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6 files changed, 11 insertions, 4354 deletions

diff --git a/43245-8.txt b/43245-0.txt
index 5758007..c740164 100644
--- a/43245-8.txt
+++ b/43245-0.txt
@@ -1,38 +1,4 @@
-The Project Gutenberg eBook, Luke Barnicott, by William Howitt
-
-
-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: Luke Barnicott
-       And Other Stories: The Story of Luke Barnicott--The Castle East of the Sun--The Holidays at Barenburg Castle
-
-
-Author: William Howitt
-
-
-
-Release Date: July 18, 2013  [eBook #43245]
-
-Language: English
-
-Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
-
-
-***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LUKE BARNICOTT***
-
-
-E-text prepared by Melissa McDaniel, Mary Meehan, and the Online
-Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net) from page images
-generously made available by Internet Archive (https://archive.org)
-
-
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 43245 ***
 
 Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this
       file which includes the original illustration.
@@ -1517,7 +1483,7 @@ the Marlpool, in Derbyshire. I can only say," Luke added when he closed
 his narrative, "that I quitted my old cronies, the Wellands and their
 children, with profound regret, and I feel that the regret was mutual.
 The old collier of the Marlpool, now the millionnaire of Sydney, has not
-forgotten his old friends and native place. I have brought with me £500
+forgotten his old friends and native place. I have brought with me £500
 to build and partly endow a school on the spot where his humble cottage
 once stood; and I shall feel it my duty and my pleasure to state the
 facts that this is the gift of the Wellands, fifteen years ago
@@ -2207,7 +2173,7 @@ instantaneous silence he said in a clear voice, "Silentium! that is to
 say, keep your tongues still! The clergyman has consented to the
 breaking up. Fritz, say it in Latin."
 
-"Hodie feriæ habemus!" proclaimed Fritz in a shrill voice.
+"Hodie feriæ habemus!" proclaimed Fritz in a shrill voice.
 
 "Good! That is to say, to-day we break up," explained the schoolmaster.
 "But you must, every one of you, write three beautiful copies; farther,
@@ -3055,7 +3021,7 @@ possible. It had a lovely waxen face, and could shut its eyes; it slept
 upon a cushion trimmed with lace, and had a little bassinet lined with
 blue silk; it wore the daintiest little cap and a little knitted jacket.
 Mina, it is true, had quite grown out of dolls, and at home only brought
-out hers, which had a shining face of papier-maché, and wore a plain
+out hers, which had a shining face of papier-maché, and wore a plain
 pink cotton frock, when her little friend Matilda came to see her; but
 she would not have been a girl if she had not been delighted with this
 miracle of a baby. It had, however, no name, and Mina assisted in the
@@ -3219,362 +3185,4 @@ lamenting over the glories which were departed.
 CASSELL & COMPANY, LIMITED, La Belle Sauvage Works, London, E. C.
 50,288.
 
-
-
-***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LUKE BARNICOTT***
-
-
-******* This file should be named 43245-8.txt or 43245-8.zip *******
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+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 43245 ***
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 <head>
-<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1" />
+<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8" />
 <title>The Project Gutenberg eBook of Luke Barnicott, by William Howitt</title>
     <style type="text/css">
 
@@ -177,26 +177,9 @@ table {
     </style>
 </head>
 <body>
+<div>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 43245 ***</div>
 <h1>The Project Gutenberg eBook, Luke Barnicott, by William Howitt</h1>
-<p>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 <a
-href="http://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a></p>
-<p>Title: Luke Barnicott</p>
-<p>       And Other Stories: The Story of Luke Barnicott--The Castle East of the Sun--The Holidays at Barenburg Castle</p>
-<p>Author: William Howitt</p>
-<p>Release Date: July 18, 2013  [eBook #43245]</p>
-<p>Language: English</p>
-<p>Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1</p>
-<p>***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LUKE BARNICOTT***</p>
 <p>&nbsp;</p>
-<h4>E-text prepared by Melissa McDaniel, Mary Meehan,<br />
-    and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team<br />
-    (<a href="http://www.pgdp.net">http://www.pgdp.net</a>)<br />
-    from page images generously made available by<br />
-    Internet Archive<br />
-    (<a href="http://archive.org">http://archive.org</a>)</h4>
 <p>&nbsp;</p>
 <table border="0" style="background-color: #ccccff;margin: 0 auto;" cellpadding="10">
   <tr>
@@ -1689,7 +1672,7 @@ the Marlpool, in Derbyshire. I can only say," Luke added when he closed
 his narrative, "that I quitted my old cronies, the Wellands and their
 children, with profound regret, and I feel that the regret was mutual.
 The old collier of the Marlpool, now the millionnaire of Sydney, has not
-forgotten his old friends and native place. I have brought with me £500
+forgotten his old friends and native place. I have brought with me £500
 to build and partly endow a school on the spot where his humble cottage
 once stood; and I shall feel it my duty and my pleasure to state the
 facts that this is the gift of the Wellands, fifteen years ago
@@ -2379,7 +2362,7 @@ instantaneous silence he said in a clear voice, "Silentium! that is to
 say, keep your tongues still! The clergyman has consented to the
 breaking up. Fritz, say it in Latin."</p>
 
-<p>"Hodie feriæ habemus!" proclaimed Fritz in a shrill voice.</p>
+<p>"Hodie feriæ habemus!" proclaimed Fritz in a shrill voice.</p>
 
 <p>"Good! That is to say, to-day we break up," explained the schoolmaster.
 "But you must, every one of you, write three beautiful copies; farther,
@@ -3227,7 +3210,7 @@ possible. It had a lovely waxen face, and could shut its eyes; it slept
 upon a cushion trimmed with lace, and had a little bassinet lined with
 blue silk; it wore the daintiest little cap and a little knitted jacket.
 Mina, it is true, had quite grown out of dolls, and at home only brought
-out hers, which had a shining face of papier-maché, and wore a plain
+out hers, which had a shining face of papier-maché, and wore a plain
 pink cotton frock, when her little friend Matilda came to see her; but
 she would not have been a girl if she had not been delighted with this
 miracle of a baby. It had, however, no name, and Mina assisted in the
@@ -3404,360 +3387,6 @@ lamenting over the glories which were departed.</p>
 
 <p>&nbsp;</p>
 <p>&nbsp;</p>
-<hr class="full" />
-<p>***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LUKE BARNICOTT***</p>
-<p>******* This file should be named 43245-h.txt or 43245-h.zip *******</p>
-<p>This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:<br />
-<a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/4/3/2/4/43245">http://www.gutenberg.org/4/3/2/4/43245</a></p>
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+<div>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 43245 ***</div>
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-The Project Gutenberg eBook, Luke Barnicott, by William Howitt
-
-
-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: Luke Barnicott
-       And Other Stories: The Story of Luke Barnicott--The Castle East of the Sun--The Holidays at Barenburg Castle
-
-
-Author: William Howitt
-
-
-
-Release Date: July 18, 2013  [eBook #43245]
-
-Language: English
-
-Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)
-
-
-***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LUKE BARNICOTT***
-
-
-E-text prepared by Melissa McDaniel, Mary Meehan, and the Online
-Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net) from page images
-generously made available by Internet Archive (https://archive.org)
-
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-Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this
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-      See 43245-h.htm or 43245-h.zip:
-      (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/43245/43245-h/43245-h.htm)
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-      Images of the original pages are available through
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-
-
-
-LUKE BARNICOTT.
-
-by
-
-WILLIAM HOWITT.
-
-And Other Stories.
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-Twenty-Eighth Thousand.
-
-Cassell & Company, Limited:
-London, Paris, New York & Melbourne.
-
-
-
-
-CONTENTS.
-
-
-                                         PAGE
-
-    THE STORY OF LUKE BARNICOTT             5
-
-    THE CASTLE EAST OF THE SUN             49
-
-    THE HOLIDAYS AT BARENBURG CASTLE       67
-
-
-
-
-[Illustration: After Young Luke.]
-
-
-
-
-THE STORY OF LUKE BARNICOTT
-
-BY WILLIAM HOWITT.
-
-
-The village of Monnycrofts, in Derbyshire, may be said to be a
-distinguished village, for though it is not a city set on a hill, it is
-a village set on a hill. It may be seen far and wide with its cluster of
-red brick houses, and its tall gray-stone church steeple, which has
-weathered the winds of many a century. The distant traveller observes
-its green upward sloping fields, well embellished by hedgerow trees, and
-its clumps of trees springing up amongst its scenes, and half hiding
-them, and says to himself as he trots along, "a pleasant look-out must
-that hamlet have." And he is right; it has a very pleasant look-out for
-miles and miles on three sides of it; the fourth is closed by the
-shoulder of the hill, and the woods and plantations of old Squire
-Flaggimore. On another hill some half-mile to the left of the village,
-as you ascend the road to it, stands a windmill, which with its active
-sails always seems to be beckoning everybody from the country round to
-come up and see something wonderful. If you were to go up you would see
-nothing wonderful, but you would have a fine airy prospect over the
-country, and, ten to one, feel a fine breeze blowing that would do your
-heart good. You would see the spacious valley of the Erwash winding
-along for miles, with its fields all mapped out by its hedges and
-hedgerow trees, and its scattered hamlets, with their church towers,
-and here and there old woods in dark masses, and on one side the blue
-hills of the Peak beckoning still more enticingly than Ives's Mill, to
-go there and see something wonderful. On another side you would see
-Killmarton Hall and its woods and plantations, and, here and there
-amongst them, smoke arising from the engine-houses of coal mines which
-abound there; for all the country round Monnycrofts and Shapely, and so
-away to Elkstown, there are or have been coal and ironstone mines for
-ages. Many an old coal mine still stands yawning in the midst of
-plantations that have now grown up round them. Many a score of mines
-have been again filled up, and the earth levelled, and a fair
-cultivation is here beheld, where formerly colliers worked and caroused,
-and black stacks of coals, and heaps of grey shale, and coke fires were
-seen at night glimmering through the dark.
-
-Near this mill, Ives's mill, there is another hamlet called Marlpool, as
-though people could live in a pool, but it is called Marlpool, as a
-kettle is said to boil when only the water boils in it, because it
-stands on the edge of a great pool almost amounting to a lake, where
-marl formerly was dug, and which has for years been filled with water.
-The colliers living there call it the eighth wonder of the world,
-because they think it wonderful that a pool should stand on the top of a
-hill, though that is no wonder at all, but is seen in all quarters of
-the world. But the colliers there are a simple race, that do not travel
-much out of their own district, and so have the pleasure of wondering at
-many things that to us, being familiar, give no pleasure. So it is that
-we pay always something for our knowledge; and the widow Barnicott who
-lived on this hill near Ives's mill, at the latter end of the time we
-are going to talk of, used to congratulate herself when her memory
-failed with age, that it was rather an advantage, because, she said,
-everything that she heard was quite new again.
-
-But at the time when my story opens, Beckey Barnicott was not a widow.
-She was the wife of Luke Barnicott, the millers man, that is, Ives's
-man. Luke Barnicott had been the miller's man at Ives's mill some time;
-he was a strapping, strong young fellow of eight-and-twenty. Old Nathan
-Abbot had the mill before Ives had it, and Luke Barnicott was Nathan
-Abbot's miller. There are many tales of the strength and activity of
-Luke Barnicott still going round that part of the country. Of the races
-that he ran on Monnycrofts' common side, and on Taghill Delves, amongst
-the gorse and broom and old gravel pits: of the feats he did at
-Monnycrofts and Eastwood wakes, and at Elkstown cross-dressing, where
-the old Catholic cross still stood, and was dressed in old Catholic
-fashion with gilded oak leaves and flowers at the wakes: of the
-wrestlings and knocking-down of the will-pegs, and carrying off all the
-prizes, and of jumping in sacks, and of a still greater jumping into and
-out of twelve sugar hogsheads all set in a row, and which feat Luke was
-the only one of the young fellows from all the country round that could
-do. Luke was, in fact, a jolly fellow when Beckey married him, and she
-was very proud of him, for he was a sober fellow, with all his frolics
-and feats, and Beckey said that the Marlpool might be the eighth wonder
-of the world, but her Luke was the ninth, because he could take his
-glass and be social-like, but never came home drunk. And, in fact, no
-millers get drunk. I can remember plenty of drunken fellows of all
-trades, but I don't remember a drunken miller. There is something in
-their trade that keeps them to it, and out of the ale-house. The wind
-and the water will be attended to, and so there is not much opportunity
-to attend to the beer or the gin-shop. Besides, if a miller were apt to
-get drunk, he would be apt to get drowned very soon, in the mill stream,
-or knocked on the head by a sail.
-
-There's something pleasant and sober and serious in a mill. The wheel
-goes coursing round, and the pleasant water sparkles and plunges under
-it, or the great sails go whirling and whirling round, and the clear air
-of the hill top gives you more cheeriness than any drink; and the
-clapper claps pleasantly; and the mill keeps up a pleasant swaying and
-tremor, and the flour comes sliding down the hoppers into the sacks, and
-all is white and dusty, and yet clean; the mill and the sacks and the
-hoppers and the flour, and the miller's clothes, and his whiskers, and
-his hat; and his face is meally, and ruddy through the meal, and all is
-wholesome and peaceful, and has something in it that makes a man quietly
-and pleasantly grave.
-
-Luke Barnicott was now the staid and grey-haired man of sixty: he had no
-actual need of the hair-powder of the mill to make him look venerable.
-On Sundays, when he was washed and dressed-up to appear at church, his
-head seemed still to retain the flour, though it had gone from his
-clothes, and his ruddy face had no mealy vail on it. Beckey, his wife,
-was grown the sober old woman, but still hale and active. She came to
-church in her black gipsy hat, all her white mob cap showing under it,
-in large patterned flouncing gown, in black stockings, high-heeled
-shoes, and large brass buckles that had been her grandmother's. On week
-days she might be seen in a more homely dress fetching water from the
-spring below, or digging up the potatoes in the garden for dinner. At
-other times she sat knitting in the fine weather on a seat facing to the
-evening sun, but giving shade in the earlier part of the day, under a
-rude porch of poles and sticks over the door, up which she trained every
-year a growth of scarlet runners, whilst around and under the windows
-grew the usual assortment of herbs, rue and camomile, rosemary and
-pennyroyal.
-
-The Barnicotts lived at the old Reckoning House, so called because, when
-the collieries were active, just in that quarter, the men were paid
-their wages there. It was a very ordinary-looking brick tenement, now
-divided into two dwellings, in one of which to the west lived Luke and
-Beckey, and on the east side lived Tom Smith, the stockinger or
-stocking-weaver, and Peggy his wife. Tom Smith's frame kept up a pretty
-constant grating and droning sound, such as you hear in many a village
-of Derbyshire, Nottinghamshire, and Leicestershire, and in some parts
-of Normandy, and it was almost the only sound that you heard about the
-Reckoning House, for neither of the families had any children, except
-one boy, the young Luke Barnicott, the grandson of the old Barnicotts.
-The Barnicotts' only son Patrick had been a great trouble to his
-parents, the shadow-spot in their lives. He had got amongst a wild set
-of young fellows of the neighbourhood, had been sharply scolded by old
-Luke, and in a fit of passion had gone for a soldier. He had died in the
-war in Spain, and his wife had died soon after of a fever, caught in
-nursing somebody suffering under that contagious affection. They had
-left their only child to the old folks, who was now a lad of about
-fourteen, and as mercurial and mischievous an imp as the neighbourhood
-could furnish. From the moment that he could run about he was in some
-scrape or some danger. He strolled about the common, plaguing asses and
-sheep and cattle that were grazing there, hunting up birds' nests and
-wasps' nests, hanging over the sides of a deep pond just below the
-Reckoning House, surrounded by thick trees, and more than once had gone
-headlong in, and came home streaming with water like a spout on a rainy
-day. Old Luke said he would go after his father if he escaped drowning
-or tumbling into some pit; and poor old Beckey was just like a hen with
-a duckling with this one little vagabond. Sometimes he was seen climbing
-on the mill sails, sometimes on the very ridge of a house, and looking
-down the chimney for swallow nests, at other times he was up in trees so
-high, swinging out on a long bough after some nests, so dizzily, that it
-made his poor old granny's head ache for a week after. They put him as
-soon as possible to the school in Monnycrofts to keep him out of danger,
-but sometimes, instead of reaching the school, he had been wiled away by
-his love of rambling into some distant wood, or along some winding
-brook, and looking after fish, when he should be conning his lesson. At
-others, instead of returning home at night after school, he was got into
-the blacksmith's shop, watching old Blowbellows at the glowing forge,
-and often in danger of having his eyes burnt by the large flying sparks,
-or having a kick from a horse that was being shod. Sometimes poor old
-Beckey had to go to the village of a dark stormy winter's evening to
-hunt up the truant with her lanthorn, and would find him after all at
-one of the pits sitting by the blazing fire, in a cabin made of blocks
-of coal, listening to the talk of the colliers over their ale.
-
-When, however, young Luke Barnicott had nearly reached the age of
-fourteen, and had been set to scare birds in the fields, and to drive
-plough for the farmers, and gather stones from the land, and had gleaned
-in the autumn, and slid on the Marlpool in the winter, he took a fancy
-to become a collier. He was arrayed in a suit of coarse flannel,
-consisting of wide trousers and a sort of short slop, with an old hat
-with the brim cut off, and was sent down sitting on a chain at the end
-of a rope into the yawning pit sixty yards deep. There he was sent to
-drive a little railway train of coal waggons drawn by a pony in these
-subterranean regions, from the benk or face of the coal stratum, where
-the colliers were at work, to the pit's mouth; but Luke soon grew tired
-of that. He did not fancy living in the dark, and away from the sun and
-pleasant fields, so one day, as the master of the pits was standing on
-the pit-bank, up was turned Luke Barnicott, as invalided. He was lifted
-out of the chain by the colliers, and as he writhed about and seemed in
-great pain, the coal-master asked where he was hurt. He replied, in his
-leg. "Show me the place," said the master. Luke, with a good deal of
-labour and a look of much distress, drew off a stocking and showed a leg
-black enough with coal dust, but without any apparent wound. "Where is
-the hurt?" asked the master. "Here," said Luke, putting his hand
-tenderly on the calf. The master pressed it. Luke pretended to flinch,
-but the master did not feel satisfied. "Bring some water and wash the
-leg," he said, and water was soon brought in an old tin. The leg was
-washed, but no bruise, no blueness were visible. "Pshaw!" said the
-master, "that is nothing to make a squeak about." "Oh, it is the other
-leg, I think," said Luke. "The other leg!" exclaimed the master. "What!
-the fox has a wound and he does not know where! Pull off the other
-stocking." The stocking was pulled off by the colliers, but no injury
-was to be found! "Come, Barnicott," said the master, "so you are playing
-the old soldier over us! Why, what is the meaning of it?" "To say the
-truth, master," said Luke, with a sheepish look, "the fact was--I was
-daunted!"
-
-At this confession the colliers set up a shout of laughter; and the
-master, with a suppressed smile, bade him begone about his business.
-After this Luke was some time at a loose end; he had nothing to do, and
-nobody would employ him. The story of his being "daunted" flew all round
-the neighbourhood, and he was looked on as a lazy, shifty lad, that was
-not to be trusted to. He strolled about the common, the asses and the
-sheep, and the geese, and the young cattle grazing there had a worse
-time of it than ever. The old people were in great distress about him;
-the grandfather's prediction that he would go after his father seemed
-every day more certain of fulfilment. Luke was active enough in setting
-traps for birds, and digging out rabbits, and even in setting a snare
-for a hare, which came by night to browse in the pretty large garden of
-cabbage and potatoes that surrounded the Reckoning House. And he was
-pretty successful in noosing hares and unearthing rabbits, but neither
-his grand-parents nor Tom Smith would let them come into their houses,
-lest they should get into trouble, and because that would have wholly
-confirmed the lad in his wild habits. Luke got through his days somehow,
-and in the evenings he used to go up and play with the lads at the
-Marlpool, and here he found plenty of people ready to take in slyly the
-fruits of his poaching, and give him a share of the feast at night. Old
-Luke meantime went in his mealy garb and with his care-marked and
-powdered face, to his mill and back, and many an hour of sad cogitation
-he had, as his clappers knocked and his sacks filled, on what was to
-become of this wild lad. Many a tear poor old Beckey shed over her
-knitting, and many a shake of his head gave Tom Smith, as he heard
-Beckey and Peggy talk of him.
-
-One day Luke had found his way to the common, beyond the Marlpool, where
-the shaft of a new coal-pit was sinking. Nobody was to be seen on the
-ground about the pit as he approached, but when he came up and looked
-down, he saw a man at work in the bottom. The pit was sunk some thirty
-yards or so, and he recognised a man of the Marlpool, named Dick
-Welland, busy with his pick and shovel. It was evident that his butty or
-mate had gone away somewhere temporarily, probably for beer. There stood
-the windlass, with the rope depending, and the box at the bottom filled,
-ready to be drawn up at the man's return. Till then Dick Welland was a
-prisoner below.
-
-Luke lay down on his stomach, and looked down the shaft. He called to
-the collier, and drew his attention to a brick which he held in his
-hand. "Dick," said he, "I've a good mind to drop a brick on thee!" The
-man in great terror cried out to him not to do it; for he had no means
-of escaping from the blow, which must kill him on the spot. There was
-yet no horizontal working under which he might run and take shelter.
-Luke was delighted with the opportunity of frightening the man, and
-laughing, still held the brick over the pit mouth, saying, "Now, now!
-it's coming. Look out!" The pitman was in agonies of terror; he
-entreated, he shouted, he moved from side to side of the pit, but still
-Luke, with the true spirit of a tyrant and an inquisitor, held aloft the
-brick, and cried, "I'll drop it, Dick. Now, it is coming!" This scene
-had continued for a quarter of an hour, during which time the man had
-endured ages of agony and terror, when Dick perceived the other man
-coming over the common with a little keg of beer: he quietly arose, and
-disappeared amongst the furze and broom.
-
-It was time for Luke Barnicott to be going. No sooner did the man below
-perceive his butty above, than turning the earth out of the "cauf" or
-box, he sprang into it, and called to him to draw him up with all his
-might. Once on the bank, he cast a rapid glance round, and telling his
-mate in a few hurried words what had happened, they both dashed in
-amongst the furze bushes in quest of the culprit. They ran fiercely
-hither and thither; they doubled and crossed and beat over the whole
-common, as a sportsman beats for his game. But their game was nowhere to
-be found. Luke, aware of the vengeance that he had provoked, had
-securely hidden himself somewhere. His pursuers could discover him
-nowhere. They returned to the Marlpool, and related the atrocious deed.
-The whole place arose in a fury. All men and women vowed to pay the
-young tormentor off. Dick Welland's wife, a tall, stout amazon of a
-woman, the head taller than any woman of the whole country round;
-strong, good-looking, and accustomed to walk with the stout strides and
-the air of a virago, vowed merciless retribution on the culprit if ever
-she laid hands on him. Tarring and feathering are a trifle to what was
-promised him; he was to be dipped head foremost into the Marlpool, and
-held to within an inch of his life. He was to be flogged and cuffed, and
-pinched and nettled, and, in short, the whole blood of the Marlpool
-boiled and seethed in vengeful anticipation of horrors to be inflicted
-upon him.
-
-But "no catch me, no have me!" A week went by and no Luke Barnicott
-re-appeared. Old Luke Barnicott went to his mill and back as usual, but
-with a much sadder and darker air; poor old Beckey's eyes were red with
-weeping, and her frame seemed all at once withered and grown shaky. The
-incensed colliers and the redoubtable virago, Doll Welland, his wife,
-had been seen watching the Reckoning House, night after night,
-suspecting that the culprit must steal there in the dark to get
-something to live on, for he could not live on the air. But Tom Smith
-solemnly assured inquirers that no Luke had been seen near home since
-the day when he flourished the brick over the pit-mouth; and that the
-old folks were miserable about him. How Luke lived or where, no one
-could guess; but those who knew him best imagined that he managed to
-keep soul and body together by nuts, and beech-nuts, and pig-nuts, which
-last he was very expert in digging out of pastures. Besides, farmer
-Palethorpe of the Youlgreaves, not far off, complained that his cows
-were heard running about one or two nights, and he believed somebody had
-been trying to milk them. "That's Barnicott!" said Welland, and he and
-his gigantic Doll carefully hunted over the woods and copses near
-Youlgreaves farm, but to no purpose. About a week after Luke's
-disappearance, and when his grandfather and grandmother began to think
-that he had gone quite off to seek his fortune, some boys who had been
-nutting in the Badger Dingles, near Youlgreaves, came racing home out of
-breath, saying they had either seen a ghost or Luke Barnicott, for he
-seemed to start out of the ground amongst the bushes, gave an unearthly
-shriek, and darted away through bush and "breer," and was gone. Poor old
-Beckey Barnicott swooned away, for she said she was sure the poor lad
-had been "clammed" to death in the woods, because he dared not come
-home; but Welland took another view of the matter, and starting off to
-the Badger Dingles, he and his strapping wife hunted the thickets again
-well over. They were near giving up their search when it occurred to
-them to examine an old hovel in a field up above the Dingles, and there
-they found a heap of fern in which somebody had evidently lain for some
-time, and in the very last night.
-
-Sure that Luke was lurking somewhere not far off, they renewed their
-search with fresh eagerness. They hunted the dingles all over again, and
-just when they came to the end they saw something swing itself over a
-gate and disappear. The Marlpool boys would have run off, thinking it
-the ghost again, but Welland rushed forward, leapt the gate, and saw
-Luke Barnicott sure enough racing at full speed to gain the dense
-Hillmarton spruce plantations. Welland and wife gave chase. According to
-their account Luke plunged into the plantation before they could come up
-with him, but being hot on his trail they beat up the plantations, and
-again started him. In the afternoon the people of the Marlpool saw an
-extraordinary sight. It was Luke, ragged and haggard, without his hat,
-and his light brown hair flying in the wind, running for his life over
-the common, and Welland and his wife panting after him as if half tired
-down, for they were people approaching their fiftieth year, though hale
-and active, and stimulated by their vengeance to run to the last. Luke
-was evidently aiming for the Reckoning House. All Marlpool was out to
-watch the race. There was loud shoutings, and cries of "Stop him!" and
-by others, "Nay, fair play! let the lad run." Old Luke Barnicott came
-out on his mill-stairs, and cried with a voice which was never forgotten
-by those who heard it to the day of their death, "Murderers! let the
-child alone."
-
-Old Luke came down the mill-stairs like a frantic man and ran to meet
-and protect his grandson, who was now speeding along the banks of the
-Marlpool in a narrow larch copse that bordered the path's side, and was
-not two hundred yards from his grandfather, when Welland met and turned
-him. Young Luke wheeled like a hare, and dashing through the pool, for
-he could swim like a fish, reached the other side before Welland and his
-neighbours could recover from their surprise. Old Luke was in the midst
-of them; he aimed a blow at Welland which felled him to the ground, and
-then he dealt his blows round him with such effect, that five or six
-great fellows lay sprawling on the earth. Old Luke was too furious to
-speak at first, but he at length burst out with, "Shame on you, cowards!
-murderers!" Luke had such a reputation for strength and skill in the
-arts of wrestling and boxing that, though an old man, not one of the
-fellows whom he had felled dare touch him. But, meantime, Welland was
-up again, and scouring through the copse along the pool-side like a
-maniac. His tall wife was running along the other side of the pool after
-the lad. Old Luke threw off his mealy jacket and ran too. It was many a
-day since he had run before, but every one was amazed at the speed with
-which he went. Down the hill towards Askersick well, in the direction of
-the Hillmarton plantations, went Welland and his wife; down followed old
-Luke, stout and elderly as he was, but with a vigour that seemed
-wonderful. The young fugitive was seen to leap the fence into the
-plantations; Welland and his wife were seen to crush through the fence
-after him, and soon after old Luke followed headlong through the gap,
-and all disappeared.
-
-The people of the Marlpool stood on their hill watching this chase, and
-when the flyers rushed into the plantation some ran down in that
-direction. But the chasers were lost for nearly half an hour, when young
-Luke was seen flying along the side of the Hillmarton dams--large
-reservoirs of water that stretched in a chain along the valley amongst
-woods and copses--and Welland was fagging after him like a dogged
-blood-hound after a tired stag, or rather fawn. But pursuer and pursued
-appeared dead beat with fatigue when they disappeared behind a mass of
-trees. No old Luke, no Doll Welland were seen anywhere, for that wily
-woman, as old Luke pursued through the plantation, had seized a pole
-that lay on the ground, and, standing amongst some bushes, suddenly
-poked it between the old man's legs as he ran, and caused him to tumble
-forward and fall with a heavy dash on the ground, where, exhausted by
-his unwonted exertion, and stunned by the shock, he lay breathless and
-almost senseless. The huge woman then, as he lay on his face on the
-earth, coolly seated herself upon him, and kept him there whilst her
-husband pursued the boy.
-
-Meantime the young men from the Marlpool, running in the direction in
-which they had seen Luke and his pursuer, at length found Welland
-seated on the bank of the lake, intently watching a part of the water
-where a mass of reeds grew, and where the boughs of the wood overhung
-the water.
-
-"Where's Luke?" cried the young men. "He's there!" said Welland, red and
-panting, and scarcely able to bolt the words from his chest. "He's in
-the reeds!" Some of the young men ran round into the wood, and looked
-down into the reed bed by climbing along the boughs of the trees, but
-nothing was to be seen there. "He's not there, Welland!" they shouted,
-but Welland stoutly maintained that he was there; he saw him go in, and
-that he could not go out again without his seeing him. To make all sure,
-one young fellow stripped and swam to the reeds, and beat all amongst
-them, and declared that there was no Luke there. "Oh! the cunning beggar
-is lurking somewhere up to the nose in the water!" shouted Welland; but
-the young man paddled all about, declared the place very deep of mud,
-but to the certainty nothing human was there. At this Welland rose up in
-great wrath but after going round into the wood, said, moodily, "The
-young scamp has done me again, but I'll settle him yet." And with that
-he turned homewards, and the young men with him.
-
-Old Luke had before this recovered his breath somewhat, and, rolling his
-incubus from him with wonderful ease, had risen up and gone towards the
-dams, followed by the virago, who furiously abused him all the way, and
-flung stones and masses of turf at him. When old Luke reached a keeper's
-lodge near the dams, old John Rix, who lived there, told him Welland and
-a lot of men had gone up the field towards the Marlpool. Luke then
-hastened back, with the vengeful grenadier of a woman still following
-and saying all the evil things she could think of. She upbraided the old
-man for his bringing up of both this young Luke and of his father. "Bad
-crow, bad egg!" she said. "Old rogue! you were no great shakes, I
-reckon, in your young days, and the son was no better; no good came to
-him; and as for this wicked boy, he'll come to the gallows, I'll
-warrant, if a tree be left in the country to make one on."
-
-Old Luke went on, as King David did in his time when Shimei was hailing
-stones and curses on him in his trouble, and took no notice. But he was
-mightily troubled in his mind as he went on in silence. All his former
-troubles with his son were brought back upon him, and he wondered how it
-was that he was so much the more afflicted than other people with his
-children. He began to think that he must have been a much more wicked
-man than he had thought himself, and so he said, "Let her talk;
-may-happen I've desarved it." But when he got home, and heard that young
-Luke had been chased into the lake by Welland, and that he could not be
-found, he sat down in his chair, and never stirred or spoke for an hour.
-Poor old Beckey, who had enough to bear of her own, was terribly
-frightened, and laid hold on him, and shook him, saying, "Luke, man!
-Luke, speak! what ails thee? Hast a gotten a stroke?" But Luke neither
-spoke nor stirred, but continued looking hard on the ground. The poor
-woman was in the greatest distress, and began to call, "Peggy! Peggy!
-come here! Peggy Smith."
-
-But at that old Luke suddenly rose. "Hold thy tongue! dunna bring
-anybody here. They've killed the lad, an' they've killed me!" and,
-giving a deep groan, he began to stagger upstairs, and soon undressed
-himself and went to bed. There was an end of old Luke. The violent
-agitation of his mind; the violent exertion that he had made; the fall
-that he had got; and, no doubt, the abuse and upbraidings that the great
-virago had heaped upon him, all had done their part. He never spoke
-after he was in bed: a stroke of apoplexy had indeed fallen on him, and,
-though the doctor came and bled him, he only opened his eyes for a
-moment, and then died.
-
-When the death of old Luke was made known, there was a great sensation,
-and the more so that nothing further was seen or heard of young Luke. A
-great revulsion in the public mind took place immediately. These
-transactions were the sole topic of conversation, not only in Marlpool
-and Monnycrofts, and Shapely, but in every hall and hamlet and solitary
-farm-house, the whole country round. They were the theme of discussion
-in every ale-house, and at every barber's and blacksmith's shop, and in
-every street-parliament far and near. They got into the local
-newspapers, and assumed a variety of shapes the farther the rumours
-spread. The Marlpoolians and Monnycroftians who had called young Luke
-all manner of names as the most incorrigible of scapegraces, now pitied
-him as a very ill-used and persecuted lad. "Why, all lads are full of
-mischief," said Mrs. Widdiwicket of the Dog and Partridge public-house.
-"I would not give a potato for a lad without a bit of mischief in him.
-Poor lad! it was only his spirit, and what sort of a man is to grow out
-of a boy without a spirit?" "True," said old Pluckwell, the gardener, as
-he took his evening pot, "what's weeds in one place is flowers in
-another. Why, they tell me flowers here are weeds in other countries;
-and, as to this Luke, he must ha' grown into a prime spaciment with
-cultivation."
-
-"Just so," said Nasal Longdrawn, the parish-clerk; "it seems to me that
-these Wellands had real downright mischief an' malice in 'em, to chase,
-and worry, and threaten a poor fatherless and motherless orphant so.
-Poor lad! he was often very aggravating when he got upo' th' church
-after th' starlings, and loosened the tiles, but I canna help feeling
-for th' poor chap, now he's gone."
-
-"Gone!" said Mrs. Widdiwicket; "and where's he gone, thinken ye?"
-
-All shook their heads, and Roddibottom, the schoolmaster, got up and
-strode about the house, and then suddenly turning round, facing the
-company, with his hands thrust into his waistcoat pocket,--"Where's he
-gone? why, ma'am, why, neighbours, if they put me into the jury box. I
-should give my verdict that Welland knows!"
-
-"Oh, goodness me!" exclaimed Mrs. Widdiwicket; and all the rest again
-shook their heads, and said, "Likely enough; that Welland is a savage
-un. What but a hard un could chase a poor lad so?"
-
-"And what was he doing sitting there by the bank, and pointing to the
-water, and saying, 'He's there!' and that he could not have got out
-without him seeing him? How do we know what happened after they were out
-of sight? A knock on the poor lad's head with a stick or a stone, and a
-plunge into the dam! Eh? eh? I think that pond should be dragged." And
-with that Roddibottom drank off his glass of ale, and walked out with an
-air of inconceivable sagacity, and leaving all the company in wonder and
-horror.
-
-"By leddy! what the mester says is right," said Pluckwell. "Who knows
-what happened? and the boy has never been seen since."
-
-"Ay, the dam should be dragged," said Longdrawn; "there's a mystery
-there." And looking full of mystery himself, he followed the
-schoolmaster out.
-
-The feeling at the "Dog and Partridge" was the feeling everywhere. The
-poor boy was invariably pitied, old Luke was pitied, poor old Beckey was
-pitied, and the Wellands were looked upon as most savage and
-bloodthirsty wretches. The excitement became great as time went on. The
-dam was dragged where Welland had been seen sitting, but nothing was
-found; search and inquiry were made after young Luke all round the
-country, but not a trace of him could be found. The feeling that Welland
-had killed the poor lad, and secreted his body somewhere in the bushes,
-and only pretended for a blind that he had gone into the water, became
-very strong. The Wellands were both taken up and tried for the murder,
-his wife as accessary before the fact; and he was also charged with
-contributing to old Luke's death, for though he had never opened his
-mouth after his return but in one instance, it was--"They've killed him,
-and they've killed me."
-
-Doll Welland had boasted how she had thrown the old man down by putting
-the pole between his legs, and having sat upon him after his fall, and
-what more she might have done nobody could tell. Besides, both her
-husband and herself had vowed most bitterly, or, as the country
-neighbours said, "most saverly," that they would finish the lad if they
-caught him. And the persevering animosity with which they had contrived
-to hunt him up, and to hunt him down at the last, betrayed a most
-murderous mind and intent. Luke never turned up, and, at the March
-assizes at Derby, the Wellands were tried; and numbers of the Marlpool
-people who had quite sided with them till after the boy was missing now
-gave fully their evidence against them, repeating the vengeful
-expressions which they had used against poor Luke, and that they had
-said twenty times, "They'd finish him, if they ever laid hands on him."
-All these things, and the general feeling of the country telling against
-them, both husband and wife were condemned for the murder of the lad,
-though there was no direct evidence of the fact. Nobody would believe
-anything else after the fierce chase and the savage threats, and the
-disappearance of Luke just where Welland was found sitting. As the
-evidence, however, was but circumstantial, though very aggravated, the
-husband and wife were condemned to transportation for life, and were
-shipped off to Sydney, with the hearty expression of satisfaction of all
-Marlpool, Monnycrofts, Hillmarton Hall and hamlet, of the farmers, and
-all the world besides. As the Wellands had five or six children, there
-was a subscription in that part of the country to send them out with
-their convict parents, and thus to rid this happy land of the whole
-"seed, breed, and generation" of the bloodthirsty Wellands, according to
-the phraseology of the Marlpool.
-
-Years went on: no Luke Barnicott ever re-appeared or ever was heard of;
-and though the body was never found--never rose to the surface of
-Hillmarton dam, nor was discovered in the wood--it became a settled
-feeling that Welland knew if he pleased to tell, where the remains
-could be found. But Welland and his family were broiling in the sandy
-fields of Paramatta, cultivating the hot ground, and planting orange and
-lemon orchards, which now embellish that neighbourhood, and show their
-dark masses covered with golden fruit in mile-long woods to the people
-sailing up the river past Kissing Point, and many another pleasant
-promontory, with their mangrove trees standing in the water, and their
-charming houses overlooking their rocky shores and well-kept lawns, dark
-and lustrous with the Indian and Moreton Bay figs, the India-rubber
-trees, and many a quaint Banksia and blooming shrub from sandy Botany
-Bay.
-
-Years rolled on: the story of these events was forgotten everywhere
-except in the immediate neighbourhood, where it was getting less and
-less frequently adverted to. It was stereotyped in every one's mind of
-those of more than infantine years at that period; but it was only when
-some strange murder or some mysterious occurrence took place in the
-country at large that it was revived and talked of far around. Fifteen
-years had passed: poor old Beckey Barnicott was now between seventy and
-eighty. She was still living at the Reckoning House, but she was
-blind--stone blind. She lost her eyes soon after the shocking death of
-her husband and the loss of her grandson. It was supposed that she wept
-herself blind; and no doubt her grief of mind helped to produce this
-catastrophe. It was found that old Luke Barnicott had saved a small sum,
-which brought Beckey in ten pounds a year; and she had been advised by
-the clergyman of Monnycrofts to sink the sum in an annuity, as she had
-no one to succeed her, and so she had an income then of five-and-twenty
-pounds a year. She was well off in that respect; and she had a
-middle-aged woman, a widow out of the village, Amy Beckumshire, to live
-with her and take care of her. Tom and Peggy Smith were both dead, and
-the new miller, John Groats, used that part of the house to store corn
-in.
-
-Poor old Beckey Barnicott used to get out into the garden by help of a
-long wand, with which she felt her way, and she had learned to know
-every part of the garden, and could feel the rosemary and lavender
-plants, and used to sit in the sun in the rude porch and bask herself;
-and when it was too hot, she took her place under a great elder tree,
-which hung from a high bank on the far side of the garden, where a seat
-was placed. There she used to knit diligently, for she could knit
-without her sight wonderfully; and there for many a long hour she used
-to think about old times, when her husband was full of health and
-strength, and used to keep the mill up above spinning round like a great
-giant, beckoning all the country round to come up and see something
-wonderful. And when Tom Smith and he used to read the "Nottingham
-Review," and all about Bonaparte, and Wellington, and Lord Nelson, and
-talked over the affairs of the country. And then her thoughts would turn
-on poor little Luke, as she called him, and her heart clung to his
-memory with a wonderful tenderness; for he seemed to have been
-misunderstood, and so cruelly used. She remembered many things that he
-had done for her, and how he used to bring her heaps of nuts and
-blackberries and mushrooms, and catch sparrows in winter to make nice
-dumplings, and she thought to herself, "Ay, poor thing, he wasna so bad
-after all! It was, Mrs. Widdiwicket always said, only his spirit; he
-wanted more room for his life than he got here, and should have been a
-soldier or a traveller, or something or another where he would always be
-moving." She had often dreamt of her husband, who appeared to her and
-said he was waiting for her in a very pleasant place; but he never
-mentioned little Luke, and she never dreamed of him except as racing
-before Welland and his giant wife, or plunging into Hillmarton dam, all
-amongst the dark weeds and deep, slimy mud.
-
-It was a fine breezy summer's day, Mrs. Barnicott was sitting under the
-great hanging elder, and her knitting-needles were going very fast for
-so old a woman. She was stooping and wrinkled and lean, but there was a
-quick motion in her darkened eyes and their twinkling lids, and there
-was a motion about her withered mouth, and she gave every now and then
-deep sighs as she shifted her needles, and seemed to look down at her
-knitting, which she could not see, and then paused awhile, let her work
-fall on her knee upon her check-apron, and raised her sightless eyes
-towards the sky and seemed to think. Just then she heard an active step
-as if a young man came along the brick pavement along the garden to the
-house-door. There was a knock, and she heard a young man's voice--she
-was sure it was a young man--ask if Mrs. Barnicott was at home. Amy
-Beckumshire said, "Ay, there she sits, sir, knitting under the elder."
-The young man advanced, and old Beckey rose up in wonder who it could
-be.
-
-"Good day to you, Mrs. Barnicott," said the young man. "You don't know
-me, but I have heard of you some years ago, and being in this part of
-the country, I thought I should like to see you."
-
-"You're very good, sir, to come to see an old blind woman like me!" She
-guessed that it was all about the sad business of her husband and
-grandson that the gentleman had heard. "Pray you, sit down, sir," she
-added, "there's room on the bench."
-
-"Thank you," said the young man. There was a little silence, and then
-the young man said, "I've often heard of this neighbourhood, and I
-always thought it must be very pleasant, and really I find it so. Why, I
-seem to know all about it, as if I had seen it. The old windmill, and
-the pool below here, and the Marlpool above, and the old church tower of
-Monnycrofts."
-
-Beckey was silent and pondering. "And pray," she said, after a time,
-"where might you hear all this about this country place?"
-
-"Well, it was very far from here. You must know Mrs. Barnicott, that I
-have been a sailor, and have sailed nearly all over the world; and we
-sailors make acquaintance in different ships with men from all parts. I
-was on board the Swallow, bound for Pernambuco, in South America, for a
-cargo of cotton and coffee, and I had a mate there that I took a great
-fancy to; he came from some part of this country, Cosser or Hawsworth,
-or some such place."
-
-"Ay, ay," said Beckey, "these are places not far off; you may see 'em
-from th' mill up yonder. But it's many a year sin I seed 'em."
-
-"Ay, more's the pity!" said the young man; "but you can hear, and I
-think I can tell you some good news."
-
-"What good news?" said old Beckey, suddenly giving a start, and turning
-her blind eyes fixedly on him. "What good news can come to a poor old
-creature like me?"
-
-"I should not like to agitate you," said the youth, "by going into
-things long past, and very dark things too; but this mate of mine told
-me several times of what happened here years ago; and I wonder," he used
-to say, "whether any of the Barnicotts be living, and if they ever heard
-of the lad that was lost?"
-
-"What do you mean?" said old Beckey; "do you know anything of little
-Luke? is he alive? can he be alive? Speak, man! speak!"
-
-"Well, this young man thought he was alive."
-
-"What!" said old Beckey, "what! oh laws! you've made my heart jump into
-my mouth. What did he know? Did he know Luke, and had he seen him?"
-
-"Well," he said, "he was alive and was a sailor."
-
-"A sailor! alive!" Poor old Beckey trembled like an aspen leaf, and
-dropped her knitting from her knee. "Oh me! if this should be true!" she
-said; "but my strength fails me; it is more nor I can bear."
-
-The young man took hold of her to support her, and bade her not agitate
-herself; he believed her grandson was alive, and that they should be
-able in time to learn more about him.
-
-"And you dunna know where he is? Are you sure he is alive? are you
-sure?"
-
-"Well, I feel pretty sure. I know my mate said he was alive and well,
-and a fine active sailor, five years ago; for he sailed to Ceylon, in
-the Indies, with him."
-
-"Luke alive! oh laws! this is too much. Amy! Amy!" Amy Beckumshire, who
-was standing at the door all curiosity and astonishment, came the moment
-that old Beckey called, and the poor old woman, shaking and trembling as
-with the ague, said to her, "Dost hear? Luke's alive, and is a sailor,
-and has been i' th' Indies, and this gentleman has seen a sailor as knew
-him!"
-
-"Is that so?" said Amy, in a voice of wondering inquiry, and looking in
-distant respect at the handsome young gentleman.
-
-"I quite believe it is true, missis," said the young man; "I never knew
-Sam Birchin tell me a lie."
-
-"He comes from Cosser or Hawsworth, that sailor does," said old Beckey,
-all eagerness, "and knows all about this country, and all the old doings
-here."
-
-"Gracious me!" said Amy, "how wonderful!"
-
-"O Lord," said old Beckey, lifting her sightless brow towards heaven,
-"only let me once see Luke, and then take me--take me--that I may tell
-my husband. But, laws-a-me! maybe he knows all about it."
-
-Poor old Beckey then asked the stranger a hundred questions: if he knew
-what sort of a looking lad Luke was? how tall he was, and how he looked?
-if he had heard that he had blue eyes and a very fair skin, and hair
-very light coloured? To all these questions the young man said he could
-give no answer; but he would write to Sam Birchin, who would be in port
-soon, and ask him all about it. He then rose up and said he had ordered
-his dinner at the Dog and Partridge, and must go there, but that he
-meant to stay a few weeks in the country, and go and find out Birchin's
-relations at Cosser. He did not mean to go to sea again; he had been to
-Australia, and got enough gold to live on, and he meant to settle down
-somewhere in the country. He should often come and see her while he
-stayed.
-
-Old Beckey prayed God to bless him for the good news he had brought; an
-angel from heaven could not have brought more blessed tidings; and as he
-went across the garden she tottered after him, leaning on her frail
-wand, and stood at the gate to listen to his steps going down the field.
-Then she had to tell the wonderful news all over to Amy, and to ask a
-hundred questions. What sort of looking young man was he, light or dark?
-and how he was dressed, and how tall he was? Though he'd been a sailor,
-she was sure he was a gentleman by his talk. Amy said he was a handsome
-young man, and quite a gentleman in his dress. He was as finely dressed
-as young Squire Flaggimore himself. His eyes were dark blue.
-
-"Blue, says ta?" broke in old Beckey. "Luke's were blue."
-
-"They are dark blue or black," said Amy.
-
-"And his hair very light?" asked Beckey.
-
-"No. Light! ravenly black."
-
-"Oh, then, he's not like Luke. Luke's hair," said Beckey, "was very
-light, and a little sandy."
-
-"What! thou artna dreaming that this is Luke himself, Beckey"
-
-"Oh laws, no!" said Beckey. "It's not Luke, Amy; I was only wondering
-whether it was like him. But thinkster I should not know Luke's voice?
-Ay, that voice I shall never forget; it's down in my heart as clear as a
-bell, though it's fifteen years come Michaelmas since I heard it, poor
-fellow! And to think as he's alive, and 's a been a sailing all over the
-world ever since! And now, thou sees, Amy, that's the reason that he
-never came, like his grandfayther, in my dreams. How could he come, and
-was alive all the time? But thou mun run, Amy, and tell the parson, and
-Mrs. Widdiwicket, and the schoolmaster, as Luke has been seen i' th'
-Indies."
-
-Amy was in a hurry to throw on her shawl and bonnet, and away to the
-village; for we all like to tell a bit of news; it is a pleasure that we
-enjoy immensely, and yet don't reckon it amongst our pleasures. But we
-all feel like electric clouds charged with pleasant fire, and in haste
-to let it off. No sooner is the word dropped in one ear than it is out
-upon the tongue, and turns away to some other ear, and encircles round
-the world like sunshine. Amy had the pleasure of stopping two or three
-people before she got across the fields to the village, and telling them
-that Mrs. Barnicott had heard of Luke, and that he was a fine young
-sailor, and had been in the Indies and all over the world, and the young
-gentleman at the Dog and Partridge had brought the news, and had seen
-young Birchin of Cosser, who had sailed with him. Before Amy reached the
-clergyman's the news had slipped down the village, and was all over it,
-and flowing out at each end by people who were going to the neighbouring
-villages. Mrs. Widdiwicket had heard the news from the young gentleman
-in the parlour herself, and she said the young gentleman had hired her
-horse, and was gone to Cosser to see Sam Birchin's relations. As Amy
-issued into the street again, everybody was on the look-out for her, and
-she had to stop, to her great satisfaction, and tell the story again,
-and to correct some errors that had already got with it, for it was
-already said that the young gentleman, who had been at Mrs.
-Widdiwicket's all night, and had borrowed Mrs. Widdiwicket's horse, had
-been with Luke, and had sailed with him to the Indies and all over the
-world.
-
-At the top of the village street stood Roddibottom, the schoolmaster,
-and Longdrawn, the clerk, and Sandy Spark, the blacksmith, discussing
-the whole affair, and they had already raised a great wonder how it
-happened that Luke had never sent word to his old grandmother that he
-was alive.
-
-They were, moreover, now greatly disposed to lament the fate of Welland
-and his wife, who had been transported for life for having killed Luke
-when he was not killed, and were very near being hanged for it. The
-whole of Monnycrofts was in a state of ferment on this great discovery,
-and all the neighbouring villages soon partook of the excitement; and it
-very soon communicated itself to the county papers, and very wise
-reflections were attached to it on the dangers of condemning people on
-circumstantial evidence. It was thought that no time should be lost in
-recommending to Government to send out an order to recal Welland and his
-wife home. Meantime old Beckey herself had managed to hobble up to the
-mill, and thence to the Marlpool, where the story made the most amazing
-stir. All the people were soon out of doors discussing the affair, and
-those who had seen the chase on that memorable day pointed out all the
-incidents of it. They showed where little Luke was running when old Luke
-rushed down from the mill, and where he knocked down Welland and about
-twenty more, according to their account, and so they went through the
-whole story.
-
-Beckey, and so indeed all the neighbourhood, was impatient for the
-return of the young man, but he had sent back Mrs. Widdiwicket's horse,
-and was staying a week with Sam Birchin's relations. When he re-appeared
-he was beset on all sides with questions regarding Luke, but he assured
-them he could not give them much further information, than that Luke was
-alive three years ago. He soon went to visit old Beckey again, who was
-delighted to see him, and had hoarded up a whole budget of questions to
-put to him. He informed her that his name was John Webster, that he came
-from Liverpool, and that he had sailed to many wonderful countries. He
-had been in the Indies, in North and South America, in China and
-Australia. As old Beckey sat and plied her knitting-needles, he asked
-her all the particulars about Luke, and about his death, as it was
-supposed to have been, and he assured her that he had written to
-Birchin to let him know all that he knew; everything about Luke
-Barnicott.
-
-He continued to lodge at the Dog and Partridge, and had many
-conversations with Roddibottom, the schoolmaster, Nasal Longdrawn, the
-clerk, and all the rest of the village politicians who frequented that
-house; and he heard many different versions of the story of Luke from
-them, who all declared that, though he was very mischievous, he really
-had no ill in him, though they could not account for it why he had never
-let his poor grandmother know of his being alive. John Webster hired
-widow Widdiwicket's horse and rode about, and commended very much the
-country. The clergyman and Squire Flaggimore invited him to dine with
-them, and were greatly entertained with his account of foreign
-countries. But Webster used to go up to the Reckoning House as much as
-ever, and talk to the old widow Barnicott, who was never tired of
-hearing about the sea and foreign parts, because then she could imagine
-what Luke had seen. Webster told her all about the enormous whales at
-sea; how they used to see them come up near the ship, huge and black,
-and rear themselves up almost as high as a house, and then souse down
-again, and spout water up from their nostrils ever so high. And all
-about sharks, and flying-fish, and dolphins, and the beautiful
-nautiluses, and Portuguese men-of-war, that resemble the nautilus, but
-are only like little ships of gristle, but are beautifully painted as a
-rainbow, and they float about when the sea is calm as glass in the hot
-climates, and look like beautiful flowers on a plain of crystal. And of
-the sea-fire that rushes and flickers all round the ship at night, and
-sails past like great lamps in the dark blue water; and of storms; and
-wonderful birds; and of the mountains and great islands of ice that
-float about as white as snow in the solitary ocean, thousands of miles
-from land. And Beckey would drink it all in with hungry ears, and say,
-"And all that Luke has seen! How wonderful! But I wonder whether he has
-quite forgotten his poor old grandmother?"
-
-Webster did not believe that he had. Sailors did not forget their
-relations; but most likely he thought his grandfather and grandmother
-were dead, and so he thought he had no connexions left. Then Webster
-told her about all the wonders of India, of grand towns, and palaces,
-and temples; and of its great nations of black people, and their pearls
-and jewels; of elephants, and tigers, and serpents; of palm-trees; and
-of the wonderful flowers and birds. He told her of the rich fruits,
-bananas, and pine-apples growing in the fields, and wonderful
-orange-groves and fig-trees. And then he told her of China and Japan,
-and the strange swarming yellow people, and all about the
-tea-plantations, where the tea she drank came from; and of the people
-who always live in boats; and of birds' nests that they make soup of. He
-told her at another time of the beautiful countries of South America and
-the West Indies, and all their palm and cocoa-nut, and bread-fruit
-trees; of their custard apples and sweet mangoes, and yams instead of
-potatoes, and a hundred of luscious fruits, and such beautiful flowers
-in the hedges--finer by far than in our gardens, or those Squire
-Flaggimore had in his conservatory.
-
-"All these," said the wondering Beckey, "thou has seen, and my Luke has
-seen!"
-
-"To be sure he has," said Webster; "and then the monkeys and apes as big
-as men, and great snakes that wrap themselves round bullocks, and
-squeeze them to death; and all the black men that are brought to those
-countries from Africa to cultivate the cotton, and sugar, and coffee,
-and spices, because it is too hot for white men."
-
-Old Beckey was in a dream of wonder and of delight to hear what a world
-this was--how big, and strange, and beautiful, and how little the people
-of Monnycrofts and Marlpool knew about it; and yet Luke had seen it all.
-"And I would not be surprised if Luke had got a good deal of gold, for
-Birchin said he talked of going to Australia when he left the ship they
-had sailed in together to India." Beckey did not know exactly, nor Amy
-Beckumshire, who was always an eager listener to these stories,
-whereabouts Australia was, and Webster told them that it was down on the
-other side of the world, just under their feet.
-
-"Lauks!" the women exclaimed, "why, the folks must stand on their heads
-there, or at least with their heads downwards;" and it was in vain that
-he endeavoured to explain to them, by showing them an apple, that if you
-stick little pegs in it they would all have their heads outwards at
-least. Beckey could not see this, but she felt very particularly at the
-apple and the pegs, and she insisted that the Australians _must_ have
-their heads downwards, because ours always _were_ upwards. It was
-useless endeavouring to make them understand that anybody's head was
-always upwards, except when they were in bed; and so Webster told them
-all about the strange things in Australia. The kangaroos, with tails as
-big as bedposts, and that could leap across Beckey Barnicott's garden at
-two leaps. He told them all about the trees that never shed their
-leaves, but shed their bark instead; about the black swans, and the
-cherries with stones outside, and possums and flying-squirrels and
-flying-mice, and a kind of cuckoo that sings at nights instead of days,
-and of all the gold that lies in the ground, and in the rivers there;
-and Beckey and Amy wondered that everybody was not as rich as the Queen
-of England, if they could dig up gold out of the ground, and fish it up
-out of the brooks. Beckey was proud to think that Luke had seen all this
-too; and she felt sure that he would manage to bring home a ship-load of
-gold, for he was, as a lad, as sharp as a needle with two points.
-
-One day old Beckey had a nice jug of curds sent her up from farmer
-Flamstead's, of Langlee, and she said, "Ah! that is that good Sally
-Flamstead's doing. She is always very good to me." And she made Amy get
-some sugar, and they had a delicious dish of cherry-curds, all three of
-them, under the old elder. "Flamstead!" said Webster, that reminds me
-that Birchin used to say, "Why, she must be as handsome as Sally
-Flamstead," when any handsome woman was spoken of. And when I asked him
-who Sally Flamstead was, he said, "Oh, that he had learned of Luke
-Barnicott." For, whenever he saw a pretty woman, he was sure to say,
-"Why, she is almost as handsome as Sally Flamstead." And now, I remember
-Birchin told me that Barnicott had stated to him often when they were on
-the night-watch together, quite a romantic story of his falling in love
-with this Sally Flamstead when he was quite a little boy. He used to go
-to Flamstead's farm at--at--where did he say? Lang--Lang--Lang--what was
-it?
-
-"Langlee?" asked old Beckey.
-
-"Langlee! Langlee! ah, that was the name," exclaimed Webster. "He used
-to go to Langlee, wherever that is."
-
-"Oh," said Beckey, "you may see it as you sit here. There, down the
-slope, all amongst a mass of apple-trees. You may see the chimneys and
-the thatch-roof. I can't see them; only in my mind's eye I see them
-there well enough."
-
-Webster stood up and said, "Yes, he saw the place." Well, Barnicott told
-Birchin that he used to go there to scare birds off the corn, and to
-gather stones in spring off the pastures, and to watch young turkeys as
-they fed in the field, and to fetch and carry in harvest time, and all
-sort of things of that kind. And there was little Sally Flamstead, just
-about his own age, something younger; and she Luke thought a regular
-cherubim. All the ideas of angelic beauty that ever he had he got, he
-said, by looking at Sally Flamstead. And she was such a good, kind,
-little thing. You know, Luke used to say, that she was far above a poor
-lad like me; she was the farmer's only child, and the old man was rich
-for a farmer; he had flocks of sheep and cattle, and great fat teams,
-and such corn and hay-stacks, and geese, and turkeys, and fowls, and
-pigeons. Oh, he seemed to Luke quite a king. Yet little Sally Flamstead
-took quite a fancy for Luke, and used to give him good advice; for, she
-said, everybody said he was wild. Luke used to collect nuts and
-mushrooms for her, and she used to give him ripe cherries and plums, and
-often she would save her plum-cake and give him. She could always find
-him, without seeming to seek him, when he was about the yard; for she
-used to go skipping about to feed the pigeons, and ducks, and to chase
-round and round with her little dog Tiny. Sometimes when he was going
-out to scare birds on a very cold day in the wheat fields, she would put
-some matches in his hat, that he might light a fire; or she would be
-standing inside of the orchard hedge as he went by, and say, "Luke, look
-under the bramble-bush by the paddock-gate," and there he would find a
-good piece of pork-pie, or a little bottle of beer, or something of that
-sort. Luke would have run his legs off to have obliged little Sally
-Flamstead, and a regular courtship grew between these children. He used
-to be sent to Monnycrofts to fetch Sally on an evening when she went to
-take tea with her Aunt Heritage and her cousins, and Sally, as they
-walked along, used to tell him wonderful stories about the Babes in the
-Wood, and Robinson Crusoe, and Luke said that he declared he should like
-nothing so well as to be on a desolate island, and have Sally there for
-his man Friday. At length he got so enamoured that he vowed if ever he
-should become a king, which did not seem at all improbable after the
-wonderful things that happened in the world, according to what Sally
-Flamstead told him, he would marry Sally, and that she should be his
-queen. And Sally said she should like nothing so well. "But, Lord bless
-you!" Luke used to say, "only to think of my foolishness. Why, Sally
-Flamstead was far enough above me, and if she's grown up half as
-handsome as she was then, she's married some great gentleman since then,
-and rides a coach."
-
-When Webster had finished telling this, old Beckey suddenly started up,
-laid hold of him, and put her hand on his face and felt down it, and
-then, as suddenly, she gave a great cry, "It's my Luke! it's Luke! it's
-Luke!" and she hugged him with a force that he did not think had been in
-her old arms. The next moment she released her grasp, gave a deep sigh
-and a sort of groan, and fell in a swoon. Luke--for it was Luke sure
-enough--caught her up and set her on the bench, and while he held her,
-he shouted with all his might for Amy. Amy came running, and was greatly
-frightened; but Luke told her not to be alarmed: she had only fainted,
-and would come round by and by. He bade her fetch a cup of water, and by
-the time it came poor old Beckey was recovering. She never stayed to
-drink the water, but she laid hold on Luke again, and began to laugh and
-cry; and Amy said, "So! so! Mrs. Barnicott, restrain yourself, or you'll
-go into high-sterics. And, mi! don't pull the young gentleman so; he'll
-think you are going 'utick,'" meaning lunatic.
-
-Beckey took no notice, but catching Luke round the neck, to Amy's great
-horror, for she thought now she was gone "utick" in reality, she began
-kissing him, and then she laughed and said, "Amy, woman, it is Luke--my
-own lad Luke. Oh! where were my eyes?"--Beckey always talked of seeing,
-though she could not see--"where were my ears? But I reckon it's because
-my own Luke has now gotten his man's voice and his man's look, and he
-had only his lad's voice and his lad's look when he went. Black is his
-hair, says thou, Amy? and it was as light and shiney as tow when he was
-a lad. But so was his father's. When he began to tell me about Sally
-Flamstead, all at once I heard his father speaking and himself speaking,
-and my heart went with a great jump, and I knew it all. Ay, I'm blind
-and deaf too, or I should ha' fun' that out before this. Luke, lad!
-Luke, it is thee; thou wunna deny it?"
-
-"No, dear granny," said Luke, using the old familiar term, "I won't
-deny it; I am your own Luke, and I am come to live near you while you
-are left to us."
-
-"And yet, Luke," said the trembling old grandmother, "thou went away and
-left us to think thou was dead, drowned, murdered; and all these years,
-thou has neither written nor asked after me."
-
-"Oh, granny," said Luke, "that's been a bitter thing to me. I was forced
-to run away, for I saw that those Wellands would never cease till they
-had made an end of me. I went right off, and begged till I found myself
-at Hull. There a ship captain met me in the street, and eyeing me
-awhile, he said, 'For shame, young scamp, to go about begging, a
-clever-looking, active lad like you. Come, I'll take you with me to sea.
-Eh? what say you?' I thanked him heartily, for of all things I was
-delighted to go to sea, where I expected to find some Robinson Crusoe's
-island, or the like fine country, such as Sally Flamstead had told me
-of. He took me on board a great ship, and there I was stripped and
-tumbled into a great tub of water, and well washed, and my old rags were
-flung overboard, and I was togged out in a sailor's suit, and set to
-work to sweep out the cabin and swab the deck, and do all that kind of
-thing, with two or three lads of my own age. In a short time we set sail
-for the Cape of Good Hope; but before I went I told the captain that I
-wanted my grandad and grandmam to know where I was, and I begged him
-earnestly to write for me, and he said he would; but one day he called
-me into the cabin, and said, 'I have seen a gentleman here from Derby,
-who has come to buy whale oil to light his factory with, and he says,
-'That young fellow's history is known all over our part of the country.
-Look to it, captain, for he is the very imp of mischief, and had to run
-away for trying to kill a collier down a pit with a brick, and when he
-was missing the collier was charged with having murdered him, and he's
-transported for it, and his wife too. I heard him tried at Derby
-Assizes, and the young rogue's grandfather and grandmother are both
-dead of grief.'
-
-"When the captain told me this I was ready to sink on the floor. Nobody
-can tell how I felt. To think I had killed both my grandfather and
-grandmother by my foolishness! As for Welland and his giant wife, I was
-glad that they were transported, for they seemed to me to be so
-malicious, and to have caused your deaths. At first I was stunned, and
-then I burst out crying, and I thought my heart would break. I had
-killed my only friends in the world; I was a wretch without a relative
-or soul on earth that cared for me.
-
-"'Don't stand blubbering there,' said the captain, 'but go and show
-yourself handy, and turn out a farrently fellow. You may if you will;
-and if not, there's a rope-end and the yard-arm for you. Quick! make
-yourself scarce!' That was a bitter voyage for me. I suffered dreadfully
-from sickness and from cold in the southern latitudes; and I got plenty
-of kicks and cuffs from the mates and the sailors, and plenty of dousing
-and sousing with salt water that came sweeping over the ship's sides,
-and with hail and rain as we had to turn out of our hammocks at night
-when storms were raging, and we had to go up into the shrouds, and out
-along the slippering, reeling yards, hanging over the dark, boiling,
-roaring seas below. Oh! I often thought of these pleasant fields and
-farms, and all my old favourite nooks in the woods and dells, at those
-times, and I was often tempted just to drop off the yard-end, and bury
-all my troubles in the raging ocean. But I got better of that; the
-captain began to notice me for an active, and, as he said, clever
-fellow, and I began to like the sea. I've told you, granny, of some of
-my wanderings in India, and America, and Australia, and we can talk
-these over at our leisure now."
-
-"But," said Beckey, "what made thee think of coming here if thou thought
-us dead?'
-
-"I thought I'd come and see your graves, dear granny. That was all I
-could do; and I thought I'd put a handsome stone at your heads, such as
-I used to see, when I was a lad, in Monnycrofts churchyard, with a nice
-verse at the bottom, and a golden angel at the top, with a long golden
-trumpet blowing for the resurrection. But when I got to Mrs.
-Widdiwicket's, and began to ask about the old people that used to be
-here in my time, just in a roundabout way, that I might not be known by
-asking about you too soon, I really thought all the people in the place
-were dead. Old Squire Flaggimore and Madame Flaggimore, and old Parson
-Simion and Mrs. Simion, and old Johnson, and Broadbent, and Cullycamp
-the mole-catcher, and Shears the tailor, and Kettlebender the cobbler,
-and such a tribe,--all gone! And the Barnicotts of the Reckoning House,
-I said, are, of course, gone too. But what a start went through me when
-the landlady said, 'Nay, poor old Luke died directly after the affair
-about his grandson, which is a long story, but the old grandmother is
-living still.'
-
-"Living still!" said I, starting up so that the landlady gave a jump,
-and then she looked at me with such a look.
-
-"'You seem acquainted, sir,' she said, 'with these parts;' and she
-continued looking at me, as much as to say, Who in the world are you?
-
-"I said, 'Oh, yes! I once was through here, and I was but a lad then,
-and I heard an extraordinary story of a boy being killed by a collier,
-or drowned in a dam or something.'
-
-"'Ay, drowned, sure enough!' said Mrs. Widdiwicket, or smothered and
-buried alive somewhere--he never was found--no, never.'
-
-"I said I should take a walk and have some talk with you, for I was
-curious about such things, and I inquired the way here. Now, I wonder
-that Derby man never thought of telling somebody here about his having
-heard of me being alive and on shipboard; but such men, with their great
-mills and businesses, have so much to think of, they don't trouble their
-memories with such things."
-
-"We never heard a rumour of such a thing," said poor old Beckey, who
-kept fast hold of Luke's hand, as if she could not be sure enough that
-she had him.
-
-"And what made thee pretend to be another, Luke, when thou came here?"
-asked Beckey.
-
-"Oh, granny! that was only to break it easy to you. I did not want to
-frighten you all at once with the news, when you thought me dead so
-long. That was all."
-
-"Ah! that was good of thee, my Luke. 'And now, Lord, let me depart in
-peace, since my eyes have seen thy salvation;'" and the happy old woman
-again kissed her grandson, and shed some quiet tears.
-
-"Luke! Luke!" she then said, "as soon as thou began to talk of Sally
-Flamstead, that's my Luke's voice, I said--it's him, it's him, and
-nobody else, for how should anybody else know all about those things?
-And dost ta know, Luke, Sally has not forgotten thee? She has aullis
-been kind to me, and often comes up with a bit or a sup, a nice pot of
-preserves, or a jug of cream, or a nice plate of pickelets; and she will
-bring her sewing, and sit and talk for hours, and she is sure to turn
-the subject to the time when you were children. She's never married,
-though she's as handsome a wench as any lady in all the country-side,
-and rich she is, and manages her farm like a man, for the old Flamsteads
-are dead; and as for followers and sweethearts, heaven love me! she has
-had them all, I think, dangling after her in their turns. Nay, there
-came a very fine gentleman from London here, and he offered to keep her
-a coach and settle a fine estate on her; but no, thank you, she would
-not have him. No, she'll never marry, Luke, unless thou marries her. She
-has often said, 'Luke would be a fine young fellow if he was alive, and
-a good fellow too. They say he was wild and mischievous, but he never
-was with me. No, he was always as good as pie, and would have jumped
-into a coal-pit to do me any kindness.'"
-
-Luke said, "God bless her! I knew she was one in ten thousand, and if I
-were----," but here Amy, who was as full of the news of Luke's being
-alive and being come as an egg is of yolk, and had been out at the
-garden gate to catch the first person going down the field-path and let
-off her steam, came running out of breath, "Wist! wist! here is Miss
-Flamstead coming up the field with a little basket in her hand, and a
-nice white cloth on it. She's bringing you something nice, Missis
-Barnicott; don't let us say who the young gentleman is, and see what she
-will say. I warrant you she'll soon have an inkling of it."
-
-Sally Flamstead was already in the garden. She came on lightly in her
-nice light muslin dress, and her pretty white bonnet with a red rose in
-it, and her little blue parasol dangling loosely in her left hand. But
-as soon as she saw the stranger she blushed, and coming forward timidly,
-she said, "Oh! Mrs. Barnicott, I did not know you had company." Her
-sweet face was all blushes and roses, but it was smiling and charming.
-Luke rose, took off his hat, and made her a polite bow. Sally returned a
-respectful curtsey, and going up to Mrs. Barnicott, kissed her, and sat
-down beside her. Poor old Beckey had hard work to contain herself. She
-trembled, and tears rushed from her blind eyes, and she kissed Miss
-Flamstead again and again. Luke and Amy stood; Luke gazing with a
-respectful but fascinated gaze on the smart young farmeress, and Amy
-looking nobody could tell how--half smiling a suppressed smile, and half
-curious, and fit to burst out with, "It's Luke, Miss Flamstead, it's
-Luke!"
-
-"I hope you have no bad news, my dear Mrs. Barnicott," said Miss
-Flamstead, wondering at her agitation.
-
-"No! no!" said old Beckey. "Good news! good news!" and she shook her
-head as with an agony of emotion, and then burst out, "Luke's alive!
-I've heard of him--this--this--oh! he's seen him! he's seen him in th'
-Indies!"
-
-Miss Flamstead sprang to her feet, gave a look at Luke, and then
-uttering a sort of shriek, she clasped her hands, and crying, "Oh! it is
-he!" she sank on the seat. Luke sprang forward, seized her clasped
-hands, kissed them passionately; and then Miss Flamstead standing up
-and looking at him in wonder and as in a dream, they thus stood for some
-time holding each others hands, while poor old Beckey and Amy cried
-silently and plentifully for joy.
-
-We may leave them awhile under the old hanging elder tree, and let some
-days and weeks roll on, as they did roll joyously at the Reckoning
-House, and at Langlee farm. All the old courtship of childhood was
-renewed. Luke and Sally Flamstead have strolled about the old farm-yard
-and the old fields. They have laughed as they stepped by the old
-bramble-bush, by the paddock-gate, and remembered the hidden pork-pie,
-and the hidden little bottle of beer, and of cold days there. The bells
-have rung out merrily from the tall stone tower of Monnycrofts church,
-and a gay wedding party has descended the long churchyard steps, and
-taken its way through the swarming villagers, along the village street,
-and down the lane to Langlee farm. There Luke and Sally live as happily
-as if they were in a Robinson Crusoe's island, or more so; and more so
-than if he had been a king and had made Sally a queen. Luke has bought
-the old mill on the hill, Ives's old mill, and it still swings its great
-arms as if beckoning everybody up to see something wonderful. Old Beckey
-still lives in the Reckoning House, and Luke always looks in as he goes
-up the hill to the mill, and often the old woman is fetched down to
-Langlee farm to pass whole days and weeks with him. There she has a nice
-tall-backed cushioned chair set for her in a sunny corner, and she
-delights to ramble about the garden and smell the flowers, and about the
-farm-yard, and listen to the fowls and ducks and geese and pigeons, and
-fancy that she sees them.
-
-"There's only one thing that troubles me," said old Beckey soon after
-Luke had been recognised, "and that is, that Welland and his wife were
-transported for nothing. Thou'st plenty of money, Luke, and if I were
-thee, I'd send for them back."
-
-"Granny," said Luke, "they would not thank me to do that. If I sent,
-they would not come."
-
-"No!" said Beckey, "do they like slavery better than Old England?"
-
-"Slavery!" said Luke. "Why, granny, they live in a finer house than
-Squire Flaggimore, keep a fine carriage, and their children are finer
-gentlemen and ladies than the Flaggimores by half."
-
-"Ah, say'st thou so!" exclaimed old Beckey in wonder. "How in the world
-have they managed that?"
-
-"I will tell you, granny," said Luke. "When I was in Australia, and had
-got a good lump of gold, the first thing I did was to set sail for
-Sydney in order to find out the Wellands and set them free, and send
-them home. When I got there I found a very fine city, fine as London,
-though not so big. There were fine shops, and carriages driving about,
-and fine ladies and gentlemen riding and walking about, and fine
-streets; and all round the city were the most beautiful gardens and
-plantations, and houses like palaces, with beautiful lawns running down
-to the sea-side. 'This a fine city,' I said to a decent man who stood at
-a shop-door, 'but where are the convicts lodged?' The man smiled and
-said, 'It just makes all the difference as to what convicts you mean. If
-you mean those who are lately come, you may find some in the convict
-barracks in the old town there, and some everywhere working on the
-quays, and in warehouses, and many are up the country farming and
-shepherding. But if you mean the convicts that came out ten or twenty
-years ago, look round. They inhabit the greater part of the palaces you
-see. 'There!' said he, pointing to a very fine carriage with a handsome
-pair of greys, and a coachman and two footmen before and behind in rich
-liveries, 'that is the equipage of a convict of past days. There! and
-there! and there! all those are carriages of quondam convicts.'
-
-"I was astounded. I then asked him if he knew a convict of the name of
-Welland.
-
-"'Do I know him?' said the man. 'Do I know the governor, or the
-chief-justice? Do you want to see him?'
-
-"I replied I did.
-
-"'Come along then,' said he, 'I want a little walk; and he led the way
-across a very fine street, called George Street, and up a hill, and past
-the governor's castle, and so along the parks and garden beyond, and
-then he stopped at a grand gate with a grand lodge, and said, 'Here
-lives your man.'
-
-"I stood in astonishment. 'Can it be true?' I said.
-
-"'How long has he been out?' asked the man.
-
-"Something like fourteen years," I replied.
-
-"'Just so,' said he; 'and has he a very little wife?'
-
-"A very great one," I said.
-
-"'That's your man then,' he rejoined, and he bowed and bade me good day.
-
-"I stood some time in doubt what I should do. I questioned how I might
-be received by my old enemy, who had manifested to me so much malice,
-and whom I had been the occasion of banishing into slavery. But I
-thought, well, the transportation has been a lucky thing for him, and so
-I will venture. I went in at the lodge gate, a woman told me the family
-were at home. I advanced up a very fine gravel coach road, through the
-most beautiful woods, and came at length into an open lawn and fine
-flower-garden, where stood a grand white stone palace. 'Can this be the
-mansion of Welland of the Marlpool?' I said to myself. 'Can the collier
-have developed into a grandee like this, and through the chain-gang
-too?'
-
-"But I ascended a fine flight of steps, and rang the bell. A servant in
-rich embroidered livery, and profusely powdered, came to the door. I
-inquired for Mr. Welland, and was shown into a noble library, where an
-old white-haired gentleman sat reading the papers. A magnificent
-Highland greyhound, here called the kangaroo hound, crouched on the
-superb Turkey carpet near his feet, and the spaces of the walls which
-were not covered with books were filled with fine paintings. The old
-gentleman politely rose, and bowing, begged me to take a seat on the
-opposite side of the magnificent marble mantelpiece.
-
-"I was puzzled how to begin my reason for calling. I looked in the old
-gentleman's face, now calm and grave, and I was at a loss to determine
-whether I was not mistaken after all. I thought I could trace a likeness
-to the collier of the Marlpool, even amid that handsome suit of clothes,
-that delicately fine linen, and under that snowy hair, but--could it be?
-The old gentleman interrupted my speculations by mildly requesting that
-I would oblige him by stating why I honoured him with a call. I paused
-again for a moment. I grew still more confused, but I broke through my
-restraint by an effort, and said, 'Was I right in opining that Mr.
-Welland was a countryman of mine--from Derbyshire?'
-
-"A cloud fell on his brow, and he replied, but coldly, 'I am from that
-county.'
-
-"'Then,' said I, reassured, 'you will not have forgotten the name of
-Barnicott?'
-
-"A flush passed over his features--a fierce one, it seemed to me. His
-eyes flashed, and he demanded, in a short, stern tone, what was the
-purport of my inquiry.
-
-"'Because,' I said, 'I am that Luke Barnicott who was supposed to be
-drowned in Hillmarton dam.'
-
-"As I said these words, the old gentleman gave me a startled look,
-turned unusually pale, and then springing towards me, seized my hands
-convulsively, and exclaimed, 'Thank God! what a weight you fling from my
-soul! Is it, can it be true, that you are that boy?'
-
-"'I am he,' I said, 'and I have come six hundred miles to seek to make
-amends for the unintentional misfortune of causing you'--I hesitated to
-bring out the words of ignominy.
-
-"'Of causing my transportation!' he said promptly. 'Thank God for that,
-now I know that I am not guilty of your death; but all these years I
-have borne in my soul the feeling that you were rotting in the bottom of
-that dam.'
-
-"The old man shook me vehemently by the hand. 'Thank God!' he ejaculated
-again. 'Now all is right; now I shall live and die in peace. Now I can
-say, Luke Barnicott, you did me the grandest day's work imaginable when
-you caused my transportation, or rather when I caused it myself by mad
-anger against you.' I asked his pardon a thousand times for my folly in
-tantalizing him with the brick at the pit.
-
-"'Don't mention it,' he said; 'we have both of us something to forget
-and to forgive. God, I trust, has forgiven us both. He has prospered me
-beyond all conception. I am one of the richest men in this colony. I
-have lands that would make estates for half-a-dozen noblemen, and I have
-ships on half-a-dozen seas. My story is no secret; everybody knows who
-are emancipists here, and who are not But we have wealth, and friends,
-and rising families who will one day rank with the first people of the
-colony in education and worth. As for me, I feel I am no longer the poor
-collier of the Marlpool. By trade, by study, by associating with men of
-intelligence and mind, my own mind and views have expanded. I have grown
-out of a black, crawling, ignorant caterpillar into a something more
-noble--into a man and a Christian. I rank with a marked class here, it
-is true, but I have wealth and friends, and a fine virtuous family; and
-I have laboured hard to subdue that fierceness and rancour which once
-disgraced me. You are the cause of this, and I bid you ten times
-welcome. But come, I must introduce you to Mrs. Welland.'
-
-"He led the way through a spacious hall into an equally spacious and
-richly-furnished drawing-room, where I saw sitting a venerable lady,
-reading with spectacles, and, like her husband, with hair white as snow.
-She rose at our entrance, and I instantly recognised that remarkable
-stature. But it was no longer the lofty, strapping figure, with a bold,
-handsome face, and with an old slouched man's hat on, and arrayed in
-dirty and negligent dress, as I recollected Doll Welland. The old and
-venerable lady had the air of an ancient dowager empress. I could have
-fancied her the Czarina of all the Russias.
-
-"'My dear,' said Mr. Welland, 'I introduce to you a friend, who comes,
-as it were, from the dead. You must go back to past times, to the
-Marlpool, to the windmill, to--Luke Barnicott.'
-
-"The venerable and stately lady stood in silent wonder. She gazed on her
-husband, and then on me. 'What words, my dear, are these?' she said 'You
-tear open old and very deep wounds.'
-
-"'Let them all be closed and healed for ever, for this is the boy
-Barnicott, who "was dead and is alive, who was lost and is found."'
-
-"I will not," said Luke, "attempt to describe the venerable lady's
-agitation, and, as that subsided, her joy. Like her husband, she seized
-and held my hands, and wet them with streaming tears, and kissed them in
-her emotion. All bitter feeling had long passed out of her bosom. They
-had made a sharp expiation for their crime in persecuting me, during
-their early years in the colony, and in the deep-lying sense of my
-destruction in their souls up to this moment. This had softened and
-ameliorated their hearts; they had become strongly religious; prosperity
-had not spoiled them; and my arrival, and my errand to make a full
-amends for my folly, now needless, cast a stream of heavenly sunshine on
-the evening of their days.
-
-"I was constrained to take up my quarters with them during my stay. They
-explained to their sons and daughters, now all grown up, and some of
-them married, and with mansions and equipages of great splendour, who I
-was,--for my story was familiar to them all. I found myself at once
-amongst a set of fine young men and women, highly educated, and in every
-respect most estimable and charming. I visited them at their houses,
-and accompanied them to those of their friends situated on the woody
-shores and promontories that surround the delightful Bay of Sydney. I
-rode with them across the sandy tract, carpeted with flowers and
-thicketed with blooming shrubs of rare beauty, to Botany Bay. There we
-sometimes took boats, and enjoyed the dangerous and exciting sport of
-killing sharks. In that water, clear as crystal, we could see the
-terrible monsters come with rapid sweeps up to the sides of our boats,
-which they would seek to overturn, in which case we should probably all
-have been snapped asunder and devoured. But throwing them a piece of
-meat on a hook, they caught at that, and we drew them up to the boat,
-and stunned them by striking them on the nose with the boat-hooks, and
-dragged them in triumph to land.
-
-"Sometimes we made a party at snake-hunting in the woods and thickets
-around the houses of Mr. Welland, or of his sons or daughters, leading
-down to the bay. Armed with whips, the ladies as well as the gentlemen,
-and our legs defended with tall boots, we rushed into the wilderness of
-shrubs, and starting the lurking serpents, most of them of deadly venom,
-we gave chase, and soon cut them to pieces with our whips. Sometimes we
-made long rides into the forests and encamped there in huts, and spent
-whole days in shooting and in hunting the kangaroo. We visited the palmy
-hills of Illawara, and saw the giant nettle trees, large as oaks, and
-capable of killing a horse very quickly by their stings; or we roved
-amongst the orange and lemon groves of Paramatta, and wondered how all
-this enchanted life had sprung out of the collieries and the events of
-the Marlpool, in Derbyshire. I can only say," Luke added when he closed
-his narrative, "that I quitted my old cronies, the Wellands and their
-children, with profound regret, and I feel that the regret was mutual.
-The old collier of the Marlpool, now the millionnaire of Sydney, has not
-forgotten his old friends and native place. I have brought with me L500
-to build and partly endow a school on the spot where his humble cottage
-once stood; and I shall feel it my duty and my pleasure to state the
-facts that this is the gift of the Wellands, fifteen years ago
-transported on the charge of having murdered me in consequence of my
-disappearance. That, innocent of the charge, God has wonderfully
-prospered them in their distant exile; that they have grown rich and
-esteemed, and have sent by me, whom they were supposed to have
-destroyed, this handsome token of their remembrance to their native
-place. That is due to their justification, and to the wonderful means of
-compensation existing in the immensely-extended British empire, where
-even the man unjustly condemned at home, can find, in his unjust
-punishment, the way to far superior fortune; and where those justly
-condemned may expiate their offences against society by returning to
-virtue, and by attaining to a position and a power which enables them to
-diffuse the most salutary hopes and the most substantial benefits around
-them."
-
-This is the story of Welland the collier and Luke Barnicott, whom may
-Heaven long preserve!
-
-
-
-
-THE CASTLE EAST OF THE SUN.
-
-AN OLD STORY, FROM THE DANISH.
-
-
-There was once a king who had been very prosperous and happy, but he was
-growing old. He had six sons and one daughter. His sons were very gay
-and jovial young men, who spent their days very merrily; and when the
-old king saw their vigorous sports and their enjoyment of life, he
-sighed to think that he could not be young once more. His daughter was
-beautiful and mild, and devoted all her days to amuse the old king, and
-to make him forget that he was growing old. But there came a very
-handsome prince from a far-off country, and he fell in love with the old
-king's daughter, and asked her in marriage, and desired to take her away
-with him to his own kingdom.
-
-Now, the prince was very handsome, and had a very beautiful carriage,
-and very fine horses, and many servants, and plenty of gold and jewels,
-and everything which belongs to a prince. But the old king desired to
-know where lay the kingdom of the prince, and what was its name. But the
-prince said that it was the island which lay east of the sun and west of
-the world, and that was its name; and that it was so far off that nobody
-had ever been to it from this country, nor had any one come to this
-country from it besides himself.
-
-Then the old king was not willing that his daughter should marry a
-prince from a country so far off that nobody ever before heard of it.
-The young princes, his sons, were also opposed to the marriage. They did
-not like the prince because he was so much handsomer than themselves,
-and had more money, and appeared with so much more splendour than they
-could. They said he was probably some adventurer and impostor, for no
-one had ever heard of the country he pretended to come from, nor could
-they see how any one could get thither from a place east of the sun and
-west of the world.
-
-Now, the princess felt a great affection for the strange prince, for he
-was the handsomest man who had ever come to her father's court, and was
-passionately in love with her; but she would not consent to leave her
-father in his old age. Then said the prince, that he was bound not to
-return to his own country, nor to take upon him its government, for
-three years, and for that time he would stay in this country; and when
-they went away at length, he would send the old king some of the water
-which played in the fountain in the court of his castle, and some of the
-apples which grew over the sides of the fountain, and were wetted daily
-with the dew of its spray. This fountain was the fountain of
-immortality, and the apples were the apples of youth; and whoever drank
-of that water and ate one of those apples would be instantly young
-again, and enjoy once more all the buoyancy and ardour of his freshest
-years.
-
-When the old king heard that, he was very glad, and gave his consent for
-the prince to marry his daughter, for above all things he wished to be
-young again, and to enjoy his life as he had done in his youthful years.
-The princess, too, on learning this, was willing to marry the prince,
-for she thought if her father could be young again he would find plenty
-of sources of happiness, and she herself would not grieve to go away to
-such a far-off country, if by that means she could thus purchase for her
-father the great desire of his heart, and the renewal of his life.
-
-So the prince and princess were married, and they lived in a splendid
-palace near the old king, and were very happy. Every day the princess
-found the prince more amiable and sensible, and desirous to add to her
-felicity, and he promised himself a long and joyous life with her in his
-own beautiful island east of the sun and west of the world--so long,
-that nobody could tell the end of it, for they could drink of the
-fountain of life and eat of the apples of youth daily.
-
-But the old king was so impatient for a draught of this water, and a
-taste of one of those apples, that he forgot that the prince said that
-he was bound not to return to his kingdom for three years. He was
-impatient for the prince and princess to begone, and to send some of the
-apples and the water, for he longed with a longing unto death for the
-renewal of his youth, which in his memory seemed so beautiful.
-
-When the prince heard this he was very sorrowful, and said it could not
-be done, for no one knew the way to his kingdom but himself, and that if
-he returned before his time he should become a captive instead of a
-king, and be miserable for ever. But the old king became very angry, and
-redoubled his demands that the prince and princess should set out. The
-old king's sons also insinuated that the prince did not go because he
-had no kingdom to go to, but that he was what they had always asserted,
-an adventurer and impostor.
-
-The princess was very unhappy, and besought the prince to tell her the
-way to his kingdom, and let her go and bring the apples of youth and the
-water of life; but he told her that it could not be done. It was more
-than both their lives were worth. He begged the princess to promise him
-that she would never urge this again till the three years were up, or it
-would cost them then happiness for ever. But the old king was very
-pressing. He said he might be dead in less than three years, and then he
-should lose the beautiful renewal of his youth for which his soul
-longed, and of which he had made himself sure when he consented that
-his daughter should marry the prince. He urged his daughter to prevail
-on her husband to set out, and the princess, between the commands of the
-old king and the assurance of the prince that to press him further was
-the total ruin of their happiness, was the most miserable of women, and
-wept day and night. For many months she resisted, however, all desire to
-penetrate into the secret of the prince, and all the importunities of
-the old king, her father, and the taunts of the princes, her brothers.
-But when she saw how the gloom of despair hung heavier and heavier on
-the king's brow, and heard him say that if she loved him she could help
-him, she was ready to break her heart of grief. But her brothers' words
-sank deeper into her soul, for they derided the prince, her husband, as
-a mock prince and a pretender, and said that he was the Prince of
-Nowhere, for no one had ever heard of his pretended country. At length
-her anguish grew to that pitch that she burst out in her husband's
-presence with the words, "O that I could but know where your kingdom is,
-that I might go and save the life of my father!"
-
-At these words the prince turned deadly pale, sprang up, and embraced
-his wife passionately, saying, "Alas! alas! it is all true! We must
-part, and for ever!"
-
-With a deep groan he escaped from her arms, and issuing out of the door
-was seen no more. It was a dark, wild night, but he passed hastily out
-of the palace, followed by all his servants. The princess, in a state of
-distraction, ran after him to detain him, but he and his followers had
-already disappeared, and from that day no man saw them again.
-
-Then the old king and the princes said that the pretended prince was in
-reality a troll (wizard) or an evil spirit, and that they were well rid
-of him. But the princess would not believe anything but that he was a
-true and noble prince, who was bound by some solemn oath, and she was
-overwhelmed with sorrow that she had thus broken his commands, and lost
-him for ever. She hid herself long in the depths of her palace, and
-wished that she were dead.
-
-But the old king, though he had said that the prince was a troll or an
-evil spirit, began soon again to hanker after the golden apples and the
-water of life, and bade his sons go and seek for the island east of the
-sun and west of the world. The sons declared that they did not believe
-there was any such island, or any such apples or water, but that they
-were willing to go forth and make a quest after them. They were indeed
-glad to have plenty of money put into their hands, and to be able thus
-to go from country to country, and see the world.
-
-So the old king furnished two of them with money, and sent them out, and
-they went away but never returned. Weeks and months, and then a whole
-year went round, and the two sons neither returned, nor did there come
-any news of them. Then the old king sent out two more, and they also
-went out, but never returned. Weeks and months, and a whole year went
-round, and they neither came back, nor any news of them. Then the old
-king, whose desire for the golden apples and the water of life was only
-become the stronger from his longings and disappointments, sent out his
-last two sons, and bade them in Heaven's name to do their utmost, for if
-they failed all failed him, and he had no son left to succeed him. So
-they went, and, like the rest, they neither returned nor was there any
-news of them.
-
-Three years had now gone, the time to which the prince had limited his
-stay, and now the old king thought that he might have had the apples of
-youth and the water of immortality, and by his impatience he had lost
-them and all his sons into the bargain. There was nobody now left him
-but his daughter, the princess, and she too now declared that she also
-would set out to seek her husband, and the apples of youth and the water
-of life at the same time. The old king was rejoiced to let her go, for
-he thought of nothing but of renewing his youth, and no price seemed too
-great to pay it. He had lost all his sons in the quest, and now he was
-willing to risk the loss of his daughter and sole child, the prop and
-last comfort of his age.
-
-So the princess kissed the old king, her father, and bade him be of good
-cheer, for that if she was in life she would come back to him, and, if
-possible, with the precious apples and water in her hands. Then she set
-forth with the old king's blessing, and after she had wept herself weary
-as she walked along, she wiped the tears from her eyes, looked
-steadfastly into the wide world before her, and wandered on many, many
-days, till finally she came to a mountain by which an old woman sat and
-played with a golden apple. The princess asked the old woman if she knew
-the way to the prince who lived with his stepmother in a castle east of
-the sun and west of the world?
-
-"How camest _thou_ to know him?" asked the old woman. "Art thou, indeed,
-the maiden that he should have married?" "Yes," replied the princess; "I
-am she."
-
-"So! thou art really she!" said the old woman. "Yes! my child,"
-continued she, "I would gladly help thee, but I know no more of the
-castle than that it is east of the sun and west of the world, and
-thither canst thou not go, I fear. But I will lend thee my horse, and on
-that thou canst ride to my sister, and perhaps she can tell thee. When
-thou comest to my sister, then strike the horse behind the left ear, and
-let it come home again. Thou canst also take with thee this golden
-apple, for it may probably be useful to thee. But before thou settest
-out, thou must stay all night with me."
-
-The princess thanked her, and stayed all night, and when it was early
-morning the old woman said, "Stay a moment, I am queen of the beasts,
-and we will find out if any of them know where the castle lies that is
-east of the sun and west of the world." So the old woman went out before
-the door, and whistled aloud three times; and there came the beasts
-hurrying from all quarters--lions, and bisons, and wild horses, and many
-another creature, great and small; but none of them could tell the way
-to the castle.
-
-Then the princess mounted on the horse, and rode on and on for an
-immense way. She rode over vast grey heaths, and over stony hills, and
-through ancient mossy woods, till she came to a very old woman who sat
-at the foot of a mountain with a golden reel. The princess asked her
-whether she was not the sister of the queen of beasts, and whether she
-could tell her the way to the castle that was east of the sun and west
-of the world.
-
-The old woman replied that truly she was sister to the queen of the
-beasts, but that she knew no more of the castle than that it was east of
-the sun and west of the world, and that the princess would not, she
-feared, easily get there. But, added she, "I am queen of the birds, and
-in the morning I will ask them if any of them know the way to the
-castle, for some of them fly very far. But, for my part, I have lived
-here while the trees have grown up and rotted down several times, and no
-one ever asked me the way to this castle before. However, I will lend
-thee my horse, and on that canst thou ride to my other sister, the queen
-of the fishes, if the birds know nothing. When thou comest to my sister,
-strike the horse behind the left ear, and bid it come home again. And,
-besides this, thou canst take this golden reel with thee, for it may
-prove useful to thee."
-
-In the morning the old woman went out before the door, and whistled
-three times aloud, and from all quarters of the sky, from wood and
-mountain, came the birds flying--hawk and eagle, swallow and swift, the
-travelling cuckoo, and the ancient phoenix, came sweeping down with a
-great rush of pinions, but none of them could tell the way to the
-castle. The phoenix had once seen it, but so long ago, and in a former
-life, that she remembered nothing more than that she was dreadfully
-weary with her flight from it homewards.
-
-The princess mounted the horse, and again rode on for days and weeks,
-over huge, huge grey heaths and stony mountains, and through mossy
-woods. At length she came to where another old woman sat at the foot of
-a mountain, and spun from a golden distaff. The princess asked if she
-were the sister of the queen of the birds, and whether she could tell
-her anything of the prince who lived in the castle east of the sun and
-west of the world?
-
-"Yes," replied the old woman, "I am the sister of the queen of the
-birds; and art thou indeed the princess that the prince married?" "Yes,"
-said the princess; but the old woman knew nothing of the way more than
-the two former ones. "East from the sun and west of the world lies the
-castle," she said, "that is true, but thither canst thou never go. Three
-times have the trees grown up and rotted down here, since I lived on
-this spot, and thou art the first person that has asked the way to the
-castle. Wait, however, till morning, and we will ask the fishes, for I
-am queen of the fishes, and some of them swim very far."
-
-So in the morning the old woman took the princess down to the sea-shore,
-and she whistled three times, and the fish came swimming from all
-quarters. The herrings which travel the shores of sunny countries came,
-and the shark, and the huge whale, but none of them had ever travelled
-so far; only the whale had heard that he had relations very far south,
-and that there was an island east of the sun and west of the world that
-they sometimes sailed round, but the way to it the whale knew not.
-
-"So then," said the old woman, "there is nothing for it but to inquire
-of the winds, for they travel farther than beast, or bird, or fish; and
-first thou shalt go to the east wind, which is nearest. I will lend thee
-my horse to ride thither, and when thou comest to the east wind, strike
-the horse behind the left ear, and bid him come home; and take this
-golden distaff with thee, for it may probably be of great use to thee.
-God speed thee on thy journey, for it is a long one, and I know not how
-thou canst get there, but shouldst thou ever travel this way again, I
-pray thee let me know how it went with thee."
-
-So the princess thanked the queen of the fishes for all her kindness,
-promised if she lived to let her know what befel her, and, mounting the
-horse, rode away to the east wind. Over many a moor and mountain, and
-through many a mossy wood she rode on for a long, long time before she
-came to the east wind. But at length she arrived, and asked him whether
-he could tell her how she might come to the prince who lived in the
-island and in the castle which lies east of the sun and west of the
-world?
-
-"Of the prince," said the east wind, "I have indeed heard, and of the
-castle too, but the way can I not tell thee, for I have never blown so
-far. But I will take thee to my brother, the west wind; very likely he
-may know, for he is much stronger than I am, and blows farther. Thou
-canst seat thyself on my back, and I will bear thee thither."
-
-The princess seated herself on his back, and away he went. When they
-came to the west wind, the east wind said, "I have brought thee a maiden
-who has married the prince who lives in the castle east of the sun and
-west of the world--canst thou tell her the way thither?"
-
-"Nay," said the west wind, "so far have I never blown. But if thou wilt,
-maiden, set thyself on my back, and I will carry thee to the south wind,
-for he is far stronger than I am, and blows and wanders about
-everywhere."
-
-The princess seated herself on his back, and it was not long before they
-were at the south wind; and the west wind said, "I have brought thee a
-maiden who has married the prince of the castle east of the sun and west
-of the world--canst thou bear her thither?"
-
-"Nay," said the south wind, "I know not the way. In my time I have blown
-about a good deal, but so far as that I never reached. But I will carry
-the maiden to my brother, the north wind, who is the oldest and
-strongest of us all, and if he cannot tell thee the way, then never wilt
-thou find it."
-
-The princess seated herself on the back of the swift south wind, and
-away he went at such a rate that the very heath trembled. They were
-quickly at the north wind, but he was so wild and furious, that long
-before they reached him he blew actual snow and ice in their faces.
-
-"What do you want?" growled he out, so that a shudder went through them
-like cold water.
-
-"Oh! thou must not be so rude with us," said the south wind, "for it is
-I, thy brother, and this is a maiden who has married the prince who
-lives in the island castle east of the sun and west of the world.
-Thither will she, and would now ask counsel of thee how to yet there."
-
-"Well," said the north wind, "I know the place well where it lies. I
-once blew an aspen leaf thither, but I was so fatigued that I was not
-able to blow again for many a blessed day. But if thou really wilt go
-thither," said he to the princess, "and art not afraid, I will take thee
-on my back, and see whether I cannot blow thee thither."
-
-The princess said she must and would go if there were any possible way.
-That she was not in the least afraid, and would dare everything, let it
-be as terrible as it might.
-
-"Here, then, must thou stay all night," said the north wind; "for we
-must have the whole day before us if we mean to reach the place."
-
-Early in the morning the north wind awoke her; blew himself up, and made
-himself so huge and strong that it was quite terrible; and away they
-went through the air as if they would drive to the end of the world.
-There arose so tremendous a storm, that whole villages and woods were
-blown down; and when they came over the great sea the ships sank by
-hundreds. Away they went over the waters, and that so far that no mortal
-could conceive the distance. But the north wind began to grow weaker and
-weaker, so immense was the way, that he could scarcely blow any more;
-and he sank lower and lower down, till he at last flew so low that the
-waves of the ocean struck his feet.
-
-"Art thou afraid?" demanded he of the princess.
-
-"No, not in the least," said she.
-
-And now they were not far from land. There lay the island, all beautiful
-with pleasant palm and cocoa trees, lifting their airy heads in the
-sunshine, and with green and flowery forests coming down to the edge of
-the clear sparkling water. There stood the lofty castle with its
-pleasant gardens and soft lawns sweeping to the sea, and many bright
-birds and wonderful flowers all about. They had really reached the
-island and the castle that lies east of the sun and west of the world.
-But the north wind had scarcely strength left to reach the land, and, in
-fact, he alighted on a rock which rose out of the sea at some distance
-from the strand.
-
-"Here will I lie and rest myself a little," said the great rough north
-wind, "and, to tell the truth, I would fain be excused going any nearer
-to the island, for they are not used here to such rough visitors as I,
-and were I to settle as softly as possible, I should chill many of these
-gorgeous flowers and trees to death, and make those birds and
-butterflies fall senseless to the ground. Ho! there I see our friend the
-whale I will ask him to carry you over. Ho there! friend whale," said
-the north wind hoarsely, "come hither, and carry over to the island the
-princess who has married the prince there."
-
-The whale came somewhat surlily to the task, and blowing up a huge
-stream of water to clear his voice, said,--
-
-"If she go with me she mast go quickly, for I am in danger here. I have
-pursued some tender herrings to this side of the island for my
-breakfast; but if I am seen the people will shoot their arrows into me,
-and probably come off in boats and with harpoons after me. It is rather
-provoking that one cannot seek one's breakfast in peace without being
-called on to become a ferryman."
-
-"Be civil, friend whale, as becomes thee," said the north wind. "I have
-blown along all day and night with the maiden, and surely it cannot
-hurt thy strong back just to bear her to the shore."
-
-"Waste no more words," said the whale, edging his huge bulk to the side
-of the rock, "for there will soon be somebody spying us out."
-
-So the north wind bade the princess good speed, and she began to climb
-upon the whale's back; but it was so steep and slippery, that she found
-it very difficult to ascend. Several times she slipped down again to the
-rock, and the whale began to snort and blow with impatience. At length
-the princess accomplished the ascent, and thanking the north wind, she
-was borne away towards the island. Before they reached it, however, the
-whale plunged down under water, and swam so far under the waves, that
-the princess thought she should certainly never come up alive. At
-length, however, the huge creature emerged, and the princess recovering
-her breath, and wiping the brine from her eyes and nostrils, asked the
-whale why he treated her so rudely?
-
-"Why were you so long in getting up?" asked the whale. "Every minute of
-your delay might prepare an arrow for my hide; and methinks that great
-savage north wind, whom nobody can hurt, might just as well have carried
-you to the shore, when he had brought you so far; but these northern
-creatures are only barbarians."
-
-The princess thought she knew which was the more civilized of the two;
-but she was too prudent to speak, as she might have this time gone to
-the very bottom of the sea. So she was silent, till the whale rubbed the
-green edge of the island with his side, when she leaped down, and spite
-of his rudeness, thanked him kindly for his good office.
-
-The princess now approached the front of the castle, and seating herself
-under the windows, played with the golden apple, and the first person
-that she saw was the witch stepmother.
-
-"What wilt thou have for thy golden apple?" demanded she of the princess
-as she threw open the window.
-
-"That is not to sell, neither for gold nor money," said the princess.
-
-"If thou wilt not sell it for gold nor for money, what then wilt thou
-take for it?" asked the stepmother. "I will give thee whatever thou
-desirest."
-
-"Oh, then!" said the princess, "if thou wilt do that, thou shalt have
-it; and the price is, that I am admitted for an hour to see the prince
-who lives in this castle."
-
-"That shalt thou," said the stepmother, and took the golden apple. But
-when the princess came into the prince's room, there he lay in such a
-deep sleep that the princess could not wake him. She called to him,
-shook him, wept and lamented aloud and passionately, but all in vain.
-She saw that he was held fast under a spell; and as soon as the hour was
-past came the stepmother, and chased the princess from the room and from
-the castle.
-
-The next day the princess seated herself again before the castle, put
-yarn upon the golden reel, and began to wind it off into a ball. And now
-it happened just as it had done the day before. The stepmother asked
-what she would take for the golden reel, and she replied that it was not
-to be sold for money or gold; but if she might for just one hour more
-see the prince, she would give her the reel The stepmother gladly
-agreed, took the reel, and conducted the princess into the hall where
-the prince was. But he was, just as the day before, in so deep a sleep,
-that, spite of all that the princess could do, she could not wake him.
-She called to him, and shook him, and wept and lamented bitterly, but
-all in vain; and the moment that the hour was up, the stepmother came
-and chased her from the room and the castle.
-
-The next day the princess seated herself with her golden distaff before
-the castle, and the instant that the stepmother saw her she longed to
-have the golden distaff. The princess would not sell it for money or
-gold, but again bargained for one hour more in the presence of the
-prince. But now the servants of the prince, who had heard the
-lamentations of a woman in his presence on the two former days, had told
-him, and the prince was full of wonder. He was under the power of the
-witch stepmother, because in three years' wandering through the world he
-had not found a woman who loved him sufficiently to ask him no questions
-as to whence he came and what he was. Therefore must he alternately
-sleep twelve hours a magic sleep, and twelve hours keep awake; during
-all which time the stepmother ruled over his kingdom and did as she
-pleased. But now, the servants having awoke his curiosity, when the
-stepmother brought him the wine at breakfast which locked him for twelve
-hours in unbreakable sleep, he pretended to drink it, but in reality
-poured it behind him. He was, therefore, awake when the princess
-entered, and was astonished and rejoiced beyond all bounds to see his
-wife again. She then related to him how it had gone with her, and how
-she had managed to reach the castle.
-
-When she had told him all this, he said:--"Thou art come precisely at
-the right time, for the stepmother has been exercising her witchcraft to
-occasion me to marry another princess, which must have taken place if
-she could have retained her power over me for a week longer. But now is
-her power at an end, for it can endure no longer than till a true woman
-asserts her right as wife in this castle. Henceforth must she flee to
-her own kindred in the mountains of the mainland, and we are now free to
-do whatever we please."
-
-Then the prince called in all his servants and showed them his true
-wife, and there was great rejoicing, but the false stepmother had
-already fled away. The prince held a great banquet of ten days, and
-showed the princess all the beauties of the castle and island.
-
-After this she told him how her father, the old king, still longed for a
-draught of the fountain, and a taste of the apples which grew in his
-court, and begged that she might go and carry them. But the prince asked
-how she could go, for the north wind had long blown himself back to his
-place; and when the princess thought on this, and saw not how she was
-ever to quit the island, she was very sorrowful. Then the prince smiled,
-and said he would show her how she should go, and that he would go with
-her. He therefore ordered provisions and wine for a long journey, and
-commanded them to be carried down to the shore. But there was neither
-boat nor ship to be seen. Yet the prince took the princess by the hand
-and said, "Now we say farewell for the present to the island east of the
-sun and west of the world, and we will set sail to see the old king, thy
-father."
-
-At this the princess wondered more and more. But when they were come
-down to the waters edge, the prince took from his pocket a small thing
-like a folded skin, and said, "This is the ship in which we shall sail."
-The princess laughed and thought it a jest, but the prince opened it,
-and behold it was like a small boat. He stretched it out so long as his
-arms could reach, and then set it upon the water, commanding one of his
-people to step into it. He did so, and there was then room for two.
-Another stepped into it, and there was immediately room for two more.
-Thus it continued to expand till twenty men were in it, when the prince
-ordered the provision and awnings for the voyage to be carried in, and
-then stepped in with the princess. And now the princess saw that there
-was ample room for all, and she and the prince sat under a canopy of
-blue and gold, and the ship seemed instinct with life, and impatient to
-set sail.[1]
-
-[Footnote 1: Odin had his ship of this kind, called Skidbladnir, or the
-skating leaf, and in the Scandinavian Sagas such convenient vessels are
-frequently mentioned.]
-
-Then said the prince to the ship, "Away, over land and water to the
-queen of the fishes!"
-
-And the ship cut smoothly away over the sunny waves without oar or sail,
-fleet as an arrow, till it reached the coast where the queen of the
-fishes lived. She was greatly delighted to see the princess return with
-the handsome prince, and in so wonderful a ship. The princess thanked
-her for her kindness in enabling her to reach her husband, and gave her
-one of the apples of youth, and a cup of the water; and no sooner had
-the old woman eaten the apple and drunk the water, than her wrinkles
-vanished from her skin, her hair from grey became black as the raven's
-plumes, and she stood there as a beautiful and stately maiden. The
-princess was not the less delighted than the queen of the birds, for she
-now saw that her father would certainly regain his youth. With many
-thanks on the part of the now beautiful queen of fishes, the prince and
-princess took their leave, assuring her that they should call on her
-sisters, the queen of birds and the queen of beasts, and give them also
-the same youth-renewing fruit and drink. Thither the wonderful ship
-sailed, and thence took its way at the prince's command to the court of
-the old king.
-
-The old king was now become very weak, and lay at the point of death.
-All his six sons had returned, having spent all their money in riotous
-living in a distant city, and declared that they had been all round the
-world, and had inquired in all lands, and that nobody had ever heard of
-the castle east of the sun and west of the world. They protested that
-there was no such place, and no prince of such a place, and that his
-daughter would never return.
-
-At this news the old king groaned bitterly, and lay helpless and
-sorrowful unto death. All his beautiful hopes of ever renewing his youth
-died in his heart; and while he was about to give up the ghost, his sons
-watched for his last breath, that they might seize on his treasures and
-spend them in riot and folly.
-
-But just as they thought the old king's breath was departing, the prince
-and princess came sailing over the land in the ship, and stopped, to the
-amazement of all the courtiers, at the castle gate. Then entered the
-prince and the princess, who was weeping for joy. She bore in one hand a
-crystal flagon of the water of the fountain, and in the other a golden
-salver of the apples of youth; and kneeling by the old king's couch, she
-kissed him with many tears, and wet his lips with the water. All at
-once the old man's eyes gleamed with a sudden brightness; he raised
-himself on his elbows, and saw his daughter, with the prince by her
-side, stand weeping for joy, with the salver of fruit and the crystal
-flagon in her hand. Then he knew that she had reached the castle east of
-the sun and west of the world, and had come back for his sake. He
-eagerly stretched out his hand for the fruit, and having eaten one
-apple, he sprang from his couch with a bound such as he used when
-springing into battle, and then drinking a cup of the glittering water,
-he stood before them a stately man in wonderful beauty and strength. In
-his joy he stretched forth his arms and strode across the floor, and
-laying his hands on his sides as if to make sure how well he felt, he
-laughed and said, "Now again I am a king!"
-
-Then he embraced and kissed his daughter, and also embraced
-affectionately the prince, praising them as the best of children that
-ever king had. But suddenly his face darkened with a frown, and he said,
-"What shall we do with those six nidings (worthless fellows) who call
-themselves my sons? They shall all be put to death."
-
-But the prince and princess said, "Not so. They would buy their lives as
-the reward for having brought the king the renewal of his youth." The
-prince also requested that he might have the six sons delivered to him,
-engaging to make useful men of them in less than five years. To this the
-king, no longer called the old, readily consented; and when the feast of
-rejoicing was ended, the prince again took the wonderful ship from his
-pocket, and placing in it the six unworthy brothers, he bade the ship
-sail away to a region of wild and far-off mountains, where he delivered
-them to the keeping of the Dwarfs, who made them hew stone in the
-quarries, fell timber and shape it in the forests and work at the anvil
-in their smithies. There they laboured from day to day severely, and
-lived on the coarsest fare, till wisdom and better thoughts by degrees
-came into them, and they sent and petitioned that the king, their
-father, would forgive them, and place them in one of the lowest offices
-in his kingdom, where they might practise before all men the humility
-and gravity which they had acquired from the Dwarfs, and the solitude,
-the labour, and the frugal fair.
-
-The king, having consented to this prayer, and found them true to their
-word, divided his kingdom amongst them, and sailed away with the prince
-and princess in the wonderful ship to the island east of the sun and
-west of the world, where he eats freely of the apples of youth, and
-drinks daily of the fountain of immortality, and feels that he is a king
-indeed.
-
-
-
-
-THE HOLIDAYS AT BARENBURG CASTLE.
-
-BY OTTILIE WILDERMUTH.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER I.--BREAKING UP.
-
-
-It was very hot in the school-room at Steinheim, almost as hot as in an
-oven, although the faded green blinds were drawn down. Neither learning
-nor teaching goes forward satisfactorily on such days; and, indeed, it
-was as much as the good schoolmaster could do, especially during this
-hot summer, to keep himself and his dear children awake over their
-books. When he walked up and down the narrow space between his tall
-chair and the school-benches, like a caged lion, the children asked one
-another anxiously, "Do you think he is angry?" not knowing that he only
-did so to prevent himself from falling fast asleep in his chair. There
-was not much danger of this happening among the children, for if any one
-of them dropped his head somewhat over his book, another was sure to
-tickle him under the nose with a pen-feather, so that he suddenly woke
-up again.
-
-To-day, however, the children were not sleepy, but neither were they
-industrious. Whilst they were reading, they kept looking up continually
-from their books to the door, as if expecting somebody, and yet at this
-time there seldom came any one, unless now and then an over-anxious
-mother who thought that her Michael or little Jacob had been too hardly
-dealt with. To-day, however, according to old custom, the schoolmaster's
-daughter Mina, and the bailiff's Emma, were gone to the clergyman's to
-ask about the breaking-up. For always as the time of the holidays
-approached, Mr. Erdmann, the schoolmaster, drew up a very politely
-expressed document in the name of the children, in which the clergyman
-was requested, "now the harvest season was at hand," that he would give
-permission to the children to discontinue their attendance at school "in
-order," said the writing, "that we may be able to assist our parents in
-the laborious business of the field."
-
-These petitions were then beautifully copied out by the best-writer in
-the school, and two little girls chosen to present them to the
-clergyman, because they were so much gentler and better-behaved than the
-unmannerly boy population.
-
-It was never known that the clergyman had returned a negative to these
-petitions for the school vacation, and yet there was always an
-uneasiness and an excitement amongst the children which could not be
-allayed. They might now almost have been on the eve of a little
-revolution; even Fritz, the schoolmaster's son, could not keep himself
-quiet, but fidgeted restlessly hither and thither. And yet Fritz was the
-best and cleverest scholar in the school; he was destined for the
-church, and had been instructed in Latin and Greek by the clergyman;
-therefore it was his duty to set a good example to all the others. This
-honourable post, it is true, had cost him an extra number of canings
-from his father, till finally he was advanced so far that the
-schoolmaster was able to say, with fatherly pride, when the others were
-lazy or behaved ill, "There, look at my Fritz!"
-
-At length the door opened, and the girls entered, who had on this
-occasion an especial importance in the eyes of the boys, and who, with
-their smooth, beautifully plaited hair and pink frocks, looked very
-pretty.
-
-"We are to break up!" said they, delivering thus to the schoolmaster,
-with beaming countenances, the answer to the embassy. "We are to break
-up!" was whispered loud and low throughout the school; but the master
-struck a blow with the hazel stick upon his desk, and amidst an
-instantaneous silence he said in a clear voice, "Silentium! that is to
-say, keep your tongues still! The clergyman has consented to the
-breaking up. Fritz, say it in Latin."
-
-"Hodie feriae habemus!" proclaimed Fritz in a shrill voice.
-
-"Good! That is to say, to-day we break up," explained the schoolmaster.
-"But you must, every one of you, write three beautiful copies; farther,
-you must commit to memory the six hymns that are marked, and two pages
-of selections, as well as ''Tis harvest time, the nodding corn!' Now,
-behave well, all of you, and be industrious; and go very quietly home,
-every one of you, like well-conducted children."
-
-Yes, indeed, very quietly and well-conducted! The little troop burst
-forth like a wild herd into the open air, as soon as the door was
-opened.
-
-"Hurrah! Breaking up!" shouted they, wild with joy; even the exemplary
-Fritz set up such an unbecoming shout of exultation that his father,
-who, however, was well pleased himself, thought it right to give him an
-admonitory pluck by the hair. Soon after the wild herd dispersed; many
-amongst them entering into such poor, joyless homes, that in comparison
-the school must have appeared a paradise, and yet they rejoiced that
-they had broken up, and we cannot be angry with them. It is the fact of
-labour, of regular occupation, which makes the feeling of liberty so
-like a golden blessing; the neglected lad, who lounges about idly one
-day after another, certainly never experiences the happy sense of a
-breaking up.
-
-Arrived at home, the schoolmaster exchanged his thin school-coat for his
-house-doublet, and seated himself comfortably on the wooden squab, for
-which his wife had made a cushion, for he had neither a house-coat nor
-yet a sofa.
-
-"Now, thank Heaven, for again a short pause," said the weary and
-hard-working man; "it will do me good to have a little rest, and look
-after my garden; and the bailiff has promised me some beautiful
-carnation-layers, it is not yet too late for them; we'll have it very
-beautiful, won't we, mother?"
-
-"Yes, yes, father," replied the acquiescent wife; "only early in the
-morning, and not in the blazing heat of noon."
-
-In the meantime, Fritz was earnestly and mysteriously whispering to Mina
-in a corner. "Do _you_ ask," at length said Mina. "Nay, _you_ had
-better," returned he.
-
-Mina, who had this day been with the clergyman, might surely venture a
-word with her father, and she began therefore, at first shyly, and then
-more boldly, "But, father, is it true?"
-
-"What true?" asked he.
-
-"May we?" asked she again slowly.
-
-"May you what?" inquired he again.
-
-"Go to see Mrs. Dote at the castle!" exclaimed Fritz, now speaking quite
-boldly, and astonished at his own courage.
-
-"Yes, oh yes, father!" now besought Mina, earnestly and in a winning
-tone. "You have no objection, mother, have you?" asked she, addressing
-her mother; "and if mother is willing, father, you won't say no, will
-you?"
-
-"And Mrs. Dote has invited us," said Fritz decisively; "and you
-promised, you know, father, and you always keep your word."
-
-"Why, yes; what do you think, mother?" said the good-natured father,
-somewhat undecidedly.
-
-"I don't know what to say," replied the mother, thoughtfully, "whether
-Mrs. Dote really meant it; and it is such a long way."
-
-"Oh, mother!" exclaimed Fritz, "five hours' walk, the nearest way
-fifteen miles; we can do that very well."
-
-"But you can't spare Mina, can you?" suggested the father.
-
-"Well, as far as that goes," said the mother smiling, "I think I can
-manage; little Paul will soon run alone, and Adolf plays about nicely in
-the garden. If you have no objection, father, we might give them the
-pleasure for once; I can soon have their few things ready."
-
-"Oh, mother, how kind and good you are!" exclaimed little Mina joyfully;
-Fritz threw his cap in the air, and shouted, "Hurrah! all the world
-over!"
-
-The father's consent was silently given, and preparations for the
-journey began as if it really were round the world that they were going.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER II.--THE JOURNEY.
-
-
-Before daylight, on the following morning, the children were already up.
-Mina combed and plaited her long hair by herself, in order to prove to
-her mother that she was fit to be trusted alone amongst strangers. Fritz
-also was washed and his hair combed, and he himself carefully dressed by
-the same hour, for on those hot summer days it was necessary to set out
-early.
-
-The schoolmaster had given the children a very exact description of the
-road and all the places through which they must pass; the mother put
-bread and early pears in Mina's basket as refreshment by the way,
-together with some nice fresh butter, carefully laid in damp green
-leaves as a little present for Mrs. Dote. Fritz's knapsack was packed as
-full as it could hold, with his Sunday clothes, a clean frock for Mina,
-and a change of linen, and all else that was necessary for them both, on
-so great and unexampled a journey. Mina was to carry the little basket,
-and a large red umbrella, a piece of old family property, which the
-mother gave them in case of need. They made a hearty breakfast of new
-milk and bread, and this over Fritz took his cap and his newly-cut hazel
-stick in his hand, whilst Mina, having put on her round straw hat, took
-the little basket on her arm. Their hearts felt a little heavy on this
-the first great leave-taking of their lives, and the good mother seemed
-as if she could never make an end of her admonitions and warnings, her
-messages and compliments to Mrs. Dote. But at length the last farewell
-was spoken, and the brother and sister, their young hearts throbbing
-with the excitement of adventure, set forth on their way. The parents
-gazed after them till they had turned the corner, and then the father
-went into his beloved flower-garden, and the mother into the house, to
-look after her yet sleeping children.
-
-Mina's heavy heart was soon light, as she walked on in the clear
-freshness of the morning air, which heralded a fine day. These children
-were not accustomed to parties of pleasure or to amusements; their
-journeyings hitherto had never extended beyond three or four miles from
-home, as far as Elsingen, where the grandmother lived, and yet now they
-had set out on such a long journey on a visit to Mrs. Dote, the
-lady-housekeeper of a royal castle! How joyously their hearts beat, how
-brilliantly their imaginations coloured the glories that awaited them!
-
-Mrs. Dote, the castle housekeeper, was once lady's maid in the noble
-family of Erlichhofen, where, also, the schoolmaster had held his first
-appointment; she had, in consequence, become very friendly with the
-schoolmaster's family, and had been greatly looked up to, as a person of
-much experience, by the schoolmaster's young wife, so that the
-black-eyed Fritz, who was her godson, had an especial claim to her
-regard. Years went on; the schoolmaster was ordered to a distant place,
-and they heard nothing for a long time of Miss Lisette, till at length
-she surprised them by a visit with her husband, an old man, keeper or
-house-steward of the royal hunting-castle of Barenburg, whom she, not
-then by any means young herself, had married. The schoolmaster and his
-wife returned the visit, and there it ended; for the distance was too
-great for the wife, who was delicate, to go on foot, and driving was too
-expensive an affair for a schoolmaster. Soon afterwards, also, the
-house-steward fell ill, and his wife was wholly engaged in attending
-him; and after his death, being herself advanced to his office, and the
-care of the castle entirely confided to her, she could not be absent
-from her trust even for a single day. She had, however, long since
-invited her godson and his sister to pay her a visit, and now at length
-it was about to be accomplished.
-
-The children walked onward, beguiling the way with merry talk; they had
-soon passed the familiar scenes which lay between them and the next
-village, and thenceforth it was wholly a land of new discovery. "But,
-look, that little brook runs along a good deal merrier than our slow
-Steinbach at home!"
-
-"Just look there, on the hillside lies a churchyard, with nothing but
-white crosses!" said Mina, in a melancholy tone.
-
-"A beautiful churchyard!" laughed out Fritz, "it's nothing but a flock
-of geese; hark how they are cackling!"
-
-"Oh yes!" returned little Mina, sorry that she had felt melancholy
-without any need. "But what a queer church-tower! Do you see, there are
-four little towers round one great old one! And just look there, they
-have got the stork's nest on the town-house! how foolish! A stork's nest
-belongs to the church."
-
-By degrees, however, the spirit for making new discoveries cooled; the
-cheerful talk ceased, and their steps became more and more weary; the
-sun was very hot, and the children were unaccustomed to long walks. They
-had, before setting out, said so much about their own strength, that
-they now felt ashamed of confessing to each other how tired they were,
-till at length Mina said, "But, I say, Fritz, how far have we yet to
-go?"
-
-"We must sit down for a little while that I may study our
-travelling-map," said Fritz consequentially; and they looked out for a
-nice, shady place, on the grassy edge of the field, under some willows,
-which having found, it was with a great sense of relief that the boy
-threw down his knapsack and stretched himself on the soft green turf.
-"Mossigheim, a mile and half," read he from the paper on which his
-father had noted down the distances; "we have passed that; Erlach, three
-miles--that was the place with the queer church-tower; Rothenhof, three
-miles--that must be the beautiful farm-house yonder, all amongst the
-fruit trees; next comes Disselsburg, where father said we were to take
-our first rest. Now, however, we must quietly study the travelling-map;
-but we will, in the first place, rest a little while."
-
-"Oh yes!" sighed little Mina, who was thoroughly tired; "but shall we be
-soon at the castle?"
-
-"Not just yet," said Fritz, in a low voice; "we have only come about
-seven miles and a half, and we have now ten and a half to go."
-
-"Oh, that is impossible!" exclaimed Mina, "for it is only fifteen miles
-altogether."
-
-"Well, see," said Fritz, drawing out with great importance his father's
-silver watch, as large and as thick almost as a warming-pan, and which
-had been lent to him for this journey; "we set out at five o'clock, now
-it is eight; we will only go a little farther, as far as to where the
-guide-post stands."
-
-"Is it eight o'clock, and so hot already!" sighed Mina; "dear Fritz, I
-should so like to go to sleep for a little while!"
-
-"Go to sleep," said he, in a fatherly tone, "and I'll take care of you
-the while; when you have had half-an-hour's sleep, we shall be able to
-reach Mrs. Dote's by noon."
-
-Mina folded the shawl that her mother had given her in case of cool
-evenings, laid it under her head, and dropped into a sweet sleep. Fritz
-thought he could look at the country far better if he lay down, and his
-well-filled knapsack making a splendid pillow, he, too, was soon fast
-asleep by his sister, they, neither of them, having slept well the
-preceding night. They forgot the heat, the weariness, and the oppressive
-thirst, which the pears they had eaten, and which were not very juicy,
-had rather increased than otherwise. Fritz forgot also that he had not
-only his sister, but his father's precious watch to guard, and slept as
-sweetly and as soundly as in his bed at home.
-
-"Nay, what sort of tramps have we got lying here!" was the exclamation
-which Fritz heard, as he at length awoke out of a long sound sleep. He
-looked up with amazement and rubbed his eyes, as he saw the green trees
-and the blue sky above him, instead of the white-washed ceiling at home,
-and a tall respectable-looking countryman standing before him, who again
-spoke: "Eh, my young fellow, where do you come from?"
-
-Fritz was now wholly master of himself, and whilst Mina slowly awoke,
-and like himself gazed round her with astonishment, he related to the
-farmer where they came from, and the journey they were upon, in proof of
-which he showed him his father's silver watch and the map of the journey
-which he had drawn.
-
-"Indeed! you are going to Barenburg, then; I know the housekeeper very
-well; she is a very good lady; but it is twelve full miles there, every
-inch! In what condition are your feet for walking?"
-
-Fritz sprang up, and felt himself again ready for the march; Mina's
-limbs, however, were stiff from the rest; and when she began to walk, it
-was with difficulty.
-
-"Nay, that young lass is not used to such long walks," said the farmer
-good-naturedly; "she can get as far as my house down yonder, and then we
-must see what is to be done."
-
-And what a beautiful, substantial farm-house they were taken to, with
-the pretty garden in front, and the splendid meadow behind, and the nice
-cool parlour, which was shaded from the sun by the projecting thatch;
-and then what a kind farmer's wife she was, who set before them
-delicious butter-milk and new-baked cakes, for they had that morning
-been baking. The children were overjoyed. Mina had heard and read a
-great deal about the dangers of the world, but if everywhere throughout
-the world people were as good as these, it could not be so very bad. The
-farmer's wife, who had been born and brought up at this farm, and had
-never in all her life been farther from home than Disselsburg, felt
-great compassion for the children, who had come such a long way. She
-would not therefore hear of them again setting out before dinner,
-although they had partaken so largely of cake and butter-milk that they
-were in no condition to do much honour to the excellent buttered oatmeal
-porridge, of which the dinner principally consisted.
-
-The children of the farmer, who also came hot and tired from the school,
-beheld with great astonishment the young travellers, who appeared to
-them to have such polished town manners, though Steinheim was anything
-but metropolitan. Before long, however, they became quite familiar, took
-them into the stable and showed them a calf and a young kid.
-
-It was very agreeable to the children in this hospitable house, but the
-twelve full miles, of which the farmer had spoken, lay like a weight on
-Mina's soul. How could it possibly be so far to Barenburg Castle?
-
-"Do you know what?" said the farmer, when, after dinner, they were
-thinking of again setting out. "I promised some time ago to take a
-waggon-load of straw to Kochendorf; I shall not be doing anything with
-the horses this afternoon, I will therefore have the straw loaded; you
-can ride nicely upon it, and from Kochendorf down to Barenburg is only a
-nice little mile and half, and in the cool of the evening I can drive
-home, and you reach the end of your journey."
-
-No sooner said than done! Fritz thought it was rather a pity that the
-pedestrian journey upon which they had calculated so much had now
-dwindled down to a mere nothing; but Mina, not being ambitious in this
-way, accepted with the greatest delight a lofty seat on the soft bundles
-of straw. The beautiful butter that her mother had sent by them for Mrs.
-Dote was becoming soft from the heat by this time, therefore the kind
-farmer's wife exchanged it for some of her own, which was fresh, of a
-much finer colour and quality, and quite firm from having been kept in
-ice-cold water.
-
-Towards evening, a little shaken, but at the same time nicely rocked as
-in a cradle, for the waggon travelled slowly, the children reached
-Kochendorf. The waggoner helped them down from their lofty throne-like
-seat; Mina carefully picked off from Fritz and herself all the straws
-that hung dangling about them, then taking up their knapsack and basket,
-after a friendly leave of the kind farmer, they followed in the cool of
-the evening, with renewed strength and cheerful hearts, the road that
-was pointed out to them.
-
-It was at first a narrow green path between thick hedges, where they
-could scarcely see many paces in advance; before long, however, it
-opened into a broad, magnificent avenue of old lime-trees, which, now in
-flower, filled the air with a delicious fragrance. With beating hearts
-and full of a strange expectation, the children pursued this road which
-seemed already very grand, and unlike anything they had been accustomed
-to.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER III.--MRS. DOTE.
-
-
-There,--all at once, the road again expanding, the castle stood before
-their astonished gaze, in its ancient splendour! Two gigantic bears,
-carved in stone, which gave name to the castle, stood like sentinels
-before it; whilst bounding deer on the pillars, and a pair of monstrous
-stag's horns on the pediment, showed it to be, as of old, a hunting
-castle. Lofty gates opening upon broad flights of steps led to a green
-turfed front court, where, in the midst of flowering shrubs, a splendid
-fountain threw aloft its silvery jet of water. The last golden beams of
-the setting sun lit up the beautiful old building, and the children
-stood enraptured, seeming almost to have entered into Fairyland.
-
-"Now, where are you going?" inquired in a somewhat surprised, but not
-unfriendly voice, an old gentleman handsomely dressed in blue uniform
-with white facings, who was pacing slowly up and down with a thick cane,
-to which was attached a thick tassel. Fritz supposing that at least he
-must be a general, and hardly knowing what title sufficiently elevated
-to give him, replied, "Your pardon, dear prince!" this being a style of
-address to dignified persons, which he had met with in an old
-almanac,--"Your pardon, but we are only going to Mrs. Dote, the
-housekeeper. You know Mrs. Dote, perhaps," he added, with a certain
-degree of consequence.
-
-"Oh, yes, to Mrs. Housekeeper Walter," returned he graciously, and
-smiling to himself at the grand title which had been given, for he was
-no greater a personage than the porter. "You must simply ring at the
-little side-door yonder. Mrs. Housekeeper told me that she was expecting
-some visitors;" and he pointed out with his stick the direction in which
-they must go.
-
-Encouraged by this gracious reception, and yet anxious, nevertheless,
-the children advanced to the wing of the castle which had been
-indicated, and which opened into the inner court, where again they had
-another view of the castle, which on this side, lying in deep shadow,
-looked still more imposing and mysterious than in the front. Here,
-seated on a bench in a little garden, sat a stately lady, with her hands
-lying gracefully one upon the other in her lap, and who had turned her
-head towards the shyly-advancing children.
-
-"So, so, there comes at last my little schoolmaster!" exclaimed she in a
-pleasant voice as they approached. "Well, it is nice that you are come!
-Yes, yes, mountain and valley cannot meet, but people can! How little I
-thought that the baby Fritz that I carried in my arms to be baptized,
-and dandled so nicely to keep him from crying, would one day come to see
-me such a fine young fellow! But now, come in with me, you must be
-hungry."
-
-Anything more charming than Mrs. Dote's little parlour could not be
-imagined; the children thought that the princess herself could not live
-in one more beautiful. It was full of all such old, carved furniture as
-was superfluous in the castle; a little sofa and high-backed chairs of
-faded blue silk damask; a cabinet and table of marqueterie and ormolu; a
-splendid fire-screen, on which figured, in faded embroidery, a
-shepherdess with her flock of sheep feeding around her. By the stove
-stood a basket lined with wool, in which lay a fat lap-dog, so soundly
-asleep as only to make a little grumbling as the children entered; a
-beautiful cage hung in the window, in which was a canary bird, now too
-aged to sing; vases of artificial flowers; portraits of princely
-personages; every kind of splendour, in short, which was not wanted
-elsewhere, gave to this apartment a princely appearance; and the
-children, who had never in their lives seen anything more beautiful than
-the bright sofa which stood in the parsonage parlour, were dumb with
-reverential wonder.
-
-But it was not possible to remain very long silent with Mrs. Walter, as
-she was called at the castle; she was lively and talkative, and knew how
-to win the children's confidence. She led them to talk to her about
-their life at home, about their parents and their little brothers, and
-she in her turn told them of the time when she and their parents lived
-such near neighbours.
-
-"I had not such a very easy life in those days," she said. "I had been
-left an orphan when very young, and for many years was knocked about
-amongst strangers. The lady I then lived with was very queer-tempered
-and proud; for it often happens, that those who have only riches to
-boast of, are not nearly so affable and considerate as the truly nobly
-born. I had no parents, no brothers nor sisters, and felt myself quite
-alone in the world. Then came your parents, and as I myself was the
-daughter of a schoolmaster, I had naturally a liking for schoolmasters.
-Your mother is of a timid, gentle nature. I was much older, and had, as
-a matter of course, much more experience than she; I therefore was able
-to help her in many ways, and, in short, I found quite a home with your
-parents. We had very nice times together, and sympathized with each
-other in joy and in sorrow. I could not have stayed in my place when
-they left if I had not become acquainted with my blessed late husband,
-the castle house-steward, who, when we married, brought me here, where
-it was quite another thing to living in the house merely of a wealthy
-baron."
-
-"Was your gentleman-husband, the castle house-steward, as elegant as the
-gentleman out there in the blue coat?" asked Fritz.
-
-"As he?" asked Mrs. Walter, with offended pride. "Get along with you! He
-is a simple porter, and was my husband's underling! You should have seen
-my husband in his grand official uniform, with his beautiful white hair
-and his bunch of keys, going through the castle before the grandees, and
-relating everything from the days of the late prince up to the time of
-the ever-blessed Emperor Charlemagne! I learnt it all off from him, and
-it is to me just as if I had been born and brought up in the castle. But
-now, children, you must have your suppers. Barbett has made us some
-currant-marmalade; to-night you must go to bed early; to-morrow you
-shall see everything."
-
-The children would gladly have seen something of the castle that
-night. Through the window they could see only in the moonlight
-mysterious-looking marble statues, and hear the splash of the fountain;
-but they expressed their acquiescence, and after they had eaten the
-currant marmalade, which did great credit to Barbett, they were
-conducted to their beds, where a new delight awaited them.
-
-For Mina a bed had been prepared in the lady housekeeper's own pretty
-chamber, whilst that for Fritz was in a small room adjoining, where all
-kinds of curiosities were stowed together. But they did not forget,
-according to the promise they had made their mother, before going to
-sleep, to thank their Father in heaven, who had brought them safely to
-the end of their journey. Mina, in going to sleep, looked upon a large
-portrait of some princely child in a rose-coloured laced coat, and with
-high-dressed hair. Fritz, on the other hand, was faced by an ancient
-folding-screen, upon which an Indian princess was riding on an elephant.
-They both, however, soon dropped asleep, to pass into a world of
-wonderful dreams.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER IV.--BARENBURG CASTLE.
-
-
-But the waking next morning was still more wonderful. They opened their
-eyes, and did not know where they were, and thought they were still at
-home at Steinheim, in their little tiny chambers, till all at once they
-remembered that they had now actually and truly awakened in a castle.
-Then Mina found a beautiful china basin ready for her to wash in,
-whereas, at home, they had each to fill the iron dish with water from
-the well before they could wash; and the breakfast-table, with its
-handsome old-fashioned blue and white china service, and aniseed bread,
-because they had not fresh bread every day at Barenburg Castle; indeed,
-everything was just like a fairy tale.
-
-And yet that was only the beginning of the glorious things which were
-displayed to their enraptured gaze, when, after breakfast, Mrs. Walter
-took the important bunch of keys, and conducted the children through the
-chambers and state apartments of the castle. Softly, very softly and
-carefully, with a sort of reverential awe, they stepped along the narrow
-line of carpet which was laid on the polished inlaid floors, only now
-and then allowing an exclamation of pure astonishment to escape their
-lips, as when, for instance, they beheld their own figures advancing at
-full length, to meet them in the lofty mirror-doors, or when some other
-object of more than ordinary magnificence, or of an unusual character,
-caught their eyes.
-
-The flight of steps which led from the garden, through the lofty glass
-doors, opened into the dining-hall, in which the gentlemen were
-accustomed to dine on their return from the chase. The walls were
-painted with a series of beautiful pictures, representing a forest,
-through the thick underwood of which a slender roe glanced forth here
-and there, or where, on the margin of some splendid lake, the noble stag
-was quenching his thirst, or a mighty boar whetting his tusks on the
-trunk of some old forest tree. Above, on the ceiling, the gallant falcon
-and the heron seemed to be floating under masses of well-painted clouds.
-The dishes and drinking vessels of the table, which were exhibited in a
-large antique glass cupboard, were all formed from stags' horn, or were
-ornamented therewith; splendid and immensely large deers' antlers were
-fastened upon the walls, and under each pair was an inscription stating
-that the noble animal which had worn these antlers had been killed by
-this or that royal prince, now long deceased. To this hall succeeded
-small apartments, the one more beautiful than the other, the favourite
-suite of rooms of the late princess, furnished with sky-blue silk; a
-dancing hall, with splendidly painted walls, representing ladies and
-gentlemen in antiquated costume, who were making stately bows and
-curtseys to each other, and a gloomy chamber furnished with dark red
-silk damask, containing an immense richly gilded bed, in which a
-persecuted emperor had once slept. Mina felt frightened in this room,
-and pressed still closer to Mrs. Walter.
-
-"There, sit down," said the old lady, "you are tired, poor child;" and
-she pointed to a handsome arm-chair, covered with blue silk, which stood
-beside the bed. Mina timidly seated herself, but she started up again
-terrified, for that very moment, from the seat of the chair, was heard
-in the sweetest, flute-like notes, the melody, "Rejoice ye in life!"
-which her father, when he was not too weary, played so often to them on
-the old spinnet at home. That was the most wonderful thing of all--a
-chair which could play music more beautifully even than her father
-himself! After this they walked on more quietly still, looking
-continually round, in the expectation of some other wonderful surprise.
-
-Mrs. Walter, through her late husband, the son of a yet older
-house-steward, who had been brought up in the castle, had herself so
-completely entered into the spirit of the place as almost to regard it
-as her own property, and she was therefore as much gratified by the
-delight and astonishment of the children as if it had been a personal
-compliment to herself.
-
-"Now, is it not beautiful?" asked she of Mina, as she turned the key in
-the last door.
-
-"Very beautiful to look at," replied Mina, "but I don't know whether I
-should quite like to live in it. I don't know a single little nook where
-I could sit with my knitting."
-
-But such little nooks abounded all the more beautifully and sweeter in
-the garden, where the children found a new world of wonder. According to
-their ideas, derived from the garden at home, which was celebrated, not
-only in the village itself, but through the whole neighbourhood, they
-imagined, under the name of a garden, a beautiful smooth piece of
-ground, divided into accurately-formed vegetable-beds, which wore
-bordered and adorned with lovely flowers, and in the very middle of all
-a green painted garden-house covered with creepers. Here, however, it
-was quite different.
-
-Adjoining the castle was "the garden in the pig-tail style," as Mrs.
-Walter said, with ornamental twisted borders, the paths strewn with
-bright gravel, and planted all about with box-trees clipped into the
-strangest shapes, balls, pyramids, and even the human form, and, in the
-middle of all, a fountain which threw up water almost higher than the
-one in the front. For a great distance also beyond the castle extended,
-too, what was called "the park," with shrubberies, in which stood
-wonderful statues; where, amidst lawns of fine turf, shone forth the
-most gloriously brilliant beds of flowers, where was a little lake, with
-its red and white painted little vessel, and a cottage built of
-tree-stems, in which sat an old hermit in a brown gown, with a white
-beard, and a large open book before him, who turned his head and lifted
-his spectacles when any one opened the door.
-
-Mina, and even the courageous Fritz, ran away screaming at first, until
-at length, accustomed by degrees to the miracle, and assured by Mrs.
-Walter that the old man was only a painted figure, they took heart,
-though the machinery remained a great wonder to them.
-
-There was many a charming little nook amongst the shrubs on the soft
-green sward in front of the lake, on which two old swans belonging to
-former times swam about, where the children could sit side by side and
-tell each other stories and fairy tales. Nor yet had they come to an end
-of the discoveries in the garden, nor yet had Fritz wholly completed the
-accurate description of the journey which he had promised to send his
-father.
-
-The children had been accustomed to a simple, laborious life, therefore
-their holidays appeared to them a season of the purest enjoyment. Mina,
-brought up to very early rising, was every morning ready dressed, and
-put her head within her brother's little chamber to summon him, whilst
-he was yet generally asleep; and every morning Fritz asked her, "But, I
-say, Mina, isn't it a dream?" and she replied laughing, "No, it isn't a
-dream."
-
-Amidst all the pleasure and the delight of their beautiful surroundings,
-they also endeavoured to do all they possibly could to be of use to Mrs.
-Dote. Fritz cut small firewood for her, and piled it up neatly in the
-kitchen; they both helped her to look after the little garden which she
-had for her own especial pleasure. Mina threaded her needle, which was
-not always easy for her old eyes to accomplish; and Mrs. Dote, on her
-part, taught her all kinds of beautiful stitches in needlework, and
-described to her the magnificent dresses which she made, and of which
-she had the care when she was lady's-maid.
-
-"Ah! what good times the gentlefolks have!" sighed Mina; "when I think
-how my mother has to consider before she buys a cotton gown, and
-countesses have satin and velvet and silk gauze."
-
-"Never trouble yourself about that, child," said Mrs. Walter, "there are
-often heavy hearts under the light gauzes and the shining silks. I was
-right glad over my lowly condition, when I came to understand thoroughly
-this high life."
-
-"Yes, I must say," remarked Fritz, who was sitting at a side-table
-engaged over the history of his travels, "the porter below there seemed
-to me at first very high-bred and elegant; but if I had every day of my
-life to walk up and down in front of this beautiful castle----"
-
-Here he was interrupted, for at that moment a knock was heard at the
-door, and in came, to Fritz's great surprise and embarrassment, the very
-porter, the burden of whose life he had been compassionating. It was
-very seldom that he quitted his post, although there was now nothing to
-attend to at the castle door, where, frequently for months together, not
-a soul approached the place excepting the few servants who now were kept
-there. Mrs. Walter therefore looked with inquisitive wonder at the large
-letter which he held in his hand.
-
-"There, read, Mrs. Housekeeper," he said, "it is just come; there will
-now be work enough for us."
-
-"Really!" exclaimed Mrs. Walter, "the Princess Clotilde, with her
-children! Now, that is charming! It has always grieved me so that the
-beautiful castle should stand unoccupied, and I am glad that it is
-precisely that excellent lady who is coming. To-morrow? Well, I must
-look about me. Everything is in order, however; nothing but the beds
-want getting ready. Good, very good, Mr. Schnallenberger."
-
-Mr. Schnallenberger retired with a dignified mien. Mrs. Walter rose up
-with an air of business, and took up the important bunch of keys,
-saying, "Come, Mina, you shall go with me; you can be of some use."
-
-"Ah! a real, living princess," said Mina, "I shall be frightened if I
-meet her."
-
-"I shall not," said Fritz boldly, "all men are equal before God, prince
-or peasant or nobleman; it makes no difference."
-
-"You talk as you know, foolish boy," said Mrs. Dote, now for the first
-time really angry; "it is true that God created all men equal, but the
-Lord himself has appointed to each one his particular place; one in a
-lofty position, another humbler, and the humble must never fail in
-respect; and the lofty will one day be called to answer before the Lord
-for his stewardship, whether he have done well or evil, with that which
-was intrusted to him."
-
-"But in that world," persisted Fritz in a somewhat low voice, "there
-will be no distinctions of rank."
-
-"In that world," returned Mrs. Walter warmly, "our Lord, it is true,
-will not judge according to rank and station, but according to every
-one's work, according to the obedience of faith with which the will of
-the Father has been done. And the will of the Father is, that every one
-abide submissively in his own place without envy and without pride;
-remember that, you conceited boy, with your equality!"
-
-Fritz thought it wisest to remain silent, after this reproof, although
-really what he meant was not so bad, after all.
-
-Mina accompanied the old lady to the large press which contained the
-delicate, though somewhat yellow, bed-linen trimmed with fine lace; and
-that which was necessary was given out for the beds, and the chambers
-were made ready for their new inhabitants.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER V.--THE PRINCESS.
-
-
-The princess arrived at Barenburg Castle on the evening of the following
-day. The housekeeper, in her most splendid attire, a violet silk dress
-and a splendid lace cap, together with the rest of the household,
-solemnly received her at the foot of the flight of steps leading into
-the castle. The children witnessed the arrival from the little window of
-the porter's room, and even the free-minded Fritz felt a reverential
-throbbing of the heart, as he saw the carriage-step let down, and the
-princess alight, wholly different in appearance to what he had expected;
-not a lofty, magnificent lady in a crimson silk dress and a little crown
-on her head, like Queen Esther or Pharaoh's daughter in the picture
-Bible, but a somewhat small, slender lady, in a grey silk dress and
-simple white bonnet, which she took off, as she stood on the
-castle-steps, gazing with agreeable surprise, as it seemed, on the
-beautiful ancient structure and its charming surroundings. Her brown
-hair was simply parted under a small blond cap, and her blue eyes
-glanced so mildly from the delicate, pale countenance, that the
-children, seeming to forget that they had expected anything different,
-Mina whispered softly to Fritz, "But she must be very, very good,
-though."
-
-Whilst they were watching the princess, the servants assisted two
-beautiful children from the carriage, who now joyously, and with an
-exclamation of astonishment, sprang up the castle steps; a boy and a
-girl, somewhat younger than Fritz and Mina, so richly and so elegantly
-dressed, that they could not have been mistaken for other than princely
-children.
-
-"But, mamma, is it not lovely? And shall we live here?" exclaimed the
-little girl.
-
-"Yes, my child," said the princess, and kissed her on the forehead.
-
-"Are there yet stags in the park," demanded the boy with a princely air
-from the respectful porter; "and can I have a gun here to shoot them?"
-
-The mother smiled, and seemed half-embarrassed by the commanding tone
-which her young son assumed.
-
-"There are the park-grounds belonging to the garden," said the
-revenue-warden of the district, who had come to the castle to receive
-the princess, "and beyond lies the deer-park; the keeper who lives there
-will be able to assist the young prince in the shooting of game."
-
-"That must be an arrogant young fellow," thought Fritz; yet he felt, as
-it were, attracted to him as he saw the handsome, frank countenance of
-the young Hugo, as, with his hand in his mother's, he entered the
-castle.
-
-       *       *       *       *       *
-
-It was late before Mrs. Walter, who had been in attendance on the
-princely guests in the suite of rooms prepared for their reception,
-returned to her own parlour.
-
-"The gracious lady," said she, in a business-like tone, "has only
-brought with her a single waiting-woman for herself and a maid for the
-children; there was everything to do, therefore, and I was needed to
-help."
-
-"No ladies of the court, and no servants?" asked Mina, astonished.
-
-"What sort of a princess is she, then, Mrs. Dote?" asked Fritz, who had
-been studying in the calendar the geneology of the princely house. "She
-is not, after all, then, the wife of the reigning prince; and there is
-no wife mentioned as belonging to the late prince."
-
-"Well, children," said Mrs. Walter, after a moment's silent
-consideration, "you have sense enough for me to explain to you exactly
-how it is with the princess. She is really the wife of the crown-prince,
-now deceased, and is herself of a noble house, though not noble enough
-to please the old prince, and therefore he would never acknowledge the
-marriage. His son, however, always believed he would do so. He thought
-his papa would yield his prejudices, because the lady was so lovely and
-a very angel for goodness. But it was not, and never will be right, when
-children go counter to the will of their parents, and when young people
-think they know what is best;--you remember that as long as you live!
-However, they were married whilst the old prince was on a long journey
-abroad; when he returned, therefore, he was dreadfully angry, and would
-not acknowledge the marriage. The noble young crown-prince would not
-leave his wife; so, for the sake of peace and quietness, they lived
-abroad, where he died of nervous fever two years ago, without being
-reconciled with his father, from which misfortune our Lord preserve all
-young people! The princess returned to this country and lived very
-retired, and I have heard that the old prince would not even hear the
-children spoken of. However, as this old castle is now appointed for
-their residence, I think it a good sign."
-
-That which Mrs. Walter thus related made the princess very interesting
-to the children.
-
-"Do you know, Mina," said Fritz to his sister that same evening, "I
-shall never be envious of anybody in this world again."
-
-"Were you envious, then?" asked she.
-
-"Well, it was in this way," returned he. "When I saw those handsome
-children, in their beautiful dresses, bounding up the castle-steps, I
-thought to myself, 'They are quite at home now, where we dare only take
-a little peep; they have everything so nice, yet I don't know that they
-are any better than we.'"
-
-"Did you really think so!" said Mina amazed.
-
-"Now, however, I think," returned he, "how well off we are. Father and
-mother are happy together, grand-parents, and everybody love one
-another, but those poor things have lost their father, and they dare not
-see their grandfather."
-
-"Perhaps it will all come right," said Mina consolingly "I should like
-to see that lovely princess again."
-
-"But she must be only addressed as--most gracious lady," said Mrs. Dote.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER VI.--THE PRINCELY CHILDREN.
-
-
-Spite of his views of freedom and equality, Fritz walked somewhat more
-timidly with Mina in the garden the following day.
-
-"You may go without any fear," Mrs. Dote had said encouragingly; "only
-you must keep rather in the side walks than in the broad alleys. You can
-go and gather me a beautiful nosegay and fresh green for the little hall
-where the family will dine. And if you should meet the young grandees
-and they should speak, you must answer prettily and politely; only mind,
-don't you speak first."
-
-"He is, however, nothing but a boy, like me, only somewhat younger,"
-Fritz was again ready to reply, but he checked himself and remained
-silent.
-
-They had not been long in the garden before they saw the two handsome
-children coming hand in hand down the broad alley.
-
-"Oh, how charming it is!" exclaimed the little girl, delighted. "I never
-saw anything so charming!"
-
-"And is it not charming," said the boy, "that your governess is still
-poorly, and that my tutor is gone a journey, and so we have a holiday?"
-
-At this moment they saw Fritz and Mina, who stepped somewhat embarrassed
-aside.
-
-"Do you live in the garden?" inquired the little girl.
-
-"No, young gentry," returned Mina, to whom no other title suggested
-itself, and she curtseyed.
-
-"My name is Meta," said the little girl with frank simplicity; "and his
-name is Hugo," added she, pointing to her brother, "but where, then, do
-you live?"
-
-"At Steinheim, fifteen miles from here," said Fritz, in his
-straightforward manner, and perfectly self-possessed. "We are now on a
-visit to my godmother, Mrs. Dote, the castle housekeeper, during our
-holidays."
-
-"Indeed! we also have holiday," said Hugo. "Do you know of any bird
-nests? I have never seen a bird's nest."
-
-"I know of one," returned Fritz, somewhat hesitatingly, "but----"
-
-"Well, where is it?" inquired Hugo, with a little impetuosity.
-
-I'll show it you, but--you must promise----
-
-"What must I promise?" interrupted the young prince, reddening with
-anger and impatience.
-
-"That you will only look at it, and not touch it, even with your little
-finger," returned Fritz, now speaking firmly, "else the old birds will
-never come back again, and the young ones will die."
-
-"Yes, I know that," said the fair-haired Meta. "Mamma once told me that
-the young birds would die if the old ones did not attend to them," and
-she looked very sorrowful; "but you will not touch it, will you, Hugo?"
-
-"Upon my honour. I will not!" declared the young cavalier so earnestly
-that Fritz was ready to venture, and led him to a low fir-tree which
-stood in some thick plantations, where lay between the boughs a little
-nest, in which were five lovely greenish-speckled eggs. He lifted up
-Meta, so that she could peep in, and both children were delighted at the
-sight.
-
-"But the next time we must not come so near," said Fritz, "the little
-hen-bird is sitting; but we may come every day and see it from a
-distance, till the young birds are hatched."
-
-In this joyful hope the four children became good friends, although Hugo
-had a something of princely pride in his bearing which did not quite
-harmonize with the liberal turn of Fritz's mind. The boys rambled
-together from the garden into the deer-park, visited the old keeper who
-lived there, and learned to shoot under his instructions; nay, they even
-one day brought home a hare which had been shot, though it could not
-exactly be ascertained by whom. Still more delightful was the
-entertainment which the two girls found together. Meta had a very
-wonderful doll, beautiful beyond anything which Mina had conceived
-possible. It had a lovely waxen face, and could shut its eyes; it slept
-upon a cushion trimmed with lace, and had a little bassinet lined with
-blue silk; it wore the daintiest little cap and a little knitted jacket.
-Mina, it is true, had quite grown out of dolls, and at home only brought
-out hers, which had a shining face of papier-mache, and wore a plain
-pink cotton frock, when her little friend Matilda came to see her; but
-she would not have been a girl if she had not been delighted with this
-miracle of a baby. It had, however, no name, and Mina assisted in the
-choice of one, which, after long deliberation, it was decided should be
-Rosalinde, because it was so beautiful. Meta was regarded as the mother
-of the little Rosalinde, and Mina acted as nurse-maid, but was called
-the Bonne, and she fondled, and carried, and rocked, and fed the darling
-baby to her heart's delight. The little Rosalinde was a very
-quick-growing child, however, and already on the second day wore her
-short frocks, and on the fourth a little dress and socks of Mina's
-making from some splendid material which Mrs. Dote produced from her
-wonderful old stores, and which had, once upon a time, been a part of a
-grand court dress. Now and then, however, again the little one became a
-baby, and was laid upon its cushion, and as such carried about. Many
-lovely little nooks, too, there were in the garden, on the green sward,
-and amongst the bushes, which were exactly suitable for nurseries; then,
-too, Meta took many great journeys with her little daughter through the
-gardens, Mina, in the meantime, decorating the green nursery with
-flowers, and setting out a pretty little feast of summer fruit in little
-baskets which she wove of rushes; whilst Meta, on her return, brought,
-from her mother, in fact, a pretty ribbon or a nice little bag as a
-present to her faithful Bonne.
-
-Lightly and softly, as a sunbeam, the Princess Clotilde glided in her
-grey silk dresses here and there through the garden, appearing to the
-country children almost like a being from some higher world. She had
-kept a much stricter supervision over them than they had any idea of, in
-order that she might ascertain whether they were fitting companions for
-her children. Her children had hitherto lived in such deep retirement
-and seclusion, that now, finding these young strangers so admirable in
-every respect, she rejoiced that her children should become acquainted
-through them with other relationships and other classes in life, and
-happy in the thought that they could thus thoroughly enjoy their golden
-freedom before the return of the governess and tutor. The castle
-housekeeper, Mrs. Dote, was therefore on the very pinnacle of bliss
-because of the honour which was done to her young guests.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER VII.--THE DEPARTURE.
-
-
-Mrs. Dote had already twice obtained a prolongation of the holiday term,
-but now the father wrote that it could be no further extended; it was
-high time, he said, for Fritz to recommence his studies. Mina, also, was
-not only required in the school, but was indispensable to her mother.
-Therefore a definite day was fixed by him for their return home.
-
-The children, who knew perfectly well that such a time of festal
-enjoyment could not last for ever, prepared themselves without
-opposition for their departure. And then, what a great deal they would
-have to tell at home; how their father and mother would be astonished,
-and the clergyman's Carl, and the bailiff's Matilda! And then, it
-sounded so very nice in the diary which Fritz had kept, "I and the
-prince."
-
-Meta and Hugo were almost more cast down about the parting than their
-friends, and the tutor and the governess seemed to them anything but a
-compensation for the loss of such pleasant companions.
-
-On the day before they left, Hugo wished to perform an especial deed of
-heroism. The old keeper had betrayed to him that in a cleft of a
-tolerably lofty rock in the deer-park a screech-owl had built a nest.
-
-"Oh, a living owl!" exclaimed Hugo; "we must have him!"
-
-"Don't you trouble yourself about that, noble sir," said the keeper;
-"besides, it is more dangerous than it seems; the rock is steep and
-crumbly, and just below is a stony hollow, where, in ancient times, they
-got stone. Wait, sir, till I've got rid of the rheumatism in my feet,
-and then I myself will try to catch the creature for you. You must not
-run such a risk."
-
-"Listen, Fritz," said Hugo to him after this conversation, "we'll get
-the beast ourselves, spite of everything!"
-
-"No," returned Fritz thoughtfully, "we'd better not; think how
-distressed your mother would be if anything happened to you, and my
-godmother would be shockingly angry with me if I should let you go."
-
-"I don't care for your godmother, not I!" exclaimed Hugo in a tone of
-defiance, for he could very ill brook contradiction, and without another
-word he walked down towards the castle.
-
-Early the next morning, Hugo stole away quietly by himself towards the
-cliff in the park; he did not find it very difficult to clamber up so as
-to bring himself near to the cleft in the rock, which contained the
-coveted nest; when, all at once, away went a piece of rock from under
-his foot; he held himself fast, however, by a small bush, but there he
-hung, like the Emperor Maximilian of old, on the Martinswand, below him
-the deep stony hollow, and feeling it impossible to advance a single
-step forward. There was an end now of all his defiant courage and
-princely pride, and he uttered a loud piercing cry for help; but, ah! he
-then remembered with horror that the old keeper, the only person who
-lived near, was a most totally deaf.
-
-The next moment the cry of "Hugo!" sounded from the wood.
-
-"Fritz, Fritz!" shouted he, overjoyed; "make haste, Fritz, and help me!"
-
-And Fritz, who had been for some time seeking for the prince in vain,
-rushed forth out of the wood, and though he was naturally of a
-deliberative character, and one which did not inconsiderately rush into
-danger, yet he now climbed up, and with all that courage and agility
-which a sudden sense of danger often gives birth to, seized hold of
-Hugo, and half-scrambling and half-tumbling, down they both came to the
-ground, with torn hands and trousers, yet holding still firmly together.
-
-Hugo, whose haughty bravery was considerably damped by the terror he had
-felt, and the danger he had been exposed to, lay half-fainting on the
-ground and gazed with emotion at Fritz, who, well pleased with the
-result of his intervention, yet seemed to regard it as nothing very
-remarkable.
-
-"Fritz," said he at length, "I should not much like to tell my mother,
-because she is often so sorrowful, and she will weep so bitterly over a
-misfortune which might have happened, just as if it had happened; but I
-shall not forget you!" and with a princely bearing he drew a beautiful
-ring, in which was set a red stone, from his finger, saying, "There,
-take this ring from me, it belonged to my father; and if you show me
-again this ring, whether it be soon or in years to come, it will remind
-me how you have helped me to-day."
-
-Fritz, who, as I said, did not regard the affair as one of such grave
-importance, nevertheless was delighted with the gift, until an idea
-suddenly occurring to him, he said, "But if your mother should make
-inquiries after the ring?"
-
-"Then I will tell her what you have done for me," replied Hugo, who had
-now recovered his self-possession, "and she will say it was right."
-
-The gentle, warm-hearted Meta took a tearful leave of Mina; she wished
-very much to give her, as a parting present, her beloved Rosalinde, but
-Mina would, on no account, allow of so great a sacrifice, and the
-Princess Clotilde gave her instead a pretty silk apron and a beautiful
-book. Fritz also received presents of books and handsome
-writing-apparatus from Hugo. Mrs. Dote, who had conceived a cordial
-affection for the children, did not know how to give them enough for
-themselves and as presents to carry home to their parents. She was,
-however, raised to the very summit of felicity, when the princess
-ordered the carriage to be got ready, in order that her children might
-accompany their young friends at least half-way home. Fritz and Mina had
-not the slightest objection to be driven back in so stately and
-agreeable a manner, in a comfortable carriage, along the very road which
-they had traversed thither so timidly and humbly with their knapsack and
-basket.
-
-Of course, these glories also came to an end, although the kind coachman
-drove much farther than the half-way, so that they could now see the
-hospitable farm-house in the fields below them. Then came the
-leave-taking, which, as a rule with children, consists of not many
-words. Hugo pressed significantly the hand upon which Fritz wore the
-ring, and Meta kissed Mina with tears in her eyes. The princely children
-drove back to the castle, and the schoolmaster's children went on foot
-to their modest home, but warm hearts and kind greetings they knew
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