it
claimed for Walker that he was either a just witness or an
indulgent judge. At least, in a merely human character,
Haddo comes off not wholly amiss in the matter of these
Traquairs: not that he showed any graces of the Christian, but
had a sort of Pagan decency, which might almost tempt one to be
concerned about his sudden, violent, and unprepared fate.</p>
<h3>CHAPTER II—FRANCIE</h3>
<p>Francie was eleven years old, shy, secret, and rather childish
of his age, though not backward in schooling, which had been
pushed on far by a private governor, one M‘Brair, a
forfeited minister harboured in that capacity at
Montroymont. The boy, already much employed in secret by
his mother, was the most apt hand conceivable to run upon a
message, to carry food to lurking fugitives, or to stand sentry
on the skyline above a conventicle. It seemed no place on
the moorlands was so naked but what he would find cover there;
and as he knew every hag, boulder, and heather-bush in a circuit
of seven miles about Montroymont, there was scarce any spot but
what he could leave or approach it unseen. This dexterity
had won him a reputation in that part of the country; and among
the many children employed in these dangerous affairs, he passed
under the by-name of Heathercat.</p>
<p>How much his father knew of this employment might be
doubted. He took much forethought for the boy’s
future, seeing he was like to be left so poorly, and would
sometimes assist at his lessons, sighing heavily, yawning deep,
and now and again patting Francie on the shoulder if he seemed to
be doing ill, by way of a private, kind encouragement. But
a great part of the day was passed in aimless wanderings with his
eyes sealed, or in his cabinet sitting bemused over the
particulars of the coming bankruptcy; and the boy would be absent
a dozen times for once that his father would observe it.</p>
<p>On 2nd of July 1682 the boy had an errand from his mother,
which must be kept private from all, the father included in the
first of them. Crossing the braes, he hears the clatter of
a horse’s shoes, and claps down incontinent in a hag by the
wayside. And presently he spied his father come riding from
one direction, and Curate Haddo walking from another; and
Montroymont leaning down from the saddle, and Haddo getting on
his toes (for he was a little, ruddy, bald-pated man, more like a
dwarf), they greeted kindly, and came to a halt within two
fathoms of the child.</p>
<p>‘Montroymont,’ the curate said, ‘the
deil’s in ’t but I’ll have to denunciate your
leddy again.’</p>
<p>‘Deil’s in ’t indeed!’ says the
laird.</p>
<p>‘Man! can ye no induce her to come to the kirk?’
pursues Haddo; ‘or to a communion at the least of it?
For the conventicles, let be! and the same for yon solemn fule,
M‘Brair: I can blink at them. But she’s got to
come to the kirk, Montroymont.’</p>
<p>‘Dinna speak of it,’ says the laird.
‘I can do nothing with her.’</p>
<p>‘Couldn’t ye try the stick to her? it works
wonders whiles,’ suggested Haddo. ‘No?
I’m wae to hear it. And I suppose ye ken where
you’re going?’</p>
<p>‘Fine!’ said Montroymont. ‘Fine do I
ken where: bankrup’cy and the Bass Rock!’</p>
<p>‘Praise to my bones that I never married!’ cried
the curate. ‘Well, it’s a grievous thing to me
to see an auld house dung down that was here before Flodden
Field. But naebody can say it was with my wish.’</p>
<p>‘No more they can, Haddo!’ says the laird.
‘A good friend ye’ve been to me, first and
last. I can give you that character with a clear
conscience.’</p>
<p>Whereupon they separated, and Montroymont rode briskly down
into the Dule Valley. But of the curate Francis was not to
be quit so easily. He went on with his little, brisk steps
to the corner of a dyke, and stopped and whistled and waved upon
a lassie that was herding cattle there. This Janet
M‘Clour was a big lass, being taller than the curate; and
what made her look the more so, she was kilted very high.
It seemed for a while she would not come, and Francie heard her
calling Haddo a ‘daft auld fule,’ and saw her running
and dodging him among the whins and hags till he was fairly
blown. But at the last he gets a bottle from his plaid-neuk
and holds it up to her; whereupon she came at once into a
composition, and the pair sat, drinking of the bottle, and
daffing and laughing together, on a mound of heather. The
boy had scarce heard of these vanities, or he might have been
minded of a nymph and satyr, if anybody could have taken
long-leggit Janet for a nymph. But they seemed to be huge
friends, he thought; and was the more surprised, when the curate
had taken his leave, to see the lassie fling stones after him
with screeches of laughter, and Haddo turn about and caper, and
shake his staff at her, and laugh louder than herself. A
wonderful merry pair, they seemed; and when Francie had crawled
out of the hag, he had a great deal to consider in his
mind. It was possible they were all fallen in error about
Mr. Haddo, he reflected—having seen him so tender with
Montroymont, and so kind and playful with the lass Janet; and he
had a temptation to go out of his road and question her herself
upon the matter. But he had a strong spirit of duty on him;
and plodded on instead over the braes till he came near the House
of Cairngorm. There, in a hollow place by the burnside that
was shaded by some birks, he was aware of a barefoot boy, perhaps
a matter of three years older than himself. The two
approached with the precautions of a pair of strange dogs,
looking at each other queerly.</p>
<p>‘It’s ill weather on the hills,’ said the
stranger, giving the watchword.</p>
<p>‘For a season,’ said Francie, ‘but the Lord
will appear.’</p>
<p>‘Richt,’ said the barefoot boy;
‘wha’re ye frae?’</p>
<p>‘The Leddy Montroymont,’ says Francie.</p>
<p>‘Ha’e, then!’ says the stranger, and handed
him a folded paper, and they stood and looked at each other
again. ‘It’s unco het,’ said the boy.</p>
<p>‘Dooms het,’ says Francie.</p>
<p>‘What do they ca’ ye?’ says the other.</p>
<p>‘Francie,’ says he. ‘I’m young
Montroymont. They ca’ me Heathercat.’</p>
<p>‘I’m Jock Crozer,’ said the boy. And
there was another pause, while each rolled a stone under his
foot.</p>
<p>‘Cast your jaiket and I’ll fecht ye for a
bawbee,’ cried the elder boy with sudden violence, and
dramatically throwing back his jacket.</p>
<p>‘Na, I’ve nae time the now,’ said Francie,
with a sharp thrill of alarm, because Crozer was much the heavier
boy.</p>
<p>‘Ye’re feared. Heathercat indeed!’
said Crozer, for among this infantile army of spies and
messengers, the fame of Crozer had gone forth and was resented by
his rivals. And with that they separated.</p>
<p>On his way home Francie was a good deal occupied with the
recollection of this untoward incident. The challenge had
been fairly offered and basely refused: the tale would be carried
all over the country, and the lustre of the name of Heathercat be
dimmed. But the scene between Curate Haddo and Janet
M‘Clour had also given him much to think of: and he was
still puzzling over the case of the curate, and why such ill
words were said of him, and why, if he were so merry-spirited, he
should yet preach so dry, when coming over a knowe, whom should
he see but Janet, sitting with her back to him, minding her
cattle! He was always a great child for secret, stealthy
ways, having been employed by his mother on errands when the same
was necessary; and he came behind the lass without her
hearing.</p>
<p>‘Jennet,’ says he.</p>
<p>‘Keep me,’ cries Janet, springing up.
‘O, it’s you, Maister Francie! Save us, what a
fricht ye gied me.’</p>
<p>‘Ay, it’s me,’ said Francie.
‘I’ve been thinking, Jennet; I saw you and the curate
a while back—’</p>
<p>‘Brat!’ cried Janet, and coloured up crimson; and
the one moment made as if she would have stricken him with a
ragged stick she had to chase her bestial with, and the next was
begging and praying that he would mention it to none. It
was ‘naebody’s business, whatever,’ she said;
‘it would just start a clash in the country’; and
there would be nothing left for her but to drown herself in Dule
Water.</p>
<p>‘Why?’ says Francie.</p>
<p>The girl looked at him and grew scarlet again.</p>
<p>‘And it isna that, anyway,’ continued
Francie. ‘It was just that he seemed so good to
ye—like our Father in heaven, I thought; and I thought that
mebbe, perhaps, we had all been wrong about him from the
first. But I’ll have to tell Mr. M‘Brair;
I’m under a kind of a bargain to him to tell him
all.’</p>
<p>‘Tell it to the divil if ye like for me!’ cried
the lass. ‘I’ve naething to be ashamed
of. Tell M‘Brair to mind his ain affairs,’ she
cried again: ‘they’ll be hot eneugh for him, if
Haddie likes!’ And so strode off, shoving her beasts
before her, and ever and again looking back and crying angry
words to the boy, where he stood mystified.</p>
<p>By the time he had got home his mind was made up that he would
say nothing to his mother. My Lady Montroymont was in the
keeping-room, reading a godly book; she was a wonderful frail
little wife to make so much noise in the world and be able to
steer about that patient sheep her husband; her eyes were like
sloes, the fingers of her hands were like tobacco-pipe shanks,
her mouth shut tight like a trap; and even when she was the most
serious, and still more when she was angry, there hung about her
face the terrifying semblance of a smile.</p>
<p>‘Have ye gotten the billet, Francie said she; and when
he had handed it over, and she had read and burned it, ‘Did
you see anybody?’ she asked.</p>
<p>‘I saw the laird,’ said Francie.</p>
<p>‘He didna see you, though?’ asked his mother.</p>
<p>‘Deil a fear,’ from Francie.</p>
<p>‘Francie!’ she cried. ‘What’s
that I hear? an aith? The Lord forgive me, have I broughten
forth a brand for the burning, a fagot for hell-fire?’</p>
<p>‘I’m very sorry, ma’am,’ said
Francie. ‘I humbly beg the Lord’s pardon, and
yours, for my wickedness.’</p>
<p>‘H’m,’ grunted the lady. ‘Did ye
see nobody else?’</p>
<p>‘No, ma’am,’ said Francie, with the face of
an angel, ‘except Jock Crozer, that gied me the
billet.’</p>
<p>‘Jock Crozer!’ cried the lady.
‘I’ll Crozer them! Crozers indeed! What
next? Are we to repose the lives of a suffering remnant in
Crozers? The whole clan of them wants hanging, and if I had
my way of it, they wouldna want it long. Are you aware,
sir, that these Crozers killed your forebear at the
kirk-door?’</p>
<p>‘You see, he was bigger ’n me,’ said
Francie.</p>
<p>‘Jock Crozer!’ continued the lady.
‘That’ll be Clement’s son, the biggest thief
and reiver in the country-side. To trust a note to
him! But I’ll give the benefit of my opinions to Lady
Whitecross when we two forgather. Let her look to
herself! I have no patience with half-hearted carlines,
that complies on the Lord’s day morning with the kirk, and
comes taigling the same night to the conventicle. The one
or the other! is what I say: hell or heaven—Haddie’s
abominations or the pure word of God dreeping from the lips of
Mr. Arnot,</p>
<blockquote><p>‘“Like honey from the honeycomb<br />
That dreepeth, sweeter far.”’</p>
</blockquote>
<p>My lady was now fairly launched, and that upon two congenial
subjects: the deficiencies of the Lady Whitecross and the
turpitudes of the whole Crozer race—which, indeed, had
never been conspicuous for respectability. She pursued the
pair of them for twenty minutes on the clock with wonderful
animation and detail, something of the pulpit manner, and the
spirit of one possessed. ‘O hellish
compliance!’ she exclaimed. ‘I would not suffer
a complier to break bread with Christian folk. Of all the
sins of this day there is not one so God-defying, so
Christ-humiliating, as damnable compliance’: the boy
standing before her meanwhile, and brokenly pursuing other
thoughts, mainly of Haddo and Janet, and Jock Crozer stripping
off his jacket. And yet, with all his distraction, it might
be argued that he heard too much: his father and himself being
‘compliers’—that is to say, attending the
church of the parish as the law required.</p>
<p>Presently, the lady’s passion beginning to decline, or
her flux of ill words to be exhausted, she dismissed her
audience. Francie bowed low, left the room, closed the door
behind him: and then turned him about in the passage-way, and
with a low voice, but a prodigious deal of sentiment, repeated
the name of the evil one twenty times over, to the end of which,
for the greater efficacy, he tacked on ‘damnable’ and
‘hellish.’ <i>Fas est ab hoste
doceri</i>—disrespect is made more pungent by quotation;
and there is no doubt but he felt relieved, and went upstairs
into his tutor’s chamber with a quiet mind.
M‘Brair sat by the cheek of the peat-fire and shivered, for
he had a quartan ague and this was his day. The great
night-cap and plaid, the dark unshaven cheeks of the man, and the
white, thin hands that held the plaid about his chittering body,
made a sorrowful picture. But Francie knew and loved him;
came straight in, nestled close to the refugee, and told his
story. M‘Brair had been at the College with Haddo;
the Presbytery had licensed both on the same day; and at this
tale, told with so much innocency by the boy, the heart of the
tutor was commoved.</p>
<p>‘Woe upon him! Woe upon that man!’ he
cried. ‘O the unfaithful shepherd! O the
hireling and apostate minister! Make my matters hot for me?
quo’ she! the shameless limmer! And true it is, that
he could repose me in that nasty, stinking hole, the Canongate
Tolbooth, from which your mother drew me out—the Lord
reward her for it!—or to that cold, unbieldy, marine place
of the Bass Rock, which, with my delicate kist, would be fair
ruin to me. But I will be valiant in my Master’s
service. I have a duty here: a duty to my God, to myself,
and to Haddo: in His strength, I will perform it.’</p>
<p>Then he straitly discharged Francie to repeat the tale, and
bade him in the future to avert his very eyes from the doings of
the curate. ‘You must go to his place of idolatry;
look upon him there!’ says he, ‘but nowhere
else. Avert your eyes, close your ears, pass him by like a
three days’ corp. He is like that damnable monster
Basiliscus, which defiles—yea, poisons!—by the
sight.’—All which was hardly claratory to the
boy’s mind.</p>
<p>Presently Montroymont came home, and called up the stairs to
Francie. Traquair was a good shot and swordsman: and it was
his pleasure to walk with his son over the braes of the moorfowl,
or to teach him arms in the back court, when they made a mighty
comely pair, the child being so lean, and light, and active, and
the laird himself a man of a manly, pretty stature, his hair (the
periwig being laid aside) showing already white with many
anxieties, and his face of an even, flaccid red. But this
day Francie’s heart was not in the fencing.</p>
<p>‘Sir,’ says he, suddenly lowering his point,
‘will ye tell me a thing if I was to ask it?’</p>
<p>‘Ask away,’ says the father.</p>
<p>‘Well, it’s this,’ said Francie: ‘Why
do you and me comply if it’s so wicked?’</p>
<p>‘Ay, ye have the cant of it too!’ cries
Montroymont. ‘But I’ll tell ye for all
that. It’s to try and see if we can keep the rigging
on this house, Francie. If she had her way, we would be
beggar-folk, and hold our hands out by the wayside. When ye
hear her—when ye hear folk,’ he corrected himself
briskly, ‘call me a coward, and one that betrayed the Lord,
and I kenna what else, just mind it was to keep a bed to ye to
sleep in and a bite for ye to eat.—On guard!’ he
cried, and the lesson proceeded again till they were called to
supper.</p>
<p>‘There’s another thing yet,’ said Francie,
stopping his father. ‘There’s another thing
that I am not sure that I am very caring for. She—she
sends me errands.’</p>
<p>‘Obey her, then, as is your bounden duty,’ said
Traquair.</p>
<p>‘Ay, but wait till I tell ye,’ says the boy.
‘If I was to see you I was to hide.’</p>
<p>Montroymont sighed. ‘Well, and that’s good
of her too,’ said he. ‘The less that I ken of
thir doings the better for me; and the best thing you can do is
just to obey her, and see and be a good son to her, the same as
ye are to me, Francie.’</p>
<p>At the tenderness of this expression the heart of Francie
swelled within his bosom, and his remorse was poured out.
‘Faither!’ he cried, ‘I said “deil”
to-day; many’s the time I said it, and <i>damnable</i> too,
and <i>hellitsh</i>. I ken they’re all right;
they’re beeblical. But I didna say them beeblically;
I said them for sweir words—that’s the truth of
it.’</p>
<p>‘Hout, ye silly bairn!’ said the father,
‘dinna do it nae mair, and come in by to your
supper.’ And he took the boy, and drew him close to
him a moment, as they went through the door, with something very
fond and secret, like a caress between a pair of lovers.</p>
<p>The next day M‘Brair was abroad in the afternoon, and
had a long advising with Janet on the braes where she herded
cattle. What passed was never wholly known; but the lass
wept bitterly, and fell on her knees to him among the
whins. The same night, as soon as it was dark, he took the
road again for Balweary. In the Kirkton, where the dragoons
quartered, he saw many lights, and heard the noise of a ranting
song and people laughing grossly, which was highly offensive to
his mind. He gave it the wider berth, keeping among fields;
and came down at last by the water-side, where the manse stands
solitary between the river and the road. He tapped at the
back door, and the old woman called upon him to come in, and
guided him through the house to the study, as they still called
it, though there was little enough study there in Haddo’s
days, and more song-books than theology.</p>
<p>‘Here’s yin to speak wi’ ye, Mr.
Haddie!’ cries the old wife.</p>
<p>And M‘Brair, opening the door and entering, found the
little, round, red man seated in one chair and his feet upon
another. A clear fire and a tallow dip lighted him
barely. He was taking tobacco in a pipe, and smiling to
himself; and a brandy-bottle and glass, and his fiddle and bow,
were beside him on the table.</p>
<p>‘Hech, Patey M‘Briar, is this you?’ said he,
a trifle tipsily. ‘Step in by, man, and have a drop
brandy: for the stomach’s sake! Even the deil can
quote Scripture—eh, Patey?’</p>
<p>‘I will neither eat nor drink with you,’ replied
M‘Brair. ‘I am come upon my Master’s
errand: woe be upon me if I should anyways mince the same.
Hall Haddo, I summon you to quit this kirk which you
encumber.’</p>
<p>‘Muckle obleeged!’ says Haddo, winking.</p>
<p>‘You and me have been to kirk and market
together,’ pursued M‘Brair; ‘we have had
blessed seasons in the kirk, we have sat in the same
teaching-rooms and read in the same book; and I know you still
retain for me some carnal kindness. It would be my shame if
I denied it; I live here at your mercy and by your favour, and
glory to acknowledge it. You have pity on my wretched body,
which is but grass, and must soon be trodden under: but O, Haddo!
how much greater is the yearning with which I yearn after and
pity your immortal soul! Come now, let us reason
together! I drop all points of controversy, weighty though
these be; I take your defaced and damnified kirk on your own
terms; and I ask you, Are you a worthy minister? The
communion season approaches; how can you pronounce thir solemn
words, “The elders will now bring forrit the
elements,” and not quail? A parishioner may be
summoned to-night; you may have to rise from your miserable
orgies; and I ask you, Haddo, what does your conscience tell
you? Are you fit? Are you fit to smooth the pillow of
a parting Christian? And if the summons should be for
yourself, how then?’</p>
<p>Haddo was startled out of all composure and the better part of
his temper. ‘What’s this of it?’ he
cried. ‘I’m no waur than my neebours. I
never set up to be speeritual; I never did. I’m a
plain, canty creature; godliness is cheerfulness, says I; give me
my fiddle and a dram, and I wouldna hairm a flee.’</p>
<p>‘And I repeat my question,’ said M‘Brair:
‘Are you fit—fit for this great charge? fit to carry
and save souls?’</p>
<p>‘Fit? Blethers! As fit’s
yoursel’,’ cried Haddo.</p>
<p>‘Are you so great a self-deceiver?’ said
M‘Brair. ‘Wretched man, trampler upon
God’s covenants, crucifier of your Lord afresh. I
will ding you to the earth with one word: How about the young
woman, Janet M‘Clour?’</p>
<p>‘Weel, what about her? what do I ken?’ cries
Haddo. ‘M’Brair, ye daft auld wife, I tell ye
as true’s truth, I never meddled her. It was just
daffing, I tell ye: daffing, and nae mair: a piece of fun,
like! I’m no denying but what I’m fond of fun,
sma’ blame to me! But for onything
sarious—hout, man, it might come to a deposeetion!
I’ll sweir it to ye. Where’s a Bible, till you
hear me sweir?’</p>
<p>‘There is nae Bible in your study,’ said
M‘Brair severely.</p>
<p>And Haddo, after a few distracted turns, was constrained to
accept the fact.</p>
<p>‘Weel, and suppose there isna?’ he cried,
stamping. ‘What mair can ye say of us, but just that
I’m fond of my joke, and so’s she? I declare to
God, by what I ken, she might be the Virgin Mary—if she
would just keep clear of the dragoons. But me! na, deil
haet o’ me!’</p>
<p>‘She is penitent at least,’ says
M‘Brair.</p>
<p>‘Do you mean to actually up and tell me to my face that
she accused me?’ cried the curate.</p>
<p>‘I canna just say that,’ replied
M‘Brair. ‘But I rebuked her in the name of God,
and she repented before me on her bended knees.’</p>
<p>‘Weel, I daursay she’s been ower far wi’ the
dragoons,’ said Haddo. ‘I never denied
that. I ken naething by it.’</p>
<p>‘Man, you but show your nakedness the more
plainly,’ said M‘Brair. ‘Poor, blind,
besotted creature—and I see you stoytering on the brink of
dissolution: your light out, and your hours numbered.
Awake, man!’ he shouted with a formidable voice,
‘awake, or it be ower late.’</p>
<p>‘Be damned if I stand this!’ exclaimed Haddo,
casting his tobacco-pipe violently on the table, where it was
smashed in pieces. ‘Out of my house with ye, or
I’ll call for the dragoons.’</p>
<p>‘The speerit of the Lord is upon me,’ said
M‘Brair with solemn ecstasy. ‘I sist you to
compear before the Great White Throne, and I warn you the summons
shall be bloody and sudden.’</p>
<p>And at this, with more agility than could have been expected,
he got clear of the room and slammed the door behind him in the
face of the pursuing curate. The next Lord’s day the
curate was ill, and the kirk closed, but for all his ill words,
Mr. M‘Brair abode unmolested in the house of
Montroymont.</p>
<h3>CHAPTER III—THE HILL-END OF DRUMLOWE</h3>
<p>This was a bit of a steep broken hill that overlooked upon the
west a moorish valley, full of ink-black pools. These
presently drained into a burn that made off, with little noise
and no celerity of pace, about the corner of the hill. On
the far side the ground swelled into a bare heath, black with
junipers, and spotted with the presence of the standing stones
for which the place was famous. They were many in that
part, shapeless, white with lichen—you would have said with
age: and had made their abode there for untold centuries, since
first the heathens shouted for their installation. The
ancients had hallowed them to some ill religion, and their
neighbourhood had long been avoided by the prudent before the
fall of day; but of late, on the upspringing of new requirements,
these lonely stones on the moor had again become a place of
assembly. A watchful picket on the Hill-end commanded all
the northern and eastern approaches; and such was the disposition
of the ground, that by certain cunningly posted sentries the west
also could be made secure against surprise: there was no place in
the country where a conventicle could meet with more quiet of
mind or a more certain retreat open, in the case of interference
from the dragoons. The minister spoke from a knowe close to
the edge of the ring, and poured out the words God gave him on
the very threshold of the devils of yore. When they pitched
a tent (which was often in wet weather, upon a communion
occasion) it was rigged over the huge isolated pillar that had
the name of Anes-Errand, none knew why. And the
congregation sat partly clustered on the slope below, and partly
among the idolatrous monoliths and on the turfy soil of the Ring
itself. In truth the situation was well qualified to give a
zest to Christian doctrines, had there been any wanted. But
these congregations assembled under conditions at once so
formidable and romantic as made a zealot of the most cold.
They were the last of the faithful; God, who had averted His face
from all other countries of the world, still leaned from heaven
to observe, with swelling sympathy, the doings of His moorland
remnant; Christ was by them with His eternal wounds, with
dropping tears; the Holy Ghost (never perfectly realised nor
firmly adopted by Protestant imaginations) was dimly supposed to
be in the heart of each and on the lips of the minister.
And over against them was the army of the hierarchies, from the
men Charles and James Stuart, on to King Lewie and the Emperor;
and the scarlet Pope, and the muckle black devil himself, peering
out the red mouth of hell in an ecstasy of hate and hope.
‘One pull more!’ he seemed to cry; ‘one pull
more, and it’s done. There’s only Clydesdale
and the Stewartry, and the three Bailiaries of Ayr, left for
God.’ And with such an august assistance of powers
and principalities looking on at the last conflict of good and
evil, it was scarce possible to spare a thought to those old,
infirm, debile, <i>ab agendo</i> devils whose holy place they
were now violating.</p>
<p>There might have been three hundred to four hundred
present. At least there were three hundred horses tethered
for the most part in the ring; though some of the hearers on the
outskirts of the crowd stood with their bridles in their hand,
ready to mount at the first signal. The circle of faces was
strangely characteristic; long, serious, strongly marked, the
tackle standing out in the lean brown cheeks, the mouth set and
the eyes shining with a fierce enthusiasm; the shepherd, the
labouring man, and the rarer laird, stood there in their broad
blue bonnets or laced hats, and presenting an essential identity
of type. From time to time a long-drawn groan of adhesion
rose in this audience, and was propagated like a wave to the
outskirts, and died away among the keepers of the horses.
It had a name; it was called ‘a holy groan.’</p>
<p>A squall came up; a great volley of flying mist went out
before it and whelmed the scene; the wind stormed with a sudden
fierceness that carried away the minister’s voice and
twitched his tails and made him stagger, and turned the
congregation for a moment into a mere pother of blowing
plaid-ends and prancing horses; and the rain followed and was
dashed straight into their faces. Men and women panted
aloud in the shock of that violent shower-bath; the teeth were
bared along all the line in an involuntary grimace; plaids,
mantles, and riding-coats were proved vain, and the worshippers
felt the water stream on their naked flesh. The minister,
reinforcing his great and shrill voice, continued to contend
against and triumph over the rising of the squall and the dashing
of the rain.</p>
<p>‘In that day ye may go thirty mile and not hear a
crawing cock,’ he said; ‘and fifty mile and not get a
light to your pipe; and an hundred mile and not see a smoking
house. For there’ll be naething in all Scotland but
deid men’s banes and blackness, and the living anger of the
Lord. O, where to find a bield—O sirs, where to find
a bield from the wind of the Lord’s anger? Do ye call
<i>this</i> a wind? Bethankit! Sirs, this is but a
temporary dispensation; this is but a puff of wind, this is but a
spit of rain and by with it. Already there’s a blue
bow in the west, and the sun will take the crown of the causeway
again, and your things’ll be dried upon ye, and your flesh
will be warm upon your bones. But O, sirs, sirs! for the
day of the Lord’s anger!’</p>
<p>His rhetoric was set forth with an ear-piercing elocution, and
a voice that sometimes crashed like cannon. Such as it was,
it was the gift of all hill-preachers, to a singular degree of
likeness or identity. Their images scarce ranged beyond the
red horizon of the moor and the rainy hill-top, the shepherd and
his sheep, a fowling-piece, a spade, a pipe, a dunghill, a
crowing cock, the shining and the withdrawal of the sun. An
occasional pathos of simple humanity, and frequent patches of big
Biblical words, relieved the homely tissue. It was a poetry
apart; bleak, austere, but genuine, and redolent of the soil.</p>
<p>A little before the coming of the squall there was a different
scene enacting at the outposts. For the most part, the
sentinels were faithful to their important duty; the Hill-end of
Drumlowe was known to be a safe meeting-place; and the
out-pickets on this particular day had been somewhat lax from the
beginning, and grew laxer during the inordinate length of the
discourse. Francie lay there in his appointed hiding-hole,
looking abroad between two whin-bushes. His view was across
the course of the burn, then over a piece of plain moorland, to a
gap between two hills; nothing moved but grouse, and some cattle
who slowly traversed his field of view, heading northward: he
heard the psalms, and sang words of his own to the savage and
melancholy music; for he had his own design in hand, and terror
and cowardice prevailed in his bosom alternately, like the hot
and the cold fit of an ague. Courage was uppermost during
the singing, which he accompanied through all its length with
this impromptu strain:</p>
<blockquote><p>‘And I will ding Jock Crozer down<br />
No later than the day.’</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Presently the voice of the preacher came to him in wafts, at
the wind’s will, as by the opening and shutting of a door;
wild spasms of screaming, as of some undiscerned gigantic
hill-bird stirred with inordinate passion, succeeded to intervals
of silence; and Francie heard them with a critical ear.
‘Ay,’ he thought at last, ‘he’ll do; he
has the bit in his mou’ fairly.’</p>
<p>He had observed that his friend, or rather his enemy, Jock
Crozer, had been established at a very critical part of the line
of outposts; namely, where the burn issues by an abrupt gorge
from the semicircle of high moors. If anything was
calculated to nerve him to battle it was this. The post was
important; next to the Hill-end itself, it might be called the
key to the position; and it was where the cover was bad, and in
which it was most natural to place a child. It should have
been Heathercat’s; why had it been given to Crozer?
An exquisite fear of what should be the answer passed through his
marrow every time he faced the question. Was it possible
that Crozer could have boasted? that there were rumours abroad to
his—Heathercat’s—discredit? that his honour was
publicly sullied? All the world went dark about him at the
thought; he sank without a struggle into the midnight pool of
despair; and every time he so sank, he brought back with
him—not drowned heroism indeed, but half-drowned courage by
the locks. His heart beat very slowly as he deserted his
station, and began to crawl towards that of Crozer.
Something pulled him back, and it was not the sense of duty, but
a remembrance of Crozer’s build and hateful readiness of
fist. Duty, as he conceived it, pointed him forward on the
rueful path that he was travelling. Duty bade him redeem
his name if he were able, at the risk of broken bones; and his
bones and every tooth in his head ached by anticipation. An
awful subsidiary fear whispered him that if he were hurt, he
should disgrace himself by weeping. He consoled himself,
boy-like, with the consideration that he was not yet committed;
he could easily steal over unseen to Crozer’s post, and he
had a continuous private idea that he would very probably steal
back again. His course took him so near the minister that
he could hear some of his words: ‘What news, minister, of
Claver’se? He’s going round like a roaring
rampaging lion. . . .</p>
<div class="gapspace"> </div>
<div class="gapmediumline"> </div>
<p style="text-align: center">Printed by <span
class="smcap">T.</span> and <span class="smcap">A.
Constable</span>, Printers to His Majesty<br />
at the Edinburgh University Press.</p>
<h2>Footnotes:</h2>
<p><a name="footnote0"></a><a href="#citation0"
class="footnote">[0]</a> With special reference to
<i>Father Damien</i>, pp. 63–81.</p>
<p><a name="footnote65"></a><a href="#citation65"
class="footnote">[65]</a> From the Sydney
<i>Presbyterian</i>, October 26, 1889.</p>
<p><a name="footnote85"></a><a href="#citation85"
class="footnote">[85]</a> <i>Theater of Mortality</i>, p.
10; Edin. 1713.</p>
<p><a name="footnote86"></a><a href="#citation86"
class="footnote">[86]</a> <i>History of My Own Times</i>,
beginning 1660, by Bishop Gilbert Burnet, p. 158.</p>
<p><a name="footnote87a"></a><a href="#citation87a"
class="footnote">[87a]</a> Wodrow’s <i>Church
History</i>, Book II. chap. i. sect. I.</p>
<p><a name="footnote87b"></a><a href="#citation87b"
class="footnote">[87b]</a> Crookshank’s <i>Church
History</i>, 1751, second ed. p. 202.</p>
<p><a name="footnote88"></a><a href="#citation88"
class="footnote">[88]</a> Burnet, p. 348.</p>
<p><a name="footnote89"></a><a href="#citation89"
class="footnote">[89]</a> <i>Fuller’s Historie of the
Holy Warre</i>, fourth ed. 1651.</p>
<p><a name="footnote90"></a><a href="#citation90"
class="footnote">[90]</a> Wodrow, vol. ii. p. 17.</p>
<p><a name="footnote92"></a><a href="#citation92"
class="footnote">[92]</a> Sir J. Turner’s
<i>Memoirs</i>, pp. 148–50.</p>
<p><a name="footnote93"></a><a href="#citation93"
class="footnote">[93]</a> <i>A Cloud of Witnesses</i>, p.
376.</p>
<p><a name="footnote94a"></a><a href="#citation94a"
class="footnote">[94a]</a> Wodrow, pp. 19, 20.</p>
<p><a name="footnote94b"></a><a href="#citation94b"
class="footnote">[94b]</a> <i>A Hind Let Loose</i>, p.
123.</p>
<p><a name="footnote95"></a><a href="#citation95"
class="footnote">[95]</a> Turner, p. 163.</p>
<p><a name="footnote96a"></a><a href="#citation96a"
class="footnote">[96a]</a> Turner, p. 198.</p>
<p><a name="footnote96b"></a><a href="#citation96b"
class="footnote">[96b]</a> <i>Ibid.</i> p. 167.</p>
<p><a name="footnote97"></a><a href="#citation97"
class="footnote">[97]</a> Wodrow, p. 29.</p>
<p><a name="footnote98"></a><a href="#citation98"
class="footnote">[98]</a> Turner, Wodrow, and <i>Church
History</i> by James Kirkton, an outed minister of the
period.</p>
<p><a name="footnote99"></a><a href="#citation99"
class="footnote">[99]</a> Kirkton, p. 244.</p>
<p><a name="footnote101a"></a><a href="#citation101a"
class="footnote">[101a]</a> Kirkton.</p>
<p><a name="footnote101b"></a><a href="#citation101b"
class="footnote">[101b]</a> Turner.</p>
<p><a name="footnote102"></a><a href="#citation102"
class="footnote">[102]</a> Kirkton.</p>
<p><a name="footnote103"></a><a href="#citation103"
class="footnote">[103]</a> Kirkton.</p>
<p><a name="footnote104"></a><a href="#citation104"
class="footnote">[104]</a> <i>Cloud of Witnesses</i>, p.
389; Edin. 1765.</p>
<p><a name="footnote105a"></a><a href="#citation105a"
class="footnote">[105a]</a> Kirkton, p. 247.</p>
<p><a name="footnote105b"></a><a href="#citation105b"
class="footnote">[105b]</a> Ibid. p. 254.</p>
<p><a name="footnote105c"></a><a href="#citation105c"
class="footnote">[105c]</a> <i>Ibid.</i> p. 247.</p>
<p><a name="footnote105d"></a><a href="#citation105d"
class="footnote">[105d]</a> <i>Ibid.</i> pp. 247, 248.</p>
<p><a name="footnote106"></a><a href="#citation106"
class="footnote">[106]</a> Kirkton, p. 248.</p>
<p><a name="footnote107a"></a><a href="#citation107a"
class="footnote">[107a]</a> Kirkton, p. 249.</p>
<p><a name="footnote107b"></a><a href="#citation107b"
class="footnote">[107b]</a> <i>Naphtali</i>, p. 205;
Glasgow, 1721.</p>
<p><a name="footnote107c"></a><a href="#citation107c"
class="footnote">[107c]</a> Wodrow, p. 59.</p>
<p><a name="footnote108a"></a><a href="#citation108a"
class="footnote">[108a]</a> Kirkton, p. 246.</p>
<p><a name="footnote108b"></a><a href="#citation108b"
class="footnote">[108b]</a> Defoe’s <i>History of the
Church of Scotland</i>.</p>
<p><a name="footnote151"></a><a href="#citation151"
class="footnote">[151]</a> ‘This paper was written in
collaboration with James Waiter Ferrier, and if reprinted this is
to be stated, though his principal collaboration was to lie back
in an easy-chair and laugh.’—[R.L.S., Oct. 25,
1894.]</p>
<p><a name="footnote183"></a><a href="#citation183"
class="footnote">[183]</a> The illustrator was, in fact, a
lady, Miss Eunice Bagster, eldest daughter of the publisher,
Samuel Bagster; except in the case of the cuts depicting the
fight with Apollyon, which were designed by her brother, Mr.
Jonathan Bagster. The edition was published in 1845.
I am indebted for this information to the kindness of Mr. Robert
Bagster, the present managing director of the firm.—[<span
class="smcap">Sir Sidney Colvin’s Note</span>.]</p>
<p><a name="footnote205"></a><a href="#citation205"
class="footnote">[205]</a> See a short essay of De
Quincey’s.</p>
<p><a name="footnote206a"></a><a href="#citation206a"
class="footnote">[206a]</a> <i>Religio Medici</i>, Part
ii.</p>
<p><a name="footnote206b"></a><a href="#citation206b"
class="footnote">[206b]</a> <i>Duchess of Malfi</i>.</p>
<p>***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LAY MORALS***</p>
<pre>
***** This file should be named 373-h.htm or 373-h.zip******
This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/3/7/373
Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions
will be renamed.
Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no
one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation
(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without
permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules,
set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to
copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to
protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. Project
Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you
charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission. If you
do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the
rules is very easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose
such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and
research. They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do
practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks. Redistribution is
subject to the trademark license, especially commercial
redistribution.
*** START: FULL LICENSE ***
THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE
PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK
To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free
distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work
(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project
Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project
Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at
http://www.gutenberg.org/license).
Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm
electronic works
1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm
electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to
and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all
the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy
all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession.
If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project
Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the
terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or
entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.
1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be
used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who
agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few
things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works
even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See
paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project
Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement
and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
works. See paragraph 1.E below.
1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation"
or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project
Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual works in the
collection are in the public domain in the United States. If an
individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are
located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from
copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative
works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg
are removed. Of course, we hope that you will support the Project
Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by
freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of
this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with
the work. You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by
keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project
Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others.
1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern
what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are in
a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, check
the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement
before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or
creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project
Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no representations concerning
the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United
States.
1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:
1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate
access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently
whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the
phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project
Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed,
copied or distributed:
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
1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived
from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is
posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied
and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees
or charges. If you are redistributing or providing access to a work
with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the
work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1
through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the
Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or
1.E.9.
1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted
with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional
terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms will be linked
to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the
permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work.
1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm
License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this
work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm.
1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this
electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with
active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
Gutenberg-tm License.
1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any
word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access to or
distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than
"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version
posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org),
you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a
copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon
request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other
form. Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm
License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.
1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,
performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works
unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing
access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided
that
- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from
the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method
you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is
owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he
has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the
Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments
must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you
prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax
returns. Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and
sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the
address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to
the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation."
- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies
you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he
does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm
License. You must require such a user to return or
destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium
and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of
Project Gutenberg-tm works.
- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any
money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the
electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days
of receipt of the work.
- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works.
1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm
electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set
forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from
both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael
Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark. Contact the
Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below.
1.F.
1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable
effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread
public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm
collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain
"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or
corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual
property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a
computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by
your equipment.
1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right
of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project
Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project
Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project
Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all
liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal
fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT
LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE
PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH 1.F.3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE
TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE
LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR
INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
DAMAGE.
1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a
defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can
receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a
written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you
received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with
your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you with
the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a
refund. If you received the work electronically, the person or entity
providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to
receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If the second copy
is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further
opportunities to fix the problem.
1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth
in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS', WITH NO OTHER
WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO
WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.
1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied
warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages.
If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the
law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be
interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by
the applicable state law. The invalidity or unenforceability of any
provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions.
1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the
trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone
providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance
with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production,
promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works,
harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees,
that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do
or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm
work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any
Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause.
Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm
Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of
electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers
including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It exists
because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from
people in all walks of life.
Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the
assistance they need are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's
goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will
remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project
Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure
and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations.
To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4
and the Foundation web page at http://www.gutenberg.org/fundraising/pglaf.
Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
Foundation
The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit
501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the
state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal
Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification
number is 64-6221541. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg
Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent
permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws.
The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S.
Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered
throughout numerous locations. Its business office is located at
809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email
business@pglaf.org. Email contact links and up to date contact
information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official
page at http://www.gutenberg.org/about/contact
For additional contact information:
Dr. Gregory B. Newby
Chief Executive and Director
gbnewby@pglaf.org
Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg
Literary Archive Foundation
Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide
spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of
increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be
freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest
array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations
($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt
status with the IRS.
The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating
charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United
States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a
considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up
with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations
where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To
SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any
particular state visit http://www.gutenberg.org/fundraising/donate
While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we
have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition
against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who
approach us with offers to donate.
International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make
any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from
outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.
Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation
methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other
ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations.
To donate, please visit:
http://www.gutenberg.org/fundraising/donate
Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
works.
Professor Michael S. Hart is the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm
concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared
with anyone. For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project
Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support.
Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed
editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S.
unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not necessarily
keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition.
Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility:
http://www.gutenberg.org
This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm,
including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary
Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to
subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.
</pre></body>
</html>
|
